Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Adamites
Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an early Christian heresy that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th century. Based probably on a union of certain gnostic and ascetic doctrines, the sect pretended that its members were re-established in Adam and Eve's state of original innocency. Accordingly, they practiced "holy nudism", rejected the form of marriage, which, they said, 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.
During the Middle Ages the doctrines of this obscure sect, which did not itself exist long, were revived in Europe by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit. In the Modern Age, some Taborites, in Bohemia and some English Dissenters practiced the Adamite doctrine.
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