The connection between Fulgentius, Augustine, De Cent. and Julius Cassian (an original early Encratist) is also remarked on in:
The Transmission of Sin: Augustine and the Pre Augustinian
Sources
Pier Franco Beatrice and Adam Kamesar
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN13: 9780199751419
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof
so/9780199751419.001.0001
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"(p.235) With regard to the hypothesis that we are putting forward here, [
De Cent. (47)] and its ascetic ideology are of great significance. In particular, the author attributes to baptism the sacramental function of cleansing a person from the offense committed by being born in the flesh, that is, original sin. (48) For the expression “delictum primae nativitatis” quite clearly refers to the encratite exegesis of Ps 50:7, which we encountered for the first time in the dossier employed by
Julius Cassian. It finds a parallel, for Latinspeaking Africa, in the reading for this verse that is given by Augustine and by the Verona Psalter: “in iniquitatibus conceptus sum et in delictis (or peccatis) mater mea me in utero aluit.” (49)"
"The importance of this evidence should not be underestimated. For the first time in the history of western Christianity, the doctrine of the peccatum nascendi origine adtractum or the peccatum quod per originem trahitur is expressed. And what is also significant for us is the fact that it is found within an encratite exhortation to celibacy, in a literary document dating from the end of the second century or the beginning of the third. This makes it nearly contemporary with, or perhaps slightly later than, Julius Cassian and the Encratites who are opposed by Clement of Alexandria in the third book of the Stromateis. (50)"
Notes
(47) See “Le traité
De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima et le judéochristianisme latin avant Tertullien,” VigChr 25 (1971), pp. 171–181. For a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of Jewish Christianity in Roman North Africa in the second and third centuries one should see another article of Daniélou, “La littérature latine avant Tertullien,” REL 48 (1970), pp. 357–375.
The presence of strains of Judaism and of Jewish Christianity on African soil in general is the subject of an important study by M. Simon, “Le judaïsme berbère dans l’Afrique ancienne,” in his book Recherches d’histoire judéochrétienne, Paris 1962, pp. 30–87. The continued vibrancy of encratite spirituality is attested even at the beginning of the fifth century by Augustine, De haer. 87 (CCh 46, 339–340), where he speaks of a Christian sect called the Abelonii or Abeliani. This group was distinguished by the characteristically encratite and Jewish Christian custom of maintaining sexual abstinence within the context of matrimonial cohabitation. This ideal, which led the adherents of the sect to adopt children and school them in this kind of chastity or “sanctimonia,” was the legacy of a “haeresis rusticana,” a heresy of the countryside. This latter circumstance itself is a sign of the gradual marginalization suffered by the followers of the sect. However, we may make a criticism of Simon, pp. 54ff., for not having seen the true encratite matrix of this popular heresy. He needlessly associates it with the Caelicolae, who were Jewish pagan syncretists. On African asceticism in general, see G. Folliet, “Aux origines de l’ascétisme et du cénobitisme africain,” in Saint Martin et son temps: Mémorial du XVIe centenaire des débuts du monachisme en Gaule 361–1961, Rome 1961, pp. 25–44.
(48.)
De cent. 2 (PLS I, 54.5–7): “renovati per lavacrum vitale et delicto primae nativitatis purgati vivamus” (= Reitzenstein, line 18).
(49.) See above, p. 98 n. 11.
Fulgentius of Ruspe, De veritate praedestinationis et gratiae 1.4.10 (CCh 91A, 464), may also be regarded as a witness for this African reading.
(50.) The editors Reitzenstein and Hamman do not indicate that the phrase is an allusion to or indirect citation of Ps 50:7. The allusion was also oddly missed by Daniélou, “Le traité,” who does, however, point to other numerous and significant similarities between the biblical citations in the sermon and the encratite dossier of Julius Cassian.
