Abramites

ABRAMITES. - Two sects bore this name: 1) certain heretics of the 9th century, scattered in Syria, who, embracing the ideas of Abraham of Antioch, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ; 2) a Protestant sect of little importance and short duration, related to the Hussites (v.), which arose toward the end of the 18th century near Pardubice, in Bohemia.

This may be considered a sect of deists. Its adherents, recruited mysteriously especially among Jewish and Protestant peasants, preached that they wished to conform to the religion professed by Abraham before circumcision. They repudiated the Holy Trinity, original sin, the incarnation and the other truths contained in the Scriptures, of which they retained scarcely the Ten Commandments, interpreted in their own way, and the Lord's Prayer. They admitted only the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the rewards and punishments of the future life, without the eternity of hell. Solely for the purpose of avoiding possible persecutions they had their children baptized and contracted religious marriage. Invited by Joseph II to enroll in one of the confessions recognized by the Edict of Toleration (1780), they refused to obey; Joseph then dispersed them (1783), forcibly organizing the men into frontier battalions.

Antonio Giamboni