Chapter X: Front Matter (10)

Mr. Romilly, in the course of his wanderings, made a journey to New Guinea, a portion of which has now been placed under British protection. Little is known of the resources of this country, trading operations having hitherto been almost entirely confined to the south coast. Mr. Romilly's visit was brief, and he was not enabled to add much to our previous stock of information. He does not seem to be aware of the progress which the Germans are making in this island, or of the results of the energetic support which Prince Bismarck invariably extends to his adventurous countrymen.

Here, then, are three works which ought to have the effect of reviving the interest of the English people in their possessions abroad, if they have not sunk into a hopeless state of indifference and apathy on the subject. We do not for a moment believe that the working men are indifferent to the present and future welfare of our Colonies, but they need to be instructed as to the true value of their great inheritance, and therefore it is that we earnestly wish such books as these could be made readily accessible to them. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of convincing them that it is our duty as a nation to hold fast to all that we have added, from time to time, to the dominions of the Crown. The foreign policy of the country, no less than the domestic policy, must henceforth be directed mainly in accordance with their opinions; and if those opinions are left to be influenced and guided by the hereditary dislike of the Colonies which infects all Radicalism, our position in the world will soon be reduced to one of comparative insignificance. Baron Huebner concludes his volumes with these words: 'Had I to sum up the impressions derived from my travels, I should say, "British rule is firmly seated in India; England has only one enemy to fear--herself."' That is the whole truth of the matter. We have to fear our own party divisions, the want of true public spirit among too many of our 'politicians,' the tendency of Radical leaders to teach the doctrine that England ought to shut herself within her own island boundaries, and cast off all outside responsibilities. Sentiments of this kind may be, and are, loudly cheered in the House of Commons, but very few Liberals are daring enough to advocate them in the country. Lancashire knows how valuable India is to her, and the manufacturing districts generally see the growing importance to them, merely from a commercial point of view, of the Australian Colonies. The anti-Colonial policy is growing less and less popular among the people. To discredit it altogether, it is only necessary to distribute, far and wide among the working men, facts and considerations of the kind furnished in the works to which we have endeavoured to call attention.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See Mr. Lecky's 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century,' vol. ii, p. 443, &c.

ART. VII.--_The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp._ Revised Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2 vols.

This a great book, dealing principally with a great subject--the 'Ignatian Epistles.' The two volumes contain altogether 1849 Pages, 1311 being devoted to St. Ignatius, the remainder to St. Polycarp. It is no exaggeration to say that they are full of the most valuable information, dealing with matters of vital ecclesiastical importance, the whole presented in the most lucid style, and marked by broad, strong, scholarship. They are the result of 'a keen interest in the Ignatian controversy conceived long ago' by the Bishop of Durham. 'The subject has been before me,' he writes in his Preface, 'for nearly thirty years, and during this period it has engaged my attention off and on in the intervals of other literary pursuits and official duties.' The conception, execution, and production of the work had therefore been protracted. The volumes as they are issued to-day are not in the form they were originally written. Thus, the 'Appendix Ignatiana' was in type several years before the commentary on the genuine Epistles of Ignatius, and the Introduction and texts of the 'Ignatian Acts of Martyrdom' passed through the press in 1878. In 1879 Cambridge and London surrendered their great teacher to Durham; and there in the intervals, few enough, snatched from official duties, the first volume has been written, and from thence sent forth. It is necessary to bear this in mind; because it will, on the one hand, explain absence of reference to some works published since 1878; and on the other hand it increases the value of the Bishop's results, when reached in entire independence of, and yet in entire accordance with, those of other scholars in the same field.

This work testifies to the truth, that it is a mark of true greatness to be modest. The most superficial examination of these volumes exhibits a _Corpus Ignatianum_ superior to anything yet published. It is, says Dr. Harnack,[64] 'without exaggeration the most learned and careful Patristic monograph which has appeared in the nineteenth century.' It exhibits 'a diligence and knowledge of the subject which show that Dr. Lightfoot has made himself master of this department, and placed himself beyond the reach of any rival.... There is nothing in it that is not up to date, and the whole treatise forms a well-knit unity.' This is the willing testimony of one of the ablest of the scholars of Germany who have handled the great questions connected with Ignatius; the testimony, moreover, of one who, as we shall see presently, finds himself at variance with the Bishop upon two points, especially which, more than any other, materially affect the genuineness of the Epistles and their date. Such, however, is not the Bishop of Durham's thought. As he looks back upon the work to which he has consecrated the prime of his life, he speaks of it in language touching in its modesty--

'I have striven to make the materials for the text as
complete as I could.... Of the use which I have made of the
critical materials I must leave others to judge. Of the
introductions, exegetical notes, and dissertations, I need
say nothing, except that I have spared no pains to make them
adequate, so far as my knowledge and ability permitted. The
translations are intended not only to convey to English
readers the sense of the original, but also (where there was
any difficulty of construction) to serve as commentaries on
the Greek. My anxiety not to evade these difficulties forbad
me in many cases to indulge in a freedom which I should have
claimed, if a literary standard alone had been kept in
view.'

He follows up such words by others, conveying his thanks to those who have helped him in his work, and the generosity of his recognition of their services does but enhance the reserveful simplicity with which he comments upon his own. The 'English reader' and the 'others' whose judgment he desires, will, at least in England, unite in rendering to him a respectful and grateful homage. The subject treated by the Bishop is in a very real sense an Englishman's subject. For three centuries English critics have not only entered the literary arena, in which the great historic and ecclesiastical questions connected with his subject have been discussed, but they have contributed largely to the materials, offensive and defensive, which the combatants have employed. Ussher, Pearson, Churton, and Cureton, have been English champions whose merits all have acknowledged. The Bishop of Durham has now entered the lists to support what has been proved sound in their conclusions, to remove what was weak, and do battle for the truth. An impartial English public will appreciate the gravity of this challenge, and may be trusted to grant or withhold the victory he puts forth his best powers to win.

The volumes lend themselves by their construction to an easy statement of their contents, if those contents by their fulness must be of necessity the despair of critic and reviewer. First there is the life of the Saint, then the discussion of the manuscripts and versions which delineate the Saint and his literary remains. These are followed by exhaustive discussions upon all that tells for or against their genuineness, the whole being treated both historically and critically. Such will be found, briefly stated, the mode of discussing the life and works both of St. Ignatius of Antioch and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna; and two results will reward a patient persual of these volumes. The Bishop has indeed limited these results to the study of the Ignatian Epistles, but--under his guidance--the reader will find what is affirmed of one to be true of both:--

'The Ignatian Epistles are an exceptionally good
training-ground for the student of early Christian
literature and history. They present in typical and
instructive forms the most varied problems, textual,
exegetical, doctrinal, and historical. One who has
thoroughly grasped these problems will be placed in
possession of a master key which will open to him vast
storehouses of knowledge.

'But' (continues the Bishop) 'I need not say that their
educational value was not the motive which led me to spend
so much time over them. The destructive criticism of the
last half century is, I think, fast spending its force. In
its excessive ambition it has "o'erleapt itself." It has not
indeed been without its use. It has led to a thorough
examination and sifting of ancient documents. It has
exploded not a few errors, and discovered or established not
a few truths. For the rest, it has by its directness and
persistency stimulated investigation and thought on these
subjects to an extent which a less aggressive criticism
would have failed to secure. The immediate effect of the
attack has been to strew the vicinity of the fortress with
heaps of ruins. Some of these were best cleared away without
hesitation or regret; but in other cases the rebuilding is a
measure demanded by truth and prudence alike. I have been
reproached by my friends for allowing myself to be diverted
from the more congenial task of commenting on St. Paul's
Epistles; but the importance of the position seemed to me to
justify the expenditure of much time and labour in
"repairing a breach" not indeed in the "House of the Lord"
itself, but in the immediately outlying buildings.'

St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp (together with St. Clement of Rome) are the links which connect the Apostolic age proper with the Fathers of the second and third centuries; and this fact has made them and their scanty literature the hope and despair, the pride and the scorn, of opposing factions. In the whirl and confusion of discordant criticisms it is everything to study and to build up by the help of one who has caught the spirit of the master-lives he expounds. There breathes throughout the volumes of the Bishop of Durham the spirit of St. Ignatius's counsel--

'Speak to each man severally after the manner of God. Bear
the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is
much toil, there is much gain. If thou lovest good scholars,
this is not thankworthy in thee. Rather bring the more
pestilent to submission by gentleness.... The season
requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a
storm-tossed mariner a haven, that it may attain unto God.
Be sober, as God's athlete. The prize is incorruption and
life eternal, concerning which thou also art
persuaded.'--(Ep. of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, I, 2.)

Ignatius of Antioch: Men of old loved to find in his name (or its Syriace quivalent, Nurono, [Greek: youra = phyr], _fire_) a prescience of the torch of divine love which blazed in him. The fancy may pass, if etymologically unsound; for Ignatius, 'the Inflamed,' was a true child of the fiery East. Contrast him and his letters with St. Clement of Rome and his Epistle to the Corinthians. Nothing is more notable in the Roman 'than the calm equable temper,' the 'sweet reasonableness.' He is essentially a _moderator_. On the other hand, impetuosity, fire, strong-headedness, are impressed on every sentence in the Epistles of Ignatius. He is by his very nature an _impeller_ of men. Both are intense, though in different ways. In Clement, the intensity of moderation dominates and guides his conduct. In Ignatius it is the intensity of passion--passion for doing and suffering--which drives him onward. In Clement we listen to the voice of a judge delivering calmly his sentence from his throne; in Ignatius we

'are startled by the ringing cry of the trumpet-call--sharp,
stirring, penetrating--sounding for the battle. The fire of
the hot East bursts in, like a sun, strong and impassioned;
a vivid personality, in flame with love, flashes in upon
the world, quivering as a sword of the cherubim; a rhetoric
in which the rapid, electric thought breaks out of the
strained and formless chaos of the _imagination_, as
lightning out of the rolling and dark thunder-cloud; a
theology, which, by the intense passion of metaphor, forces
an almost violent entrance into the secrets of the Most
High; a morality which can carry forward into the heights of
holiness the madness of faith, the extravagance of zeal, the
recklessness of enthusiasm, the audacity of love, dragging
them into the service of Christ at the chariot-wheels of
God's triumph--such are the characteristics of Ignatius of
Antioch.'[65]

The Roman name of Ignatius (or Egnatius) tells nothing as to his birth or origin. It was not unknown in Syria and Palestine, and was sometimes borne by Jews. But another and a second name--Theophorus--of regular recurrence in the seven genuine Epistles records at least his spiritual birth. Ignatius probably assumed the name of 'the God-bearer' at the time of his conversion or his baptism; the precedent lay before him of a Saul commemorating a critical incident in his career (Acts xiii. 9) by a similar adoption of a name; and that assumed by Ignatius became in its turn an epithet freely applied to the Fathers at the Oecumenical councils. The name gave birth to more than one beautiful legend. Was not Ignatius, according to the Eastern belief, the 'God-borne' [Greek: theophoros], the very child whom the Lord took into His arms (St. Mark ix. 36, 37)? Was he not the 'God-bearer' [Greek: theophoros] on the fragments of whose heart according to Western tradition, was found stamped in golden letters the name of Jesus Christ? Whether he were a slave or not must remain uncertain. It is a more probable deduction from his own language that he--the 'untimely birth,'[66]--the 'one born out of due time' and 'the last' of the faithful, had been rescued from a pagan life, such as Antioch on the Orontes, the home of panders and dancing girls, and 'Daphnici mores' would have applauded.

'His,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'was one of those "broken"
natures out of which God's heroes are made. If not a
persecutor of Christ, if not a foe to Christ, as seems
probable, he had at least been for a considerable portion of
his life an alien from Christ. Like St. Paul, like
Augustine, like Francis Xavier, like Luther, like John
Bunyan, he could not forget that his had been a dislocated
life; and the memory of the catastrophe, which had shattered
his former self, filled him with awe and thanksgiving, and
fanned the fervour of his devotion to a white heat.

There is no chronological inconsistency in supposing that Ignatius was a disciple of some Apostle, if nothing can be affirmed as to the date of his accession to the ministry or episcopate. On the supposition that he was martyred, as an old man, about A. D. 110, his birth may be placed about A. D. 40. When 25 years of age, or in A. D. 65, companionship would still have been opened to him with St. Peter and St. Paul; or, if his teacher were St. John, his conversion may be brought to A. D. 90, when he would be about 50 years of age. Confessedly all this is conjectural or traditional, as are also any details of episcopal administration.' A 'pitchy darkness' envelopes the life and work of Ignatius, till it is 'at length illumined by a vivid but transient flash of light.' The story of Ignatius begins and ends with the story of his death. 'If his martyrdom had not rescued him from obscurity, he would have remained like his predecessor Euodius, a mere name.' His martyrdom has made him a distinct and living personality, a true father of the Church, a teacher and example to all time.'

Thrilling though the narrative of this martyrdom must ever be, the barest outline only can be given here. The Martyrologies, if they are to be set aside as not containing authentic history, will fascinate afresh the student who turns to them to find in the notes and discussions light cast upon many a critical and ecclesiastical problem. The genuine Epistles have furnished the Bishop with the materials of a sketch of terror which every one will read with the deepest interest.

For some unknown reason the Church of Antioch was by God's will deprived of its venerable head; and with other 'convicts,' collected from the provinces to be

'Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.'

Ignatius was led Romeward. His journey lay along a route which in part had been traversed by Xerxes. The procession of the Persian, foremost among his myriads of men for beauty and stature, halting near Sardis to decorate a beautiful plane-tree with golden ornaments, and commit it to the custody of an 'immortal'[67] is in vivid contrast to the procession of 'criminals,' the Christian leader 'bound amidst ten leopards (or soldiers) who wax worse when kindly treated,' halting also at Sardis, his own decoration the 'bonds' which are to him 'spiritual pearls,' and at Smyrna, writing letters which shall make him immortal.[68] At Troas, like another St. Paul, he looked upon the shores of the Europe which was in later ages to rise up and call them blessed; and from thence he wrote how prepared, how eager he was to meet the 'fire, the sword, the wild beasts,' how to be 'near to the sword was to be near to God; to be encircled by wild beasts was to be encircled by God.' And then Rome at last!--among those who thirsted for his blood, among those whose very love he dreaded lest it should do him the injury of keeping him from martyrdom. Touching is the appeal he had sent before him to the Church 'filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear from every foreign stain':--

'Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can
attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the
teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of
Christ. Entice the wild beasts that they may become my
sepulchre and may leave no part of my body behind, so that I
may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to any one.'

Into the colossal pile, erected for the display of the bloodiest of inhuman crimes, he was led; and his own impassioned appeal was answered:

'Come fire and cross, and grapplings with wild beasts! Come
cuttings and manglings, wrenching of bones, hacking of
limbs, crushings of my whole body! Come cruel tortures of
the devil to assail me! Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus
Christ!'

Men, with tear-stained faces, looked away from his death to 'form themselves'--as he had bidden them--

'into a chorus in love and sing to the Father in Jesus
Christ. God had vouchsafed that the Bishop from Syria should
be found in the West, having summoned him from the East.
Good was it to set from this world unto God, that he might
rise unto Him.'

Love is perhaps wrong in asserting that his remains were brought back to Antioch: it is unerringly right in having raised the Epistle to the Romans--'his paean prophetic of his coming victory'--to be the martyr's manual of a grateful posterity.

'The glory of Ignatius as a martyr,' writes the Bishop of
Durham, 'has commended his lessons as a doctor. His teaching
on matters of theological truth and ecclesiastical order was
barbed and fledged by the fame of his constancy in that
supreme trial of his faith.'

If interest in the heresies he combated may be said to be confined to-day to scholars who study them as a chapter in heresiology, or seek in them a bone of contention, the interest in the points of ecclesiastical order delineated by him was never more intense than now. Only last year the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles to the burning question of Apostolical succession was one point in the discussion between Canon Liddon of St. Paul's and Dr. Hatch; this year, the view presented by the Bishop of Durham meets with its ablest antagonist in Dr. Harnack. In very truth the letters of the martyr have been the battlefield of the controversy, which affirms or disallows the threefold ministry of the Church of Christ.

It will be perceived at once how much turns, not first upon the interpretation of the Epistles, but upon the genuineness of the text presenting itself for interpretation. What is the text? Never before have the lovers of textual criticism had the opportunity of examining and answering this question as they have now in the Bishop of Durham's volumes. He first describes at length the Manuscripts and Versions, on which a true text may be reasonably founded, and then gives the text, together with the Versions, accompanied by Introductions and Notes which leave nothing to desire. The labour necessary for massing and bringing together all this information is only equalled by the exactness and orderliness with which it is presented. But the Bishop writes not only for the scholar, but for the man of general culture and intelligence, who can enter with interest into a problem historical and antiquarian, as well as textual and critical. To many the battle of the giants, over the 'long,' the 'middle,' and the 'short,' form or recension of the Ignatian Epistles, will be an intellectual treat, as he watches the fence and scholarship of the various disputants. He will see that in literary as in political controversy the spirit of compromise is to-day in the ascendant, and that 'middle'-men have for once their value.

To explain these terms. By the 'short' form is meant that which consists of _three_ Epistles only--to St. Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans. This exists only in a Syraic version. By the second, 'the middle form,' are understood these three Epistles, and four more, namely, Epistles to the Smyrnaeans, Magnesians, Philadelphians, and Trallians. This form is originally Greek, and is found also in Latin, Armenian, and--in a fragmentary state--in Syriac and Coptic. The third or 'long' form, contains the seven already enumerated in a more expanded state, together with six others, the recension being in a Greek and in a Latin translation.[69]

Practically the contest as to the truest form has been reduced to a duel between the 'short' and the 'middle.' The 'long' form can be shown to be the work of an unknown author, probably of the latter half of the fourth century, and constructed from the genuine Ignatian Epistles by interpolation, alteration and omission. But the 'long' form died hard, and mainly through the thrusts of our own Ussher.

'The history of the Ignatian Epistles,' says the Bishop, 'in
Western Europe before and after the revival of letters, is
full of interest. In the Middle Ages the spurious and
interpolated letters alone have any wide circulation.
Gradually, as the light advances, the forgeries recede into
the background. Each successive stage diminishes the bulk of
the Ignatian literature, which the educated mind accepts as
genuine; till at length the true Ignatius alone remains,
divested of the accretions which perverted ingenuity has
gathered about him.'

In the 'long' recension there is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery was 'consigned to the limbo of foolish and forgotten things.' This pretender set aside, St. Ignatius was represented in Western Europe by the epistles of the 'Long' recension. The Latin text was printed in 1498, and the Greek in 1557. At first no doubt was felt about their genuineness. Gradually, however, unwelcome critics pointed out gross anachronisms and blunders. Men, with unpleasant habits of comparison, noted that Eusebius, the Church historian (C. A. D. 310-25), quoted from only seven epistles, and that the divergence of the 'long' text from that given by early Christian writers[70] fully warranted the comment of Ussher, that it was difficult to imagine 'eundem legere se Ignatium qui veterum aetate legebatur.' Theological and ecclesiastical prejudice lent bitterness to the rising strife. On the Continent, Reformer and Romanist ranged themselves in opposite camps: the one quoting with delight passages which favoured Roman supremacy, or advocated Episcopacy; the other throwing them over as 'nursery stories' (or 'silly tales,' _naenia_), and denouncing 'the insufferable impudence of those who equipped themselves with ghosts like these for the purpose of deceiving' (Calvin). After the publication of the edition of Vedelius, a Genevan Professor, in 1623, Anglican writers, such as Whitgift, Hooker, and Andrewes, seem to have accepted without hesitation the twelve (the seven named by Eusebius and five others) contained in that edition; but in England as on the Continent, the absence of so much, which could alone lead men to a right conclusion, prevented the consideration of the question on its true merits:--

'Episcopacy was the burning question of the day; and the
sides of the combatants in the Ignatian controversy were
already predetermined for them by their attitude towards
this question. Every allowance should be made for their
following their prepossessions, where the evidence seemed so
evenly balanced. On the one hand, external testimony was so
strongly in favour of the genuineness of certain Ignatian
letters; on the other hand, the only Ignatian letters known
were burdened with difficulties. At the very eve of Ussher's
revelation, a fierce literary war broke out on this very
subject of Episcopacy--evoked by the religious and political
troubles of the times.'

On the one side were Hall's (Bishop of Exeter) 'Episcopacy by Divine Right asserted' (1639), and 'An Humble Remonstrance' on behalf of Liturgy and Episcopacy (1641); Ussher's 'The original of Bishops and Metropolitans,' and Jeremy Taylor's 'Of the Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy' (1642); on the other, the five Presbyterian ministers whose initials composed the monstrous name Smectymnuus,[71] issued their 'Answer to the Book entituled an Humble Remonstrance' (1641), and Milton, in his short treatise 'Of Prelatical Episcopacy' (1641), fulminated with 'fiery eloquence and reckless invective' against Ussher.

'Had God,' wrote Milton, 'intended that we should have
sought any part of useful instruction from Ignatius,
doubtless He would not have so ill-provided for our
knowledge as to send him to our hands in this broken and
disjointed plight; and if He intended no such thing, we do
injuriously in thinking to taste better the pure evangelic
manna by seasoning our mouths with the tainted scraps and
fragments from an unknown table, and searching among the
verminous and polluted rags dropped overworn from the
toiling shoulders of Time, with these deformedly to quilt
and interlace the entire, the spotless, and undecaying robe
of Truth. What impiety,' he added, 'the confronting and
paralleling the sacred verity of St. Paul with the offals
and sweepings of antiquity, that met as accidently and
absurdly as Epicurus his atoms to patch up a Leucippean
Ignatius.'

'Out of his own mouth,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'he was soon convicted.' The "better provision for knowledge" came full soon. To the critical genius of Ussher belongs the honour of restoring the true Ignatius. Ussher observed that the quotations from this Father in three English writers, Robert (Grosseteste) of Lincoln (c. 1250), John Tyssington (c. 1381), and William Wodeford (c. 1396), agreed--not with texts hitherto known (the Greek and Latin of the 'long' Recension), but--with the quotations in Eusebius and Theodoret. He concluded that somewhere in the libraries of England he ought to find MSS. of a version corresponding to this earlier text of Ignatius: and he discovered two--(1.) _Caiensis_ 395 [L1], a MS. given to Gonville and Cains College, Cambridge, in 1444 by Walter Crome; and (2.) _Montacutianus_ [L2], a parchment from the library of Bishop Montague or Montacute, of Norwich. Of the first a transcript was made for Archbishop Ussher, and is still in the library of Dublin University (D.3.II), and is dated 20 June, 1631. It is full of inaccuracies, arising sometimes from indifference to spelling on the part of the transcriber, or to carelessness and inattention, but most frequently from ignorance of the numerous and perplexing contractions. The second has disappeared, probably on the day when Parliament ordered the Archbishop's books to be seized and confiscated (1643). Bishop Lightfoot has in part restored it by drawing attention to the collation of this Montacute MS., which occurs between the lines or in the margin of the Dublin transcript of the Caius MS. Archbishop Ussher's examination of the Latin version, thus discovered, induced in his mind a suspicion that Bishop Grosseteste was himself the translator. A marginal note, for example, betrayed the nationality of its author; 'Incus est instrumentum fabri; dicitur Anglice _anfeld_ [anvil].' Who so likely to have had the ability to translate from a Greek version as Robert Grosseteste, one of the very few Greek scholars of his age? Evidence is not wanting that the Ignatian Epistles were imported from Greece, and translated under the Bishop's direction by one or other of the Greek scholars who were with him: and it is significant, in connection with this point, that Tyssington and Wodeford belonged to the Franciscan Convent at Oxford to which Grosseteste left his books.

The result of Ussher's discovery was to determine, that this Latin translation--valuable for critical purposes on account of its extreme literalness[72]--represented the Ignatius known to the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Greek text still remained unknown, and Ussher attempted to restore it from the 'long' recension by the aid of his newly discovered Latin version. This he did by bringing the former as nearly as possible into conformity with the latter. Ussher's book appeared in 1644. It was marred by one blot. Eusebius had mentioned seven Epistles, but Ussher--deceived by a mistake on the part of St. Jerome--exscinded the Epistle to Polycarp, and condemned it as spurious. Two years later, Isaac Voss published the Greek of six Epistles from a Florentine MS., the Epistle to the Romans having disappeared from the copy; and this omission was finally rectified in 1689 by Ruinart. From the middle of the seventeenth century disputants ceased to trouble themselves about the 'long' form. Controversy, presently to be noted, raged about the Vossian letters, Daille (1666) attacking them, Pearson defending them.

It is a great leap to the year 1845, but not till then did a new era dawn upon the questions at issue. It was in that year that Cureton published the 'Antient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans.' This version was discovered in two MSS. at the British Museum, and contained the Epistles named in a shorter form than either of the Greek or Latin texts.[73] Cureton's contention was that he had discovered the genuine Ignatius, and that the remaining four Epistles of the Vossian collection, as well as the additional portions of these three, were forgeries. Cureton was opposed by Dr. Wordsworth, the late Bishop of Lincoln, then Canon of Westminster, and defended by Bunsen. There followed quickly the _Vindiciae Ignatianae_ (1846) and _Corpus Ignatianum_ (1849), in which Cureton was considered to have not only refuted his adversary, but also to have presented arguments which rallied to his standard Ritschl, Lipsius, Pressense, Ewald, Milman, and Boehringer. Opposition to Cureton's view was not, however, wanting. The Orientalists, Petermann and Merx, united with the Conservative critical school, represented by Denzinger and Uhlhorn, in preferring the Vossian collection; while the Tuebingen school (Baur and Hilgenfeld) opposed itself to Ignatian letters, short, middle, or long, as utterly subversive of their theories of the growth of the Canon, and of the history of the Early Church. The Bishop of Durham was himself, at that time on Cureton's side, 'led captive' (as he says) 'for a time by the tyranny of this dominant force.' We can but record the change in his opinions, and leave to the reader to follow, in the Bishop's own pages, the reasons which induced him to abandon a method and decline results that would not stand the test of a searching criticism. Independent investigation of the phenomena of the Armenian version and of the Syriac fragments led him to regard the 'short' or Curetonian recension as an abridgment or mutilation, rather than the nucleus, of the 'middle' or Vossian form; and Zahn's monograph, _Ignatius von Antiochien_(1873), never yet answered, dealt a fatal blow at the claims of the Curetonian letters. Since then Lipsius has been convinced by Merx; Renan and Harnack are agreed; and most scholars will come to the conclusion, that through the Bishop of Durham's own serious investigation of the diction and style of the 'short' form, 'the last sparks of its waning life have been extinguished.' The collection was directed by no doctrinal, Eutychian or Monophysite, motive, nor composed (as Hefele suggested) in support of moral aim or monastic piety. It is simply a 'loose and perfunctory curtailment of the middle form, neither epitome nor extract, but something between the two,' and to be dated about the year A. D. 400 or somewhat earlier.

The ground having been thus cleared from the accretions of the 'long' form and the mutilations of the 'short,' the Bishop of Durham considers in the next place the genuineness of the seven Epistles known to Eusebius, and preserved to us not only in the original Greek, but also in Latin and other translations. It is a bitter reflection, that discussion on this subject was (and--in a less degree--is still) evoked, not so much by critical and textual variations and difficulties, as by the exigencies of party spirit and theological animosity. A dreary, if necessary, page of ecclesiastical history has to be studied, when French Protestant and English Puritan turned passionately against the discovery of Ussher and Voss. It is small comfort to the charitably minded to be told that, had no Daille attacked[74] the Ignatian letters, Pearson would not have stepped forward as their champion.

The consideration of the genuineness of the Seven Epistles falls naturally under the head of external and internal evidence.

The Bishop gives his conclusion on the external evidence in the following words:--

'(1.) No Christian writings of the second century, very few
writings of antiquity, whether Christian or pagan, are so
well authenticated as the Epistles of Ignatius. If the
Epistle of Polycarp be accepted as genuine, the
authentication is perfect. (2.) The main ground of objection
against the genuineness of the Epistle of Polycarp is its
authentication of the Ignatian Epistles. Otherwise there is
every reason to believe that it would have passed
unquestioned. (3.) The Epistle of Polycarp itself is
exceptionally well authenticated by the testimony of his
disciple Irenaeus. (4.) All attempts to explain the phenomena
of the Epistle of Polycarp, as forged or interpolated to
give colour to the Ignatian Epistles, have signally failed.'

These four propositions sum up an examination minute and masterful. Not only is the testimony of the Epistle of Polycarp adduced, but also that of Irenaeus; that of the letter of the Smyrnaeans, giving the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp; that of Lucian, and that of Origen (middle of third century). After the age of Eusebius (half a century later than Origen) 'no early Christian writing outside the Canon is attested by witnesses so many and so various in the ages of the Councils and subsequently.' Dr. Harnack, however, is opposed to the Bishop's conclusions, and considers that, 'if we do not retain the Epistle of Polycarp, the external evidence on behalf of the Ignatian Epistles is exceedingly weak, and hence is highly favourable to the suspicion that they are spurious.' This is not the place to enter into the dispute. We can but record our opinion, that in the Bishop's pages Dr. Harnack's objections are met by anticipation.

* * * * *

The internal evidence is treated by the Bishop under six heads.

1. The Historical and Geographical Circumstances dealing specially with the condemnation and the journey to Rome. Under this section are collected also the personal notices yielding their testimony to the genuineness of the letters in a manner not less striking, because incidental and allusive, than the testimony of the geographical section. The reader will linger here over the thought of the consolation and refreshment brought to the good Ignatius on his way to martydom. We learn to love Crocus and Alce, 'names,' says Ignatius, 'beloved by me,' Burrhus and the widow of Epitropus, for the love they bore the Saint; we learn to see in the Bishop of Durham's pages how such names bear undesigned testimony to the Epistles which record them.

2. The Theological Polemics.

3. The Ecclesiastical Conditions. To these we shall return immediately, after a few words on--

4. The Literary Obligations, 5, The Personality of the Writer, and 6, The Style and Diction of the Letters. As regards the Literary Obligations, the Bishop lays down the following maxim: 'A primary test of age in any early Christian writing is the relation which the notices of the words and deeds of Christ and His Apostles bear to the Canonical writings;' and he adds, 'Tried by this test, the Ignatian Epistles proclaim their early date. There is no sign whatever in them of a Canon or authoritative collection of Books of the New Testament.' There are frequent references to the facts of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, and Gospel sayings are given; but there is 'not a single reference to written evangelical records, such as the "Memoirs of the Apostles," which occupy so large a place in Justin Martyr.' The same holds good of the Apostolic Epistles.

'I would ask,' the Bishop concludes, 'any reader who desires
to apprehend the full force of these (facts with reference
to Ignatius) to read a book or two of Irenaeus continually,
and mark the contrast in the manner of dealing with the
Evangelical narratives and the Apostolic letters. He will
probably allow that an interval of two generations or more
is not too long a period to account for the difference of
treatment.'

The personality of the writer is no doubt unusual. A power of communication with angels,[75] 'extravagant' humility and self-depreciation;[76] and a not less 'extravagant' desire for martyrdom (confined, however, to the Epistle to the Romans), are not certainly what a later age commended or found in the Martyrs; but due allowance being made for the temperament of the Saint and the circumstances of the case, 'it is a picture much more explicable as the autotype of a real person than as the invention of a forger.'

Once more, the Style and Diction of the Letters may be, as Daille and his followers have thought, 'forced and unnatural' in the use of images, 'confused' as to language, and 'bombastic' as to diction. But what then? asks the Bishop:--

'What security did his position as an Apostolic Father give
that he should write simply and plainly, that he should
avoid solecisms, that his language should never he
disfigured by bad taste or faulty rhetoric?'

'It may not,' he continues, 'be considered very good taste
to draw out the metaphor of a hauling engine (Ephes. 9)--to
compare the Holy Spirit to the rope, the faith of the
believers to the windlass, &c. But on what grounds, prior to
experience, have we any more right to expect either a
faultless taste or a pure diction in a genuine writer at the
beginning of the second century, than in a spurious writer
at the end of the same?'

Elaborate compounds, Latinisms, reiterations, are no proof of spuriousness.

It is not, however, so much on these as on so-called anachronisms that assailants have attacked the letters. In every instance a supposed success has ended in a reverse. Thus the term 'leopard,' applied to the soldiers who conveyed Ignatius,[77] was said to have been unknown before the age of Constantine; and it was argued that the forger of these letters had antedated the word by two centuries. Pearson pointed out an example of the word about A. D. 202; but the Bishop of Durham has found it in a rescript of the Emperors Marcus and Commodus (A. D. 177-80), and in an early treatise written by Galen, which carries it back within about half a century of Ignatius. Evidently it was then a familiar term. Another alleged anachronism is the use of the term 'Catholic Church.'[78] Cureton and others have urged, that a period of full fifty years must have intervened between the time when Ignatius wrote and the first trace we find of the term 'Catholic Church.' This, says Bishop Lightfoot, 'is founded on the confusion of two wholly different things'--Catholic as a technical, and Catholic as a general term. Centuries before the Christian era, the word Catholic [Greek: katholikos] is found in the sense of 'universal'; both before and after the age of Ignatius it is common in writers, classical and ecclesiastical. 'In this sense the word might have been used at any time, and by any writer, from the first moment that the Church began to spread, while yet the conception of its unity was present to the mind.' It was only later that the term 'Catholic' acquired a technical meaning--orthodoxy as opposed to heresy, conformity as opposed to dissent. In Smyrn. 8, 'where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church,' the word is used in its sense of 'universal,' as contrasted with the Smyrnaean or local Church over which Polycarp presided. Not only is its use here not indicative of a later date, but this archaic sense emphasizes an early one. After the word 'Catholic' had acquired its later and technical use, it could not have been employed in its earliest meaning without the risk of considerable confusion.

We must refer our readers to a similarly thorough refutation of the charge of anachronism brought against these letters on account of their use of the term 'Christian,' and suggest to them an examination of the interesting proofs of the position next secured,[79] that certain characteristics of style and diction tell largely in favour of their genuineness.

We turn, after noting the summary of the internal evidences attesting the genuineness of these letters, to the headings omitted (2, 3) on the Theological Polemics and the Ecclesiastical Conditions. That summary is as follows (i. 407):--

'The external testimony to the Ignatian Epistles being so
strong, only the most decisive marks of spuriousness in the
Epistles themselves, as, for instance, proved anachronism,
would justify us in suspecting them as interpolated, or
rejecting them as spurious.--But so far is this from being
the case, that one after another the anachronisms urged
against these letters have vanished in the light of further
knowledge.--As regards the argument which Daille calls
"palmary"--the prevalence of episcopacy as a recognized
institution--we may say boldly that all the facts point the
other way. If the writer of these letters had represented
the churches of Asia Minor as under presbyterial government,
he would have contradicted all the evidence which, without
one dissentient voice, points to episcopacy as the
established form of Church government in these districts
from the close of the first century.--The circumstances of
the condemnation, captivity, and journey of Ignatius, which
have been a stumbling-block to some modern critics, did not
present any difficulty to those who lived near the time, and
therefore knew best what might be expected under the
circumstances; and they are sufficiently borne out by
example, more or less analogous, to establish their
credibility.--The objections to the style and language are
beside the purpose.--A like answer holds with regard to any
extravagances in sentiment, or opinion, or character.--While
the investigation of the contents of these Epistles has
yielded this negative result in dissipating the objections,
it has at the same time had a high positive value, as
revealing indications of a very early date, and therefore
presumably of genuineness, in the surrounding circumstances,
more especially in the types of false doctrine which it
combats, in the ecclesiastical status which it presents, and
in the manner in which it deals with the evangelical and
apostolic documents.--Moreover, we discover in the personal
environments of the assumed writer, and more especially in
the notices of his route, many subtle coincidences which we
are constrained to regard as undesigned, and which seem
altogether beyond the reach of a forger.--So likewise the
peculiarities in style and diction of the Epistles, as also
in the representation of the writer's character, are much
more capable of explanation in a genuine writing than in a
forgery.--While external and internal evidence thus combine
to assert the genuineness of these writings, no satisfactory
account has been or apparently can be given of them as a
forgery of a later date than Ignatius. They would be quite
purposeless as such; for they entirely omit all topics which
would especially interest any subsequent age.'

The Section upon 'Ecclesiastical Conditions' deals with the ministry of men, the ministry of women, and the liturgy of the Church. Interesting though the two last points are of necessity to any student of Church organization and ritual, we pass them by to consider the 'Ecclesiastical Polemics.' The Bishop of Durham's view of the ministry of men--especially of episcopacy--as furnished by the Seven Epistles is briefly as follows. The name of Ignatius is inseparably connected with the championship of episcopacy. Such extracts as the following sufficiently attest the prominence and authority he assigns to the office: 'We ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself; 'Vindicate' (O Polycarp) 'thine office in things, temporal as well as spiritual. Let nothing be done without thy consent, and do thou nothing without the consent of God;' 'Give heed (ye Smyrnaeans) to your bishop, that God also may give heed to you;' 'Let no man do anything pertaining to the Church without the bishop.' Further, the extension of the episcopate in the time of Ignatius is quite clear. He is himself the bishop 'belonging to Syria.' He salutes and names the Bishops of Ephesus, of Magnesia, and Tralles. In those parts of Asia Minor and Syria, with which he is brought into contact, the episcopate properly so called is an established and recognized institution. This is in accordance with what the Bishop of Durham traces elsewhere in the history of the origin and development of episcopacy;[80] but it is not in accordance with Dr. Harnack's view. 'The evidence,' says the Bishop, 'points to episcopacy as the established form of Church government in these districts from the close of the first century.' Not so, says Dr. Harnack:--

'Ignatius' conception of the position and significance of
the bishop has its earliest parallel in the original
conception of the author of the Apostolic Constitutions (_i.
e._ the end of the 3d cent.); and the Epistles show that the
Monarchical Episcopate in Asia Minor was so firmly rooted,
so highly elevated above all other offices, so completely
beyond dispute, that on the ground of what we know from
other sources of early Church history, no single
investigator would assign the statements under consideration
to the second, but at the earliest to the third century.'

Let the reader, however, look up the references under the head of "Apostolical Constitutions" in the Index to vol. i. of the Bishop's work, and we shall be very much surprised if he agree with Dr. Harnack's first conclusion. Will there not be even a lurking apprehension that Dr. Harnack, in arguing from the 'original conception of the author of the Apostolic Constitutions,' is confounding the 'long' and the 'middle' Recensions of the letters? Possibly the anxiety of determination to fix upon the third century rather than the close of the first as the date of the establishment of Episcopacy may have been tolerable in the time of Daille, but is it tolerable or should it be repeated now when the means of a far more critical study of the question is open to all? In fact, Dr. Harnack is evidently disturbed by the _parti pris_ of his position; and he may be said to abandon it immediately for a more negative one: but even so, how can a critic with the authorities placed before him come even to his second and modified conclusion:--'The statements of Ignatius regarding the rank to which the Episcopate has attained, occupy, so far as our knowledge goes, an altogether isolated position in the second century.' Isolated! This can be examined upon evidence. The point is this: Are there, or are there not, witnesses to show that monarchical Episcopacy had been developed in the later years of the Apostolic Age? Irenaeus (born c. 130, according to Lipsius) was a scholar of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a scholar of St. John. He delighted to recal the reminiscences of his teacher, as did Polycarp those of St. John. He was a travelled scholar; if born in Asia Minor, he lived at Rome during middle life, and was Bishop of Lyons in Gaul in his later years. He was probably the most learned Christian of his time. 'The appreciation of the position of the man,' urges Bishop Lightfoot, 'is a first requisite to an estimate of his evidence.' And what is his evidence? Just that which is marked by such development as the man, his time, and circumstances, would lead us to expect, when compared with the Ignatius, from whom he is separated by about two generations. To Ignatius, the bishop is the centre of ecclesiastical unity; so Irenaeus, the depositary of Apostolic tradition. Irenaeus overlooks the identity of 'bishop' and 'presbyter' in the New Testament, and speaks of 'bishops _and_ presbyters from Ephesus and the other cities adjoining' coming to St. Paul at Miletus. It is to him an undisputed fact, that the bishops of his own age traced their succession back in an unbroken line to men appointed to the episcopate by the Apostles themselves. Thus he points out the sequence of the bishops of the Church of Rome 'founded by the blessed Apostles,' St. Peter and St. Paul, up to his own day; and in the case of the Church in Smyrna, he finds in Polycarp not only one 'instructed by Apostles and who had conversed with many who had seen Christ,' but also 'one who was appointed bishop in the Church of Smyrna by Apostles in Asia.'[81] Similar opinions are reflected in many passages, and they lead up to this conclusion:--

'After every reasonable allowance made for the possibility
of mistakes in details, the language (of Irenaeus) from a man
standing in his position with respect to the previous and
contemporary history of the Church leaves no room for doubt
as to the early and general diffusion of episcopacy in the
regions with which he was acquainted.'

Yet it is by fastening upon alleged 'mistakes in details,' and through counter-conclusions with respect to some of the passages quoted, that Dr. Harnack affirms that 'from the words of Irenaeus there is absolutely nothing gained in regard to the origin of the episcopate and its spread during the period between A. D. 90 and 140.' His method is somewhat vexatious. He takes, for example, the list of the Bishops of Rome, and he says, 'Irenaeus communicates this list, and declares that the Apostles had _ordained_ Linus as Bishop of Rome;' and he adds, 'that this is false can be proved, and is not denied even by Lightfoot.' The marvellous part of this statement is, that Irenaeus says nothing of the kind. The word 'ordination' does not occur in the passage in question. The sentence is far from faithfully translated by the Bishop of Durham:[82] Linus 'was entrusted with the office of the bishopric' by the Apostles. Again, what is 'false'? the whole list, or the statement as regards Linus individually? Neither is false when rightly understood, and no denial is therefore forthcoming from the Bishop of Durham, or required for what is not questioned. But Dr. Harnack--not satisfied with having refuted an imaginary foe--next proceeds to ask, 'What reliance then can we have in the statement of Irenaeus, that Polycarp was ordained a bishop by the Apostles'? It might be answered, 'Your first premiss was wrong, and until that be mended, further argument is unnecessary.' But examine the question on its own merits--viz. that due to 'an appreciation of the position' of Irenaeus--and its veracity is beyond question.