Anthropomorphites
Anthropomorphites
SEE ANTHROPOMORPHISM, a sect of ancient heretics, who were so denominated because they understood every thing spoken in Scripture in a literal sense, and particularly that passage of Genesis in which it is said "God made man after his own image." Hence they maintained that God had a human shape (see Fremling, De Anthroponmorphitis, Lund. 1787). They were also called AUDIANI, from Audius, a Syrian who originated their sect. The orthodox bishops revailed on the emperor to banish Audius to Syria, where he labored for the propagation of Christianity among the Goths, built convents, and instituted several bishops, and died about 372. In consequence of repeated persecutions, the sect ceased to exist toward the close of the 5th century. Origen wrote against certain monks in Egypt who were Anthropomorphites; but whether they inherited their views from Audius, or professed them independently of him, is still doubtful. Anthropomorphites appeared again in the 10th century, and in the 17th under Paul Felgenhauer (q.v.). "Anthropomorphism has been recently revived by the Mormons. In Elder Moffat's Latter-Day Saints' Catechism, God is described as an intelligent material personage, possessing body, parts, and passions, and unable to 'occupy two distinct places at once'" (Williams, Note to Browne on 39 Articles, p. 19). — Neander, Ch. Hist. 2, 690, 705-6; Landon, s.v.
