The Adamites, also called 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.
Ancient Adamites
The obscure sect, dating probably from the 2nd century, professed to have regained Adam and Eve's primeval innocence. Various accounts are given of their origin. Some have thought them to have been an offshoot of the
Carpocratians, 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
asceticism, 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.
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. In the 13th century in the
Netherlands the Brethren of the Free Spirit were sometimes called Adamites.
They often took off their clothes during their secret rituals, believing that perfection could be achieved by a return to the perfect love of Adam and Eve.
In the 14th century it was widely reported that heretics were practicing nude rites and chroniclers often referred to them as Adamites.
[ In the 15th century the in Bohemia produced an offshoot known as the Bohemian Adamites.]
Taborites and Bohemian Adamites
The Taborite movement started in 1419 as the more radical branch of Hussitism in opposition to the authority of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. One sect, the Bohemian Adamites, dissociated themselves from the 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 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".
The Bohemian Adamites 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 Taborite leader, nearly exterminated the sect in 1421.[Konstantin von Höfler, Geschichtsquellen Böhmens, I, 414, 431.] In the following year, the sect was widely spread over Bohemia and Moravia, and especially hated by the Taborites (whom they resembled in hatred toward the hierarchy) because the Adamites rejected transubstantiation, the priesthood and the Eucharist.
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