Right now you are probably asking yourself: Just who is this Marcion, and why is he being called the first born of Satan? By the end of this writing, you will fully understand the correct answer to both of these questions. However, we first need to establish in your mind the setting that this man walked into.
If you have taken the time to read The Quadruple Betrayal, you have seen that by the time Christ arrived on the scene, Jerusalem had been taken over by Edomite converts to a Hellenized form of Judaism. The high majority of the twelve tribes of Israel were already in Asia Minor, and Yashava sent His apostles there to start the seven churches of Christ that are named in the book of Revelation.
The true Jews (the Tribe of Judah) left in Jerusalem were a very small minority. They actually started the Jerusalem church of the Followers of the Way (later called the Nazarenes and the Ebionites) and hung onto their Jerusalem heritage until right before the Roman takeover in 70 AD. Just before the Roman siege began, they received divine warning and the entire body of the Jerusalem church migrated to the region around Pella, right under the Black Sea.
The Hub of Antioch and the Rise of Paul
Antioch became the hub for both groups—the Followers of the Way and the Hellenized Jewish Edomite converts. These two groups stood against each other while sharing the same location for a short time. During this time period (circa 50 AD), Paul was converting the Hellenized Edomites into his “Christianity,” and they began being called Christians.
The Followers of the Way of Christ (the Nazarenes and Ebionites) fully rejected the term “Christian” and Paul’s teachings. Through Paul’s anti-Torah teachings, these Hellenized Edomites became the “Christians” who migrated up to Rome for protection while Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.
Hadrian’s Purge: Clearing the Field
When the Emperor Hadrian later put out the decree to ban and eliminate all of the Jews following Christ, he was not really after the Hellenized Edomite Christians. Paul had already turned them away from using the Torah, making them indistinguishable from other Roman citizens in practice.
Instead, Hadrian was eliminating all of the true followers of the Way, the Nazarenes and Ebionites. This cleared the way for the Hellenized Edomite Christians to take center stage. (It was only much later that these Christians claimed the martyrs of Hadrian as their own to falsely convince the people that they were the true followers of Christ.)
The Two Million Dollar Buy-In
In circa 139 AD, a very wealthy man named Marcion stepped onto the world stage. He bought a very high position in the Roman Catholic Christian Mother Church with a sum of money that would be equivalent today to Two Million Dollars.
Marcion officially rejected all Hebrew Scripture and the original Gospels of Christ. In circa 139–140 AD, he canonized the writings of Paul and his own edited version of a gospel (which was later built on to create Luke) as the founding and sole scripture of the Roman Catholic Mother Church.
This was the very first “Bible.” From that moment on, the organized church of Rome completely rejected all of the Truth that the apostles of Christ had preserved. Although outside pressure made them finally accept the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels of Christ, they still consider that the teachings of the Old covenant and Christ’s teachings obsolete, and Paul’s writings as the Gold standard of the New Covenant. From that day until today, they have called the true followers of the Way—those who keep the Holy Covenant Laws—”heretics,” and have persecuted them accordingly.
This is exactly why in 154 AD, when Polycarp (the Bishop of Smyrna who was trained by the Apostle John) saw Marcion, he called him exactly what he was: “The First Born of Satan.”
The Forensic Connection: Why This Matters Today
To understand the magnitude of what Marcion achieved, you must look at the “Modern Church” through the lens of this audit. The “Switch-er-roo” was not a temporary event; it was a permanent installation that defines the “Civilized World” today.
- The Authority Shift: When you hear a preacher say, “We are a New Testament church,” you are hearing the echo of Marcion’s $2 million buy-in. They have accepted the “Gold Standard” that the Father’s Law is obsolete.
- The Identity Theft: When people call themselves “Christians” while rejecting the Holy Covenant Laws of the Messiah, they are wearing the label created in Antioch for the Hellenized converts, not the name of the Followers of the Way.
- The Filter: Most people today read the words of Yashava (Christ) through the “Pauline Filter.” If Christ says, “Keep the Commandments,” and Paul is interpreted to say, “The Law is a burden,” the modern church always follows Paul. This is the “Head of the Class” promotion in action.
- The Result: The “Gullible Public” is starving for the Truth because they are feeding on the Marcion edited canon. They have the book, but they have lost the Key.
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The Bottom Line: You cannot return to the Way by staying in the house that Marcion built. To find the Scepter and the Sanctuary, you must look past the “First Born of Satan” and return to the original records preserved by the eye-witnesses before the 150-year silence began.