ADAMITES
A sect that sprang up in the second century. Epiphanius tells us, that they were called Adamites, from their pretending to be re-established in the state of innocence, such as Adam was at the moment of his creation, whence they ought to imitate him in going naked. They detested marriage; maintaining that the conjugal union would never have taken place upon earth, had sin been unknown. This obscure and ridiculous sect did not last long. It was, however, revived with additional absurdities in the twelfth century. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, these errors spread in Germany and Bohemia: it found also some partisans in Poland, Holland, and England. They assembled in the night; and it is said, one of the fundamental maxims of their society was contained in the following verse: Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli. Swear, forswear, and reveal not the secret.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Adamites
An obscure sect, dating perhaps from the second century, which professed to have regained Adam’s primeval innocence. St. Epiphanius and St. Augustine mention the Adamites by name, and describe their practices. They called their church Paradise; they condemned marriage as foreign to Eden, and they stripped themselves naked while engaged in common worship. They could not have been numerous. Various accounts are given of their origin. Some have thought them to have been an offshoot of the Carpocratian Gnostics, who professed a sensual mysticism and a complete emancipation from the moral law. Theodoret (Haer. Fab., I, 6) held this view of them, and identified them with the licentious sects whose practices are described by Clement of Alexandria. Others, on the contrary, consider them to have been misguided ascetics, who strove to extirpate carnal desires by a return to simpler manners, and by the abolition of marriage. Practices similar to those just described appeared in Europe several times in later ages. In the thirteenth century they were revived in the Netherlands by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, and, in a grosser form, in the fourteenth by the Beghards (q.v.) in Germany. Everywhere they met with firm opposition. The Beghards became the Picards of Bohemia, who took possession of an island in the river Nezarka, and gave themselves up to a shameful communism. Ziska, the Bussite leader, nearly exterminated the sect in 1421 (cf. Höfler, Geschichtsquellen Böhmens, I, 414, 431); A brief revival of these doctrines took place in Bohemia after 1781, owing to the edict of toleration issued by Joseph II; these communistic Neo-Adamites were suppressed by force in 1849.
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CLEM. of ALEX., Strom., III, iv; EPIPH., Haer., lii; AUGUSTINE, De Haer., XXXI; BOSSUET, Variations of Prot. Churches; RUDINGER, De Eccles. Frat. in Bohemia; SVATEK, Adamiten und Deisten in Böhmen in culturhist. Bilder aus Böhmen (Vienna, 1879), I, 97; HERGENRÖTHER, in Kirchenlex. I., 216-218.
FRANCIS P. HAVEY
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Adamites
1. a sect of heretics in Northern Africa in the second and third centuries. They pretended to the primitive innocence which Adam had before the fall; and, in imitation of his original condition, they appeared naked in their religious assemblies, which they called Paradises. The author of this abominable heresy was a certain Prodicus, a disciple of Carpocrates (August. De Haeres. 31).
2. A similar heresy, under the same name, appeared in Bohemia in the fifteenth century. (See Picard, Ceremonies Religieuses, fig. 215.) Their founder was a Frenchman, John Picard, after whom they were also called Picardists. From France they spread over a large portion of Germany, especially over Bohemia and Moravia. Their chief seat was a fort on an island of the river Lusinicz, from whence they frequently set out for plundering and murdering. Ziska suppressed them in 1421. For a long time they seemed to be extinct, but in 1781, when Joseph II issued his patent of toleration, the Adamites came again forward and claimed toleration of their principles and meetings. But when they made known the character of both, the government speedily suppressed them. Also this time their extinction was only apparent, and in 1849, after the publication of the edict of toleration, they again showed themselves in public, especially in the district of Chrudim, Bohemia. In five villages they were very numerous, and in one, Stradau, they even succeeded in making many converts. All their members belong to the Czechic (Slavonian) nationality, and are mostly mechanics or peasants. They deny the existence of a personal God, but assume a Supreme Power (Moc) which has created the world, which henceforth exists through itself. Every Adamite claims a spirit who cleanses him from sins. They reject sacraments and worship, but expect a savior (Marokan) from whose appearance they hope the realization of their communistic ideas. Their meetings and the public confession of their principles have been again suppressed by the government, but they are known still to exist in secret. (See Beausobre, Sur les Adamites en Boheme, in L’Enfant, Hist. Huss. 1, 304 sq.; Pertz, Script. rer. Austriae, sect. 14.) Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent. 2, pt. 2, ch. 5, 18; Lardner, Works, 8, 425; Wetzer and Welte, 12, 11 sq.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Adamites
sects reputed to have professed the attainment of a perfect innocence, so that they wore no clothes in their assemblies. But Lardner doubts their existence in ancient, and Beausobre in modern, times.