istry; see
the account of Esnik. "Then for the second time Jesus came down to the
lord of the creatures in the form of his Godhead, and entered into
judgment with him on account of his death.... And Jesus said to him:
'Judgment is between me and thee, let no one be judge but thine own
laws.... hast thou not written in this thy law, that he who killeth
shall die?' And he answered, 'I have so written' ... Jesus said to him,
'Deliver thyself therefore into my hands' ... The creator of the world
said, 'Because I have slain thee I give thee a compensation, all those
who shall believe on thee, that thou mayest do with them what thou
pleasest.' Then Jesus left him and carried away Paul, and shewed him the
price, and sent him to preach that we are bought with this price, and
that all who believe in Jesus are sold by this just god to the good
one." This is a most instructive account; for it shews that in the
Marcionite schools the Pauline doctrine of reconciliation was
transformed into a drama, and placed between the death of Christ and the
call of Paul, and that the Pauline Gospel was based, not directly on the
death of Christ upon the cross, but on a theory of it converted into
history. On Paul as the one apostle of the truth; see Tertull. I. 20:
III. 5, 14: IV. 2 sq.: IV. 34: V. 1. As to a Marcionite theory that the
promise to send the Spirit was fulfilled in the mission of Paul, an
indication of the want of enthusiasm among the Marcionites, see the
following page, note 2.]

[Footnote 398: Marcion must have spoken _ex professo_ in his Antitheses
about the Judaistic corruptions of Paul's Epistles and the Gospel. He
must also have known Evangelic writings bearing the names of the
original Apostles, and have expressed himself about them (Tertull. IV.
1-6).]

[Footnote 399: Marcion's self-consciousness of being a reformer, and the
recognition of this in his church is still not understood, although his
undertaking itself and the facts speak loud enough. (1) The great
Marcionite church called itself after Marcion (Adamant., de recta in
deum fide. I. 809; Epiph. h. 42, p. 668, ed. Oehler: [Greek: Markion sou
to onoma epikeklentai hoi upo sou epatemenoi, hos seauton keruxantos kai
ouchi Christon]. We possess a Marcionite inscription which begins:
[Greek: sunagoge Markioniston]). As the Marcionites did not form a
school, but a church, it is of the greatest value for shewing the
estimate of the master in this church, that its members