Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies #67.

Writing in the late fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis described a group of so-called Phibionite Gnostics that he encountered in Egypt as follows: “. . . having recognized one another, they hasten to dine. And they lavish meat dishes and wines, even if they are in penury. Th en, aft er a drinking party where so to speak they have engorged their veins with gormandising, they turn to their frenzied passion” (Pan. 26.4.3).1 Epiphanius, however, does not stop here with his description of the ethics and social interactions of these so-called “heretics.”