Scotus (1300) and Durandus a S. Porciano (1320) admit the term Filius adoptivus in a qualified
sense.^655 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 Vasquez, and the Lutheran divines G. Calixtus and Walch,
have defended the Adoptionists as essentially orthodox.
§ 118. Doctrine of Adoptionism.
The doctrine of Adoptionism is closely allied in spirit to the Nestorian Christology; but it
concerns not so much the constitution of Christ’s person, as simply the relation of his humanity to
the Fatherhood of God. The Adoptionists were no doubt sincere in admitting at the outset the unity
of Christ’s person, the communication of properties between the two natures, and the term Theotokos
(though in a qualified sense) as applied to the Virgin Mary. Yet their view implies an abstract
separation of the eternal Son of God and the man Jesus of Nazareth, and results in the assertion of
two distinct Sons of God. It emphasized the dyophysitism and dyotheletism of the orthodox
Christology, and ran them out into a personal dualism, inasmuch as sonship is an attribute of
personality, not of nature. The Adoptionists spoke of an adoptatus homo instead of an adoptata
natura humana, and called the adopted manhood an adopted Son. They appealed to Ambrose, Hilary,
Jerome, Augustin, and Isidore of Seville, and the Mozarabic Liturgy, which was used in Spain.^656
Sometimes the term adoptio is indeed applied to the Incarnation by earlier writers, and in the Spanish
liturgy, but rather in the sense of assumptio or , i.e. the elevation of the human nature, through
Christ, to union with the Godhead.^657 They might, with better reason, have quoted Theodore of
Mopsuestia as their predecessor; for his doctrine of the is pretty much the same as their
Filius Dei adoptivus.^658
The fundamental point in Adoptionism is the distinction of a double Sonship in Christ—one
by nature and one by grace, one by generation and one by adoption, one by essence and one by
title, one which is metaphysical and another which is brought about by an act of the divine will and
choice. The idea of sonship is made to depend on the nature, not on the person; and as Christ has
two natures, there must be in him two corresponding Sonships. According to his divine nature,
Christ is really and essentially (secundum naturam or genere) the Son of God, begotten from eternity;
but according to his human nature, he is the Son of God only nominally (nuncupative) by adoption,
(^6556) See Walch, Hist. Adopt., p. 253; Gieseler, Church History, 4th Germ. ed vol. II., part I., p. 117, note 13 (E. tr. II.
78).
(^656) A strong passage was quoted in the letter of the Spanish bishops to Charlemagne from Isidore of Seville, who says
(Etymolog., lib. II., c. 2; see Mignes ed. of Alcuin II. 1324): "Unigenitus vocatur secundum Divinitatis excellentiam, quia sine
fratribus:Primogenitussecundum susceptionem hominis, in qua per adoptionem gratiae fratres habere dignatus est, de quibus
esset primogenitus." From the Mozarabic liturgy they quoted seven passages. See Hefele III. 650 sqq.
(^657) In a passage of Hilary (De Trinit. II. 29), there is a dispute between two readings—"carnis humilitasAdoptatur," and
"adoratur" (Alcuin)—although the former alone is consistent with the context, and "adoptatur" is used in a more general sense
for assumitur (so Agobard). See Walch, Hist. Adopt. , p. 22 sqq., and Gieseler, II. 76, note 2.
(^658) See Neander,Kirchengeschichte, III. p. 318 sqq.; E. ed. III. 159 sqq.