It is not surprising, therefore, that even in the 2nd century the disciples of Marcion diverged in several directions. Rigorous asceticism, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the recognition of the "new God" remained common to all Marcionites, who, moreover, like the Catholics, lived together in close communities ruled by bishops and presbyters (although their constitution was originally very loose, and sought to avoid every appearance of "legality"). Some, however, accepted three first principles (the evil, the just, the good); others held by two, but regarded the Demiurge as the god of evil, i.e. the devil; while a third party, like Apelles, the most distinguished of Marcion's pupils, saw in the Demiurge only an apostate angel of the good God--thus returning to monotheism. The golden age of the Marcionite churches falls between the years 150 and 250. During that time they were really dangerous to the great Church; for in fact they maintained certain genuine Christian ideas, which the Catholic Church had forgotten. The earliest inscription (A.D. 318) on a Christian place of worship is Marcionite, and was found on a stone which had stood over the doorway of a house in a Syrian village. From the beginning of the 4th century they began to die out in the West, or rather they fell a prey to Manichaeism. In the East also many Marcionites went over to the Manichaeans; but there they survived much longer. They can be traced down to the 7th century, and then they seem to vanish. But it was unquestionably from Marcionite impulses that the new sects of the Paulicians and Bogomils arose; and in so far as the western Cathari, and the antinomian and anticlerical sects of the 13th century are connected with these, they also may be included in the history of Marcionitism. See A. Harnack, _History of Dogma_, i. 266, 286; F. Loofs, _Dogmengeschichte_ pp. 111-114; G. Krüger, _Early Christian Literature_, and art. in Hauck-Herzog's _Realencyklopädie für prot. Theol. und Kirche_, xii.; F. J. Foakes Jackson's _Christian Difficulties of the Second and Twentieth Centuries_, is a study of Marcion and his relation to modern thought. (A. Ha.) FOOTNOTES: [1] Esnik's presentation of the Marcionite system is a late production, and contains many speculations that cannot be charged upon Marcion himself. [2] On the relation of matter to the Creator, Marcion himself seems not to have speculated, though his followers may have done so. [3] Marcion's teaching at this point forestalls the patripassian christology of Noetus and Praxeas (see Neander, _Church Hist._ ii. 143).--[ED.] [4] Marcion was the earliest critical student of the New Testament canon and text. It is noteworthy that he refused to admit the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles and said that the letter to the Ephesians was really addressed to the Laodiceans (Tertullian, _Adv. Marc._ v. 11, 21).--(ED.)