Bodiless Docetists and the Daimonic Jesus: Daimonological Discourse and Anti-Docetic Polemic in Ignatius’ Letter to the Smyrnaeans

Abstract

Abstract In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Ignatius of Antioch condemns his opponents to a “bodiless” and “daimonic” afterlife, and also quotes an apocryphal resurrection tradition wherein the risen Jesus eschews the label “bodiless daimon.” Ignatius, therefore, defines both Jesus’ and his opponents’ physiology in terms of the ‘daimonic’; but what would such an existence have entailed in antiquity? In what follows, I explore the rhetorical functions of Ignatius’ daimonic terminology by situating it within larger discourses surrounding daimonic physiologies. I contend that Ignatius’ daimonological terminology not only caricatures the docetic belief in a bodiless risen Jesus, but also condemns Ignatius’ opponents to a morose afterlife that runs directly counter to their anticipations. When contextualized within his letters more generally, Ignatius’ derisive rhetoric solidifies his construction of ‘docetic’ Christians: they are evil, sub-human, and daimonic, the epitome of the ‘other,’ doomed to inhabit the cosmic and societal margins, and unworthy of interaction with Ignatius’ fellow ‘orthodox’ Christians.