Adamites

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group known in history for their belief in returning to a state of innocence and nudity, typically linked to early Gnostic sects
2. Referring to individuals who embrace primitive or natural living, rejecting societal norms for supposed purity
3. A sect from the early Christian era, advocating for a lifestyle reminiscent of Adam and Eve, often associated with radical liberation and transcendence of moral constraints

Etymology: "Adamites" is the plural of "Adamite," a name taken from "Adam," the first man in Genesis. The Hebrew "adam" means "man" or "human" and is related to "adamah," meaning "ground," so the name points back to the earth from which the first man was said to be formed. The label was first applied to a sect that the Christian writer Epiphanius of Salamis described around 375 CE. He claimed its members worshipped naked to recover Adam's innocence before the Fall. Historians disagree about whether his account is accurate or a hostile caricature of the group's beliefs. Later movements also took the name. A group in fifteenth-century Bohemia was reported to practise nudity in worship, though the reliability of those reports is also debated.