apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
THE first edition of my Ignatius and Polycarp
was exhausted
a considerable time ago. The favourable reception which
was accorded to it would have led me, had I been able, to issue
its successor much earlier. But owing partly to other engagements,
partly to a long and serious illness, this was impossible.
Its appearance indeed would have been much longer delayed,
if I had not had the invaluable assistance of my chaplain, the
Rev. J.
R. Harmer, on whom has fallen the burden— no slight
burden— of carrying the larger part of the work through the
press and adding a fuller and revised index.
My especial thanks are due to my critics for their kindly
reception of a work which deals so largely with materials for
controversy. I have striven to profit by their criticisms, where
they have bcfen brought before my notice. It is a satisfaction to
find that the view, maintained in these volumes, of the genuineness
of the middle form of the Ignatian Epistles is
gaining ground.
The adhesion of an able and intelligent critic like de Pressense,
who previously had maintained the priority of the Curetonian
form, but in his new edition [Le Siecle Apostolique II. p. vii. p.
460 sq) frankly accepts the Vossian letters as genuine, giving
his reasons for this change of opinion, is
future of this controversy.
a happy augury
for the
It was hardly to be expected that in a subject so well-worn
any new materials would have been forthcoming for a second
edition. In this respect I have been much —
more successful
thanks to the kindness of friends— than I could have anticipated.