apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE CURETONIAN LETTERS. 325
monacho quodam Syriaco in proprios usus pios confectam).'
This seems
to be only so far wrong in that it supposes some definite aim pursued
on some definite plan and this erroneous
;
conception of the character of
the abbreviator's work is still more prominent in a subsequent note
(p. 156), where he states that this monk 'appears to have omitted everything
which he thought less consonant or less necessary for himself and
his ascetic purpose,' adding that he gathered together all the hortatory
passages which tended to good discipline of life. Cureton, when replying
to Hefele {C. I. pref p. x), might
have contented himself with
asking what pious uses a monk would find in the directions respecting
matrimony which are allowed to stand in the Epistle to Polycarp (§ 5).
This question renders the rest of his refutation superfluous.
As a matter of experience, abbreviators are apt to do their work far
more capriciously and carelessly than either of these theories supposes.
A scribe, having copied out the task which he had set himself, finds
that he has a few leaves of parchment or paper
still unfilled. It would
be a sinful waste to leave his manuscript so. How shall he cover the
vacant space A volume of Ignatius happens to be at hand. He will
copy out just
so much as there is room for. Of course the historical
parts must be omitted. Of the rest there are some passages which he
does not understand, others which are blurred in the copy before him.
As he turns over the leaves of the portions which he is omitting, a
terse maxim here and there strikes him. These must have a place.
He is desirous perhaps of finishing his volume before a certain time.
The Ignatian matter is
only a stop-gap after all, and he does not care
for completeness. So he breaks off the Epistle to the Ephesians abruptly
in the middle of a subject. Perhaps the manuscript
before him
is mutilated and has lost a quire here. Elsewhere the leaves are transposed.
A fragment of the Trallian letter is inserted in the Epistle
to the Romans ;
and accordingly as a part of this latter epistle it
appears in his copy. This mode of procedure is not without parallels.
The history of literature, Greek, Latin, and Syrian, abounds in examples
of abridgment and mutilation, ranging from the carefully executed
epitome, or the well selected collection of extracts illustrative of some
particular subject, to the loose and perfunctory curtailment, such as
we have here, which is neither epitome nor extract, but something
between the two*.
^
The Ignatian literature itself (in ad- and modified form of the Epistle to the
dition to the Curetonian letters) exhibits Romans in Symeon the Metaphrast (see
the following examples illustrating the phe- ii. p. 5); (2) the mutilation of the end of
nomena of curtailment :
(i) a shortened the Epistle to Polycarp in the Latin