Encratites

Tatian started off being orthodox. He wrote a harmony of the gospels called the Diatessaron. Later, he became very
violent and apostatized from the church. After he apostatized, he founded the Gnostic sect of the Encratites. The
name in Greek means “self-perfected ones.” It the 12th century the name of Encratites was applied to the Bogomils.
Tatian then started removing passages from the Diatessaron that referred to Jesus’ divinity and other non-Gnostic
thoughts. Copies of both the original Diatessaron and the perverted Diatessaron still exist. (The eastern church used
the Diatessaron for years before going back to the four Gospels.)

The basic teachings of the Encratites are similar to the Valentinian Gnostics. They believed in the Aeons, held
dualistic views of God, condemned marriage, taught sex and reproduction is evil and that Adam was not saved. They
were vegetarians and did not drink wine. They believed they were self-controlled, able to master their actions and
become sinless. They rejected the epistles of Paul, calling him an apostate and taught Christ did not have a physical
body.

taken from Biblefacts.org