Psilanthropism

(from Gr. = “a mere man”). The doctrine that Christ was only “man” and not “truly God and truly man” in one person. According to The Little Labyrinth, quoted by Eusebius, it was taught by Theodotus the Cobbler, the second-century Adoptianist Monarchian. Christ had the status of “a mere man” whom the Spirit inspired. The Ebionites,* Artemas,* and Paul of Samosata* all held similar views. The single word psilanthrompos apparently occurs for the first time in Anastasius of Sinai, while the noun was probably of nineteenth-century origin, coined by S.T. Coleridge. “Humanitarianism” is also used to describe the doctrine.