apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

380 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
the life in the flesh, truly died. The Docetism therefore does not affect
Jesus, but is confined to Christ. Cerinthus flourished at the close of the
Apostolic age. A personal conflict of S.
John with this heresiarch is
mentioned by Irenseus. It is even thought that S. John wrote his
Gospel as an antidote to this heresy.
(2)
The second type of Docetism is clearly the same which is
attacked in the Ignatian letters. This type also appears on the confines
of the ApostoHc age, if not actually contemporary with the Apostles
themselves. It is attributed to several heresiarchs by name. ^
(i)
Simon Magus, we are told, maintained that the redeemer had
'appeared a man among men, when he was not a man, and seemed
to have suffered in Judaea, when he had not suffered' (Iren.
i.
23. 3).
He asserted moreover that he himself was this redeemer ;
and the
stress laid on the unreality of the passion is accordingly explained by
the further statement that Simon professed to have ' appeared as Son
to the Jews and as Father in Samaria and as Holy Ghost to the other
Gentiles' (Iren.
i.
23, i, Hippol. Haer. vi. 19). Thus he identified himself
with Jesus, to whom he assigned a purely Docetic humanity.
(ii) Saturninus, we are informed, 'taught that the Saviour was
without birth and without body and without figure, but that in semblance
he appeared a man' (Iren.
i.
24. 2, Hippol. Haer. vii. 28).
Marcion
(iii) again was a pure Docetic. He too postulated a
phantom body of Christ. With the human birth of the Saviour he did
not concei;n himself at all.
Mutilating the beginning of the evangelical
narrative, he commenced his Gospel with the 'fifteenth year of Tiberius
Caesar' (Luke iii. i), as if Jesus had appeared suddenly from heaven a
full-grown man. But with regard to the passion, with which he was
obliged to deal, he was explicit (Tertull. adv. Marc. iv. 42). He was
ready with an expedient to explain away the words in which the Saviour
challenges attention to the reality of His human body
after the resurrection
;
'
Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as
ye see me having' (Luke xxiv. 39). 'Having,' as he interpreted the
passage, here signifies 'having only as a spirit has,' that is 'not having.'
'Quae ratio tortuositatis istius' exclaims TertuUian {ib. c. 43).
'What
reason was there for such tortuous language as on this showing the
evangelist's words would be'
Our author however, whether Ignatius or another, cannot have
intended any of these particular heresies; for they do not satisfy the
condition of being Judaic. Saturninus and Marcion are distinguished
by their direct opposition to Judaism; while Simonianism lies altogether
in another sphere. But the two earlier are sufficient evidence
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