ADIMANTO ('Αδείμαντος ο 'Αδήμαντος). — Manichaean preacher of the 3rd century. According to Augustine, he was also called Addas; he had been one of Mani’s first disciples and enjoyed the highest authority in the sect. In particular, as a direct polemical response to his book Against Moses and the Other Prophets, the bishop of Hippo wrote his Contra Adimantum Manichaei discipulum (PL 42, 129–72 and CSEL 25, 115–90). According to the recently discovered Coptic and Iranian Manichaean texts, Mani sent the bishop Addas from Al Madail on the Tigris to preach in the Roman Empire, with his Gospel and two other writings. He founded monasteries, wrote books polemicizing against the other religions, and reached Alexandria, effecting conversions and miracles. But the Acta Archelai instead made him a missionary of Scythia and the eastern regions. According to Heraclian of Chalcedon, Diodore of Tarsus, and Titus of Bostra attacked a work of his entitled the Maggio; perhaps Ato, to whom a Manichaean treatise in Chinese is attributed, is the same as our A.
adversarium Legis et prophetarum, V. ADE. Harnack, Marcion, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 424. Erik Peterson