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Docetism

View that Jesus' body was illusory

Summary

View that Jesus' body was illusory

In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the dokeĩn "to seem", dókēsis "apparition, phantom") was the doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality. Broadly, it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion.

The word Δοκηταί Dokētaí ("Illusionists") referring to early groups who denied Jesus's humanity, first occurred in a letter by Bishop Serapion of Antioch (197–203), who discovered the doctrine in the Gospel of Peter, during a pastoral visit to a Christian community using it in Rhosus, and later condemned it as a forgery. It appears to have arisen over theological contentions concerning the meaning, figurative or literal, of a sentence from the beginning of the Gospel of John: "the Word was made Flesh".

Docetism was unequivocally rejected at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and is regarded as heretical by the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Armenian Apostolic Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and Anglican Communion and many Protestant denominations that accept and hold to the statements of these early church councils, such as Calvinist (Reformed Christians), Reformed Baptists, Waldensians, and all Trinitarian Christians.

Definitions

Docetism is broadly defined as the teaching that claims that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory. The term 'docetic' is rather nebulous. Two varieties were widely known. In one version, as in Marcionism, Christ was so divine that he could not have been human, since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically suffer. Jesus only appeared to be a flesh-and-blood man; his body was a phantasm. Other groups who were accused of docetism held that Jesus was a man in the flesh, but Christ was a separate entity who entered Jesus' body in the form of a dove at his baptism, empowered him to perform miracles, and abandoned him upon his death on the cross.

Christology and theological implications

Docetism's origin within Christianity is obscure. Ernst Käsemann controversially defined the Christology of the Gospel of John as "naïve docetism" in 1968. The ensuing debate reached an impasse as awareness grew that the very term "docetism", like "gnosticism", was difficult to define within the religio-historical framework of the debate. It has occasionally been argued that its origins were in heterodox Judaism or Oriental and Grecian philosophies. The alleged connection with Jewish Christianity would have reflected Jewish Christian concerns with the inviolability of (Jewish) monotheism. Docetic opinions seem to have circulated from very early times, 1 John appearing explicitly to reject them. Some 1stcentury Christian groups developed docetic interpretations partly as a way to make Christian teachings more acceptable to non-Christian ways of thinking about divinity.

In his critique of the theology of Clement of Alexandria, Photius in his Myriobiblon held that Clement's views reflected a quasi-docetic view of the nature of Christ, writing that "[Clement] hallucinates that the Word was not incarnate but only seems to be." (ὀνειροπολεῖ καὶ μὴ σαρκωθῆναι τὸν λόγον ἀλλὰ δόξαι.) In Clement's time, some disputes contended over whether Christ assumed the "psychic" flesh of mankind as heirs to Adam, or the "spiritual" flesh of the resurrection. Docetism largely died out during the first millennium AD.

The opponents against whom Ignatius of Antioch inveighs are often taken to be Monophysite docetists. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, 7:1, written around 110AD, he writes: While these characteristics fit a Monophysite framework, a slight majority of scholars consider that Ignatius was waging a polemic on two distinct fronts, one Jewish, the other docetic; a minority holds that he was concerned with a group that commingled Judaism and docetism. Others, however, doubt that there was actual docetism threatening the churches, arguing that he was merely criticizing Christians who lived Jewishly or that his critical remarks were directed at an Ebionite or Cerinthian possessionist Christology, according to which Christ was a heavenly spirit that temporarily possessed Jesus.

Islam and docetism

Main article: Islamic views on Jesus' death

Some commentators have attempted to make a connection between Islam and docetism using the following Quranic verse:

Some scholars theorise that Islam was influenced by Manichaeism (Docetism) in this regard. However, the general consensus is that Manichaeism was not prevalent in Mecca in the 6th and 7th centuries, when Islam developed, and the influence can therefore not be proven.

Docetism and Christ myth theory

Since Arthur Drews published his The Christ Myth (Die Christusmythe) in 1909, occasional connections have been drawn between docetist theories and the modern idea that Christ was a myth. Shailer Mathews called Drews' theory a "modern docetism". Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare thought any connection to be based on a misunderstanding of docetism. The idea recurred in classicist Michael Grant's 1977 review of the evidence for Jesus, who compared modern scepticism about a historical Jesus to the ancient docetic idea that Jesus only seemed to come into the world "in the flesh". Modern supporters of the theory did away with "seeming".

Texts believed to include docetism

Non-canonical Christian texts

Acts of John
Fundamental Epistle: In Against the Fundamental Epistle, Augustine of Hippo makes reference to his former religion of Manichaeism as believing Jesus was docetic.
Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
Gospel of Basilides
Gospel of Judas
Gospel of Peter
Gospel of Philip
Second Treatise of the Great Seth

Footnotes

References

{{Cite book |author-link = John Arendzen |orig-year = 1909 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=45pfB4VaoAIC&pg=PA95 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |editor1-last = Hindson |editor1-first = Ed |editor1-link = Ed Hindson |editor2-last = Caner |editor2-first = Ergun |editor2-link = Ergun Caner |editor3-last = Verstraete |editor3-first = Edward J. |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=yipXIHcteRsC&pg=PA179 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite journal| title = 'Doketismus' – eine Problemanzeige
{{Cite book |author-link = Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Bart Ehrman |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Bart Ehrman |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book| chapter = The Creed of Abū ‘Āmir
{{Cite book |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Michael Grant (author) |orig-year = 1977 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |editor1-last = Bauckham |editor1-first = Richard |editor1-link = Richard Bauckham |editor2-last = Mosser |editor2-first = Carl |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3b2I8v2Gh8oC&pg=PA346 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Shailer Mathews |orig-year = 1917 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Marmaduke Pickthall |orig-year = 1930 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |editor-last = Ridgeon |editor-first = Lloyd V. J. |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |author-link = Wilhelm Schneemelcher |editor1-last = Schneemelcher |editor1-first = Wilhelm |editor1-link = Wilhelm Schneemelcher |editor2-last = Wilson |editor2-first = McLachlan |orig-year = 1991 |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TDW0PeFSvGEC&pg=PA220 |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |editor1-last = Smith |editor1-first = William George |editor1-link = William Smith (lexicographer) |editor2-last = Wace |editor2-first = Henry |editor2-link = Henry Wace (priest) |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book |editor-last = Horn |editor-first = Friedrich Wilhelm |access-date = 25 April 2012
{{Cite book|title = They Went Out from Us: The Identity of the Opponents in First John

References

{{harvnb. González. 2005
{{harvnb. Strecker. 2000
{{harvnb. Brox. 1984
{{harvnb. Schneemelcher. Maurer. 1994
{{harvnb. Foster. 2009. Church History]]'' VI 12.3–6.
{{harvnb. Smith. Wace. 1877
{{harvnb. Ridgeon. 2001
Gonzalez, Justo. (2005). "Essential Theological Terms". Westminster John Knox Press.
{{harvnb. Brox. 1984
{{harvnb. Schneemelcher. Maurer. 1994
{{harvnb. Ehrman. 2005
{{harvnb. Ehrman. 1996
{{harvnb. Larsen. 2008
{{harvnb. Gavrilyuk. 2004
{{harvnb. Schneemelcher. Maurer. 1994
{{harvnb. Brox. 1984
{{harvnb. González. 2005
{{harvnb. Gavrilyuk. 2004
{{harvnb. Ashwin-Siejkowski. 2010. Edwards. 2002
{{harvnb. Streett. 2011
{{harvnb. Streett. 2011
Geoffrey Parrinder. (2013). "Jesus in the Qur'an". Oneworld Publications.
{{harvnb. Gil. 1992
"MANICHEISM v. MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND TECHNIQUE".
"M. Tardieu, "Les manichéens en Egypte," Bulletin de la Société Française d'Egyptologie 94, 1982".

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