DOCETISM. The term docetism is primarily used with reference to ancient Christologies where the reality of Jesus Christ's physical body was denied, or at least various of the normal carnal properties and functions were refused in favor of those more spiritual or ethereal. Christ had only the appearance (Greek, dokesis) of a human, and only seemed (dokein) to be a man. Such docetists were accused by their opponents of putting forward a phantasm, and obviating the fundamental Christian hope in the resurrection with a birth and death that were not entirely real.

Beliefs in the divine origin and nature of the Christ inevitably put pressure on the full humanity of Jesus from the earliest times. Many found it hard to accept that he would eat and drink in the normal way, let alone perform more gross human functions, suffer the debilitations of old age and disease, or emit...