Bible & Christianity › Early church & the councils › The biblical canon: the agreed list of books
Gnostics and Marcion
2nd century; Nag Hammadi texts found 1945· Teaching or doctrine· Church, doctrine & the world
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
Second-century movements offering rival versions of Christianity, which pushed the church to define its scriptures and beliefs.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
Gnostics (from gnosis, Greek for 'knowledge') taught that salvation comes through secret knowledge and that the material world was made by a lesser god. Teachers included Valentinus and Basilides. Marcion, a wealthy shipowner in Rome around 140, taught that the Old Testament God was a different, lesser god than Jesus's Father; he rejected the Hebrew Bible and used only an edited Luke and ten letters of Paul. Rome's church expelled him in 144.
Why it matters
Defining what Christianity was not helped give the mainstream church its canon, its creeds and its stress on bishops in a line from the apostles.
Sources and history
Known mostly from critics like Irenaeus (Against Heresies, c. 180) until 1945, when 13 ancient books holding about 50 texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, were found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt.
Questions and debates
Many scholars now doubt 'Gnosticism' was one movement at all; Marcion, who taught no secret knowledge, is often classed separately.
Connections (2)
▸Gnostics and Marcion spurred the church to define The biblical canon: the agreed list of booksMostly agreed by scholars
The connection
Marcion's list of around 140, an edited Luke plus ten letters of Paul and no Old Testament, is the first known Christian canon. Gnostic groups circulated secret gospels. In response, leaders like Irenaeus insisted on four Gospels, on books with apostolic links read widely in churches, and on keeping the Old Testament.
When and where
Rome, around 140–144, where Marcion was expelled; Lyon, Gaul, around 180, where Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies.
How do we know?
Irenaeus and Tertullian's Against Marcion (c. 207) describe Marcion's canon in detail; the historian Adolf von Harnack (1921) argued Marcion forced the church's hand.
Questions and debates
Did Marcion trigger the canon or merely speed up a process already under way? Some scholars even argue his 'Luke' was an earlier version, not an edit.
▸Gnostics and Marcion produced rival gospels to The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)Historical record
The connection
Gnostic and other groups wrote alternative gospels: the Gospel of Thomas (114 sayings of Jesus, some close to Matthew, Mark and Luke), the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Judas. Most date to the 2nd–3rd centuries, later than the four. Irenaeus argued there must be exactly four Gospels, like the four winds.
When and where
Egypt, Syria and Rome, 2nd–3rd centuries; rediscovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt (December 1945), and in the Codex Tchacos (published 2006).
Historical evidence
Manuscripts: the Nag Hammadi books (4th century, in Coptic), Greek fragments of Thomas from Oxyrhynchus (c. 200), and Irenaeus's Against Heresies.
Questions and debates
The Gospel of Thomas's date is debated: some scholars place parts in the 1st century, most in the 2nd; whether it is Gnostic at all is also disputed.