Editing Docetism (section)

==Definitions==
Docetism is broadly defined as the teaching that claims that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gonzalez|first=Justo|title=Essential Theological Terms|year=2005|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|location=Louisville|isbn=0-664-22810-0|pages=46–47|quote=Docetism is the claim that Jesus did not have a physical human body, but only the appearance of such.}}</ref> The term 'docetic' is rather nebulous.<ref>{{harvnb|Brox|1984|pp=301–314}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schneemelcher|Maurer|1994|p=220}}: "N Brox has expressed himself emphatically against a widespread nebulous use of the term, and has sought an exact definition which links up with the original usage (e.g. in Clement of Alexandria). Docetism is 'the doctrine according to which the phenomenon of Christ, his historical and bodily existence, and thus above all the human form of Jesus, was altogether mere semblance without any true reality.'"</ref> Two varieties were widely known. In one version, as in [[Marcionism]], Christ was so divine that he could not have been human, since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically suffer. Jesus only ''appeared'' to be a flesh-and-blood man; his body was a phantasm. Other groups who were accused of docetism held that Jesus was a man in the flesh, but Christ was a separate entity who entered Jesus' body in the form of a dove at his baptism, empowered him to perform miracles, and abandoned him upon his death on the cross.<ref>{{harvnb|Ehrman|2005|p=16}}</ref>