Nicodemites

Nicodemites was the name given, in the times of the Reformation, to temporizing Frenchmen who, although reformers at heart, complied with Romish rites and customs, thus going to Christ secretly, and in the spirit of Nicodemus. Calvin wrote several tracts-against them, for instance, The Sinfulness of Outward Conformity to Romish Rites (in Calvin's Tracts, translated from the original Latin by Henry Beveridge, Edinb. 1849-51, 3 vols. 8vo). See. Hardwick, Reformation, ch. ii, p. 118 note 3; Darling, Cycl. Bibl. 1:559.