BRETHREN OF THE, a fanatical sect of the middle ages, which was very generally (though sometimes secretly) diffused over Italy, France, and Germany, between the 13th and 15th centuries. They took their name from the "freedom of spirit" which they claimed, in virtue of the words of St. Paul (Romans viii. 2, 14), maintaining that the true sons of God are exempt from subjection to the law. They appeared first in Alsace, in the early part of the 13th c., and attracted notice by their singular attire, and their fanatical proceedings, traversing the country in troops, accom panied by women, with whom, under the name of sisters, they lived in the greatest familiarity. Their doctrine was a species of pantheistic mysticism, which they applied with fearless consistency to all the details of the moral obligations. They held, accord ing to Mosheim, who has collected the original authorities, "that all things emanate from God, and will revert back into him; that rational souls are part of the divine being; that the whole universe is God; that a man, by turning his thoughts inward, is united inexplicably with the First Cause, and becomes one with him; and that those who are so immersed in the vortex of the Deity attain to perfect freedom, and are divested not only of thdlusts, but even of the instincts of nature." From these principles, they inferred that the free man, thus absorbed in God, is himself God, and a son of God, in the same sense- in which Christ is called the Son of God; and such, he is raised above all laws, human and divine; to such a degree that, according to some of them, "the godlike man cannot sin, do what he may; either because the soul, being elevated and blended with the divine nature, is no longer affected by the actions of the body, or because the emotions of the soul, after such union, become in reality the acts and operations of God himself, and therefore, though apparently criminal, and contrary to the law, are really good and holy because God is above all law! These blasphemous and immoral prin ciples, incredible as they may appear, are extracted by Mosheim, partly from the books of the sect, partly from the decrees of Henry, archbishop of Cologne, by whom they were condemned. Principles such as these drew down upon the sect the arm of.the
state, as well as the censures of the church. No sect of the time suffered so much from the inquisition in the 14th century. They were _regarded as offenders against public order and morality, as well as against the faith of the church. See INQuiserioN. After the first appearance of the sect in Alsace (1212), where its leader was a certain fanatic called Ortlieb (after whom the members are sometimes called Ortliebians), it spread into Thurgau- and the upper and lower Rhine. During the latter part of that century, one of the leaders, named "Meister Eekart," had so large a following at Cologne, that the archbishop made his teachings the subject of a lengthened edict. The sect spread also in Suabia, where its members were confounded with the Beghards. In France, they were popularly known by the name " Turlupins," a word of uncertain etymology. We meet them in Bohemia in the beginning of the 15th c., and there is considerable simi larity between their principles and those of the AdamiteS, who figure in:Hussite history.
From this date they are heard of no morc.—See Mosheim, Soames's ed., ii. 532; also Gieseler's Church history, iii. 467, iv. 226.