called
themselves by his name. (2) The Antitheses of Marcion had a place in the
Marcionite canon (see above, p. 270). This canon therefore embraced a
book of Christ, Epistles of Paul, and a book of Marcion, and for that
reason the Antitheses were always circulated with the canon of Marcion.
(3) Origen (in Luc. hom. 25. T. III. p. 962) reports as follows:
"Denique in tantam quidam dilectionis audaciam proruperunt, ut nova
quaedam et inaudita super Paulo monstra confingerent. Alli enim aiunt,
hoc quod scriptum est, sedere a dextris salvatoris et sinistris, de
Paulo et de Marcione dici, quod Paulus sedet a dextris, Marcion sedet a
sinistris. Porro alii legentes: Mittam vobis advocatum Spiritum
veritatis, nolunt intelligere tertiam personam a patre et filio, sed
Apostolum Paulum." The estimate of Marcion which appears here is
exceedingly instructive. (4) An Arabian writer, who, it is true, belongs
to a later period, reports that Marcionites called their founder
"Apostolorum principem." (5) Justin, the first opponent of Marcion,
classed him with Simon Magus and Menander, that is, with demonic
founders of religion. These testimonies may suffice.]

[Footnote 400: On Marcion's Gospel see the Introductions to the New
Testament and Zahn's Kanonsgeschichte, Bd. I., p. 585 ff. and II., p.
409. Marcion attached no name to his Gospel, which, according to his own
testimony, he produced from the third one of our Canon (Tertull, adv.
Marc. IV. 2, 3, 4). He called it simply [Greek: euangelion (kuriou)],
but held that it was the Gospel which Paul had in his mind when he spoke
of his Gospel. The later Marcionites ascribed the authorship of the
Gospel partly to Paul, partly to Christ himself, and made further
changes in it. That Marcion chose the Gospel called after Luke should be
regarded as a makeshift; for this Gospel, which is undoubtedly the most
Hellenistic of the four Canonical Gospels, and therefore comes nearest
to the Catholic conception of Christianity, accommodated itself in its
traditional form but little better than the other three to Marcionite
Christianity. Whether Marcion took it for a basis because in his time it
had already been connected with Paul (or really had a connection with
Paul), or whether the numerous narratives about Jesus as the Saviour of
sinners, led him to recognise in this Gospel alone a genuine kernel, we
do not know.]

[Footnote 401: The associations of the Encratites and the community
founded by Apel