I agree. There's overlap between 1st John and Ignatius, both mentioning the error of Christ only being an apparition, not really coming in the flesh. Ignatius writes that due to their error, these people did not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist either, because they didn't believe that He came in the flesh in the first place, so of course, He's not really present in the Eucharist either.
I suppose that if one didn't believe Christ was real in the first place, it would naturally follow that one wouldn't believe Christ was real in any sense, certainly not real in the sense of being magically transmogrified into a literal wafer. But isn't that beside the point? Those that belief in Christ in the very real sense also disbelieve that he is
literally kept in a box.
I don't know what this means. I do know that the Catholic Church is the Christian tradition started by Christ.
It just meant that the point still stands on its own with or without accepting the Catholic church as being legitimate. No, I do not accept the Catholic church as being the tradition started by Christ. Built by men and put into power by the Roman empire... but not by Christ.
The bread and cup, and the words spoken, do resemble the Eucharist.
More accurate to say that the Eucharist resembles the bread and the cup and the words spoken. Which is supposed to resemble which?
I see the evidence that you're looking for in Scripture, but I understand that you don't agree with my reading. So we're back to this being, for you, the Church making a fatal error, sometime within or immediately following the Apostolic era. And it's fatal, because we adore the Eucharist, which is worship---if Christ is not really present in the Eucharist, then we're all idolaters, and the Church was all idolatrous until the Reformation.
Did the Catholic church stop adoring the Eucharist after the Reformation (that is, wouldn't they still be idolatrous by that measure?) No, you shouldn't worship or adore an item or an object. Do you remember a brasen serpent later known as Nehushtan?
2 Kings 18:3-4 KJV
(3) And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.
(4) He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
There would have been nothing wrong with preserving that serpent as a memorial, as a symbol to remind themselves of what they had learned, as an object lesson... but when they started to adore it it became idolatry. Our God today is the same today and yesterday: he didn't hate idolatry then and suddenly desire it now.
Then yes, if it is as you describe then that is a fatal error. Perhaps not so fatal that it cannot be forgiven through Christ's blood, but it is specifically against what God has warned us about and that level of superstition would keep you from seeing God as he intends himself to be known.
1 John 5:20-21 KJV
(20) And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
(21) Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.