ASCHITI. - Heretics connected with Montanism (v.). Information concerning them, not always consistent, is provided by ancient writers on heresies, such as Filastro (Liber de haeresibus, 65: PL 12, 1187), St. Augustine (De haeresibus, 62: PL 42, 42), St. Epiphanius (Contra haereses, 48: PG 41, 856), and Theodoret (Haereticarum fabularum compendium, I, 1, 10: PG 83, 360).
There is disagreement concerning their name, since, while Filastro calls them acodrociti, and St. Augustine simply aschiti (from the Greek ἀσκός, “wineskin,” because they apparently kept a swollen wineskin in their churches, which they carried dancing around the altar to symbolize that they were filled with the new wine of the Spirit, alluding to the text of St. Matthew 9:17), St. Epiphanius calls them tascodrugiti (τασκοβρυγίται, a barbarous word, rendered in Greek as πασαλορυγίται, that is, those who, when praying, put their fingers in their noses as a sign of humility) and connects them with the catafeyi or quintilians; and Theodoret calls them ἀσκοβρύται or ἀσκοβρυπῖται, ascodriti or ascodrupiti, and makes them a Gnostic sect, according to which salvation is achieved through knowledge of the truth. In fact, they attribute to the Sacraments of the Church only a purely symbolic value and suppress Baptism. It should be noted that Filastro distinguishes the ascodrugiti from the passalorinciti. Some modern scholars see in the name a. or askiti an allusion to the wineskin of Marsyas, mentioned by the Greek classics, and consequently think of a remnant of pagan practice preserved in Phrygia and Galatia.