Adamianis

The Adamianis existed in the second and third centuries A.D. in North Africa ¹The Adamites.They were a group that hoped to regain the innocence mankind lost in the Garden of Eden and, consequently, worshiped in a state of nakedness and lived as a nudist community. It’s believed that groups of Adamianis used deserted pagan temples for their own rituals. Augustine wrote about the Adamianis and their religious way of life circa 354-450, and denounced the group for their opposition to marriage and practice of social nudity in worship. ²The Nudist Adamite Christian Sect

“The Adamites are thus called after Adam, whose nakedness in paradise they imitate, because it was prior to sin. Whence also they are opposed to marriage, because before Adam had sinned and before he was expelled from paradise, he did not know his wife. They believe, therefore, that there would have been no marriages if no one had sinned. Naked they gather together, men and women alike; naked they listen to readings; naked they pray; naked they celebrate the sacraments; and that is why they reckon their own church as paradise.”³Sects That Professed Their Faith in the Nude

The Adamianis abandonment of marriage was a rejection of possessions which extended its an abandonment of material possessions. A practice which may have been learned through Eastern influences of the Naga Sadhus of India.

Some generations later, Encratites and Marcosians, who developed out of the Adamiani tradition, appeared on the scene. The Encratites were vegetarians and many, if not all, practiced nudism. In ancient Gaul (France), a Gnostic teacher named Marcus and his followers became known as Marcosians and were well established in the Rhone Valley by the third century. Irenaeus, a conservative Christian writer of the day, criticized their nudity and religious beliefs, remarking: “Marcus is regarded by these senseless and brain cracked as working miracles.” ⁴Therapy, Nudity & Joy

These natural-living early Christians were considered heretics by traditionalists like Augustine because their Christian doctrines were also influenced by other esoteric teachings and Eastern mystical thought. They were consider a stream of gnostic Christianity.

Henry de Horatev has written that, while in one sense they could be considered Gnostics, “they were not Gnostics but just plain radical Christians.”⁵Therapy, Nudity & Joy

Unlike some of the later Christian nudist and naturist groups like the Naaktloopers (naked walkers) and the Adamites, the Adamianis were a hermitic group.they pursued an ascetic lifestyle typical of other gnostic sects.

These “in-the-buff” religious groups were not exhibitionists, preferring to live in isolated and inaccessible seclusion, protected by the forests in Gaul, the deserts in Egypt, and the islands of Greece. They built sturdy stone walls for privacy and protection from the hostile communities surrounding them. DeHoratev reflects, “How much it is to be regretted that the only records we have of the early Christian nudists come to us from hostile censorious quarters! Let us hope that someday, in some European or African monastery or tomb, there will be discovered a cache of lost Gnostic books which will shed new light on the persecuted groups of the nudists of antiquity, just as the Dead Sea Scrolls have brought new understanding to the old Hebrew literature.”⁶Therapy, Nudity & Joy

References

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  The Adamites
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  The Nudist Adamite Christian Sect
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  Sects That Professed Their Faith in the Nude
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  Therapy, Nudity & Joy
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  Therapy, Nudity & Joy
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  Therapy, Nudity & Joy