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.