cension to complete the body of Ignatian
letters.

Indeed our author seems hardly able to touch this question at any point
without being betrayed into some statement which is either erroneous or
misleading. Thus, summing up the external evidence, he writes:--

'It is a fact, therefore, that up to the second half of the fourth
century no quotation ascribed to Ignatius, except one by Eusebius,
exists, which is not found in the three short Syriac letters.'
[73:2]

In this short statement three corrections are necessary. (1) Our author
has altogether overlooked one quotation in Eusebius from _Ephes._ 19,
because it happens not to be in the Ecclesiastical History, though it is
given in Cureton's _Corpus Ignatianum_ [73:3]. (2) Of the two quotations
in the Ecclesiastical History, the one which he here reckons as found in
the Syriac Epistles is not found in those Epistles in the form in which
Eusebius quotes it. The quotation in Eusebius contains several words
which appear in the Vossian Epistles, but not in the Curetonian; and as
the absence of these words produces one of those abruptnesses which are
characteristic of the Curetonian letters, the fact is really important
for the question under discussion [73:4]. (3) Though Eusebius only
directly quotes two passages in his Ecclesiastical History, yet he gives
a number of particulars respecting the places of writing, the persons
named, etc., which are more valuable for purposes of identification than
many quotations.

Our author's misstatement however does not in this instance affect the
main question under discussion. The fact remains true, when all these
corrections are made, that the quotations in the second and third
centuries are confined to passages which occur both in the Curetonian
and in the Vossian Epistles, and therefore afford no indication in
favour of either recension as against the other. The testimony of
Eusebius in the fourth century first differentiates them.

Hitherto our author has not adduced any arguments which affect the
genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles as a whole. His reasons, even on
his own showing, are valid only so far as to give a preference to the
Curetonian letters as against the Vossian. When therefore he declares
the whole of the Ignatian literature to be 'a mass of falsification and
fraud,' [74:1] we are naturally led to inquire into the grounds on which
he makes this very confident and sweeping assertion. These grou