Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [42]
And again, in the letter to the Smyrnaeans, "Ignatius" begins by emphatically protesting that:
. . . suffer He did, verily and indeed; just as He did verily and indeed raise Himself again. His Passion was no unreal illusion, as some sceptics aver who are all unreality themselves.... For my own part, I know and believe that He was in actual human flesh...
Further in Smyrnaeans he reiterates:
. . . our Lord . . . is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine will and power, truly born of a virgin and baptized by John that [all righteousness might be fulfilled] by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch (of which fruit are we-that is, of His most blessed passion) ...
In his Epistle to the Trallians, "Ignatius" repeats the conditioning of his "flock":
Close your ears, then, if anyone preaches to you without speaking of Jesus Christ. Christ was of David's line. He was the son of Mary; He was verily and indeed born, and ate and drank; He was verily persecuted in the days of Pontius Pilate, and verily and indeed crucified ... He was also verily raised up again from the dead ...
And in his Epistle to Mary, "Ignatius" does continue to protest too much, and reveals how prevalent were the denials of the history:
Avoid those that deny the passion of Christ, and His birth according to the flesh: and there are many at present who suffer under this disease.
Next, Ignatius programs the Philippians against the unbelievers and Gnostics, ironically using a Gnostic concept to threaten them, and sets the stage for centuries-long persecution with his calumny against the Jews:
CHRIST WAS TRULY BORN, AND DIED, For there is but One that became incarnate ... the Son only, [who became so] not in appearance or imagination, but in reality. For "the Word became flesh." . . . And God the Word was born as man, with a body, of the Virgin, without any intercourse of man. . . . He was then truly born, truly grew up, truly ate and drank, was truly crucified, and died, and rose again. He who believes these things, as they really were, and as they really took place, is blessed. He who believeth them not is no less accursed than those who crucified the Lord. For the prince of this world rejoiceth when any one denies the cross, since he knows that the confession of the cross is his own destruction. . . . And thou art ignorant who really was born, thou who pretendest to know everything. If any one celebrates the passover along with the Jews, or receives the emblems of their feast, he is a partaker with those that killed the Lord and His apostles.
In all his protestation, Ignatius offers no proof whatsoever of his claims and heinous accusations except his word that "Jesus the Lord was truly born and crucified . . ." This utterly unscientific habit occurs repeatedly throughout the Christian fathers' works, without a stitch of tangible proof and hard evidence. It is upon this fanatic protestation and not factual events that Christianity's "history" is founded.
Obviously, if everyone in the early Christian movement had known and/or believed that Jesus Christ had existed "in the flesh," the authors of the Ignatian epistles would not have needed continually to make known their historicizing contentions. Regarding "Ignatius's" assorted historicizing elements, Earl Doherty says, The Jesus Puzzle:
Before Ignatius, not a single reference to Pontius Pilate, Jesus' executioner, is to be found. Ignatius is also the first to mention Mary; Joseph, Jesus' father, nowhere appears. The earliest reference to Jesus as any kind of a teacher comes in 1 Clement, just before Ignatius, who himself seems curiously unaware of any of Jesus' teachings. To find the first indication of Jesus as a miracle worker, we must move beyond Ignatius to the Epistle of Barnabas.
Despite "Ignatius's"