Thoughts on Docetism

I'm spasmodically writing a textbook on Evangelical Theology and tonight I was pondering the historical Jesus and docetism. I came up with this conclusion to the section: "We only believe in the incarnation if we can affirm that the historical person Jesus of Nazareth experienced a physical resurrection after his death and a normal male erection during his life."

The First Liberal Theology: Docetism

"The blood of Christ was still fresh in Judaea when His body was said to be a phantasm"

Ignatius of Antioch

I used to think that "Liberals" were out to destroy or deliberately pervert Christianity. I have learned, to the contrary, that they are in fact trying to save it by making its beliefs and doctrines more amicable to the Spirit of the Age (I have my own views about whether that is desirable or even possible). The first liberals in that regards were docetists. They had to confront the problem of how could a great teacher sent from heaven and now enthroned in heaven possibly suffer (let alone exist) in human form. For instance consider this quote from Ovid (Fasti 3.701f):

I was about to neglect those daggers that pierced
Our leader, when Vesta spoke from her pure hearth:
Don’t hesitate to recall them: he was my priest,
And those sacrilegious hands sought me with their blades.
I snatched him away, and left a naked semblance:
What died by the steel, was Caesar’s shadow.’
Raised to the heavens he found Jupiter’s halls,
And his is the temple in the mighty Forum.
But all the daring criminals who in defiance
Of the gods, defiled the high priest’s head,
Have fallen in merited death. Philippi is witness,
And those whose scattered bones whiten its earth.
This work, this duty, was Augustus’ first task,
Avenging his father by the just use of arms.

This is about the apotheosis of Julius Caesar who became a god and was taken away by Vesta just before his attackers set upon him, leaving only a vague naked image or a shadow to be murdured by his assassin's daggers. What else would the gods do for one who was so great and now set among them?

You can understand then the context in which docetism emerged. It was out of a desire to venerate Jesus and to accentuate his greatness in terms that were readily acceptable to persons in the Graeco-Roman world. It witnesses to the acculturation of christology.