Talk:Encratites

Contradictory
1:
 * It has been supposed that it was these Gnostic encratites who were chastised in the epistle of 1 Timothy (4:1-4).

2:
 * "acknowledging what concerns God and Christ in like manner with the Church; in respect, however, of their mode of life, passing their days inflated with pride";

Either they are Gnostics, or they are Orthodox in doctrine, according to the POV of the early church fathers – not both. The last thing I would suspect would be that Hippolytus of Rome is Gnostic, so that he regards them as "Orthodox", whoich would then be the only explanations why the Encratites are both Orthodox and Gnostics. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 17:45, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

The common historical understanding of this seeming contradiction is the evolution of the early Church. St. Paul seems to have put forward what is essentially and Encratic position in the genuinely Pauline epistles. As the expected return of Christ failed to manifest and Christians attempted to integrate themselves in their cultural milieus (particularly Roman), traditional family values began to supersede Paul's original concept that there was no reason to breed, since Jesus return was immanent. I Timothy, though attributed to Paul, is linguistically demonstrable not to be by the same author as say the genuine Pauline epistle Romans. What are known as the pastorals are post Pauline dictums put into the hand of Paul in order to largely address problems that developed in the 2nd century of the evolution of the church, like this, and pseudepigraphically to claim Pauline authority; important in particular because the Encratites themselves were claiming genuinely Pauline texts as their authority. Stealthepiscopalian 19:41, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Stealthepiscopalian — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stealthepiscopalian (talk • contribs)

Authorship of "Gospel of Philip"?
The "see also" section suggests that Encratites may be authored the Gospel Of Philip; however the wikipedia article for Gospel Of Philip ascribes the document to the late fourth century, saying that it is considered to be an Encratite text with Gnostic influences. The suggestion in this article seems to be incorrect and misunderstanding Rob Burbidge (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2021 (UTC)