Parables said
Either way, once you can identify the Docetists as Paul’s original followers …

And when has that been established?

It was simply asserted:

The Docetists . . . were probably Paul’s original followers . . .

I’d guess the assertion was based on the resonance between the language of Phil. 2:7-8 with docetist theology (morphen doulou . . . homoiomati anthropon . . . schemati . . . hos anthropos).

But I’m sure you realized all that when you put your question.

“Not many religions promise their followers divinity”
See ‘theosis.’

_Daily Vitamins for Spiritual Growth Vol. 1: Day By Day With Jesus Through the Church Year_ by Anthony M. Coniaris (1994), 377pp. On 163:
Jesus came down from heaven as the Eternal Son of the Father, but when He went to the seat of honor and glory at God’s right hand, He took with him our human nature. He returned to His Father as God-man. It was our nature, in everything except its sin, that sat down at the right hand of God. The Son of God descended to become one of us and ascended to enable us to ascend with Him. Through the ascension and enthronement of Christ, all human nature has been enthroned at the right hand of the Father. Since the manhood of Jesus was taken up to the heavenly places, our manhood will also be taken up. The Ascension is proof that man was made for heaven, not for the grave, for glory not for corruption. St. Paul does not hesitate to describe Christians as “enthroned above the heavens, in Christ Jesus.”

The remarks below are said to be from Jesus:
_In the Presence of God: Meditations with Christ on the Divine Indwelling_ by Clarence J. Enzler (1973), 138pp., 72-74

You Are of God’s Family

_… a child is born to us, a son is given us …”_ (Is. 9:5).

One member of the human race not only has God dwelling in Him, but is Himself God.

This holds special meaning for you.

It means that when you are joined to Me you _belong to My Father’s own intimate family_.

Of your own nature you are simply My Father’s creature. But since He wanted you and all men to be more, He implanted in man a super-human life, a wonderful communication of and participation in His own divine life, which you call “grace.” By grace you become not merely My Father’s creature but His friend and even His adopted child.

Man lost this gift of grace, thus breaking the line of communication between the Divine Being and himself. Yet, through the incalculable measure of the Divine Being’s love, this loss provided the occasion for the incomparably greater gift that would flow from My Incarnation.

Whereas before, mankind carried in it only an offshoot of the divine life, now as the result of God-made-man, one Man, one Member of your race, _is_ God.

In this singular Man a human nature does not exist by itself. No, for just this once, a distinct human nature is incorporated into a divine Person, so that the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, possessor of the divine nature, becomes also through his possession of a human nature the son of man.

Somewhat as skin can be engrafted on your body so that it becomes one with and part of your body, so, in a sense, a human nature was instantaneously “engrafted” onto My divine nature, causing the divine and the human to be joined in one Person.

Mark well the phrase, “in _one_ Person;” that is the essence of God-Made-Man.

It means that the Son of Man is not merely a man in whom the nature of God is also somehow present. _He is God made flesh_.

Rather than being a friend or an adopted human son of the Divine Being by decree or by gift– which was all that any man previously could be– I, the Christ, am the Father’s _natural_ Son, His Son by inalienable right, His divine Son living in the created universe.

With the Incarnation the _fullness_ of the divine life _belongs_ to one member of the human race.

— — —

But, how does this place you in a new relationship to God? How does it make you a member of God’s family?

As My Father’s Son, I am one with Him and the Holy Spirit. As Mary’s Son, however, I am a member with you of the human family. Somewhat as two families are united through intermarriage, the union of My divinity with My humanity unites all members of the human race with the Divine Being.

When the king is your monarch and you are simply his subject, that is one relationship. But when the king marries into your family, and his love produces a son, you and all members of your family are joined in a new relationship to the king himself.

Somewhat similarly, through My Incarnation, the family of man becomes the family of God.

The entire race, indeed, is lifted up to a kind of one-ness with the ONE WHO IS– because _humanity is introduced into the Trinity; a man is placed on God’s throne_.

This, indeed, is a mind-shattering truth. The full consequences for mankind are incomprehensible. Only by reflecting on it at great length can you begin to grasp the inconceivable dignity to which the Incarnation has elevated the human race.

Listen, My other self, to what some of My saints have said as they tried to express the meaning of God-made-man.
Listen to Augustine: “God has become man that man might become God.”
To Cyprian: “What man is Christ wished to be, that man in turn might be what Christ is.”
To Irenaeus: “He became what we are, in order that He might make us what He is.”
To Leo: “He so united Himself to us and us to Him, that the descent of God to the human level was at the same time the ascent of man to the divine level.”
To Athanasius: “As the Lord became man by putting on our body, so shall we men be deified, assumed by His flesh.”

Contemplate these truths, My other self: Contemplate and begin to know yourself!