Scholars affirming the carnivorous Christian establishment are embarrassed by the topic of
vegetarianism and most won't even the word vegetarian in their indices. They fear the concept.  They fear it as an idea and an attitude resurrecting itself throughout the world and posing a real ideological threat to the absurdities of carnivorism, which they defend.  Most scholars of early Christianity that I have read constantly hedge, i.e. equivocate, purposely make ambiguous, the vegetarianism of many early Christians.  For example,  Frend, in his Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, says that Jews and Christians argued in the early days of Christianity whether Leviticus 11 or Isaiah 7: 14 should be adhered to.  What Frend doesn't say is that Isaiah 7: 14 advocates lacto-vegetarianism as the ideal diet, not flesh, as does Leviticus 11.   Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus, by William Hugh Clifford Frend. New York: New York University Press, 1967.
 

   Pliny applying the sacrifice test successfully to Christians during Trajan's time reported that
the effect was "Temples were frequented again and there was a general demand for the
sacrificial animals once more." Ibid. 166. In other words, once  the vegetarian Christians were
killed, persecuted, threatened, displaced, there was a return to carnivorism and a taxable meat industry profitable to Rome.
 

   That the martyrs saw the last supper, the eucharist, as a restoration to the vegetarian
covenant, and saw themselves as representatives of vegetarianism is seen in Ignatius'
statement "I am the wheat of Christ, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may
be found the pure bread of God." p. 256. Ibid.  And Frend comments "Note the macabre
practice of dressing those condemned to the beasts in the amphitheatre at Carthage in clothes
of Saturn or priestesses of Ceres." Footnote 3, p. 424. Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church. Saturn is god of the harvest, ruler of capricorn, sign of the cornucopia, the plentiful harvest of fruits, vegetables, grains and other vegetation.  Ceres, from which the word cereal is derived, was goddess of grains.  Early Christian martyrs are associated with the vegetable realm, not the realm of animal carcasses. In Eusebius 4: 15. 26, the Smyrnaeans accuse Polycarp thusly: "This fellow is the teacher of Asia, the destroyer of our gods, who teaches numbers of people not to sacrifice or even worship."  Though we are indebted to Frend for giving us evidence of the vegetarianism of the earliest followers of Jesus, He, like other scholars of early Christianity, doesn't even have vegetarianism in his index, and doesn't even mention the word vegetarian by name in his text.  He appears to be much like the Christian Dead Sea scholars, embarrassed even that he has to deal with values radically different from those of his peer group, and, more importantly, of his patrons who pay him.
 

    There is in fact such a widespread suppression of the vegetarian origins of Christianity that we must legitimately ask: "Is the term Christian scholar an oxymoron?"  Only the smallest minority of Christian scholars deal with the concept that the earliest followers of Jesus were vegetarians in spite of

1. The clear statement in "Epistle to the Hebrews" that Jesus' mission is to abolish the animal sacrifices, which are necessary for a carnivorous diet.

2. Jesus' one day demonstration against the animal sacrifices, that is, the cleansing of the temple, which, besides overthrowing the moneychangers' tables, consisted of chasing the animals who were to be sacrificed out of the temple.

3. Jesus constantly quoting the late vegetarian Jewish prophets, such as Ezekiel, Isaias, Jeremiah, Joel, Amos, Haggai, Hosea and Zechariah.

4. The earliest followers of Jesus being dressed in the garb of vegetarian deities by their Roman oppressors.

5. The Roman governor Pliny the Younger informing Trajan that he has persecuted and killed the followers of Chrestus, that is Christ, in Bithynia, where Peter had preached, and restored the sacrifices.

6. The earliest followers of Jesus wore the bindi or tilaka worn by Hindus (and some Buddhists) as seen in Hippolytus' Daniel.

7. The elect or saved in "Revelations" also wear the mark on the forehead, or bindi, and that the image of the rider on the white horse (said to be Christ) is derived from a Hindu prophecy regarding the return of Krishna as Kalki, riding on a white horse to rid the world of error.

8. The statement by a saint of the Catholic Church, Epiphanius, who admits the earliest followers of Jesus were called Essenes and Nazarenes, both of which groups were vegetarian.

9. And the statement by Epiphanius that the Ebionite Gospel, which even Church fathers admit to be the first Gospel written about Jesus, presents John the Baptist, Jesus and his followers as eating no flesh.

10. Peter is presented as vegetarian in the Clementine literature.

11. Matthew is presented as vegetarian by Clement of Alexandria.

12. James the brother of Jesus is presented as a vegan vegetarian in one of the first official histories of the Church, Ecclesiastical History, by Eusebius.

13. Vegetarianism persisted in the monastic order of Pachomias in Egypt.

14. Vegetarianism persisted in the works of such fathers such as Lactantius and John Chrysologus.

    Vegetarianism, even veganism, not only existed in the earliest days of Christianity, but was one of the essential teachings.  It was overthrown successfully as the model diet advocated by Jesus and his disciples by a large-scale Roman effort which included a military as well as an ideological arsenal such as in the person of Paul, an ideological front man for the Romans.  And Paul's authority rested on his words alone, not on a personal relationship with Jesus that was had by Jesus' hand-picked disciples.  Economics, the large profit made then and now by the meat and animal foods producers, was the motive behind the subversion.