A second heresy, known as “Docetism” (from the Greek word dokein, “to seem”), admitted that Jesus was in some sense a divine being, but it denied his essential humanity. It was especially popular among the Gnostics, who believed in salvation by secret knowledge provided by a mediator from the spiritual realm, and whose dualistic understanding of reality viewed the material realm as evil.9 If Jesus was the gnostic mediator/messenger who had come from the spiritual realm in order to bring