apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

2 54 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
With this opinion I am unable to agree.
The position in the Armenian
collection is the most natural position ; for though, as already
explained, the chronological arrangement is not observed throughout,
still it cannot be a surprise, if the epistle which professes to have been
written some time after the others should be placed
last. On the other
hand the mere fact that it is included in the Armenian collection is a
strong argument for the identity of authorship. For like the others this
epistle was certainly translated into Armenian from the Syriac, and
therefore must have formed part of the Syriac collection ^
the opinion which competent judges pronounce respecting
If therefore
the comparatively
early date of the Armenian Version be correct or nearly correct
(see above, p. 86), we have hardly any alternative but to suppose this
epistle to have been forged simultaneously with the others;
for on the
opposite supposition there will be no time to spare for all the vicissitudes
through which it must have passed. Moreover its absence from the
Latin and Greek copies may be easily explained. In its original position
in the Long Recension tt/jos (PiXnTTrrjaiovs stands immediately before
TTpos ^iXaSeXf^cis, and a collector, cursorily turning over the pages and
supplying the lacking epistles in his copy of the Middle Form in the
manner which I have supposed, might easily — be deceived by the similar
beginning, and notice only one epistle the Epistle to the Philadelphians,
which was already in his copy^ On the other hand the collection
from which the Armenian Version is descended was made in a
less perfunctory way. Nor again, as regards quotations, can it justly be
said that the external evidence for this epistle, as compared
with the
other Additional Letters, is defective. It so happens that the passage
in Anastasius given above (p. 204) is the earliest quotation from any
of these six letters, if the Anastasius in question was the first patriarch
of Antioch bearing the name, as seems most probable; and the fact
that he inadvertently misquotes
it as from the Epistle to the Tarsians
is not unimportant, as showing that the two formed part
of the same
collection.
Thus the external evidence, taken as a whole, favours the identity
1
It may be regarded as quite certain .good ' I
-ij^x. fcaXou for v«vy alaxpov];
Lrdln*. when , r^^^.^ ^^^^ ^^^.^^^^ explanation
that this epistle passed through the me- . . •
, ,
• •
^ ,, TT t. />
with several other instances scattered
dmm of a hyriac Version ; e.g. § 4 KaXwv
, , t^ ,
.
P
through retermann s notes,
is translated '
'
corruption
is likedifferently
vocalized, signifying either 'cor- wise offered by Zahn (/. v. A. p. 114)
ruption ' or ' a rope '] ; § 5 rov davarov vvhose book had not appeared when the
'form' rT