Adoptianists or Adopt! vi, a sect which orig- inated with Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo, and his in- structor, Felix, bishop of Urgel, in Spain. They taught that Jesus Christ, as to his human nature, was not the natural, but merely the adopted Sun of God, whence they were called Adoptivi or Adoptiani. This error was brought before the Council of Narbonne in 791; but it does not appear that Felix, who was present, was then condemned, as was the case at Ratisbon in
j the following year, at Frankfort in 794, and at Urgel ' in 799. The Adoptian doctrine had existed before in the East, but this development of it in Spain seems to have been aboriginal there, though it is not impossible that Felix may have seen some of the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (q. v.).
By the use of the term A doptio this school wished to mark the distinction of proper and improper in refer- S ence to the Son. They made use of the illustration ' that, as a son cannot have two fathers, but may have one by birth and the other by adoption, so in Christ a distinction must be made between his proper sonship ' and his sonship by adoption. Still, they regarded as the important point the different relation in which Christ is called the Son of God according to his divine or his human nature. The former relation marked something founded in the nature of God, the second ! something that was founded not in his nature, but in a free act of the Divine will, by which God assumed human nature into connection with himself. Accord- | ingly Felix distinguished between how far Christ was the Son of God and God according to nature (natura, genere), and how far he was so by virtue of grace, by an act of the Divine will {gratia, roluntate), by the Divine choice and good pleasure {electione, placito) ; and the name Son of God was given to him only in consequence of his connection with God {nuncupative'); and hence the expressions for this distinction, secun- dum naturam and secundum adoptionem. The sect is full}- treated by Walch, Historia Adoptianorum (Get- ting. 1755, 8vo). See also Neander, History of Dog- : mas, 337, 432, 442 (transl. by Ryland, Lon'd. 1858, 2 , vols. 12mo). Neander, Ch. Hist, iii, 156, 157-; Hase, [ Ch. Hist. § 1G9 ; Mosh. Ch. Hist. bk. iii, c. viii, pt. ii, ch. v, § 3. See Elipandus ; Felix.
Adoption {inoQiaia, Rom. viii, 15, 23; ix, 4; j Gal. iv, 5 ; Eph. i, 5), the placing as a son of one who ! is not so by birth or naturally.
I. Literal. — The practice of adoption had its origin in the natural desire for male offspring, the operation of which is less marked in those countries where the equalizing influences of high civilization lessen the pe- culiar privileges of the paternal character, and where the security and the well-observed laws by which estates descend and property is transmitted withdraw one of the principal inducements to the practice, but was peculiarl}- prevalent in the patriarchal period. The law of Moses, hy settling the relations of families and the rules of descent, and by formally establishing the Levirate law, appears to have put some check upon this custom. The allusions in the New Testa- ment are mostly to practices of adoption which then existed, but not confined to the Romans. In the East the practice has always been common, especially among the Semitic races, although the additional and peculiar stimulus which the Hebrews derived from the hope of giving birth to the Messiah was inapplicable to cases of adoption. But, as the arrangements of so- ciety became more complicated, some restrictions were imposed upon the power of adoption, and certain pub- lic forms were made necessary to legalize the act: precisely what these were, in different ages, among the Hebrews, we are mostly left to gather from the anal- ogous practices of other Eastern nations. For the practice had ceased to be common among the Jews by the time the sources of information became more open ; and the culpable facility of divorce in later times ren- dered unnecessary those adoptions which might have arisen, and in earlier times did arise, from the sterility of a wife. Adoption was confined to sons ; the case of Esther affords the onty example of the adoption of a female ; for the Jews certainly were not behind any Oriental nation in the feeling expressed in the Chinese proverb, " He is happiest in daughters who has only sons" {Mini, sur les Chinois, x, 149).
1. The first instances of adoption which occur in Scripture are less the acts of men than of women, who,
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being themselves barren, give their female slaves to their husbands, with the view of adopting the children they may bear. Thus Sarah gave her handmaid Ha- gar to Abraham ; and the son who was born, Ishmael, appears to have been considered as her son as well as Abraham's until Isaac was born. In like manner Ra- chel, having no children, gave her handmaid Bilhah to her husband, who had by her Dan and Naphtali (Gen. xxx, 5-9) ; on which his other wife, Leah, although she had sons of her own, yet fearing that she had left off bearing, claimed the right of giving her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, that she might thus increase their number ; and by this means she had Gad and Asher (Gen. xxx, 9-13). In this way the child was the son of the husband, and, the mother being the property of the wife, the progen}- must be her property also ; and the act of more particular appropriation seems to have been that, at the time of birth, the handmaid brought forth her child " upon the knees of the adoptive moth- er" (Gen. xxx, 3). In this case the vicarious bearing of the handmaid for the mistress was as complete as possible ; and the sons were regarded as fully equal in right of heritage with those bj- the legitimate wife. This privilege could not, however, be conferred by the adoption of the wife, but by the natural relation of such sons to the husband. Sarah's case proves that a mistress retained her power, as such, over a female slave whom she had thus vicariously employed, and over the progeny of that slave, even though by her own husband (Gen. xxi, 10).