apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

condemn at
THE GENUINENESS. 351
one breath all the writings of the three Apostolic Fathers,
Clement', Ignatius, and Polycarp, though not a single writer before
him had ever questioned the genuineness of any of these, except the
Second Epistle ascribed to Clement. Such a phenomenon would be
astounding ; and, if this were his meaning, the opinion of Nicephorus
would be irretrievably discredited. But
(ii)
We have direct evidence that Nicephorus did accept writings
bearing the name of Ignatius as genuine. Pearson {Vmd. Ign. p. 126)
could only infer this indirectly from the fact that Nicephorus elsewhere
expresses his adhesion to ' the doctrines and works of all the eminent
(iKKpiTwv) and blessed fathers' {Epist. ad Leon. p. 193, ed. Migne); but
later discovery has furnished us with a passage of Nicephorus, not
accessible to him, in which this father directly quotes the Ignatian
Epistle to the Philippians (see above, p. 225) as authoritative against
his adversaries. It is therefore certain that whatever else may be
meant by including Ignatius among the Apocrypha, Nicephorus cannot
have condemned the Ignatian letters as spurious.
But again,
(iii)
The classification itself shows that 'apocryphal' (aTroKpu^a)
here is not a synonyme for 'spurious.' The writings under discussion
are classed either as (i) undoubtedly canonical, (2) doubtfully canonical,
and (3) undoubtedly uncanonical. This last class would include
all writings which, having at any time put forward pretensions to
canonicity, were unanimously rejected by the
Church when the author
of this Stichometria wrote. Thus for instance the Epistles of Clement
were attached to mss of the New Testament and treated as Scripture
—
the First more especially, which was publicly read in many churches as
late as Eusebius and later (see Clement of Rome. Appendix, p. 272).
/fj3'. ''lyvaTLov Si^aaKokla
^
Ky' . YloXvKo.pTrov didacrKaXia.
Of such a work bearing the name of
Clement we know; but no record is preserved
of any ascribed either to Polycarp
the extant Epistles but a StSax^ or
otSacr/caXio in each case is meant (see or to Ignatius. We must therefore suppose
above, p. 262 sq).
He supports this
(what indeed the inversion of its
view by an appeal to another list of
position suggests) that some ill-informed
canonical and uncanonical books found in transcriber added the word dtdacrKaXla in
some MSS [Barocc. 206, Reg. Paris. 1789; the two latter cases.
see Cotelier /"i^/r. Apost. i. p. 197 (1724), The fact that our author (whether
Hody de Bibliorum Textibus p. 649, Nicephorus or another) separates ' the
Westcott History of the Canon p. 550), Shepherd ' from * Hermas ' betrays his
which includes among the Apocrypha
Inconsistently with the conjecture
mentioned in the last note, Pearson
(p. 154 sq) maintains that in the instances
of Clement, Polycarp, and Ignatius, not
ignorance of some at least of the writings
of which he speaks.