Awmte

Apologies if these have already been asked, but... If Paul's Christology does not accomodate an earthly Jesus, wouldn't this, by definition, make him a Docetist?
And how far does Docetism diverge from, say, current Catholic Orthodoxy?
Finally, how fundamental is the Kata Sarka phrase to the JM viewpoint? (No, I have not read Doherty and don't really have any prospects of acquiring his book in the near future). Any answers and elucidation of the JM position would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Julian

Not necessarily. A docetist still has Jesus appear here on earth, he just happens to not be a solid human being but only appears so. A common JM stance is that the sacrifice of Jesus took place in a realm that wasn't here on earth.
The only real problem of docetism in relation to 'normal' christianity (catholic or otherwise) is that, since Jesus wasn't corporeal and human, he couldn't have suffered and died for our sins. Being a docetist only says something about their concept of the nature of Jesus, it says nothing about their liturgy, belief systems or anything else of that nature.
The κατα σαÏ?κα issue is obviously huge. You will have to read Doherty and do some searches for the expression both here and elsewhere. You do not need to buy his book. You can read it online here along with a great number of newer articles and dicussions.

Julian

jakejonesiv

In the Marcionite recension of the Paulinics Jesus is docetic.
"Born of a woman" and the phrase Kata Sarka in relationship to the nature of Jesus only occurs in the catholic redaction of the Pauline epistles.

S.C. Carlson had some comments here.

In neither version is Jesus placed in a historical context. There is nothing to preclude an imaginary being, phantom or fleshy godman, from being deemed to have visited the earth.

Myths, fantastic events, and fictions are often set in earthly settings. It a fallacy to assume this indicates historicity.

Jake

Chili

"Born of a woman" includes the distinction that Mary was not human and therefore sinless = not corporeal.

The event is real and must have taken place on earth in an earthly setting but the historicity of this event is 'the' fallacy.

The difficulty is to follow which of the two Jesus' is the Christ identity and which one is the Jew to be crucified. The Christ will be the one who is Mary's son in the end.

Toto

Freke and Gandy are confident that the Docetics were early mythicists, but I haven't seen anyone else who shares their confidence. Doherty thinks that Docetism was different from mythicism, but related. He wrote about it here - I might try to find it later.

Didymus

Docetism - the notion that Jesus appeared in the form of a man, but did not become an actual human being - was an element in many of the gnostic heresies, including Mandeanism, Ophitism, Marcionism, Montanism and Manichaeanism. It was an early and formidable threat, and is still viewed by all major Christian denominations as a grave departure from orthodoxy.

It's a concept that stems from dualism - the idea that there are two co-existing realities, one material (dark, evil, corrupt, temporal, the flesh, the domain of Satan) and the other spiritual (illuminated, good, pure, eternal, the soul, the domain of God). Thus, docetic heresies rejected the material world and everything about it - including the church! Don't expect the Pope to embrace docetism in the foreseeable future.

Of course, such dualism rejects the idea of a single creator and ruler of the entire universe. To the contrary, it is polytheistic, holding that there are two co-equal and competing gods, one good, one evil, each the creator and ruler of his own domain.

The docetists reasoned that in such a schema, Jesus would not have occupied a human body. The Logos could not have been made flesh, since the Logos was sacred and transcendent and the body the evil creation of Satan. So docetists believed that Jesus merely appeared to be human. That belief presented problems for Christian theology, of course. Such a purely spiritual nature would have mitigated Jesus' suffering on the cross and the salific power of his sacrifice. And he would not have established the bond with mankind that took place through the incarnation (meaning "to become flesh").

In any case, the church came down with both feet against docetism at the Council of Nicea in 325, when it declared Jesus to have been both fully human and fully divine.

If that strikes you as a logical contradiction, or if the entire proposition of a descending savior strikes you as rubbish, join the club.

Didymus

No Robots

Of course, the club has its own divisions.

Julian

Didymus, it seems to me that you are describing gnosticism and not docetism. Granted, many docetists were gnostics but not all. For example, Marcion was a docetist but not properly a gnostic.

Julian

jakejonesiv

Marcion taught doceticism, antinomianism, and dualism. He may also have been a modalist, but this is not certain. Marcion taught salvation by faith not knowlege (gnosis) so he was not gnostic.

Jake

Chili

I hate to differ with you on this but the fine reading is that gnosis is the fruition of faith. It is impossible to find salvation in gnosis because gnosis is a gift of God which makes philosophy the finest of fine arts to be awakened to instead of learned.

To say that salvation is found in gnosis is to say that God has grandchildren and that just is not true. I make a distinction here between gnostic and Gnostic with the gnostic being God ordained and the Gnostic derrived from the -ism. The same is true with Pantheist and pantheist wherein the Panteist can see god in nature while the pantheist is God in nature.