Adoptionism

Adoptionism

An early form of Adoptionism, the doctrine that Jesus became the son of God by adoption,^[4] held that Jesus was born human only, and that he became divine, by adoption at his baptism,^[5] being chosen because of his sinless devotion to the will of God.^[6] The first representatives of this view were the Ebionites.^[7] They understood Jesus as Messiah and Son of God in terms of the anointing at his baptism.^[8] While the 27 books that became the New Testament canon present Jesus as fully human,^[9][10] Adoptionists (who may have used non-canonical gospels) in addition excluded any miraculous origin for him, seeing him as simply the child of Joseph and Mary, born of them in the normal way.^[11]

Some scholars regard a non-canonical gospel used by the Ebionites, now lost except for fragments quoted in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis,^[12] as the first to be written,^[13][14][15] and believe Adoptionist theology may predate the New Testament.^[16][17] Others, on the contrary, consider that this work "clearly presupposes the canonical Gospels."^[18] This gospel's account of the baptism of Jesus, as quoted by Epiphanius, says that the voice from heaven declared: "This day have I begotten thee",^[19] a phrase echoing Psalm 2:7, and some see this phrase as supporting the doctrine that it was at his baptism ("this day") that Jesus became God's (adopted) son. These words from Psalm 2 are also used twice in the canonical Epistle to the Hebrews,^[20] which on the contrary presents Jesus as the Son "through whom (God) made the universe."^[21]

The Adoptionist view was later developed by adherents of the form of Monarchianism that is represented by Theodotus of Byzantium and Paul of Samosata.^[7]

Adoptionism clearly conflicted with the claim, as in the Gospel of John (see Alogi for those who rejected the Gospel of John), that Jesus is the eternal Word, and it was declared a heresy by Pope Victor I at the end of the 2nd century.^[22] It was formally rejected by the First Council of Nicaea (325), which wrote the orthodox doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son (the co-eminence of the Holy Spirit, and thus the Trinity, did not come about until the Fourth Ecumenical [Council of Chalcedon] in AD 451) and identified Jesus as eternally begotten.

Main article: Adoptionism