AH Challenge: Docetist Christianity becomes predominant...

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the baseline Christianity at the *Council of Nicaea be decided as Docetism, instead of Pauline Christianity. What would such a Christianity look like? How would it answer many of the challenges the OTL Paulines did? What schisms would have occurred in a Docetist Christendom? How would Docetist Christendom have coped with the Volkerwanderung? What might happen with a Docetist Byzantine Empire?
 
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the baseline Christianity at the *Council of Nicaea be decided as Docetism, instead of Pauline Christianity. What would such a Christianity look like? How would it answer many of the challenges the OTL Paulines did? What schisms would have occurred in a Docetist Christendom? How would Docetist Christendom have coped with the Volkerwanderung? What might happen with a Docetist Byzantine Empire?

Errr... How? I had to go look up Docetism and I am at least vaguely familiar with half a dozen other OTL heresies.

Arianism had a real chance. Various alternate christological nature (monophysite, miaphysite, monethelete, etc.) theologies had a chance. Pavlikian adoptionism may have had a chance. I don't see Docetism as being able to take over 'the Church', especially as late as Nicea. If it HAD taken over the church in the very early days,. I doubt Christianity would have made the inroads it did.
 

Philip

Donor
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the baseline Christianity at the *Council of Nicaea be decided as Docetism, instead of Pauline Christianity.

You need a different PoD. Docetism was considered heretical by both the Nicaean and Arian factions.
 
Errr... How? I had to go look up Docetism and I am at least vaguely familiar with half a dozen other OTL heresies.

Arianism had a real chance. Various alternate christological nature (monophysite, miaphysite, monethelete, etc.) theologies had a chance. Pavlikian adoptionism may have had a chance. I don't see Docetism as being able to take over 'the Church', especially as late as Nicea. If it HAD taken over the church in the very early days,. I doubt Christianity would have made the inroads it did.

Ah. That's why it's a challenge. The *Nicaea statement means that any sort of analogous thing would have Docetism as its base, that's it. Not that the OTL would necessarily occur. The things required for this challenge likely butterfly away any OTL Nicaea as is.

You need a different PoD. Docetism was considered heretical by both the Nicaean and Arian factions.

It's intended to be a challenge for that reason. My next challenge is going to involve a much more successful form of Islam that got marginalized IOTL and also an alternate basis for Buddhism.
 
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