ASCHITI. — Heretics who are linked to Montanism (v.). Information about them, not always consistent, is found among ancient writers on heresies, such as Filastrius (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 over their name, since while Filastrius calls them Acodrociti, and St. Augustine simply Achiti (from the Greek ἀσκός "wine-skin," because they seem to have preserved in their churches an inflated garden hose 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 (τασκόδρυγίται, a barbarous word, translated into Greek as τασκόδρυγίται, i.e., those who, while praying, put their fingers in their noses as a sign of humility) and links them to the Cataphrygians or Quintillians; and Theodoret calls them ἀσκόδρυγίται, Ascodrugiti, or Acodriciti, and makes them a Gnostic sect, according to which salvation is achieved through knowledge of the truth. In fact, they attribute only a purely symbolic value to the Sacraments of the Church and suppress Baptism. It is worth noting that Filastrius distinguishes the Ascondrugiti from the Pasalorinchiti. Some modern scholars see in the name of the Aschiti or Askiti an allusion to the wineskin of Marsyas, spoken of by the Greek classics, and thus think of a remnant of pagan practice preserved in Phrygia and Galatia.