Agapemonites

Agapemonites or Community of The Son of Man was a religious sect existing from 1846–1956, named for the Greek: Agapemone meaning 'Abode of Love'.

Founded in 1846 by the charismatic priest Henry James Prince this sect was based upon the theories of various German religious mystics and its primary object was the spiritualization of the matrimonial state.

Henry James Prince

Rev. Henry James Prince (1811–1899) was a clergyman of the Church of England. He studied medicine, obtained his qualifications in 1832 and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill-health to abandon his profession, he entered himself in 1837 as a student at St David's College, Lampeter (now the University of Wales, Lampeter), where he gathered about him a band of earnest religious enthusiasts, known as the Lampeter Brethren, and was eventually ordained to the curacy of Charlinch in Somerset, where he had sole charge in the illness and absence of the rector, the Rev. Samuel Starkey.

By that time he had contracted his first “spiritual marriage”, and had persuaded himself that he had been absorbed into the personality of God and had become a visible embodiment of the Holy Spirit. During his illness Mr. Starkey read one of his curate's sermons, and was not only “cured” forthwith, but embraced his strange doctrines, and together they procured many conversions in the countryside and the neighboring towns. In the end the rector was deprived of his living and Prince's licence withdrawn, and together with a few disciples they started the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief existence.

Prince shortly afterwards became curate of Stoke in Suffolk, where, however, the character of his revivalist zeal caused his departure at the end of twelve months. It was now decided that Prince, Starkey (whose sister Prince had married as his second wife) and the Rev. Lewis Prince should leave the Church of England and preach their own gospel; Prince opened Adullam Chapel, Brighton, and Starkey established himself at Weymouth. The chief success lay in the latter town, and thither Prince soon migrated.

Followers

A number of followers, estimated by Prince at 500, but by his critics at one-fifth of the number, were got together, and it was given out by “Beloved” or “The Lamb” the names by which the Agapemonites designated their leader that his disciples must divest themselves of their possessions and throw them into the common stock. This was done, even by the poor or ill-furnished, all of whom looked forward to the speedy end of the present dispensation, and were content, for the short remainder of this world, to live in common, and, while not repudiating earthly ties, to treat them as purely spiritual. With the money thus obtained the house at Spaxton, which was to become the “Abode of Love”, was enlarged and furnished luxuriously, and three sisters, who contributed 6000 each, were immediately married to three of Prince's nearest disciples.

Despite the purely spiritual ideas which underlay the Agapemonite view of marriage, a son was born to one of these couples, and when the father endeavoured to carry it away an action was brought which resulted in the affirmation of the mother's right to its custody. The circumstance in which a fourth sister who joined the community was abducted by her brothers led to an inquiry in lunacy and to her final settlement at Spaxton. A few years after the establishment of the “Abode of Love”, a peculiarly gross scandal^{[citation needed]}, in which Prince and one of his female followers were involved, led to the secession of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance. The most prominent of those who remained received such titles as the “Anointed Ones”, the “Angel of the Last Trumpet”, the “Seven Witnesses” and so forth.

In 1862 Brother Prince sent to the kings and people of the earth letters making known to all men that flesh is saved.

John Hugh Smyth-Pigott

After Prince died in 1899 he was replaced by Rev. John Hugh Smyth-Pigott.

His house is in St John's Wood which was visited by John Betjeman in his film Metro-land. It is built in the neo-gothic style. It is the home of TV presenter Vanessa Feltz and was previously dwelt in by Charles Saatchi.^{[citation needed]}

Ending

Smyth-Pigott died in 1927 and the sect gradually declined until the last member, sister Ruth, died in 1956.

The Abode of Love by Aubrey Menen is a novelisation of the history of the Agapemonites under Prince's leadership.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Abode of Love - audio and transcript of an interview with Kate Barlow, Smyth-Piggot's granddaughter, author of a memoir of a childhood spent at the cult's headquarters - broadcast on ABC Radio National in February 2009