RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Adam Adamites
(jubili, sequentia) with which the Hallelujah of the gradual in the mass closed (see Sequence). In the twelfth century a more artificial style of composition, according to strict rules, took the place of the freer rhythms of the earlier time, and for this period of sequence composition Adam has an importance comparable to that of Notker (q.v.) for the former period. He shows a real talent in his mastery of form; and his best pieces contain true poetry, although as concerns power to excite the emotions and the higher flights of the poetic fancy, his compositions are not equal to a Salve caput, Stabat mater, or Lauda Sion. S. M. Deutsch.
Bibliography: L. Gautier, CEuvres poetiques d'Adam de St. Victor, 2 vols., Paris, 1858 (complete and critical ed., with life in vol. i.; 3d ed., 1894), reprinted in MPL, cxcvi. 1421-1534 (Eng. transl. by D. S. Wrangham, The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor, 3 vols., London, 1881); K. Bartsch, Die lateinischen Sequenzen des Mitlelalters, pp. 170 sqq., Rostock, 1868; Histoire litteraire de la France, xv. 39-45; E. Misset, Poesie rythmique du moyen age ; essai . . sur les ceuvres poetiques d'Adam de St.Victor, Pans, 1882.
ADAM THE SCOTCHMAN (Adamus Scotus, called also Adamus Anglicus): A mystic-ascetic author of the twelfth century. According to his biographer, the Premonstrant Godefroi Ghiselbert of the seventeenth century, he was of north-English origin, belonged to the Premonstrant order, was abbot at Whithorn (Casa Candida) in Galloway toward 1180, and about the same time also lived temporarily at Premontr6, the French parent monastery of the order. He seems to have died soon after. It is highly improbable that he was living in the thirteenth century, as Ghiselbert thinks, who identifies him with the English bishop of the Order of St. Norbert mentioned by Caesarius of Heisterbach (Miraculorum, iii. 22). The first incomplete edition of Adam's works was published by jEgidius Gourmont (Paris, 1518). It contains his three principal writings of mystic-monastic content: (1) Liber de ordine, habilu, et professione Prmmonstratensium, fourteen sermons; (2) De tripartite) tabernaculo; (3) De triplici genere contemplationis. The edition of Petrus Bellerus (Antwerp, 1659) contains also Ghiselbert's life and a collection of forty-seven sermons on the festivals of the church year, which seem to have belonged to a larger collection of 100 sermons comprising the whole church year. In 1721 Bernhard Pez (Thesaurus anecdotorum, i. 2, 335 sqq.) published Soliloquia de instructione discipuli, sive de instructione animm, which has been ascribed to Adam of St. Victor, but belongs probably to Adam the Scotchman. All of these works with Ghiselbert's life are in MPL, exeviii. 9-872. O. ZocKLERf.
Bibliography: Godefroi Ghiselbert, Vita Adami, in MPL, exevui.; C. Oudin, De scriptoribus ecclesiw, ii. 1544 sqq., Frankfort, 1722 ; A. Miraeus, Chronicon ordinis Pramonstratensis, in M. Kuen, Collectio scriptorum variorum religiosorum ordinum, vi. 36, 38, Ulm, 1768; G. Mackenzie, The Lives and Characters of the most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation, i. 141-145, Edinburgh, 1708.
ADAMITES (ADAMIANI): 1. Epiphanius (Hmr., Iii.) gives an account of a sect of " Adamiani," that held their religious assemblies in subterranean chambers, both men and women appearing in a state of nature to imitate Adam and Eve, and calling their meetings paradise. Since Epiphanius
knew of them only from hearsay, and is himself doubtful whether to make of them a special class of heretics, their existence must be regarded as questionable. There are further unverifiable notices in John of Damascus {Opera, i. 88; following the Anakephalaiosis, attributed to Epiphanius), in Augustine (Hwr., lxxxi.), and in Hcereticarum fabularum epitome, i. 6). G. Kruger.
2. Charges of community of women, ritual child-murder, and nocturnal orgies were brought by the heathen world against the early Christians, and by the latter against various sects of their own number (Montanists, Manicheans, Priscillianists, etc.). Similar accusations were made against almost all medieval sects, notably the Cathari, the Waldensians, the Italian Fraticelli, the heretical flagellants of Thuringia in 1454, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit. All of these allegations are to be regarded with much suspicion. The doctrine of a sinless state, taught by the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and, in other cases, extravagant acts of overwrought mystics may have furnished a basis, which, without doubt, was often elaborated from the accounts of " Adamites " mentioned above.
3. The name " Adamites " has become the permanent designation of a sect of Bohemian Taborites, who, in Mar., 1421, established themselves on an island in the Luschnitz, near Neuhaus, and are said to have indulged in predatory forays upon the neighborhood, and to have committed wild excesses in nocturnal dances. They were suppressed by Ziska and Ulrich von Neuhaus in Oct., 1421. It is probable that they were merely a faction of the Taborites who carried to an extreme their belief in the necessity of a complete separation from the Church and resorted to violence to spread their principles. The charges against their moral character are in the highest degree suspicious. Even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries certain religious sectaries were persecuted in Bohemia as " Adamites." .
4. An Anabaptist sect in the Netherlands about 1580 received the name " Adamites " because they required candidates for admission to appear unclothed before the congregation and thus show that physical desire had no power over them. Members of an Amsterdam congregation who in 1535 ran through the streets naked and crying wo to the godless were probably insane. The followers of Adam Pastor (q.v.) were called " Adamites " from their leader. Silly stories of orgies by socalled devil-worshipers (the " black mass ") are sometimes heard at the present time.
(Herman Haupt.)
Bibliography: (1) I. de Beausobre, Dissertation sur les Adamites de Boheme, in J. Lenfant, Histoire de la guerre des Hussites, ii. 355-358, Amsterdam, 1731; C. W F. Walch, Entwurf einer vollstandigen Historie der Ketzereien, i. 327-335, Leipsic, 1762. (2) J. Nider, Formicarius, 111. vi., Cologne, 1470; C. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares, ii. 150 sqq., Paris, 1849; W. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, i. 207 sqq., 461 sqq., Leipsic, 1874; A. Jundt, Histoire du pantheisme populaire, pp. 48-49, 56, 111 sqq., Paris, 1875; H. Haupt, in ZKG. vi. (1885) 552 sqq.; H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition, l. 100 sqq.. New York, 1888; K. Miiller, Kirchengeschichte, i. 610, Freiburg, 1892. (3) J. Dobrowsky, Geschichte der bohmischen Pikarden und Adamiten, in Abhandlungen der
Adamnan Adamson