DOCETÆ (from doxest, to appear), in ecclesiastical history, the followers of Julius Cassianus, one of the Valentinian sect, towards the close of the second century, who revived a notion that had been adopted by a branch of the Gnostics, against whom St John, Ignatius, and Polycarp, had asserted the truth of the incarnation. They believed and taught, as their name imports, that the actions and sufferings of Jesus Christ were not in reality, but only in appearance.