Dobrltzhoffer, Mabtin, a Jesnit missioBarv, ve bom at Grfttz, in Styria, in 1717. He was adaut^d to the Society of Jesus in 1736, and was seat a ITi3 as missionary to Paraguay, where he spent eigfatia years among the Abipones and Gnaranas, whea, cs the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries frtno BpuaA South America in 1767, he was compelled to retara a Europe. In 1784 he published Hisioria de Al^twin. equutri beUicotaque Paragmiria NaAme (Vioaa 3 vols. 8vo, 1788-84). It is veiy ample and nmnt^ ha. though it contains many curious and interesting ftca, abounds in extravagant statements. IkibritakBAri book was a fiivorite with Sonthey, and at his si;;p»> tion Sara Coleridge translated it faito Eag&fa— Ji AccoufU of the Abipones, cm equettritm Peopie sflv- aguag (1822, 8 vols. 8vo). It has also been tnatkkd into German. Dobritzhoffer died at Vienna ia 17SL —Ef^Ush Cgckpadia; Hoefer, jVow. Biog. Gmink xiv,408.
Docetas. Docetism, which in the latter hslf ef the second century took form in the sect of theTski- tinians — so named after Valentinns — is, in £ut, oahi form of Gnosticism — a form, moreover, whidi ptijed t most im\>ortant part in the general movement of Gur ticism. Its prominent teachers, as ValentiniB— a eua of great depth, ingenuity, and power of imaginatko* Cassianus, and Bardesanes, are reckoned amcog itt Gnostics. How Docetism is to be distinguislwd ttm general Gnosticism is not easy to be stated in a ho^ article ; the Church histories mast be consulted oatbi point. The dualism of the Oriental pliiloeopJiT, tW elements of which were extensively embneedh £ forms of Gnosticism, especially the view which kddk the inherent evil of matter, rendered it imposAk fa the Gnostics to come to any ri^t view of the lainff the divine and human in Christie person. In cHcf t: remove the author of all good fkom all contact vtti matter, which they conceived to be the seme as rr^ they called in the aid of Oriental phUo5cphy ii ofdir
DOCET^
845
DOCTOR
3 people the space between God and matter with a "BA^ succession of snperhoman beings as mediators |^ vreen Qad and the world. These, emanating from kfco Deity, were called eons ; among these the high- s' rank was assigned to Christ. Here, however, they eem to hare split " Biany imagined that Jesos was u xxi^B man, and maintained that the »on Christ de- cended opon the man Jesns at his baptism, and left lim. iounediately before his crucifixion, so that Christ wuta not, in fact, subjected to pain and death; while ktlLera held that the body, with which Christ appear- ed to be invested, was not really human and passa- ble, but unsubstantial or etherial, or, at least, imma- :eriAl : these last were called Docetn" (^Waddiagttm's Hist, of the Church, p. 74, 76). They denied the whole ^ amanity of Christ, regarding it only as a deceptive »ho^wr, a tnere visum. This Uie sense of the Church M>ald not bear. *' They who would make nothing but 0, Bpectre are themselves spectres — spectral men," is cm expression ascribed to Ignatius. Tertullian says to the Docets, " How is it that you make the half of Chriat a lie ? He was all truth." And again, " Yon are offended when the chQd is nourished and fondled Ln its swaddling-clothes. This reverence shown to na- ture you despise ; and how were you bom yourself? Ohristf at least, loved man in this condition. For his eake he came down fh>m above ; for his sake he sub- mitted to every sort of degradation — ^to death itself. In loving man he loved even his birth, even his flesh'* CNeander, Church Hist, ii, 869). Neander says : *' One conaequence of the disruption of the divine and the human by Gnosticism was Docetism, which altogether denied the real, humanly-sensuous side of Christ's life, and only acknowledged as real the revelation of the di- vine Being. Preparation for this view had been made among tiie Jewish theologians by the representation that it was one of the privileges of a superior spirit to appear in a variety of forms. Philo's explanation of the Angelophanies, and the Christology of the Clem- entine homilies, furnish evidence of tliis. According to that Docetic conception, the heavenly Being, whose nature is pure light, suddenly came forth as a sensu- ous apparition. All sensuousness is only an illusion practised by the divine Genius. Hence the latter by no means attached himself to the Demiurgos ; only an appearance of him descended into tliis world" (Nean- der, Hist, of Dogmas, i, 194).
Docetism was a most subtle element, which wrought variously before it had any discernible concentration in any leading men or sects, and it inftised its unreal and fantastic leaven into various Gnostic sects, and other later ones wliich grew out of Gnosticism. It was a deep, natural, rationalistic, pseudo-spiritualistic, anti- incarnation element. It was firmly set against the real union of the divine and human in Christ, and against all dogmas which depend upon the reality of the incarnation. Hagenbach says: **The DocetsB, whom Ignatius (ad ^h. 7, 8, ad Smjpm., c 1-8) al- ready opposed, and probably even the apostle John (1 John i, 1-8 ; iv, 2 sq. ; 2 John, 7) (on the questbn whether he alludes to them in his prologue to his gos- pel, see Lttcke, tn loc.) may be considered as the fore- runners of the Gnostics (Burton, BampUm Lect. p. 158 sq.). They form the most decided contrast with the Ebionites, biasmuch as they not only maintain (in op- position to them) the divinity of Christ, but also merge his human nature, to which the Ebbnites exclusively confined themselves, in a mere phantom (by denying that he possessed a real body). Ebionitism (Nazarit- bm) and Docetism form, according to Schleiermacher (Glaubenslehrej i, 124X natural heresies, and complete each other, as ikr as this can be the case with one-sided of^nions ; but they quite as easUy pass over from the one to the other (comp. Domer, Geschichie der Chris- tdoffie, p. 849 sq.)' ' (Hagenbach, EisL of Doctrines, i, 48). The f&thers were compelled to war with this subtle Docetism constantly, as it ever broke out in