[4] Cp. 1 Corinth, xi. 3, “The Head of Christ is God.”  This
    position of dependence was due, says Felix, “ad ignobilitatem
    beatae Virginis, quae se ancillam Dei humili voce protestatur.”

[5] Cp.  Elipandus’ “Confession of Faith”:  “... per istum Dei simul et hominis Filium, adoptivum humanitate et nequaquam adoptivum Divinitate ... qui est Deus inter Deos (John x. 35) ... quia, si conformes sunt omnes sancti huic Filio Dei secundum gratiam, profecto et cum adoptione (sunt) adoptivi, et cum advocato advocati, et cum Christo Christi, et cum servo servi.”

    [6] Cf.  Acts iii. 13.

    [7] Koran, iv. v. 170.

    [8] Koran, xliii. v. 59.

Conceiving, then, that it was logically necessary to speak of Christ the Man as Son of God by adoption, Felix yet admits that this adoption, though the same in kind[1] as that which enables us to cry Abba, Father, yet was more excellent in degree, and even perhaps specifically higher.  It differed also from man’s adoption in not being entered into at baptism, since Christ’s baptism was only the point at which His adoption was outwardly made manifest by signs of miraculous power, which continued till the resurrection.  Christ’s adoption—­according to Felix, was assumed at His conception, “His humanity developing in accordance with its own laws, but in union with the Logos."[2] It will be seen that though Felix wished to keep clear the distinction between Christ as God, and as Man, yet he did not carry this separation so far as to acknowledge two persons in Christ.  “The Adoptionists acknowledged the unity of Persons, but meant by this a juxtaposition of two distinct personal beings in such a way that the Son of God should be recognised as the vehicle for all predicates, but not in so close a manner as to amount to an absorption of the human personality into the Divine Person."[3] The two natures of Christ had been asserted by the Church against the Monophysites, and the two wills against the Monothelites, but the Church never went on to admit the two Persons.[4] With regard to the contention of Felix, we are consequently driven to the conclusion that either the personality ascribed to Christ was “a mere abstraction, a metaphysical link joining two essentially incompatible natures,"[5] or that the dispute was only about names, and that by adopted son Felix and the others meant nothing really different from the orthodox doctrine.[6]

    [1] See John x. 35.  Cp.  Neander, v. p. 222.

[2] Neander (l.l.) Blunt, Art. on Adopt., puts this differently:  “There were (according to Felix) two births in our Lord’s life—­(a) the assumption of man at the conception; (b) the adoption of that man at baptism.  Cp.  Contra Felic., iii. 16:  “Qui est Secundus Adam, accepit has geminas generationes; primam quae secundum carnem est, secundum vero spiritatem, quae per adoptionem fit, idem redemptor noster secundum hominem complexus, in semet ipso continet, primam videlicet, quam suscepit ex virgine nascendo, secundam vero quam initiavit in lavacro [ ] a mortuis resurgendo.”

    [3] Blunt, article on Adopt.