apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

;54 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
Liternal Evidence.
Having ascertained that the external testimony is exceptionally
strong, we turn next to the internal evidence, and proceed to enquire
whether it
yields such results as to oblige the reversal of the judgment
to which we have been irresistibly led by the previous investigation.
Our present enquiry may be conveniently ranged under five heads :
(i) The Historical and Geographical Circumstances; (ii) The Theological
Polemics; (iii)
the Ecclesiastical Conditions; (iv)
The Literary
Obligations ; (v) The PersonaUty of the Writer; and (vi) the Style and
Diction of the Letters.
(i)
Historical and Geographical Circumstances.
Rome have furnished much food
The condemnation and journey to
for controversy. The sentence of Ignatius in itself was not indeed open
to any objection. It is manifest on all hands that from the very first
the Christians, when condemned, were sentenced to be thrown to the
wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The allusions to this mode of punishment
are both early and frequent. But exception has been taken to
the long journey to Rome, as improbable in itself and unsupported by
any analogy.
It might perhaps be sufficient to urge in reply that this story of
Ignatius, whether true or false, was certainly beheved before the close
of the second century, as the existence of the Ignatian letters themselves
shows. To those most competent to form an opinion therefore it
suggested no improbabihty. Indeed we may be sure that no forger
would have selected as the central incident of his forgery a fiction
which would discredit and stultify his whole work by
its inherent impossibility.
Hence critics like Renan have without hesitation accepted
the story, quite independently of the genuineness of the letters, which
they regard as an ulterior question '. Indeed, when we reflect on the
enormous scale of these games in the amphitheatre in imperial times,
it must be clear that the demand could only be supplied by contributions
from the provinces. The magnitude of these exhibitions culminated
under Trajan, who thus pandered to the passions
of the Roman
^
I.es livangilcs p. 486 ' Ce fait [the prouver la realite du martyre d'Tgiiace
existence of these letters] suffit pour etc.'; see also p. x sq.