apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

Preface to the First Edition.
THE
present work arose out of a keen interest in the
Ignatian question which I conceived long ago. The subject
has been before me for nearly thirty years, and during this
period it has engaged my attention off and on in the intervals
of other literary pursuits and official duties. Meanwhile my
plan enlarged itself so as to comprehend an edition of all the
Apostolic Fathers and the
; portion comprising S. Clement
(1869), followed after the discovery of Bryennios by an
Appendix (1877), was the immediate result. But the work
which I now offer to the public was the motive, and is the
core,
of the whole.
When I
first began to study the subject, Cureton's discovery
dominated the field. With many others I was led captive for
a time by the tyranny of this dominant force. I never once
doubted that we possessed in one form or another the genuine
letters of Ignatius. I could not then see, and I cannot see
now, how this conclusion can be resisted, except by a mode of
dealing with external evidence which, if extensively applied,
would reduce all historical and literary criticism to chaos.
If therefore the choice had lain between the seven Vossian
Epistles and nothing, I should without hesitation have ranged
myself with Ussher and Pearson and Rothe, rather than with
Daille and Baur. Though I saw some difficulties, they were
not to my mind of such magnitude
as to counterbalance the
direct evidence on the other side.
When however the short Syriac of Cureton appeared, it
seemed to me at first to offer the true solution. I was not
indeed able to see, as others saw, any theological difference
between the Curetonian and Vossian letters ;
but in the
abridged form some extravagances of language
IGN. I.
at all events
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