FASTIDIUS: One of the few literary representatives of the old British Church. Gennadius (De vir. ill., lvi.) says that "Fastidius, a bishop of the Britons, wrote a book on the Christian life to a certain Fatalis, and another on keeping widowhood sound in doctrine and worthy of God"; he places Fastidius between Pope Celestine I. (d. 432) and Cyril (d. 444). An extant writing De vita Christiana is ascribed in one manuscript to Fastidius, in another to Pelagius, in others to Augustine (printed in MPL, xl. 1031-46, as pseudo-Augustinian; in 1. 383-402, as by Fastidius). The question of its authorship was first thoroughly investigated by C. P. Caspari (Briefe, Abhandlungen, and Predigten aus den zwei letzten Jahrhunderten des kirchlichen Altertums and dem Anfang des Mittelalters, Christiania, 1890, 352 sqq.), who decides, because it is addressed to a woman and in other respects does not follow the notice in Gennadius, that the ascription to Fastidius can hardly be based upon this notice. The ascription to Pelagius has difficulties (Caspari, 371), and that to Augustine is out of the question. Morin (Revue bénédictine, xv. 481-490, 1898) has shown that the Vita was probably a work of Pelagius that therefore Fastidius is the probable author of the five treatises attributed by Caspari to Agricola. The first of these is the Vita mentioned by Gennadius. Whether Fastidius really wrote two books, as Gennadius says, must remain undecided. The Vita Christiana is pervaded by a Pelagian spirit and mode of thought, but this could easily have escaped Gennadius, since the author "indicates and betrays his Pelagianism rather than speaks it out openly and directly" (Caspari, 360). It also has points of contact with the letters of the Pelagian Agricola (Caspari, 375 sqq.; see AGRICOLA). The Epist. ad fastidium of Fastidius is in Pitra, Analecta, i. 134, sqq., Paris, 1888.

(N. BONWETSCH.)