Carthage, whence she had come, and the grace which had led her to sacrifice the object of her affection further impelled her to bury herself in a monastery, where she might atone for the sin which had been the price so long paid for it. She left the brilliant young boy, Adeodatus, with his father. Seeing the wonderful intelligence of his son, Augustine felt a sort of awe. "The grandeur of his mind filled me with a kind of terror", he says himself (De beatâ vitâ, c. vi). Augustine received baptism at the age of thirty-two from the hands of St. Ambrose, the intimate friend of St. Monica and himself. To augment his joy, Adeodatus, Alypius, Augustine's life-long associate, and a number of his closest friends, all became Christians on the same occasion and received baptism together. Monica, Augustine, Adeodatus, who was now fifteen, and a son of Grace, if indeed "the child of my sin", as Augustine had styled him in the bitterness of self-reproach and contrition, together with the loyal Alypius, dwelt together in a villa at Cassiciacum, near Milan. The many conversations and investigations into holy questions and truths made it a Christian Academy, of more exalted philosophy than Plato's. Adeodatus had his full share in many of these learned discussions. He appears as interlocutor in his father's treatise "De beatâ vitâ" (puer ille minimus omnium, that boy, the youngest of them all), and contributed largely to the treatise "De Magistro", written two years later. He appears to have died soon after, in his sixteenth year. (See St. Augustine).
Moberly in Dict. of Christ. Biog., I, 43; Poujoulat, Hist. de St. Augustin, sa vie ses œuvres, etc., 7th ed., 1886; Wolfsgrüber, Augustinus (Paderborn, 1888); Desjardins, Essai sur les confessions de St. Augustin (Paris, 1855).
Adeodatus I, Pope. See Deusdedit.
Adeodatus (672–676), Saint, Pope, a monk of the Roman cloister of St. Erasmus on the Cœlian Hill. He was active in the perfection of monastic discipline and in the repression of the Monothelite heresy. Little else is known of him. Of his correspondence only the letters for the Abbeys of St. Peter of Canterbury and St. Martin of Tours have been preserved. He is sometimes called Adeodatus II, his predecessor, Deusdedit, being occasionally known as Adeodatus I.
Liber. Pont., ed. Duchesne, I, 346–347; Jaffe, Reg. RR. Pont., I. 237; Mansi, Coll. Conc., XI, 101.
Adeste Fideles.—A hymn used at Benediction at Christmastide in France and England since the clo.se of the eighteenth century. It was sung at the Portuguese Legation in London as early as 1797. The most popular musical setting was ascribed by Vincent Novello, organist there, to John Reading, who was organist at Winchester Cathedral from 1675–81, and later at Winchester College. The hymn itself has been attributed to St. Bonaventure, but is not found among his works. It is probably of French or German authorship. It invites all the faithful to come to Bethlehem to worship the newborn Saviour.
Julian, Dict. of Hymnology s.v.
Adiaphora. See Indifferent Acts.
Adi-Buddha. See Buddha.
Adjuration (Lat. adjurare, to swear; to affirm by oath), an urgent demand made upon another to do something, or to desist from doing something, which demand is rendered more solemn and more irresistible by coupling with it the name of God or of some sacred person or thing. Such, too, was the primitive use of the word. In its theological acceptation, however, adjuration never carries with it the idea of an oath, or the calling upon God to witness to the truth of what is asserted. Adjuration is rather an earnest appeal, or a most stringent command requiring another to act, or not to act, under pain of divine visitation or the rupture of the sacred ties of reverence and love. Thus, when Christ was silent in the house of Caiphas, answering nothing to the things that were witnessed against Him, the High Priest would force Him to speak and so said to Him: "I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ the Son of God." (Matt., xxvi, 63.) Adjuration may be either deprecatory or imprecatory. The one implies deference, affection, reverence, or prayer; the other, authority, command, or menace. The one may be addressed to any rational creature except the demon; the other can be addressed only to inferiors and the demon. In Mark (v, 7) the man with the unclean spirit cast himself at the feet of Jesus saying: "What have we to do with Thee Jesus the Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee that Thou torment me not." The wretched man recognized that Christ was his superior, and his attitude was that of humility and petition. Caiphas, on the contrary, fancied himself vastly superior to the Prisoner before him. He stood and commanded Christ to declare Himself under pain of incurring the wrath of Heaven. It is hardly necessary to insist that one mode of adjuration is to be employed when addressing the Deity and quite another when dealing with the powers of darkness. Helpless man, calling upon Heaven to assist him, adds weight to his naked words by joining with them the persuasive names of those whose deeds and virtues are written in the Book of Life. No necessity is thereby laid upon the Almighty, and no constraint save that of benevolence and love. But when the spirit of darkness is to adjured, it is never allowable to address him in the language of peace and friendship. Satan must ever be approached as man's eternal enemy. He must be spoken to in the language of hostility and command. Nor is there aught of presumption in such treatment of the evil one. It were indeed egregious temerity for man to cope single-handed with the devil and his ministers, but the name of God, reverently invoked, carries with it an efficacy which demons are unable to withstand. Nor should it be supposed that adjuration implies disrespect for the Almighty. If it is allowable to invoke the adorable name of God in order to induce others to build more securely upon our world, it must be equally permissible to make use of the made means in order to impel others to action. Indeed, when used under due conditions, that is "in truth, in justice, and in judgment", adjuration is a positive act of religion, for it presupposes on the part of the speaker faith in God and his superintending Providence, as well as an acknowledgment that He is to be reckoned with in the manifold affairs of life. What more beautiful form of prayer that that of the litany, wherein we beg immunity from evil through the Advent, the Birth, the Fasting, the Cross, the Death and Burial, the Holy Resurrection, and the wonderful Ascension of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity? Christ Himself recommends this form of invocation: "Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, that will I do: that the Father may be Glorified in the Son" (John, xiv, 13). Acting upon this promise, the Church ends all her more solemn prayers with the adjuration: Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum (Through Our Lord Jesus Christ). St. Thomas declares that the words of Christ, "in My name they shall cast out devils" (Mark, xvi, 17) give all believing Christians warrant to adjure the spirit of evil. This, however, must not be done out of mere curiosity, for vainglory, or for any other unworthy motive. According to Acts (xix, 12) St. Paul was successful in casting out wicked spirits, whereas the Jewish exorcists, using magic arts purporting to
