Tatian, Founder of a Heresy

Tatian, while he was teaching oratory, won no small fame in the art of rhetoric. He was a follower of Justin Martyr, and he was distinguished as long as he did not leave his master’s side. But afterward, puffed up by the swelling of his own eloquence, he founded a new heresy, which is called that of the Encratites. Severus later enlarged this heresy in such a way that heretics of this party are called Severians to this day. Tatian also wrote countless volumes. One of them, a most successful book Against the Nations, survives, and it is considered the most important of all his works. He flourished in the reign of Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus. [a]