The Testamentum

About this book

The Testamentum was assembled by Marcion of Sinope around 128 C.E. It stands as the first codified Christian Biblical canon, nearly 300 years before the standard Biblical canon adopted by most mainline Christians today.Unlike later Bibles shaped by the emerging Catholic tradition, the Testamentum was not divided into "Old" and "New" testaments. It was shorter, purer in focus and theologically coherent. It contained only those writings proclaiming the Good News of the previously unknown God revealed through Jesus Christ.Marcionite Christians held that the Hebrew Bible-and the god and lower powers within it-were incompatible with the gospel of Jesus and Paul. The wrathful, tribal deity of the Hebrew Scriptures, Yahweh, stood in opposition to the loving Father revealed by Christ. These could not be reconciled. Marcion rejected the Hebrew Bible entirely, holding that its inclusion in the canon produced confusion.Marcion taught that Jesus did not come to fulfill the Hebrew law but to abolish it. He believed Jesus came not from Yahweh, but from the true God, unknown to the prophets and patriarchs. This rupture defined the Marcionite worldview and shaped their canon.The Testamentum was divided into unified sections. The first was the Evangelicon, or Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It presents Christ's teachings, free from Judaizing later Gospel interpolations. Next came the Apostolicon: Galatians, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Romans, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, Laodiceans, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.The Antilegicon included four disputed Pauline letters: Titus, I Timothy, II Timothy, and Alexandrians. Though treated with caution, they were preserved for study and pastoral use, secondary to the Apostolicon.To enrich worship and teaching, the Marcionite tradition preserved additional writings. The Psalmicon contained forty-two psalms, the earliest known Christian hymnbook. These psalms offered poetic theology centered on the grace of the true God and the mission of His Son.The Homileticon featured Marcion's Homily to Diognetus, an early surviving Christian apologetic work. It reflects Marcion's theological clarity and pastoral zeal. In this work, Marcion defends the distinction between the Father of Jesus Christ and the god of the Hebrews with philosophical depth.The Synaxicon compiled seven pastoral letters written by Marcion: Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans, and the letter to Metrodorus. These epistles show the devotion, order, and mission of the Marcionite Church. They offer insight into early Pauline congregations faithful to the gospel of liberty, rejecting legalism. They demonstrate the ecclesial identity of the Marcionite movement, with its bishops, liturgies, and disciplines.The Didascalicon preserves the catechetical teaching of the Marcionite Church, setting forth its doctrine in ordered lessons on confession, canon, scripture, history, theology, Christology, cosmology, anthropology, salvation, the last things, liturgy, sacraments, the calendar, the Church, ethics, and apologetics.The Litourgicon preserves the Church's liturgical order, holy mysteries, rites, prayers, and appointed worship. The Dialekticon preserves Marcionite dialogues and disputations defending doctrine. The Chronicon sets forth the sacred chronology of the Marcionite dispensation, from the revelation of Christ through the Pauline and Marcionite Church.Marcion's canon rejected the Hebrew Bible and the later catholic arrangement of gospels, acts, and letters that defined the standard "Old Testament" and "New Testament" structure. These later texts were seen as reactions to his purity-a reassertion of Jewish influence over the faith. The Testamentum remains the earliest and most coherent expression of the gospel as proclaimed by Paul: a Christianity unburdened by law, liberated by grace, and devoted to the one true God.