Schiavi, poveri e benefattori nell’Anatolia tardoantica: la visione socio-economica delle comunità enkratite attraverso gli atti apocrifi degli apostoli

Different sources (epigrahical, literary, apocryphal) can be used to analyse the Christian heretical sects connected to an enkratite movement (Enkratites, Apotactites, Sakkophoroi, Hydroparastatai, Aerians), which was characterised by radical forms of self-restraint (enkrateia). Epigraphical documents are helpful in setting these communities in the rural background of late antique Anatolia (4th-5th cent. AD). On the other side the apocryphal acts of the apostles – specially the so called Acta Petri from the Codex Vercellensis and the Acta Philippi – offer important hints on social and economic ideas developed by Enkratites, in particular concerning the most debated issues of evangelic poverty, emancipation of slaves and social assistance to poor and sick, with the foundation of hospices (xenodocheia).