Docetism is not heretical movement. It is, rather, a doctrinal point intrinsic to a number of early Christian “heresies,” and even some contemporary Christian (or Christ-related) sects. I’ve found it useful, therefore, to explain it in one location, rather than describing it several times over.
Docetism is easily explained: It is a belief that Jesus Christ didn’t actually die, and therefore was never resurrected bodily. A number of Christian theologies have arrived at this conclusion, in different ways, so Docetism comes in a number of forms.
As I explained in my essay on Gnosticism, one of the tenets of nearly all Gnostic sects is that Christ hadn’t actually had a physical existence. What the apostles had interacted with, and what had been killed by the Romans, was something akin to an illusion or phantasm. This was necessitated by Gnostic dualism, which posited that matter, or the physical, was evil, and only light was good. Since they believed Christ to have been “good,” then logically, the Gnostics were forced to assert that he had not actually had a physical form.
Some of the adherents of the Samosatene Doctrine (championed by Arius) were also Docetists, but for different reasons. They believed that Jesus Christ was not actually God, but rather, a man, in whom lived a divine spirit which inspired and guided Him. When Christ died, that spirit fled from Him, since nothing divine can die. (Hence, Jesus’s famous dying words, “Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?” as quoted in Mt 27:46.) Thus, according to this model, it was only Jesus-the-man who actually died, not Jesus-the-deity.
Not all Arians were Docetists. In fact, the majority tried to avoid taking such a stance. After all, simply asserting that Christ was less than fully divine got them in enough trouble, as it was! Many of the more intellectual Arianists, however, couldn’t help but come to this conclusion, based on the logic of the basic Samosatene/Arian premise, as well as scriptural support (cited).
Docetism has cropped up in a number of Christian belief systems, and even has some adherents still. The main reason that it keeps coming up, is that, in one form or another, it rationally answers the questions, “How could God be human? How could God have died?” The Docetist answer, of course — whatever the reasoning one might choose to support it — is that God never was human and therefore never actually died.
More “orthodox” Christians consider Docetism to be among the most severe threats to their beliefs, since it denies the resurrection, which they consider to be the most important facet of Christianity. Without it, one might as well not believe in Christ at all!
Thus, there will always be some Docetist theology popping up here or there, and there’ll always be some orthodox “enforcers” trying to suppress or debunk it.
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