apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

98 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
is /ess than you, I desire to take heed of you beforehand, that ye fall not
with the falling of vain glory, but that ye may be confirmed in the new
birth and in the passion and in the resterrection {Magn. ii).
Cureton, apprehensive (it would seem) of the consequences which
would follow from the admission, will not allow that these fragments
(S,, Sg, S3) formed part of a complete Syriac Version. Of the collection
'
which I have designated Si he says ;
It is plain that the whole collection
has been translated from the Greek ;
and from the place which
these Ignatian extracts occupy, it seems almost certain that they formed
a part of the original Greek collection, which was afterwards translated
into Syriac. There is no ground to conclude that these extracts were
taken from a Syriac version of the Ignatian Epistles previously existing
'
etc. p. 345. This statement will not bear examination. Of the other
documents included in this collection, the last at all events (the questions
of Addai and answers of Jacob of Edessa; see above, p. 92), and
probably some others, were originally written in Syriac.
nothing appears on the face of these Ignatian
And, although
extracts which is inconsistent
with their direct translation from the Greek, yet considering
them in connexion with other facts, we are led irresistibly to the conclusion
that they formed part of a Syriac version then existing. The
following considerations are decisive on this point.
In
(i)
the three collections, S,, S^,, S3, the passages quoted are all
different with two exceptions. The exceptions are Rom. 4, 6, of which
parts are common to both Sg and S3.
Now in these passages there are
remarkable coincidences between S^,
and S3,
which are inexplicable as the
result of accident. With some trifling exceptions they agree for the
most part both in the words and in the order. The only important differences
are Ro7n. 4 T