apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 399
tions. The Roman Church is described in the Ignatian letter as
'strained clear from any foreign colour' of doctrine. Hence the episcopate,
though doubtless it existed in some form or other in Rome,
had not yet (it
would seem) assumed the same sharp and well-defined
monarchical character with which we are confronted in the Eastern
churches.
But what explanation could be given of this reticence, if the
Ignatian letters w^ere a forgery What writer, even a generation later
than the date assigned to Ignatius, would have exercised this selfrestraint
The Church of Rome is singled out by Hegesippus and
Irenasus in the latter half of the second century for emphatic mention
in this very connexion. The succession of the bishops of Rome is with
them the chief guarantee of the transmission of the orthodox doctrine.
Much mention of the Church of Rome and yet no mention of the
Bishop of Rome — this would be an inexplicable anomaly, a stark
anachronism,
in their age'.
Renan has remarked that
apocryphal writings betray themselves by
the prominence of a 'tendency.' Applying this test to the Ignatian
Epistles he pronounces them spurious, '
always excepting the Epistle to
'
the Romans.' The author wishes to make a great stroke in favour of
the episcopal hierarchy^' This touchstone is altogether fallacious. In
all great crises of the Church, ecclesiastical leaders manifest, cannot
help manifesting, some tendency. The utterances of Luther or of Pio
Nono are marked by this feature as strongly as the False Decretals, and
even more strongly than the Ignatian Epistles.
Moreover Renan's test
is condemned by his exception ;
for it is demonstrable, I believe, that
the Epistle to the Romans issued from the same pen as the other six
letters (see pp. 314, 424 sq, 428),
From the ministry of men we turn to the ministry of nwneji ;
and here a notice in these letters, as commonly interpreted, seems to
point to a later date than the age of Ignatius. In S>nyni. 13 the saint
sends a salutation to ' '
the virgins that are called widows (ras -n-apOevov^
Tcis XeyojacVas XVP°^^)- This is generally supposed to imply that at the
time when the letter was written the order of so-called wadows was
composed chiefly or solely of virgins. I have pointed out however in
the notes on the passage (11. p. 322) that the language of ancient
writers elsewhere suggests a wholly different interpretation that it was
;
customary to speak
of those widows who maintained a chaste widow-
^
Yet with a bold disregard of all his- i^Ursprung d. Episcopats p. 184). So too
toric probability Baur unhesitatingly af- Schwegler A'ac/ia/oj/. Z^'/tz/Zer li. p. 178.
firms that these Ignatian letters were
-
Les Evaitgiles p.
xix.
forged in Rome itself about this time