Adoptionist Christology

One of the interesting things that can be gauged from the overview of heresies is how the adoptionist Christologies that Irenaeus had to deal with (e..g. the Ebionites) were the fruit of a negative understanding of material, bodily existence. As such it was considered unacceptable that the Christ had become truly incarnate, and especially unacceptable that the same Christ had suffered and died. Hence, some explanation, in which Jesus is reduced to being the son of Joseph and Mary and the "Spirit" of Christ abandoned him when he went to the cross had to be developed.

Unless of course one claims like one of these groups that it was actually Simon Cyrene who died on the cross, and Jesus took on the corporeal form of Simon in the mean time and laughed at those who believed that it was him on the cross.