MARCOSIANS. A Gnostic sect, the followers of one Marcus, who flourished in the middle of the second century and belonged to the school of Valentinus. The principal authority for his teaching is Irenaeus. To a great extent Marcus was in agreement with Valentinus: but he added features of his own. He found great mysteries in numbers and names, and considered it of vital importance to know the right name of each celestial power. The Mareosians had special formulae and sacra ments of redemption. " Some conferred this redemption by baptism with special invocations; others added or sub stituted various anointings; others held that these appli cations 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 in comprehensible 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 " (Wace and Piercy). Marcus was skilful as
a magician. " The eucharistic cup of mingled wine and water was seen under bis invocation to change to a purple red." The explanation given was that Charts. one of the highest .Eons in the system of Marcus, had dropped some of her own blood into the cup. Marcus encouraged his female disciples to prophesy, choosing them for the purpose by lot. He is said also to have been guilty of immoral practices. " Some of his followers certainly claimed to have been elevated, by their knowledge and the redemption they had experienced, above ordinary rules of morality "; but this may have been a misapplication of the teaching of Marcus. The Marcosians do not seem to have been a large body. See J. H. Blunt; Wace and 'Mercy.