DOCETÆ (from δοξω, 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 which had been adopted by a branch of the Gnostics, against whom St John, Ignatius, and Polycarp, had asserted the truth of the incarnation. They, as their name imports, believed and taught that the actions and sufferings of Jesus Christ were not real, but only apparent.