Marcionism or close as the primary thread of early Christianity...

Anyone have any ideas for a TL where Marcionism or something close becomes the primary Christian sect of the Roman empire?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

I'm wondering in 300AD how many Jews existed outside the bounds of the Roman Empire (Persia, I guess) and whether that would have been enough to keep the religion going.
 
Marcionists distanced themselves from Judaism very strongly, so I'm not sure how the number of Jews outside Rome would be relevant.

That said, a Gnostic success is more likely and 'only' requires more success and a stronger willingness for syncretism.
 
Marcionists distanced themselves from Judaism very strongly, so I'm not sure how the number of Jews outside Rome would be relevant.

That said, a Gnostic success is more likely and 'only' requires more success and a stronger willingness for syncretism.
Marcionists considered Jews to be closests to OTL Satanists. There is no way that a Macrionist oriented Roman Empire would allow Jews within their borders. In some ways it would even be beyond Inquisition Spain...
 
Marcionists considered Jews to be closests to OTL Satanists. There is no way that a Macrionist oriented Roman Empire would allow Jews within their borders. In some ways it would even be beyond Inquisition Spain...

Wouldn't gnostics also fall into that belief? It doesn't take much to get there if the God of the Jews is the ignorant malevolent Yaldaboath.

Either way, If ambiguous Catholicism (as in treatment of Jews) ended up with blood libels and pogroms, imagine "Worshipers of the enemy" gnostics or even Valentinians and
 
If we are discussing Gnostics: does anyone have a clue of which gnostic denomination was located at which region?

Thomasine Gnostics (cfr. Nag Gammadi Scrolls) were active in Syria and Egypt; Sethites seem to have been active in the whole of the Jewish Diaspora; Valentinians started from Rome and went on to Africa and Egypt; Marcionists similarly started from Rome, but went on to Anatolia instead.
 
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Wouldn't gnostics also fall into that belief? It doesn't take much to get there if the God of the Jews is the ignorant malevolent Yaldaboath.

Either way, If ambiguous Catholicism (as in treatment of Jews) ended up with blood libels and pogroms, imagine "Worshipers of the enemy" gnostics or even Valentinians and
The issue is that "Gnostics" were not really a thing, but a generall catchall for a lot of, often contradictory, theological positions.

Weirdly, believing in all the gnostic halmarks (Yaldabaoth, Sophia, good guy Judas etc) is a distinctly modern phenomenon.
 

Philip

Donor
The issue is that "Gnostics" were not really a thing, but a generall catchall for a lot of, often contradictory, theological positions.

And often something that was tacked on to other theological positions rather than a complete system in itself.
 
The issue is that "Gnostics" were not really a thing, but a generall catchall for a lot of, often contradictory, theological positions.

Weirdly, believing in all the gnostic halmarks (Yaldabaoth, Sophia, good guy Judas etc) is a distinctly modern phenomenon.

Wouldn't mind sources (that often sounds like a challenge to me, but this isn't one) study. It's been my understanding that Gnostics have common threads of Dualism, and "Gnosis" as in recollection of one's "true origins" in higher planes often paired with a form of asceticism and aversion to sex. Yes they are a diverse group and so was "proto-orthodox" Christianity but there are still common threads that are identifiable. Such as acceptance of the God of Israel, Hebrew Scriptures, the centrality of Jesus, claims of a resurrection of some form. But I am still early on in my studies on the matter.
 
Wouldn't mind sources (that often sounds like a challenge to me, but this isn't one) study. It's been my understanding that Gnostics have common threads of Dualism, and "Gnosis" as in recollection of one's "true origins" in higher planes often paired with a form of asceticism and aversion to sex. Yes they are a diverse group and so was "proto-orthodox" Christianity but there are still common threads that are identifiable. Such as acceptance of the God of Israel, Hebrew Scriptures, the centrality of Jesus, claims of a resurrection of some form. But I am still early on in my studies on the matter.
off the top of my head, I would actually suggest doing a cross comparison of the various gnostic sects to see the differences, it being somewhat hard to prove a negative.

I am currently on my phone, but there is a really good youtube video which explains why gnosticism is more of a model. The channel is called "religionforbreakfast" and it has a few videos on gnosticism, but if you type "what did the gnostics actually believe" it should come up with a video specific to the topic with sources.
 
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