apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

242 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
letters mentioned by Eusebius that he may give his adversaries every
advantage. In the ranks of the opponents a still more famous name
appears. Milton's short treatise Of Prelatical Episcopacy Works in.
(
p. 72 sq, Pickering, 1851) was published in 1641 and is chiefly directed
against Ussher. Like all his theological tracts at this time, it is brimfull
of fiery eloquence and reckless invective. He fiercely attacks the
Ignatian Epistles, deceived by Ussher's reticence and little suspecting
the strength of his adversary's position. It is however creditable to
his critical discernment that he lays his finger on real blots in these
letters as then read, passing over the passages which had been quoted
by Ussher\ Those places, which he himself quotes, 'must' he says
either be adulterate, or else Ignatius was not Ignatius, not a martyr,
*
but most adulterate and corrupt himself 'To what end then,' he
adds pertinently,
'
should they cite him as authentic for episcopacy,
when they cannot know what is authentic of him Had God ever
intended that we should have sought any part of useful instruction
from Ignatius, doubtless He would not have so ill
provided
for our
knowledge as to send him to our hands in this broken and disjointed
plight; and if He intended no such thing, we do injuriously in thinking
to taste better the pure evangelic manna by seasoning our mouths
with the tainted scraps and fragments from an unknown table, and
searching among the verminous and polluted rags dropt overworn from
the toiling shoulders of Time, with these deformedly to quilt and interlace
the entire, the spotless, and undecaying robe of Truth ' (pp. 80, 81).
So he denounces as impiety the ' confronting and paralleling the sacred
verity of Saint Paul with the offals and sweepings of antiquity that met
as accidentally and absurdly as Epicurus his atoms to patch up a
Leucippean Ignatius
'
(p. 92)".
^
The one exception is Smyj-n. 8, sulseness remains, but why should Ig-
*
wherein is written that they should fol- natius not have been 'insulse'
low their bishop as Christ did His -
Father, After this account of this controversy
and the presbytery as the Apostles' (p. had passed through the press for my
80). This had been quoted by Ussher. first edition, Mark Pattison's instructive
'
Milton remarks that, not to speak of the volume on Milton appeared. He reinsulse
and ill-laid comparison,' it 'lies on presents the matter in quite a different
the very brim of a noted corruption' and light (p. 75);
thus is discredited by
its environments. "The incident of this collision between
Here again he showed his critical sa- Milton, young and unknown, and the
gacity. The mention of the bishop sacri- venerable prelate whom he was assaulting
ficing, and the assertion of the superiority with the rude wantonness of untempered
of the bishop to the king, which justly youth, deserves to be mentioned here,
offend him in the context, disappear in Ussher had incautiously included the
the Vossian letters. The charge of in- Ignatian epistles among his authorities.