apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 36 1
tences. Where a long connected pamgraph is attempted, it generally
fails. The grammar
is dislocated and wrecked. There is no attempt
at avoiding repetitions, which a literary forger with leisure at his command
would almost certainly have shunned. We could imagine that
the letters, after being dictated, were not even read over to the author.
The whole seven might have been written at two or three sittings of a
few hours each. There is
throughout not a single word reflecting on
the prisoner's judges. There is
only one sentence which speaks
disparagingly of his guards {Rom. 5). Is there any difficulty in conceiving
this sentence written, during the temporary absence of his
guard, or when the soldier in charge, being a Syrian or a Roman,
was ignorant of the Greek language'
From the circumstances of the condemnation and captivity of Ignatius,
we turn next in order to his route".
And here the geographical notices deserve our first consideration.
By a careful
examination and comparison of these notices we discover
that he did not, as might have been expected, go by sea to Smyrna
from Seleucia the port-town of Antioch, but that he traversed a great
part of Asia Minor. They indicate also that having arrived at
the valley of the Lycus a tributary of the Mjeander, he did not continue
along the valley of the Maeander,
in which case he would have
passed in succession through Tralles, Magnesia, and Ephesus on his
way to Smyrna, but took the northward branch of the road leading
to the valleys of the Cogamus and Hermus, and thus he would pass
through Philadelphia and Sardis before reaching his goal.
I have already
1 '
About a year before he [John Bun- Works of John Bitnyan p. Ixxx sq.
yan] was set at liberty, he received a very
Is there anything half so incredible in the
popular work, written by Edward Fowler, attitude and treatment of Ignatius, as
a Bedfordshire clergyman, who was soon this liberty of action and license of deafter
elevated to the see of Gloucester... fiance permitted to Bunyan
In
^ the almost incredibly short time of The most original and valuable part
forty-two days, he, in jail, composed an of Zahn's important work Ignatius von
answer consisting of ii8 pages of small Antiochien relates to this point (p. 250
quarto, closely printed... Of some of Mr sq); but so far as I have observed, it has
Fowler's sentiments he " says, Here are been entirely ignored by the opponents
pure dictates of a brutish, l>eastly man, of the genuineness of these Ignatian
that neither knows himself nor one tittle letters. Zahn indeed treats the subject
of the Word of God"... " I know none chiefly on the negative side, as answering
so wedded thereto as yourselves, even the objections; but it has also the highest
whole gang of your rabbling counterfeit positive value, as exhibiting a mass of
clergy; who generally, like the ape you undesigned coincidences which cannot fail
speak of, lie
blowing up the applause and to influence opinion when duly weighed,
glory of your trumpery," etc' Offor's