06_person_1208_docetism

In the early centuries, there was a heresy called Docetism that denied Jesus was a man. John the Apostle and Ignatius argued against it, emphasizing that Jesus was a real human who ate and suffered. The name Docetism comes from the Greek word "apere," meaning "appear," as they believed Jesus only appeared to do human things. This heresy stemmed from Greek thought valuing the mind over the physical world. Denying Jesus' humanity is a common heresy, more so than denying his deity. It's like a zombie heresy that keeps resurfacing. Let's start off with Jesus Christ is a man. The first heresy we're going to discuss denied that Jesus is a man. It was a super early heresy starting even before the first century was over. John the Apostle wrote explicitly against Docetism in his epistles. He said, Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ has come into flesh is from God. That's in his first epistle. And then, I say this because many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh have gone out into the world. That's in his second epistle. And then Ignatius writing in about 100 AD made arguments against Docetism saying that Jesus ate and was hungry and was sleepy and was from the line of David and all that sort of thing. But you know the heresy's name comes from apere. It's just the Greek word for appear. Doceo. Okay, and so they just taught that Jesus appeared to do all those things. And then Ignatius says this really cool thing against the Docetists. He says, Jesus suffered not as certain unbelievers maintain that he only seemed to suffer as they themselves only seemed to be Christians. Boom. Right? Anyways, this one was a tendency of Greek thought which tended to look down on the flesh and instead value the incorporeal world of the mind and that sort of thing. But actually, you know, the flavor of Docetism which denied his humanity is actually the most common flavor of heresies about the person of Jesus. It's much more common to deny his humanity than his deity in these heresies. It's like the zombie heresy. You know, you think you killed it, but it just keeps coming back.