Note 1 — BOOK VIII THE DOCETAE, MONOIMUS, AND OTHERS

Who these Docetae are is a puzzle. Although Cruice writes the name Δοκήται, Salmon (D.C.B., s.h.n.) gives it as Δοκιταί which is, he says, the spelling adopted by both Hippolytus and Clement of Alexandria. Their tenets as here described have nothing to do with the opinion that the body of Jesus existed in appearance only which we have seen current among the Simonians, Basilidians, Marcionites, and the followers of Saturninus and perhaps of Valentinus. Nor does it seem connected with any proper name such as the fictitious one of Ebion which was invented to explain to Greek ears the appellation of the Ebionites. It may be thought, perhaps, that it was a kind of nickname derived from this chapter’s opening metaphor of the δοκός or “beam,” but this is too far-fetched to be insisted upon. Clement is the only early author who mentions them, and then does so in a fashion (e. g. Strom., VII, 17) which makes it fairly clear that it is those who held Docetic opinions generally so called, and not any special sect to which he is referring. He also says that Julius Cassianus, a Valentinian, was the founder of Docetism of the Simonian kind and St. Jerome (adv. Lucifer, 23) takes this further back by the statement that the opinion in question was current in the life-time of the Apostles. Nor is there anything novel or peculiar in the doctrines set forth in our text of the Docitae or Docetae. The image of the fig-tree with which this chapter opens is but an amplification of the “Indivisible Point” put forward earlier in our text, and there is nothing here stated which is inconsistent with the teachings of Valentinus. This will be further discussed when we come to consider the source of this chapter.