ABELITES, or ABELONIANS, in church history, a sect of heretics mentioned by St Austin, which arose in the diocese of Hippo in Africa, and is supposed to have begun in the reign of Arcadius, and ended in that of Theodosius. Indeed it was not calculated for being of any long continuance. Those of this sect regulated marriage after the example of Abel; who, they pretended, was married, but died without ever having known his wife. They therefore allowed each man to marry one woman, but enjoined them to live in continence; and, to keep up the sect, when a man and woman entered into this society, they adopted a boy and a girl, who were to inherit their goods, and to marry upon the same terms of not begetting. getting children, but of adopting two of different sexes.