Hippolytus of Rome refers to them as "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"; "abstaining from animal food, being water-drinkers and forbidding to marry"; "estimated Cynics rather than Christians".
These Severian Encratites accepted the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, but rejected the Book of the Acts and cursed St. Paul and his Epistles.
They rejected marriage – declaring women and sex the work of Satan[10] – and also intoxicants, calling wine 'drops of venom from the great Serpent'.
[11] Epiphanius states that in his day Encratites were very numerous throughout Asia Minor, in Pisidia, in the Adustan district of Phrygia, in Isauria, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Galatia.
They split up into a number of smaller sects of whom the Apotactics were remarkable for their condemnation of private property, the Hydroparastatæ or Aquarii for their use of water instead of wine in the Eucharist.