Cesc

This (very uncited) wiki article on Paul and the early church postulates:

Marcion himself claimed to be the rightful heir of Paul's authority,[citation needed] and although clearly at odds with the position taken by later orthodoxy, it was certainly true that Marcion was, in his time, the leader of the seven communities to which Paul's epistles were earlier addressed.[citation needed] Though it is possible that Marcion's movement had converted the communities in question from literalism to Marcionism, it is significantly more plausible for him to have gained control had the communities already been gnostic when Paul was writing to them. Ultimately the church even ex-communicated these communities - the communities to which Paul's epistles were addressed - in fear of the stance of the communities - Marcionism - completely defeating the position of the church from within it.[citation needed]

1. Is it "certainly true" that Marcion was, in his time, the leader of the seven communities to which Paul's epistles were earlier addressed?
2. Did the Church eventually ex-communicate these seven communities?

spamandham

I think it's time to stop thinking of NT texts as historical documents, and consider them instead as literary documents - possibly, but not necessarily related to historical people and events.

That being the case, it would be more sensible to discuss the authors' contexts in regard to the 7 churches. Firstly, 7 is a symbolic number representing perfection. The 7 churches represent perfection of the church. Could there have been 7 historical churches? Sure. Is there reason to simply accept that there were? No.

Next, the author is using his praise/admonishment of these various churches to spread his own message to the readers, not because letters with those various praises/admonishments were actually sent to 7 churches deserving of them.

Was Marcion actually Paul? Did Paul actually exist? Was Simon Magus actually Paul?....these are questions that we'll probably never be able to answer, because they're the wrong questions to ask in the first place - rooted in the unsupportable assumption that these are historical records.

Toto

If you assume the usual chronology, Paul was writing to house churches that were the sole Christian group in their city in the middle of the first century. From MarcionSo it may be true that Marcion was the leader of some communities in Asia Minor that were in the same cities as the house churches addressed by Paul (if Paul in fact wrote his letters to communities) but this was almost century later. I am not sure how these later communties could be connected to the earlier ones.

Cesc

Ok, so the above wiki assertions on the seven communities must be complete fanciful speculation, I guess. Its a strange paragraph alltogether.

andrewcriddle

Since one of the communities to which Paul's lettters were addressed was Rome, the Wiki article would seem to be claiming that Marcion was at one time the recognised leader of the Christian community at Rome. This seems simply wrong.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

The seven churches of Paul are Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Colossae, Philippi, and "Galatia" (actually a region, that included a few cities mentioned in Acts, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Iconium and Derbe). It is hard to find specifics in the net, but supposedly at one point (around 150-250 CE) 50% of all those claiming the title "Christian" were members of Marcionite churches spread all over the Roman empire. There were so many of them around that the orthodox had to take precautions so that (orthodox) Christian travelers did not accidentally stop into a Marcionite church for worship.

DCH