8

Adoptionism is a Christological heresy which denies the pre-existence of Jesus, and therefore denies Jesus's title as "God the Son" in the Trinitarian conception of the Christian God.

See the wikipedia article for the various manifestations, variations, and proponents of Adoptionism throughout history. See Catholic Encyclopedia article (Adoptionists section) describing how the early church dealt with the leader of the sect: Theodotus of Byzantium.

According to this CARM article, Pope Victor I declared it as a heresy in the last decade of the 2nd century and Pope Leo III declared another resurgence as heresy at a 798 AD council in Rome.

A well written medium article explained how a case for Adoptionism can be made based 1) "minority" textual variants of Luke 3:22 and other verses related to Jesus's earthly father (Joseph), 2) ancient Jewish understanding of how the King is a Son of God, 3) seeing Jesus's baptism as coronation similar to the symbolism of the doves in the Roman transfer of power from Caesar to Augustus, 4) contemporary Roman imperial cult of adoption Caesar's adoption of Octavian.

Question: What were the arguments they used to refute adoptionism?

The purpose of this question is to

  • investigate whether non-NT sources were used in the arguments
  • learn how the church fathers use and interpret the NT passages to establish Jesus's pre-existent deity

I'm looking for quotes from any of the following:

  • declarations issued by the 2 Popes,
  • writings by early church theologians, or
  • council documents (not necessarily the 798 AD council, if adoptionism happened to be addressed at an earlier council)

Accepted answer needs to show how the quotes contribute to the refutation as well as the source of the quotes.

Motivation for this question

This question is motivated by some groups (like Jehovah's Witnesses) who do not think that NT books on its own is sufficient to establish the pre-existence and the God nature of Jesus, although hints are there (see answer to another question).

This question is related to a larger-scope question about how the church fathers refined the Trinitarian formula. But this question focuses only on refutation of Adoptionism.

GratefulDisciple
  • 23,032
  • 5
  • 31
  • 96
  • I had given an Answer to this question, but curiousdannii made it invisible and deleted it. Your Question is unanswerable, because it takes it for granted that the Church Fathers (Tertullian, Origen etc.) did a good job, when, in fact, they followed in the footsteps of Justin Martyr, the one who made the "original sin" of openly affirming "another God and Lord" (Gr. theos kai kurios eteros). – Miguel de Servet May 07 '21 at 03:15
  • Besides, someone clumsily cancelled the comment that I appended to my own Answer, in reply to @Adam’s uninformed comment. But this someone forgot to cancel, at the same time, my comment in reply to @Adam’s, making the cancellation of Adam’s comment even more (and self-accusingly) evident :( – Miguel de Servet May 07 '21 at 03:25
  • @MigueldeServet I understand you don't agree with the premise of the Q ("it takes it for granted"). Since your Answer basically consists of your disagreement, your Answer obviously doesn't answer the Question. Therefore, in a StackExchange site, such an Answer can be deleted to prevent clutter. – GratefulDisciple May 07 '21 at 14:18
  • Are you seriously saying that the only Answer that are accepted at SE (or anyway Christianity SE) are those that confirm what is said in the Question (in this case "the church fathers refuted Adoptionism"), limiting themselves to the details (the "how")? – Miguel de Servet May 07 '21 at 15:13
  • 1
    @MigueldeServet I'm talking only for this question, which limit the answer to the "how". You can create a another, contrary, question asking for evidence of writers in the early church period who embrace Adoptionism for example. SE is not a blog nor a discussion forum. It's a QA version of wikipedia, so Q needs to be well defined & valuable for the community, and A needs to be objective and really answers the Q. – GratefulDisciple May 07 '21 at 15:19
  • I take good note that you are explicitly not making the "limiting of Answers to the 'how'" into a general principle, but are explicitly "talking only for this question". I wonder what makes this question so special ... As for SE being "a QA version of wikipedia" (I regularly and actively interact with Wikipedia), you should be aware that Wikipedia, for every Article, has a Talk section, where people can "Discuss improvements to the content page". – Miguel de Servet May 07 '21 at 17:03
  • @MigueldeServet I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough. You asked: "Are you seriously saying that the only Answer that are accepted at SE ... are those that confirm what is said in the Question ..., limiting themselves to the details (the "how")?" I meant to reply: the intentionally limited scope of this question is the "how", taking it for granted that Adoptionism was finally refuted. But of course C.SE welcome other questions about Adoptionism that has a different scope and you're welcome to start one. – GratefulDisciple May 07 '21 at 17:20
  • Thank you, I think I will ask my own question on Adoptionism. And I take good note that, after boast on SE being "a QA version of wikipedia", you wisely ignored the subject ... – Miguel de Servet May 07 '21 at 17:39
  • @MigueldeServet I'm looking forward to your contributions. Welcome to C.SE. About SE being a QA version of wikipedia, I'm sure you realize that it's an oversimplification; I'm referring to the standard of objectivity. Comments are indeed the place to "discuss improvement" in the form of feedback (like missing reference, unclear language, factual error, etc.); and after the feedback has been responded to / incorporated into the Q or A, self-deletion of comments are common. Note that feedback is not meant for debate, which belongs to the chatroom. I hope that helps. – GratefulDisciple May 07 '21 at 17:50
  • I think a more appropriate word to 'refute' would be 'rebut'. – Only True God Jun 09 '21 at 22:34
  • @OneGodtheFather I seriously consider your recommendation by comparing the difference in English. Looks like refute implies you win the argument. Since we are dealing with church authority fighting a heresy, the authority needs to win, thus "refute". This is also a term more in use within church history, for example see the title of a book The History of Heresies and Their Refutation. – GratefulDisciple Jun 11 '21 at 14:56
  • @GratefulDisciple Thanks for the link, but it's incorrect. 'Refute' doesn't mean you 'win the argument'. It means you prove something to be false. If you prove something to be false (refute it), you often win the argument. Of course some people think various heresies have been refuted - they believe they have been proven false. But many people disagree, as the #1 answer below right now asserts ("Adoptionism and Arianism are alive and well in disparate groups"). I think a better term in the context of C SE is 'rebut'. – Only True God Jun 11 '21 at 16:21
  • @OneGodtheFather I understand that C.SE community consists of many groups that don't believe the mainstream Trinitarian conception of God, and of course to them the early church fathers did not win the argument. But this Q is specifically scoped to the church fathers, so from their perspective they won the argument. Thus "refute" is appropriate in the same way that Protestants would think that sola fide or sola scriptura won the argument against Catholicism, a key plank of their faith. – GratefulDisciple Jun 11 '21 at 16:26
  • @GratefulDisciple Again, 'refute' does not mean 'win the argument'. It's not clear to me why it matters that it's scoped to the Church Fathers - I think what you are saying above would be less contentious and stronger if the phrasing was "church fathers had believed they had refuted". FWIW. – Only True God Jun 11 '21 at 16:31
  • @GratefulDisciple Another way to look at this is to consider a future Christianity where the majority hold to Adoptionist views. Did the early Church Fathers suddenly not refute Adoptionism when the majority changed their views and so the winner of the argument changes? Seems like a strange way to talk. Either they refuted it or not. There is significant dispute historically and nowadays about whether they did, in fact, refute these views. – Only True God Jun 11 '21 at 16:34
  • @OneGodtheFather I couldn't follow your argument. In order for the church fathers of the AD 268 Synod of Antioch to declare heresy wouldn't they have to refute it first? Quote from The Christology of the Council of Antioch (268. C.E.) Reconsidered (page 24): Antioch affirmed that no Christology could be valid without recognizing Christ's pre-existence and his descent to become man. Athanasius reported that the fathers of Antioch affirmed the proposition that "God became man" in the incarnation, and not that "a man became God". – GratefulDisciple Jun 11 '21 at 17:25

1 Answers1

7

Adoptionism had been declared a heresy by the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 268, which meant that neither Lucian, Arius, nor Eusebius could openly embrace it. After that Synod, anyone who dared claim that Jesus Christ was not in any sense God but only a human prophet adopted by God into a special, unique, relationship would likely lose their church position, if not be exiled by the emperor.

Adoptionism was attributed to Paul of Samosata. In Adoptionism (as in Nestorianism) the uncreated Son of God never enters into human existence. Paul of Samosata taught that Jesus’ divinity could be explained by his special relationship with God the Father beginning with his baptism in the River Jordan. He viewed the already-existing doctrine of the eternal deity of Christ as threatening the monotheism of Christianity. He believed that Jesus Christ was a man adopted by God as his special human son, which did not require Christ to actually become God. This reduced Christ to being a great prophet. Paul of Samosata was deposed by his own people after the condemnation of the Synod of Antioch in 268.

Those who were later taught by Lucian of Antioch (died 312), such as Arius, might not have had (or expressed) fully blown Adoptionist beliefs, but they found ways of less openly denying the fully divine status of the uncreated Son of God by saying he had been created by God at some point in time therefore, “there was a time when he was not.” Similar to Adoptionism, the teaching was that the Son remain forever subordinate to the Father not only in terms of his role but also in terms of his very Being.

You wish to know how the early church fathers refuted Adoptionism, so this rules out the debates of the Council of Nicea in 325 or thereafter. The pre-268 declaration of that heresy appealed to various proofs as to the full deity and uncreated status of the Son of God, the New Testament having such teachings by the Apostles. John, for instance, had written that the Word, who became flesh as the man, Jesus, was with God in the beginning, was God, and that the Word made everything that was made (John 1:1-14). He further wrote in the Revelation given to him by the resurrected Christ that this Lamb of God was [effectively] slain from the foundation of the world due to the agreement in the Godhead that this would happen (Rev. 13:8). And the risen Christ receives the worship of all heaven’s creatures, who fall before one throne crying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.” (Rev. 5:12-13).

Unfortunately, I have drawn a blank with my books as to the deliberations of that Synod of Antioch. Although Boniface Ramsey in his 1985 book, Beginning to Read the Fathers, has a chart of Patristic Chronology, and he lists the Council of Antioch condemning Paul of Samosata, 268, there is a blank in the adjacent column of ‘Fathers and Patristic Writings’.

Although you said you are looking for “council documents (not necessarily the 798 AD council, if adoptionism happened to be addressed at an earlier council)”, I have pointed out that Adoptionism was first condemned at the 268 Council, so that the answer needs to focus on that time period. And Ramsey has no mention of any Fathers and Patristic Writings then. You alluded to Pope Victor 1st (A.D. 190-198, claimed as being the first black pope). He was known for how he excommunicated churches for celebrating Easter based on the Jewish date of Passover and not on a Sunday. Eventually he reversed his decision. I couldn’t find anything on-line about his views on Adoptionism. However, this link shows that it needs to be the writings of the Apostolic Fathers that should be consulted, given that they wrote up to that time period when Adoptionism was first condemned at the Council of Antioch. https://www.gotquestions.org/Apostolic-Fathers.html

As pointed out in the comments following the question, the connection with all of this to modern groups calls for alertness to many mutations over the centuries. Adoptionism and Arianism are alive and well in disparate groups, such as Unitarianism, liberalism, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They all have their variations on those old ideas that various Councils condemned, so modern versions are often an amalgam of different points from different ancient groups. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses do emphasise Jesus’ special relationship with God the Father beginning with the baptism in the River Jordan, but then mix in Arius’s points about Jesus being a created angel, prior to that. The Unitarians are closer to Paul of Samosata in denying Christ’s pre-human existence. That is why it can be helpful to know Church history from the end of the 1st century onward

Peter Turner
  • 34,505
  • 19
  • 118
  • 289
Anne
  • 29,661
  • 1
  • 34
  • 116
  • Thank you for providing a lead (Synod of Antioch) for further investigation on how the church fathers refute adoptionism. It looks like the details may have vanished from history. I accepted this answer for now, but if another provides the missing details, I may accept another answer later. Thanks again for the research! – GratefulDisciple Jun 11 '21 at 15:08