apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

SPURIOUS AND INTERPOLATED EPISTLES. 265
us to extend the plagiarisms to these 7th and 8th books'. It is true
indeed that our Ignatian writer [Ign. Mar. 4, Trail. 7) has adopted
another view from the author of the Constitutions (vii. 46) respecting
the succession of the early Roman bishops (see iii. p. 147), preferring
in this instance to follow Eusebius (see above, p. 261). But it is difficult
to understand the weight which Zahn assigns to this fact, or to see how
it affords any presumption against his free use of the seventh book
in other parts.
Nor again (as
I have already intimated) will it be necessary for our
purpose to consider whether or not the Apostolic Constitutions, as we
have them, are a later recension of some earlier work or works— as
for instance, whether they are an expansion of the Syriac document
which has been mentioned already. If the priority had been assigned
to the Ignatian Letters and the author of the Apostolic Constitutions
had been proved the plagiarist, the question would have been complicated,
and the history of the development of the Apostolic Constitutions
would have had a direct bearing on the question before us. As it is, we
are spared this trouble. Other clear indications show that our Ignatian
letters were forged and interpolated not before the middle of the fourth
century. There is nothing in the Apostolic Constitutions, even in their
present form, inconsistent with an earlier date than this, while their
silence on questions which interested the Church in the middle and
latter half of the fourth century is in itself a strong presumption that
they were written before that date. But as Zahn has truly said (/.
v. A.
p. 145), the pseudo-Ignatian letters contain far clearer indications of
date than the Apostolic Constitutiorts. They should therefore be taken
as the starting point for any investigations respecting the origin of the
latter,
1
and not conversely ^
Zahn's attempts to account for the later books of the Apostolic Constitutions
coincidences in the passages which he (or at least the seventh, for Harnack says
notices will not, I think, command as- nothing of the eighth), as well as with the
sent; and he altogether overlooks several first six; (2)
That the Apostolic Constituof
the most cogent parallels; e.g.
viii. 12 /z^i^jwereinterpolatedand made to assume
in Trail. 10; vii. 37, 41, viii. i, 12, in their present form, before the Epistles of
Magn. 11; viii. 46 in Tars. 3; vii. 25 in Ignatius were treated in the same way
Philad. 9. The section, Hero 5,
is made, (pp. 261, 263, 266, 267). Here we part
up of passages from these books of the company. Harnack supposes that the
Constitutions. Bickell (l. p. 58 sq)
in like interpolator of the Ignatian
letters was
manner overlooks the closer parallels. himself the interpolator of the Apostolic
' I find myself in agreement with Har- Constitutions. To this view I see serious
nack (see above, p. 262, note) in these objections; (i) The Ignatian interpolator,
respects; (i) That the Ignatian interpo- as I have shown, appears in some cases
lator betrays an acquaintance with the to have been misled by and to have mis-