DOCETISM dŏs’ ə tiz’ əm, dō’ sə—. Docetism was the term for a Gnostic sect which appeared so early in the history of Christianity that there is an answer for it in 1 John 4:2 and 2 John 7. Its error lay in its denial of the reality of Christ’s human body. The Docetae or Docetists held that the body of Christ was not real flesh and blood but only a hallucination or a phantasm, deceptive and passing; that Christ’s body was purely spiritual and therefore took up nothing even in the body of the Virgin of true human nature. This heresy developed easily and rapidly in one form or another because of the pagan philosophic emphasis of the time that matter is inherently evil. This being so, it was blasphemous to maintain that the spiritual Christ could have, in any sense at all, a physical body. Basilides, an early Gnostic, held to a relatively human Christ with whom the divine nous became united in baptism, but his followers became true Docetae. Hippolytus gave an early account of the whole system of this sect and attached to the movement the names of Saturninus, Valentinus, Marcion, and the Manichaeans. Distinction should be observed in that Docetae denied the reality of Christ’s human body, whereas the Apollinarians denied the integrity of Christ’s human nature. In the case of the Apollinarians there was a human nature in body and soul, lacking mind or spirit. See Gnosticism.