NOTE BY THE EDITOR.
See page 27.
To remove from the preceding preface the appearance of confusion which it presents, it is enough to remark, that in the course of citing testimonies in proof that his views on the subject of the perseverance of the saints had the sanction of antiquitj', Owen, after a passing blow at the Clementine Constitutions, proceeds not only to impugn the integrity of the Ignatian Epistles, but to assail the reasonings of Dr Hammond in sup- port of Episcopacy. On the former point, admitting generally that the documents known by the name of the Epistles of Ignatius might contain much that was the pro- duction of tliat early martyr, Owen represents them as so adulterated that no valid in- fei'ence can be drawn from their contents. His reasons are, that high authorities^uch as Vedelius, who brought out the Genevan edition of them, Calvin, De Saumaise, Blon- del, the Magdeburg Centuriators, and Whitaker, had pronounced much of them to be spurious ; that they contained passages from the Clementine Constitutions, a forgery, and of a date subsequent to the age of Ignatius ; that the passages quoted from them by Theodoret and Jerome do not accord with, or rather do not exist in, the version of them extant; that the style of them is replete with turgid expressions, inconsistent with the simplicitj' of the early Christian writers ; that Latin words occur in them, not likely to be employed by a Syrian like Ignatius ; and that they contain expressions of overweening deference to the hierarchy, a species of government not in existence in the time of Ignatius. On such grounds, our author holds that these epistles resemble those children of the Jews by their strange wives, who " spake part the language of Ashdod, and part the language of the Jews."
No doubt exists that Ignatius was the author of some epistles warning the church of his day against heretical opinions, which had begun to disturb its unity and peace ; and eai'ly fathers of the church, Polycarp, Irenseus, Theophilus of Antioch, Origeu, and Eusebius, make specific allusion to these epistles. The question is, What epistles are to be regarded as the genuine writings of Ignatius among three different collections pur- porting to be such ; first, twelve epistles in Greek and Latin, with a Imig and expanded text; secondly, eleven epistles in Greek and Latin, of which seven are in a shorter text ; and lastly, the three epistles in Syriac published by Mr Cureton, of which the text is shorter even than that of the last-mentioned collection?
From thestiong support which many expressions in the first and second of these recen- sions lend to the hierarchical element in church-government, these documents were of im- portance in the controversy between Presbyterians and Episcopalians. While the text was yet unsettled, and difl'erent editions were issuing from the press, — one by Vedelius in 1623, giving seven Greek epistles, coiTesponding in name to those mentioned by Euse- bius; another by Usher in 1644; another by Vossius in 1646, giving eight epistles, with part of a nintli, founded on a manuscript discovered at Floience, and hence desig- nated the Medicean Greek text, — certain writers, such as Claude de Saumaise (1641 ) and Blondel (1646), laljoured to prove that these epistles bore traces of an age posterior to Ignatius. Dr Hammond (1651), in four dissertations, replied to them, defending the genuineness of the epistles, and episcopal government. It is in answer to this last work that Owen wrote the animadversions which form the digression in his preface to his work on the Perseverance of the Saints. Hammond published a rejoinder, in his " Answer to Animadversions on the Dissertations touching Ignatius' Epistles," etc.
The most important contributions to this controversy followed, and with them for a time it ceased. Daille, in 1666, published a learned work, designed, according to the title-page, to prove three things,— that the epistles were spurious, that they were written after the tiuie of Ignatius, and that they were of no higher authority than "'J'he Cardinal Works of Christ," a production commonly inserted among the remains of Cyprian. In 1672, Pearson, afterwards bishop of Chester, published his '• Vindicise Epistolarum S. Ignatii," — long deemed conclusive by those who were in favour of the genuineness of the epistles, in spite of an able anonjTuous reply by Larroque in 1674, and the doubts that continued to be felt by many scholars who had made the epistles the subject of keen and critical investigation.
From this point no advance was made in the discussion, some authors contending for the long recension and some for the shoiler, till the conjecture of Usher respecting the
76 NOTE BY THE EDITOK.
probability of a Syriac manuscript was verified, by tlie discovery of a Syriac version of the Epistle to Polycarp among some ancient manuscripts, procured by Archdeacon Tat- tam, in 1838 or 1839, fi-om a monastery in the Desert of JVitria. Mr Curcton, -who dis- covered the epistle among these manuscripts, set on foot a new search lor other manu- scripts. The result was, that the ai-chdeacon, by a second expedition to Egj-pt, brought home in 1843 three entire epistles in Syriac, to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans. M. Pacho secured piis.seHsion of another copy in 1847, which afterwards came under the examination of Mr Curcton.