apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

SPURIOUS AND INTERPOLATED EPISTLES. 243
Out of his own mouth he was convicted. The better ' provision for
our knowledge' came full soon. To the critical genius
of Ussher
belongs the honour of restoring the true Ignatius. As I have already
stated (see above, p. 76 sq), he observed that the quotations of this
father in certain English writers from the thirteenth century onward
agreed with those of the ancients, and he divined that in England,
if anywhere, copies of the original form of these epistles would be
found. He made search accordingly, and his search was successful.
He discovered two Latin mss, containing a text of which the Long
Recension was obviously an expansion, and agreeing exactly with the
quotations in Eusebius, Theodoret, and others. There could be no
doubt then, that this Latin translation represented the Ignatius known
to the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. But the Greek text
was still unknown ;
and Ussher could only restore it from the Long
Recension with the aid of his newly discovered Latin version, by
lopping off the excrescences and otherwise altering to bring
conformity thereto.
Ussher's book appeared in the year 1644. Altogether
it into
it showed
not only marvellous erudition, but also the highest critical genius. It
was however marred by
one blot. Though
Eusebius mentions seven
epistles of S. Ignatius, Ussher would only receive six. The exception
was the Epistle to Polycarp, which he condemned as spurious {Polyc.
et Ign. Ep. pp. viii sq, cxxviii, App. Ign. p. 85 sq). He was led into
this error chiefly by the authority of S. Jerome, who, as I have already
pointed out (p. 156), misunderstood the language of his predecessor
Eusebius and confounded the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans with the Epistle
This laid the most learned man of his This representation is inconsistent with
day at the mercy of an adversary of less the dates. I have shown that at least as
learning than himself. Milton, who at early as 1631 Ussher had seen the true
least knew so much suspicion of the solution of the Ignatian question ;
that
genuineness of these remains as Casau- some years before the date of Milton's
bon's Excrcitations on Baronhts and tract he had declared his intention of
Vedelin's [Vedelius'] edition (Geneva, publishing Ignatius;
that in the treatise
1623) could tell him, pounced upon this which Milton attacks he had carefully
critical flaw, and delightedly denounced confined his quotations to those parts of
in trenchant tones this ' Perkin Warbeck which he was prepared to maintain the
of Ignatius', and the 'supposititious
off- genuineness; and that, so far from despring
of some dozen epistles'. This tecting a critical flaw in Ussher, Milton
rude shock it was which set Ussher upon led astray by his reticence had exposed
a more careful examination of the Ignatian himself to attack. But Ussher from his
question. The result was his well-known lofty vantage ground could afford to be
edition of Ignatius, printed 1642, though generous, and he appears never to have
not published till
1644" etc. retaliated on his gifted youthful assailant.
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