apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS.
THE investigations of the preceding chapters have cleared the
ground. All rival claimants have been set aside ;
so that the
Seven Epistles, as known to Eusebius and as preserved to us not
only in the original Greek but also in Latin and other translations,
alone remain in possession of the field. If there be any genuine
remains of Ignatius, these are they. The other recensions, nowshown
to be abridgments or expansions, cease to trouble us. They
take their place as testimonies to the fame and popularity
of the
letters on which they are founded. The variations of text again
between the Greek original and the various translations of the Seven
Letters are immaterial to the question. To allege these as casting
suspicion on the genuineness of the letters themselves is to throw dust
in the eyes of the enquirer. They are only such in kind, as we might
expect to encounter under the circumstances. They are the price paid
for ultimate security as regards the author's text. This security, in
the case of an ancient writer, will depend mainly on the multiplicity of
authorities; and multiplicity of authorities involves multiplicity of
readings. The text of the Seven Epistles is assured to us on testimony
considerably greater than that of any ancient classical author
with one or two exceptions.
With Ussher's discovery the Ignatian controversy enters upon a new
phase. The main part of the previous literature on the subject had
been rendered obsolete thereby. The really formidable objections
which had been urged against the genuineness of the letters applied
only to the Long Recension and were no longer valid. Doubtless
many minor difficulties, which critics had discovered, or imagined that