A Shipowner from the Black Sea
Marcion was born around 85 in Sinope, a port of Pontus on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Tertullian, who wrote five books against him, calls him a shipmaster, and he seems to have grown wealthy in the shipping trade. A later and hostile story, preserved by Epiphanius, says that his father was the bishop of Sinope and expelled his own son from the church for seducing a virgin. The tale may be slander, or a picture of how his enemies saw him corrupting the church, and it should not be treated as fact.
Irenaeus records that Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, once met Marcion. When Marcion asked whether Polycarp recognized him, Polycarp answered that he recognized the firstborn of Satan. Irenaeus does not say where the meeting took place. It may have been at Rome around 154 or 155, when Polycarp visited the city.
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