ELCESAITI. — A sect with an eclectic doctrine on a Jewish basis, displaying affinities with the Essenes and Ebionites and with certain Gnostic elements, influenced by astrology, magic, and esotericism. The sources are provided by Philosophumena, IX (ed. P. M. Cruce, Paris 1860) and St. Epiphanius, Haer., XIX, XXX, LIII: PG 41, 259–69; 405–73; 959–62.
The E. used only certain books of the Old Testament, rejecting whatever concerned sacrifices. They rejected all of St. Paul (v. EBIONITI), and probably never made any genuine use of the New Testament, since their doctrine contains nothing Christian. They did, however, possess their own book, brought from the region of the Parthians by a sage whose name is spelled variously: 'Ḥḫẓāṣī (Philosophumena), 'Elżāṭī, 'Ḥḫẓāṭī (St. Epiphanius, Haer., XIX, 2), 'Elżāṭāṭī (Theodoret, Haer. Fab., II, 7: PG 83, 393), and whose actual existence is, moreover, debatable.
The E. believed in a creator God and in a Son of God, not equal to him but his creature, although the most perfect; the Holy Spirit was then a being similar to the Son but of the female sex (cf. the traces of Gnostic theories). For salvation, blind and absolute faith in the doctrine contained in their sacred book was sufficient, and in order to obtain remission of sins a baptism was administered in the name of God and of his Son, the great king, after the penitent had confessed his sins and invoked “the heaven, the water, the holy spirits, the angels of prayer, the oil, the salt, the earth.” This baptism could be repeated and also possessed great healing powers; moreover, water was held by them in great veneration. The E. maintained almost all Jewish customs and practices, particularly circumcision; they believed in astral influences, especially upon the days of the week, and for this reason the third day and the Sabbath were inauspicious. St. Epiphanius (Haer., XIX, 4: PG 41, 268) transcribed their esoteric formula, which G. Bareille (Eleksaïtes, in DThC, IV, col. 2239) interprets as a blasphemous formula against the worshippers of Christ, acknowledging the occultist character of the sect of the E.
In the moral sphere they were rather lax; they condemned virginity and continence and imposed marriage (St. Epiphanius, Haer., XIX, 1: PG 41, 261). Although in their book the Revelation is said to have occurred in the third year of Trajan, in reality they appear at the beginning of the 3rd century and soon spread beyond the Judeo-Christian milieu of the East, with the arrival in Rome of one of their number, Alcibiades of Apamea, who, however, met with little success there. From the middle of the 3rd century to approximately the middle of the 4th they do not appear; but toward the end of the 4th century St. Epiphanius still notes them as living in the East among Essene and Ebionite circles.
The relations between the doctrine of the E. and the Clementine apocrypha are noteworthy (cf. the comparisons made by Bareille, loc. cit., col. 2233, and the bibliography of F. Nau, Clémentins (Apocryphes). I. Homélies, Recognition et leurs abrégés, in DThC, III, col. 216).