The Encratites The Christians Who Rejected Marriage, Meat, and Wine

If you enjoy this episode, we’re sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. Whether you enjoy consuming your content visually or via audio, we’ve got you covered - and it will always be provided free of charge.  So, if you enjoy what we do and want to support our work of providing accessible, free content on various platforms, please consider making a donation to the links provided below.  Thank you and enjoy the episode!Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Cash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsPrimary sourcesIrenaeus. Against Heresies 1.28. Best early witness for the Encratites’ rejection of marriage and animal food. Accessible English text online.Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 4.28–29. Key source for Tatian, Musanus, and the Severians. Accessible English text online.Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 3. Essential for anti-Encratite argument, marriage/continence debates, Cassianus, and use of the Gospel according to the Egyptians. Accessible English text online.Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies 8. Useful for Tatian’s reputation, abstinence, and sectarian framing. Accessible English text online.Basil of Caesarea. Letter 188. Important later witness showing Encratites still mattered canonically in the fourth century. Accessible English text online.Synod of Gangra (especially Canons 1–2). Important for the later church’s rejection of condemning marriage and condemning meat-eating Christians. Accessible English text online.Tatian. Address to the Greeks. Useful for Tatian’s tone, worldview, and severity, even if it is not itself the main Encratite text. Modern Cambridge edition available.Acts of Thomas. Important for the wider encratite ascetic imagination and later patristic memory of the text’s Encratite character.Gospel according to the Egyptians (fragments preserved in Clement, Stromata 3). Important for Salome sayings, celibacy discourse, and the wider anti-marriage textual world.Modern scholarshipGuffey, Andrew R. “Motivations for Encratite Practices in Early Christian Literature.” Journal of Theological Studies 65, no. 2 (2014): 515–549. Probably the single best focused article for your episode. It is especially useful on motives, mixed origins, and why Encratite practice cannot be reduced to one simple cause.Litwa, M. David. Early Christianity in Alexandria: From its Beginnings to the Late Second Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Use especially Chapter 8, “Julius Cassianus and Alexandrian Ascetic Culture.” Very useful for Cassianus and Alexandrian radical continence.Crawford, Matthew R. “The Diatessaron, Canonical or Non-canonical? Rereading the Dura Fragment.” New Testament Studies (2016). Strong on Tatian’s Gospel harmony, its reception, and the Syriac afterlife of the Diatessaron.McCarthy, Carmel, trans. Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709. Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Useful if you want to lean harder into the Syriac legacy of Tatian.Petersen, William L. Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 25. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Still an important specialist study for Tatian and the Diatessaron.“The Syriac Versions.” In an Oxford Academic volume on the Syriac New Testament tradition. Useful for concise background on Tatian’s Diatessaron in Syriac Christianity.“The Earliest Syriac Literature.” In The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature. Helpful for placing Tatian inside the broader Syriac literary and ascetic world.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.