CAMERONITI. - A French Calvinist sect that took its name from the Scot Giovanni Cameron (1577–1625), who, after studying philosophy at Glasgow, went in 1600 to Bordeaux in France. The Reformed Church of that city sent him, at its own expense, to study theology at Geneva and Heidelberg. While professor at Saumur (Maine-et-Loire), he embraced and defended certain Arminian doctrines (v. ARMINO), in which he was imitated by Mosè Amyraut, from whom the Amiraldists originated; but owing to difficulties that subsequently arose he had to return to Scotland, where he remained only one year, moving again to France, to the city of Montauban, where he is said to have died during a tumult in the year 1625. He wrote the «Theological Lectures».
BIBL.: J. H. Blunt, s. V. in Dictionary of Sects, Heresies Ecclesiastical Parties and Schools of Religious Thought, London 1874, p. 99 ff.; I. F. Buddeus, Isagoge historico-theologica ad theologiam universam, singulasque eius partes, Leipzig 1730, pp. 1146, 1147, 1499, 1502. Camillo Crivelli