ADIMANTUS ('Adimantos ho Adēmantos). - 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 direct polemical response, in particular, 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 from Al Madail on the Tigris the bishop Addas to preach in the Roman empire with his gospel and two other writings. He founded monasteries, wrote books polemicizing against the other religions, and came as far as Alexandria, working conversions and miracles. But the Acta Archelai made him rather a missionary of Scythia and the eastern regions. According to Heraclian of Chalcedon, Diodore of Tarsus and Titus of Bostra fought against a work of his entitled the Maggio; perhaps the Ato to whom a Manichaean treatise in the Chinese language is attributed is our same A.

Bibliography

BIBL.: P. Alfaric, Les écritures Manichéennes, II, Paris 1918, pp. 96 ff. (before the discovery of the new Manichaean texts in the Iranian and Coptic languages). On Augustine's work, Contra adversarium Legis et prophetarum, v. Ad. Harnack, Marcion, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 424.

Erik Peterson

@incollection{ec1_adimanto_adeimantos_o_ademanto, author = {Peterson, Erik}, title = {Adimanto ('ΑΔΕΊΜΑΝΤΟΣ Ο 'ΑΔΉΜΑΝΤΟΣ)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {307--308}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/adimanto-adeimantos-o-ademantos} }

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Adimantus ('Adimantos ho Adēmantos)

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