ENCRATITI (Ἐγκατεῖς, ἐγκατηταί, ἐγκαταταί). — The e. are the “continent” par excellence, heretics who represent an excessive tendency toward asceticism, prohibiting the use of meat, wine, and marriage and thus professing continence in its most rigorous form. In defending their doctrine, they made use of passages from the New Testament in which continence is recommended, isolating them from their context, interpreting them sophistically, and even altering them.
In reality, it is quite clear that this position derives from the Neoplatonic and Gnostic concept of matter as evil, the work of the wicked demiurge, in which one must not participate. This tendency is manifested from apostolic times (I Tim. 4:1–5) and gradually develops during the 2nd century; the apocryphal Acts of Paul, of Peter, of John favor II. Toward the end of the 2nd century, the e., according to s. Epiphanius, are very widespread, and their ideas also gain acceptance among Christians acting in good faith (e.g. Alcibiades, one of the martyrs of Lyons; cf. the Letter of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia, in Eusebius, Hist. ecl., V, 30: PG 20, 437). It also seems that they had their own ecclesiastical organization.
It is evident that the e. represented a grave danger for the Church and for society, especially with regard to the prohibition of marriage. They were regarded as heretics by s. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., I, 28: PG 7, 690–91), by pseudo-Tertullian (De praescr., 52: PL 2, 72), and by Hippolytus (Philosophamena, VIII, 16–20: ed. P. M. Cruice, Paris 1860). Cf. also s. Epiphanius, Haer., XLVI, XLVII: PG 41, 839–53.
The discussion concerning the validity of the Baptism they conferred gave rise to the famous controversy between Pope Stephen and s. Cyprian.
Theodosius, together with the Manichaeans, expressly condemned the e. as well as the apostatics, the hydroparasites, and the priests, all sects inspired by the principles of encratism (second constitution against the Manichaeans, Codex Theodosianum, XVI, tit. V, I, 7 and II).
Among the principal representatives of encratism are Julius Cassian, a Docetist, who composed a book Περὶ εὐνοχίας, and Tatian, the author of the Diatessaron, called by s. Jerome princeps encraticorum (Epist., XLVIII, 2: PL 22, 494), after whom a sect of e. was named.