Adamites

The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian

group in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries. They wore
no clothing during their religious services. There were later reports
of similar sects in Central Europe during the Late Middle Ages.

Contents
Ancient Adamites
Neo-Adamites The arrest of Neo-Adamites in a
public square in Amsterdam
See also
References
Citations
Sources

Ancient Adamites
The obscure sect, dating probably from the 2nd century, professed to have regained Adam's primeval
innocence. 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.

St. Epiphanius and Augustine of Hippo mention the Adamites by name, and describe their practices. They
called their church "Paradise", claiming that its members were re-established in Adam and Eve's state of
original innocence. Accordingly, they practiced "holy nudism", rejected the form of marriage as foreign to
Eden, saying it would never have existed but for sin, lived in absolute lawlessness, holding that, whatever
they did, and their actions could be neither good nor bad.[1]

Neo-Adamites
Practices similar to those just described appeared in Europe several times in later ages. During the Middle
Ages the doctrines of this obscure sect, which did not itself exist long, were revived:[1] in the 13th century in
the Netherlands by the Brethren of the Free Spirit and the Taborites in Bohemia, and, in the 14th century, by
some German Beghards. Everywhere they met with firm opposition from the mainstream churches.

The Taborite movement was started in 1419 in opposition to the authority of the Holy Roman Empire. One
sect of Taborites, the Bohemian Adamites, dissociated themselves from other Taborites and took up the
practice of going naked through towns and villages. They preached that "God dwelt in the Saints of the Last
Days" and considered exclusive marriage to be a sin. The historian Norman Cohn observed: "Whereas the
Taborites were strictly monogamous, in this sect free love seems to have been the rule. The Adamites
declared that the chaste were unworthy to enter the Messianic kingdom ... The sect was much given to ritual
naked dances held around a fire. Indeed, these people seemed to have spent much of their time naked,
ignoring the heat and cold and claiming to be in the state of innocence enjoined by Adam and Eve." Cohn
also commented that the Adamites were criticised by other Taborites for "never thinking of earning their
own living by the work of their hands".[2]

The Beghards became the Picards of Bohemia, who took possession of an island in the river Nežárka, and
lived communally, practicing social and religious nudity, free love and rejecting marriage and individual
ownership of property. Jan Žižka, the Hussite leader, nearly exterminated the sect in 1421.[3] In the
following year, the sect was widely spread over Bohemia and Moravia, and especially hated by the Hussites
(whom they resembled in hatred toward the hierarchy) because the Adamites rejected transubstantiation, the
priesthood and the Supper.[4] The strife between the Adamites and the Taborites is dramatized in Against
All, the third part of Otakar Vávra's Hussite film trilogy (1958).[5]

The splintering of Protestantism during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 17th century saw Adamites
recorded in the Catalogue of the Several Sects and Opinions in England.[6]

A revival of these doctrines took place in Bohemia in the region of Chrudim after 1781, owing to the edict
of toleration issued by Emperor Joseph II. This secret group of Adamites was first mentioned in 1783, then
again in 1849. However, a letter to the "Neues Wiener Tagblatt" in 1874, which claimed to be authored by
Adamites in Vienna, appears to be a hoax.

See also
Adamskostuum
Anarchist naturism
Christian naturism
Freedomites
Restorationism

References

Citations
1. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Adamites". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press. p. 174.
2. Andrew Wilson (22 March 2015). "From the Observer archive, 17 March 1974: the naked truth
about streaking" (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/22/naked-truth-about-seventies
-streaking-craze). The Guardian.
3. Konstantin von Höfler, Geschichtsquellen Böhmens, I, 414, 431.
4. Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Adamites" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Encyclope
dia_Americana_(1920)/Adamites). Encyclopedia Americana.
5. Hames 2009, pp. 21-.
6. Goldie, Mark (2000). "The Search for Religious Liberty 1640-1690" (https://books.google.com/
books?id=Xe0YCV2ad8gC&pg=PA293). In Morrill, John (ed.). The Oxford Illustrated History of
Tudor and Stuart Britain. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-289327-7.

Sources
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann,
Charles, ed. (1913). "Adamites" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/
Adamites). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
Hames, Peter (2009). Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=xcFvAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT21). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8683-4.

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