ARTOTIRITI. — An ancient Eastern sect, so called because its adherents used bread (ἄρτος) and cheese (τυρός) in the celebration of their mysteries. The scant information we have about it comes from the ecclesiastical writers of the 4th and 5th centuries: St. Epifanio is the first to mention it in his Panarion, 2, 49 (PG 41, 880), followed by Filastro of Brescia (Liber de haeresibus, § 74: PL 12, 1186), St. Agostino (De haeresib. liber, § 28: PL 42, 30), and St. Girolamo (In epist. ad Galatas, 2, 2: PL 26, 382), who generally agree in associating it with Montanism and locating its presence in Galatia and the surrounding regions. Modern rationalist criticism has be-
luto saw, wrongly, an allusion in St Perpetua (cf. P. de Labriolle, s.V. in DHG, IV, cols. 825–27). Mario Scaduto