apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

428 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
any ms. The original sequence in the Syriac Version may be more
safely gathered from the Armenian which was translated from it.
The Sylloge Polycarpiana, as was natural and as we may infer from
Polycarp's language (see p. 136), began with 'the letters sent by him
[Ignatius] to us i. e. with
',
the Epistles to the Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp;
and the others would be attached. The Epistle to the Romans,
as internal probability and external evidence alike indicate, would close
the Seven. For the intermediate letters the two main authorities are
agreed except in one point ;
and for the reasons stated here the preference
should probably be accorded to the Armenian. It has moreover
this further recommendation, that the letters written from the same
place Troas to the three cities on the same line of route, Ephesus,
Magnesia, and Tralles, are kept together.
The results of this investigation have an indirect bearing of some
importance. Starting from Zahn's theory that the Episde to the
Romans did not originally form part of the same collection with the
other six, Renan maintains the substantial genuineness of this one
letter, but rejects the rest {Les Evangiles pp. xvii, xix, xxi sq, xxxi,
488 sq). He observes that, unlike the others, it is free from any suspicion
from advocacy of the claims of episcopacy. On this last point
I have already spoken (p. 399). It has been shown also that in diction
this letter is intimately connected with the others (p. 314), so that no
separation is '
possible. What Renan means by saying, Le style de
I'epitre aux Romains est bizarre, enigmatique, tandis que
de la correspondance est simple et assez plat', I am altogether
celui du reste
at a loss
to understand. What shall we say to such passages as Ephes. 9, 11, 15,
Magn. 10, Trail. 4, 5, FMad. 8, Smyrn. 4, Eolyc. 2, 3 Do not these
deserve to be described by the same two epithets, 'bizarre', 'e'nigmatique'
Thus the internal evidence pronounces the seven epistles to
be homogeneous. This result is now confirmed by the investigation
of the documentary or external evidence, which resists the separation
of the Epistle to the Romans from the rest. All the Seven Epistles
therefore must stand or fall
together.
It might have seemed that the whole cycle of possible opinions had
been by this time exhausted, and that no novel solution of the Ignatian
question was possible.
This achievement however has been performed
since my first edition appeared, by D. Volter {Thcologisch Tijdschrift,
1886, p. 114 sq) who rejects the Epistle to the Romans but maintains
the genuineness of the remaining six, thus directly reversing the position