uretonian 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 E