apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 403
I
things and harmless always as the dove' (Matt. x. 16), thus showing that
the writer was acquainted with some of our Canonical Gospels. But
there is not so much as a single reference to written evangelical
records, such as the ' Memoirs of the Apostles ' which occupy so large a
place in Justin Martyr. Still less is there any quotation by name from
a Canonical Gospel, though such quotations abound in Irenseus. It is
important also to observe that some incidents of Christ's life seem to
have been derived either from oral tradition or from apocryphal written
sources. This is the case with the saying in Smyrii. 3 'Take hold,
handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit'
— language
corresponding to but different from Luke xxiv. 36 sq, which refers to
the same event (see 11. p. 294 sq). Daille' (p. 338 sq) ventured to affirm
that this quotation showed the late date of the Ignatian writer, because
it was unworthy of an Apostolic father to quote from apocryphal
writings. No reasonable critic now would for a moment use such an
argument. An evangelical saying not found in the Canonical Gospels
is rather suggestive of an early date, when oral tradition was still active
and the evangelical narrative was not yet confined within any wellmarked
boundaries. The same is true, though not to the same extent,
of the exaggerated account of the star at the nativity in Ephes. 19,
where again
it is
impossible to say whether the writer was drawing upon
oral tradition or upon some unknown written narrative (see 11.
p. 80 sq).
that is
Again there is good reason for surmising that the words, He '
near the sword is near God,' in Smyrn. 4 were adopted or adapted from
some evangelical saying current in earlier times (see the note 11.
2.99 sq).
The same holds good also of the Apostolic Epistles. Though the
writer is
evidently acquainted with several of S. Paul's Epistles, he
never directly quotes any one. Addressing the Ephesians however
{Ephes. 12), he says
that this Apostle makes mention of them in every
letter {kv Trda-p i-TnaToXfj [jLvrifxovevei vfjiwv).
These words are a stumblingblock
to Daille' (pp. 351, 352), who argues that the statement is 'most
clearly false,' and therefore the writer was 'anything rather than
Ignatius' (nihil... esse minus quam Ignatium). False indeed it is, in
the sense of being hyperbolical. As a matter of fact, S. Paul mentions
the Ephesians in six of his thirteen epistles (see below 11. p. 65) and he
refers to individual members of the Church of Ephesus in two others
(Col. iv. 7, Tit. iii. 12). But the question for us is not how true or how
false the statement is ;
but whether it was more likely to be made by an
early than a late writer. And to this question I think there can only be
one answer. l"he Pauhne Epistles were not, we have reason to believe,
26— 2
p.