apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE CURETONTAN LETTERS. 323
and who exercises such self-restraint as to avoid all theological and ecclesiastical
questions which have an interest for his own time, because they
would be anachronisms. In short he is
prepared to sacrifice every
conceivable purpose of a forgery to ensure the success of his forgery.
Who is bold enough to affirm that such a person could be found
among the ranks of the Christians in these early ages
But secondly, we are obliged to postulate in (say)
the fourth or
fifth century a Syriac translator who, having before him a pre-existing
Syriac version of the three short Epistles and also a Greek copy of the
Seven Epistles (enlarged from the original three in the manner supposed),
undertakes to bring the Syriac version into conformity with this enlarged
body of letters. Accordingly he not only translates the four additional
epistles, removing however the two chapters which he finds ready to hand
at the close of the Roman Epistle in the existing Syriac version and
placing them in their new position in the Trallian Epistle; but in the
three epistles already rendered into Syriac he supplies the insertions,
effaces the omissions, transposes the transpositions, follows every arbitrary
change, and thus produces a Syriac work exactly corresponding to the
Greek. This task indeed does not suppose the same combination of
qualities as the former, but it does demand marvellous patience. What
parallel can be found to such a work in the Christian literature of those
ages
This last
demand alone would be a severe strain, and an opinion so
weighted would need very strong independent support to sustain it ;
but the two together are enough to break the back of any theory. I
need not advert to the other difficulties with which those who maintain
the priority of the Curetonian Form are confronted.
The preceding investigation has, if I mistake not, established the
result that the Curetonian Letters are an abridgment or mutilation of
the epistles of the Middle Form. But the further question arises ;
In
what interests or with what motive was the abridgement made
The earliest opponent of the Curetonian letters, the English Reviewer,
who has been mentioned already (p. 282), had his own answer to
this question. He considered them to be 'a miserable epitome made by
an Eutychian heretic' (p. 348), and he even went so far as to express his
'
own opinion that the collection of Syriac mss recently deposited in the
British Museum would turn out to be a nest of Eutychianism' (p. 336).
To this accusation Cureton in his Vindiciae Ignatiaiae (p. 67) returned
an effective reply.
For Eutychianism we may substitute the word Monophysitism; for
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