apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

SPURIOUS AND INTERPOLATED EPISTLES. 239
equip themselves with ghosts like these (talibus larvis...se instruunt)
for the purpose of deceiving.' A type of the more moderate opponent
is Abr. Scultetus (a.d. 1598), who, pointing out some real and other
imaginary blots in these letters, acquiesced in the verdict ' esse quidem
epistolas hasce Ignatii, sed adulteratas, sed interpolatas.' Even later
(a.d. 1641), on the very eve of Ussher's great discovery, Saumaise did
not go beyond the assertion Omnes ' illas Ignatii epistolas suppositicias
esse vel certe multis locis interpolatas', while he expressed his
own view of their origin in the words ' Epistolae illae natae et
suppositae videntur circa mitiiun aut medium secjmdi saeciili, quo
tempore primus singularis episcopatus supra presbyteratum introductus
fuit.'
Little or nothing was gained, even from the writer's own point of
view, by a theory which shifted the authorship but hardly touched the
date.
One serious and sober attempt, which was made during this pre-
Usserian epoch, to separate the spurious from the genuine Ignatian
literature, deserves special notice. An edition of the Ignatian letters
was pubhshed a.d. 1623 by Vedelius, a Genevan Professor. He
divided the epistles into two classes, printing the seven named by
Eusebius by themselves as genuine, and throwing the remaining five
into a second volume or appendix as spurious (ra (/^ruSeTrtypa^a koX
TO. v66a).
As regards the Seven Epistles, he maintained that they
were corrupted, and he pointed especially to the interpolations from
the Apostolic Constitutions. For the rest, he proceeded with great
moderation. Though an ardent controversialist against Bellarmin and
other Romanists, he betrays no excessive eagerness to get rid of
passages which seem to make against him. Thus he allows the opening
words of the Epistle to the Romans to stand. If he is frequently
wrong in his attempts to discriminate between the genuine and the
spurious, his failure in this respect was inevitable. The problem was
insoluble without the aid of external testimony.
While continental opinion was thus vague and divided, Anglican
writers seem generally, though not universally, to have accepted the
twelve Epistles without hesitation. This was the case for instance
with Whitgift and Hooker and Andrewes '. The opponents of their
genuineness were for the most part men of inferior note, and (so far
as they argued the case) derived their arguments from foreign scholars.
1
Whitgift's Works 11.
pp. 171, 304, Keble) ;
Andrewes' Works i.
pp. 392,
428 (Parker Society's ed.); Hooker's 394 (Oxon. 1841).
Works III. pp. 4, 173 sq, 185, etc (ed.