of
them these entanglements which it has taken me so much time to unravel?

3. But our author proceeds:--

Moreover, although thus spoken of as alive, the writer already
knows of his Epistles, and refers, in the plural, to those written
by him 'to us, and all the rest which we have by us.' The reference
here, it will be observed, is not only to the Epistles to the
Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp himself, but to other spurious epistles
which are not included in the Syriac version.

I have already shown that Ignatius is not spoken of as alive; but, if he
had been alive, I do not see why Polycarp should not have known of his
Epistles, seeing that of the seven Vossian letters four claim to have
been written from Smyrna, when the saint was in some sense Polycarp's
guest, and two to have been written to Smyrna. Therefore of the seven
Epistles, supposing them to be genuine, Polycarp would almost
necessarily have been acquainted with six.

By the 'other spurious Epistles,' which the Epistle of Polycarp is
supposed to recognize, I presume that our author means the four of the
Vossian collection, which have no place in the Syriac. If so, I would
reply that, supposing the three Syriac Epistles to represent the only
genuine letters _extant_, these Epistles themselves bear testimony to
the fact that Ignatius wrote several others besides; for in one passage
in these Syriac Epistles (_Rom._ 4) the martyr says, 'I write to _all
the Churches_ and charge _all men_.' And again, when Polycarp writes,
[Greek: tas epistolas Ignatious tas pemphtheisas hemin hup' autou] it is
sufficient to advert to the fact that, like the Latin _epistolae_, the
plural [Greek: epistolai] is frequently used convertibly with the
singular [Greek: epistole] for a single letter [114:1], and indeed
appears to be so used in an earlier passage by Polycarp himself of
St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians [114:2]; so that the notice is
satisfied by the single Epistle to Polycarp which is included in the
Syriac letters, and does not necessarily imply also the Epistle to the
Smyrnaeans which has no place there. But of this passage generally I
would say, that though it may be a question whether the language does
not favour the genuineness of the Vossian letters, as against the
Curetonian, it cannot be taken to impugn the genuineness of the Epistle
of Polycarp itself, authenticated, as this Epistle is, by Irenaeus, and
exhibiting, as we have see