But now that martyrs suffer in the depths of the flesh wounds and tortures, which sustain mortal combat in the flesh, it no longer seems right that their flesh be annihilated. The churches claim, against the teaching of Paul, the resurrection of the flesh.
(Le dieu Jésus, p. 179, original emphasis).
So there is a relation between the sufferings of Ignatius and his obsessive insistence in the flesh.
By this way, the persecutions helped to euhemerize Jesus.