Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them who believe and know the truth.
All Commentaries on 1 Timothy 4:3 Go To 1 Timothy 4
Hippolytus of Rome
AD 235
Others, however, styling themselves Encratites, acknowledge some things concerning God and Christ consistently with the church. In respect, however, of their ascetic mode of life, they pass their days inflated with pride. They suppose that by their choice of foods they magnify themselves. They abstain from animal food, [and] being water drinkers, forbid to marry, devoting themselves during the remainder of life to habits of asceticism. But persons of this description are viewed more as cynics than as Christians, inasmuch as they do not attend to the words spoken against them by the apostle Paul.
