apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

SPURIOUS AND INTERPOLATED EPISTLES. 26 1
iv. 10 vTraye Sarava and Matt. xvi. 23 waye oTrtcrw /xov is derived from
Origen (see iii. p. 200), and therefore cannot have been written before
the middle of the third century. The obligations to Eusebius again can
hardly be overlooked or questioned. The notice of Ebion {Philad. 6)
is taken from Eus. H. E. iii.
27, as the close resemblances of language
show (see in. p. 213). A polemical passage relating to the Logos
(Mag/i. 8) seems to be suggested by the £cd. Theol. ii. 8, 9 (see iii. p.
169), while the preceding context {Mag/i. 6) is apparently borrowed
from the companion treatise, c. Marcell. ii. i, 4 (see iii. p. 170). The
comments on the fall of Satan {Fhilipp. 11) present close resemblances
to Praep. Ev. vii. 16 (see in. p. 199). The remark on the descent into
Hades {Trail. 9) is evidently taken from the Doctrine of Addai, as
quoted in Eus. H. E.\. 13 (see in. p. 158); and from Eusebius also,
rather than from the letter itself, was doubtless derived the plagiarism
from Alexander of Jerusalem of which mention has been made already.
Again the comparative chronology of the bishops of Rome and Antioch
in Ign. Mar. 4 is derived by inference from the sequence of the
narrative in Eus. H. E. iii.
34, 36, 38, and our Ignatian writer has likewise
followed the historian in making Anencletus, instead of Linus, the
successor of Clemens, thus deserting in
this instance the Apostolic Constitutiofis
which (as will
be seen presently) he copies servilely elsewhere.
These plagiarisms throw the date of this Ignatian forgery as far
forward as the middle of the fourth century at least. The coincidences
with later writers than these, though not decisive, are sufficiently close to
raise a suspicion.
Thus the 'hoar head' of a prematurely wise youth in
Afar. Ign. 2 is described in language closely resembling that of S. Basil
when speaking of Daniel [Comm. in Esai. 104), whom our Ignatian
writer also mentions in his context (see in. p. 141 sq). Again the
expression in Trail. 6 ov xpt-o'Tiavol dX.Xa ;(pio-T€jU,7ropot appears in Basil
Ep. 240 ^(pLQTiinropoL kol ov •^lUTiavoi (see III. p. 153), and this can
hardly be accidental, unless indeed it had become a proverbial expression
(see III. p. 175). On the whole it
appears more probable than
not, that the writer was acquainted
with S. Basil's works. On the
other hand no stress can be laid on the fact that he {Magn. 9) in
common with Gregory Nazianzen calls Sunday 'the queen of days'
(in. p. 174), for this seems to have been a recognized designation. But
the resemblance in the opening of Ign. Mar. 1 to the opening of one of
Chr)'sostom's letters {Epist. 27) is very close (see in. p. 145); and yet
perhaps not close enough to establish a plagiarism, if there should be an
absence of other indications in these Ignatian letters pointing to so late
a date.