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.[1][2]
There were later reports of similar sects in
Central Europe during the Late Middle Ages.

Ancient Adamites
The obscure sect, dating probably from the
2nd century, professed to have regained Adam
and Eve's primeval innocence.[2] Various
accounts are given of their origin. Some have
thought them to have been an offshoot of the
Carpocratians, who professed a sensual The arrest of neo-Adamites in a public square in
mysticism and a complete emancipation from Amsterdam
[2]
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 concept of marriage as foreign
to Eden, saying it would never have existed but for sin, and lived in absolute lawlessness, holding that,
whatever they did, their actions could be neither good nor bad.[3] They were therefore accused of devil
worship.[4] The old Adamites have been considered to be early Protestants.[5]

Neo-Adamites
Practices similar to those of the ancient Adamites 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:[3] 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 1898 illustration by E. J. Sullivan,
authority of the Holy Roman Empire. One sect of Taborites, the heading to "Adamitism", chapter IX
Bohemian Adamites, dissociated themselves from other Taborites of Sartor Resartus (1833–34) by
and took up the practice of going naked through towns and Thomas Carlyle
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
enjoyed 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".[6]

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.[7] 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.[8] The strife between the Adamites and the Taborites is
dramatized in Against All, the third part of Otakar Vávra's Hussite film trilogy (1958).[9]

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.[10]

See also
Adamskostuum
Anarchist naturism
Christian naturism
Freedomites
Restorationism

References

Citations
1. Medievalists.net (2014-08-10). "The Adamites: Hippie Heretics of the Middle Ages" (https://w
ww.medievalists.net/2014/08/adamites-hippy-heretics-middle-ages/). Medievalists.net.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200624222332/https://www.medievalists.net/2014/
08/adamites-hippy-heretics-middle-ages/) from the original on 2020-06-24. Retrieved
2020-05-15.
2. Havey 1907.
3. Chisholm 1911, p. 174.
4. Kingdon, R.M.C. (1974). Transition and Revolution: Problems and Issues of European
Renaissance and Reformation History (https://books.google.com/books?id=g4_YAAAAMAA
J&q=%22adamites%22+%22devil+worship%22). Burgess Publishing Company. ISBN 978-
0-8087-1118-6. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
5. Smith, V.S. (2008). Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=4bsUDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA271). Oxford University Press. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-
19-953208-7. Retrieved 2023-06-10.
6. Wilson 2015.
7. Konstantin von Höfler, Geschichtsquellen Böhmens, I, 414, 431.
8. Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Adamites" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Encyclope
dia_Americana_(1920)/Adamites). Encyclopedia Americana.
 9. Hames 2009, p. 21 ff.
10. Goldie 2000, p. 293.

Sources
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Adamites" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C
3%A6dia_Britannica/Adamites). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge
University Press. p. 174.
Goldie, Mark (2000). "The Search for Religious Liberty 1640–1690" (https://books.google.co
m/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.
Hames, Peter (2009). Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=xcFvAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT21). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-
8683-4.
Havey, Francis Patrick (1907). "Adamites" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclop
edia_(1913)/Adamites). In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New
York: Robert Appleton Company.
Wilson, Andrew (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-se
venties-streaking-craze). The Guardian.

External links
Media related to Adamites at Wikimedia Commons

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