sb. and a. [f. as prec. + -IST.] A. sb.
1. One indifferent about points of theological discussion; an indifferentist, or latitudinarian.
1645. Lib. of Consc., 30. When the Magistrate is a Nullifidian, Neutralist, and Adiaphorist.
1710. W. Hume, Sacr. Succession, 169. There is one text, which … if it confound not our adiaphorists, may make them indifferently modest.
2. Eccl. Hist. A member of a sect so called; moderate Lutherans, who held some things, condemned by Luther, to be indifferent or non-essential.
a. 1564. Becon, Articles of Chr. Reliq., Wks. 1844, 401. In the freewill men, in the libertines, in the Adiaphorists.
1738. Neal, Hist. Puritans (1822), I. 56. Those who complied [to the Interim of Charles V.] were for the most part Lutherans, and carried the name of Adiaphorists.
1832. Macaulay, Burleigh (1854), 223/1. Those German Protestants who were called Adiaphorists … considered the Popish rites as matters indifferent.
B. adj. Theologically indifferent.
1882. Spectator, 11 Feb., 195/1. Fused, as Catholicism and Protestantism once seemed likely to become fused, while England for a moment became Adiaphorist.
