So one of the first known heresies stretches back to the first half of the 100s–and is known as Marcionism (named for its best-known proponent, Marcion). Today’s saint was named Anicetus and his main claim to fame is that he helped steer Christianity into the business of thought control.

What was this particular heresy, you ask? It involved debates over this fundamental question:

What is the relationship of Christianity to Judaism?

Marcion’s answer? Christianity is a distinct religion from Judaism.

Like all good heresies, Marcionism one has been suppressed but never extinguished–not in nearly two millennia. Marcion certainly agreed (and no one has really debated) that Jesus of Nazareth was born a Jew and raised in the Jewish faith (circumcised and temple-trained). Yet Marcion did not see continuity–let alone consubstanitality–between Jesus and YHWH. Marcion felt that Christianity was a new religion and should not:

1. Pretend that it was a sect of Judaism, especially inasmuch as Judaism would not recognize it as such.
2. Masquerade as the fulfillment of Judaism (aka religious/cultural appropriation).
3. Use the Hebrew Scriptures as part of Christianity’s holy texts (see number 2).
4. Spend its time trying to construct doctrines and theologies to extinguish any differences between Jesus and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

One can feel the attraction of Marcionism. Keep in mind–at the time of Marcion, there was not yet a “New Testament” or an accepted body of Christian Scriptures. Letters authored by Paul were circulating, Gospels (including more than just those attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were being copied and passed around, and, to the extent that any “scriptures” were being used, they were the Hebrew Bible. The first leaders of Christianity were themselves Jews, but given Paul’s ministry “to the Gentiles,” it was not long before Gentiles had taken over the entire leadership apparatus of churches/the Church. The Pope never sat in Jerusalem.

What is just as important as the issues raised by the Marcionite heresy is that this marked the first time that a critical mass of persons who called themselves Christian decided to enforce what beliefs a person could or could not hold and still call herself or himself “Christian.” The force of this moment and the historical chains of events flowing from assuming the power to make group-think a constitutive part of Christianity cannot and should not be underestimated.

So Anicetus sat as Bishop of Rome when Christianity managed the almost-unimaginable feat of declaring that it (Christianity) was not a new and separate religion while at the same time declaring that there were distinct beliefs (indeed, ones not shared by Judaism) that one had to profess in order to be part of this not-new, not-separate faith community called Christianity.