of Germany,
and especially among the Beghards on the Rhine.[4] The "Brothers and
Sisters of the Free Spirit" also appear during the Hussite wars under
the name of "Adamites"; this name being given them because they
declared the condition of Adam to be that of sinless innocence. Their
enthusiasm for this happy state of nature went so far that they
appeared in their assemblies, called "Paradises," literally in Adamite
costume, that is, quite naked.

[3] Amalrich of Bena, near Chartres, was, about 1200 A.D., a
professor of theology at Paris. He had to defend himself
before Pope Innocent III. on a charge of pantheistic
teaching, and then recanted. His follower, David of Dinant,
however, continued his work after his master's death (in 1206
or 1207), and this caused a condemnation of Amalrich's
teaching by the Synod of Paris in 1210, and by the Lateran
Council in 1215, and also led to a severe persecution of the
Amalrikites.

[4] E. Bernstein and K. Kautsky, _Die Vorlaeufer des Neueren
Socialismus_, Stuttgart, 1895. Part i., pp. 169 and 216.

But that, in spite of all this, the real Communism of this sect went
no farther than a kind of patriarchal Republicanism, certainly not as
far as actual Anarchy, is proved by the information given by AEneas
Sylvius: that they certainly had community of women, but that it was
nevertheless forbidden to them to have knowledge of any woman without
the permission of their leader.

There is one other sect met with during the Hussite wars in Bohemia,
which bears some similarity to the Anarchical Communism of the present
day, that of the Chelcicians.[5] Peter of Chelcic, a peaceful
Taborite, preached equality and Communism; but this universal equality
should not (he said) be imposed upon society by the compulsion of the
State, but should be realised without its intervention. The State is
sinful, and an outcome of the Evil One, since it has created the
inequality of property, rank, and place. Therefore the State must
disappear; and the means of doing away with it consists not in making
war upon it, but in simply ignoring it. The true follower of this
theory is thus neither allowed to take any office under the State nor
call in its help; for the true Christian strives after good of his own
accord, and must not compel us to follow it, since God desires good to
be done voluntarily. All compulsion is from the Evil One; all
dignities or distinctions of