ADRET (perhaps Adrat; erroneous Addéret) SHÉLO-MOH BEN ABRAHAM. — Jewish decisor, born around 1235 in Barcelona, died in 1310. He studied under distinguished masters, including Nahmanides. Around 1280 he was appointed “Rab d’España.”
When Raymond Martini (q.v.) in the *Capistrum Iudaeorum* (1267) and in the *Pugio fidei adversus mauros et iudaeos* (1281; Basel 1540) revived the accusations first made by the convert Pablo Christiani against Nahmanides—especially the charge that Jews had deliberately falsified biblical passages concerning Jesus Christ—Adret maintained that the text had been preserved intact and that the *Tiqqun sopherim* (the scribal deletion of individual letters) did not constitute a corruption of the text.
During Adret’s lifetime a new controversy over philosophy, particularly against the thought of Maimonides (1135–1204), broke out in Montpellier. Although personally an admirer of Maimonides and friendly with his family, and not an opponent of philosophy *per se*, Adret felt compelled to condemn its study because of its destructive effects on religion; he feared that the spread of skepticism would only increase hatred toward Jews. Reluctantly, in 1305 he issued a decree under pain of excommunication forbidding the study of philosophy for twenty-five years and for men under twenty-five years of age, since they had not yet mastered biblical studies. He also condemned the new Kabbalistic movement of Abraham Abulafia (q.v.; see CABALA).
Adret was among the first, after Rabbenu Hananel, to subject Talmudic texts to critical examination. He answered thousands of written inquiries, clarifying biblical, Talmudic, and practical religious topics. The principle “the law of the state is law” he applied only to regulations concerning public safety, not to matters of religious life.
ADRENALINA: q.V. MONACO, BENEDICTINE FRENCH, born between 814 and 820, died about 878–79.
He wrote the *Miracula s. Benedicti*, narrating the miracles that occurred during the translation of St Benedict’s relics to the monastery of Fleury; and *De corpore et sanguine Christi contra ineptias Iohani Scoti* (P.L. 124, 947). Some have erroneously identified him with Adalbert of Fleury, who died in 853 and wrote the *Translatio s. Benedicti*.