apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

MANUSCRIPTS AND VERSIONS. 547
of the group already named— Monacensis 394, and Constantmopolitatius
(see above, pp. no, 118). It appears also to have been wanting
in a third independent ms, Nydpruccianus, which is now no longer
extant, but which furnished the text of a very early edition (see above,
p. 116). It will be evident from these facts that the connexion of the*
Epistle of Polycarp with the Ignatian
letters in the extant Greek mss
is late and accidental. It is in no sense due to historical transmission
from the original copy, in which Polycarp attached the letters of Ignatius
to his own. A late transcriber would naturally be anxious to include
the works of these two contemporary Apostolic fathers in the same
volume, more especially as Ignatius addresses Polycarp and Polycarp
mentions Ignatius ; though he might have to transcribe them from
different manuscripts.
Whether at the time when it was written Polycarp's Epistle was
circulated independently, as well as in connexion with the Ignatian
letters, we have no certain information. But this would probably be the
case. A copy of so important a letter would be kept by the author,
and his disciples would transcribe it for more general circulation. The
earliest Christian writers however, who quote or mention it— Irenaeus
and Eusebius, Timotheus and Severus— had in their possession likewise
the letters of Ignatius (see below, p. 563 sq) ;
and presumably therefore
the two were still attached together in their copies, as they had been in
the original document sent to the Philippians. The first direct notice of
the Epistle of Polycarp, as separate from the letters of Ignatius, appears
in Photius (c. a.d. 850), who speaks of it as contained in a little
volume {fiifSXtSapLov) comprising likewise the Two Epistles of Clement
of Rome, but not (as we may infer from his silence) the Epistles of
Ignatius, with which he betrays no acquaintance (see below, p. 572).
(i)
Greek Manuscripts.
The extant Greek Manuscripts have all
descended from one faulty,
and probably not very early, archetype. This is shown by the fact
mentioned more than once already (pp. 112, 113 ; comp. iii. p. 317), that
the epistle is mutilated at the end and runs on without any break into
the Epistle of Barnabas, of which the commencement is wanting. The
sentence at the junction
is airodavovra koX 8l ly/Aas vtto t6v Aaov t6v Kevov
(jcatvov) K.T.A.., of which dwo6av6vTa koI 81 17/xas
-utto
belongs to Polycarp
§ 9, and Tov \aov Tov Ktttvov to Barnabas § 5. They have all likewise the
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