THE III. THE IGNATIAN EPISTLES. [FEBRUARY, 1875.] HE letters bearing the name of Ignatius', with which we are immediately concerned, profess to have been written by the saint as he was passing through Asia Minor on his way to martyrdom. If their representations be true, he was condemned at Antioch, and sent to Rome to suffer death in the amphitheatre by exposure to the wild beasts. The exact year of the martyrdom is uncertain, but the limits of possibility are not very wide. The earlier date assigned is about A.D. 107, and the later about A.D. 116. These letters, with a single exception, are written to different Churches of Asia Minor (including one addressed more especially to Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna). The exceptional letter is sent to the Roman Church, apprising the Christians of the metropolis that his arrival among them may soon be expected, declaring his eagerness for martyrdom, and intreating them not to interpose and rescue him from his fate. His language supposes that there were at this time members of the Roman Church sufficiently influential to obtain either a pardon or a commutation of his sentence. The letters to the Asiatic Churches have a more general reference. They contain exhortations, friendly greetings, warnings against internal divisions and against heretical doctrines. With some of these Churches 1 [The Essay on the Ignatian Epistles represents the writer's views at the time when it was written. In the course of the Essay he has stated that at one time he had entertained misgivings about the seven Vossian letters. His maturer opinions estab lishing their genuineness will be found in his volumes on the Apostolic Fathers Part II. S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp, 1885 (London, Macmillan and Co.), to which he refers his readers.] he had been brought in personal contact; with others he was acquainted only through their delegates. Of the three forms in which the Ignatian letters have been handed down to us, one may be dismissed from our consideration at once. The Long Recension, preserved both in the Greek original and in a Latin translation, may be regarded as universally condemned. In the early part of the last century an eccentric critic, whose Arian sympathies it seemed to favour, endeavoured to resuscitate its credit, and one or two others, at long intervals, have followed in his wake; but practically it may be regarded as dead. It abounds in anachronisms of fact or diction; its language diverges widely from the Ignatian quotations in the writers of the first five centuries. Our author places its date in the sixth century, with Ussher; I should myself ascribe it to the latter half of the fourth century. This however is a matter of little consequence. Only, before passing on, I would enter a protest against the argument of our author that, because the Ignatian letters were thus interpolated 'in the sixth century,' therefore this very fact increases the probability of much earlier interpolation also'. I am unable to follow this reasoning. I venture to think that we cannot argue back from the sixth, or even the fourth century, to the second; that this later forgery must not be allowed to throw any shadow of suspicion on the earlier Ignatian letters; and that the question of a prior interpolation must be decided by independent evidence. The two other forms of the Ignatian letters may be described briefly as follows: (1) The first comprises the seven letters which Eusebius had before him, and in the same form in which he read themto the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnæans, and Polycarp. It is true that other Epistles confessedly spurious are attached to them in the MSS; but these (as will appear presently) do not properly belong to this collection, and were added subsequently. This collection is 1 S. R. 1. p. 263. preserved not only in the original Greek, but also in Latin and Armenian versions. Fragments also are extant of Coptic and Syriac versions, from which last, and not from the original Greek, the Armenian was translated. The discovery of these epistles, first of all by Ussher in the Latin translation, and then by Isaac Voss in the Greek original, about the middle of the seventeenth century, was the death-blow to the Long Recension. Ussher's dissertations had the honour of giving it the happy despatch. It is usual to call this recension, which thus superseded the other, the Short Greek; but this term is for obvious reasons objectionable, and I shall designate these Epistles the Vossian. (2) The second is extant only in a Syriac dress, and contains three of the Epistles alone to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans-in a still shorter form. These Syriac Epistles were discovered among the Nitrian Mss in the British Museum, and published by Cureton in 1845. I shall therefore call these the Curetonian Epistles. Cureton's discovery stirred up the Ignatian dispute anew. It was soon fanned into flames by the controversy between Bunsen and Baur, and is raging still. The two questions are these: (1) Whether the Vossian or the Curetonian Epistles are prior in time; in other words, whether the Vossian Epistles were expanded from the Curetonian by interpolation, or whether the Curetonian were reduced from the Vossian by excision and abridgment; and (2) when this question has been disposed of, whether the prior of these two recensions can be regarded as genuine or not. The question respecting the Ignatian letters has, from the nature of the case, never been discussed exclusively on its own merits. The pure light of criticism has been crossed by the shadows of controversial prepossession on both sides. From the era of the Reformation onward, the dispute between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism has darkened the investigation; in our own age the controversies respecting the Canon of Scripture and the early history of Christianity have interfered with equally injurious effects. Besides these two main questions which are affected by the Ignatian letters, other subjects indirectly involved have aided the strife and confusion. The antagonism between Papal and Protestant writers materially affected the discussion in the sixteenth century, and the antagonism between Arianism and Catholicity in the eighteenth. But the disturbing influence of these indirect questions, though not inconsiderable at the time, has not been lasting. In the present paper I shall not attempt to treat of the Ignatian question as a whole. It will simply be my business to analyse the statements and discuss the arguments of the author of Supernatural Religion relating to this subject. I propose, when I resume these papers again, to say something of the Apostolic Fathers in reference to early Christian belief and to the New Testament Canon; and this cannot be done with any effect until the way has been so far cleared as to indicate the extent to which we can employ the Ignatian letters as valid testimony. The Ignatian question is the most perplexing which confronts the student of earlier Christian history. The literature is voluminous; the considerations involved are very wide, very varied, and very intricate. A writer therefore may well be pardoned if he betrays a want of familiarity with this subject. But in this case the reader naturally expects that the opinions at which he has arrived will be stated with some diffidence. The author of Supernatural Religion has no hesitation on the subject. The whole of the Ignatian literature,' he writes, 'is a mass of falsification and fraud.' 'It is not possible,' he says, 'even if the Epistle [to the Smyrnæans] were genuine, which it is not, to base any such conclusion upon these words?.' And again : 'We must, however, go much further, and assert that none of the Epistles have any value as evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second, or beginning of the third, century, even if they possess any value at all.' And immediately afterwards : 1 I. p. 269. : 2 1. p. 270. 3 1. p. 274. We have just seen that the martyr-journey of Ignatius to Rome is, for cogent reasons, declared to be wholly fabulous, and the Epistles purporting to be written during that journey must be held to be spurious1.' The reader is naturally led to think that a writer would not use such very decided language unless he had obtained a thorough mastery of his subject; and when he finds the notes thronged with references to the most recondite sources of information, he at once credits the author with an 'exhaustive' knowledge of the literature bearing upon it. It becomes important therefore to inquire whether the writer shows that accurate acquaintance with the subject, which justifies us in attaching weight to his dicta, as distinguished from his argu ments. I will take first of all a passage which sweeps the field of the Ignatian controversy, and therefore will serve well as a test. The author writes as follows: 'The strongest internal, as well as other evidence, into which space forbids our going in detail, has led the majority of critics to recognise the Syriac Version as the most genuine form of the letters of Ignatius extant, and this is admitted by most of those who nevertheless deny the authenticity of any of the Epistles3.' No statement could be more erroneous, as a summary of the results of the Ignatian controversy since the publication of the Syriac Epistles, than this. Those who maintain the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles, in one or other of the two forms, may be said to be almost evenly divided on this question of priority. While Cureton and Bunsen and Ritschl and Ewald and Weiss accept the Curetonian letters, Uhlhorn and Denzinger and Petermann and Hefele and Jacobson and Zahn still adhere to the Vossian. But this is a trifling error compared with what follows. The misstatement in the last clause of the sentence will, I venture to think, surprise anyone who is at all familiar with the literature of the Ignatian controversy. Those, who that edition (p. xxvi) as a misprint.] 1 I. p. 274. 2 ['many' ed. 6 (1. p. 264); the read ing 'most' is explained in the preface to 3 1. p. 263 sq. |