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78 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
It should be added also, that this version does not appear to be quoted
except by English writers, or to have been known out of England'.
Ussher's theory as to the authorship of this version has been confirmed
in a curious way. After my first edition appeared, my attention
was directed by a correspondent to a MS in the library at Tours
professing to contain the Epistles of Ignatius translated by Robert of
Lincoln ;
and I followed up the clue. This ms (formerly no. 247, now
no. 244) is described in A. Dorange's Catalogue des Maimscrits de la
Bibliotheque dc Tours (1875) p. 137. It contains various theological
tracts of different ages from S. Augustine downward. In the Catalogue
it is ascribed to the xiiith century, but this is afterwards corrected
to the xivth ;
nor indeed can it be much earlier, as it contains a work by
Joannes de Rupella (f a.d. 1271). At all events it is some centuries older
than Ussher. Au ' xv" siecle', we are told, 'ce ms a appartenu a Yves Mesnager,'
and afterwards it belonged to the Cathedral of S. Gatien at Tours.
On fol. 484 is the title 'Epistole beati Ignacii,' and after the title comes
this colophon ; '
Has epistolas transtulit de greco in latinum m agister
robertus grossa testa linconiensis episcopus', written with contractions.
Then follows the spurious correspondence with the Virgin and S. John,
beginning ' Johanni sancto senior! etc' I took special pains to satisfy
myself that the handwriting of this colophon was coeval with the context,
and could not be a later insertion. The librarian, M. Duboz, v/as kind
enough to send me a transcript which satisfied me of this fact ;
but to
make doubly sure, the Rev. J. Armitage Robinson at my request
inspected the ms itself, so that no doubt might remain.
What then is the meaning of this colophon Obviously in the
archetype, from which this Tours ms was copied, the Ignatian Epistles
(translated from the Greek) were followed, as we find them in the mss
Caiensis and Montacutianis, by the spurious Latin correspondence, with
^
Turrianus Defens. Can. Apost. 1 says found in the Vatican : see below, p. 1 30,
'
Ignatius in vetere interpretatione Latina and comp. Ussher p. cxxii sq. Tnrrianus
manuscripta epistolae ad Philadelphenses, however quoted the Greek of the genuine
quae in Vaticano est, non habet quod in Ignatius from the Medicean MS, before it
Graeca epistola nuper in publicum emissa was published by Voss.
legitur de Paulo inter eos qui uxorem Pearson (on S/nyrn, 3) strangely conhabuerunt.'
Hence Smith infers {Ign. jectures (p. 13) that our translator was
Epist. praef.) that Turrianus must allude older than Jerome and led him into the
to a manuscript of our Latin Version error of translating oTSa by vidi. The
(' plane cum nostra eadem esse mihi vide- converse (see Zahn /. v. A. p. 402,
tur'). But some mss of the Latin of note) is possible;
that the translator was
the Long recension omit the name of led astray by the well-known passage in
S. Paul in Fhihul. ;, and one of these is
Jerome.