APOSTOLIC BRETHREN. - 1. Followers of a heretical movement that sought to re-establish a rigorous ascetic life on the example of the apostles. The first notice is provided by St. Epiphanius, who sketched a brief profile of them in his Panarion; following in his footsteps wrote St. Augustine, St. Isidore of Seville, St. John Damascene and Rabanus Maurus.
Their origin, however obscure and uncertain, seems to be traceable to the Encratites, with whom the A. had several doctrines in common. They professed absolute poverty and condemned marriage as impure; they abstained from meat and wine to such an extent that they did not wish to use them in the Mass, and they did not admit to ecclesiastical communion those who had fallen even once into any of the three canonical sins. They were widespread especially in Phrygia, Cilicia and Pamphylia. In support of their theories, besides the canonical Gospels, they used especially the apocryphal Acts of Andrew and of Thomas.
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2. A second sect bore this name in the 12th century. Its adherents are not to be confused with the followers of Gerard Segarelli and of Fra Dolcino, with whom they had in common only the aspiration to restore the life of the apostles, living in absolute poverty and in perfect continence. The conditions in which the Church in the West found itself at the end of the 11th century, owing to the deplorable state of a rich and lax clergy and to the consequences of the struggle over investitures, favored the movement and the development of a poor apostolic life, modeled on that of the apostles, according to the norms of the Gospel.
Thus two independent movements arose: one Catholic, under the vigilance and obedience of the Church, through the work of itinerant preachers such as Robert of Arbrissel, Bernard of Tiron, Norbert of Xanten and others, which was a true aid to the reform of Christian life; the other heretical, indeed opposed to the legitimate authority of the Church and heretical.
The origins of this second movement are rather obscure. They probably stem from a heretical movement which, around the year 1000, came from the East to Italy and from there to France, and which contemporaries designate by the name of neo-Manichaeism. During the 11th century, this movement spread through various centers of southern and northern France, especially in the region of Châlons-sur-Marne, and from there passed into Flanders and the Rhineland, particularly to Cologne and Bonn, where at the beginning of the 12th century it appears with pronounced ideas of apostolic life and evangelical poverty.
The characteristics common to all these heretics, besides their vaunted apostolic life, may be summarized as follows: an austere life in prayer and fasting; work to procure their food, without accepting alms; wandering from city to city barefoot, with unkempt beard, leading women with them with whom they claimed to live as brothers, and preaching with ostentatious simplicity and humility. They were enemies of the Church and of the hierarchy, which they attacked by depicting it as having fallen away from its apostolic mission, because it was corrupt and immersed in worldly affairs.
From the surviving documents five sects can be distinguished, independent of one another, united only by their common doctrine. The first is mentioned in a discourse of Rodulfus Ardens, bishop of Agen, who around 1090 warned his diocesans to beware of the new heretics, who professed themselves apostolic men while they were revived Manichaeans: it is the first document in which these heretics are branded with Manichaeism. About twenty years later, in 1114, in the diocese of Soissons, another was discovered, whose leaders, one Clementius and his brother Eberhard, brought before the bishop's tribunal, were recognized as orthodox in doctrine. Detained nevertheless in prison, because they had held secret meetings and asserted that they led an apostolic life, they were afterwards, during an absence of the bishop, dragged outside the city and burned by the people, who hated them. A few years later, in the city of Périgueux in Aquitaine, a third sect appeared, fairly numerous and active, which attracted many followers also among the nobles and even some elements of the clergy. A fourth sect appeared around 1145 in Brittany, particularly in the city of Nantes; and finally a fifth, akin to the Cathars, and perhaps an offshoot of them, appeared in the Rhineland. Several of its followers were captured at Cologne and Bonn. Some recanted their error and were released; the obstinate, on the other hand, were burned. Shortly afterwards others were captured, and Everwin of Steinfeld wrote to St. Bernard, so that he might confute their errors. He replied with sermons LXV and LXVI on the Song of Songs. This last sect is also spoken of in his sermons by Egbert of Schönau, who, summoned by the bishop, had disputed publicly against one of the leaders.