From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Wolfe and Eusebius
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 15:42:55 -0400

Thank you very much, Crush, for posting these-- right on the button. One can
fossick around among these odd old writings, but I bet GW has too. Useful to
have in the archive.

alga


> Just for completeness sake, I'll post what Eusebius says of the original
> Severians and what Irenaeus said of the Encratites:
>
> Irenaeus ("Against the Heresies" Book I, chap. 28)
> Springing from Saturninus and Marcion, those who are called Encratites
> (self-controlled) preached against marriage, thus setting aside the
original
> creation of God, and indirectly blaming Him who made the male and female
for
> the propagation of the human race. Some of those reckoned among them have
> also introduced abstinence from animal food, thus proving themselves
> ungrateful to God, who formed all things. They deny, too, the salvation of
> him who was first created (Adam). It is but lately, however, that this
> opinion has been invented among them. A certain man named Tatian first
> introduced the blasphemy. He was a disciple of St. Justin the Martyr's,
and
> as long as he continued with him he expressed no such views; but after his
> martyrdom he separated from the Church, and, excited and puffed up by the
> thought of being a teacher, as if he were superior to others, he composed
> his own peculiar type of doctrine. He invented a system of certain
invisible
> Aeons, like the followers of Valentinus; while, like Marcion and
Saturninus,
> he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and
fornication.
> But his denial of Adam's salvation was an opinion due entirely to himself.
>
> Eusebius ("Historia Ecclesiastica" Book 4.29, translation by G.A.
> Williamson)
> "But a little while later a man called Severus lent his weight to this
sect,
> and in consequence it's members have come to be called Severians after
him.
> They make use of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, interpreting in
> their own peculiar fashion the ideas contained in the Holy Writ, but they
> ridicule Paul the Apostle, setting aside his epistles, and reject even the
> "Acts of the Apostles". Their old leader Tatian produced a composite work
by
> somehow combining the gospels, and called it the "Diatesaron": some people
> still possess copies. It is said that he was bold enough to alter some of
> the Apostles' expressions as though trying to rectify their phraseology.
He
> has left a great many works, of which the one most generally familiar is
his
> famous essay 'The Greeks Answered', in which he discusses primitive times,
> showing that all the eminent writers of Greece belong to a much later
period
> than Moses and the Hebrew prophets. This essay is, I think, the best and
> most helpful of all his writings."
>
> - Crush
>
>
>
> --
>



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