ed 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.' [60:1] 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 them--to the Ephesians,
Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnaeans, 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
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superseded the other, the Short Greek; but this term is for obvious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