Late 17th century; earliest use found in Richard Baxter (1615–1691), ejected minister and religious writer. From post-classical Latin phantasiasta a Docetist who held that Christ's body was only a phantasm, not a material substance, or its etymon Byzantine Greek ϕαντασιαστής (recorded in plural ϕαντασιασταί) from ancient Greek ϕαντασία + -αστής, suffix forming agent nouns; compare Hellenistic Greek ϕαντασιάζεσθαι to be presented to the mind.