ristian ascetics who persisted in applying literally to
all Christians the highest demands of Christ, and thus arose, by
secession, the communities of the Encratites and Severians. But in the
circumstances of the time even they could not but be touched by the
Hellenic mode of thought, to the effect of associating a speculative
theory with asceticism, and thus approximating to Gnosticism. This is
specially plain in Tatian, who connected himself with the Encratites,
and in consequence of the severe asceticism which he prescribed, could
no longer maintain the identity of the supreme God and the creator of
the world (see the fragments of his later writings in the Corp. Apol. ed
Otto. T. VI.). As the Pauline Epistles could furnish arguments to either
side, we see some Gnostics such as Tatian himself, making diligent use
of them, while others such as the Severians, rejected them. (Euseb. H.
E. IV. 29. 5, and Orig. c. Cels. V. 65). The Encratite controversy was,
on the one hand, swallowed up by the Gnostic, and on the other hand,
replaced by the Montanistic. The treatise written in the days of Marcus
Aurelius by a certain Musanus (where?) which contains warnings against
joining the Encratites (Euseb. H. E. IV. 28) we unfortunately no longer
possess.]

[Footnote 320: See Eusebius, H. E. VI. 12. Docetic elements are apparent
even in the fragment of the Gospel of Peter recently discovered.]

[Footnote 321: Here, above all, we have to remember Tatian, who in his
highly praised Apology, had already rejected altogether the eating of
flesh (c. 23) and set up very peculiar doctrines about the spirit,
matter, and the nature of man (c. 12 ff.). The fragments of the
Hypotyposes of Clem. of Alex. show how much one had to bear in some
rural Churches at the end of the second century.]

[Footnote 322: See Clem. Strom III. 2. 5; [Greek: Epiphanes, huios
Karpokratous, ezese ta panta ete heptakaideka kai theos en Samei tes
Kephallenias tetimetai, entha autoi hieron ruton lithon, bomoi, temene,
mouseion, oikodometai te kai kathierotai, kai suniontes eis to hieron
hoi Kaphallenes kata noumenian genethlion apotheosin thuousin Epiphanei,
spendousi te kai euochountai kai humnoi legontai]. Clement's quotations
from the writings of Epiphanes shew him to be a pure Platonist: the
proposition that property is theft is found in him. Epiphanes and his
father, Carpocrates, were the first who attempted to amalgamate Plato's
State with the Christian ideal o