Abelians (Latin : Abelonii; also Abelites, [1] Abeloites or Abelonians) were a Christian sect that emerged in the 4th century in the countryside near Hippo Regius in north Africa during the reign of Arcadius. [2] [1] They lived in continence as they affirmed Abel did. They were required to be married but were forbidden to consummate the marriage. Each couple was required to adopt two children, a boy and a girl. [2] When their adoptive parents died, these adoptees would then form a couple and adopt further two children. [1] Because no children of Abel are mentioned in Scripture, the Abelians assumed that he had none. [2] This view was influenced by Jewish, and Manichean-inspired Gnostic perspectives on Abel that recognized that, while he was married, he remained a virgin. [1] The only record of the sect is in Augustine of Hippo's De Haereticis ch. 87, [2] where he writes that the name of the sect is probably of Punic origin. [1] According to Augustine, the sect became extinct in 428 when its last members converted to Catholicism. [1]
Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
Celibacy is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both, usually for religious reasons. It is often in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, the term celibacy is applied only to those for whom the unmarried state is the result of a sacred vow, act of renunciation, or religious conviction. In a wider sense, it is commonly understood to only mean abstinence from sexual activity.
Niels Henrik Abel was a Norwegian mathematician who made pioneering contributions in a variety of fields. His most famous single result is the first complete proof demonstrating the impossibility of solving the general quintic equation in radicals. This question was one of the outstanding open problems of his day, and had been unresolved for over 250 years. He was also an innovator in the field of elliptic functions and the discoverer of Abelian functions. He made his discoveries while living in poverty and died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis.
Abelian may refer to:
Hippo Regius is the ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, Algeria. It served as an important city for the Phoenicians, Berbers, Romans, and Vandals. Hippo was the capital city of the Vandal Kingdom from AD 435 to 439. when it was shifted to Carthage following the Vandal capture of Carthage in 439.
Predestination is a doctrine in Calvinism dealing with the question of the control that God exercises over the world. In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God "freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass." The second use of the word "predestination" applies this to salvation, and refers to the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins, even their original sin. The former is called "unconditional election", and the latter "reprobation". In Calvinism, some people are predestined and effectually called in due time to faith by God, all others are reprobated.
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the church in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman province Africa Proconsularis and Mauretania Tingitana, in the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. Named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus, Donatism flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries. Donatism mainly spread among the indigenous Berber population, and Donatists were able to blend Christianity with many of the Berber local customs.
The Nazarenes were an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism. The first use of the term is found in the Acts of the Apostles of the New Testament, where Paul the Apostle is accused of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes before the Roman procurator Antonius Felix at Caesarea Maritima by Tertullus. At that time, the term simply designated followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Hebrew term נוֹצְרִי, and the Arabic term نَصْرَانِي, still do.
Marriage in the Catholic Church, also known as holy matrimony, is the "covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized". Catholic matrimonial law, based on Roman law regarding its focus on marriage as a free mutual agreement or contract, became the basis for the marriage law of all European countries, at least up to the Reformation.
Confessions is an autobiographical work by Augustine of Hippo, consisting of 13 books written in Latin between AD 397 and 400. The work outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. Modern English translations of it are sometimes published under the title The Confessions of Saint Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles. Its original title was Confessions in Thirteen Books, and it was composed to be read out loud with each book being a complete unit.
Monica was an early North African Christian saint and the mother of Augustine of Hippo. She is remembered and honored in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering caused by her husband's adultery, and her prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Monica weeping every night for her son Augustine.
The Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about the year 400, is a brief document divided into eight chapters and serves as an outline for religious life lived in community. It is the oldest monastic rule in the Western Church.
Melania the Younger is a Christian saint, Desert Mother, and ascetic who lived during the reign of Emperor Honorius, son of Theodosius I. She is the paternal granddaughter of Melania the Elder.
Thagaste was a Roman-Berber city in present-day Algeria, now called Souk Ahras. The town was the birthplace of Saint Augustine.
The Synod of Hippo refers to the synod of 393 which was hosted in Hippo Regius in northern Africa during the early Christian Church. Additional synods were held in 394, 397, 401 and 426. Some were attended by Augustine of Hippo.
Faustus of Mileve was a Manichaean bishop of the fourth century. He is now remembered for his encounter with Augustine of Hippo, in Carthage around 383. He was from Milevis, Numidia. From a poor, pagan background, he had become a highly reputed teacher, preacher and debater.
Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a 2010 two-part television miniseries chronicling the life of St. Augustine, the early Christian theologian, writer and Bishop of Hippo Regius at the time of the Vandal invasion.
The Augustinian theodicy, named for the 4th- and 5th-century theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo, is a type of Christian theodicy that developed in response to the evidential problem of evil. As such, it attempts to explain the probability of an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-loving) God amid evidence of evil in the world. A number of variations of this kind of theodicy have been proposed throughout history; their similarities were first described by the 20th-century philosopher John Hick, who classified them as "Augustinian". They typically assert that God is perfectly (ideally) good, that he created the world out of nothing, and that evil is the result of humanity's original sin. The entry of evil into the world is generally explained as consequence of original sin and its continued presence due to humans' misuse of free will and concupiscence. God's goodness and benevolence, according to the Augustinian theodicy, remain perfect and without responsibility for evil or suffering.
Augustinianism is the philosophical and theological system of Augustine of Hippo and its subsequent development by other thinkers, notably Boethius, Anselm of Canterbury and Bonaventure. Among Augustine's most important works are The City of God, De doctrina Christiana, and Confessions.
Quintilla was a Phrygian Christian prophetess within the movement known as Montanism. The sect of the Quintillians was named after her.
This article incorporates text from the 1771 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain .