ADAMITES,1 a sort of Hereticks of the second Age: The Author of this Sect was one Prodicus, a Disciple of Carpocrates; they assumed the title of Adamites, pretending to the innocence of Adam, whose nakedness they imitated in their Churches, which they called Paradise. Community of Women was one of their principal tenets; they lived, or made a shew of living, in Solitude and Continency, condemning the state of Matrimony; and when any of them were guilty of any particular crimes, such an one they called Adam, and that he had eaten of the forbidden Fruit; and when they expelled him from their Assembly, they drove him, as their phrase was, out of Paradise. This Heresy was renewed in these last Ages by one Picard2, a native of Flanders, who retired into Bohemia, where he introduced this Sect. There were some in Poland and England who were followers of it, and the modern Adamites are said to hold their Assemblies in the night-time, and to observe these rules exactly, Swear, forswear, and reveal not the secret. Some Anabaptists are accused with falling into the extravagances of the Adamites.
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