BibleFacts

Encratites

On Church History

Encratites
The Encratites - Titian wrote a harmony of the gospels called the Diatessaron. Later he became very violent and apostatized from the church and founded the Gnostic sect of the Encratites. He then started removing passages from the Diatessaron that refer to Jesus divinity and other non-Gnostic thoughts. Copies of the original and the perverted are still existent. The eastern church used the Diatessaron for years before going back to the four gospels. The basic teachings of the Encratites are:

  • Belief in the Aeons (valentinus style)
  • Some held dualistic views
  • Condemned Marriage.
  • All sex and reproduction is evil.
  • Christ did not have a physical body.
  • Adam is not saved.
  • Vegetarian and do not drink wine.
  • They are self controlled and are masters of themselves, no longer sinning.
  • Reject the Epistles of Paul, calling him apostate.

Tatian 166AD
Tatian started off orthodox. By the time he wrote his book To the Greeks he was beginning to go Gnostic. We see he was orthodox in the following:

After this Tatian becomes very violent and he secedes from the Church forming the Gnostic Encratites. The name in Greek means self perfected ones. It the 12th century the name of Encratites was applied to the Bogomils.

References:
  1. Irenaeus Against Heresies 1.28
  2. Hippolytus Against Heresies 8.13
  1. Origen Cel. 5.65