a writer of the primitive church in the second century. He was born in Assyria, and trained up in the heathen religion and learning. Coming over to Christianity, he became the disciple of Justin Martyr, whom he attended to Rome. While Justin lived, he continued steadily orthodox; but after Justin's death he made a schism, and became the author of a new sect, condemning marriage, enjoining abstinence from wine and animal-food, and suffering only water to be used in the holy mysteries; whence his followers were called Encratites and Hydroporaplastae. None of his works are now extant but his piece against the Gentiles; or, as it is usually intitled, his Oration to the Greeks.