Marcus
(17), a Gnostic of the school of Valentinus, who taught in the
middle of the 2nd cent. His doctrines are almost exclusively known
to us through a long section (i. 13–21, pp. 55–98) in
which Irenaeus gives an account of his teaching and his school. Both
Hippolytus (Ref. vi. 39–55, pp. 200–220 and Epiphanius
(Haer. 34) have copied the account from Irenaeus; and there
seems no good reason to think that either had any direct knowledge of
the writings of Marcus. But Clement of Alexandria clearly knew and used
them. Although Jerome describes Marcus as a Basilidian (Ep. 75
ad Theod. i. 449), what Irenaeus reports clearly shews him as a
follower of Valentinus. Thus his system tells of 30 Aeons, divided into
an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Dodecad; of the fall and recovery of Sophia; of the future union of the spirits of the chosen seed with angels as their heavenly bridegrooms. What Marcus added to the teaching of his predecessors is perhaps the most worthless of all that passed under the name of "knowledge" in the 2nd cent. It merely contains magical formulae, which the disciples were to get by heart and put trust in, and puerile speculations, such as were in vogue among the later Pythagoreans, about mysteries in numbers and names. Marcus found in Scripture and in Nature repeated examples of the occurrence of his mystical numbers, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirty. If so great mysteries were contained in names, it naturally followed that to know the right name of each celestial power was a matter of vital importance; and such knowledge the heretical teachers promised to bestow. They had formulae and sacraments of redemption. They taught that the baptism of the visible Jesus was but for the forgiveness of sins, but that the redemption of Him Who in that baptism descended was for perfection; the one was merely psychical, the other spiritual. Of the latter are interpreted the words in which our Lord spoke of another baptism (Luke xii. 50; Matt. xx. 22). Some conferred this redemption by baptism with special invocations; others added or substituted various anointings; others held that these applications could not procure spiritual redemption—only by knowledge could such redemption be effected. This knowledge included the possession of formulae, by the use of which the initiated would after death become incomprehensible and invisible to principalities and powers, and leaving their bodies in this lower creation and their souls with the Demiurge, ascend in their spirits to the Pleroma. Probably the Egyptian religion contributed this element to Gnosticism. Some of these Marcosian formulae were in Hebrew, of which Irenaeus has preserved specimens much corrupted by copyists. Marcus, as Irenaeus tells us, used other juggling tricks by which he gained the reputation of magical skill. A knowledge of astrology was among his accomplishments, and apparently some chemical knowledge, with which he astonished and impressed his disciples. The eucharistic cup of mingled wine and water was seen under his invocation to change to a purple red; and his disciples were told that this was because the great C had dropped some of her blood into the cup. Sometimes he would hand the cup to women, and bid them in his presence pronounce the eucharistic words; and then he would pour from their consecrated cup into a much larger one held by himself, and the liquor, miraculously increased at his prayer, would be seen to rise up and fill the larger vessel. He taught his female disciples to prophesy. Casting lots at their meetings, he would command her on whom the lot fell boldly to utter the words which were suggested to her mind, and such words were accepted by the hearers as prophetic utterances. He abused the influence he thus acquired over silly women to draw much money from them, and, it is said, even to gain from them more shameful compliances. He is accused of having used philtres and love charms, and at least one, if not more, of his female disciples on returning to the church confessed that body as well as mind had been defiled by him. Some of his followers certainly claimed to have been elevated, by their