Adalbert (Aldebert)

ADALBERT (ALDEBERT). - Frankish heretical bishop, who lived in the 8th century. Although he had had himself ordained by ignorant bishops, he boasted of doing without the hierarchy as well as the sacraments and of being able to guarantee the salvation of his followers by means of relics that an angel had brought him from the ends of the earth, but above all by virtue of a letter of Jesus Christ that had fallen from heaven in Jerusalem. His activity was particularly directed to the countryside where, everywhere, he had crosses erected, around which he gathered the poor people whom he galvanized mainly with the prayer he had composed in order to introduce the worship of the angels, to whom he had given new names. His doctrine was condemned in the Council of Neustria, held at Soissons on 2 March 744. St. Boniface pronounced against him the deposition that was confirmed in the general Frankish Council of the spring of 745, where the condemnation of the doctrine was also repeated. The Council of Rome of 25 Oct. of the same year and the new general Frankish Council of 747 again condemned A. whom his fanatical followers regarded as a martyr (v. in the correspondence of St. Boniface, Epist. 57, 59, 60, 77). In the Council of Rome of 745, together with the letter attributed by A. to Jesus Christ and the heretical prayer of the impostor, an apologetic autobiography of his is also mentioned. Nothing, however, has survived of these three writings through which the doctrine and activity of A. were particularly assessed and condemned.