Seve'rus ENCRATITA
3. ENCRATITA.
There were two Severi emiment as leaders of bodies accounted heretical.
The earlier was a leader of one of the divisions of the Gnostic body; the latter, and far more celebrated was the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch [See No. 2.] We speak here of the former, who appears to have lived in the latter part of the second century. Little is known of his personal history. Eusebius (
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 4.29), speaking of the sect of the Encratitae and their founder Tatian [TATIANUS], says that a certain person named Severus having strengthened the sect, gave occcasion to their being called, after his own name, Severiani. Theodoret also makes Severus posterior to Tatian (
Haeret. Fabul. Comp. 1.21). Epiplanius, on the other hand, makes Severus anterior to Tatian.
But the silence of Irenaeus, who mentions Tatian, but not Severus, makes it probable that Tatian was the earlier. Our account of the opinions of the Severiani is very obscure.
According to Eusebius they admitted the Law and the Prophets (
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 4.29), while according to Augustin they rejected them (
De Haeres. c. xxiv.).
It is not improbable that they admitted them as an authentic record of the Old or Mosaic Dispensation, promulgated by the Demiurgos, and as such may have used them, and argued from them ; but yet denied their authority as binding upon themselves, who had embraced the New Dispensation, which rested not on the authority of the Demiurgos, but on the higher and opposite authority of the Supreme and All-merciful God.
This explanation of two apparently opposite statements is at any rate consistent with the leading principles of Gnosticism.
The curious opinions of Severus, at least of the Severiani, as to the genealogy of the Devil, and the origin of the vine, and of the formation of woman and man, are noticed elsewhere [TATIANUS]. Severus denied the apostolic office of Paul, and consequently the authority of his writings; going in these respects beyond Tatian. His followers also denied, according to Augustin, the resurrection of the body, which is likely enough.
It is not impossible that these differences may have led to the temporary division of the sect of the Encratitae to which Severus and Tatian both belonged, and to the formation of separate bodies under the respective names of Tatiani and Severiani, who afterwards reunited under the old and generic name of Encratitae.
The ascetic features, abstinence from marriage and from the use of animal food and wine, appear to have been common to the whole body, whether designated Tatiani, Severiani, or Encratitae. [TATIANUS]. (Euseb.
l.c. ; Epiphan.
Haeres. xlv. ; Augustin.
l.c. ; Theodoret.
l.c. ; Ittigius,
De Haeresiarchis, sect. ii. c. 12. § xv.; Tillemont,
Mémoires, vol. ii. p. 414; Neander,
Church History (by Rose), vol. ii. p. 111; and (by Torrey) vol. ii. p. 167, note 3.)
