Adoptionism

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Adoptionism or adoptianism is an attempt to explain how Jesus is related to God (that is, it was one option that arose in the Trinitarian controversies of the early church). Adoptionism arose among early Christians seeking to reconcile the claims that Jesus was the son of God with the radical monotheism of Judaism. Adoptionism states that Jesus was born fully human, and he became divine at a later point in his life (usually held to be at his baptism), at which point he became the adopted son of God. Adoptionism was condemned by the church as heresy at various times, most explicitly at the Council of Nicaea.

1 History of Adoptionism
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History of Adoptionism

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Adoptionism is one of two main forms of monarchianism (the other is modalism, which regards "Father" and "Son" as two aspects of the same subject). Adoptionism (also known as dynamic monarchianism) denies the pre-existence of Christ and although it does not deny his deity many Trinitarians claim that it does. Under Adoptionism Jesus is currently divine and has been since his adoption, although he is not equal to the Father.

Adoptionism was one position in a long series of Christian disagreements about the precise nature of Christ (see Christology) in the developing dogma of the Trinity, an attempt to explain the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth, both as man and (now) God, and God the Father while maintaining Christianity's monotheism. It differs significantly from the doctrine of the Trinity that was later accepted by the ecumenical councils.

In The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture Bart D. Ehrman argues that the adoptionist view may date back almost to the time of Jesus and this view is shared by many other scholars. In academic circles both Paul and Mark are generally seen as having adoptionist Christologies although they differ in that Paul is generally said to have placed the adoption at the Resurrection while Mark places it at Jesus' Baptism.

Historically, there were three waves of Adoptionist speculation if we exclude the hypothetical beliefs of the primitive church that cannot be determined with certainty. The first, which dates from the 2nd century, differs significantly from the successive two (dating respectively from the 8th and the 12th century), which follow the definition of the dogma of the Trinity and Chalcedon Christology.

The first known exponent of Adoptionism in the second century is Theodotus of Byzantium. He taught (Hippolytus, Philosophumena, VII, xxxv) that Jesus was a man born of a virgin according to the counsel of the Father, that He lived like other men, and was most pious; that at His baptism in the Jordan the Christ came down upon Him in the likeness of a dove, and therefore wonders (dynameis) were not wrought in Him until the Spirit (which Theodotus called Christ) came down and was manifested in Him. The belief was declared heretical by Pope Victor I. Another proponent, during the third century, was Paul of Samosata, who however does not neatly fit in either of the two main forms of Monarchianism.

The second movement of adoptionism, called Hispanicus error, in the late 8th century maintained by Elipandus, bishop of Toledo in the Caliphate of Cordoba and by Felix, bishop of Urgell in the foothills of the Pyrenees; Alcuin, the leading intellect at the court of Charlemagne was called in to write refutations against both of the bishops. Against Felix he wrote:

"As the Nestorian impiety divided Christ into two persons because of the two natures, so your unlearned temerity divided Him into two sons, one natural and one adoptive"

Beatus of Liébana, from the Kingdom of Asturias, also fought Adoptionism, which was a cause of controversy between Christians under Muslim rule in the former Visigothic capital of Toledo and the peripherical kingdom. The doctrine condemned as heresy by the Council of Frankfurt (794).

A third wave was the revived form ("Neo-Adoptionism") of Abelard in the 12th century. Later, various modified and qualified Adoptionist tenets of some theologians from the 14th century. Duns Scotus (1300) and Durandus of Saint-Pourçain (1320) admit the term Filius adoptivus in a qualified sense. The defeat of Adoptionism was a check upon the dyophysitic and dyotheletic feature in the Chalcedon Christology, and put off indefinitely the development of the human side in Christ's Person. In more recent times the Jesuit Gabriel Vasquez, and the Lutheran divines Georgius Calixtus and Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch, have defended the Adoptionists as essentially orthodox.

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church, Volume IV, 1882