ial point of acknowledging the unity of person in
Christ. What Felix--and on him devolved the chief onus of defence in the
controversy--wished to make clear, was that the predicates of Christ's
two natures could not logically be interchanged.[3] He therefore
reasoned thus: Christ in respect to His Deity is God, and Son of God;
with respect to His Manhood He is also God and Son of God, not indeed in
essence, but by being taken into union with Him, who _is_ in essence
God, and Son of God. Therefore Christ, unless He derived His humanity
from the essence of God, must as man, and in respect of that humanity,
be Son of God only in a nuncupative sense. This relation of Jesus the
Man to God he preferred to describe by the term Adoption--a word not
found in Scripture in this connection, "but," says Felix, "implied
therein,[4] for what is adoption in a son, if it be not election,
assumption _(susceptio)_." The term itself was no doubt found by Elipandus
_in_ the Gothic Liturgy;[5] and he most likely used it at first with no
thought of raising a metaphysical discussion on so knotty a point. Being
brought to task, however, for using the word by those whom he deemed his
ecclesiastical inferiors, he was led to defend it from a natural dislike
to acknowledge himself in the wrong. "We can easily believe," says
Enhueber, "that Elipandus, who appears to have been the chief author of
the heresy at this time, fell into it at first from ignorance and
inadvertently, and did not appear openly as a heretic, till, admonished
of his error, he arrogantly and obstinately defended a position which he
had only taken up through ignorance."[6]

Elipandus also seems to have applied to Felix[7] for his opinion on
Christ's Sonship; and the latter, who was a man of great penetration and
acuteness, first formulated the new doctrine, stating in his answer that
Christ must be considered with regard to His Divinity as truly God and
Son of God, but with regard to His Manhood, as Son of God in name only,
and by adoption.

[1] See Blunt, "Dict. of Relig.," article on Adoptionism.

[2] Neander, v. 223. Blunt (1.1.) says just the contrary.

[3] Neander, v. 220.

[4] Alcuin contra Felicem, iii. c. 8.

[5] "Elipand. ad Albinum," sec, 11. Adoptio assumptio ([Greek:
analepsis]) occurs _(a)_ in the Missa de coena Domini:
_adoptivi hominis passio;_ _(b)_ in the prayer de tertia feria
Pascha: _adoptionis gratia;_ _(c)_ in that de As