Joseph Francis Sollier

“ Adoption, Supernatural.— (Lat. adoptare, to choose.) Adoption is the gratuitous taking of a stranger as one's own child and heir. According as the adopter is man or God, the adoption is styled human or divine, natural or supernatural. ”

“ They come with light, if we go to learn; They come to replenish, if we go to be filled, that our vision of Them be not from without but from within, and that Their indwelling in us be not fleeting but eternal. ”

“ In general, the correct interpretation of the Scriptural concept of our adoption must follow the golden mean and locate itself midway between the Divine Sonship of Jesus on the one hand, and human adoption on the other—immeasurably below the former and above the latter. Human adoption may modify the social standing, but adds nothing to the intrinsic worth of an adopted child. Divine adoption, on the contrary, works inward, penetrating to the very core of our life, renovating enriching, transforming it into the likeness of Jesus, "the firstborn among many brethren". ”

“ This, the original form of Adoptionism, asserts a double sonship in Christ: one by generation and nature, and the other by adoption and grace. Christ as God is indeed the Son of God by generation and nature, but Christ as man is Son of God only by adoption and grace. Hence "The Man Christ" is the adoptive and not the natural Son of God. Such is the theory held towards the end of the eighth century by Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, then under the Mohammedan rule, and by Felix, Bishop of Urgel, then under the Frankish dominion. ”

“ They all admitted the doctrine of Frankfort, and confessed that Jesus as man was the natural and not merely the adoptive Son of God. But besides that natural sonship resting upon the hypostatical union, they thought there was room for a second filiation, resting on grace, the grace of union (gratia unionis) . They did not agree, however, in qualifying that second filiation. Some called it adoptive, because of its analogy with our supernatural adoption. Others, fearing lest the implication of the word adoption might make Jesus a stranger to, and alien from God, preferred to call it natural. ”

“ A second adoptive filiation does not sufficiently eschew the connotation of adoption as defined by the Council of Frankfort. "We call adoptive him who is stranger to the adopter." The common mistake of these novel theories, a mistake already made by the old Adoptionists and by Abelard, lies in the supposition that the grace of union in Christ, not being less fruitful than habitual grace in man, should have a similar effect, viz., filiation. ”

“ Thomas says, "Filiation properly belongs to the person". Christ, Son of God, by His eternal generation, remains Son of God, even after the Word has assumed and substantially united to Himself the sacred Humanity ”

“ But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are." From what has been said, it is manifest that our supernatural adoption is an immediate and necessary property of sanctifying grace. The primal concept of sanctifying grace is a new God-given and God-like life super-added to our natural life. By that very life we are born to God even as the child to its parent, and thus we acquire a new filiation. This filiation is called adoption for two reasons: first, to distinguish it from the one natural filiation which belongs to Jesus ”

“ Abelard's neo-Adoptionism was condemned, at least in its fundamental principles, by Alexander III, in a rescript dated 1177: "We forbid under pain of anathema that anyone in the future dare assert that Christ as man is not a substantial reality (non esse aliquid) because as He is truly God, so He is verily man." The refutation of this new form of Adoptionism, as it rests altogether on the interpretation of the hypostatical union, will be found in the treatment of that word. (See Hypostatic Union.) ”

“ In spite of all the catechetic and polemic uses to which the Fathers put this dogma, they left it in no clearer light than did their predecessors, the inspired writers of the distant past. The patristic sayings, like those of Holy Scripture, afford precious data for the framing of a theory, but that theory itself is the work of later ages.
What is the essential factor or formal cause of our supernatural adoption? ”

“ The expression adoptare, adoptio, used by some Fathers, has for its object the sacred Humanity, not the person of Christ; the human nature, not Christ, is said to be adopted or assumed by the Word. The concrete expression of the Mozarabic Missal, Homo adoptatus, or of some Greek Fathers, υἱὸς θετός, either does not apply to Christ or is an instance of the not infrequent use in early days of the concrete for the abstract. ”

“ Incarnation detracts no more from the eternal sonship than it does from the eternal personality of the Word. (See Nestorianism.)
II.—Neo-Adoptionism of Abelard in the Twelfth Century. The Spanish heresy left few traces in the Middle Ages. It is doubtful whether the christological errors of Abelard can be traced to it. They rather seem to be the logical consequence of a wrong construction put upon the hypostatical union. Abelard began to question the truth of such expressions as "Christ is God"; "Christ is man". ”

“ Elipandus's obstinacy and Felix's versatility were but the partial cause of the temporary success of Adoptionism. If that offspring of Nestorianism held sway in Spain for wellnigh two decades and even made an inroad into southern France, the true cause is to be found in Islamitic rule, which practically brought to naught the control of Rome over the greater part of Spain ”

“ Our modern perpetual adoration is a remnant of it. Even before the time of the Studites, the copying of manuscripts was in honour among the Acœmetæ, and the library of the "Great Monastery," consulted even by the Roman Pontiffs, is the first mentioned by the historians of Byzantium. The Acœmetæ took a prominent part—and always in the sense of orthodoxy—in the Christological discussions raised by Nestorius and Eutyches, and later, in the controversies of the Icons. They proved strong supporters of the Apostolic See in the schism of Acacius, as did the Studites in that of Photius. ”

“ Sometimes, an appellation common to all Eastern ascetics known by the rigour of their vigils; but usually, the name of a special order of Greek or Basilian monks devoting themselves to prayer and praise without intermission, day and night. That order was founded, about the year 400, by a certain Alexander, a man of noble birth, who fled from the court of Byzantium to the desert, both from love of solitude and fear of episcopal honours. ”

“ It also brought us back to the somewhat forgotten ethical lessons of our communion with the Triune God, and especially with the Holy Ghost, lessons so much insisted upon in ancient patristic literature and the inspired writings. ”