apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 411
indulge in them without scruple. Pearson {Vind. Ign. p. 576) points
to the fact that a single letter of S.
Chrysostom {Epist. 14, Op. iii.
p. 594) contains twice as many such foreign words as we find in the
whole of these Ignatian Epistles. Why then should these Latinisms
be denied to Ignatius The terms in Folyc. 6 are all military. They
are therefore very natural from the pen of one who was bound night
and day to a Roman soldier. The only remaining word, exemplarium,
was a common law term (see 11. p. 34).
As such, it would readily be
picked up by a man in the position of Ignatius '.
(3)
Much again has been said about the reiterations in these letters,
as if this were an argument against their genuineness. But what are the
facts The letters are presumably written within a few weeks at most
— probably some of them on the same or successive days. They are
addressed to churches belonging to the same districts, exposed to the
same dangers, needing the same warnings.
and are intended to serve an immediate purpose.
They are dictated to scribes
Probably the last idea
which crossed the mind of the author was that they could have any
permanent literary value. To himself, as to S. Paul, to say the same
things was not grievous, while to the several churches it would be
profitable. Is it
any marvel if under these circumstances he occasionally
repeats the same image more or less modified (e.g. Ephes. 4, Philad.
i) If we compare any two of these epistles together, the repetitions
are not nearly so great as in the two epistles of S. Paul written at the
same time— the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. It is a striking
and significant fact also, that, when he addresses himself to a new
The Ignatian letter
audience, he introduces a wholly new set of topics.
to the Romans stands quite apart from the rest. This fact shows that
the repetition arises not from poverty of thought in the author, but from
similarity of circumstance in the persons addressed.
If the epistles had
My attention has been called by Prof.
^
W. M. Ramsay to the fact that "the
word i^e/jLTrXipioi' occurs in an unpublished
inscription of Dionysopolis of the
same class as those published by Mr
Hogarth (Journal of Hellmic Studies
1887, pp. 381 sq.) Nos. 12—18. It is to
be read in Mr Hogarth's No. 13, 1. 8,
where it is spelt e^ovirXapiov, and in his
No. 14, 1.9, where it is spelt i^oirpdTr€i[ov].
These inscriptions appear to be not later
than the second century, and they are the
work ofuneducated persons, able to understand
or speak Greek only by ear, and
ungrammatically and imperfectly. A
word which occurs in them must therefore
have already penetrated into the
popular language of the country.
Dionysopolis
lies on the plateau immediately
overhanging Hierapolis, and the small
share of Greek civilisation which had
spread to it must be considered to have
come from the Lycus valley. The word
is in all cases used as a feminine (like
BaXai^cTTtoi/, 'A