DOCETISM
68behind the teaching can be stated thus:
as the absolutely perfect source of the
existence of everything, God cannot be
part of a dependent world; God must
be the uncreated source of all distinguish-
able things in all their many forms. As
the source of all creaturely perfection,
God must be absolutely perfect and,
therefore, non-composite.
DOCETISM. From the Greek dokeo,
meaning “to seem.” The view that God
only appeared to assume human nature in
the incarnation. Some Gnostics adopted
docetic views of Christ. Some passages
in the New Testament appear to explicitly
rule out docetism, e.g., descriptions of
Jesus’ bleeding and the depiction of Jesus
as dying in all four gospels.
DOCTA IGNORANTIA. Latin, “learned
ignorance.” A concept found in Nicholas
of Cusa’s concept of the mystical ascent to
God. In the final stages of seeking union
with the divine, the soul must put aside
the desire for clear intelligibility and rec-
ognize the awesome incomprehensibility
of God.
DOGMA. From the Greek, dogma, “that
which seems to one, opinion or belief ”
(which in turn comes from the Greek
verb, dokeo, “to think, to suppose, to
imagine”). An authoritative belief or
doctrine. While technically the term is
synonymous with doctrine, it is often
used negatively to refer to a rigid belief
that is held without any evidence.DOMINICANS. The Dominican order
was founded by St. Dominic in France in
the early thirteenth century; the official
name is the Ordo Praedicatorum, or
Order of Preachers (OP). This is an order
of Catholic nuns, sisters, friars, priests,
and laity, whose primary purpose is to
preach the gospel and teach right princi-
ples. The order has a very strong aca-
demic past and is the order of St. Albert
Magnus, St. Thomas of Aquinas, and
many others. The order focuses on teach-
ing, and as such, it found great success
in setting up schools and missions
throughout and beyond the bounds of
Christendom during the Middle Ages.
The order works hard to combat heresy
and paganism; in fact, the first Grand
Inquisitor of Spain was a Dominican, as
well as many other officials throughout
the history of the Church. The order
prides itself on its strong intellectual past,
and having produced the likes of Albert
Magnus and Thomas of Aquinas, it is
apparent that the order has a good foun-
dation for this claim. And yet the order
has also produced a strong mystic tradi-
tion. “German Mysticism” is also known
as “Dominican Mysticism” and included
such mystics as St. Catherine of Siena
and Meister Eckhart.
The order spread quickly around
Europe after its foundation, and yet its