The long lost Ebionites. A relook at the Ibo region of West Africa

Abstract

The Ebionites were a Jewish sect that knew Jesus intimately; had their own Nazarene Gospel; but held immovable beliefs  that challenged key tenets of Christianity.  They disappeared in the fourth century leaving a vacuum physically and  ideologically.  About a millennium later, the Portuguese reported of a people in West Africa with a Pope  and Papacy  similar in structure and veneration as the Roman Catholic Pope. Towards the  end of the nineteenth century,  missionaries and anthropologists scouring the region  confirmed those reports, as well as the presence of other Levitical  influences amongst the  Igbos of Nigeria. This paper researches those similarities with a focus on the religious  cosmology of the Ibo people of Asaba. It applies ethnographic qualitative research, then  places the findings over the  tenets of Catholicism with respect to their organizational  structure; sacraments; rites; and steps to becoming sons of  God. The results show that the  ideologies of the Ibo and the Romans were deeply intertwined in every area of the study.  The paper posits that the only way the religious ideologies of the Romans and the Ibos  could have so closely  mirrored each other, is if they were both in the same place at the  same time.  Thus, concludes that the Ibos [Eboe, Igbo]  are the Ebionites. The paper offers  hypotheses to explain the role of the ego in creating the core tenet of this  unifying  cosmology, and possibly how the convergence occurred. The paper could form the basis  for renewed research  in Hebraic-African studies; Black-American dispersion; Mary  Magdalene; Jesus’ crown of thorns; the sequence  of biblical gospel events; and even a  template for future religion in this ego-driven civilization.