Ignatius of Antioch and the Imperial Cult by Allen Brent in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), https://www.jstor.org/stable/1584583
That's a fascinating read. I just read a dozen or so scholarly articles on Ignatius - in relation to Eusebius, Polycarp, Origen, etc. - the early founders of the Christian Church. There is still debate whether the seven epistles or letters of Ignatius are real or forgeries - the reason being that the contemporary mention of him by Origen and Polycarp is so brief - that it basically is not even by his name (that is debatable).
Richard Carrier then skewers Eusebius for contriving the early origins of Christianity via Josephus and the Essenes (Therapeutae) in Egypt. This conflation of Christ in Egypt - the title of D.M. Murdock's masterful academic tome - was reinforced again in my perusal of Ignatius. One of my sources stating:
A Hellenized Jewish form of the Sibylline Oracles was composed
in Egypt, probably in the late second century B . C . with the aim of attracting Gentile proselytes. Three centuries later a Christian redaction of the Oracles includes in book I a seventy-five-line interpolation foretelling the coming of Christ, his ministry, Passion, death, descent to Hades, and Resurrection, with the emergence of the church. 16 Here the
descent is the work of Christ who is identified as the Temple, possibly from the saying of Jn 2:19 or from the rending of the temple veil in Mt 27:51:
And then indeed the temple of Solomon will effect a great sign for men, when he goes to the house of Adonis announcing the resurrection to the dead. 17
The second half of book VIII of the second-century A.D. version of the Oracles is a long prophetic poem on Christ, also with three lines on his descent.
So what we know about Ignatius, as he is "constructed," is that he was the first to insist on being called Christian - even though that term "Christian" was probably first used by Roman magistrates - and Ignatius was emphatic about Jesus being a real historical person, etc. Yet ironically - as the main source I start out with above - Ignatius "planned" out his martyrdom to assimilate the competing West Asian pagan mystery cults - as to align Christianity with the Imperial Cult!! And thus "Transubstantiation"
As that first article explains - ALLEN BRENT
that prefigures in Ignatius' liturgical scenes (Ephes. 5,2; Mag. 7
Indeed, Ignatius anticipates his experience in the arena as a kind of Eucharist [the last Supper communion] in which instead of the pagan crowds there will be the Roman
as participants in a cult on which he himself is sacrificed on an altar that
is ready. (Rom. 2,2) His words are "to be poured out as a libation to God," which may reflect in Eph. 5,1-2.10 But Ignatius is not simply commenting on Scripture in a social vacuum. The... has clear associations with the Imperial Cult and its offerings of thus et vinum, as a sacrificial term...
OK so that is the true creation of communion as a Church practice - and what it means - a kind of imperial Brown-No$ing offering of self-sacrifice....This is confirmed by Professor Elaine Pagels' article comparing John of Patos to Ignatius. She argues that indeed Ignatius was promoting Paul and the Hellenization of Christianity - while John of Patmos was doing the opposite!! John of Patmos was insisting real Christians follow Jewish rituals and are not Gentiles, etc. Meanwhile it was in Egyptian practice to use wine and wheat for the "sacrifice" - and so D.M. Murdock was correct.
Marian Hillar whom I blogged on before - he points out that these early founders of Christianity did not yet crystallized the Trinity as based on Platonic philosophy - and so God was still considered primary. And so the Bishop was to be the new icon that previously had been pagan statutes as idolatry. Hence the fancy costumes of the Bishops/Pope/Cardinals/Priests, etc. to emphasize this "sacrificial" role of the church to the Imperial Cult. As Richard Carrier then points out - this was the role of Eusebius to codify Christianity as the official Roman Imperial religion a la Constantine Imperialism.
humans, wheat, and sheep, are manifest in many other ongoing economic, social, and ecological processes. These can be broadly summarized as “globalization” in the widely accepted sense of intensifying worldwide interconnectedness, including in economic, cultural, political, and environmental spheres (Held et al., 1999: 2). Our long-term history of sheep and wheat domestication agrees with the consensus view that contemporary globalization represents new levels of intensification, but also that it has much earlier roots than is commonly acknowledged.
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