Concept
Elcesaites
Overview
The Elcesaites, Elkasaites, Elkesaites or Elchasaites were an ancient Jewish Christian sect in Lower Mesopotamia, then the province of Asoristan in the Sasanian Empire that was active between the early second century and the fifth century CE. The members of this sect, which originated in the Transjordan, performed frequent baptisms for purification and had a Gnostic orientation.
The movement blended elements of Second Temple Judaism, early Jewish Christianity, Gnosticism, and apocalyptic mysticism, and it is primarily known through the writings of early Church Fathers such as Hippolytus of Rome, Origen, and Epiphanius of Salamis.
The name of the sect derives from the alleged founder, Elkhasaí (Koine Greek: Ἠλχασαΐ in Hippolytus), Elksai (Ἠλξαί in Epiphanius), or Elkesai (Ελκεσαΐ in Eusebius, and Theodoret).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Contiguous to these, in the same regions, dwell those who are called Iyrcæ, who also live by hunting in the following manner: the huntsman, having climbed a tree, lies in ambush (and the whole country is thickly wooded), and each man has a horse ready taught to lie on his belly, that he may not be much above the ground, and a dog besides. When he sees any game from the tree, having let fly an arrow, he mounts his…
Herodotus, The Boys' and Girls' Herodotus
States what Elcesaites is.
Since the Jews, by this time, through the medium of the pure Persian doctrine, recognized in their Jehovah, not simply the greatest of all national deities, but GOD; and since they could, the more readily find Him and indicate Him to others in their sacred writings, inasmuch as He was really in them; and since they manifested as great an aversion for sensuous representations, or at all events, were instructed in…
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
Close in meaning to Elcesaites; the term itself is not named.
6. From Lixopaïs, they say, are descended those Scythians who are called the race of the Auchatai; from the middle brother Arpoxaïs those who are called Catiaroi and Traspians, and from the youngest of them the "Royal" tribe, 11 who are called Paralatai: and the whole together are called, they say, Scolotoi, after the name of their king; 12 but the Hellenes gave them the name of Scythians. 7.
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
States what Elcesaites is.
Related ideas
- Eusebius
- Macmillan Publishers
- Jesus
- Refutation of All Heresies
- Jerusalem
- Parthia
- Manichaeism
- Origen
- Paul the Apostle
- Adolf von Harnack
- Epiphanius of Salamis
- Torah
- Iranian languages
- Baptism
- Mani (prophet)
- Hippolytus of Rome
- Jewish Christianity
- Patriarchs (Bible)
- Psalms of Thomas
Place in the tradition
Part of Gnosticism.