Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/163

ADAMANTIUS  mystical authors of the Middle Ages; both in style and matter his works show unusual sweetness and spirituality. He is also known as Adam Anglicus and Anglo-Scotus.

2em  Adamantius. See.

Adami da Bolsena, an Italian musician b. at Bolsena, 1663; d. in Rome, 1742. Through the influence of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni he was appointed master of the papal choir. He left a history of this institution, with portraits and memoirs of the singers, under the title of "Osservazioni per ben regolare il coro dei cantori della Cappella Pontificia" (Rome, 1711). He was highly esteemed by the Romans for his personal as well as his musical gifts.

2em  Adamites, an obscure sect, dating perhaps from the second century, which professed to have regained Adam's primeval innocence. St. Epiphanius and St. Augustine mention the Adamites by name, and describe their practices. They called their church Paradise; they condemned marriage as foreign to Eden, and they stripped themselves naked while engaged in common worship. They could not have been numerous. Various accounts are given of their origin. Some have thought them to have been an offshoot of the Carpocratian Gnostics, who professed a sensual mysticism and a complete emancipation from the moral law. Theodoret (Hær. Fab., I, 6) held this view of them, and identified them with the licentious sects whose practices are described by Clement of Alexandria. Others, on the contrary, consider them to have been misguided ascetics, who strove to extirpate carnal desires by a return to simpler manners, and by the abolition of marriage. Practices similar to those just described appeared in Europe several times in later ages. In the thirteenth century they were revived in the Netherlands by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, and, in a grosser form, in the fourteenth by the Beghards in Germany. Everywhere they met with firm opposition. The Beghards became the Picards of Bohemia, who took possession of an island in the river Nezarka, and gave themselves up to a shameful communism. Ziska, the Hussite leader, nearly exterminated the sect in 1421 (cf. Höfler, Geschichtsquellen Böhmens, I, 414, 431); A brief revival of these doctrines took place in Bohemia after 1781, owing to the edict of toleration issued by Joseph II; these communistic Neo-Adamites were suppressed by force in 1849.

2em  Adamnan (or ), Abbot of Iona, b. at Drumhome, County Donegal, Ireland, c. 624; died at the Abbey of Iona, in 704. He was educated by the Columban monks of his native place, subsequently becoming a novice at Iona in 650. In 679 he succeeded to the abbacy of Iona, which position he held up to his death. He was also president-general of all the Columban houses in Ireland. During his rule he paid three lengthy visits to Ireland, one of which is memorable for his success in introducing the Roman Paschal observance. On his third visit (697) he assisted at the Synod of Tara, when the Cain Adamnain, or Canon of Adamnan (ed. Kuno Meyer, London, 1905) was adopted, which freed women and children from the evils inseparable from war, forbidding them to be killed or made captive in times of strife. It is not improbable, as stated in the "Life of St. Gerald" (d. Bishop of Mayo, 732), that Adamnan ruled the abbey of Mayo from 697 until 23 Sept., 704, but in Ireland his memory is inseparably connected with Raphoe, of which he is patron. From a literary point of view, St. Adamnan takes the very highest place as the biographer of St. Columba (Columcille), and as the author of a treatise "De Locis Sanctis". Pinkerton describes his "Vita Columbæ" as "the most complete piece of biography that all Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period but even through the whole Middle Ages". It was printed by Colgan (from a copy supplied by Father Stephen White, S.J.), and by the Bollandists, but it was left for a nineteenth-century Irish scholar (Dr. Reeves, Protestant Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore) to issue, in 1837, the most admirable of all existing editions. St. Bede highly praises the tract "De Locis Sanctis", the autograph copy of which was presented by St. Adamnan to King Aldfrid of Northumbria, who had studied in Ireland. The "Four Masters" tells us that he was "tearful, penitent, fond of prayer, diligent and ascetic, and learned in the clear understanding of the Holy Scriptures of God." His feast is celebrated 23 September. 2em  Adams,, professor of humanities at St. Omers, born in England in 1737; died at Dublin, 6 December, 1802. He became a Jesuit at Watten, 7 September, 1756, and worked on the mission in England. He wrote a translation from the French of "Early Rules for Taking a Likeness", by Bonomaci; and was honoured with the thanks of the Royal Society of London, for a treatise on "English Pronunciation, with appendices on various dialects, and an analytical discussion and vindication of Scotch". He composed also a volume of Roman History, and projected a book on a "Tour through the Hebrides", which was never printed.

2em  Adams, priest, Priest, martyred at Tyburn, 8 October, 1586. He had been a Protestant minister, but being converted, went to Reims in 1579, where he was ordained a priest. He returned to England in March, 1581. Father William Warford, who knew him personally, described him as a man of "about forty years of age, of average height, with a dark beard, a sprightly look and black eyes. He was a very good controversialist, straightforward, very pious, and pre-eminently a man of hard work. He laboured very strenuously at Winchester and in Hampshire, where he helped many, especially of the poorer classes." Imprisoned in 1584, he was banished with seventy-two other priests in 1585; but having returned was again arrested, and executed, with two others, Ven. John Lowe and Ven. Robert Dibdale. 2em  Adana, a diocese of Armenian rite in Asia Minor (Asiatic Turkey). This ancient Phœnician colony "of willows" is situated about nineteen miles from the sea, on the right bank of the Sarus, or Seyhoun, in the heart of Cilicia Campestris. It was once a part of the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, and after the passing of Antiochus Epiphanes it took (171 ) the name of Antioch of Sarus. Later it received from Emperor Hadrian (117–138) the title of Hadriana and from Emperor Maximianus that of Maximiana. It has some political importance as capital of thevilayet or district. Adana appears in the fourth century as a see subject to the metropolitan