Quotes About Theodotians

The view, that Christ was not by nature divine but was adopted to be God's son, emerged not out of Jewish Christianity, but from purely gentile stock. This was a group known as the Theodotians, named after their founder, a shoemaker, who happened also to be an amateur theologian, named Theodotus. Since they were centered in Rome, scholars sometimes refer to this group as the Roman Adoptionists.

The author of "The Little Labyrinth" indicates that the Theodotians maintained that their view—that Jesus was completely human, and not divine, but that he was adopted to be the Son of God—had been the doctrine taught by the apostles themselves and by most of the church in Rome until the time of Bishop Victor, at the end of the second century.