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Adoptionism, closely associated with dynamic monarchianism, is an early Christian nontrinitarian theological doctrine, subsequently revived in various forms. Adoptionism is a theology about relationship, which does not affirm the virgin birth and holds that Jesus was adopted as the Son of God at his baptism, his resurrection, or his ascension. Dynamic Monarchianism does not hold Jesus’ sonship was through adoption. Dynamic monarchianism is a theology about divinity, and holds there is one God, the Father, and Jesus was a man, born of virgin birth, empowered by God’s own divinity through the Holy Spirit, and raised to unity with God, but not a pre-existent distinct divine person. How common adoptionist views were among early Christians is debated, but it appears to have been most popular in the first, second, and third centuries. Some scholars see adoptionism as the belief of the earliest followers of Jesus, based on the epistles of Paul and other early literature. However, adoptionist views sharply declined in prominence in the fourth and fifth centuries, as Church leaders condemned it as a heresy.
Gaston (2023) defines a distinction between adoptionism and dynamic monarchianism as different christologies, while being commonly conflated.Thomas Gaston (2025). 173757831X, Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp. 173757831X Adoptionism refers to a theological position about the relationship between Jesus and the Father (I.e. that he was adopted by God), not the deity of Jesus, while Dynamic Monarchianism is a Christological position about the deity of Jesus. In Dynamic Monarchiansim, “Dynamic” refers to being empowered by the Holy Spirit, while “Monarchianism” emphasizes a single deity (i.e. the Father). Gaston writes that Dynamic Monarchianism describes a Christology that was among the earliest Christologies, held by independent Theologians and maintained within mainstream Christianity until the fourth Century. Dynamic Monarchianism held that Jesus was a miraculously conceived man who, after his resurrection, ascended to heaven and to divine authority, as opposed to being an eternal divine Person who became human. Monarchianism is in contrast to Logos christologies of the second and third century, which distinguish the Logos as another divine person distinct from the Father. Monarchianism is categorized as Modalistic (where Father and Son are different designations for the same person) or Dynamic (where only the Father is God, and Jesus was empowered by his Spirit.
Under adoptionism, Jesus is divine and has been since his adoption although he is not equal to the Father per "my Father is greater than I"Ed Hindson, Ergun Caner (editors), The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics: Surveying the Evidence for the Truth of Christianity, page 16 (Harvest House Publishers, 2008). and as such is a kind of subordinationism. (However, the quoted scripture can be orthodoxically interpreted as the fact that in the Trinity the Father is the source without origin, while the Son eternally receives the divinity from the Father.) Adoptionism is sometimes but not always related to a denial of the virgin birth of Jesus.
According to the "evolutionary model" or evolutionary theories proposed by Bousset, followed by Brown, the Christological understanding of Christ developed over time, from a low Christology to a high Christology,Bart Ehrman, How Jesus became God, Course Guide as witnessed in the Gospels. According to the evolutionary model, the earliest Christians believed that Jesus was a human who was exalted, and thus adopted as God's Son, when he was resurrected,Geza Vermez (2008), The Resurrection, p.138-139 signaling the nearness of the Kingdom of God, when all dead would be resurrected and the righteous exalted. Adoptionist concepts can be found in the Gospel of Mark. As Daniel Johansson notes, the majority of scholars hold Mark's Jesus as "an exalted, but merely human figure", especially when read in the apparent context of Jewish beliefs. Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, birth, and subsequently to the idea of his eternal existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John. Mark shifted the moment of when Jesus became the son to the baptism of Jesus, and later still Matthew and Luke shifted it to the moment of the divine conception, and finally John declared that Jesus had been with God from the beginning: "In the beginning was the Word".
One notable passage that may have been cited by early adoptionists was what exactly God said at Jesus's baptism; three different versions are recorded. One of them, found in the Codex Bezae version of Luke 3:22, is "You are my son; today I have begotten you." This seems to be quoted in Acts 13:32–33 as well (in all manuscripts, not just Bezae) and in Hebrews 5:5. Quotes from second and third century Christian writers almost always use this variant as well, with many fourth and fifth century writers continuing to use it, if occasionally with embarrassment; Augustine cites the line, for example, but clarifies God meant an eternal "today". Ehrman speculates that Orthodox scribes of the fourth and fifth century changed the passage in Luke to align with the version in Mark as a defense against adoptionists citing the passage in their favor.
Since the 1970s, these late datings for the development of a "high Christology" have been contested, and a majority of scholars argue that this "high Christology" existed already before the writings of Paul. According to the "New Religionsgeschichtliche Schule",Larry Hurtado (10 July 2015), "Early High Christology": A "Paradigm Shift"? "New Perspective"? or the Early High Christology Club, which includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado, N. T. Wright, and Richard Bauckham, this "incarnation Christology" or "high Christology" did not evolve over a longer time, but was a "big bang" of ideas which were already present at the start of Christianity, and took further shape in the first few decades of the church, as witnessed in the writings of Paul. Some 'Early High Christology' proponents scholars argue that this "high Christology" may go back to Jesus himself.Larry Hurtado, "The Origin of 'Divine Christology'?"
According to Ehrman, these two Christologies existed alongside each other, calling the "low Christology" an "adoptionist Christology, and "the "high Christology" an "incarnation Christology". Conversely, Michael Bird has argued that adoptionism did not first emerge until the 2nd century as a result of later theological debates and other socio-religious influences on the reading of certain biblical texts.
Adoptionism was declared heresy at the end of the 3rd century and was rejected by the Synods of Antioch and the First Council of Nicaea, which defined the Orthodoxy of the Trinity and identified the man Jesus with the eternally begotten Son or Word of God in the Nicene Creed. The belief was also declared heretical by Pope Victor I.
The Ebionites were a Jewish Christian movement that existed during the early centuries of the Christian Era. They show strong similarities with the earliest form of Jewish Christianity, and their specific theology may have been a "reaction to the law-free Gentile mission". They regarded Jesus as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity and his virgin birth, and insisted on the necessity of following Halakha. They used the Gospel of the Ebionites, one of the Jewish–Christian gospels; the Hebrew Book of Matthew starting at chapter 3; revered James the brother of Jesus (James the Just); and rejected Paul the Apostle as an apostate from the Law., an abridgement Their name (, derived from , meaning or ) suggests that they placed a special value on voluntary poverty.
Distinctive features of the Gospel of the Ebionites include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus is chosen to be God's Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Korban by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism.
Despite the shared name of "adoptionism" the Spanish Adoptionist Christology appears to have differed sharply from the adoptionism of early Christianity. Spanish advocates predicated the term adoptivus of Christ only in respect to his humanity; once the divine Son "emptied himself" of divinity and "took the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7), Christ's human nature was "adopted" as divine.James Ginther, Westminster Handbook to Medieval Theology, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 3.
Historically, many scholars have followed the Adoptionists' Carolingian opponents in labeling Spanish Adoptionism as a minor revival of "Nestorianism" Christology.For an example of this characterization, see Adolph Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. 5, trans. Neil Buchanan, (New York: Dover, 1961), 280. John C. Cavadini has challenged this notion by attempting to take the Spanish Christology in its own Spanish/North African context in his study, The Last Christology of the West: Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul, 785–820.John C. Cavadini, The Last Christology of the West: Adoptionism in Spain and Gaul, 785–820, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 4–5.
A similar form of adoptionism was expressed in the writings of James Strang, a Latter Day Saint leader who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844. In his Book of the Law of the Lord, a purported work of ancient scripture found and translated by Strang, he offers an essay entitled "Note on the Sacrifice of Christ" in which he explains his unique (for Mormonism as a whole) doctrines on the subject. Jesus Christ, said Strang, was the natural-born son of Mary and Saint Joseph, who was chosen from before all time to be the Savior of mankind, but who had to be born as an ordinary mortal of two human parents (rather than being begotten by the Father or the Holy Spirit) to be able to truly fulfill his Messianic role.Book of the Law, pp. 157–58, note 9. Strang claimed that the earthly Christ was in essence "adopted" as God's son at birth, and fully revealed as such during the Transfiguration.Book of the Law, pp. 165-66. After proving himself to God by living a perfectly sinless life, he was enabled to provide an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of men, prior to his resurrection and ascension.Book of the law, pp. 155-58.
The Christian Community, an esoteric Christian denomination informed by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, assumes a high adoptionist Christology that treats Jesus and God the Son as separate beings until they are joined at baptism. "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a Docetism understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy."
New Testamental epistles
Adoptionist theology may also be reflected in canonical , the earliest of which pre-date the writing of the gospels. The letters of Paul the Apostle, for example, do not mention a virgin birth of Christ. Paul describes Jesus as "born of a woman, born under the law" and "as to his human nature was a descendant of David" in the Epistle to the Galatians and the Epistle to the Romans. Christian interpreters, however, take his statements in Philippians 2 to imply that Paul believed Jesus to have existed as equal to God before his incarnation.
Shepherd of Hermas
The 2nd-century work Shepherd of Hermas may also have taught that Jesus was a virtuous man filled with the Holy Spirit and adopted as the Son."Hermas never mentions Jesus Christ, or the Word, but only the Son of God, who is the highest angel. As holy spirit the Son dwells in the flesh; this human nature is God's adopted son" in, Patrick W. Carey, Joseph T. Lienhard (editors), Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians, page 241 (Greenwood Press, 2008). While the Shepherd of Hermas was popular and sometimes bound with the canonical scriptures, it did not retain canonical status, if it ever had it.
Theodotus of Byzantium
Theodotus of Byzantium ( late 2nd century), a Valentinianism Gnosticism, was the most prominent exponent of adoptionism.CARM, Adoptionism According to Hippolytus of Rome ( Philosophumena, VII, xxiii) Theodotus taught that Jesus was a man born of a virgin, according to the Council of Jerusalem, that he lived like other men, and was most pious. At his baptism in the Jordan the "Christ" came down upon the man Jesus, in the likeness of a dove ( Philosophumena, VII, xxiii), but Jesus was not himself God until after his resurrection.
Ebionites
Adoptionism was also adhered to by the Jewish Christians known as Ebionites, who, according to Epiphanius in the 4th century, believed that Jesus was chosen on account of his sinless devotion to the will of God.Epiphanius of Salamis (403 CE). pp. 30:3 & 30:13.
Spanish Adoptionism
Iberian Adoptionism was a theological position which was articulated in Umayyad and Christian-held regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th and 9th centuries. The issue seems to have begun with the claim of archbishop Elipandus of Toledo that – in respect to his human nature – Christ was adoptive Son of God. Another leading advocate of this Christology was Felix of Urgel. In the Iberian peninsula, adoptionism was opposed by Beatus of Liebana, and in the Carolingian territories, the Adoptionist position was condemned by Pope Hadrian I, Alcuin of York, Agobard, and officially in Carolingian territory by the Council of Frankfurt (794).
Scholastic Neo-adoptionism
A third wave was the revived form ("Neo-adoptionism") of Peter Abelard in the 12th century. Later, various modified and qualified Adoptionist tenets emerged from some theologians in the 14th century. Duns Scotus (1300) and Durandus of Saint-Pourçain (1320) admit the term filius adoptivus in a qualified sense. In more recent times the Jesuit Gabriel Vásquez, and the Lutheran divines Georgius Calixtus and Johann Ernst Immanuel Walch, have defended adoptionism as essentially orthodox.
Modern adoptionist groups
A form of adoptionism surfaced in Unitarianism during the 16th and 17th in Polish Brethren and the 18th century as denial of the virgin birth became increasingly common, led by the views of Joseph Priestley and others.
See also
Notes
Sources
(1991). 066422721X, John Knox Press. 066422721X (6th German edition, translated by George Ogg)
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