Epiphanius of Salamis seems to be the earliest Christian writer who speaks of this sect. He relates that a young priest in Palestine named Peter had been charged with heresy, deposed from the office of the priesthood and expelled by Bishop Aëtius. He fled into a part of Arabia, where there was a center of Ebionitism. In his old age, he returned to Palestine, where he lived the life of an anchorite in a cave near Jerusalem and attracted followers by the austerity of his life and the practice of extreme poverty. Shortly before the death of Constantius II (337-361), Eutactus, coming from Egypt, visited the anchorite Peter and was imbued by him with the doctrines of the sect and carried them into Greater and Lesser Armenia.