erliness 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: