apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

MANUSCRIPTS AND VERSIONS.
THE questions respecting the original form and the genuineness of
the Ignatian Epistles are so closely entangled with the history of
the text, that a knowledge of the manuscripts and versions becomes a
necessary preliminary to the consideration of this more important
point, I shall therefore reverse the usual order and commence with a
full account of the documents on which the text is founded.
Of those Ignatian Epistles with which alone we are here concerned,
three different forms or recensions exist. The first of these contains
three epistles alone ; to Polycarp, to the Ephesians,
and to the
Romans. It is extant only in a Syriac version. The second presents
these three epistles in a fuller form, and adds to them four others, to
the Smyrnseans, Magnesians, Philadelphians, and Trallians.
Besides the
original Greek, this form is found in Latin, Armenian, Syriac, and
Coptic translations, though in the last two languages only fragments
remain. The third of these recensions contains the seven epistles
already mentioned in a still
longer form, together with six others, a letter
from one Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius, and letters from Ignatius to
Mary of Cassobola, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochenes, to Hero, and to
the Philippians. This recension is extant in the Greek and in a Latin
translation. These six additional letters, it is true, have been attached
afterwards to the epistles of the second form also, and have been
translated with them into the several languages already mentioned ;
they are obviously of a much later origin, as will be shown hereafter,
and seem to have emanated from the author of the third recension. As
some definite nomenclature is convenient, I shall call these three forms
of the Ignatian Epistles the Shorty Middle^ and Long forms or recensions
respectively. It has been customary hitherto to speak of the two
but