Vindication of Ignatius

stripped, as it were, of the patronage of the apostles, and despoiled of the mask of antiquity, may at length be determined more equitably and calmly, and that the minds of men may treat the primitive Church—conspicuous in her simplicity and neither depicted nor rather deformed by alien colors—with the reverence that is her due. Among these matters, the Epistles of the Blessed Ignatius have also appeared, illustrated by the notes of Cotelerius; these I ran through as eagerly as the straits of time permitted, while hastening to our own edition. But I see—unless haste has deceived me—that the opinion of that very learned man perfectly coincides with our own; the same judgment of the Ignatian documents, the same opinion concerning the arguments of the adversaries, ^A a nearly identical explanation of the passages, I perceive.

Whence it seems to me that I may auspiciously conjecture that our opinion will be approved by learned men, those well-versed in this kind of literature, and that they will immediately judge that I have labored at nothing in these pages which, to those dealing with the same matters, does not at first glance appear most openly and clearly consistent with the truth. But if you, kind Reader, should judge that those things which I have treated incidentally, and inserted into my dissertations primarily for your sake (many such things you will find in our work), have been stated either less correctly or less accurately, I would not have you link them to an injury against the cause undertaken, but rather attribute them to a desire to please you. Farewell.

IGNATIAN VINDICATIONS

CAPUT PRIMUM. Occasion of writing and distribution of the Proœmium.

It is a famous controversy, especially in this century, concerning the distinction of the episcopal order from the presbyterate, or at least concerning the origin of that distinction. In treating of it, the authority of St. Ignatius, an apostolic man and martyr, is deservedly held in great weight; since the episcopal cause is supported by his most eloquent and most copious testimony, and the recently devised antiquity of presbyterian parity collapses, it has at last come to this: that those who could in no wise defend an opinion otherwise unfavorable to the episcopacy, have attacked all the epistles of Ignatius, denied that they were written by the holy martyr, and pronounced them fictitious and supposititious.

Among these, that most learned man, Joannes Dallæus, who is diligently versed in the monuments of the Holy Fathers and extremely sharp in distinguishing spurious works, following the skirmishes of Salmasius and Blondellus, has recently published a rather prolix volume, by which he imagines himself to have proved to himself and to his followers, I believe, that even the most purified and sincere Epistles of Ignatius—fortified by the authority of the ancients and conspicuous in their own intrinsic excellence—are adulterine, and he seems to have refuted all the reasons, which are truly most firm, of the most learned men, the Archbishop of Armagh, Isaac Vossius, and Dr. Hammond.

Since the stupendous diligence of this most excellent man, along with the holiness of Ignatius and the necessary authority of the episcopacy, and most especially the unfair reputation and celebrity of the adversary, demand that something be put forward in reply, we have deemed it worthwhile to call the entire dissertation, such as it is, to examination, to weigh his arguments by their own merit, to sift ^B every particular that concerns us and the Holy Fathers of the Church in any way, and to set forth everything that might confirm the authority of St. Ignatius, to refute and reject those things which may appear to undermine it.

But since this question is now implicated and involved in many ways, and has become more obscure due to the lucubrations of the many, it seemed primarily necessary, in order that the things we are about to say be transmitted clearly and perspicuously, to premise those points which might expedite the causes of the difficulty, which might explain the opinions of learned men, which might narrate the rise, progress, and present state of the controversy, and, having cut off useless altercation, make a way more easy for future disputation.

That Ignatius was Bishop of the Church at Antioch, all who have made mention of him have acknowledged; that he was ordained by the Apostles, St. Chrysostom and Theodoret explicitly handed down. That this apostolic man, brought from Antioch to Rome, cast to the beasts, and crowned by martyrdom, is witnessed by the ancients; that he wrote epistles to the Churches, especially while on his journey, very many of the ancients reveal; no one has denied or claimed to have doubted it. And the most just estimation of the holy martyr has indeed remained until now unviolated and undefiled; it is only concerning the epistles, which have appeared under his name and lasted to our own age, that there is a dispute. Nor is it argued concerning their authority, if they appear to have been Ignatian; but it is asked whether they were truly of Ignatius himself.

But that the origin, progress, and present state of this modern ^C controversy may become known even to those who have hitherto considered it less deeply, I will present the whole matter (which I see has been done by no one as yet) clearly and faithfully. I will recount the opinions of learned men, of whatever persuasion they have been, in the very order in which they wrote, and I will note ^D the various editions of the Epistles, and how they differ in any way from the manuscripts.

^A I shall note them individually, so that at once it may be clear what sort of Ignatian epistolary character appeared at the time each wrote, and that the reader may have it in mind, and may form a judgment of each one's opinion, unencumbered by any prejudice. Finally, I shall relate the opinion of Daillé, the latest enemy of the Ignatian writings; I shall set forth our own position in opposition, and I will briefly declare what I believe should be approved and what should be refuted by me.

CHAPTER II. The first edition of Ignatius in Latin only. His Epistles held to be genuine.

Under the name of Ignatius, three epistles were first published in Paris in Latin only in the year of our Lord 1495, one to the Blessed Mary, and two to St. John the Apostle. In the year 1498, eleven other Epistles, likewise in Latin, from the old version, while the Greek manuscript had not yet appeared, were printed by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. This was, however, the princeps edition, according to the testimony of Philippe Labbé, who counts these eleven epistles, printed at that time, among the first editions which are preserved in the Royal Library in Paris. Then truly, Symphorien Champier of Lyon caused them to be published, edited by Lefèvre, along with three others rejected by him, and a fourth to Mary of Cassoboli never before published; and thus at last there existed fifteen Ignatian epistles. ^B And these were indeed the face of St. Ignatius at the beginning of the sixteenth century; when Lefèvre d'Étaples himself, the curator of the first edition, used his authority as if it were undoubted in his little book *On the Three Days of Christ*. Although it is impossible for me to penetrate to that understanding on my own; yet I think it is in this matter that the God-bearing Ignatius, in the first epistle which is to the Trallians, reveals regarding the Lord, speaking thus: "But before the setting of the sun he was taken down from the cross," etc. John, Bishop of Rochester, also, in the little book entitled *Peter was at Rome*, cited these epistles among the first; and Ignatius himself, a contemporary of the Apostles, thinks that Christ was baptized when he was thirty years of age, and taught for three years more. For thus he writes in the Epistle to the Trallians: "At thirty years of age Christ was baptized by John, and for three years preached the Gospel." Furthermore, John Driedo, a theologian famous in that age, in his book *On Ecclesiastical and Apocryphal Dogmas*, strives to confirm very many dogmas of the Roman Church with a long series of opinions drawn from the Epistles of Ignatius. And Martin Pérez de Ayala, a writer not unknown among the papists, very often employed testimonies from them and culled all these epistles to confirm unwritten traditions. These things, indeed, they held, being hitherto entirely secure concerning the authority of the Ignatian writings: for I know of no one who in that age doubted concerning the twelve epistles in particular.

CHAPTER III. The Epistles of Ignatius first edited in Greek. The various judgments of learned men regarding them.

And these things, briefly, concerning the judgment of men, so long as ^C these Epistles existed only in Latin. But after sixty years, Andreas Gesner, if he is to be believed, was the first of all to publish twelve epistles in Greek, with Johannes Brunner as translator, in the year of our Lord 1559. For thus he speaks in his Preface: "But since he (that is, Henricus Petri) published Ignatius only in Latin, I, having obtained a Greek manuscript copy from the library of the distinguished man of pious memory, D. Caspar von Nydprück, thought that it would be neither a burden to Henricus Petri, but rather welcome to most scholars, if those things which hitherto had circulated only in Latin, had been published by me in Greek and Latin together." But whatever Gesner may say, Valentinus Paceus had already published St. Ignatius in Greek before him, from a copy in the Augsburg Library, in the year of our Lord 1557, whom Morellius, who caused the same to be reprinted in Paris in the year 1558, testifies to have been the first to bring them to light. And that this edition, procured by Paceus, was the princeps edition of the Greek Epistles, is confirmed by those Centuriators of Magdeburg: "And this also is to be noted, that in this year 1558 the Epistles of Ignatius were printed and published in Greek, which had hitherto lain hidden for some centuries." Wherefore twelve epistles, previously in Latin by Stapulensis or Champier, are now edited from the Augustan code first by Paceus, then by Gesner from the Nydpruccian code.

When the Greek copies were already in existence, the Centuriators of Magdeburg were the first of all to propose their suspicions, but quite cautiously and moderately. "We leave it to the pious and attentive reader to consider," they say, "how much should be attributed to these Epistles." So they: and when they had adduced four arguments which seemed to justly render them suspect, "Regarding the doctrine," they say, "of Ignatius, we have nothing but what these monuments of his, if they are indeed his, contain." ^D Furthermore, that stern critique by John Calvin immediately appeared, in book 1, chapter 3 of the *Institutions*, already even then reduced to a more convenient form. "As for what they allege regarding Ignatius," he says, "if they wish it to have any weight, let them prove that the apostles passed a law about Lent, and similar corruptions; for there is nothing more rotten than those trifles which have been published under the name of Ignatius. By so much the less tolerable is the impudence of those who arm themselves with such masks to deceive." Thus he spoke, after his custom, quite sharply and spiritedly. Yet Ignatius does not offend Calvin, but those who corrupted Ignatius, says Rivet, which Vedelius, a professor at the Genevan Academy, correctly observed; and the thing itself sufficiently indicates; for Calvin rejected the authority of Ignatius [when it was] objected by the Antitrinitarians, from the Epistle without doubt to the Tarsians, which is not recognized as genuine, and which objects to Lent and other traditions that are found only in additions.

Then Marianus Victorius upon St. Jerome: "He rightly calls [Ignatius] an apostolic man; for he lived in the time of the apostles, and was a disciple of John the Evangelist, he wrote letters to the most holy virgin, Mary, the Mother of God, and others exist." And immediately also from the school of Luther a famous theologian

Martin Chemnitz, in his *Examination of the Council of Trent*, often uses the testimonies of these Epistles and attributes much to them. "Ignatius," he says, "in his Epistle to the Philadelphians, having heard from John, speaks of celibacy and marriage in a manner truly apostolic." And elsewhere, he praises them not without censure: "It is certain that the Epistles of Ignatius existed not only in the time of Eusebius but also in that of Jerome. They are now extant in Latin; they have also been edited in Greek; and they contain many sentiments not to be despised, especially as they are read in Greek. However, there are also many other things mixed in which certainly do not reflect apostolic gravity." And again: "We reasonably doubt, therefore, concerning those Epistles of Ignatius which are now circulated under his name; for they seem to have been transformed in many places to establish the status of the papal kingdom. And I judge it to have happened by divine providence that certain adulterated additions betray themselves by their own witness." ^B Indeed, he first, as I think, observed that a passage from the Epistle to the Smyrnians, cited by Theodoret, is found neither in the Greek nor in the Latin codices, although it has been cited similarly by William Woodford; and that many passages from the *Apostolic Constitutions* have been stitched into the Epistles of Ignatius. After him, Peter Canisius, an erudite man, very frequently uses the testimony of Ignatius from the ancient interpreter for the confirmation of the catechism.

Campion, in his fifth reason, censures the Centuriators and Calvin because they held Ignatius in such low esteem. "Ignatius," he says, "strongly offends the Centuriators; he also offends Calvin, so that in his Epistles they have noted ugly defects and rotten nonsense belonging to the dregs of men." Whitaker immediately defends Calvin, objecting that he rejected Ignatius as having been introduced by heretics as a patron of an evil and detestable opinion; he himself notes that the Epistles are of obscure and doubtful faith, because many are now ascribed to Ignatius of which Eusebius and Jerome made no mention, and because Jerome recites a certain saying of his and Theodoret another, neither of which is found anywhere in those Epistles that are circulated. And being pressed on the latter argument by Duræus, he says: "From this it is evident that the writings of Ignatius remain only in a fragmented state." ^C And soon, responding to Bellarmine, he notes that of the twelve Epistles of Ignatius extant in Greek, only seven were mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome, concerning which, he says, "what we should define, whether they be of Ignatius or of some other, is not sufficiently certain; it is certain, however, that five are undoubtedly spurious and adulterated." Responding to the same Campion, Laurence Humphrey notes that the Magdeburgians most prudently and with the most moderate language suggested that there are some things in these Epistles of Ignatius that seem to decline toward ugly defects; and he asserts that certain adulterated and intolerable things have crept into the writings of Ignatius; if Calvin rejects these, he is not immediately to be called an unjust censor of Ignatius or someone who rejects all the works of Ignatius as rotten nonsense, since he only touches upon those things which are to be faulted in the supposititious Ignatius. He himself, however, maintains that something has been cut from the Epistles, and something has been stitched in.

^D Then indeed two most eminent cardinals, Baronius and Bellarmine, judged the case thus. Baronius first cautiously distinguishes between the epistles which are extant only in Latin and those which had also appeared in Greek; he implies that the former are of no authority; the latter he embraces all eagerly, pronounces them uncorrupted and integral, and extols them with marvelous praise. "For," he says, "no one can justly doubt that not only the seven known to Eusebius, but also the remaining five are genuine and the most sincere works of Ignatius." Bellarmine notes that the three Latin ones do not taste at all of the gravity of the eloquence of St. Ignatius; that the five unknown to Eusebius are accepted entirely by learned men on account of the similarity of style and the truly apostolic spirit; that one should not place great faith in the Greek codices that now exist when they differ from the Latin; for, he says, the Latin codices are often found to be more accurate than the Greek; which fact, he says, he will understand who compares the testimonies which St. Athanasius and Theodoret cite from Ignatius with the words of the same Ignatius that we now have in the Latin and Greek codices.

Faust Hieron, in his response to Wiekus, first doubts concerning the Epistle to the Tarsians: "And it seems that Ignatius, or whoever was the author of that epistle which is inscribed under his name to the Tarsians, uses this very argument to prove this very thing." And he expresses his opinion more freely concerning them all in his *Animadversion on the Seventh Assertion of the Posnanians*: "The writings of Ignatius are partly adulterated, partly quite corrupt and stained with certain additions; so much so that mention is even made in them of things which did not exist until after several centuries." And although he had at that time seen only the Latin exemplar of Ignatius and was offended by the word "masses," he wrote these things; yet, having later obtained a Greek codex, he found that that passage was otherwise, yet he did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he says, "there are in the Greek exemplar itself some things which do not conform to the age of Ignatius, but with succeeding ones," and at length in

^A this manner he concludes: "That book of the Epistles of Ignatius, whenever it was done, was in part corrupted and in part patched together by those people who strongly approved of the tyranny of the bishops, not only in the Church but also in the state, against all law and morality, and wished to establish it." So he [speaks] in the defense of his former observation.

Shortly afterward, Rudolph Hospinian of Zurich, in his *Historia sacramentaria*, I, II, c. 1, praises our Ignatius as a most reliable witness: "When after the times of the apostles, heretics broke out in swarms, and impudently contradicted the sincere doctrine of the apostles, Ignatius, one of the seniors, while being led as a prisoner from Antioch to Rome to be thrown to the beasts, performing the office of a faithful and solicitous pastor, strengthened many churches on his journey both by word of mouth and by his epistles; and he warned them to beware of heretics and clandestine seducers who, secretly and without the knowledge of the bishops, insinuated themselves, seduced the simple common people, and held private conventicles." Moreover, among other things, he also exhorted the Smyrneans: "It is not permitted," he says, "without the bishop, either to offer or to immolate a sacrifice, or to perform any other public office." And in the Epistle to the Trallians, he says that he is worse than an infidel who dares to do anything concerning the ministry of the altar, unless he be a bishop or a presbyter. And a little later, he calls the passage about the eucharistic cup distributed to all, brought from the Epistle to the Philadelphians, "the open testimony of Ignatius, who was a disciple of John the Evangelist."

Meanwhile, our countryman Perkins follows Whitaker in this manner: "Eusebius along with Jerome numbered seven epistles of Ignatius as true; but now twelve are held under his name, of which five are spurious. Even the Epistle to the Ephesians is either spurious or at least corrupted; because the passage cited from it by Theodoret and Gelasius is not found in our copies."

Our countryman Thomas Bilson, a man of great name in the Church, wrote extensively and learnedly about the perpetual government of the Church; and in that work, he frequently praises St. Ignatius as an indubitable author, and affirms that that most holy martyr himself wrote those very epistles which he cites while he was still alive. Yet Parker brings him forward in vain and falsely as a doubter, and strangely slanders the most learned prelate. "Thomas," he says, "Bilson is more confident in the canons of the apostles than in Ignatius. Observe that he has branded Ignatius with the same mark as the canons, but has attributed the praise of antiquity to the canons, which he does not attribute to the epistles of Ignatius, when he says: 'The canons which are called the apostles', he openly implies that they are by no means the work of the apostles themselves', just as elsewhere he openly teaches, by parity of reasoning, when he says: 'The epistles which are bruited about as Ignatius', he subtly insinuates that they are not by Ignatius." But this is mere slander, which is most clearly refuted by the bishop's next words. For he immediately adds: "Ignatius, indeed, their bishop, was still alive, and he wrote the letters." ^B Therefore, the Ignatian epistles, according to Bilson, were written by him and during his lifetime. In chapter 14 of the same work, he clearly asserts their antiquity: for when he had named Tertullian, Cyprian, and Jerome: "If these," he says, "do not seem to you sufficiently ancient or sincere witnesses, hear what Ignatius, bishop of Antioch—while the apostle John was still alive, and whose disciple he was, and after whom he was martyred nearly eight years later—writes to various churches concerning the authority of the bishops." Thus, Bilson in very many places brings forward St. Ignatius as a most ancient and sincere witness.

Abraham Scultetus, in his *Medulla Patrum*, having set forth the arguments on both sides—both of those who attributed these epistles to Ignatius, and those who doubted whether they were rightly attributed to him—at length pronounces as follows: "The arguments having been properly and diligently examined from every side, some have retreated to a third opinion, and have decided that these epistles are indeed Ignatius's, but that they are adulterated and interpolated." In whose judgment we also acquiesce.

Possevin, however, adhering to Baronius: "Although S. Jerome," he says, "only makes mention of seven epistles, we nevertheless have twelve of undoubted faith. As for the three others that are cited, although they are not of such certain faith, they are nonetheless cited by St. Bernard; and there have not been wanting after him learned men who have made mention of them." And James Gretser follows the same tracks closely concerning the twelve genuine epistles; the proofs for which, written by the same, Philip Labbe attests he heard were hidden somewhere.

Then, too, Martial Mestræus, the Parisian doctor who edited and illustrated Ignatius himself with notes, places the three Latin ones in the number of the apocryphal commentaries; he declares the remaining twelve to be the genuine and truly golden epistles of Ignatius, but admits that they were interpolated and corrupted somewhere by heretics and later Greeks.

Our countryman George Downame, a most learned man, often accuses the schismatics of his own age and the previous one, because they now urge the testimonies of Ignatius in their own cause, and now reject his epistles as spurious; and he calls those seven mentioned by Eusebius learned and pious; which he says cannot be rejected for the very reason that they are mentioned by Eusebius.

Among the Socinians, Jerome Moscorovius does not seem to have doubted the true antiquity of these ^C epistles, when, in his refutation of the Appendix of Martin Smiglecki, he has this: "But not even this is true; that the Fathers of the first centuries betrayed the opinion which they themselves profess. For Ignatius, the most ancient of the Fathers among the Latins, whose writings indeed are extant, most openly confesses in his Epistle to the Tarsians that Christ is not the one who is God over all, but His Son."

Certainly the opinion of Isaac Casaubon, a most skilled judge of ancient writers, is also to be noted in this cause. Wherefore Parker numbers him among those who he taught had declared all the epistles of Ignatius to be fictitious.

^A or could be proved to be spurious or foully corrupted.” And again: “But, to conclude in a few words, it is more certain than anything that these epistles are either spurious or, as I have just warned, foully corrupted.” Therefore, whatever firm arguments Cocus brought forward to prove his opinion, he thought that they truly proved only this: that the Epistles of Ignatius were either spurious or corrupted.

When matters stood thus, Nicolas Vedelius, a Genevan professor, brought the whole question to examination; he wrote an apology for Ignatius, prepared a new edition, and illustrated the Epistles with exercises and an appendix. He rejected three of the Latin epistles entirely, because their spuriousness seemed to him to be too manifest. He divided the remaining twelve into two books, of which the former contains the genuine epistles, the latter the spurious ones. He acknowledges only those seven genuine ones mentioned by Eusebius; he decreed the remaining five to be either misattributed or plainly spurious. Furthermore, he testifies that not a few traces of most audacious scoundrels have crept into those seven genuine ones, which he took care to separate from the genuine text, and he “slaughtered” them with certain little marks placed in the margin, which he believed had been inserted by an interpolator into the genuine epistles from conjecture.

Wherefore Andreas Rivetus, although in his third edition he might be aided by the ^B *Censura* of Robert Cocus—a work of a sacred critic—nevertheless professes that he embraces a very moderate opinion, to wit, that most of the epistles of Ignatius, at the very least seven, are indeed his, but at this time they are not held except in an adulterated state and interpolated in many places. This opinion, I say, he embraces, relying on the arguments which are taken from the epistles themselves to support this. And Daniel Chamier, in his responses to the testimonies adduced by Bellarmine, never declines the authority of Ignatius. He says only once: “The Epistle to the Antiochians does not seem legitimate to learned men, because it is not noted by Jerome in the list of the works of Ignatius, and is thus unknown to the ancients.”

Daniel Heinsius, in his *New Testament*, indicates that certain of those epistles which have been published were truly Ignatius’s, while others were not. On I Cor. xv, 31: ^C “A rather imprudent imitator of the apostle Paul, all of whose epistles are read under the name of Ignatius, though they are of others.” Thus he spoke rather obscurely. But on I Tim. iv, 6, somewhat more clearly: “Which word (to wit, *bebaremenon*) is found among those which he—whoever he was that gave out the epistles of Ignatius under his name, and among those certain ones not his—neither worthy of him published.” Gerardus Joannes Vossius, *De natali anno Christi*, sect. 41: “Others reply that the epistles of Ignatius are spurious, and were not mentioned by anyone before the Nicene council.” Is this truly the case? As if Irenaeus did not mention them in lib. v, cap. 28, and Polycarp, more ancient than he and equal to Ignatius, in Eusebius lib. iii, cap. 36. To say nothing of Origen, who adduces something from them, *Homily 6 in Luke*.

Petrus Halloix, however, a Jesuit, not only laboriously contends that all the Greek ones are genuine and authentic, but also ^D of the three Latin ones he thus delivers his judgment: “or could be proved to be spurious or foully corrupted.”

^A are, and therefore are rightly called into doubt, or even plainly rejected; and this not only because it is not probable that they could have remained hidden from Eusebius, if they had existed in his time, or that they would have been passed over by him if they had been known to him; but also because, either by their mode of speech, they differ greatly from the Eusebian [records], or because, by their subject matter, they are more in harmony with the doctrine, institutions, and customs of the later Church, and they appear similar to the Ignatian [writings] mentioned by Eusebius only by means of an imitation, and one that is too affected.

And finally Walo Messalinus: "In my opinion, it is certain that all those Ignatian epistles are suppositious, or at least interpolated in many places," and he recites some things which "sufficiently prove," he says, "that that work cannot be ascribed to the author it feigns." And again: "Those epistles seem born and posited around the beginning or middle of the second century, at which time the first singular episcopate was introduced over the presbytery."

CHAPTER IV.

So far have the judgments, or rather the conjectures, of learned men progressed, while there existed only one Greek edition, albeit from two manuscript copies, and one ancient Latin translation, which answered to it quite fitly, or was reformed by others according to those Greek codices; concerning which conjectures, before we proceed further, it seemed to us not unworthy of note to observe some things.

First, the decretory opinion of Parker and Salmasius, who lay it down that all the epistles under the name of Ignatius are plainly suppositious, is not to be borne; both because their arguments prove nothing other than what is established by the rest—namely, that they are all either suppositious or interpolated (for since they did not yet know what the interpolation truly was, whatever displeased them could pertain to interpolations)—and because Parker lays it down that no one before the Nicene council mentions them, which is most openly false.

Second, the huge distinction between the three Latin and the twelve Greek epistles is rightly observed; and the Latin ones, first issued, have been deservedly rejected by almost everyone; both because they were unknown to all the Greeks, and do not at all smack of Greekness, so that they seem to have proceeded not from a translator but from a Latin author; and because they are not found in the most ancient manuscripts of the Vulgate version, and were written separately at some time, and were first mentioned among the Latins by Bernard or Pseudo-Dexter; and finally because they seem scarcely to agree with the reason of the times, nor to have anything in common with the institutions of Ignatius, for which some a few years ago have struggled in vain, as Philippus Labbæus has rightly judged.

Third, not even the twelve Greek ones themselves claim an equal authority; and the distinction seems ^B rightly placed between the seven epistles which are mentioned by Eusebius and frequently quoted by the other most ancient Fathers, and the five others which were not acknowledged by any Greek writer until some centuries later, and therefore they are rightly called into doubt, or even plainly rejected.

Fourth, it has been rightly remarked by very many that even those seven most ancient and most genuine epistles in the Greek edition current at that time were interpolated and corrupted; and this is made plain by the fact that the citations brought forward by the ancient Fathers, which either do not appear in that edition or are not correctly represented, as well as other things not a few which neither agree with the antiquity nor the sentiment of St. Ignatius, nor are inserted with sufficient convenience into the tenor of the epistles.

Fifth, the industry of Vedelius, which he applied to indicating the passages in the epistles mentioned by Eusebius as corrupted and interpolated, and to separating them from the genuine, if we look at the attempt, is to be praised; if, however, we look at the event, or success, it seems to be of little value indeed. For by such great diligence it was finally effected, that on one hand the inserted and interpolated passages are mostly omitted, and are retained as genuine; on the other hand, however, the original and genuine are quite often marked as suppositious and rejected. Although, therefore, very many have judged the best of the Ignatian epistles to be corrupted, yet thus far little or nothing has been achieved for ^C vindicating them from corruptions by any certain criterion. So that that is true which is observed by Daillé: "Unless Ussher and Vossius had obtained a more sincere copy, there would clearly remain no hope of distinguishing and separating the alien elements of an interpolator from the true [words] of the writer."

CHAPTER V.

Wherefore James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland, a man of wonderful sagacity and faith in these matters, when he saw that nothing was achieved by such conjectures, and observed that three theologians in our England formerly had quoted a certain passage from an epistle of Ignatius as cited by Theodoret, and not found in the Greek edition or the Vulgate version of that time, in the very same way in which it had been brought forward by Theodoret; he began to look about to see if by chance any Latin copy still hiding in England could be found, from which those three theologians had drawn, and in which the remaining passages cited by Theodoret and other ancient Fathers might appear complete. When, behold, he obtained two manuscript books, one from the public library of the college of Gonville and Caius among our Cantabrigians, and one from the private ^D library of Dom Richard Montagu, lately bishop of Norwich, who...

^A distinguished them, as they are distinguished in the edition of Vossius.

Salmasius, however, having examined the edition of Ussher and seen the Medicean codex before it was published, became less well-disposed toward the authority of Ignatius. For behold, in the *Apparatus* to his books *On the Primacy of the Pope*, he says: "The most reverend and learned man James Ussher of Armagh shows by many arguments that there are various interpolations of this work of different times. But as to what it was that first came forth from the author, I can affirm with every assurance that it is not even the genuine Ignatius." These things are said with a little more calmness. What follows not long after smacks more of Salmasius: "But at what age this impostor lived, who feigned the name of Ignatius in the writing of these epistles, must be inquired into. For that Ignatius is not the author of them I am as certain as I am that I am writing these things." Here, indeed, we have Salmasius pure and simple. But as far as concerns the time, he suspects that the impostor lived at the same time as Valentinus; clearly, under Antoninus, or at any rate under Marcus Aurelius. And this is the sum of the Salmasian opinion. Yet when he had asserted these things so strenuously in the *Apparatus*, in the work itself he quite frequently uses the authority of Ignatius. When Claudius Sarravius saw these things, he tweaks the ear of Salmasius and admonished him: "It does not please me that you blame in the *Apparatus* what you praise in the work itself. I mean concerning the Ignatian Epistles, which in the *Apparatus*, which is read first, you rightly convict ^B of forgery, and yet you afterward use their authority quite frequently, as if they were legitimate and the title did not lie about the author. At least you should have signified something about this change of your opinion." Epist. p. 181. These things, I surmise, in Sarravius, the greatest backer of Salmasius, can be borne even by those who cannot bear the same things in Hammond.

David Blondel also, as he himself confesses in the Preface to his *Apologia*, as soon as Isaac Vossius gave him a copy of the first six epistles, devoured them with greedy eyes, transcribed them with his own hand, and compared them studiously with the places cited by the ancients, congratulating our century that that very exemplar, which Eusebius had used 1300 years before, promised to cast upon it a new light before long. But after he weighed the phrase, the matter, and the order of each one with a more attentive mind, compelled to throw away the hopes that had previously beguiled him, he lamented, chagrined, that he had been deceived by the good faith of the Fathers; and, being driven by certain *a priori* arguments from the opinion he had imbibed concerning the Ignatian epistles, he was forced to believe them all to be supposititious. He hands down, moreover, that the impostor himself, who attached the name of Ignatius the martyr to the seven epistles lauded by Eusebius, Athanasius, and Jerome, emerged long after the year one hundred and forty-four, and thus after the death of Clement of Alexandria, who is later than Ignatius by all of nearly a century.

Before these things were published by Blondel, but after he had been driven from the opinion which he had first imbibed from the Medicean codex, his judgment became known to Hugo Grotius, a very great man, who, as to what he thought about it, in a letter given to Gerard Vossius, ^C distinguished them, as they are distinguished in the edition of Vossius.

Wherefore immediately the Protestants, Andreas Rivetus, when Ussher had communicated to him the new edition of Ignatius from the old book, followed his judgment in the last revision of his *Critici Sacri*: and of the Jesuits, Petavius, having seen the Greek of Vossius and the Latin of Ussher, said: "This is a prudent and just suspicion, that those are the genuine Epistles of Ignatius, which the consensus of the ancients left behind commended and approved by illustrious testimonies." The same also was the judgment of Nicolaus Fabrotus, as his notes on Anastasius show. "Saint Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians (published by the learned man Isaac Vossius) and immediately the Pseudo-Ignatius in the epistle to the Antiochenes, and elsewhere, the ancient interpreter of the Epistle to the Philippians, which is ascribed to S. Ignatius." Thus he often distinguishes the genuine epistles from the spurious, as they are distinguished in the edition of Vossius.

This enterprise was indeed fortunate, by which the venerable old man showed a singular specimen of genius, judgment, and learning, and rendered a service most useful to the Church and in these times ^D most salutary.

This, moreover, was added to the total, that a most excellent man, highly cultivated in every species of learning, Isaac Vossius, produced the Greek exemplar (which, I opine, Turrianus, of infinite reading, had seen nearly one hundred years before, and had testified to be most ancient and most emended) copied from the Medicean Library, communicated it most amicably to very learned men, and, because he observed it to be in primary accordance with the Latin version published by Ussher, he took care that it be printed at the same time and illustrated with notes. Since these things conspired so amicably, that pair of learned men did not hesitate to assert that we at length possess the same Epistles which Eusebius had, which Polycarp edited, which Ignatius wrote.

How gratifying this edition of Vossius was to learned men is apparent from the fact that Claudius Sarravius, a senator of Paris, praised by him in passing in the notes, wrote back to him: "I therefore give thanks, I give you, my Vossius, the greatest thanks; for you have bound me to you eternally by so great and so illustrious a testimony toward one who is undeserving. For I see there my fame consecrated to eternity, by that monument which overcomes stones and marbles in duration."

Before these things were published by Blondel, but after he had been driven from the opinion which he had first imbibed from the Medicean codex, his judgment became known to Hugo Grotius, a very great man, who, in a letter given to Gerard Vossius, straightway...

signified: "Blondel is a man of great diligence, but too much addicted to his own party; what he thinks concerning bishops and presbyters is not obscure from his writings published heretofore. A book of his is now being printed by Blaeu especially on this subject. I have learned, however, from his own speech, that he altogether wishes to manage this, so that he may find something from which to spread his reputation, and that others in this matter might clearly think as he does. The Epistles of Ignatius, which your son brought from Italy, pure from all those things which the learned have hitherto held suspect, he does not wish to admit, because they offer clear testimony to the antiquity of the episcopate. He uses no other argument than that certain words appear in them more elegant than they are accustomed to be found in the writings of the apostles; such as ἄξιοι ἔπαινοι, ἀξιομνημόνευτοι, and the like. I said that there are not a few words of the same currency in the Epistle of Clement, which he does not hold to be suspect: that these had adhered for a long time from the reading of the Greeks, who wrote more elegantly."

As soon as the Blondellian works came to light, and Isaac Vossius saw the Medicean codex, which he had so happily edited, handled so badly, he immediately wrote out his arguments in a letter to Rivet, why the arguments which David Blondel brought forward to overthrow the truth of the Epistles of Ignatius could not altogether move him. To this epistle Blondel sprinkled his own annotations, and furthermore certain strictures on the ^B notes of Vossius published earlier; to which Isaac accurately replied in another more lengthy epistle likewise sent to Rivet. But since all these remained hidden for a long time with Vossius himself, out of his supreme kindness, and the zeal for assisting good letters with which he seems to burn above all other learned men, he most amiably communicated them to me, struggling in this arena, and most willingly conceded them when I asked that they be published with our own.

Moreover, the Archbishop of Armagh, in an appendix published the year after Blondel’s Apology, professes that he could not wonder enough that these two men of great name, Salmasius and Blondel, attributed so much to their own conjectures, when they confess that the letters of Polycarp to the Philippians—by which he himself confirms that the Ignatian letters were submitted—were genuine, and do not deny that these very epistles which are attributed to Ignatius were in the Medicean codex, at length freed from the novitiate assumptions, and, no less than that of Polycarp, were in everyone's hands in the times of Eusebius; yet in the fashioning of these they most confidently pronounce that some impostor assumed the name of Ignatius. This severe rebuke from a most gentle old man stung Blondel, who wondered at such confidence arising from light conjectures; wherefore, in a letter given to him, and with four arguments produced which forbade him to change his opinion, he professed that he still remained set in his view.

Afterward, the very distinguished theologian, Henry Hammond, when he saw the theological theses proposed in Gaul, proclaiming that the dispute and controversy concerning the prerogative of bishops over presbyters seemed already decided by most learned men, the Lord ^C Salmasius and Blondel; published four dissertations, in which the rights of the episcopate are substantiated from the Holy Scriptures and primeval antiquity, and appointed a second [ed.] regarding the writings of Ignatius. In that dissertation, however, he first solemnly called to examination whatever had been said against these epistles being assigned to Ignatius; and secondly, he added certain things which would establish their authority.

To these things Hammond, Salmasius and Blondel replied nothing. But at home our own theologian, John Owen, in a certain preface written in English, blames many things in Hammond’s defense of Ignatius, which Hammond defends in a separate writing, also in our own language. Yet Owen does not approve the opinion of those who absolutely condemn all the Ignatian epistles as forged and supposititious; nay, in some of them, he acknowledges a suave and graceful spirit—as our countrymen say—of faith, charity, sanctity, and the zeal of God, breathing and working within them. The London ministers, too, along with Scultetus, Vedelius, and Rivetus, have professed that they do not at all disapprove of everything; but they have spoken about the corruptions in such a way, as if they had never seen the editions of Ussher and Vossius, and they certainly did not indicate at all what they might think about the purged Epistles.

Theophilus Raynaudus, however, in his *Erotemata*, denies that the epistle to Mary the Mother of God is Ignatian. "The epistle, however," he says, "I hold as the genuine fruit of St. Ignatius to Mary of Cassoboli, beyond controversy; whatever to the contrary some few sectarians may have blurted out."

Edmund Albertin, too, did not at all acquiesce in Ussher’s responses and Hammond’s dissertation, but in his books entitled *De Eucharistia*, published in Latin, brought forth his decretory opinion in these words: "I would not deny that Ignatius wrote some epistles; but, if he wrote any, those have perished: and many others were composed under his name about the middle of the second century, and were received by the ancients incautiously and without examination." And in the same year John Daillé, in his third book *On Fasting and Lent*, says: "That this whole work of epistles which is circulated under the name of Ignatius is supposititious, and was ascribed to the most holy martyr by fraud many years after his death, is clear from such evident documents, that it may be a wonder that such learned men could have been deceived by this imposture for so long, and regarding those six which Ussher willed to be truly Ignatian: 'But, if it may be said with the leave of a great man, not even these which he published seem to be from a better hand than the rest.'" ^D

Interim, however, we must not omit that the noble critic in theology, John Morin, having collated various editions taken from the Augustan and Florentine codices, fell into another clearly different and most wondrous opinion. "The ancient edition of the Ignatian Epistles," he says, "exhibits the genuine text to us, but the new one is maimed and interpolated."

Samuel Bochart, however, a most learned man, in his great work, the *Hierozoicon*, Epistol...

Epistle to the Romans, which was seen, approved, and extolled by Eusebius, was not written before the age of the Emperor Constantine.

CHAPTER VI

Dallæus's opinion: that Ignatius wrote some epistles. That the epistles we have are the same as those possessed by Eusebius. That the six mentioned by Eusebius were not written by Ignatius, but by an impostor two hundred years after the death of Ignatius. That the Epistle to Polycarp was not known to Eusebius, but was forged by another impostor two hundred years after Eusebius. Our opinion: that seven epistles are mentioned by Eusebius; and that all of them were written by the most holy martyr Ignatius himself.

At length, Jean Daillé, a most famous theologian from France, well-known for his many works elaborated in this class of controversies in particular, not content with the points he had incidentally raised regarding a manifest imposture in his book *De Jejuniis*, and having fallen into a brand-new opinion concerning the age of the impostor, captivated by the wondrous sweetness of his own conjecture, renewed this controversy with great intensity of spirit, and in a large volume argued at length against all defenders of the Epistles of St. Ignatius whoever they might be. For under his name appeared two books, *On the writings which are circulated under the names of Dionysius the Areopagite and Ignatius of Antioch: wherein it is demonstrated, as the title professes, that they are spurious, and were forged long after the death of the martyrs to whom they are falsely attributed.*

And indeed, I agree entirely with Daillé concerning the undoubted forgery of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite; and I believe that even before Daillé, Sirmond, Petau, Launoy, Morin, and others had persuaded even the Pontificians themselves of this. But concerning the age of the author who wrote them and attributed them to the Areopagite, whoever he may have been, I dissent from him entirely; and there will be ^B in this very work an opportune occasion for us to offer the reasons for our opinion.

Concerning Ignatius, Daillé proposes a twofold question, of which the first is this: "Are all the epistles which are circulated under his name the product of the same parent?" He denies this; nor do I affirm it, or stir up a quarrel over it. The second question is: "Is the most holy man Ignatius, who suffered martyrdom at Rome in the eleventh year of Trajan, the true author of those epistles which are mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome?" He likewise denies this; I, however, think it must in no way be denied, and rather I affirm it with every assertion.

But in order that our disagreement may be made yet more manifest, we have deemed that some things further should be observed, and that first of all: Daillé does not deny that Ignatius wrote some epistles; and he takes the greatest care lest such an opinion be attributed to him. "The question," he says, "is not whether Ignatius wrote epistles (for who is so foolish as to deny that he wrote some?), but whether he wrote these which are circulated?" And elsewhere: "As if indeed anyone were so stupid as to deny that the bishop of a most ample city, and a disciple of the apostles to boot, could have written any, or even ^C indeed, whether to Polycarp, or letters to others?" But the question is not whether Ignatius wrote some epistles (it is incredible that such a man should have written none; nor does anyone deny that he wrote some); the question is, whether he wrote those which we have now? Therefore, there is no need for us to prove that some epistles were written by St. Ignatius himself, and thus that some genuine ones existed somewhere at some time; for we rightfully take that as conceded, since we hold our adversary to be a confessor of it.

Secondly, Daillé confesses, along with his friend Blondel, that those epistles which we now have in the editions of Ussher and Vossius, stripped of their additions, are exactly the same as those which Eusebius had. "In their codices," he says, "these very epistles are described, plainly such as it is most probable existed in the age of Eusebius, Athanasius, and the others whom we have mentioned" (namely, Jerome, Theodoret, and Gelasius). And he proves this clearly in the second chapter with three arguments. Therefore, to show the truth of the Ignatian letters, there is no need for us to prove that we possess the same epistles that Eusebius had; for our adversary grants us this. This only must be observed: that we possess epistles known in the age of Eusebius, but treated by copyists in the way that other writings of the ancients are accustomed to be treated, that is, having quite often suffered a permutation of letters or even words, and perhaps even a mutilation of clauses in some places. Since this is wont to happen in the writings of others, there is no reason for anyone to deny that the same occurred in ours; so that medicine should deservedly be applied to these less sound places, such as is wont to be applied to other ancient writings that have been badly treated.

Thirdly, he denies that those epistles which Eusebius had were written by Ignatius; he affirms that they were forged and interpolated by some impostor. He speculates that this impostor did not live around the middle of the second century, as Albertinus thought; not under Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius, as Salmasius thought; not immediately after the falling asleep of Clement of Alexandria, or one hundred years after the death of Ignatius, as Blondel thought; but that he forged the Epistles in the headlong third century, and that the forged work came to light around the end of the third century, or the beginning of the fourth. ^D Nay, as he speaks elsewhere, this impostor lived two hundred years after Ignatius, and wrote at the time when some rumor was already spread concerning Constantius or his son Constantine, or some propensity toward Christianity: and Eusebius acted as midwife to his work as it burst into the light around A.D. 330. This is clearly a ridiculous fable, and unheard of before this day; except that Bochart also dreamed that the epistle to the Romans was written under Constantine.

I, certainly, on the contrary, who have never found anyone from any age before this century who has written about that impostor, whom others settle as having lived in the second, others in the third, others in the fourth century, who know that no suspicion of any imposture in the Epistles seen by Eusebius was ever stirred up in the Church, who believe that the very same St. Ignatius is their author through every age from his own time,

I notice that it has been recognized, and I cannot bring my mind to believe that all the epistles written by such a man perished at once; I do not acknowledge just some epistles, but I assert that these very ones, mentioned by Eusebius and in every way worthy of so great a man, were written by St. Ignatius himself, that most holy martyr.

Fourth, regarding the number of the epistles which are mentioned by Eusebius, Daillé sometimes has doubts, and he names them six or seven times; according to the common opinion seven, according to the singular opinion of Ussher six: sometimes he assigns the number quite confidently, and asserts there are only six. But as for the fact, he says, that the vulgar suppose that a certain one is mentioned by Eusebius as written separately to Polycarp, the most learned Ussher conjectures most acutely—and demonstrates from Jerome—that this is not a different one, but is in reality one and the same as the epistle which is to the Smyrnaeans, understood by Eusebius ^B to be so. And he concludes that this rightfully should be expunged from the census of the Epistles mentioned by Eusebius; and he counts it among those which he most strongly proves did not yet exist in the times of Eusebius and Jerome. Therefore, he thinks this epistle to Polycarp was forged by another impostor under the fifth century.

But I recognize neither an earlier nor a later forger of this epistle, and I am of the opinion that it should be numbered absolutely among the seven mentioned by Eusebius and defended by us. For I do not think that Jerome is to be looked to primarily here, nor do I interpret Eusebius through Jerome, but, as is fitting, Jerome through Eusebius, from whom he translated his own material. First, therefore, I assert that Eusebius enumerated exactly seven epistles, and that he mentioned the one to Polycarp as being clearly different from that which was written to the Smyrnaeans. For all admit that Eusebius mentioned four sent from Smyrna—namely, to the Ephesians, to the Magnesians, to the Trallians, and to the Romans—as distinct; and these words of Eusebius prove no less certainly that the three sent from Troas were likewise different and distinct: Ἤδη δὲ ἐπέκεινα τῆς Σμύρνης γενόμενος, ἀπὸ Τρωάδος τοῖς τε ἐν Φιλαδελφείᾳ αὖθις διὰ γραφῆς ὁμιλεῖ, καὶ τῇ Σμυρναίων Ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἰδίως τε τῷ ταύτης προηγουμένῳ Πολυκάρπῳ. "When, however, he was already beyond Smyrna, from Troas he again converses in writing both with those in Philadelphia, and to the Church of the Smyrnaeans, and separately with Polycarp, who presided over it." By these words, the three epistles sent from Troas are expressly handed down; nor is the one to Polycarp distinguished less from the other to the Church of the Smyrnaeans than the one to the Smyrnaeans is from the other to the Philadelphians. The Greeks understood Eusebius in no other way. Thus, indeed, Nicephorus: Καὶ Σμυρναίοις ἄλλην διαχαράττει, καὶ αὐτῷ δὲ ἰδίᾳ τῷ προέδρῳ ταύτης Πολυκάρπω ἑτέραν ἐπέστειλε. "And he inscribed another to the Smyrnaeans, and to the president of this same one he sent another separately." Nor do the connective particle ^C thrice repeated, nor that word *idios*, "separately" or "privately," allow us to understand Eusebius differently. Nicephorus, in place of *idiôs*, said *idia*, as the more elegant Greeks are wont to speak. Suidas: *Idios*, "apart." Whence *idiázetai*, "to be private." Thus, in Xenophon’s *Agesilaus*, regarding an epistle sent to him by the King of the Persians, but not received by him, *tôi pheronti eipen apangeilai basilei, hôs idia men pros auton ouden deoi epistolas pempein*. "He told the bearer to announce to the King that there was no reason why he should send letters to him privately." He ordered him, from whom it was brought, to announce to the King that there was no reason for him to send private letters to him. Thus Cyrus, in the same author, to Cyaxares: *Euthys epempsas pros te to Persôn koinon, symmachous aitoumenos, kai pros eme idia, deomenos peisthai auton me elthein hêgoumenon, ei tines Persôn ioien*. "Immediately thou didst send both to the common body of the Persians, requesting allies, and to me privately, asking that I take care to come myself, and be the leader of the Persian forces, if any of the Persians should go." The same value has *idiôs*, which Eusebius uses. Suidas: *Idios*, "alone," "apart." And Eusebius is wont to speak thus: as when he treats of Melito and Apollinaris: *Hoi Rhômaiôn basilei logous hyper tês pisteôs idiôs hekateros apologias prosephônêsan*. "Both of whom dedicated separately their respective apologetic orations for the faith" (Hist. iv, c. 26); as when he speaks of the heretics Florinus and Blastus: *Thateros idiôs peri tên alêtheian neôterizein peirômenos*. "As one labored to bring in a new doctrine separately against the truth of the faith" (l. v, c. 15); as with Origen: *Idiôs Akylou kai Symmachou, kai Theodotionos ekdosin hama tê tôn Hebdomêkonta en tois tetraplois epikataskeuasas*. "He arranged separately the edition of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion together with the version of the Seventy in the Tetrapla" (l. vi, c. 16). Thus to them some peculiar writing is called *idia graphê*, or *idia scholê*, now *idion syngramma*, or *idion spoudasma*. Eusebius therefore altogether understood that a peculiar epistle (besides the one written to the Smyrnaeans) was dedicated separately to Polycarp.

Nor do only these modes of speech, which cannot be explained otherwise, prove this, but also the things that follow. For when he had mentioned that Ignatius had written separately to Polycarp, he assigns the best reason for this matter—the very tender care, namely, of his own Antiochene flock which he had committed especially to him: *Hon de apostolikon andra eu mala gnôrizôn, tên kat’ Antiocheian autôi poimnên, hôs an gnêsios kai agathos poimên paratithetai, tên peri autês phrontida dia spoudês echein auton axiôn*. "Whom, when he recognized well that he was an apostolic man, he committed to him the flock at Antioch as a genuine and good shepherd, deeming him worthy to have the care of it with diligence." But in this epistle to Polycarp he commends to the care and diligence of Polycarp himself the Antiochene Church—nowhere else. For in the epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he asks that Church to appoint a *theopresbeutên*; but he does not address Polycarp at all, nor does he expressly name him in that whole epistle, whom he had named in the epistles to the Ephesians and to the Magnesians. For which thing hardly any other reason can be assigned than that he wrote separately to Polycarp himself at the same time. Certainly in the epistle peculiarly given to him, he diligently commends this business to him.

^A Furthermore, the words which follow openly reveal that this was not Eusebius’s meaning: *The same man, writing to the Smyrnaeans, draws from scriptures I know not whence.* Now, the same Ignatius, writing to the Smyrnaeans, uses words whose source I do not know. Eusebius would never have spoken in this way, as Isaac Vossius correctly observes, if the following things had been taken from the same epistle of which he had been speaking up to that point. And this adversative clause, along with the mention of the epistle, admits of no other interpretation than this: That same Ignatius, who wrote separately to Polycarp and commended the Church of Antioch to his care and diligence, uses in the other epistle, which he wrote to the Smyrnaeans, a testimony taken from I know not where. As in Book IV, chapter 26, when he speaks of Melito: *In the excerpts written by him, the same man, beginning according to the preface, starts...* The same man, in the excerpts composed by himself, immediately at the beginning of the work, passing from the book that was called *Apology* to another by the same author which had the title *Excerpts*. Ruffinus, though he interpreted all these things somewhat less accurately, nevertheless grasped the meaning correctly, as he translates thus: *He writes these and many other similar things to various Churches; but also in the letters given to Polycarp as to an apostolic man, he especially commends the Antiochene Church to him. Writing to the Smyrnaeans, he indeed uses certain words, from where taken we know not.*

Jerome himself, too, must be understood in no other way in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, where he says, following Eusebius: *Departing from there, he wrote to the Philadelphians and to the Smyrnaeans, and properly to Polycarp, commending to him the Church of Antioch.* What is clearer? For *properly* here means nothing else than *separately* or *apart*. Thus the interpreter Sophronius: *idikos pros Polykarpon*—that is, *specifically to Polycarp*. Now *idikos*, according to Suidas, means *by oneself* (privately). Jerome himself speaks thus elsewhere in this very *Catalogue*, when recounting the works of Clement of Alexandria: *One book on ecclesiastical canons, and against those who follow the error of the Jews, which he properly dedicated to Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem.* And dealing with Apollonius: *Tertullian, in six volumes published against the Church, which he wrote on ecstasy, labored on a seventh properly against Apollonius, in which he attempts to defend all the things that he [Apollonius] argued against.* In both places, *properly* signifies *peculiarly* (or *specifically*), and is translated by Sophronius as *idikos*, just as in the case of Ignatius. But as for what follows, *in which he also puts a testimony concerning the Gospel which has recently been translated by me, on the person of Christ*, since that *in which* does not have an explicit preceding word to which it might refer, it must be taken as if the same ^B man, writing to the Smyrnaeans, as I quoted from Eusebius, from whom Jerome transcribed his own. That this is the case, Isaac Casaubon long ago asserted, and that there is no doubt that this passage of Jerome is to be understood with the parenthetical marks added thus: *He wrote to the Philadelphians, and to the Smyrnaeans, then [parenthesis added] (and properly to Polycarp, commending to him the Church of Antioch) in which, etc.* And Richard Montagu, Bishop of Norwich, who usually seizes every opportunity to carp at Casaubon, praises him here. *Well and acutely,* he says, *did the most learned Casaubon note that the words inserted between "Smyrnaeans" and "in which" should be included in a parenthesis.* Ussher himself also acknowledges Casaubon to be far more acute than Baronius and Halloix, yet he abandons him, moved solely by the authority of Honorius of Autun, who judged that the Epistle to Polycarp was to be entirely passed over in the census of the writings of Ignatius—taking the words of Jerome, specifically, as if no peculiar epistle had been given by him to Polycarp here. But who does not know that that Honorius is a very poor interpreter of Jerome’s meaning, and a most inept witness of the works named by him, who often did not understand the *Catalogue* which he followed, and more often curtailed it? Who will trust him on how Jerome’s words are to be taken concerning Ignatius, when, immediately regarding Polycarp, he says that he wrote an epistle to the Philippians, and certain things about the day of the Passover, whereas Jerome records that he only came to Rome because of certain questions concerning the day of the Passover; who ascribes the *Commentaries on the Gospel according to Matthew* to Origen, which Jerome had attributed to Symmachus; who reports that Anatolius composed ten books on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, whereas Jerome suggests that he was a man of wonderful learning in these things, but that he wrote ten books on the *Institutions of Arithmetic*; who, in the case of Clement of Alexandria, instead of Jerome’s *Three books of the Pedagogue*, has *One book concerning the Pedagogue*, and instead of *One book on the fast, and one on the discussion*, substitutes these: *One on the fast, one on the discussion*; who, in the case of Origen, because Jerome had omitted an index of his works, has in its place: *He wrote six thousand books,* which is known to be most alien to Jerome's mind from his *Second Apology against Ruffinus*: *Count the indices of his books, which are contained in the third volume of Eusebius, in which he writes the life of Pamphilus, and you will not find six thousand, but not even a third part;* who translated almost all the Greek in Jerome into the Latin language so poorly and ineptly? Indeed, who will believe Honorius on the number of epistles in Jerome regarding Ignatius, when he knows that he passed over in his *Epitome* so many minor works which are commemorated by Jerome in the *Catalogue*? In Melito, *On the Incarnation of God*, one book; in Alexander, *Epistle to the Antinoites*; in Julius Africanus, *Epistle to Origen concerning the question of Susanna, and another to Aristides concerning the genealogy of the Savior*; in Novatian, the book *On Perseverance*; in Malchion, the...

Epistle to Dionysius and Maximus; in Gregory Neocaesariensis, the *Panegyric to Origen*; in Lactantius, the *Symposium*, and two books of letters *To Demetrianus*; in Athanasius, the *Festal Epistles*; in Acacius, six volumes of *Miscellaneous Enquiries*; in Theodore, commentaries *On the Psalms*; in Cyril, the *Catecheses*; in Basil, the *Asceticon*; in Gregory Nazianzen, *On the Love of the Poor*; in John of Antioch, *On the Priesthood*; and finally in Jerome himself, the book *On Hebrew Names*, two books *Against Jovinian*, and the *Apology and Epitaph* for Pammachius—all of which still exist in Jerome’s *Catalog*—Jerome has omitted them entirely. In Dionysius of Alexandria, he passed over so many epistles and minor works intact that I could not enumerate them without the greatest tedium to the reader. Why, therefore, would he not likewise omit the Epistle of Ignatius, written specifically to Polycarp? The argument which Armachanus induces from the silence of Honorius of Augustodunum—so poor an interpreter, so unfaithful an epitomizer—is therefore light, or rather, completely hollow, for him to conclude from it that in the collection of Ignatian epistles which was in everyone’s hands in the age of Jerome, no epistle had existed written privately to Polycarp: especially since Eusebius attests that it was written *idios*, and Jerome that it was written *proprie*—that is, privately—to Polycarp. Indeed, by an equal argument he could demonstrate that in the age of Eusebius no epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians had existed, because Rufinus omitted it in his translation.

Moreover, in the age of Jerome, St. Chrysostom wrote and used the collection of Ignatian epistles which contained the epistle written privately to Polycarp. For in his oration, *That there is one legislator of the Old and New Testament*, attributed to him by the ancients, he extracts a certain sentiment under the name of Ignatius from this very epistle, which we shall later bring forth in our own place among the testimonies of the ancients. Armachanus does indeed deny that that oration is by St. Chrysostom, but we shall accurately examine his arguments when we defend the testimonies adduced for Ignatius against the objections of Daillé.

But the matter itself ^C cries out that this epistle to Polycarp must be numbered among those known to Eusebius, because, like the other genuine ones, it was also contaminated by the hand of an interpolator: a fact which is not to be thought of at all in regard to the spurious works. For it is one thing to forge an epistle, and another to corrupt one. Those things which are later forged by an impostor are preserved in the same state in which they were first cobbled together; whereas those which were first made by a true author are later defiled by various interlopers with additions. Armachanus, indeed, in whose mind a contrary opinion had taken deep root, observed no interpolations here; he did not even hesitate to assert that his own interpreter, whom he himself had first brought out of darkness, had taken up the Epistle to Polycarp complete from a more recent edition, which, at first glance, is discovered to be far from the truth. For the original edition of this epistle, which is preserved in the Medicean codex, differs much from the more recent edition, which was transcribed from the remaining codices and partly translated by the Vulgate interpreter. I will mention two principal ^D places, one from the inscription, the other from the body of the Epistle, so that the hand of the Interpolator clearly appears. The Medicean codex: "Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to Polycarp, bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans." The Usserian interpreter: "Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to Polycarp, bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans." The Vulgate Greek codices: "Ignatius [bishop of Antioch, who is also martyr of Jesus Christ], to Polycarp, bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans." And the Vulgate interpreter: "Ignatius [bishop of Antioch, who is also martyr of Jesus Christ], to Polycarp, bishop of the Smyrnaeans." In the body of the Epistle, the Medicean codex: "Become more diligent than thou art, consider the times; look for Him who is above time, the timeless, the invisible, who for our sake became visible, the impalpable, the impassible, who for our sake became passible." The Usserian interpreter: "Become more diligent than thou art; consider the times; look for Him who is above time, the timeless, the invisible, for our sake become visible, the impalpable, the impassible, for our sake become passible." The Vulgate Greek codices: "Add more to thy diligence than thou art (satis absurde), [run with greater intensity], consider the times [as thou art here; conquer, for here is the stadium, there the crowns]. Look for [Christ the Son of God], the timeless [in time], the invisible [by nature], visible [in the flesh], the impalpable and intangible as incorporeal, but for our sake palpable and tactile in the body], the impassible [as God], but for our sake passible as man]." And the Vulgate interpreter: "Add much to thy speed, [run continuously], know the times [as thou mayest always conquer in them. For this is the stadium, there is the crown]. Expect [Christ the Son of God], the intemporal [in time], invisible [and intact, as incorporeal, but corporeal for our sake and touchable], impassible [as God], but passible for our sake [as man]." From this, therefore, it is clear that there were two editions of the Epistle to Polycarp, much different, one genuine, the other interpolated: that the Usserian interpreter followed the genuine and original one, while the Vulgate interpreter translated the latter or interpolated one. This is also clear from the words added to the end of the Epistle in the Vulgate Greek codex, *Amen, grace*, to which correspond in the Vulgate interpreter, *Amen, grace*, which are entirely absent from the Medicean codex and the Usserian interpreter. For hence Armachanus himself gathers that Anastasius, patriarch of Antioch, used the Vulgate or interpolated Greek edition around the year 595. For Pope Gregory the Roman, *Register*, bk. iv, indict. 13, ep. 37, when he had placed at the end of his epistle written to Anastasius, *Amen, grace*, immediately adds: "Which words, namely, received from your writings, I place in my epistles, so that your Beatitude may know concerning St. Ignatius, that he is not only yours, but also ours. For just as we have his master, the prince of the apostles, as common, so too we have an equal share in the student of that same prince.

Since, therefore, these words, "Amen, grace," are found placed at the end of the Epistle to the Ephesians, and likewise at the end of this one to Polycarp, it appears that both were also equally interpolated in that age.

To confirm all these things further, it is of great value that we have been the first to observe that there was anciently another edition of the Ignatian letters, besides the three which Ussher mentions. This edition was of all and only the letters which Eusebius saw, but they were interpolated. Nor is this a mere conjecture. For I have a Greek manuscript copy of the Ignatian letters, communicated to me by a learned man curious about antiquity, without the forged and supposititious ones (for there are only seven), but with additions made indeed long after Eusebius, and even after Gelasius, representing the letters in this order: To the Trallians I. To the Magnesians II. To the Philadelphians III. To the Smyrneans IV. To Polycarp bishop of Smyrna V. To the Ephesians VI. To the Romans VII.

I find this edition to be peculiar and distinct from others, and therefore I establish that, instead of Ussher’s three, four different editions of Ignatius once existed. The first was the genuine one, of only the seven letters edited by Polycarp, and of his own Epistle to the Philippians read in the assembly of Asia, and known to Irenaeus, Theophilus, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Gelasius, Ephraem, and Antiochus. The second was of those same seven letters, but interpolated: such as it appears in our Greek manuscript copy, and as seen by Stephanus Gobarus, Anastasius patriarch of Antioch, and the compiler of the Alexandrian Chronicle. The third edition was composed of the seven genuine and four forged or supposititious ones, such as appears in the Medicean codex and the Usserian interpreter, and used by John of Damascus and Antonius. The fourth, finally, consisted of the seven interpolated and five supposititious ones, with the addition, that is, of the Epistle to the Philippians forged in the last place, such as is represented in the Augustan and Nidpruccian codices and rendered by the Vulgate interpreter, and seen by Anastasius the presbyter and Ado of Vienne. Whence it is clear that the Epistle to Polycarp appeared in the second and fourth editions as interpolated, whereas in the third it was free from any accretion, and therefore was derived from the primitive into the third without any interpolation.

Hence it can also be seen what should be thought of the Vulgate Latin interpreter, in whom the latter part of the Epistle to Polycarp does not appear. Armachanus [Ussher] thinks that this part was cut off or excised as an addition, "because so many things were found in it which pertained more to the Church of the Smyrneans than to their bishop Polycarp," namely, from those words of his interpreter: "Give heed to the bishop; that God may also to you." But this conjecture destroys itself. For an interpretation cannot be called excised which it is not certain ever existed. And if it ever existed, it was not excised there, where Ignatius addresses the Smyrneans, but much earlier; not at those words, "Give heed to the bishop; that God may also to you," but at those much earlier ones: "Sustaining us according to every mode for our sake." It would certainly have been the act of a most inept and idle man, not to say an insane one, to excise so many sentences pertaining to Polycarp on both sides, for the reason that a few interjected words seemed to pertain more to the Smyrneans. Another reason for this matter must therefore be given; and it is, indeed, according to our opinion, very clear. That Vulgate interpreter gave us neither the full inscription nor the Epistle. The reason for both defects is the same: because he had undertaken to render into Latin the letters that were already interpolated. The inscription was interpolated in the first part, but not at all in the latter: therefore he translated the first part, and entirely omitted the latter. Similarly, the former part of the Epistle was significantly interpolated; to the latter, one or two words were added. He therefore translated the former part and entirely omitted the latter, because it had been, I believe, rendered before by another interpreter. The most evident sign of this matter to me seems to be the fact that it ends in the interpolated words, as in "man": the rest, "sustaining us according to every mode for our sake," although pertaining to the same sentiment, he omits.

Furthermore, I judge that the seven letters attributed to S. Ignatius by Eusebius are to be accepted; I affirm that the Epistle to Polycarp is to be numbered among them; and I steadfastly contend that all of them, collected into a Polycarpian *synagoge*, were subjoined to his epistle, read publicly for some centuries in the assembly of Asia, and written by the holy martyr. I judge the opinion of Daillé concerning a first impostor, bringing six letters to light two hundred years after the martyrdom of Ignatius, and a second, bringing forth that to Polycarp two hundred years later still, to be a fiction, or rather a portent. And let it suffice to have said these things concerning the origin, progress, and present state of this controversy, by way of introduction and for the sake of clarity; which I deemed should be placed in the stead of the three first chapters of Daillé’s book, and also of the first part of the fourth, so that it might not be necessary to reply anything else to them.

VINDICATION, PART ONE

Wherein the arguments for St. Ignatius's epistles are brought forth from the testimonies of the ancients, and defended against the objections of Dallaeus.

CHAPTER I.

The arguments for St. Ignatius's epistles are either external or internal. External [arguments are drawn] from testimonies, internal from the epistles themselves. We shall gather both. We consider as suitable witnesses those ancient ecclesiastical writers who, before or after this controversy arose in the Church, gave their opinion without any doubt or hesitation, as the occasion offered itself. I shall bring forward these witnesses as uncorrupted and complete: I shall produce testimonies from their indubitable writings, or from those vindicated from importunate doubt; and I shall do this with such modesty that the reputation of no ancient is disparaged, no injury is done to anyone’s name, and the authority of each—such and as great as it has hitherto been in the Church of God—is preserved inviolate; and with such good faith that we drag no one by the throat to deliver a verdict, but present all things plainly and nakedly, as they are found in their writings. ^A Since, therefore, the epistles of Ignatius were first seen, brought to light, and printed at the very end of the fifteenth century, and have since been subjected to the varying judgments of men, I shall thus bring forward and arrange the testimonies of the ancients, so that I may show they have been acknowledged and approved by the greatest men in every age, from the very time in which they were written down to the age in which they were printed.

That we may prove, or be persuaded, that these epistles of which we speak, which are now in everyone’s hands and bear the name of Ignatius, were truly written by that bishop of the Church of Antioch, disciple of the apostles, and most holy martyr, about the beginning of the second century, nothing more can be required or expected of us who live in this age than that we should faithfully and firmly collect this from the suitable testimonies of those in whom it is right to believe in matters of this kind; and that we should show the epistles themselves to be worthy of such an author, and entirely consistent with the circumstances of the time and the events. ^B For to assert and confirm the authority of the Ignatian epistles, or of any other ancient writings whatsoever, only two kinds of arguments can be brought forward: namely, external or internal; the former are sought from testimonies, the latter from the writings themselves. For this reason, we have decided that our dissertation should be divided into two parts; the first of which will bring forward the testimonies and defend the same against the adversary's objections, and will refute those [alleged] testimonies which might seem to be brought forward by him, and which are disputed under the guise of an argument to the contrary: the second will consider the epistles themselves, and will show them to be entirely consistent with the Ignatian age and the circumstances of events, and worthy of a martyr and bishop of Antioch in view of their very matter and style; and it will respond to and most fully satisfy all arguments, whether drawn from facts or words, by the adversary. But if we can bring forward as many testimonies of the Ancients, and as pertinent, for these epistles as are accustomed to be accepted by all for the establishing of other writings of this kind and for placing them beyond all controversy; and if we shall likewise show that the epistles themselves are such that they appear worthy of that very man to whom they are attributed by the ancients, and that nothing at all is contained in them which would demand an author less ancient or less pious or prudent than St. Ignatius, if we shall have treated these things in such a way that the dignity of the matter itself supports the supreme authority of the witnesses, we trust that nothing further can be required in this kind of disputation. ^C Nor can any reason be assigned why any ancient writer's work should be held as legitimate, if these proofs properly offered by us were rejected.

That it may be demonstrated by an argument of the first kind that the epistles in question were written by Ignatius the martyr, we shall faithfully and firmly collect this from the suitable testimonies of those in whom it is right to believe in matters of this kind; and we shall gather both. ^D

CHAPTER II.

Testimonies for St. Ignatius's epistles. Which are so arranged that no century lacks its testimonies, from the second, in which they were first born, to the fifteenth, in which the epistles were printed.

I assert that these epistles were born a few years after the beginning of the second century: I therefore cite as witnesses two most noble writers of that same age, St. Polycarp and St. Irenaeus. St. Polycarp, disciple of the apostle St. John, ordained by him bishop of Smyrna, the head of all Asia, was very familiar with our Ignatius; of whom the martyr himself makes mention in his epistles, to whom he also sent one of them privately. That he made mention of these epistles is expressly stated by Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl.* lib. III, c. 37: Καὶ ὁ Πολύκάρπος δὲ τούτων αὐτῶν μέμνηται ἐν τῇ φερομένη αὐτοῦ πρὸς Φιλιππησίους ἐπιστολῇ. This is, in the translation of Valesius: "But Polycarp also, in his epistle to the Philippians, makes mention of these same epistles." Thus Eusebius, when he had already enumerated and described the seven epistles of St. Ignatius. St. Polycarp does indeed mention St. Ignatius often in his Epistle to the Philippians; but our assertion is supported principally by these words, which Eusebius himself copied from his epistle at that time when it was known to all, and was being read in the assembly of Asia: "The epistles of Ignatius, which were sent to us by him, and others as many as we had by us, we have sent to you, as you instructed, which are subjoined."

^A Another witness of this century is St. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp and a man of the apostolic times, of whose mentioning of these epistles Eusebius testifies more than once, as in Eccl. Hist. lib. v, c. 8: "And he has made mention of Justin the Martyr and Ignatius, again using testimonies from the things written by them." Moreover, he makes mention of Justin the Martyr and Ignatius, producing testimonies from their writings. Indeed, how many testimonies St. Irenaeus produced from St. Ignatius is not possible to know now, because many of his works have perished. Eusebius noted one explicitly in Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, c. 36: "Irenaeus knows his martyrdom, and makes mention of his epistles, saying thus: As one of our own said, who was condemned to the beasts for his testimony to God: 'I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found a pure bread.'" This is, in the interpretation of Rufinus: "Irenaeus knows his martyrdom, and makes mention of his writings [for epistles] through these words: As he said, he says, one of ours, condemned to the beasts for the martyrdom of Christ; 'I am the wheat of God; I am ground and crushed by the teeth of beasts, that I may be made pure bread for Christ.'" These words, however, extracted in Greek by Eusebius after the Greek copies of St. Irenaeus perished, are still found in the ancient Latin version, lib. i, c. 28: "Just as one of our own said, who was adjudged to the beasts for his martyrdom in God, 'because I am the wheat of Christ, and through the teeth of the beasts I am ground that I may be found the pure bread of God.'" The same exists in the Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans: "I am the wheat of God, and through the teeth of the beasts I am ground, that I may be found the pure bread of God."

To these very clear testimonies I have thought to add three conjectures, taken from the same century; if they please the learned, it is well; to me at least they are pleasing as conjectures, and I propose them as nothing else. The epistle of the Church of Smyrna, though it is concerned chiefly with celebrating the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, nonetheless describes briefly the exit of Germanicus, who, like another Ignatius, ^D gloriously fought against the wild beasts. For when the proconsul strove to draw him away from his purpose, ^D they say, "he enticed the beast toward himself, using force." By these words I think the Church of Smyrna looked entirely to the epistle of St. Ignatius, and intended to use the same word in a similar purpose. For thus he says to the Romans, concerning the wild beasts to which he was to be subjected: "If they should not be willing, and refuse, I will use force against them." Theophilus, the sixth bishop of the Church of Antioch, the fourth after St. Ignatius, wrote Commentaries on St. Matthew, which St. Jerome testifies he read before he wrote his own on the same evangelist. Under the name of this Theophilus there still exist Commentaries on St. Matthew, but in Latin only, in which, regarding those words: "When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph," Matt. i, 18, we read these things: "Why is Christ conceived not of a clean virgin, but of one who was espoused? First, that through the generation of Joseph the origin of Mary might be shown; second, lest she be stoned by the Jews as an adulteress; third, that she might have the comfort of a man in Egypt; fourth, that her delivery might deceive the devil, who thought Jesus was born of a married woman, not of a virgin." If these belong to Theophilus, without doubt he drew the fourth reason from the epistle of St. Ignatius. For since St. Jerome, who professed to have read the commentaries of Theophilus, had expressed these four reasons, he brought forward the fourth in this manner: "The martyr Ignatius also added a fourth cause, why he was conceived by an espoused woman, saying that his delivery was hidden from the devil, while he thought him to be born not of a virgin, but of a wife." For who does not see, if Jerome transcribed these things from Theophilus, that he wished to indicate according to his custom that St. Theophilus received these things from Ignatius his predecessor? For Ignatius himself did not add this fourth cause, nor did he put forward any cause why Christ was conceived by an espoused woman: but he only said that the virginity of Mary lay hidden from the devil; but Theophilus added this opinion of Ignatius as a cause, and to that extent Jerome attributed this cause to Ignatius, because he recognized him as the author of that opinion. Certainly Jerome did not take these things from his own store, but drew them from an ancient commentator; namely, one of those whom he himself names in the Preface, whom I do not think to be other than Theophilus. For St. Basil, in an oration delivered on the Nativity of Christ, looking to the same author without doubt, says: "And it was said by one of the ancients also another discourse, that for the sake of taking the prince of this world away, the virginity of Mary was hidden by the betrothal of Joseph." For when he had brought forward three causes, he adds the fourth thus: "But another reason was brought forth by a certain one of the ancients, that so the virginity of Mary might remain hidden from the prince of this world, the betrothal of Joseph was devised." It was not, therefore, Theodorus, nor Apollinarius, nor Didymus; for all these were contemporaries of St. Basil, but either Hippolytus, or Origen, or Theophilus, whom I rather suspect. Be that as it may, that writer who was called ancient by St. Basil is not unjustly reclaimed by us for the second century.

Furthermore, Peregrinus, or Proteus, from a pagan a Christian, and from a Christian a Cynic, gave himself to the fire when very old; of whom Eusebius in the Chronicle at the fifth year of Marcus [says]: "At Pisa, Peregrinus the philosopher threw himself into a pyre, which he had composed of wood, having set it on fire." For when that most worthless little man was burning with a certain insane desire for glory, he acted in such a way that he might procure for himself the greatest [fame] he could. And he devised that which had never come into the mind of any philosopher: in the very moment of dying, to write letters to prominent

and certain men as it were legates; so that, just as Hercules or Empedocles in the fire, even so I judge that this scoundrel deliberately imitated our St. Ignatius in his epistles and legates, and I render the reasoning of this conjecture far from uncertain. Peregrinus had professed the Christian religion under Hadrian, and had acquired for himself no small authority among Christians, whence, being cast into chains, he became a noble confessor, and to relieve him, very many, even *oi en telei* (those in office), presbyters and bishops, kept flocking from everywhere. He seemed, therefore, to desire above all to undergo martyrdom, and the proconsul of Syria, when he understood *oti dexait' an apothanein hos doxan epi toutoi epilipoi* (that he would choose to die so that he might leave behind a glory for posterity), withdrew him from punishment and freed him from prison. And indeed ^B afterwards this glorious confessor was ejected from the Church; but while he was suffering that under the proconsul of Syria, the fame of St. Ignatius could not be hidden from him, whose relics were preserved at Antioch with such veneration; and since so many from Asia were flocking to him while he was detained in prison, without a doubt all the things of Ignatius were being commemorated very often. It pleased the most foolish man, therefore—ejected from the Church and received by the philosophers—to die as a philosopher, but to acquire fame in the same manner as he thought Ignatius had acquired it, by writing epistles before his death to the most noble cities, and by commissioning such men as he knew he had most often requested. But this has been described by Lucian in most elegant words in his *Peregrinus*: *Phasi de pasais schedon tais endoxois polesin epistolas diapempsai auton, diathekas tinas, kai paraineseis, kai nomous, kai tinas epi touton presbeutas ton etairon exeirotonese, nekraggelous kai nerterodromous prosagoreusas*. "They say, moreover, that he sent epistles to nearly all the glorious cities, containing certain instructions, exhortations, and laws; and from among his companions he appointed legates for these, calling them messengers from the dead and couriers from the underworld."

We have here epistles sent by one about to die to the most distinguished cities, with exhortations: which St. Ignatius did, and none, I think, before Peregrinus besides him; we have men from his companions appointed as legates: namely, *exeirotonese presbeutas* (he ordained legates), just as near our Ignatius in the epistle to the Smyrneans, *cheirotonesai theopresbeuten* (to ordain a God-legate), and to the Magnesians, *cheirotonesai diakonon eis to presbeusai ekei Theou presbeian*. We have them called by Peregrinus legates, *nerterodromous* (couriers from the underworld), as near Ignatius, *cheirotonesai tina, os dynesetai theodromos kaleisthai* (to ordain someone who will be able to be called a God-courier). If there be room for this conjecture, Peregrinus, who was born before the martyrdom of Ignatius and gave himself to the flames after the middle of the second century, knew well the epistles which we defend.

The writers of the third century, indeed, especially the Greeks, to whom St. Ignatius was then most known, we have truly very few survivors; the foremost of whom is Origen, born in the same age in which Ignatius wrote, and instructed in theological matters, a witness most rich in testimony for us. For he, entering upon his work of the *Catecheses* in the tenth year of Severus, when the third century was already beginning, while still a young man, wrote Homilies on St. Luke which St. Jerome translated. Moreover, in the sixth homily we read this: "I found it written elegantly in the epistle of a certain martyr; I mean Ignatius, the second bishop of Antioch after Peter, who fought with beasts in the persecution at Rome: 'The virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world.'" Thus we now read in the Epistle to the Ephesians, *elaben ton archonta tou aionos toutou e parthenia Marias*. The Old Interpreter: "The virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world." The same Origen, older in birth, wrote Commentaries on the Canticle, in the Prologue of which we read this: "Finally, we remember that one of the saints said, Ignatius by name, concerning Christ: 'But my love has been crucified,' and I do not judge him worthy of being reproved for this." These words, moreover, are still found in the Epistle to the Romans, *O emos eros estaurota*. The Old Interpreter: "My desire has been crucified."

^C The fourth century, surely most flourishing, provides us with many more ecclesiastical writers as witnesses to the Ignatian writings. The first of them, to me indeed, seems to be he, whoever he is, who is commonly called Dionysius the Areopagite; for I believe he wrote not far from the beginning of this age. He, however, in the book *On the Divine Names*, disputing about love and following Origen, speaks thus: *Kaitoi ge tisi ton kath' emas ierologon kai theioteron einai to tou erotos onoma tou tes agapes; graphei de kai o theios Ignatios: O emos eros estaurota*. "And yet it seemed to some of those theologians among us that the name of 'love' is more divine than that of 'charity;' but the divine Ignatius also writes: 'My love has been crucified.'" It seemed to some of the sacred writers of our age that the name of love is more divine than charity. But the divine Ignatius also writes: "My love has been crucified." If this most learned man wrote at the beginning of this age, as we think, he is a most clear witness; but whoever he may have been, whether a writer of this or a subsequent age, the varied judgments of men concerning this very passage will confirm the authority of the Ignatian letters highly, as we shall show hereafter.

The second witness of this age is Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who saw many of Origen’s disciples. ^D He, however, when he could not list individually the bishops or evangelists who were in the first times of apostolic succession, determined to list only the names of those whose monuments carried the tradition of apostolic doctrine down to his own times. *Hist. eccles., l. III, c. 37, 38*: *hosper oun amelei tou Ignatiou en ais katelexamen epistolais, kai tou Klementos en te anomologumene para pasin*. "Even as, indeed, of Ignatius in the epistles which we have listed, and of Clement in the one acknowledged by all." What has been done in the epistles of Ignatius which we have listed, and that of Clement accepted by everyone. Eusebius, therefore, was proposing one epistle of Clement and several of Ignatius as the most ancient writings of apostolic succession and as containing the tradition of the doctrine of the apostles. Those epistles, moreover, which Eusebius praised so highly, are the very ones which we have and defend. For he hands down

^A the tradition of Christ's ecclesiastical history (book III, ch. 36), that Ignatius, having been led through Asia under the most rigorous guard of soldiers, confirmed the churches of the individual cities which he entered with sermons and exhortations, and especially warned them to beware of the heresies then first arising and gaining strength; and that he exhorted them to adhere tenaciously to the tradition of the apostles, which, for the sake of caution, he thought it necessary to commit to writing as well. Wherefore, while he was at Smyrna, he says, he wrote four epistles: to the Ephesians, the Magnesians, the Trallians, and the Romans; and from Troas three: to the Philadelphians, to the Smyrneans, and privately to Polycarp. Eusebius, I think, observed all these things most diligently from the epistles themselves; for the epistle to the Ephesians bears witness that it was written at Smyrna: "I am of one mind with you, and [with him] whom you sent in honor of God to Smyrna, whence I also write to you." To the Magnesians: "The Ephesians greet you from Smyrna, whence I also write to you." To the Trallians: "I greet you from Smyrna." To the Romans: "I am writing this to you from Smyrna." That the remaining three epistles were written at Troas is equally evident from the epistles themselves. To the Philadelphians: "The charity of many greets you, who are in Troas, whence I also write to you by Burrus." To the Smyrneans: "The charity of the brethren who are in Troas greets you, whence I also write to you by Burrus." To Polycarp: "Since, therefore, I could not write to all the churches, because I was about to sail suddenly from Troas to Neapolis, as the will directs, you shall write to the other churches." Eusebius observes that Ignatius, in the epistle to the Ephesians, makes mention of Onesimus, their pastor; ^C in the epistle to the Magnesians, he names Dama the bishop; in the epistle to the Trallians, he makes mention of Polybius the bishop; all of whom our epistles acknowledge as bishops of those same churches. He says that he commended the flock of the Antiochene Church to Polycarp, and asked him to be willing to cherish it with all care and diligence, which is narrated in more detail in the epistle sent to him. He proceeds further, and for the demonstration of the things said, he extracts a fairly long passage from the epistle to the Romans, as he himself says, "word for word": "From Syria even to Rome, fighting with beasts," etc., which fully agree with our Latin version, so that this translation of the Eusebian text is more accurate than even the Hieronymian or the Ruffinian. He also transcribed another sentence from the epistle to the Smyrneans, which stands in our codices word for word. Finally, to confirm the aforementioned account of these things, he brings forth the testimonies of Polycarp and Irenaeus, of which we have spoken before, and of which more will have to be said later. These things are exposed by Eusebius so diligently and brightly that Dallaeus himself said: "We admit that Eusebius acknowledges those epistles and holds them to be truly Ignatian: nor do we deny that those which he discusses seem to be these very same ones which are today circulated under his name, such as the most reverend Ussher published in Latin, and the most learned Vossius in Greek, the former from English books, the latter from Medicean ones."

Following Eusebius is Athanasius, truly great, who, in his epistle concerning the synods of Ariminum and Seleucia, ^D while the synod was still lingering at Ariminum — that is, written around the year of Christ 360 — provides us with this illustrious testimony. *On the Synods*, p. 922: "Ignatius, who, being constituted bishop in Antioch after the apostles, and having become a martyr of Christ, writing about the Lord, has said: 'There is one physician, carnal and spiritual, created and uncreated, God in man, true life in death, and from Mary and from God.'" Ignatius, therefore, who, after the apostles, was constituted bishop of Antioch, and was a martyr of Christ, writing about the Lord, said: "One is the physician, carnal and spiritual, made and not made, God in man, true life in death, and from Mary and from God." For these words are transcribed from the epistle to the Ephesians, which St. Athanasius testifies was written not by some masked Ignatius, but by that true one, the successor of the apostles and martyr. The same [author] a little later: "The blessed Ignatius wrote rightly, calling him 'made' on account of the flesh, for the Word became flesh; but 'unmade,' because he is not of things created and made, but is the Son from the Father." "The blessed Ignatius wrote rightly, calling him made on account of the flesh; for Christ was made flesh; but not made, because he is not from creatures and those things which are made, but is the Son from the Father."

To this century also St. John Chrysostom is to be ascribed: for having been ordained presbyter at Antioch in the year 386, he was consecrated bishop at Constantinople in the year 398. While he was at Antioch, he delivered an excellent oration on the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, in which he adduces his words, which are in the epistle to the Romans. Tom. V, orat. 70, pag. 504: "For having heard that this manner of punishment awaited him, 'Would that I might enjoy those beasts,' he said; for such are those who love: whatever they may suffer on behalf of those whom they love, they accept with pleasure." For having heard that this mode of punishment awaited him, "Would that I might enjoy those beasts," he said. For such are those who love; whatever they suffer for those whom they love, they bear with pleasure. The same [author] again in a speech attributed to him long ago, *That there is one legislator of the Old and New Testament*, has this, tom. VI, pag. 645: "For this reason, one of the ancients—Ignatius is his name—who was distinguished in priesthood and martyrdom, writing to a certain priest, said: 'Let nothing be done without your judgment; nor do you do anything without the judgment of God.'" Therefore, a certain one of the ancients, by the name of Ignatius, famous for priesthood and martyrdom, in an epistle to a certain priest said: "Let nothing be done without your judgment; nor do you do anything without the judgment of God." Which also still exist in the same words in the epistle to Polycarp.

To the same age are to be attributed the testimonies of St. Jerome, who, in the 14th year of the emperor Theodosius, around the year of the Lord 393, testifies that he composed a *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, in which *Catalogue* he has this: "Ignatius, the third bishop of the Church of Antioch after Peter the apostle, when Trajan was stirring up persecution, was condemned to the beasts, [and] Rome

is sent in bonds. And when, sailing past, he reached Smyrna, where Polycarp, a hearer of John, was bishop, he wrote one epistle to the Ephesians, another to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians, and a ^A fourth to the Romans; and departing thence, he wrote to the Philippians, and to the Smyrnaeans, and particularly to Polycarp, commending the Church of Antioch to him. And he transcribed almost all the rest of the Eusebian material, with Eusebius’s name passed over in silence, and thereby made them his own. Indeed, in the book *Against Helvidius*, which he wrote before the *Catalogue*—around the year 383, as I suppose—appealing to the fountain of truth, he names Ignatius as the chief of the ancient writers. "Can I not bring before you the whole series of ancient writers, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men, who wrote volumes full of wisdom against Hebion, and Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, who held these same opinions?" The same [author] writes in his [commentary] *On St. Matthew*: "Ignatius even added a fourth reason why He was conceived of a betrothed woman, saying, 'that her delivery might be hidden from the devil.'" And regarding what he thought of the writings of our Ignatius, even when he erred, he showed in *Against the Pelagians*, Book I: "Ignatius, an apostolic man and martyr, writes boldly: 'The Lord chose apostles who were sinners above all men.'" For the words are not Ignatius's, but Barnabas's, in whose Epistle they still exist.

The first witness of the fifth century is the blessed Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, who was present at both the third and fourth general councils. When he had enumerated the later witnesses of ecclesiastical doctrine, he added these things regarding the most ancient ones in his *Epistle to the Monks of Constantinople*, p. 1027: "And older than these are Ignatius, and Polycarp, and Irenaeus, and Justin, and Hippolytus, ^B most of whom not only shine among the bishops, but also adorn the choir of the martyrs." The same [author], in his *Epistle to Florentius the Patrician*, p. 966: "These things were delivered to us not only by the apostles and prophets, but also by those who interpreted their books: Ignatius, Eustathius, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, John, and the other lights of the world." Moreover, intending to produce the testimonies of Ignatius against the heretic, in his *Dialogus Inmutabilis* (or *The Immutable*), he prefaces the following regarding him: "I will show you, moreover, that most renowned teacher of the Church, and his understanding concerning the divine incarnation, so that you may know what he thought about the nature that was assumed; for you have certainly heard of that Ignatius, who received the grace of the high priesthood through the right hand of the great Peter, and having guided the Church of the Antiochians, put on the crown of martyrdom." ^C

From the Epistle of the holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr, to the Smyrnaeans.

Being fully persuaded of our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the deity and power, truly born of a Virgin, baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch for us in the flesh.

From the same Epistle of the same.

For what does it profit me, if anyone praises me, but blasphemes my Lord, not confessing that He is flesh-bearing? He who does not say this, denies Him completely, as one carrying a corpse.

From the same Epistle of the same.

For if these things were done by our Lord in appearance, I also am bound in appearance. And why have I given myself up to death, to fire, to the sword, to the beasts? But he who is near the sword, is near God; ^D only in the name of Jesus Christ, that I may suffer with Him, I endure all things, while He who is the perfect man enables me, whom some, not knowing, deny.

These three sentences, extracted from him nearly one thousand two hundred years ago, we still read in this same Epistle to the Smyrnaeans. The blessed Theodoret continues:

From the Epistle of the same to the Ephesians.

For our God, Jesus Christ, was carried in the womb by Mary according to the dispensation of God, of the seed indeed of David, but of the Holy Spirit: who was born and baptized, that by His passion our mortality might be cleansed.

^A Likewise from the same Epistle: "Siquidem singuli omnes universe in gratia nominatim convenitis in una fide et in uno Jesu Christo, secundum carnem ex genere David, Filio hominis, et Filio Dei." (As indeed you all, one by one, through grace, come together by name in one faith and in one Jesus Christ, who is of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the Son of man and the Son of God.)

Likewise from the same Epistle: "Unus est medicus carnalis et spiritalis, genitus ex ingenito, in homine Deus, in morte vita vera, et ex Maria et ex Deo, primum patibilis, et tunc impatibilis, Jesus Christus Dominus noster." (There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in man, true life in death, both of Mary and of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.) And these three sentences are still to be found in the same Epistle to the Ephesians.

Blessed Theodoret further proceeds: From the same "Epistle to the Trallians": "Obturate aures vestras quando quispiam vobis loquitur sine Jesu Christo, qui est ex genere David, qui ex Maria, qui vere natus est, vere comedit et bibit, qui sub Pontio Pilato passus est, crucifixus et mortuus, videntibus coelestibus, terrestribus et inferis." (Stop your ears, then, when any man speaks to you without Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, both ate and drank truly, was persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and died, while those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth looked upon it.) ^B All these things blessed Theodoret gathered and collected in one place from the three epistles of St. Ignatius against the heretics of his own day. The same author elsewhere again, *Dialog. Inconfus.* p. 86: From the "Epistle of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and Martyr, to the Smyrnaeans": "Ego enim post resurrectionem, ipsum in carne scio et credo esse; et quando ad eos qui cum Petro erant, venit, dixit eis: Accipite, palpate me, et videte, quia non sum daemonium incorporeum. Et statim ipsum tetigerunt et crediderunt." (For I indeed know and believe that He is in the flesh even after the resurrection; and when He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them: Take, handle me, and see that I am not an incorporeal demon. And straightway they touched Him and believed.)

Likewise from the same Epistle: "Post resurrectionem autem una cum eis et comedit et bibit, tanquam carnaliter et spiritualiter unitus Patri." (But after the resurrection He also ate and drank with them, as being united to the Father in flesh and spirit.)

And again, *Dial. Impatib.* p. 114: From the "Epistle of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and Martyr, to the Smyrnaeans": "Eucharistias et oblationes non admittunt, quod non confiteantur eucharistiam carnem esse Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi, quae pro peccatis nostris passa est, quam Pater benignitate sua suscitavit." (They do not admit the Eucharist and offerings, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and ^C which the Father in His goodness raised up.)

The second witness of this century is Gelasius, who was created Roman Pontiff around the year 492, and died around 496. For he, at the end of his book *De duabus naturis in Christo* (On the two natures in Christ), finally submitting to the Catholic teachers' testimonies already acknowledged and received by the pontifical see, is cited by our author just as by blessed Theodoret. "From the Epistle of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch and Martyr, to the Ephesians: There is one physician, carnal and spiritual, made and unmade, God in man, true life in death, of Mary and of God, first passible and impassible, our Lord Jesus Christ." And after a few lines: "I say, come together all of you together through grace, by name, in one faith and in one Jesus Christ, who is of the seed of David according to the flesh, being the Son of man and the Son of God."

It is to be observed, however, that these two witnesses of that age, Theodoret and Gelasius, speak merely for themselves, but represent for us the judgment of the whole fifth century; that is, that the authority of the Ignatian writings was at that time established and fixed among all, both Catholics and heretics. For as is evident from Socrates and Sozomen, Theodoret and Leontius, and others, the heretics who refused ^D to acquiesce in the consensus of the ancient Fathers at the end of the fourth century, immediately in the fifth and subsequent centuries, admitted those Fathers as arbiters who had written before the division or the rise of any heresy: whence such catalogues, as are found in Theodoret and Gelasius, were compiled. Regarding which matter we shall have to discourse more broadly later. In these dialogues of Theodoret, therefore, the orthodox delivers the sentence of the Catholics, just as Eranistes does that of the heretics of that age. But when the orthodox has disputed more copiously from the Scriptures, Eranistes asks what the ancient doctors of the Church have thought, namely the celebrated and indubitable ones; for he denies that he will accept obscure or ambiguous ones. The orthodox therefore asks whether he considers Athanasius, Gregory, Ambrose, Flavian, and John Chrysostom as such; Eranistes admits all these and their testimonies; then indeed he asserts that he will produce Ignatius, Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Methodius, and others; "You propose these testimonies to me, who am very desirous of them," says Eranistes in the name of the heretics. And so at last the orthodox weaves a sufficiently lengthy catalogue of ancient Fathers on the part of the Catholics, and places before the rest seven rather long sentences extracted as if from the three epistles of our Ignatius. Against these testimonies

the Eranistes confesses that he could not even hiss. From which it becomes clear that both the orthodox and the Eranistes, that is, both the Catholics and the heretics of that age, held the epistles of Ignatius, which we defend, to be the true and undoubted writings of the bishop of Antioch.

The first witness of the sixth century is Saint Ephræmius, the patriarch of Theopolis—that is, of Antioch—from being the Count of the Orient, as Photius says, to which episcopate he was promoted around the year 529. For in his book *On the Sacred Laws of Antioch* (as the translator of Photius speaks), while disputing concerning the use of the Greek article against the Severians, he uses first the testimonies of Holy Scripture, then those of the Holy Fathers, and among them, as was customary, he names Saint Ignatius first: ^B Καὶ ὁ θεοφόρος δὲ Ἰγνάτιος καὶ μάρτυς, Σμυρναίοις ἐπιστέλλων, ὁμοίως κέχρηται τῷ ἄρθρῳ. «Even Ignatius, a divine man and martyr, writing an epistle to the Smyrnæans, likewise uses the article.» Photius, *Biblioth.* num. 228. The passages which Saint Ephræmius had excerpted from that Epistle, the epitomator Photius omitted; however, they were, I believe, these: Δοξάζω Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν τὸν Θεόν, «I glorify Jesus Christ God»; and: Πάντα ὑπομένω, αὐτοῦ με ἐνδυναμοῦντος τοῦ τελείου ἀνθρώπου γενομένου. «I endure all things, while He fortifies me, who was made perfect man.» For although the article *tou* refers to *genomenou* (having become) rather than to *anthrōpou* (man), yet I believe he could not have had in view any other place in this epistle. But the same Saint Ephræmius, in an epistle to a certain Zenobius, a scholasticus and Acephalous, proved that the articles applied to the natures of Christ do not introduce a division of unity, ἐκ τε τῶν εὐαγγελικῶν φωνῶν, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἀποστολικῶν, καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐκ τῶν μακαρίων πατέρων ἡμῶν, Ἰγνατίου τοῦ θεοφόρου, Ἰουλίου, καὶ Ἀθανασίου καὶ Γρηγορείων καὶ Βασιλείου. «Both from evangelical and from apostolic words, and also from our blessed Fathers, Ignatius Deifer, Julius, Athanasius, the Gregories, and Basil.» Photius, *ibidem*.

The second witness of this era is Gildas Badonicus from our Britain, who wrote an epistle *On the Destruction of Britain* in the year 564, in which he has this: «Which of you, like the holy martyr Ignatius, bishop of the city of Antioch, after admirable acts in Christ, for his testimony was broken by the mass of lions at Rome? Whose words, heard while he was being led to his passion (if at any time your faces were suffused with blushing), you will think yourselves not only not worthy to be compared to him as priests, but not even as mediocre Christians. For he says in the epistle which he sent to the Roman Church: 'From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, bound and chained to ten leopards, I mean to the soldiers ^C given to my custody, who become worse from our benefits. But I am rendered more learned by their outrages; yet I am not justified in this. O salutary beasts, who are being prepared for me! When will they come? When will they be let forth? When will it be permitted me to enjoy their flesh? Which I pray may be prepared ^D more fierce for me, and I will invite them to the devouring of me, and I will supplicate that by chance (as some have done) they may not fear to touch my body; nay, if they shall hesitate, I will use force, I will throw myself upon them. Grant me, I pray, favor; I know what is expedient for me; now I begin to be a disciple of Christ. Let envy cease, whether of human affection or of spiritual wickedness, that I may deserve to attain to Jesus Christ. Let fires, crosses, wild beasts, dispersions of bones, rendings of members, and the torments of the whole body, and all the tortures sought out by the art of the devil be fulfilled in me, provided only that I may deserve to attain to Jesus Christ.'» A Christian not mediocre but perfect, a priest not base but supreme, a martyr not sluggish but chief, said, «Now I begin to be a disciple of Christ.»

The third witness of this century is Jobius the monk, who wrote against Severus. For he, in the work *On the Incarnation*, excerpts of which Photius has handed down to us, *Biblioth.* num. 222, held these things: Φησὶ γὰρ ὁ θεοφόρος Ἰγνάτιος τρία λαθεῖν τὸν ἄρχοντα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, τὴν παρθενίαν Μαρίας, τὴν σύλληψιν τοῦ Κυρίου, καὶ τὴν σταύρωσιν. «For the divine Ignatius commemorates that three things were hidden from the prince of this age: the virginity of Mary, the conception of the Lord, and the crucifixion.» With which words he expressed those things which are found in the Epistle to the Ephesians.

The fourth witness of the same century, now verging towards its end, is Leontius Byzantinus, *1. De sectis*, act. 3: Ἐγένοντο δὲ ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς γεννήσεως τοῦ Χριστοῦ μέχρι τῆς βασιλείας Κωνσταντίνου διδάσκαλοι καὶ πατέρες οἵδε· Ἰγνάτιος ὁ θεοφόρος, Εἰρηναῖος, Ἰουστῖνος φιλόσοφος καὶ μάρτυς, Κλήμης καὶ Ἱππόλυτος ἐπίσκοποι Ῥώμης, Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης, Μεθόδιος ἐπίσκοπος Πατάρων, Γρηγόριος ὁ θαυματουργός, Πέτρος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρείας ἐπίσκοπος καὶ μάρτυς. «But there were in the times from the birth of Christ until the reign of Constantine these teachers and Fathers: Ignatius Theophorus, Irenæus, Justinus philosopher and martyr, Clemens and Hippolytus bishops of Rome, Dionysius the Areopagite, Methodius bishop of Patara, Gregorius the wonder-worker, Petrus Alexandrinus bishop and martyr.» Moreover, in those times, which are counted from Christ's Nativity until the empire of Constantine, these doctors and Fathers stood forth: Ignatius Theophorus, Irenæus, Justinus philosopher and martyr, Clemens and Hippolytus Roman bishops, Dionysius the Areopagite, Methodius bishop of Patara, Gregorius the worker of miracles, Petrus Alexandrinus bishop and martyr. He names Ignatius Theophorus a doctor and Father on account of the apostolic doctrine which his Epistles contained, which were so often praised against the heretics. Τούτους ἅπαντας αἱ μετ' αὐτοὺς γενόμεναι αἱρέσεις δέχονται. «All these (he says) the heresies which came after them receive.» Therefore the Catholics proposed the epistles of Ignatius as the writings of a doctor and Father: all the heretics who arose after him received them. By all, therefore, the epistles which we defend were acknowledged, both by Catholics and heretics. This testimony concerning the opinion of the sixth century is so clear that it is not necessary to praise John the Rhetor, who wrote under Maurice: Τότε καὶ Ἰγνάτιος ὁ θεσπέσιος ἐπειδή γε, ὡς ἐβούλετο, τάφον τὰς τῶν θηρίων ἐσχηκὼς γαστέρας ἐν τῷ τῆς Ῥώμης ἀμφιθεάτρῳ. «Then also Ignatius the divine, after, as he himself willed, he obtained for a sepulcher the bellies of the wild beasts in the Roman amphitheater.

^A May that be as he willed; as for the epistle which Ignatius wrote to the Romans, it is without doubt referred to this deed. Or [we may refer to] Anastasius the elder, patriarch of Antioch, in his book *On the Right Dogmas of Truth*, in the manuscript which is in the library of our college at Cambridge, which he wrote in exile under Justin, when, destitute of all books, he spoke of Christ from our Ignatius as best he could, not having the epistles at hand: "Clothed in the form of a servant, so that God might be hidden from the prince of this age."

^B "...accepted by God," from the same. "He who honors the bishop is honored by God; he who does anything secretly from the bishop serves the devil," from the same. "It is necessary, therefore, (not that the presbyters also be subject to the bishop, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ, as Tilmann most wretchedly translated, but) that they be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ, who is our hope... in every way to please all: for they are not ministers of meats and drinks, but servants of the Church of God. It behooves them, therefore, to avoid crimes as fire. Likewise, let all revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, and the bishop as the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and as the bond of the apostles. Without these, it is not called a Church," from the same. The lacuna in Antiochus is easily supplied from Ignatius.

Not long after the beginning of the seventh century, another Anastasius, a monk and Sinaite, points to the consensus of both Catholics and heretics of that same age in acknowledging our Ignatius. For in the book which he named *The Guide*, among the testimonies which the Theodosians and Gaianites of that time were wont to produce from the Fathers, he has this from St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch: "Suffer me to become an imitator of the passion of my God," from the epistle, namely, to the Romans. The second witness of the same century, and indeed a most ample one, is Antiochus the Palestinian, a monk under Heraclius, who wrote to Eustathius around the year 620, and dedicated his homilies to him. Among these, the one that treats *Of the Veneration to be Shewn to Priests* hands down to us this excerpt from St. Ignatius: "Attend to the bishop, that God may also attend to you. My soul for those who are subject to the bishop, to the presbyters, and to the deacons: may it be my lot to have a portion with them in God." Ignatiotheophorus says through the epistle: "My soul for those who do obedience to the bishop, to the presbyters and to the deacons." ^C These things, moreover, exist in the Epistle to Polycarp. And again: "Witness to me, in whom I am bound, that I knew naught from human flesh; but the Spirit was preaching, saying these things: 'Do nothing without the bishop.'" And again: "It behooves us, therefore, to do nothing without the bishop." For these are read in the very same syllables in the Epistle to the Philadelphians. "It behooves us, therefore, to do nothing without the bishop," from the Epistle to the Trallians. "For where the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude be: just as where Christ Jesus is named, there the Catholic Church is gathered," from the Epistle to the Smyrnæans. "It is not lawful, therefore, without the bishop, either to baptize or to hold an agape: but if he approves, this is also pleasing to God." The test of its not being added, however, is this: He writes to certain ones, that is, to the Romans, but simply "St. Ignatius writes."

^D Around the middle of this age, Maximus the abbot, confessor and martyr, especially flourished, who acknowledges the Epistle to the Romans and confesses that it was written immediately before his martyrdom; although that sentiment concerning the writings of Ignatius, accepted by the whole Church, would have plainly conflicted with his own sentiment concerning the Areopagitic [writings], and would have reduced that great man to strange straits and evasions altogether unworthy of him. For now he makes Ignatius a martyr before Domitian: which, if it were true, the objection made against the Dionysian [writings] would altogether vanish. But since all knew that he had undergone martyrdom under Trajan, and he himself recognized that they were written under Onesimus, Timotheus's successor, whereas the Dionysian ones were dedicated to Timotheus: he responded, as he could, first, that the words of Ignatius were not written by Dionysius himself, but were inserted later by some studious person; second, because this might appear to be said gratuitously, he surmises that those words, "My Love has been crucified," had been used more often by Ignatius both in speech and in writings, and that Dionysius had not looked to these epistles, but to other writings, and he adds a reason of some sort. A sign of this thing, he says, is that in Dionysius there is no mention of those to whom Ignatius writes, namely, the Romans; but it is said simply: "But the divine Ignatius writes." Clearly, therefore, Maximus testifies that even though he was oppressed too much by that confession, St. Ignatius wrote the epistles which we have under Onesimus, and that the words, "My Love has been crucified," are genuine in the Epistle to the Romans.

The same author in his *Commonplaces* excerpts these words from Ignatius: ^A *Τέλειοι ὄντες τέλεια φρονεῖτε, θέλουσιν γὰρ ὑμῖν εὐπράττειν Θεὸς ἕτοιμος εἰς τὸ παρέχειν.* "Being perfect, think perfect things; for God is prepared to provide for you those things which you desire to act well," from the Epistle to the Smyrnians. To this I add Theodore the Presbyter, mentioned by Photius in the first codex of his *Bibliotheca*; I suspect him to be Theodore of Raithu, a contemporary of Maximus. He composed a singular work specifically to demonstrate—though unsuccessfully, no doubt, as did Maximus—that the work of Dionysius the Areopagite was genuine, and he responded to arguments brought against it as best he could. One of these arguments, according to Photius, was this: *Πῶς μιμεῖται τῆς τοῦ θεοφόρου Ἰγνατίου ἐπιστολῆς ἡ βίβλος; ὁ μὲν γὰρ Διονύσιος τοῖς τῶν ἀποστόλων ἐνήκμασε χρόνοις, Ἰγνάτιος δὲ ἐπὶ Τραϊανοῦ τὸν διὰ μαρτυρίου ἤθλησεν ἀγῶνα, ὃς καὶ πρὸ βραχὺ τῆς τελευτῆς ταύτην ἐπιστολὴν, ἧς ἡ βίβλος μνημονεύει, γράφει.* "How does the book cite the epistle of the God-bearing Ignatius? For Dionysius flourished in the age of the apostles, while Ignatius underwent the struggle of martyrdom under Trajan, and shortly before his death he wrote this epistle which the book mentions." These things brought forth from Maximus and Theodore are not the mere testimony of two men, but the common consensus of the same age. For when in the previous age, heretics urged the authority of Dionysius—which is now rejected by Catholics, now accepted—in this century it was fiercely debated among the Catholics themselves whether those works were to be attributed to the Areopagite himself. Those who denied this used, among other things, the argument that the author of the book *On Divine Names* had cited the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, yet this epistle was written under Trajan, shortly before the martyr's death; therefore, the one who cited it was not the Areopagite, who lived with the apostles and died under Domitian. Those who maintained the contrary confessed that the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans was written shortly before his death, and, being driven to straits, they devised wondrous evasions. All Catholics, therefore, both those who rejected Dionysius and those who received him, acknowledged the epistles of our Ignatius as indubitable.

The first witness of the eighth century is John of Damascus, who flourished in Syria around the year 740. He, having collected remarkable sentences of the Holy Fathers in his *Books of Parallels*, transcribed many from our Ignatius. Cardinal Caraffa shared a Greek codex with Jacques Billiart, which he translated in this manner (Book 1, chapter 9): "To those of us desiring to act well, God is prepared to provide," from the Epistle to the Smyrnians, chapter 18. "There is nothing better than peace, by which every war is abolished," from the Epistle to the Ephesians, book 11, chapter 15. "Easily all of you follow the bishop, as Christ follows the Father; and the chorus of presbyters as the apostles; and regard the deacons no otherwise than as the commandment of God. ^B Let no one do anything pertaining to the Church without the bishop. Let that Eucharist be considered firm which is performed by the bishops. Where the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude be; just as where Christ is, there also is the Catholic Church. Without the bishop it is permitted neither to baptize nor to perform the synaxis; but what he approves, this is also pleasing to God. He who shows honor to the bishop is honored by God. He who does anything secretly without the bishop, this man is a worshiper of the devil," from the Epistle to the Smyrnians. In the same place: "Bear with everyone, as Christ also bears with you: cleave to all in charity. Be diligent in prayers without any intermission. If you love good disciples, you will have no grace due to you. Therefore, apply yourself rather to this, that by facility of character and clemency you may subdue the stubborn. Not every wound is to be cured by the same plaster. Calm the onsets of fevers with perfusions. Therefore, you consist of flesh and spirit simultaneously, so that you may correct those things which appear before your eyes; but pray that those things which escape your sight may be revealed to you, so that you may omit nothing at all," from the Epistle to Polycarp, chapter 35. "When I have been firm and robust in divine matters, then I ought to fear more vehemently, and to take heed against those who assault me in vain. For those who praise me, inflict wounds upon me," from the Epistle to the Trallians, book 3, chapter 30. "I have need of meekness, by which the prince of this age, the devil, is overturned," from the same, chapter 94. "Let no one among you hold anything against his neighbor. Give no opportunity to the Gentiles, lest by the fault of a few foolish men, the holy multitude and that which is endowed with a certain divine virtue be slandered," from the same. ^C

To this I add Antonius, a disciple, as it seems, of Damascenus, who in his *Melissa* frequently cites our author. *Οὐδέν ἐστιν ἄμεινον εἰρήνης, ἐν ᾗ πᾶς ὁ πόλεμος καταλύεται.* "There is nothing better than peace, by which every war is resolved," from the Epistle to the Ephesians. *Εἴ τις δύναται ἐν ἁγνείᾳ μένειν εἰς τιμὴν τῆς σαρκὸς τοῦ Κυρίου, ἐν ἀκαυχησίᾳ μενέτω, καὶ ἐὰν γνωσθῇ πλέον τοῦ ἐπισκόπου, ἔφθαρται· πρέπει δὲ τοῖς γαμοῦσι καὶ ταῖς γαμουμέναις μετὰ γνώμης τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τὴν ἕνωσιν ποιεῖσθαι, ἵνα ὁ γάμος ᾖ κατὰ Θεὸν, καὶ μὴ κατ' [αἰσχρὰν] ἐπιθυμίαν.* "If any one can remain in chastity to the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him remain without boasting; and if he is known more than the bishop, he is corrupted. It behooves those who marry and those who are married to make their union with the advice of the bishop, so that the marriage may be according to God, and not according to [base] lust." It is fitting that those leading and those being led should act with the judgment of the bishop, so that marriages may be according to the Lord, and not according to [vile] desire; from the Epistle to Polycarp. *Στῆκε ὡς ἄκμων τυπτόμενος· μεγάλου ἀθλητοῦ ἐστι δέρεσθαι καὶ νικᾶν· μάλιστα δὲ ἕνεκεν Θεοῦ πάντα ἡμᾶς ὑπομένειν δεῖ, ἵνα καὶ αὐτὸς ἡμᾶς ὑπομείνῃ.* "Stand like an anvil when it is beaten; it is the mark of a great athlete to be lashed and to conquer; but especially for the sake of God we must endure all things, so that He also may endure us," from the same. *Μακροθυμεῖτε μετ’ ἀλλήλων ἐν πραύτητι, ὡς ὁ Θεὸς μεθ’ ἡμῶν διὰ παντός.* "Patiently endure one another with meekness, as God does us always," from the same. *Χρήζω πραύτητος, ἐν ᾗ καταλύεται ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου.* "I have need of clemency, by which the prince of this age is overturned," [from the same]. ^D

^A Let not slaves desire to be set free at the public expense, but let them serve still more to the glory of God, that they may obtain a better freedom from God. Be diligent not to resist the bishop, that you may be subject to God; and the more you see the bishop keep silent, the more you fear him. For whatever the master of the house sends for his own stewardship, so we ought to receive him as Him who sends him; the bishop, therefore, ought to be regarded as the Lord Himself. ^B Bear with all, as the Lord does with you; endure all in love; ask for greater understanding than you have. Bear the illnesses of all; for where there is greater labor, there is much profit. What is therefore stated in the third chapter, as well from the evangelical and apostolic words, and indeed also from our blessed fathers, Ignatius the God-bearer, and Julius, and Athanasius, and the Gregories, and Basil, refutes the impious as the use of the articles (for all these used them) suggests no division or separation of the unity. The Logothete [says]: "As some holy man says, Ignatius—his name ^C is such: 'And the prince of this age misunderstood the virginity of Mary, and her child-bearing, as likewise the death of Christ, three terrible mysteries which were accomplished in the silence of God.'" And the divine Ignatius writes: "My love has been crucified." ^D For this statement the God-bearer Ignatius, being about to struggle as a martyr in Rome, and to be thrown as food to the lions according to the command of the tyrant Trajan, who around the ninth year of his tyranny stirred up a persecution against the most pious Christians, wrote to the Romans. Being perfect, think perfect things. He therefore brings forward Solomon as a witness, and the great Ignatius.

^A As he had stirred up persecution, he wrote in the epistle to the Romans: "Let not slaves desire to be freed at the public expense, but let them serve still more to the glory of God, that they may obtain a better freedom from God"; from the epistle to the Trallians. "Make an effort not to resist the bishop, that you may be subject to God; and the more silent you see the bishop, the more you should fear him. For whomsoever the master of the house sends to preside over his domestic affairs, we ought to receive him just as Him who sends him. The bishop, therefore, ought to be regarded as the Lord Himself"; from the epistle to the Ephesians. "Bear with all, as the Lord does with you; endure all in charity. Ask for greater prudence than you have. Bear the diseases of all; for where there is more labor, there is much gain"; from the epistle to the Polycarp.

Ita ille quidem (So he, indeed), while defending both Ignatius and Dionysius, wishes him not to have died before the end of the reign of Trajan, so that he might see the epistle of Ignatius. Conversely, Photius in the same century, while repeating the arguments to which Theodore the presbyter responded, indicates that that [claim] about the epistle of Ignatius to the Romans having been written shortly before his martyrdom, and his defense of Dionysius, are both weak, and confirms that that epistle was written by Ignatius himself, shortly before his martyrdom, in the first codex. And the same [author], in the same codex, when he recites the opinion of Ephraim the patriarch in his own words: "What is therefore said in the third chapter, both from the evangelical and apostolic scripts, and from our blessed Fathers, Ignatius the God-bearing, Julius, Athanasius, the Gregories, and Basil, convicts the impious, because the use of the articles (for all these used them) suggests no section or division of the unity," sufficiently shows that he held those epistles of Ignatius to be true and genuine.

^B In the ninth century I assign Andrew of Jerusalem, Archbishop of Crete, who in his Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the second one, among the Oxford manuscripts, has this: "As the holy man whose name is Ignatius says: 'The prince of this age misunderstood the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing, likewise also the death of Christ, three terrible mysteries which were done in the silence of God'"; from the epistle to the Ephesians. ^C Freculphus of Lisieux, who wrote around A.D. 840, transferred into his history all things that were written by St. Jerome in his *Catalogue* concerning the epistles of St. Ignatius, and, with his name omitted, wished them to be taken for his own. Michael Syncellus, who was at one time intended to be Patriarch of Constantinople, and a successor of Nicephorus, in his Encomium of Dionysius the Areopagite, regarding those words: "The divine Ignatius writes: 'My love has been crucified,'" has this: "For the God-bearing Ignatius, when he was already about to undergo martyrdom at Rome, and was to be thrown as food to the lions, according to the decree of the tyrant Trajan, who around the ninth year of his tyranny ^D had raised a persecution against the most pious Christians, wrote this sentiment."

At the beginning of the tenth century, Simeon who is called the Metaphrast embellished the martyrdom of St. Ignatius with a long oration; he interwove the epistle to the Romans into it, and also brought forward the testimonies of Irenaeus and Polycarp.

In the eleventh century I think the author of the *Common Loca* (Commonplaces) in the Oxford library should be assigned, who cites that opinion from the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans. Around the middle of this century, Gervinus the Abbot, among XXXVI volumes in the library of the Abbey of Centula, saw to it that the epistles of Ignatius were placed first, as the author of the Centula Chronicle shows, lib. iv, cap. 32.

In the twelfth century lived Honorius of Autun, who in his book *On the Luminaries of the Church* has this: "Ignatius, third bishop of the Church of Antioch after Peter the apostle, wrote an epistle to the Church of the Ephesians, another to the Magnesians, a third to the Trallians, a fourth to the Romans, then to the Philadelphians and Smyrnaeans. He suffered under Trajan."

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Nicetas Choniates brought forward in the *Treasury* the same things that we produced before under the name of Anastasius of Sinai. But Georgius Pachymeres, regarding Dionysius the Areopagite, calls the author of the Epistle to the Romans, whom Dionysius cites, the great Ignatius. But Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, a man most learned for his time, in the third chapter of his *Commentaries on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Dionysius*, brings forward these things from the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans: "For the eucharist is, according to..."

the flesh of our Savior which suffered for our sins, which the Father in his kindness raised up." And towards the book *On the Divine Names*, chap. 4, he relates that Ignatius loved [the Lord] so vehemently that he desired even to be handed over to the evil punishments of the devil, so that he might enjoy Him; from the Epistle to the Romans.

A witness of the fourteenth century is Nicephorus Callistus, who gathered very many things from the ancient writers of Ecclesiastical History, and translated into his own history all the things which were written by Eusebius concerning the epistles of Ignatius, book III, chap. 19. The author of the *Memorial of Histories*, a book in the Cambridge manuscript library: "Now the blessed Dionysius, being so profound in knowledge, brings him forward as if for authority, saying of the blessed Ignatius in the book *On the Divine Names*: My love has been crucified." The same [author] also brings forward passages from St. Polycarp and St. Irenaeus, and also the words from the Epistle to the Romans transcribed by Eusebius. Macarius Chrysocephalus, among the Barocian manuscripts at Oxford in the Great Alphabet, or *Catena*, which he wrote upon those parts of Luke that are not in Matthew, inserted these things with the name of Ignatius attached: *Ἐγεννήθη γὰρ καὶ ἐβαπτίσθη ἵνα τὸ θνητὸν ἡμῶν καθαρισθῇ*, "For he was born and baptized that our mortal part might be purified." William Wodeford the Englishman, a doctor of theology from the University of Oxford, praises these things of Ignatius against the *Trialogus* of Wycliffe: "Consider how the Anthropomorphites withdraw from the communion and prayer of the saints, for the reason that they do not confess the eucharist to be the flesh of the Savior"; from the Epistle to the Ephesians. Finally, John Tissington, also an Englishman, in his *Confession against Wycliffe*, in the Usserian manuscript library: "Consider how [the Anthropomorphites] withdraw from the communion and prayer of the saints, because they do not confess the eucharist to be the flesh of the Savior, which the Father in his goodness raised up. Those who contradict this gift are inquisitors. It is fitting to withdraw from such persons, and to speak with them neither commonly nor privately," from the same place.

Besides these testimonies of the ancients, each assigned to its own century, produced either from Greek or Latin writers, there is also another drawn from the Arabic; and since I have not yet known with sufficient certainty either the author or the age of this, I thought it should be added at the last place, just as it was transcribed and communicated to me by the learned man Bernard of Oxford from the manuscript codex of M. Thevenot, which is number eight in the Catalogue of Verlan. Thus, therefore, Ibn Zorha the Jacobite (if our friend remembers rightly), in chapter 4 of his book *Against Eutyches*: "Ignatius, the third patriarch of Antioch after the apostle Peter, says in his epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he says (I say): 'And do you also be persuaded in our Lord Jesus Christ, who [is] from the seed of David according to the flesh, but the Son of God in his truth, born of the Virgin Mary, and baptized by John, and crucified for us under the prefecture of Pontius Pilate.'" And he also says in his Epistle to the Antiochenes: "Whoever believes now in Christ, and not in his offering [that he is] ^A another son, and will substitute him in his place—of whom the prophets have reasoned, and whom the disciples have preached—is the palace of the devil." From which two passages it appears that that Jacobite had that edition of Ignatius which we have from the Medicean codex. He cites the Epistle to the Antiochenes, which was among the spurious ones; but the former words are taken from the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, not interpolated, but genuinely and thoroughly. For it does not have those things that were inserted by the interpolator, *τὸν πρωτότοκον πάσης κτίσεως, τὸν Θεὸν Λόγον, τὸν μονογενῆ Υἱόν*. Therefore, that Jacobite used the third edition, in which the genuine and hitherto complete epistles of Ignatius were contained, along with some also that were fictitious, such as John of Damascus and Antonius used; and thus he testifies that the genuine epistles of Ignatius were received not only by Greeks and Latins, but also by the Arabs, and not only by catholics, but also by heretics.

CHAPTER III.

Since we have brought forward testimonies of so many of all the centuries, nothing further, as far as external argument is concerned, would seem to be desired; *τὸ γὰρ τοιούτοις μάρτυσιν ἀντιτείνειν παραπληξίας ἐσχάτης.* For to resist so many and such great witnesses is of extreme madness, as Theodoret speaks in his first dialogue. And yet there was found a Blondel, who in his Preface said bluntly: "But the Fathers held full faith in those very epistles which we think to be forgeries!" What then? Truly, what then? Then certainly we have an argument taken from the testimonies about the writing of an apostolic man, most rich and most firm, and such as has never yet deceived anyone; nor, if the rest should correspond, which we will bring forward in the internal argument, is it to be thought that it could have deceived. That this might appear more clearly, we will observe some things from what has been said before, and we will weigh what force they have to produce faith, both from the witnesses themselves and from their own testimonies.

We do not take one argument from the witnesses. To ^B begin with the number, they are truly very many; nor have any writings as short as these, or as short as any text, hitherto found so many supporters and witnesses, so many excerptors and praisers anywhere. For even the one epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians ^C is not a little longer than these seven of St. Ignatius; especially if we consider that excised manuscript leaf, which equals at least eight pages, as Clement is now published. And although Daillé, concerning the number of witnesses, appeals to the testimonies prefixed to Ignatius by Ussher and to Clement by Junius; he should have observed beforehand that by the Armachanus [Ussher] a very large part was passed over, and by Junius very many were brought forward who offer no testimony to the epistle, such as St. Paul, the interpolator of Ignatius, Optatus, Rufinus, ^D Augustine, Euche-

-^Arius, Ivo of Chartres, Zonaras, Hugh of St. Victor, and Albert of Stade; all of whom indeed mention Clement, but in no way mention the epistle. Our witnesses, however, who provide support for the very epistles which we defend, are very many; and if one weighs how few works of ancient ecclesiastical writers exist today, and how many more have perished or still struggle against bookworms and moths, we cannot but consider this cloud of witnesses sufficiently large, and from those whom we have brought forward, estimate the number of those we cannot bring forward or have overlooked as almost infinite. And these things had to be urged entirely against Daillé, who so falsely declared that Hammond could not name even four Fathers from the whole abundance of the second, third, and fourth centuries.

Secondly, if we turn our attention to the series of times, and observe our witnesses, arranged from the very age in which the epistles are first presented as having been written, down to the age in which they were first printed, at the time when ecclesiastical discords were breaking forth and they were called into doubt, we see that when the first was an associate of St. Ignatius himself, and the second an acquaintance, then there is hardly any among the rest who could not have been known or seen by the one following him, since in almost every century we have numbered now two, now three, now four, which certainly contributes much to confirming our opinion. For from this series of witnesses, nowhere interrupted, it ought to be held as certain that either no one ever denied this very thing which they constantly taught, or no one ever doubted the authority of St. Ignatius—or if anyone ever did so, his opinion was always held for naught by others. For at whatever time anyone might wish to claim that someone thought otherwise (though I recognize no such person), this would render his importunate doubt improbable to those things which preceded it, and would prove that the testimonies which follow it were of no weight or authority in the eyes of others. Since, therefore, our side asserts that the testimonies brought forward for the Ignatian epistles are equal to those which are usually or can be cited for the epistles of Clement or Polycarp, while I consider them much more ample and illustrious; Daillé, who in vain denies the most ancient ones, in no way admits this comparison, and fights against it all too weakly across entire centuries. Let us see, therefore, whether this is done by him with justice; and since he prudently remains silent about Polycarp, the dispute will be only over Clement. Testimonies in this matter are truly the best which reach most closely to the very age of the writing; this is admitted by both of us. The Fathers of the third century attribute no less authority to the writers of the ^Bsecond century than the Fathers of the second do to the writers of the first. In assigning a century, the argument can be fallacious; let us not, therefore, fight from afar with whole centuries, but at close quarters with years. The epistle which is circulated under the name of St. Clement was written before the year of our Lord seventy-six, as Blondel confesses; or, as others think, under the beginning of the reign of Vespasian, that is, about the seventy-sixth year of the common era: for they do not doubt that it was written while Jerusalem was still standing; a sentiment to which even those words at the beginning of the Epistle, "on account of the sudden and successive calamities and disasters which have befallen us," seem to lend support—as we shall show, God willing, should it be read from that most ancient manuscript. Now, who first bore witness to this epistle? Not those whom Junius prefixed, Ignatius and Justin, for neither is true; but Dionysius, whom he did not name, the bishop of the Corinthians, in an epistle to the Romans addressed to Bishop Soter. But Soter is said to have presided over the Roman Church from A.D. 178 to 179, says Blondel. Therefore, it does not appear that Dionysius' epistle was written before the year 178. Wherefore, more than a hundred years passed ^Cbefore anyone, so far as we know, bore witness to the Epistle of St. Clement. On the contrary, the first to bear witness to the Ignatian epistles is St. Polycarp, not only a contemporary but an acquaintance of St. Ignatius, who was present with him at Smyrna when he sent four epistles from there, who received one given to himself and another for his own Smyrneans at Troas, and who, within a few months, collected the seven, published them, and sent them, appended to his own, to the Philippians. A second witness for the "Clementine" could perhaps be brought forward: Hegesippus; for he recorded certain things about it, but things which Eusebius wished us to be ignorant of. Anastasius the Librarian indeed (to add this witness to the Junius Catalog) records these things about St. Clement in his Ecclesiastical History: "The epistle of this man is said to have been sent to the Corinthians; and the whole Church receives it, as Hegesippus testifies." But this testimony of Hegesippus exists nowhere, and Anastasius here badly mistranslated George Syncellus. For Syncellus (another witness to be added to the Junius Catalog) speaks thus of St. Clement: "His one genuine epistle is carried to the Corinthians as having been written from the Roman Church when a sedition had occurred in Corinth at that time, as Hegesippus testifies, which is also read in the churches." But even in the interpretation of these words, Jacob Goar, who translated Syncellus so unhappily, erred no less than Anastasius. Hegesippus is the author of the statement that his genuine epistle to the Corinthians, written by the Church on the occasion of a certain tumult that arose in Corinth, is commonly received by the Church and read publicly. So it is; but you translate: "His epistle, which is the only genuine one, is carried to the Corinthians as if written by the Roman Church, when, as Hegesippus testifies, a sedition arose in Corinth; which is also received by the Church." For these words of Syncellus are nothing other than an epitome of chapter 16, book 4 of the Eusebian History, whose words are: "And that at the time of the aforementioned event the affairs of the Corinthians had reached a state of sedition, Hegesippus is a credible witness." Furthermore, that a sedition was stirred up among the Corinthians in the time of the aforementioned Clement, Hegesippus is a most clear witness. Eusebius, therefore, uses the authority of Hegesippus to this end only, in that place, ^Dto show that a sedition arose in Corinth under the pontificate of Clement.

And [he] himself also bears with us; indeed he often expresses his own [endurance], as to the Smyrnaeans: "I endure all things, he himself strengthening me," and he praises the grace of endurance itself most highly: "Faith is the helmet, love the spear, endurance the panoply." Finally, all the exhortations and warnings which he uses so frequently and often make for edification, urging every duty of a Christian, and all parts of piety everywhere, so that they might become "stones of the temple of the Father, prepared for the building of God the Father," just as he himself speaks to the Ephesians. To this also pertain those things which he so often inculcates—even to the point of causing envy—concerning concord, unity, and obedience to be rendered to the bishops and the presbytery; and by these same works he also recalls his own from the heterodox and from their fables, "which provide questions rather than the edification of God which is in faith." ^B These are the things concerning the testimony of St. Polycarp, from which it is clear, with a fourth reason, that the epistles which we defend existed in his age. Eusebius also notes two general characteristics of the epistles, regarding the apostolic tradition and the heresies of the Ignatian age, to which our own respond most excellently; this I have merely noted here, and need not urge further, since even the adversaries themselves admit that Eusebius saw and transcribed our epistles.

Not only do the testimonies which describe the Ignatian epistles in general and universally correspond excellently to these epistles, but also those things which were excerpted piecemeal from Ignatius by the cited witnesses and transcribed into their own books under his name are found in our codex in almost the exact same words; as will most plainly appear from an accurate collation of the individual testimonies we have brought forward with the Medicean codex. Since, however, all the sentences transcribed piecemeal by the ancients appear to have been taken from our codex before other epistles were forged or these same were interpolated; and since subsequently we have adduced no testimony from the forged or from the supplementary [spurious] catalog, and have only cited those witnesses who used the ancient, true, and pure epistles; this unfailing succession of witnesses ^C cannot but produce the highest credibility for our epistles, so far as an external argument is concerned. For those very men who doubted the genuineness of the seven epistles mentioned by Eusebius were bringing forward this reason above all—that the words of Athanasius, Theodoret, and other ancients did not appear in them, as they existed then also in Greek, but interpolated; as is clear from those things which are discussed more broadly in the Proemium. But whoever shall examine the catalog of witnesses we have prepared will find that all the testimonies excerpted by the ancients are contained in our epistles, free from all addition, in almost the same words. Nor indeed have we deliberately omitted any, except that one single instance of St. Jerome, Book II, *Against the Pelagians*: "Ignatius, an apostolic man and martyr, writes boldly: 'The Lord chose apostles who were sinners above all men.'"

'" It is clear, therefore, that he was mistaken in citing this sentiment, and put Ignatius in place of Barnabas, in whose epistle, which we now possess, those very words appear; and it is from him that Origen, before Jerome, had brought them forward. Jerome, therefore, put Ignatius in place of Barnabas, just as elsewhere Clement of Alexandria put Barnabas in place of Clement. Since, therefore, all the testimonies of the earlier centuries, extracted piece by piece from St. Ignatius, are scattered there like so many flowers in the books of the ancient Fathers; and since, despite these corrupted and other forged epistles, so many [passages] brought forward from the pure ones appear in these epistles in almost identical words, we contend that they should justly and deservedly be ascribed to the same St. Ignatius, to whom they all attributed them.

Lastly, we derive from this an argument of no small weight for asserting these epistles for Ignatius, because there are no writings now extant that bear the mark of the early centuries concerning whose true authors there has been, in this or the preceding century, any reason to doubt, whether they were not recognized at all by the ancients, or if they were perchance recognized by some, they were nevertheless doubted or disputed by others in the Church of God. ^B Scholars hold that St. Clement's second epistle is not by the same author as the first, although both are equally approved in the apostolic Canons and are recognized by Epiphanius and others. But this was first pointed out by Eusebius, then by Jerome and Photius. Many now contend that the books of Dionysius the Areopagite were wrongly ascribed to so great a man and were forged under his name, and among them most notably Daillé. But these themselves had previously been rejected for lack of testimony by Hypatius and his followers; and many after him denied that they were of the Areopagite, even because of their subject matter, as shown by Maximus and Theodore, who attempted to defend them unsuccessfully. Almost everyone in this age condemns the *Shepherd* of Hermas; many did the same in the time of Origen, by his own testimony, as well as Tertullian's; and if it were true, as the Latins later handed down, that the book was written by the brother of Pope Pius, it would be without controversy supposititious. The booklet of Prochorus *On the Life of St. John* is not undeservedly rejected, as is the *Apostolic History* of Abdias of Babylon, which Gerard Vossius observes was written after Hegesippus, and he could have added, after Ruffinus, for the words of Hegesippus in Abdias are transcribed from Ruffinus' translation. But there is a deep silence among the ancients concerning both. The *Passion of St. Andrew*, written, as they wish, by the presbyters and deacons of the churches of Achaia, is still disputed; but concerning such an ancient and most highly venerable monument, if it were genuine, no ancient mentions it, nor is it referred to by anyone before the end of the eighth century. Other writings also which possess the highest antiquity seem to learned men to be spurious, either in this or the preceding century; they are condemned by a deep and long-standing silence of the ancients, or were rejected by some of the ancients long before our time, or at least were called into doubt.

But concerning the epistles of Ignatius, neither of these things can be said, ^A as the testimonies we have adduced and those which are to be mentioned later clearly prove; for they cannot be condemned by a deep silence, as they were accepted from the beginning and highly praised; and no ancient, no modern, has clearly stated that he doubted whether they were truly the genuine works of St. Ignatius: no one suspected that they were spurious and forged before some were first printed in Latin, being totally unknown to the ancients, and others were printed first in Latin, then in Greek, but joined with others which were recognized by the moderns only as Greek, and those very ones, approved by the ancients, appeared defiled by many additions. Since, therefore, the most ancient epistles of Ignatius have now at length been distinguished and separated from the later ones, freed from additions and corruptions, and restored to their pristine splendor, and at the same time confirmed by most abundant testimonies of every age, and no ancient appears who has conjectured anything about their being supposititious; no reason can be devised why their venerable antiquity and due authority should be called into doubt; or if any can be devised, it must be elicited from the very subject matter of the epistles, which we shall free from all suspicion in the following dissertation: meanwhile content with this most just presumption, that so many most ancient and most learned Fathers and their followers did not err in the Ignatian [writings], who in no other celebrated and ancient ecclesiastical writing have been detected by us thus far to have deceived us. ^C

CHAPTER IV.

That this external argument drawn from testimonies may obtain the force which it possesses and be preserved intact, I feel I can use no better method than if I propose for examination everything which the adversary has devised to weaken it. I observe, however, that these can be conveniently reduced to three heads and clearly arranged in this order. First, he also brings forward testimonies by which he might confirm his opinion concerning the supposition of the epistles. Second, he rejects our witnesses, previously brought forward by Hammond, especially the most ancient ones; or he attempts to render their testimony utterly invalid one by one. Third, he has fabricated a negative argument from testimony, by which he attempts to prove that no one...

of the epistles which we defend remembered them for two hundred years after the death of Ignatius, and from this he concludes that they were not written by Ignatius.

I begin with the witnesses produced, or rather withheld, in a marvelous manner by the adversary against our ranks. For he confesses that he brought them forward not so much to establish his position as to dispel odium; for this purpose, namely, that he might prove that Salmasius and Blondel were not the first who thought these epistles to be forged. For whoever the author of the *Stichometria*, which he cites, may have been, he lived long before Salmasius and Blondel. ^A He therefore opposes the *Stichometria* to Hammond quite incongruously. "But," he says, "I do not see why the authority of this *Stichometria* ought not to be as great among us as the most learned men wish their own to be." But if the authority of that *Stichometria* be anything at all, it should have been opposed not to Hammond, but to the Fathers whom Hammond produced against Salmasius and Blondel—Polycarp, Irenaeus, Origen, or at least Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Gelasius, and others. For the question is not whether the authority of the *Stichometria* is to be preferred to the authority of Hammond, but rather which should be believed: Salmasius, armed only with the *Stichometria*, or Hammond, fortified by the testimonies of the holy Fathers and of every age. Therefore, Dallaeus brings forward this testimony too cunningly, for the sole purpose of dispelling odium, which he afterward uses very frequently to confirm his own opinion; and he was so thoroughly aware of how weak it was that he stated it in such a way that you do not know whether he meant it to be taken as an argument or not. If we inspect the title of the fourth chapter, the fifth, and the rest, it is the first argument; if we look at the fifth chapter, it is none at all; for there another "first" is derived from the silence of ecclesiastical writers before Eusebius. Yet he afterward holds this argument, whether "first" or "null," in the highest regard, and inculcates it almost everywhere. And in truth, if this argument, whether first or null, were to be snatched away from him, the remaining ones, which concern us, would be nothing at all.

Let us therefore hear the adversary's witnesses, brought forward not without pomp. "Behold," he says, "we have authors, dead many centuries before us, and removed from every suspicion against the hierarchy, who have roundly and without any hesitation relegated all the writings of Ignatius to the apocrypha in the *Stichometria* prefixed to Georgius Syncellus in the most ancient book." I ask you, most learned sir, how many authors do you have in that *Stichometria* prefixed to Syncellus? Show the number, declare the names. Or do you count in the manner of that character in Plautus? ^B "How many will there be? I, and Menaechmus, and the Parasite. Those are now three; for the Parasite performs the duty of eight men." The *Stichometria*, however much it may be prefixed to Syncellus, has either no certain author, or at most only one. Are you making your Nicephorus—if indeed it is he—into a two-bodied or three-bodied thing along with your Ignatian epistolary collection? Certainly, that little man of uncertain character must be divided into many more parts, so that he might correspond to our witnesses even in number. ^C But behold, these authors, however many they are, have relegated all the writings of Ignatius to the apocrypha. For one writer, I know not whom, he has authorized I know not how many authors prefixed to Syncellus; and where the naked name of Ignatius is written, the most learned man wishes all of his writings to be read.

But in order to secure greater authority for his *Stichometria*, which he is about to produce, he first institutes a grave complaint that learned men have so undeservedly doubted the good faith of Salmasius, whom the Parisian edition of Nicephorus has freed from all suspicion. But who are the learned men from our side who have so undeservedly doubted the good faith of Salmasius? Surely Ussher professed himself to think that the *Stichometria*, which the illustrious Salmasius claimed to have found in a most ancient exemplar prefixed to the work of Georgius Syncellus and Theophanes, was not different from that which we have edited in Greek and Latin among the minor works of Pierre Pithou. This is not the act of a man undermining the good faith of Salmasius, but rather confirming it and shoring it up with his own conjecture; which the Parisian edition later confirmed no less than the good faith of Salmasius. Hammond also professed that he would have no dispute with Salmasius concerning the authority of the *Stichometria*, and asserted—rightly—that it could be gathered from the title of Georgius that it did not differ from the index edited by Pithou, lauded as it was by Valesius. Therefore, Hammond doubted the good faith of Salmasius no more than Ussher did: he calls it, most deservedly, an *adêspoton stichometrian* (an authorless stichometry), because Salmasius had produced it as such, and had assigned no author to it. ^D He had produced it from a manuscript codex, as if seen by himself alone, with no mention made of the author of the *Stichometria*; Hammond therefore complains not undeservedly about the shadows, for it was hardly credible that anyone would wish to cite as a witness a *Stichometria* lurking in manuscripts and of uncertain title, when the same was placed in the greatest light, and under a most specious title, not only of its author, but also of its translator. For Joseph Scaliger had edited it in Greek at the end of his Eusebius, appended to the *Chronography* of Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople: Petrus Pithou had edited the same under the name of Nicephorus himself from an old Carpus codex, with a Latin translation equal to that of Anastasius, which we later took care to publish among the *Critici sacri*. John Selden had warned, in his book *De successione in pontificatum Hebraeorum*, that the *Chronography* of Nicephorus was extant in the London Library of Sion College, to which we attest this *Stichometria* is also appended. Hammond therefore could not but wonder if Salmasius produced these things, which were so publicly known, from some workshop of his own.

In the meantime, the learned man did not move a dispute with Salmasius over the authority of the *Stichometria*: he only inserted a suspicion in a parenthesis; which indeed, after that splendid Parisian edition, sticks even deeper; and Dallaeus would have acted much more wisely if he had never mentioned it, or at least had not seemed to triumph so much in it. For he speaks thus: "Learned men...

^A call it *adespoton* [ownerless]. The edition vindicates it to Nicephorus, a most illustrious man, the prelate of the first see in the East, a most grave and eloquent writer, and adorned with the most generous praises of Photius. For that *Stichometria* is indeed his, and not that of any other more recent person; and this the most learned Goar demonstrates solidly and at length; to whom one may go if anyone should still doubt." But we are no longer inquiring into the good faith of Salmasius, but of Dallaeus. For why? Does the most learned Goar demonstrate this solidly? In no way. At length? Not at all. Does he demonstrate it altogether? By no means. Does he even say so plainly, or affirm it? Least of all. On the contrary, he says something that is plainly contrary to the assertion of Dallaeus; for at the very first words of the *Stichometria* he explicitly notes: "A canonical list of the sacred books, having no relation to the *Chronography*, is judged to be a peripheral work [παρεργον] of the copyist." Therefore, by the testimony of the most learned Goar, the *Stichometria* produced by Salmasius, objected to by Hammond, and defended by Dallaeus, is not the work of the patriarch Nicephorus, but a peripheral work of the copyist. Therefore, we expect good faith from Dallaeus; we praise not only the good faith but also the modesty of Salmasius, who reported the *Stichometria* as *adespoton*, did not affix the name of Nicephorus, and did not send us off to the editions of Scaliger and Pithou, because he thought it should not be attributed to Nicephorus at all.

But after the unfortunate testimony of the most learned Goar: "Behold for you," he says, "a witness greater than any exception, Anastasius the Librarian, a man of the ninth century, contemporary with Nicephorus. For he says in the preface to his *Ecclesiastical History*: 'I have deemed it settled, indeed, to set before this work the *Chronography* of the blessed Nicephorus, Bishop of Constantinople.'" The question is about the *Stichometria*; Dallaeus responds about the *Chronography*, to which the former has no relation whatsoever. "But," he says, "the final part of this *Chronography* is that *Stichometria* praised by us, and the edition of Anastasius exhibits it at the end of the *History*." But how, I ask, is the *Stichometria* a part of the *Chronography*, when it is as far from it as heaven is from earth? It is indeed stitched unto it in Greek manuscripts, but it is no more a part of the *Chronography* than the *Chronography* is a part of the *Stichometria*. Moreover, in Anastasius it is not even joined to the *Chronography*, but is appended at the end of the Anastasian *History*, after the list of patriarchs. Anastasius speaks of the *Chronography* of Nicephorus, which he said he had proposed (or placed) before his own work. What is this to the *Stichometria*, which Anastasius did not place before his work, and which the edition exhibits at the end? For this reason Anastasius said he placed the *Chronography* before it, so that John the Deacon, who was about to write an *Ecclesiastical History*, could glean a little something from it; but what does the *Stichometria* contribute to *Ecclesiastical History*? Therefore, Anastasius is not a witness that Nicephorus wrote the *Stichometria*. ^B The truth of this matter is sufficiently made known from the very farrago that is appended to Georgius Syncellus, and which consists of five distinct parts: a brief *Chronology*, a *Genealogy*, a *List of Kings and Priests*, a *List of Patriarchs*, and the *Stichometria*. Anastasius attributes to Nicephorus only the *Chronography* from Adam to Theophilus: he appends the *Genealogy* to this, but does not affirm that it is Nicephorus's; and two very ancient Greek manuscripts, the Oxford and the London, do not recognize it. Anastasius placed the *List of Kings and Priests* along with the following ones after his *History* without the name of Nicephorus, which the Oxford manuscript does not have; finally, he appends the *Stichometria* to the *List of Patriarchs*, without any mention of Nicephorus being made; and the Oxford manuscript does not recognize that *Stichometria*. In all this farrago, therefore, nothing has ever been attributed by anyone to Nicephorus, except the *Chronography* from Adam to Theophilus: about which, however, one may still not unjustly doubt, whatever Goar, whom Dallaeus calls most learned, may have said.

As regards the matter itself, we assert that neither the patriarch Nicephorus, nor Anastasius the Librarian, nor even the author of the *Stichometria*, whoever he may be, ever handed down that the epistles of Ignatius, which we defend, were spurious. The statement of Nicephorus is in his epistle to Pope Leo of Rome regarding the accepted works of the Holy Fathers: "I embrace the dogmas and works of all the chosen and blessed Fathers, as teaching that is irreprehensible and the foundation of salvation; and those whom the Catholic Church accepts, I accept, and those whom it turns away from, I turn away from." Now, we have already shown above that Ignatius was numbered among the elect and blessed Fathers, and that his epistles were accepted by the Catholic Church for several centuries before Nicephorus as works containing irreprehensible doctrine. Therefore, Nicephorus received and embraced the epistles of St. Ignatius. Furthermore, we know that Nicephorus considered the Dionysian works to be the genuine works of the Areopagite, from his disputation with Leo the Armenian; it is certain that Anastasius felt the same, from his own preface to the Dionysian works. But Dionysius praises the epistle of St. Ignatius so explicitly that whoever felt that he was the true Dionysius could not have felt otherwise about Ignatius; nor do we know anyone who defends the Areopagite who has not, even if driven to straits, also admitted St. Ignatius.

We also deny that the author of the *Stichometria*, whoever he is, pronounced the epistles of St. Ignatius that we defend to be spurious. His words indeed are these, as they are exhibited in the Parisian edition: "And whatever of the New [Testament] are apocryphal: The Itinerarium of Peter, 2, 800 verses. The Itinerarium of John, 3, 500 verses. The Itinerarium of Thomas, 1, 600 verses. The Gospel according to Thomas, 1, 300 verses. The Teaching of the Apostles, 200 verses. Of Clement, 16, 2, 600 verses. Of Ignatius, of Polycarp, of the Shepherd and Hermas." Which, at the end of the *History* of Anastasius, are rendered into Latin in this way: "And which of the New are apocryphal. Itinerarium Petri, verses 2, 800. Itinerarium Joannis, verses 2, 500.

Itinerarium Thomæ, verses 1, 600. Evangelium secundum Thomam, verses 1, 300. Doctrina apostolorum, verses 200. Clementis, verses 2, 600. Ignatii et Polycarpi. From these, I deny that it can be proved in any way that the epistles of St. Ignatius seen by Eusebius were held by the author of the *Stichometria* to be spurious. For the name of Ignatius is placed here nakedly, nor is anything affirmed regarding the epistles or their supposititious nature. But in order for adversaries to prove what they intend, it is necessary that they argue in this manner: Whatever is referred to the apocrypha by the author of the *Stichometria* is, in his judgment, supposititious. The epistles of Ignatius are referred to the apocrypha by the author of the *Stichometria*. Therefore, the epistles of Ignatius are, according to the author of the *Stichometria*, supposititious. Our ^B Hammond thought it necessary to deny the major premiss of this syllogism, Ussher to distinguish the minor. I contend that neither can be proved by any reason, and I judge that both ought to be equally denied, so that not even the shadow of an argument remains.

For, first, our Hammond most correctly replied to these points to Salmasius: "The signification of that word, *apocrypha*, is not to be accepted in such a way that whatever is found placed anywhere among the apocrypha is immediately a fake, or spurious, or a forgery, a figment of a later age." Nothing is more true than this pronouncement. Daillé confesses that this is not the force of this name according to its etymological reason; he wishes, however, that according to ecclesiastical usage, the book which is called apocryphal almost always suffers from one of these vices. "Almost," he says, that is, sometimes, or usually, which neither contradicts Hammond nor proves anything. He affirms that the apocrypha are opposed by ancient writers to books both divine and ecclesiastical, that is, to all books known and approved by the Church, by some, indeed, and sometimes (for he names no one except Tertullian and Gelasius), which proves absolutely nothing. The question is whether it is always taken from ecclesiastical usage so that it is opposed to all books in any way received by the Church? The question is whether, as often as any writing is called an apocryphal writing of the Old or New Testament, it is immediately opposed to all ecclesiastical books, and rejected by the whole Church as spurious and heretical? The author of the *Stichometria* speaks thus: "These are the divine Scriptures, which are received by the Church and canonized. And what are apocryphal, of the Old Testament. And what of the New are apocryphal." Here there is no mention of ecclesiastical books, such as those of Cyprian, Basil, [or] Chrysostom, from whose company Ignatius and Polycarp would be excluded; but only of the Old and New Testament, as if they were rejected from the canon of Scripture. Just as St. Jerome in epistle 106: "This prologue of the Scriptures, a sort of helmeted beginning for all the books which we translate from Hebrew into Latin, can serve, so that we may know that whatever is outside these is to be placed among the apocrypha." Who also in the same manner is to be judged to speak in his *Catalogue*: "Barnabas composed one epistle pertaining to ^A the edification of the Church, which is read among the apocryphal Scriptures." For he relates that it was an epistle of Barnabas; not that it was supposititious or spurious; he asserts that it pertained to the edification of the Church; he did not, therefore, think it heretical; yet he teaches that it is read among the apocryphal scriptures, nor does he intimate that it was repudiated by the Church. The same [Jerome] in epistle 110: "For you demand that I should translate into the Latin style a book written in the Chaldean language, certainly the book of Tobit, which the Hebrews, cutting it off from the catalogue of divine Scriptures, relegated to those which they record as hagiographa (read: apocryphal)." That this emendation is confirmed quite enough by these following words, among many others: "For the studies of the Hebrews argue against us, and impute to us that we translate these things for Latin ears against their canon." And again in epistle 111: "Among the Hebrews, the book of Judith is read among the hagiographa (read again: apocrypha), whose authority is judged less suitable for strengthening those things which come into contention. Nevertheless, written in the Chaldean language, it is counted among histories." Wherefore, from the bare word *apocrypha*, nothing else is rightly inferred, when there is a discussion of canonical books, than that some writing is to be removed from the canon of Holy Scripture. Therefore, Ignatius is most certainly placed outside the canon of the New Testament; nor can anything else be gathered through necessary consequence from the force of the words of the *Stichometria*.

Wherefore, what Daillé snatches from the decree of Gelasius is clearly *asprosdionyson* (irrelevant). For he delivers the canon of both Testaments, with no apocrypha added at all; nay rather, with some apocrypha of the Old Testament received into the canon, while others, with the apocrypha of the New Testament, are relegated to the last chapter, and placed among heretical writings. Whence two facts [have] happened: first, that apocrypha of a better stamp pertaining to the Old Testament, without any distinction, were held as canonical (which stain still clings to the Roman canon); second, that the rest of the Old and all the apocrypha of the New Testament were confused with heretical, fictitious, and condemned writings against the judgment of the ancient Fathers. It is, therefore, very unjustly demanded that we interpret the *Stichometria* according to this decree issued under the name of Gelasius: since in the *Stichometria* the apocrypha of the New Testament are mentioned, in the decree only *apocrypha*, without any restriction; in the former they are opposed to canonical writers, in the latter to all catholics; in the former to canonical [books], in the latter to all writers approved by the Church.

Furthermore, regarding what Salmasius tried in vain to prove from the bare title, Daillé wished to provide it from the nature of the books which are numbered among the apocrypha together with Ignatius. For he seems to argue: All books which are numbered among the apocrypha by the author of the *Stichometria* are removed by him from the public light of the Church as heretical or fictitious: therefore, so too are the epistles of Ignatius. But I reply first, there is no necessity of consequence. For no slight

^A differentiation has always been maintained between those books which were called apocryphal. And although one and the same sentence, under one and the same name or designation, may have been passed upon them all, nothing one and the same is asserted of them all, except that they are all removed from the sacred canon. It may have been the case, therefore, that one of them was better than the rest, even though it was not numbered among those that are divinely inspired. I reply, secondly, that it can in no way be proven that the author of the *Stichometria* considered all the rest to be heretical or fictitious, and wished to remove them from the public light of the Church. For first, he says, Nicephorus considers Polycarp’s epistle to be among the apocrypha of no value to himself. He lists it indeed among the apocrypha, but he indicates in no way what value it had for him. But no one has ever been discovered to have considered Polycarp’s epistle either heretical or fictitious; Nicephorus is therefore said by Dallaeus to have considered it such without any foundation; and he is most unjustly accused, as if he had wished to remove that epistle, which had been read for so long in the assembly of Asia, from the public light of all the Churches. Secondly, the *Teaching of the Apostles*, of 200 verses, is numbered among the apocrypha. Did the author of the *Stichometria*, therefore, judge it to be a writing of the worst note, to be completely eliminated by the Church? What evidence is there for this censure, what reasoning can be devised? Eusebius separates this work from those that were forged by heretics. The great Athanasius, in his *Festal Epistle*, numbers it among those books which the Holy Fathers desired to be read by catechumens, so that they might learn the standard of piety.

Thirdly, what those Clementines were, which are mentioned in this *Index*, Dallaeus does not teach: he calls them indeed "Books of Clement 32." But who were the 32 books that were accustomed to be attributed to Clement, besides those mentioned above in the *Index*, no one has yet heard in speech. What then if for AB we read A, B (for A and ▲ are often confused in manuscripts), and understand the "two epistles of Clement"? For then the 2,600 verses will fit those quite well (for anyone will concede that both, taken together, when they were already complete, would have equaled the Gospel according to Luke, to which exactly the same number of verses are ascribed), and we shall have a genuine work of Clement conjoined to the Ignatian ones, which will similarly free it from the charge of forgery. Fifthly, because Hermas is named with the Ignatian ones, they wish it to be impossible to deny that Nicephorus held those same ones to be false, and thus fictitious and spurious. But indeed this can be denied, and with the best of rights, if the sentiments of the most ancient and most learned writers in the Church are observed, whom it is proper to believe the author of the *Stichometria* followed.

What the opinion of St. Irenaeus was concerning the book of Hermas, has been noted by Eusebius, *Hist. eccles.*, lib. v, c. 8: ^A "Not only does he know it, but he also accepts the writing of the Shepherd, saying: 'Well, therefore, did the Scripture say, which says: First of all believe that there is one God who created and perfected all things, and made all things out of what was not, so that they might exist, capable of all things, and who is grasped by no one.'" Which words exist in Hermas, lib. ii, mandate 1, cited so often both by Catholics and by heretics. Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Irenaeus, uses the authority of Hermas more frequently than that of any other ecclesiastical writer, and explains and interprets him quite often. We can gather his sentiment concerning the book itself from these very places. *Stromateis*, lib. i: "Therefore, that power which speaks to Hermas according to revelation is divine: The Visions, he says, and the revelations," etc.; ^B "descended with them (so it should be read) into the water." And it is excellently said by the Shepherd: "They descended therefore with them (not, 'of them,' as the interpreter wrongly renders) into the water." Origen, the disciple of Clement, uses the testimony of Hermas very frequently, and often expresses his own judgment and that of others concerning his books. He recognizes him as that Hermas who is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, and he greatly praises the work itself in his Commentaries on that passage. "I think, however," he says, "that this Hermas is the author of that little book which is called the Shepherd. Which writing seems to me very useful, and, as I think, divinely inspired." *Homily on Luke*, 35: "We read (if, however, it pleases anyone to accept such a writing) of the angels of justice and of iniquity arguing over the salvation and destruction of Abraham; while both throngs wish to claim him for their own assembly. But if this displeases anyone, let him pass over to the volume which is written under the title of the Shepherd, and he will find two angels present with all men." *Tome xiv, on Matthew*: "If one must dare to invoke that which is from a writing carried about in the Church, although it is not accepted by all as divine, such a matter might be comforted by that from the Shepherd." *On First Principles*, lib. iv: "Therefore we also interpret in this way the passage in the book which is despised by some, the Shepherd, concerning the command given to Hermas to write two books, and after that to announce to the elders of the Church what he had learned from the Spirit." *Homily 8, on Numbers*: "That the days of sin are reckoned as a year of punishment, is shown not only in this book, in which there is nothing at all that can be doubted, but also, in the little book of the Shepherd, if that writing is indeed to be accepted, similar things are designated." Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, lib. iii, c. 3: "Since indeed ^{C D}

the same Apostle, in the salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Romans, among others, made mention of Hermas, whose the book of the Shepherd is said to be, it must be known that this too has been contradicted by some, so that it cannot be placed among those of acknowledged authority; but by others it is deemed most necessary, especially for those who need elementary instruction. Whence we know that it has already been published in the Churches, and we have found that some of the most ancient writers have made use of its testimony."

^A S. Athanasius, synchronous with Eusebius, in his *Festal Epistle*, when he had recited the canonical books of Holy Scripture, warned that there were "also other books outside these, not indeed canonical, but appointed by the Fathers to be read to those who are newly approaching and wishing to be instructed in the doctrine of piety: the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobias, and the so-called Doctrine of the Apostles, and the Shepherd." These, then, were the sentiments of the Church at that time; but what it may have judged concerning the Shepherd is evident from other sources. For the letter concerning the Nicene Synod makes use of the words of Hermas himself, and the book *On the Incarnation of the Word* proves all things were made from nothing through the Word: "For he says through Moses: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'; and through the most useful book of the Shepherd: 'First of all, believe that there is one God, who created all things and perfected them and made them out of what did not exist into what is.' Insofar as he speaks through Moses indeed: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth'; and through the most useful book of the Shepherd: 'First of all, believe there is one God, who created all things and brought them to perfection, and caused them to be from out of non-existence.'" This passage from Hermas, Origen had previously produced in *Tome 1 on John* to demonstrate the same matter. And since the Arians also produced it, Athanasius, in his letter for the Nicene Synod, says: "But it is written in the Shepherd (since they also bring forward this, although it is not from the canon): 'First of all, believe.'" It is also written in the Shepherd (because they allege this thing too, however much it may not be from the canon): "First of all, believe," etc.

What Didymus, synchronous with Athanasius, thought about Hermas, although almost all his works have perished, can be gathered from the *Catena on Job*, where he says: "The ungodly man, then, has his whole conduct ^B in the house of wickedness, being dissolute, just as the stones outside the building, which do not fit into the construction of the tower according to the Shepherd." Thus, the conversation of the impious is in the house of wickedness, as he is dissolute, no differently than the stones outside the building, which are clearly inept for the tower being built, according to the Shepherd.

Ruffinus, a disciple of Didymus, who was very well-versed in the Greek Church, in his *Exposition of the Apostles' Creed*, when he had previously traditionalized the canon of Holy Scripture, adds: "It must be known, however, that there are also other books, which are called by the ancients not canonical, but ecclesiastical, such as the Wisdom of Solomon, and the other Wisdom which is called that of the son of Sirach. Of the same order is the little book of Tobias and Judith, and the books of Maccabees. In the New Testament, however, the little book which is called the Shepherd, or of Hermas, which is called the Two Ways, or the Judgment according to Peter: all of which they willed to be read indeed in the Churches, but not to be brought forward to obtain authority for the confirmation of faith from these."

St. Jerome, who grew old among the Greeks, has these things in his *Catalogue*: "Hermas, whom the apostle Paul writing to the Romans mentions, they assert to be the author of the book which is called the Shepherd, and it is read publicly even among some Churches of Greece. It is a truly useful book, and many of the ancients have used its testimonies; but among the Latins it is almost unknown." The same in epistle 106, or the *Helmeted Prologue*: "Therefore the Wisdom which is vulgarly inscribed as Solomon's, and the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias and the Shepherd are not in the canon."

John Cassian, disciple of Saint Chrysostom, *Collation* viii, chapter 17: "That two angels, that is, a good and an evil one, adhere to each of us, Scripture testifies. Of the good indeed the Savior, etc., but the book of the Shepherd teaches most fully concerning both." And *Collation* xiii, cap. 12: "That the liberty of choice lies with man in whatever direction he turns, that book also which is called the Shepherd teaches most openly."

Maximus in the *Scholia on the book of Dionysius On the Divine Names*, chap. 4: "He speaks of the perfecting of angels as in the case of Daniel and the angel who interpreted for him, and concerning the Shepherd who perfected Hermas, as we read there in the Shepherd." Furthermore, he calls the efficiency of the perfection of the angels, as it is in Daniel and the angel himself interpreting, and the Shepherd perfecting Hermas, as we read there in the Shepherd. And a little later: "And that souls which practice angelic life are guided by angels, so we read in the Shepherd." And that souls, instituting an angelic life, are led by angels, so we read in the Shepherd.

Since such was the ancient, such the constant opinion of those who flourished in the Greek Church regarding the book of the Shepherd; since they proclaim its author to be the Hermas named by St. Paul, since they record that the book itself was read publicly in some churches, and was commended by the Fathers for the instruction of catechumens, since they themselves pronounce it either a sacred and divine, or at least a most useful book, and for that reason only in

^A canons it should not be placed, because some have doubted concerning it. Is it credible that Nicephorus or any other alumnus of the Greek Church would have wished to slaughter it as false and fake—an apocryphal book of the worst sort—and to remove it from the entire light of the Church? And yet Daillé takes it for certain that his Nicephorus, having passed over or condemned all these things, followed the opinion of Tertullian and Gelasius.

Tertullian was sometimes Catholic, sometimes heretic, and he held different opinions about the *Pastor* as a Catholic than as a heretic. While he was still a Catholic, he wrote the book *On Prayer*, in which, while he criticizes certain rites used in prayer as affected, forced, and the result of curiosity rather than rational duty, he says: "The same goes for the custom of some who, when their prayer is finished, sit down; I do not see the reason for it, unless, perhaps, that Hermas—the author of the book generally inscribed the *Pastor*—having finished his prayer, had sat down on his bed, and so we should vindicate this also as an observance. Certainly not. For it is simply stated there, 'When I had prayed and had sat down on the bed,' for the order of the narrative, not as a matter of discipline. Otherwise, one would never have to pray except where there is a bed. Or rather, one would be acting against Scripture if one were to sit on a chair or a bench." Indeed, it was a certain rite observed by some Christians of Tertullian’s age to sit down immediately after finishing prayer; this he criticizes as superstitious, irreligious, and akin to a pagan rite. But he thinks the rite itself arose from a place in the *Pastor* that had been misunderstood. This clearly shows how much that book of Hermas was held in esteem at that time, so that a rite could be transferred from it into the discipline of the Church. But he himself, as is his wont, answering acutely, does not reject the authority of the book, but admits it, and interprets its words in such a way as to show that only the order of the narrative should be observed, and that no rule of discipline can be derived from it. Thus, Tertullian was still a Catholic, as St. Hilary observed in his *Commentary on Matthew*, canon 5: "Although Tertullian also wrote a most suitable volume from this (the *De oratione*), yet the subsequent error of the man detracted from the authority of his probable writings." But in the book *De pudicitia*, where he is a pure Montanist and argues against the Catholics as though they were "psychics" (carnal men), and condemns the very things he had previously taught in his book *De pœnitentia*, he speaks differently indeed. "But I would yield to you, if the writing of the *Pastor*, which alone loves adulterers, had deserved to be included in the divine Instrument: if it were not judged as apocryphal and false by every council of the Churches, even of your own, as adulterous itself and therefore a patron of adulterers, from which you also adopt other things." In these bombastic words of Tertullian, now become an enemy of all Catholics and accusing Hermas on behalf of Catholic doctrine, perhaps it should be thought that nothing else is contained than that Hermas’ *Pastor* was not, in the judgment of the Church, a canonical book, but was rather numbered among the apocrypha—that is, the non-canonical; just as Eusebius placed the *Pastor* among the ^B spurious books, which he himself pronounced a most useful book, and the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Apocalypse of John, which he nevertheless recognizes as books acknowledged by most ecclesiastical writers, and of which he wished the apocrypha to be placed among the spurious (Hist. l. III, c. 25). And Tertullian himself also seems to explain himself; for he immediately adds: "But I do for my part drink in his *Pastor*’s scriptures, who cannot be broken (the Gospels/Apostles), that is, the truly canonical ones." And in the same book: "And especially the Epistle of Barnabas, more received by the Churches than the *Pastor* of adulterers." But the Epistle of Barnabas, to Tertullian, is nothing other than that of St. Paul to the Hebrews. And if he understood anything else, and wished for the book of Hermas to be eliminated by all Churches as a false and adulterous writing and an apocryphal work of the worst sort, that is no more true than when he says that it alone loves adulterers; and the testimonies of Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen clearly prove the opposite. Therefore, it is in no way to be believed that the author of the *Stichometry* departed from the received opinion of the Greek Fathers, and, moved by the authority of the heretic Tertullian, wished Hermas’ *Pastor* to be held as an apocryphal work of the worst sort.

As for Gelasius, however, since Daillé claims that the censorship of both Roman and Constantinopolitan authorities—and indeed of both, to the extent of their holding supreme dignity in the Church in their own age—was concordant and of clearly the same kind, it is a truly sweet dream. For who would believe that the author of the *Stichometry* abandoned the Greek Fathers in their judgment of Hermas, so as to agree with Gelasius; or that he put their opinion concerning Ignatius aside, only to contradict Gelasius? For the adversary wishes his Nicephorus to have numbered the Epistles of Ignatius among the apocrypha as fakes, which Gelasius himself, in a writing clearly genuine, ascribed to the martyr himself, as is evident from our testimonies. Nay, who will affirm that Nicephorus followed the opinion of Gelasius in his decree, knowing that very decree was recognized by no one, even among the Latins, until some years after the death of Nicephorus? Nicephorus the Patriarch departed from the living around the year of Christ 828; the first, however, who are found to have made mention of the Gelasian decree, I believe, are Lupus of Ferrières, Hincmar, and Pope Nicholas the First, all at about the same time; but even among those who made mention of the decree in the first place, he wrote after the year 840. Indeed, there is mention of this booklet in the *Chronicon Centulense* published by Dachery, where among other books of the library of that abbey is read: "Of Pope Gelasius, on books to be received and not to be received, book III, c. 3." But this catalog is said to have been finished in the year 834, three years after Nicephorus died. But may the speech of the most learned man not triumph too much on the consensus of two patriarchs; just as we previously removed the mask from one, so let us now remove it from the other. ^D There exists indeed a decree "on canonical, ecclesiastical and apocryphal books," which, by the great conspiracy of the learned men of this age, is attributed to Gelasius I, the Roman pontiff. But the manuscript codices of many centuries vary greatly in ^C assigning the author.

^A The most ancient codex of the Dionysian collection, which Baluze saw through the kindness of Dacherius, attributes this decree to Pope Damasus; and Baronius, at the year of Christ 69, cites it as from the Roman council under Damasus, which the Cresconian collection contains as a part of this decree. From which I observe in passing that those words—"Yet the holy Roman Church is preferred before other churches by several synodal constitutions, but obtained the primacy by the evangelical voice of our Lord and Savior"—have been changed through a slight modification, but a grave error, into these: "Yet the holy Roman Church is preferred before other churches by no synodal constitutions, but obtained the primacy by the evangelical voice of our Lord and Savior." The codex of the Urgell Church, as attested by Baluze, and the very ancient Jurensis, as attested by Chiflet, attribute the same to Hormisdas. Others recognize Gelasius as the author, as does our own, which is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which formerly Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, caused to be brought from the monastery of Bec into the English land, as he himself says. From this learned men conclude that first Gelasius, and then later Hormisdas, issued the same decree. For to Damasus it can in no way be referred. Although Baluze conjectures that Damasus first made a public ruling concerning books of this kind, and then later Gelasius renewed the decree of Damasus and enlarged it with the names of those authors who lived after Damasus, and that the same can also be said of Hormisdas, and that all these things can be elicited from the titles of manuscript books. However, since ancient church history tells us nothing of any such thing regarding Damasus, or Gelasius, or Hormisdas, I think it must rather be concluded from the manuscripts that it is entirely uncertain by which pontiff, or indeed by which author, this decree was composed.

^C Gratian does indeed report that this decree was written by Gelasius in a council of 70 bishops, as Gratian is now edited; for in the most ancient manuscripts that mention of a council is missing. But our manuscript, which is older than Gratian and Ivo, carries this title: *The Decrees of Pope Gelasius concerning books to be received and not to be received.* "Which were written by him with 70 most learned bishops." And this title seems to have been the most ancient, both because it is conceived thus in Burchard, and because it best accords with what we read in Lupus of Ferrières, epistle 128: "Since Gelasius teaches with 70 bishops, most learned men, who were the writers to be received or not." But some manuscript codices have added to this council their own consuls as well, and have handed it down as celebrated under Asterius and Praesidius as consuls. Hence Baronius in his *Annals* reports a council of 70 bishops gathered at Rome in the third year of the Gelasian pontificate, but in the year of the Lord 494; although there exists no monument or trace of it in ecclesiastical history. Binius followed Baronius in his edition of the councils, as did Philippus Labbeus in his *Synopsis of all the Councils*. "494, the first Roman council under Gelasius, in which the sacred and authentic books were distinguished by 70 bishops from the apocryphal, in the consulship of Asterius and Praesidius." ^D Everything will be illustrated by the manuscript codices. And so at length we have a council under Gelasius first, and this decree for the acts of the council.

But that this decree was composed in that year, or under those consuls, is clearly incredible. For not long after, Dionysius Exiguus collected and published the *Collection of the Decrees of the Pontiffs*, and he exhibits to us the decrees of Pope Gelasius, among which that which is disputed does not appear at all. Yet Dionysius notes that those decrees were composed under the same consuls. For we read at the end of those decrees: "Given on the fifth day before the Ides of March, Asterius and Praesidius, most illustrious consuls." Can anyone believe that Dionysius, so studious of the Gelasian name, would have wished to omit from among the decrees issued by those consuls this so celebrated one, in which Gelasius is depicted, distinguishing and separating, as the mouth of the Lord, the clean from the unclean, and "separating the precious from the vile," as Baronius says? Furthermore, the thing itself cries out that that title from the collection of Dionysius was falsely prefixed to this decree. For in it we read: "Likewise the work of the venerable man Sedulius on the Pasch, which he described in heroic verses, we prefer with signal praise." By these words the author of the decree wished to commend the famous and well-known poem to his Romans as catholic. But the Paschal work of Sedulius was not known under those consuls; for it was finally divulged only when Asterius was an ex-consul. Hence it came about that Gennadius did not mention Sedulius: which they wonder at who do not observe that the book *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis* was brought to an end by Gennadius in that same year. That annotation which is annexed to the Paschal poem in the old edition of Aldus Manutius indicates this sufficiently: "This booklet was not edited by Sedulius the author, but by Turcius Rufus Asterius, a most distinguished ex-consul and patrician, who found it among the writings of Sedulius." And the same is confirmed by the epigram of Asterius the ex-consul himself to Macedonius, prefixed to the same work in two ancient manuscripts held by Sirmond and Ussher.

Sume, sacer meritis, veracia dicta poetæ, Qua sine figmenti condita sunt vitio; Quo caret alma fides, quo sancti gratia Christi, Per quam justus ait talia Sedulius. Asteriique tui semper meminisse jubeto, Cujus ope et cura edita sunt populis. Quem quamvis summi celebrent per sæcula fasti, Plus tamen ad meritum est, si viget ore tuo.

Therefore, since Asterius had been consul, and his name was in the *Fasti*, then he first edited the Paschal work of Sedulius; therefore it could not have been so highly celebrated by Gelasius in the year of Christ 494, in the consulship of Asterius and Praesidius. The most acute Ussher saw these things, and, rebuking Binius because he had attributed the Roman synod of 70 bishops to that year without any testimony of the ancients, whether codices or authors, he himself took refuge in the biennium of the Gelasian pontificate still remaining. "Since," he says, "the pontiff Gelasius departed from life after a biennium, within that interval of time it must be assumed that both the Paschal poem of Sedulius, who had recently died,

^A reviewed by Asterius and offered again to the still surviving Macedonius, ^B and that Roman council of seventy bishops held under Gelasius, who gave distinguished testimony to the recently published work, were produced." And certainly this should be thought, if it were certain that this decree had been issued by Gelasius and his synod; but this fits neither the later nor the earlier biennium; for behold, in the following year, or the first of this biennium, under the consul Viator, another synod was gathered at Rome by Gelasius of bishops, not seventy indeed, but fifty-five. The Acts of this synod exist; nor does any trace of this decree appear in them. Finally, in the last year of Gelasius, no synod, as far as we know, was convened; so that it is plainly incredible that this decree was issued by any Gelasian synod. Nicholas of Cusa indeed, in *De concordia catholica*, lib. II, c. 11, cites these things from the Council of Toledo, celebrated in the time of King Sisebut, chap. 17: "The authority of many councils and the synodical decrees of the most holy Roman pontiffs describe the Apocalypse book as being by John the Evangelist, and they decreed it should be placed among the divine books," and from this he gathers that the approval of the books, which is ascribed to Pope Gelasius, was synodical. But if this is not established from elsewhere, it certainly cannot be established from this. For it does not mention Gelasius, and other Roman pontiffs had issued a canon by which the book of the Apocalypse might be received: and this decree could have existed at the time of that council, either under the name of Gelasius or of another pontiff, for that council was celebrated more than 140 years after the death of Gelasius, that is, A.D. 633, not 582, as Cusanus desired. But in that age it is not likely that a canon of the Scriptures existed under the name of Pope Gelasius. For Pope Nicholas, in an epistle to the archbishops and bishops established throughout the Gauls, only mentions the canon of Innocent, and not that of Gelasius, although in the same epistle he mentions the Gelasian decree. "But," he says, "those who are prepared not to obey so much as to resist are about to answer, saying that a chapter of the holy Pope Innocent is found among the canons, by whose authority it is taught by us that both Testaments are to be received, although in the paternal canons themselves none of them is contained as inserted in its entirety." By which words, as it is evident that in the canon of the Council of Laodicea, as it was held among the Latins, the books of Holy Scripture had not been added, or the Apocalypse had not been numbered among them: so also it seems certain that they were not numbered in this decree of Gelasius either. Certainly Ivo of Chartres in his *Decretum* placed the order of the books of Holy Scripture, without the name of Gelasius, in the fourth part, chapter 61, and with other things interposed, chapter 63, finally recites the decree of Gelasius in chapter 64, and the Codex Jurensis, which Chifletius published, places the order of the books of Holy Scripture before the decretal of Hormisdas; but he changes the words of the decree so that it might refer to the order. For thus we read from that codex: "After all those prophetic and evangelical and apostolic Scriptures, which we have previously set forth," read simply: "After the prophetic and evangelical and apostolic Scriptures." Therefore, those words, "these all, and which we have set forth previously," were plainly inserted so that they might join the order with the decree. Which was also done again afterwards: for for those words, "we have regularly received," he substituted, "we have regularly enumerated previously." ^C Therefore, it is not likely that either in a synod, or ever, Pope Gelasius issued this decree. For first, the author of the decree felt badly about Eusebius, whence that statement: "The History of Eusebius Pamphili is apocryphal"; but he himself also shows why he called it apocryphal, namely because in the first book of his narrative he was tepid, that is, he wrote badly about the nature of Christ: therefore he numbered Eusebius among the Arians. But the true Gelasius felt otherwise about Eusebius; he placed him in the number of the catholic Fathers; he uses his testimonies to confirm the doctrine of the Church concerning the two natures of Christ. Therefore, it does not seem that the author of the decree is the true Gelasius. Nor is that reconciliation of Chifletius to be admitted, that he says in the decree only that the books of Ecclesiastical History are not to be rejected in any way; for he himself explains himself likewise, "on account of the knowledge of singular matters, however, which pertain to instruction," to wit, "not to be rejected in any way"; but to the confirmation of catholic doctrine, especially concerning the nature of Christ, since he himself erred in this very matter, and praised Origen so highly, the author of the decree never thought that the authority of Eusebius, taken from any book whatsoever, should be employed. Furthermore, in this decree we read this censure: "The book which is called the Canons of the Apostles is apocryphal," which many things persuade us should by no means be attributed to Pope Gelasius. For Dionysius Exiguus, who so greatly admired Gelasius, after so grave a censure of his, would never have wanted to interpret the Canons of the Apostles and place them before the remaining canons: ^D never in the preface of his work would he have used these words: "In the beginning, therefore, the Canons, which are called apostolic, we translated from the Greek; to which, because very many have not offered easy consent, we did not want your holiness to be ignorant of this very thing; although afterwards certain constitutions of the pontiffs seem to have been taken from the canons themselves." Would he have grazed it with so mild a censure, or would he have said only that "very many have not offered easy consent," that is, in some way doubted their authority, if he had known that a few years before, the Roman pontiff in council had numbered them among those writings which are to be avoided by catholics, and which the catholic and apostolic Roman Church in no way receives? Would he have thought that Stephen, bishop of Salona, should be warned about this doubt, lest, forsooth, he might be ignorant of this very thing, who could not have been ignorant of what was decreed by Gelasius in council? Would he, finally, have noted afterwards that the constitutions of the pontiffs had been taken from those canons, if he had known them to be transfixed and slaughtered by so recent a constitution of the pontiff? Certainly Dionysius

^A by Peter. Gelasius, in his epistle to the bishops constituted throughout Lucania, chap. 21, as it is found in our manuscript: "But those who are proven to have obtained a sacred dignity by the merit of money are to be excluded, not without danger to the one perpetrating such a crime (so the manuscript, not 'perpetrating'), because the damnation of Simon, which the sacred reading testifies to, involves the giver equally with the receiver." Dallæus, in *De pseudapostol.*, responds that Gelasius praises neither the apostolic nor the ecclesiastical canon. He mentions only the damnation of Simon, which he says the sacred reading, namely the Acts of the Apostles, as is known, testifies to. Indeed, Gelasius does not praise the canon—that is, he does not expressly say that the things he commands are contained in any canon. Nor did Dionysius intend this, when he taught that some constitutions of the pontiffs were taken from the canons which are called Apostolic; for no Roman pontiff before the age of Dionysius is found to have named the apostolic canons in his constitutions. But we merely maintain with Dionysius that this constitution of Gelasius was taken from that canon. Nor does the mention of the sacred reading prevent us from asserting this; for he refers us to the Acts of the Apostles only so that we may know what the damnation of Simon was; but that that damnation pertains both to the one promoted by simony and to the one who promoted him, pertains entirely to that apostolic canon: ^B *kathairesthō kai autos kai ho cheirotonēsas* ["let him be deposed, both he and the one who ordained him"], that is, "let the giver be excluded equally with the receiver," as Gelasius expresses it.

*Apostolic Canon 22 is:* "If anyone castrates himself," that is, if anyone has amputated his own virility, "let him not be a cleric, because he is a self-murderer and an enemy of God's creation," etc.; but Gelasius, in the same epistle, chap. 14: "But regarding those who castrate themselves, the paternal canons have evidently established what is to be followed; let it suffice to have indicated their tenor: for they say that those who commit such things, as soon as they are recognized, ought to be secluded from the clerical office. It is fitting that we guard this in every way, because it allows no one to be supported by anything other than those things which the memorable form has decreed." Dallæus responds that these are contained in the Nicene canon, which no one denies, and that paternal canons ought to be referred to the Nicene Fathers rather than the apostles. But we do not refer them to the apostles, but to the Nicene and to the Fathers far more ancient than the Nicene. For Dionysius Exiguus professes that he translated into the Latin language both the canons of the councils and those which are called of the apostles, so that the holy prelates might be armored with paternal regulations. And Cæsarius, after receiving the letter of Pope John II, in which two apostolic canons were contained, subjoins: "Behold, it is most manifest that, according to what the titles of the ancient Fathers transmitted by Pope St. John, and the opinion of the 318 bishops, but also the Gallican canons seem to contain," etc. ^C Moreover, I truly cannot wonder enough by what reason the led Dallæus could oppose himself directly and diametrically to Dionysius. The latter, nurtured in the Greek Church, where the Apostolic Canons were most highly esteemed, and having lived for a long time in the Roman Church, where at that time they were not so accepted, took much pains in turning over the decrees of the pontiffs and observed that some constitutions of the pontiffs—namely, those of the Romans—had been taken from those canons. Dallæus, on the contrary, in *De pseudepigraphis apostolorum*, lib. III, cap. 3: "But I would have thought that the pontiffs did not take their canons from his collection, but that the first collector of them took his canons from the constitutions of the pontiffs." Dionysius undoubtedly looked at the epistles of Innocent, Leo, and Gelasius, by which some things from the 50 apostolic canons are represented; but if Dallæus thinks that either these 50 canons, or some of them, were taken from those epistles or from the decree of any Roman ^D pontiff, he misses the point completely, and quite importunately opposed to Dionysius, who was reporting the truest things, that which is openly false.

Furthermore, there are not a few things that move me to believe that Gelasius himself both admitted the canons which are called apostolic and used them in his decretal epistles. The thirtieth among them is this: "If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon obtained this dignity by money, let both him and his ordainer be deposed, and let him be excluded from communion in every way, just as Simon Magus was by..."

Moreover, these and other things which Gelasius has are so contained in the Nicene canons that the same Nicene canons acknowledge that the same precepts were in the prior canons, which we know were among the canons, which

^A are said to have been numbered among those of the apostles. The first canon of the Nicene Council indeed contains the same things that we have described from Gelasius; but it also shows that the canon had been established in the Church before: *If any have been castrated by barbarians or masters, [and] are found otherwise worthy, the canon admits such into the clergy.* Which is nothing else than that which the 21st apostolic canon commands: *If a man has been made a eunuch through the machinations of men, or if his virile parts were amputated during persecution, or if he was born so, and he is worthy, let him be made a bishop.* Dallaeus admits in the 4th chapter of the aforementioned book: "That there was already some rule in the Church before the times of the Nicene synod, according to which these things were administered, but he denies that this rule was so explicitly established by the apostles themselves or committed to writing by Clement, and brought into that collection which Turrianus defends." I myself also deny that it was established by the apostles or written by Clement; I accept what he concedes, that it existed before the Nicene synod, and I assert that it was brought into that collection of canons which were said to be of the apostles. Dallaeus also admits that the reason for the others, which Turrianus gathers from the ^B Nicene synod, is almost the same. Thus, therefore, when he cited that which is contained in canons 15, 16, 9, and 10 of the Nicene council, and it is referred there by the same men to the old or ecclesiastical canons, he must be entirely thought to have praised by the same act the book of canons which were called apostolic, because those old canons were contained in that book. Furthermore, Gelasius could not have been ignorant of what Innocent and Leo, his predecessors, had written, who had transferred very many of those canons into their own decrees. And these old canons, and those called ecclesiastical in the councils, were indeed explicitly called "apostolic" by others long before Gelasius. As in the Ephesian council, Act I, the bishop of Antioch is noted because *against ecclesiastical laws and the canons of the holy apostles*, he attempted to draw to himself the ordinations of the province of Cyprus: which were indeed canons 34 and 55 of that book which Gelasius had. When Eusebius of Caesarea had refused the bishopric of Antioch, he was praised by Emperor Constantine in this manner: *Your prudence knows how to keep both the commandments of God, and the apostolic canon, and the law of the Church:* as he himself recounts in the Life of Constantine, book III, ch. 61. But this canon is the fourteenth among those which were called apostolic. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, before the Nicene council, when he had excommunicated Arius and his associates, complains severely in a letter sent to Alexander, bishop of Constantinople, that they were being received into the Church by some, *whereas neither does the apostolic canon permit this,* as Theodoret recounts in *Hist. eccl.*, l. 1, c. 3.

But in the codex of Gelasius this was number 15. Since, therefore, Dallaeus wishes for there to have existed in the Gelasian age only fifty canons under the name of the apostles, when so many of them were explicitly praised by the Fathers, by councils, and by Roman pontiffs, and some were even recognized and approved by Gelasius himself, and when the rest are of the same kind and are represented in the same codex with these thus received and approved, there can be no reason conceived why he should have called the Book which is called the *Canons of the Apostles* apocryphal, so that he would number it among those which were written by heretics or schismatics, or indicate that it was in no way accepted by the Catholic and apostolic Roman Church, and declare it to be avoided by Catholics. ^C These things, I believe, seemed so contrary to the mind of Gelasius that some have judged these very words ought to be erased from the decree and utterly removed. For they do not appear in our manuscript written nearly six hundred years ago, and Hincmar, who is two hundred years older, undoubtedly did not find them in his codex. For he himself says in *Opusc.*, c. 24: "But even the blessed Gelasius, in the catalogue of what books are to be received by the Church, was entirely silent about these apostolic canons, but neither did he place them among the apocrypha." Therefore, Hincmar did not read those words: *The book which is called the Canons of the Apostles is apocryphal*, in the decree of Gelasius. But here Dallaeus shows himself a critic; he pronounces those last words to be corrupt, and, with the word restored, he suggests they should be corrected from *misit* ("sent"), which is read in the common codices, to *omisit* ("omitted"), so that Hincmar would have written: "But he did not even omit them among the apocrypha." And the things which follow clearly reject this inconvenient correction. Wherefore, in the reading of those things, one must follow the caution forewarned by the same St. Gelasius: *"When these," he says, "come into the hands of Catholics, let the sentence of the blessed Apostle Paul go before, which says: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. v, 21).* This means, since Gelasius numbered this book of canons neither among those which were received by the Church, nor among the apocrypha, and yet it was commonly read; it follows finally that it is to be numbered among those which he neither received nor fully rejected, such as the *Acts of Silvester*, the scripture *On the finding of the Lord's Cross*, and *On the finding of the head of Blessed John the Baptist*, about which he recounts the rule observed by Hincmar. ^D Indeed, Gratian does not seem to have read these in the decree of Gelasius; for he makes no mention of Gelasius among those who numbered the *Canons of the Apostles* among the apocrypha, *dist.* 16. But that they are now held there in *dist.* 15 is nothing; for all things regarding apocryphal books were inserted into Gratian's codex later, nor do they pertain to the place where they are read, which deals with councils, as the title itself indicates; and the Glossa, encompassing the summary of the chapter, has only this: "For Gelasius says that he wants the aforementioned four councils to be venerated, and whatever others were instituted by the holy Fathers, and he shows which works of the holy Fathers are received in the Church." Further, therefore...

Gratianus did not proceed. In very many manuscripts of the decree of Gratian, the remaining parts do not appear. Furthermore, in two old manuscripts of the Panormia of Ivo, which belong to the public library of our academy, the same words are missing. Nor is this a wonder, since that final part of the Gelasian decree, as much in the Panormia as in the decree of Burchard, enjoys this title: "On the knowledge of apocryphal books, which have been condemned by the holy Fathers to eternal damnation." For who at that time could bear the apostolic canons being included under such a title in a decree, if one simultaneously reflected that the Roman Church was governed by those same canons? Since therefore the decrees of some pontiffs before Gelasius, and of Gelasius himself, were taken from the apostolic canons, and since a little after the death of Gelasius those canons were received by the whole Roman Church, that decree by which these canons are condemned to eternal damnation cannot be attributed to Pope Gelasius.

Moreover, these words show the author of the decree to be much later than Gelasius: "But also if there are any councils established heretofore by the holy Fathers, we have decreed that after their authority the four are to be guarded and received." He speaks first of the four general councils, then regarding the rest celebrated after them, and attributes a lesser authority to them; which must be understood entirely regarding the councils that seemed to be general: otherwise he would have said nothing. But in the age of Gelasius, no council was celebrated after the Council of Chalcedon which could be placed in the number of general ones. ^B The author of this decree, therefore, wrote entirely after the fifth council, or the second Council of Constantinople. For the Latins spoke doubtfully of that for a long time, nor did they wish for it to have equal authority with the four. Gregory says: "However, concerning that synod which was afterwards held at Constantinople, which by many is called the fifth, I wish you to know." By many, therefore, in the age of Gregory, it was not called the fifth by all, and when the same Gregory had spoken of the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, he immediately added this concerning the fifth: "For the synod which was held after it generally is received by us for this reason, because the following conforms to the tenor of that same synod in all things." Isidore, ^C book vi of the Etymologies, ch. 16: "These are the four principal synods, preaching the doctrine of the faith most fully. But also if there are any councils which the holy Fathers, full of the Spirit of God, have sanctioned after the authority of those four, they remain established with every force." Who does not see these things being written with almost the same mind with which those things were written in the Gelasian decree? Nor therefore is it to be thought that these or those were written before the fifth synod. Cassiodorus, who wrote after Gelasius, before or around the time of the fifth synod, named only four, and added nothing at all concerning later ones.

Finally, we read in the decree: "Item: the writing on the Finding of the Lord’s Cross, and another writing on the finding of the head of blessed John the Baptist are indeed recent accounts, and some Catholics read them." ^A That such scriptures or books did not exist in the age of Gelasius, it does not appear. There is indeed a booklet, falsely ascribed among the Works of St. Cyprian, "On the revelation of the head of John the Baptist," and if one is to believe Baronius in the Annotations to the Martyrology, on the fourth of the Kalends of September, the Gelasian censure declares of what faith that treatise is, which so left those things which are there to the judgment of the reader, so that he might examine what is true or false before he approves it. But the Gelasian censure could not declare of what faith that treatise is; for the treatise itself was written after Marcellinus the Count, whose Chronicon it cites: but the Chronicon of Marcellinus was written long after the death of Gelasius. It is indeed reported that Dionysius Exiguus translated that same revelation from the Greek account of Marcellus the archimandrite into the Latin language, that the Romans might read it; but that Dionysius also wrote after the death of Gelasius.

The decree teaches that the evangelist Mark completed a glorious martyrdom; but neither Eusebius nor Jerome handed this down before Gelasius, nor did Isidore of Seville after him: so that the Life of St. Mark, in which his martyrdom is described, seems to have been written after the times of Isidore and before those of Bede and the author of the decree.

Finally, which concerns the present business most of all, the author, treating of Rufinus, says: "We hold those things which we know the blessed Jerome to hold: and not only concerning Rufinus, but also concerning all those whom the aforementioned man rebuked with zeal for God and the religion of the faith." Which words agree neither with the council nor with the Roman pontiff; and the matter stands entirely otherwise. For he disagrees with no one more than with Jerome. Jerome roundly relegated to the apocrypha all the books of the Old Testament which were not held in the Hebrew canon; the Church receives and honors the same in the decree equally with the canonical, as holy and catholic. Jerome wishes the books which he calls apocryphal to be read in the Church, ep. 145: "Just as the Church reads indeed the books of Judith and Tobit, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures: so also let it read these two volumes (the Panaretos of the son of Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon) for the edification of the people, not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas." In the decree, all things which are called apocryphal are condemned as things to be shunned by Catholics and to be eliminated by the Church. In this sense, the works of Tertullian, Novatus, Arnobius, and Apollinaris are numbered among the apocrypha. Jerome is clearly otherwise, ep. 76: "I read Origen for the sake of his erudition sometimes in the same way as Tertullian, Novatus, Arnobius, Apollinaris, and some ecclesiastical writers, Greeks as well as Latins, so that we may gather their good points and avoid the contrary, according to the Apostle saying: Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." Which words of the Apostle are dragged to a clearly different class in the decree, as was observed before. In a very bad sense we read in the decree: "The book which is called of the Shepherd, is apocryphal; which among certain of Greece...

^A actually testified to be read in the churches, and indeed Jerome pronounced it a useful book." The author of the decree calls the "Opuscula of Clement of Alexandria" apocryphal. Jerome in his *Catalogue* says: "His distinguished volumes are circulated, full of learning and eloquence, as much from the divine Scriptures as [from] the instrument of secular literature." Thus the scope of the decree, and its peculiar argument, differ entirely from the doctrine of Jerome. "The book of Proverbs," he says, "which was written by heretics, and titled with the name of St. Sixtus, is apocryphal," according to him whom they wish to be Gelasius. But Jerome taught that this book was not written by heretics, but by the Pythagorean philosopher (Epist. 66): "He titled the book of Sixtus the Pythagorean, a man without Christ and a pagan, with the unchanged name of Xystus, martyr and bishop of the Roman Church."

Since, therefore, the Stichometry is not to be attributed to the patriarch of Constantinople, nor does the Decree seem to be attributable to the Roman one, that authority of the censure is not what Daillé wanted: and since there is such great discrepancy between the Stichometry and the Decree in marking the apocrypha, there is not that concord of censure which the very learned man proposes: since, finally, in the Stichometry itself those books are merely called apocryphal books of the New Testament, Hammond speaks quite appositely, if it is granted that the epistles of Ignatius are marked in the Index, and seems to have replied to Salmasius: "Nothing has been taken away or diminished from the authority attributed by us to these epistles, because they are found placed thus in the number of the apocrypha." Thus, I say, that is in the Index of books which are received into the canon, and which are removed from the canon. For that which is thus replaced in the number of apocrypha is opposed only to canonical books. As St. Augustine [says] in *De Civitate Dei*, l. xv, c. 23: "Many [things] are brought forward by heretics under the names of other prophets, and more recent ones under the names of the apostles, all of which, under the names of apocrypha, have been removed by diligent examination from the authority of the canonical ones." The name of "apocryphal," therefore, merely removed some writing from the authority of the canonical.

"But much better and more modestly, and more wisely, the excellent and most learned Ussher defends his Ignatian [epistles] ^B against this bolt of Nicephorus," says Daillé. We have shown that Hammond defended them not badly; if Ussher [defended them] much better, he certainly defended them in the best way. For, the Archbishop taught that it is no wonder if the epistles of Ignatius, changed from their pristine form by the addition of spurious ones and by interpolations, were placed in the number of the apocrypha: just as the book of Esther, although received by the Hebrews, yet because of additions, was not named among the sacred books by Melito of Sardis and Gregory Nazianzen, and was even explicitly rejected by Athanasius among the spurious. Yet if I know Daillé well, it is not for nothing that he so greatly approves of the Archbishop's defense. For he does not praise without deceit what he rejects without reason. He praises, so as to excuse his own; he rejects, so that his argument may retain its force. O, remarkable defense of Ussher, which absolves the adversary, yields to the argument! Who praises a great man in this way, in the same way he vituperates?

Let us see, therefore, first what it is ^C for which he extols this defense with such praise; namely, that from this it appears that those who condemned the Ignatian [epistles] before a purer edition was procured were accused undeservedly. But our people did not accuse those who rejected as spurious the epistles not mentioned by Eusebius, or who pronounced the rest to be interpolated; but only those who contended that those epistles which are interpolated were forged before they were interpolated; or who rejected the interpolated ones entirely, as if nothing could be proven from them. But that Daillé might teach from Ussher that the epistles of Ignatius had completely lost all that authority which they once had, and were of no authority before Nicephorus; I observe that the word "all" was not used by the Archbishop, but added by Daillé; as also that [phrase], "of no authority," which he draws from it in equal measure. I understand Ussher differently; and let those who interpret it so enjoy the excuse they desire, but in the meantime let them know that the opinion by which they wish to be excused is most openly false.

This defense, however, invented by Ussher most ingeniously and most appositely to the cause he is pleading, the very learned man rejects, because it does not seem sufficiently certain. And indeed it is not sufficiently certain that any author of the Stichometry numbered the epistles of Ignatius among the apocrypha, as Salmasius wanted; [and it is] much less certain ^D that he placed them among the worst-rated apocrypha, as Daillé wants; but if anyone grants these things, it is surely certain enough that they suffered such disgrace on account of the suppositions of others and their own interpolations. For it is certain that the epistles seen by Eusebius flourished for many centuries with the highest authority: it is certain that before the ninth century they had been both defiled with interpolations and increased with additions; it is certain that other books were accustomed to be rejected first whole, then corrupted, among the apocrypha: if therefore these epistles were proposed in that ninth century as to be avoided by all Catholics, which heretofore had been received by all, both Catholics and heretics, who does not see that this could not have been done for any other cause than for the additions and corruptions?

These things, however, after he had praised them so much, Daillé denies, first, because there is none of those books which Nicephorus condemns about which something similar can be said. If this were true, it would, however, effect nothing, because the rationale of all apocrypha is not the same, as we showed before: but it is openly false. For behold, in the Stichometry we read *Περίοδος Πέτρου, στίχων βψ'*. The Itinerary of Peter, verses 2,700. The ancients believed this Itinerary to have been written by Clement of Rome, whence first it was placed among the *ἀντιλεγόμενα*, then among the apocrypha. They themselves gave the reason, that the doctrine of that book differed much in the end from that which has been handed down by Clement. Not that they believed Clement to have written that book…

but that they thought it had been interpolated and therefore corrupted by the heretics. Thus Epiphanius on the Ebionites: "They use also other books, namely the so-called Circuits of Peter written by Clement, having falsified the contents, though they have left a few true things in them." There are other books they use, just as the Circuits of Peter written by Clement, in which book, leaving a few true things, they have surreptitiously introduced the rest. Therefore, what is asserted, that there is none of these books which the author of the Stichometria condemns, of which something similar could be said, is not consistent with the truth.

Secondly, he rejects Ussher's defense, because he supposes Nicephorus would have testified to the same thing if he had condemned the Ignatian epistles, not in themselves properly, but only on account of additions and interpolations, and that he wished to diligently purge his own judgment regarding a book once approved; for the Trullan Fathers did the same thing with the Apostolic Constitutions. I cannot wonder enough at this most unfair demand of a most learned man, that, namely, the author of the Stichometria should express his reason and diligently purge himself if he relegated the Ignatian [epistles] among the apocrypha for that reason, as Ussher wished. For if he wished to condemn so noble a writing, and one received by all, why could he not have rejected it for this reason no less than any other reason that he might appear to have had? It is most certain that the epistles of Ignatius for some centuries before the ninth, when the censor is said to have written, were considered most acceptable both by all Catholics and even by heretics, and were numbered in the first place among Catholic writings. If, therefore, he had wished to condemn these, and at the same time to show due reverence to his elders, and to diligently purge himself, he was the more bound to give the reason for his judgment, if he judged them to be rejected as altogether supposititious and fictions rather than to be spurned as interpolated and augmented; for few then and modern [authors] considered them interpolated and spurious, but those which we think are genuine, very many and the most ancient had received. But in truth, that anyone who has compiled only an Index or ^A enumeration, as the Greeks say, of canonical and apocryphal books, should dispute about the nature of the books he only lists, or give a reason for any particular writing as to why it was put in that place, is hitherto clearly unheard of. The reason is therefore clearly different for the canon of the Trullan council and for the Index, or Stichometria. So that, if the Fathers of that council wished to purge themselves, the same is not to be expected from the author of this Index. But that is also not true which Dallæus asserts, that the Trullan Fathers gave a reason for the rejection of the Constitutions, so that they might purge their judgment; for the matter stood otherwise entirely, which Dallæus could not be ignorant of. That council received the 85 apostolic canons as if dictated by the apostles themselves: they saw in the last of those canons that the eight books of the Constitutions were confirmed (for they are numbered among the

venerable and holy books

But be that as it may, neither the testaments of the author of the Stichometria nor the interpreter Anastasius lessen the authority of the epistles of St. Ignatius even in the slightest. For I deny that his epistles are named, or hinted at, or in any way contained in this Index. I hear the name of Ignatius, I do not read the epistles: I see in the Greeks *Ignatiou*, in the Latins *Ignatii*, and nothing more: Salmasius and Dallæus want everything of Ignatius to be implied. That, indeed, seems to me ^C to be removed from all reason. The author recounts the canonical, doubtful, and apocryphal books of the New Testament: I contend that the epistles written by St. Ignatius, at the approach of his martyrdom, or supposed to have been written by one hastening to martyrdom, could not rightly be numbered among the canonical, nor doubtful, nor apocryphal scriptures. We know from what kind of men the writings that were received into the sacred canon proceeded, namely, either from the apostles, St. Matthew, St. John, St. Paul, St. Peter, and perhaps St. James and St. Jude, or from the disciples and companions of the apostles, inspired by the same spirit, St. Mark and St. Luke. Regarding those which were written under the name of the apostles, at one time they were doubtful, and now they were rejecting them openly and simply. Regarding those which were issued by the disciples or companions of the apostles, who were deceased while the apostles were alive, it was at first thought, and they doubted whether they, having proceeded from the same spirit, should be received into the same canon with those of St. Luke and St. Mark, as was at first questioned concerning Clement, Barnabas, and Hermas. Afterwards, also, some things were said to have been dictated by the apostles themselves, and written by their disciples at the command of the apostles, and perhaps divulged after their death, concerning which there was doubt again in the Church; and from them the *antilegomena* and the *apocrypha* of the Index were composed. Those scriptures, therefore, which when they first appeared were accepted as parts of Holy Scripture, but were later denied by some, remained among the ^D *antilegomena*.

But those things which never aspired to the canon of Holy Scripture, which as soon as they were written, and for a long time thereafter, were received not as canonical but only as catholic, could not in the following centuries be numbered among either the *antilegomena* or the apocrypha. Since, therefore, the epistles of St. Ignatius were poured forth suddenly on the occasion of his martyrdom and during his journey after the death of all the apostles, and since they were accepted by Christians only as the writings of a holy man and martyr, and were never, so far as we know, read in the Church, I do not know how it could have entered anyone’s mind to count them among the number of the New Testament apocrypha.

What, then, you ask, is the name of Ignatius doing in the *Indiculus*? The answer is easy and plain. The name of Ignatius is found not only in this one, but also in another *Indiculus*; and reason surely suggests that he is named in both for the same cause. That manuscript *Indiculus* exists among the Barocci books in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, of which Ussher gave notice, and which we ourselves have seen. In it, among many apocrypha, are numbered the *Didachai* of the Apostles, the *Didascalia* of Clement, and the *Didascalia* of Ignatius. But just as the *Didascalia* or *Didache* of Clement is one thing, and his epistle is another, so it is with Ignatius. Thus I believe our *Stichometry* should be supplemented and understood in the same way: namely, [*Didache*] of the Apostles, [*Didache*] of Clement, [*Didache*] of Ignatius, so that the word *Didache* is understood as *apo koinou*, which is very common among all writers. And thus that "de" added to Clement in the Greek, and omitted by Anastasius, would be nothing other than some abbreviation of the word *didache* that was misunderstood and poorly transcribed by the scribe, or a number of the chapters contained in that *Didascalia*. As the *Didascalia* of the Copts, which they claim was made by the twelve apostles with St. Paul and James, Bishop of Jerusalem, contained 38 chapters, and was referred to by the solemn abbreviation *Dask*, as is evident from the Barocci manuscript code. For when in the other *Indiculus* we see the *Didaskalia* of Ignatius relegated to the apocrypha, what else is meant to be understood under the name of Ignatius in our own (for something must by all means be understood) than *didache*? And since the *Didaskalia* of Clement precedes that of Ignatius in that other *Indiculus*, why should not the *Didache* of Clement be correctly understood here as well, especially since the *Didache* of the Apostles precedes it in this one, just as in the other? So great is the conspiracy of both *Indices* in strengthening this interpretation. ^A

Indeed, the thing itself teaches exactly the same. For it must be observed that many *didachai* or *didascaliai* existed long ago, thought to have proceeded from the apostles, and written either by them or at least dictated to apostolic men and written out and commended to the Church under the name of the apostles. For since the terms *didache* and *didascalia* occurred most frequently in the New Testament—such as *didache* of the Lord, *didache* of the apostles, *didascalia* of the Savior, *didascalia* of Paul—men who were heretical or simply idle, and not content with the sacred oracles, invented such *didachai* and *didascaliai*. That which was attributed to no specific apostolic man was called the *Didache* or *Didascalia* of the Apostles; that which was thought to have been written by some disciple of the apostles bore his name, such as the *Didascalia* of Clement, or *through Clement*, which seems to be the most ancient of all of this genre. And in the form of this one, many others were fashioned, devised, and published in various centuries; such as the *Didascalia* of Ignatius, of which we have spoken, and the *Didascalia* through Hippolytus, ^B at one time observed by someone, which we testify lies hidden in a manuscript codex of the Oxford library. For there were not lacking those who declared Hippolytus himself to be known to the apostles. Indeed, I do not doubt that such a *didache* was also attributed to St. Polycarp. Such were those anciently published *didachai* and *diataxeis*, purportedly derived from the apostles. For, as St. Chrysostom rightly says, of matters, some require *didascalia* (teaching), others *epitage* (command); some things are taught, others are mandated. From the former emerged the *didascaliai*, from the latter the *constitutions* or *diataxeis*; as St. Paul says, I Cor. VII, 17: "And so I ordain in all the churches," and XI, 34: "And the rest I shall set in order (*diataxomai*) when I come."

That the truth of this our observation may be more fully known, I do not doubt that the eight books of the Apostolic Constitutions which we now possess were constructed and patched together from these various *didascaliai* and constitutions. Learned men admit that two titles of this work are found, one of which is *Diataxeis*, the other *Catholic Didascalia*. Mention is made of both often in the books themselves, and the ancient testimony of Epiphanius supports the 80th heresy: "And regarding the beard in the *Diataxeis* of the Apostles, the divine word and the *didascalia* speaks." And indeed, the divine speech and doctrine speaks of the beard in the Apostolic Constitutions. Thus he, citing words which are now found in Book 1, chapter 3, at the beginning of which book it is said: "Hear the holy *didascalia*." But that *catholic didascalia* seems to denote a collection of all the *didascaliai*. Now these *didascaliai*, written at different times and in different parts of the Church where apostolic traditions were distinct, gave the compiler occasion to change and interpolate many things so that all might better harmonize with his own age: as is evident chiefly from those things which Epiphanius cited, which sometimes differ from our own. As in the most ancient *diataxis* which existed in the age of Epiphanius, regarding the celebration of Easter, it was decreed: [C ] "You do not calculate, but celebrate whenever your brothers who are from the circumcision [do so]; celebrate together with them. You do not use calculations, but celebrate at the time your brothers who have come forth from the circumcision do; perform the Passover together with them." It seems, therefore, that this *diataxis* was made before the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by Hadrian. But after this *diataxis*, there appeared elsewhere a canon under the name of the apostles which is now held as the seventh: "If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon [celebrates] the holy day of Easter ^D

before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed from his rank." Since these things were later confirmed by the Nicene Council, the compiler of those constitutions which we now possess changed the old diataxis and accommodated it to his own times, Book V, chapter 16: "It is necessary therefore, brethren, for you who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, to keep the days of Easter accurately and with all diligence after the equinoctial turn." It is necessary, therefore, for you, brethren, as those redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, to celebrate the days of Easter accurately and with all diligence after the equinox. To these, so many things were added against the Jews that it appears these things were changed after the times of Epiphanius, and that the whole of that chapter was conceived in an entirely different manner. ^B Whence I conjecture that the eight books of the Constitutions were made after the age of Epiphanius, from ancient didascaliae and from diataxeis that had been changed and interpolated; for he [Epiphanius] does not mention the number of the books. In the final canon, indeed, of those which are called the apostles', the eight books of the Constitutions are explicitly named; but that this canon was conceived before the sixth century, I opine, does not appear. In the seventh century, indeed, before the Trullan Council, Maximus notes that Dionysius was made bishop at Athens, "according to what is carried in the seventh book of the apostolic diataxiai," which we now read as Book VII, chapter 48. The author of the *Imperfect Work on Matthew*, homily 53, cites some things from the eighth book of the Apostolical Canons, which are now found in Book VIII, chapter 2 of the Constitutions. And Ussher indeed makes this author no less ancient than Epiphanius was. But without any controversy, he was much younger. Epiphanius wrote the *Panarion* before the reign of Theodosius; Theodosius reigned for sixteen years; the author of the *Imperfect Work* wrote long after Theodosius, as is clear even from these words in homily 49: "If, however, one understands the hearsay of wars, famines, and tumults, and pestilences to be all these spiritual evils which have taken place from the time of Constantine simultaneously with Theodosius up to the present." Between the times, therefore, of Epiphanius and the author of the *Imperfect Work*, I believe that the Apostolic Constitutions, conflated from various didascaliae and lesser diataxibus, grew into a volume of eight books, which was eagerly seized upon by that heretic who often brings forward the spurious writings of Clement and others. ^D Therefore, according to our judgment, these books existed anciently as if written or dictated by the apostles: the *Didascalia of the Apostles*, the *Diataxeis of the Apostles*, the *Didascalia of Clement*, the *Didascalia of Ignatius*, the *Didascalia of Hippolytus*, and the *Didascalia of Polycarp*. From all these, and perhaps others still unknown, the *Diataxiai*, or *Catholic Didascalia*, were conflated. And indeed there are certain chapters in the books of the Constitutions which seem to be nothing other than connections made for the sake of method, by which one didascalia might be joined to another. Such as the third chapter of the eighth book, as we deduce from the Oxford manuscript, in which are represented both the *Didascalia of Hippolytus* and the *Diataxeis of the Apostles*, of which the eighth book chiefly consists.

Certainly, among those didascaliae which the compiler of the eight books usurped, that there was a *Didascalia of Ignatius*, there are very many things which make me believe this most firmly. Those who first fabricated these didascaliae without doubt held before their eyes the writings of those to whom they wished their inventions to be attributed, so that they might express them themselves as much as they could; whence I do not doubt that the *Didascalia of Clement* was so composed that it might relate mostly to his epistles. It is therefore credible that the compiler took from this *Didascalia of Clement* those things which it has regarding the phoenix and the exaggerated Sibylline poems. From the same, if I am not mistaken, he described the prooemium of the entire work; for I do not think that was done by the latest collector; whom I consider to be younger than Epiphanius, who cites that opinion from the prooemium: "The Catholic Church is a plantation of God, and His elect vineyard," *Ecclesia catholica arbor a Deo sata, et vinea ejus electa*. I ascribe those "monkey-tricks" of Clement, *enesternismenoi ton phobon autou*, to this, that he might allude to those words in his Epistle to the Corinthians not sufficiently worn out, *esternismenoi ete tois splangchnois*. Now, however, there is such great similarity and conspiracy of the epistles of Ignatius, especially the interpolated ones, with the Constitutions, that not only Turrianus and Bovius, to prove the antiquity of the Constitutions, but also Ussher noted it, to prove that he was the same interpolator of Clement and Ignatius. And the opinion of Turrianus and Bovius was deservedly exploded. But Ussher does not seem to have proved what he intended, although he nearly touched the truth. For that great consensus of his suggests to me rather that the *Didascalia of Ignatius* had been interspersed in the Constitutions, and that this *Didascalia* had been conformed to the interpolated epistles of Ignatius, or rather that the interpolator of Ignatius had first woven his own shreds from the *Didascalia of Ignatius* into the epistles. Which, as other things persuade, so also does that thing added in the epistle to the Trallians by the interpolator: "Veneramini autem et episcopum vestrum sicut Christum, ut vobis beati apostoli constiterunt [Venerate your bishop as Christ, as the blessed apostles appointed for you]." For since nothing was said there in the genuine epistle of Ignatius about the veneration to be shown to the bishop, but about the flight from heretics according to the apostolic precepts or "diatagmata of the apostles," the interpolator, having seized this occasion, fled to those things which existed in the Constitutions, undoubtedly taken from the *Didascalia of Ignatius*. Thus, in that prolix interpolation, by which he gives the same precepts to widows, and proposes examples which occur in the Constitutions, Book III, chapters 6 and 7, he immediately subjoins: "Taûta ouch hōs apostolos diatassomai [These things I do not ordain as an apostle]," because all knew that these things had been enjoined in the *Didascalia* under the name of the apostles.

I conclude, therefore, that the name of Ignatius placed ^A among the apocryphal books of the New Testament in the *Stichometria* objected to us does not denote the Epistles of Ignatius—which are nowhere found among apocrypha, which were written after the death of all the apostles, and which were composed by him while on his journey, often deliberately stripping away all apostolic authority; but rather, it refers to the *Didache* falsely attributed to the same Ignatius, as if dictated by him who was ordained bishop of Antioch by the apostles, which is found in another list among the apocrypha of the New Testament. Hence it is clear that no witness has yet been found who could say that the Epistles of Ignatius were spurious, or who seemed to doubt even their antiquity, truth, or authority.

CHAPTER V.

The testimony of St. Polycarp is defended against exceptions.

When the witnesses brought forward by the adversary do not appear to be such as he wished, and do not at all testify to that which is contrary to our opinion; let us see if anything of the sort can be said against our witnesses, or, specifically, whether they are not who we say they are, or if they do not truly testify to that which we intend.

The primary testimony for the Ignatian position is that of St. Polycarp, which our opponents ^B think to be most eloquent; but a very learned man thinks far otherwise; and he wishes two things to be lacking in this testimony: both faith and force. He detracts from its faith, first, because the authority of Polycarp's epistle is not accepted by all.

Although this response, even if it were true, would not satisfy in the least (since it is certain that one must accord the fullest faith to some books whose authority has not always been accepted by all, as is evident from several epistles of the New Testament), I nevertheless assert that it is false and alien to any appearance of truth. For the authority of this Epistle of St. Polycarp to the Philippians was accepted by all, such that the writing of an apostolic man was judged ecclesial and orthodox; nor was it ever doubted by anyone whether it was truly such. For, first, Irenaeus, who saw Polycarp himself, offers a most luminous testimony to this epistle, *Adversus Haereses*, book III: "There is an epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians written most competently, from which and from the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth, those who wish and take care ^C of their own salvation can learn." So also Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, book IV, ch. 14, the ancient interpreter of Irenaeus: "But there is also an epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians written most perfectly, from which those who wish, and take care of their own salvation, can learn [the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth]." These are the words of Irenaeus, arguing from the constant tradition of the congregations founded by the apostles; and he argues correctly indeed, and appositely, as Dallaeus himself testifies in the second chapter on the Areopagitica. But Irenaeus did not argue correctly or appositely if this epistle was not written by Polycarp, or if it were not accepted by all at that time. Regarding the same epistle, Eusebius, who was born within a hundred years after the death of Polycarp, *Hist. eccl.*, book IV, ch. 14, after producing this testimony of Irenaeus, says: "But Polycarp, in the aforementioned epistle to the Philippians which is carried about to this day, uses certain testimonies from the first epistle of Peter." Polycarp, namely, in the aforementioned epistle to the Philippians, which is still circulated today ^B, uses certain testimonies taken from the first epistle of Peter. And indeed, many testimonies taken from the first epistle, but none from the second, are found in this epistle; which, when combined with those points pertaining to Ignatius that Eusebius transcribed in so many words, do not allow us to doubt that we have the same epistle of Polycarp that Eusebius had. The ancients attributed much to Irenaeus, much to Eusebius; nor did they ever doubt the testimonies cited by any of these writers. And if we do not wish to claim this as their authority, that this epistle should be accepted by all; we cannot deny that it extorted public reading in the Asiatic churches. For Jerome in his *Catalogue* has this to say about Polycarp: "He wrote a very useful epistle to the Philippians, which is read in the assembly of Asia to this day." Could it happen that the epistle of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John, and ordained bishop by him, and was the prince of all Asia, placed in such light, read in the assembly of that same Asia, would not be accepted by all? Certainly Jerome and Theodoret number Polycarp among the oldest and most famous writers of the Church. And among his works, this epistle has always been numbered as the chief one.

Against this authority of the Polycarpian epistle, accepted by all, and certainly by no one, as far as we know, called into doubt, a very learned man urges the writers—and indeed, as he says, the most serious ones—who judged it to be apocryphal. Those writers are called Patriarch Nicephorus and Anastasius ^D the Librarian, neither of whom wrote before the ninth century. But first, we have already shown that that Nicephorus is alleged in vain and without any foundation as the author of the *Stichometria*, and that Anastasius is merely the interpreter of that *Stichometria*. Second, if it were conceded that the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians must be understood in that *Stichometria*, not even that would diminish its authority at all; for it is only numbered among the apocrypha of the New Testament—that is, it is removed from the canon of the Holy Scriptures; but since it was read in the Churches, it is distinguished from the canonical books and numbered only among the ecclesiastical ones. Third, this epistle is neither named nor to be understood in the *Stichometria*.

^A If it is to be understood as included there, we judge it a monstrosity to count the same work among apocrypha of the worst sort. We request the judgment of the interpreter of the *Stichometria*: to interpret it in such a way that it speaks against the consensus of all the centuries, we declare to be most iniquitous. And we prefer the clearest and most certain opinion—not of Hammond, but of the Asian Church and of all the Christians whom we know to have said anything about the epistle—to the highly uncertain and fabricated exposition of Nicephorus.

This is the first skirmish. But secondly, the most learned man, when he did not hope that he could reject the entire epistle, divided it into two parts with a plan that is entirely novel and hitherto unheard of; he omits the superior parts of the epistle, and if anyone wishes to ascribe these to St. Polycarp, he does not resist; indeed, he concedes that, with the posterior parts excepted, nothing occurs in the epistle that ought to offend anyone or be considered unworthy of Polycarp. He censures the final little part, in which the testimony produced by Eusebius exists. He therefore wishes it to be thought that this was rashly and contrary to the mind of the author stitched on by a foreign hand. But in the time of Eusebius, that final part also most certainly existed; it was copied from the epistle of Polycarp by Eusebius. Eusebius could neither be deceived nor deceive; for the whole epistle was exposed to everyone; it was publicly read in the Asian churches at the time when Eusebius was writing; Jerome knew it, and had he not been occupied with other things, he would have applied himself to its translation, and yet he never accused the Eusebian version. Therefore, regarding that little part which Eusebius excerpted, there can be no doubt, unless we also doubt the entire epistle at the same time, without any reason.

^B Furthermore, regarding the opinion that it should be subject to the name of Polycarp, I judge that this *Didascalia* should be acknowledged. For although in another *Indiculus* the *Didascalia* of Polycarp does not appear, as that of Ignatius does, and therefore it might seem to have been fictitiously created for nothing; yet, since the *Didascalia* through Hippolytus is likewise not found in any *Indiculus*, which nonetheless is found in manuscripts and is contained in the *Constitutions* which we have, I feel that it is scarcely to be doubted that after the *didascalias* of the apostles, Clement, and Ignatius, another of Polycarp must also be understood. Hence that which we read in the old *didascalia*, which is now in Book III, chapter 6, of the *Constitutions*: "Let the widow know that she is an altar of God" (*Sciat igitur vidua, quod altare Dei sit*), refers to those effects of Polycarp: "The widows being sober regarding the faith of the Lord... knowing that they are the altar of God." The old interpreter: "The chaste widow, however, concerning the faith of God... because they are the sanctuary of God." And the author of the *Constitutions* inculcates this rather frequently. ^C Fourth, neither Nicephorus, nor Anastasius, nor the author of the *Stichometria*, nor any writer of the ninth century should be thought to impair the authority of this received epistle, which flourished among the predecessors, in that same age, and among those following, and is found rejected by no one. Before Nicephorus is Maximus the Abbot: "The same divine Polycarp also has letters to the Philippians." The Venerable Bede in the *Martyrology* at the 6th day before the Kalends of January. Almost equal to Nicephorus is Photius: "The epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians was read, filled with much admonition, with clarity and simplicity, according to the ecclesiastical type of interpretation." It was also read, the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, "replete with many admonitions with clarity and simplicity, according to the ecclesiastical form of speaking." Where it is to be observed in passing that in this very ninth century this epistle of Polycarp was joined with that of Clement to the Corinthians (so, indeed, Photius says: "in the same little book it was read"); it was adorned with the same praises by Photius; for he attributes the same clarity, simplicity, and ecclesiastical character to both; some objections had been made at that time against that of Clement, but none against this of Polycarp. In the same age, Usuardus, and Ado of Vienne in the *Martyrology* on the 15th day before the Kalends of January: "The birthday of the holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus, of whose happy struggle St. Polycarp writes in his epistle to the Philippians." After them, Symeon Metaphrastes, the anonymous author of the Acts of St. Ignatius. Suidas, under the word *Polycarp*: "He wrote an epistle to the Philippians, truly wonderful." To which are to be added George Pachymeres, Honorius of Autun, and Nicephorus Callistus, who, after Nicephorus of Constantinople, stated the same about St. Polycarp’s epistle as those who lived before them. ^D Truly, to prefer the judgment of the primary patriarch Nicephorus regarding this epistle to the opinion of Hammond, he says, is not a matter of envy. But here it is not a question of envy, but of the received authority of St. Polycarp. We are not comparing Hammond with Nicephorus: Nicephorus does not recognize it at all here. We do not see the epistle of Polycarp in the *Stichometria*...

^C But he argues from the very epistle which we have in hand, and first, he says, "in it, what precedes our testimony, as into a most decent conclusion, the epistle ended: the rest, however, do not cohere at all, and for that reason are to be expunged." But from whence is it known to him that the epistle of Polycarp ended in those words? Did he ever hear it read in an assembly of all of Asia? Did he ever see an epistle of Polycarp, either in Greek or Latin, or in manuscript, or printed, which ended in those words? Not in the least. What then? In the judgment of J. Daillé that clause was most decent; therefore Polycarp ought not to have added more: therefore the epistle ended in those words. For one must not think that Polycarp wished to write more than Daillé would permit! Certainly, if it is permissible to use this rule in ancient epistles, almost all the clauses which exist now will have to be expunged by us. Is not the last verse of the fifteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: "But the God of peace be with you all, Amen," a most decent clause? Therefore, will the whole sixteenth chapter have to be erased? Is not the last verse of the third chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians: "To Him be glory in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, unto all generations from age to age, Amen," a most decent clause? Are, therefore, the three remaining chapters to be considered as stitched on? Cle-

We have the same clause on pages 41, 50, 57, 59, 66, 75; the pruning-knife of Marcion would therefore be needed for this and similar things to be cut away. He says, indeed, that what follows our testimony can be admitted, even though that most decent clause preceded it. But if something can be admitted after a most decent clause, why not that concerning Ignatius? Or can those things be called absurdly inserted and forced in, which, coming after all the salutary admonitions pertaining to faith, patience, and edification, respond specifically to those things which they to whom he writes had requested in their own letters? The Philippians had written to Polycarp about sending their letters to Antioch, and had also prayed that he would deign to send to them the epistles of St. Ignatius which he had with him. Would not Polycarp be acting most opportunely at the end of his reply epistle if he were to return those things which they were demanding of him? When he had subjoined the epistles of Ignatius, would he rather have written anything about them elsewhere than at the end of his own epistle, to which he had subjoined their collection? Nothing certainly can be devised more convenient than this, either regarding the thing itself or the manner of men in composing epistles.

These things therefore are trivial, even by the judgment of Dallaeus himself: but there is another thing, he says, much more serious, which argues that this section concerning the Ignatian epistles belongs not to the author, but to someone else. Truly this is a grave matter, if what the adversary asserts in the next chapter is true, namely that the place where the Ignatian letters are mentioned is deformed by a signal lie, and what he likewise affirms in chapter 36, that the testimony brought forward from Polycarp is surreptitious and sprinkled with a lie. A lie is indeed a grave crime, especially if it be signal, nor do I see how they can be excused who use a testimony sprinkled with such a grave crime. We must not therefore ^B negligently inquire where this lie might be found: for certainly, as the matter now stands, the lie must exist either in Polycarp, or in Eusebius, or in some impostor, or in the one bringing forward the testimony, or in the one rejecting it.

We, therefore, who the first bring forward the testimony, will openly free ourselves from this crime. We transcribe these words in Greek from Eusebius without any deceit (*Hist. eccl.* lib. III, c. 36): «Τὰς ἐπιστολὰς Ἰγνατίου τὰς πεμφθείσας ἡμῖν ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἄλλας ὅσας εἴχομεν παρ᾿ ἡμῖν, ἐπέμψαμεν ὑμῖν, καθὼς ἐνετείλασθε, αἵ τινες ἀποτεταγμέναι εἰσὶ τῇ ἐπιστολῇ ταύτῃ, ἐξ ὧν μεγάλα ὠφεληθῆναι δυνήσεσθε· περιέχουσι γὰρ πίστιν καὶ ὑπομονὴν, καὶ πᾶσαν οἰκοδομὴν τὴν εἰς τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν ἀνήκουσαν.» We do not doubt that these words which we now read in Eusebius were written by him: for thus we see them translated, albeit negligently, by Rufinus within 85 years: "I have sent to you the epistles of Ignatius, and others if there be any, which have been transmitted to us; from which you will be able to derive greatest benefit; for they contain instruction in faith and patience, and all edification perfect according to the precept of the Lord." We believe that Eusebius transcribed these very words from the epistle of Polycarp, which was then held in the hands of all; both because he himself asserts this, and because we still read these things in the old vulgar version of the epistle of St. Polycarp: "The epistles of Ignatius truly which were transmitted to you (for us) by him, and others, as many as we had with us, we have transmitted to you, according to what you commanded, which are subject to this epistle: from which there will be great benefit to you. For they contain faith, patience, and every edification pertaining to our Lord." Finally, that Photius, who read this very epistle and praised it so highly, also bears witness not obscurely when he says: «Λέγει δὲ καὶ τὰς ἐπιστολὰς αὐτῆς Ἰγνατίου τοῦ θεοφόρου ἀπεσταλκέναι,» *dicit autem* (Polycarpus) *se etiam Ignatii theophori epistolas ipsis transmisisse*. We draw this single testimony from the epistle of Polycarp, which we think to be the most integral, and upon which no stain was ever cast, before it was brought forward by our side for the Ignatian cause. We have, therefore, sufficiently protected ourselves from the charge of a lie.

They (the adversaries) themselves free St. Polycarp from all suspicion, for they wish these things to have been written by Polycarp in the least, because they judge that they are most abhorrent to his prudence and sanctity. What then? Has Eusebius lied, and handed down to us things which did not appear at all in the epistle of Polycarp in his own age? Is he to be thought to have wished to deceive his readers in a matter so open and so well known to all at that time? Was not the epistle of Polycarp read publicly in the assembly of Asia when Eusebius was writing his *History*? Did he wish to invent a long sentence himself, and insert it into the epistle, to give credibility to the Ignatian letters at the expense of his own? They think this to be too gross; nor did they mean for Polycarp or Eusebius to have lied; but some impostor or other, whom they imagine to have lived before Eusebius, but whom neither he nor any other person will ever prove to have been among the living. That man, however, falsely and craftily inserted our entire testimony into some exemplar of the Polycarpian epistle: and Eusebius, not by chance but most certainly, fell upon either the autograph of the impostor or some book transcribed by him; since, therefore, he saw no other exemplar, and was ignorant of what was being read in the assembly of Asia, the Father of Ecclesiastical History fell into a foul error. Nor is this a wonder; for this impostor was indeed an excellent craftsman; the same man, and no other, was he who subjoined to Ignatius six or seven epistles forged by himself, and added this regarding some letters of Ignatius to the end of this final epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, thinking—which is what happened—that readers would accept these things as being about his own epistles. Eusebius, it appears, a man by no means evil or suspicious, was deceived by the fallacies of this man; and he led into the same error all those Fathers who, while the epistle of Polycarp was read publicly in the assembly of Asia...

were alive and could never have seen the epistle intact and uncorrupted. But after it ceased to be read, five hundred years after Eusebius, Nicephorus saw all these things, and therefore passed so sad a judgment on the epistle of Polycarp, and numbered it among the apocrypha of the worst mark. What a delightful fable! What a sweet dream! All these things are fabricated not only against our position, but against the common judgment of all, and indeed against the opinion of Dallæus himself. Will anyone believe that a man who wished to impose upon the Church under the name of Ignatius, before Eusebius wrote, toward the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century—in order to do it more easily and to win greater authority for his forged merchandise—would have wanted first to corrupt the Epistle of S. Polycarp, when from that one act his deception would have been open to all, and he could not have provoked greater suspicion regarding those things to be produced by him as Ignatian, ^B nor could he have betrayed himself more surely? For this epistle of Polycarp was exposed to all, and was read publicly in the Asiatic churches; if any new and hitherto unheard-of thing were added to it, it could not have remained hidden and not immediately become known. A truly foolish impostor, who would think up such things so childishly; a fungus of an Eusebius, who could be so easily deceived by such adulterated merchandise: all the Fathers were blind or deaf, who, with the epistle ringing through Asia, did not detect these things: a single man, and he a fictitious one, Nicephorus, detected all these things, to be sure, and condemned the whole epistle of Polycarp to the fish-wrappers. But did Nicephorus condemn the epistle of Polycarp on account of this interpolation, when Dallæus pronounced that this could not be true of the epistles of Ignatius, because the same thing was not performed by Nicephorus in any other work? Does he wish us to believe that Nicephorus rejected, with one little word, the epistle of Polycarp—so noble, for so long read publicly, and accepted by all with such veneration up to his own age—for this reason, when he contends that the same thing could not have happened in the case of Ignatius, unless the author of the Stichometria had pointed it out and diligently purified himself? Can it be so certainly determined that this smelled of such things to Nicephorus, whom we do not even know to have read Polycarp, when the same thing was completely unknown to Photius, who held the same see after a few years, whom we do know to have read both the epistle and those words?

But why do we seek the author of the lie, when we have not yet detected the lie itself? The testimony of Polycarp, he says, is supposititious, and sprinkled with a lie. We have heard the testimony; we do not perceive the lie. But the impostor speaks of Ignatius in such a way as to signify that he was still surviving at the time these things were written. "Of Ignatius himself," he says, "and of those who are with him, let it be known to you as you shall have more certainly learned." But the author of the epistle speaks of completely other things, affirming most openly that Ignatius, at the time he himself was writing to the Philippians, had already been τετελειωμένον [brought to completion/martyred]. To this, in the end, the whole imputation of the lie returns. But what is this to our testimony, which we transcribed from Eusebius? Most excellent, certainly, it is, and agrees both with what precedes ^C and with what follows, nor is there any discrepancy between it and any other particle of the epistle. The words which we produce, transcribed from the epistle of Polycarp by Eusebius, signify neither that Ignatius was alive at that time, nor that he was dead, nor do they make any mention of life or death: they indicate only that the epistles were first requested, then sent—which could have been both requested and sent whether Ignatius was alive or dead. There appears, therefore, no vestige, not even the slightest, of a lie in our testimony. If anything seems less consistent in the following particle, that does not infect our words any more than the former ones. But Dallæus confesses that nothing occurs in the former ones which ought to offend anyone, or be considered unworthy of Polycarp. Therefore, the same must be said entirely of our own, or something must be shown in those words which is unworthy of Polycarp: that, however, is neither done, nor can it be done at all. Certainly, it is not unworthy of Polycarp to preserve the epistles of Ignatius with him, so that the Philippians might request them of him, or that he might send those that had been requested by them and append them to his own epistle, as was the custom; for so the Roman clergy wrote to S. Cyprian: "You shall have, appended, the kind of letters we have also sent into Sicily:" so the synod gathered against Paul of Samosata, to Dionysius bishop of the city of Rome, mention the epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria, of which, they say, ἧς καὶ τὸ ἀντίγραφὸν, ὑπετάξαμεν, "of which also we have appended a copy." Euseb. Hist. eccl.

The whole objection of the crime, therefore, pertains only to that particle with which our testimony has nothing in common; if it is admitted, it does not help us; if it is rejected, it does not harm us. Our own [testimony] Eusebius saw in the epistle of Polycarp at a time when the whole and entire [epistle] was being read in the assembly of Asia, when Eusebius could not have been deceived without the greatest negligence and sloth, nor could he have deceived without incredible audacity and impudence. This particle existed in that same epistle five hundred years after Eusebius, as we learn from Photius; whether it was contemporary with the rest, we do not know at all. But if we grant that it was also present at the time of Eusebius as a subject of our testimony, we still do not grant that it was even then sprinkled with a lie. For I do not understand how these words: "And of Ignatius himself, and of those who are with him, make known [to us] what you shall have more certainly learned," which assert nothing at all, and affirm or deny nothing, can be guilty of a lie, and indeed a significant one. To someone who wrote such things to me, I would not say that he had even spoken the truth, much less that he had lied. "But," you will say, "although they do not assert, they nevertheless hint at that which was contrary to the truth, namely, that Ignatius was surviving, living, and well, whom Polycarp knew to have been defunct before." But not even this is true; the author of that particle does not signify, nor in any way hint, that Ignatius was alive at that time. The words of the particle in the old Latin version: "And of Ignatius himself, and of those who are with him" (in Greek, I suppose, καὶ περὶ Ἰγνατίου καὶ περὶ τῶν μετ׳

μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ quod certius agnoveritis significate; the words of Photius are: Αἰτεῖται ἀναδιδαχθήναι παρ' αὐτῶν εἰ τι περὶ ἐκείνου διακούσαιεν, he asks that he might be informed by them if they have heard anything about him. But, in the first place, the Philippians could have heard something about Ignatius while he was alive, which Polycarp might desire to know from them after he was dead. Ignatius, as his acts record, journeyed through Macedonia on foot; some were sent by the Philippians to escort him on his way for the sake of honor and refreshment, which it seems to me Polycarp indicated at the beginning of his epistle with these words: Δεξαμένοις τὰ μιμήματα τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἀγάπης, καὶ προπέμψασιν, ὡς ἐπέβαλεν ὑμῖν, τοὺς ἐνειλημένους τοῖς ἁγιοπρεπέσι δεσμοῖς, ^B which words, indeed, the old interpreter, neither reading correctly nor understanding at all, translated thus: "Suscipiens imitabilia verba dilectionis, quam ostendistis in illis, qui præmissi sunt viris sanctis decorosis vinculis connexis." Thus he, reading δεξάμενος for δεξαμένοις, and therefore dragging all the rest elsewhere; you should translate it: "I rejoiced with you, who have received the copies of true love, and escorted, as it befitted you, those who were bound in holy chains, which are an ornament to the saints." Halloix rendered ἐπέβαλεν ὑμῖν as "as the Lord inspired you"; I prefer "as it befitted your office," because these things are much simpler, and in this sense well express the Greek. Therefore, some from Philippi escorted Ignatius and his companions through Macedonia, perhaps even as far as Epidamnus, whence the pseudo-Ignatius, or rather someone else who prefixed the title of the epistle to the Philippians, wished it to be written from Epidamnus. These, therefore, having returned from Ignatius to Philippi, undoubtedly told many things about him, many things about his companions, which it is fair to believe that St. Polycarp wished to hear from them, even after the martyrdom of St. Ignatius. Secondly, the Philippians could have heard something about Ignatius when he was dead, no less than when he was alive: and Polycarp undoubtedly desired to know more about what pertained to the death than what pertained to the chains of Ignatius; how nobly he comported himself in the very martyrdom, how much honor he brought to the Christian religion, what his companions did for him in such precipitous danger, what they suffered, or did, and whether they had preserved anything of the remains of such a great martyr. For he inquires not only about Ignatius, but also about Philo and Agathopus, his companions. Therefore, Polycarp could be inflamed with a desire to hear something about Ignatius while alive, which he had not yet heard, although he did not doubt that he was already dead; the eagerness could hold him to understand some things about him dead and his living companions, which could arrive at the Philippians in Macedonia before they could reach ^C the Smyrneans in Asia. These are, therefore, not at variance concerning the same matter, and there is no contradiction or repugnance in these words. Wherefore we have sufficiently clearly freed the final particle from the charge of falsehood; but as for him, who so explicitly said that the testimony of Polycarp was sprinkled with falsehood, and deformed by a signal lie, let others who wish and are able, free him.

VINDICIÆ IGNATIANÆ, PART I.

^A And so much for the faith; now we must deal with the force of the testimony. Eusebius asserts that these very epistles, which we defend, were mentioned by Polycarp. Καὶ ὁ Πολύκαρπος δὲ τούτων αὐτῶν μέμνηται ἐν τῇ φερομένῃ αὐτοῦ πρὸς Φιλιππησίους ἐπιστολῇ. "Sed et Polycarpus in sua ad Philippenses epistola earumdem meminit epistolarum." That which Eusebius asserts, our followers likewise affirm; Daille denies it. He indeed admits that Polycarp can be tested to have written some epistles of Ignatius, but denies that these were they; he concedes that some similar things were, but denies they were the same ones. He offers one reason for his denial, namely that it had been most clearly and manifoldly demonstrated by him, on account of the silence of the Valentinians, and the heresy of the Patripassians, and similar things which it is impossible that epistles truly written by Ignatius could have contained. Thus he leaps from an argument taken from testimonies, to that which is deduced from the subject matter of the work, and when he is pressed by an external argument, he flees to the internal. Our friends say that Polycarp testifies that St. Ignatius wrote these epistles; he replies that he himself most clearly denies it. He has laboured in vain, by refuting the arguments of our side taken from the authority of the ancients, if as often as they are brought forward, he recurs to such demonstrations; since he should rather have repudiated everything at one stroke. But we shall demonstrate that all his arguments, which he proclaims everywhere, in the following dissertation—that is, in their proper place—are merely weak and very slight conjectures, and in the meantime, we shall defend this very testimony of Polycarp, and place it beyond every shadow of doubt.

^C "These," he says, "the locus objected does not say that Ignatius wrote." What then? Is the testimony less suitable, or should it be rejected at once for that reason? Who of the ancients ever said that the books which we now have were written by those to whom they are now attributed? Did any of them see our copies? Or could he in any way know what we would read in this age? If it pleases one to exercise criticism in this way, he has made all the testimonies of the ancients concerning our books, through the industry of learned men, vain: which seem rather to be erased for the future; for if this observation holds, all things are of no account. ^D The words of Daille are: "For as for what they say, that the Ignatian writings were held by the ancients of every age in the same reverence as the epistles of Clement and Polycarp, I marvel at it; for it has escaped those who know well that both this epistle was celebrated with great praise by Irenæus, and the Clementine was properly praised by Dionysius of Corinth." But why he should marvel I do not see, since he knows well that neither St. Irenæus praised this of Polycarp or Clement, nor did Dionysius praise this of St. Clement specifically. The words of St. Irenæus are: "Under this Clement, therefore, since no small dissension had occurred among those who were brethren at Corinth, the Church which is at Rome wrote very powerful letters to the Corinthians." He does not say that this epistle, which we now have, was written to the Corinthians at that time; he does not affirm this, nor any

particular character does he attribute to it. Concerning the epistle of Clement, Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, writes as follows to Soter, bishop of Rome: "Today we spent the holy Lord’s day, in which we read your epistle; reading it, we shall always have it available to admonish us, as we do even with the former one written to us by Clement." He indeed relates that a certain epistle had been written by Clement to the Corinthians and read in the Church, but he does not say that it was this one which Junius described from the Royal codex; ^A nay, he in no way depicts what that one which the Corinthians were reading was like, so that we might examine our own against its character. And yet they wish these testimonies of Irenaeus and Dionysius to have great weight for upholding the Clementine epistle, whereas the suffrage of Polycarp, which is much more ancient and explicit for confirming the epistles of Ignatius, they wish to have absolutely ^B none.

Since this is the only objection which properly concerns the force of the testimony, besides the silence of Irenaeus, which is to be examined in the next chapter; and since it is so unfair and weak, as everyone sees; it remains that the strength of the Polycarpian suffrage should be more widely explained and set forth more clearly to the eyes of all. For, first, Polycarp does not only testify that Ignatius wrote certain epistles, but he signifies that he had a collection ^C of his epistles in his hands at Smyrna at that time; he states that he attached a copy of them to his own epistle (which we know was read publicly elsewhere in the Asian churches) and sent it to the Philippians, at their request; he shows himself an excellent judge of how much he valued them, for he professes that they would be most useful to the Philippians, and affirms that they contain faith, patience, and all edification pertaining to the Lord. ^D That Polycarp, when he testifies concerning the epistles which he himself collected and had with him, understood the very same ones which we have, and which Eusebius, Athanasius, Theodoret, and others had before us, I both maintain and openly and firmly prove. For either those epistles which Polycarp published are these very ones which our side defends, or they were others and different from them. But they were not others and different from these. It remains, therefore, that they were these very ones. Moreover, I show as follows that the epistles which Polycarp published were not others, and different from those which we now have: It is certain that St. Ignatius, who suffered martyrdom at Rome a few years after the death of St. John the Apostle, had heard the apostles, and had drawn his doctrine from those purest fountains of Christianity. Added to this is the eminent dignity of the man, who was not only a disciple of the apostles, but was also so approved by their judgment, that he deserved to be placed over the most ancient of the churches, which were among the Gentiles, that is to say, the Antiochene—and, on account of the scale and excellence of the city in that age, the most noble. What shall I say of his final martyrdom, than which we know no act has ever been held more excellent or more illustrious among our people? Therefore, it is necessary that for a man of such stature and quality, in whom all things reached their summit, if there had been epistles other than those which are now circulated, they would have been most famous from those times and the centuries immediately following, and indeed, after the writings of the apostles themselves and of Clement, they would have been the most noble. But beyond the merit of the author, the very time at which they are said to have been given should have ennobled them beyond measure. For Polycarp implies that they were written by Ignatius at the very end, in the meditation of martyrdom, at the time when, having manifested a most illustrious confession of Christ before Trajan at Antioch, he was condemned to the beasts by the word of the prince and was being led to Rome to suffer death for the Lord. Since, therefore, we are accustomed to receive, preserve, celebrate, and commit to the memory of posterity with great care the words uttered in their final moments by dear men, especially those outstanding in virtue, with what devotion was it not fitting that letters written by such a holy martyr to themselves in the very arena, so to speak—recited with what emotion of spirit, and communicated with what charity to his own brothers wherever the name of Christ was worshipped—should have been received by those men or churches? That the churches had a supreme love for these epistles, and a supreme zeal for collecting, preserving, and disseminating them among the brothers, is sufficiently attested by St. Polycarp, likewise a disciple of the Apostle St. John, who, ordained by him bishop of Smyrna and prince of all Asia, was an intimate of Ignatius himself; he teaches that he was asked by the Philippians for all the epistles of Ignatius, whatever he had with him, and that he collected them and is sending them to them attached to these letters of his own. From these facts, it is now sufficiently clear that those epistles which Ignatius wrote, and which Polycarp collected and published, could not but be most well-known to the Christians of that time and of the next generation, especially indeed to those who were literate and learned, if there were any. Why, this very epistle of St. Polycarp, by which the Ignatian epistles were so highly praised, was read publicly in the assembly of Asia for three whole centuries, by which their supreme utility was inculcated, and the minds of men were perpetually inflamed with a desire for the ancient faith of the writers, and for the patience and edification they contained. If, therefore, there was another *synagoge* of Polycarp different from ours, if there were other epistles of Ignatius which he collected, and commended in his own letters, and communicated to the Philippians than those which we have and which Eusebius had before us; those, certainly, as being most well-known to men who were especially literate and learned, of necessity would have had to become known and be recognized through all those centuries, especially during which the epistle of Polycarp was resounding in the truly most noble Asian churches. In so great

^A a reputation as they were at the beginning, transmitted with such care and zeal from church to church, and celebrated with such public and perpetual commemoration, and commended to posterity, they could not have remained entirely hidden, nor been unknown to learned men and those most curious about apostolic tradition. But if we consult the books of all Christians through three centuries, not only after the death of Ignatius but also of Polycarp, we will find no mention ever made of any Ignatian epistles other than those which we possess. It is manifest, therefore, that no others ever existed. The chain of events, if I am not mistaken, is clear, and the consequence is plain and indubitable.

Those who recently rejected the five or six epistles attributed to Ignatius as spurious and forged, professed that they did so because they did not exist in the time of Eusebius and Jerome; and they gathered that they did not exist at that time from the fact that neither Eusebius nor Jerome mentioned them, while they had diligently noted and described six or seven other epistles, which our side defends. ^B Dallæus praises and embraces this opinion and reasoning of theirs. For, speaking of Ussher, he writes in the second chapter: "Therefore, that those first six epistles—to Mary of Cassoboli, to Polycarp, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochians, to Hero, and to the Philippians—I say, that these did not yet exist in the times of Eusebius and Jerome, he proves most validly from the fact that neither of those two writers says a word about them, although both mention the six other, earlier ones. For why would they have mentioned these rather than those, if they knew both? Or why indeed would those most learned and diligent men have been ignorant of them, if they existed, as Baronius relates, joined with the collection of the six earlier ones sent to them by Polycarp?" It is established that they did not exist, and therefore did not exist even then, from the fact that Eusebius knew nothing of them: his deep silence concerning these things argues that he was ignorant of them. But if these things prove most validly that those five or six epistles did not exist in the time of Eusebius and Jerome, and were therefore later devised and forged; surely our argument proves just as validly that no Ignatian epistles other than ours appeared in that age or any other preceding age; so that to speak of other epistles collected by Polycarp, gathered into one body, and transmitted to the Churches, and ornamented with a distinguished eulogy, clearly savors of a fabrication. For no one before Eusebius or Jerome, or even Theodoret or Gelasius, no one before the end of the fifth century, at which time all the ancient ecclesiastical and Catholic writers—and Ignatius above all—were admitted as arbiters in the controversies of the faith, both by Catholics and by modern heretics, ever named another man, or another church to which Ignatius had given letters; no one excerpted any sentence from any other epistle. Of our epistles, Irenæus [cited] one, Theophilus one, or the ancient author of [the work attributed to] Basil, of the same age as Irenæus, Origen two, pseudo-Dionysius one, Eusebius several, Athanasius one, Chrysostom two, ^C Jerome more, and Theodoret many; Gelasius cited two [such] sentences, all from our epistles, not even one from any other. Therefore, no epistles of Ignatius other than ours were ever commended to posterity by Polycarp. Wherefore, since some were collected and published by him, as is patent from his own testimony; and yet others were not different from ours, as is manifest from the deep silence of so many centuries; it remains that these very ones were those which our side defends, which Eusebius saw, described, and epitomized.

For what, I ask, are those epistles, if they are not these? Who ever read them? Who laid eyes on them? Who even heard by report of other epistles written by Ignatius and collected by Polycarp? Other, I say, than those which we have? Or is it in any way likely that epistles composed by so great a martyr, published and praised by such a person, and attached to that very epistle which for so many centuries publicly and perpetually renewed their memory, should have immediately perished and been snatched from the eyes of all? Shall we think that the relics of Ignatius’s bones were transported from Rome to Antioch, and held in such veneration for so many years; but that the epistles written on that very journey vanished into thin air shortly thereafter? Shall we conjecture, with Salmasius and Albertinus, that these epistles which we have were forged during the reign of Antoninus or Aurelius, that is, while St. Polycarp was still living and vigorous; or at least immediately after the death of Clement of Alexandria, with Blondellus, who is a shame even to Dallæus himself? Or shall we think, with Dallæus, that towards the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth, when most learned men were flourishing everywhere in the Church, and various libraries were being built to preserve the writings of the ancient Christians, other epistles were substituted in their place, and that they succeeded those to which Christians had been accustomed for so many years, with the former having been completely removed? For behold Dallæus, who just now was clearly affirming that his impostor had inserted our testimony into the epistle of Polycarp, and had foisted it in where it did not exist before, when the matter at hand was the authority of the Polycarpian epistle: now when it is a matter of the force of the testimony, having turned his sails and oars, he is carried in an altogether different direction—not indeed in the same place, but cautiously and providently in chapter 26—where he weaves the whole plot of his fable and opens another scene for us. For he wishes his impostor, when he had learned that some epistles had once been written by Ignatius, and observed that they were now sought after, to have conceived the plan of forging and publishing his own under the same name. Although Dallæus's impostor is a wonderful craftsman, nor is he endowed with keener intelligence than [Dallæus] himself, he could not, to be sure, do these two things: he could not learn from Polycarp's epistle that some epistles had once been written by Ignatius, and insert the very words which indicate this same thing. If he himself was the first to insert them, then they were not previously in Polycarp's epistle; wherefore he could not have learned it from there. Was he so foolish as to deceive not only others but also himself? Or did he, by that interpolation, persuade not only others but also himself that some epistles had been written by Ignatius?

But what need is there for an impostor to learn this from the epistle of Polycarp, or for others to take pains to draw it from there? As if anyone were so foolish as to deny that the bishop of a most populous city, and a disciple of the apostles, could have written, or indeed actually wrote, any letters. These are the words of Daillé. Whither, then, does he send his impostor to Polycarp, that he might learn this from him? Why does he force him to lay violent hands on a very well-known epistle, that he might teach others the same thing which not even fools could deny? But if this impostor had learned from Polycarp that the epistles of Ignatius had been collected and commended to posterity by him, whence did he perceive that they were already missing? Whence did that most learned man learn this? Who said, or believed, that the collection of Polycarp had perished? Had not Origen said in that same third century: "I found it elegantly written in the epistle of a certain martyr—Ignatius, I mean, the bishop of Antioch, second after Peter, who fought against beasts in the persecution at Rome"? Or could one who had read Polycarp, and knew that his epistle was still read in public assemblies, and who had noticed that the collection of Ignatian letters was preserved with such great care at Smyrna and transmitted to Macedonia with such great praise, have thought, in the same century in which Origen had praised it, that it had utterly perished? These things are too gross to be digested by learned men; they are too weak to weaken our argument, by which we show that the epistles edited by Polycarp are none other than our own.

^B But I am confident that I can confirm my position no less convincingly by another, and indeed an affirmative argument, drawn from the epistles themselves. For he describes our epistles not only generally, but also quite clearly, testifying that they contain faith, patience, and all edification—a matter on which we spoke at greater length a little before; but he also touches specifically upon the embassy to the Antiochians, which is manifest in others, but especially in that to Polycarp. Nay, Polycarp himself in the rest of the body of his epistle represents many things that often refer back to our epistles, so that anyone can perceive that he had read them all diligently and made use of them willingly, such that he seems to have followed our Ignatius in his epistle hardly less than S. Paul, or S. Peter, or Clement. Indeed, we observe that, because of his highest veneration, frequent reading, and recent memory at the time he was writing to the Philippians, these things had settled deeply into his mind. Immediately, from the beginning, when he speaks of Ignatius and his companions, he describes them as ^C *bearing the holy chains, which are the diadems of those truly chosen by God and our Lord*, and with those words he expressed two passages of our Ignatius: one from the epistle to the Smyrneans: *Bound with most godly chains, I salute all*, and another to the Ephesians: *In which I bear these chains, these spiritual pearls*. And not long after, he writes to his Philippians, to whom S. Paul had written: "For neither I, nor any other like unto me, can follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was among you face to face with the men of that time, taught accurately and surely the word concerning truth; who, even when absent, wrote letters to you." Who does not see that he is imitating our Ignatius, who had similarly lived among the Ephesians and to whom S. Paul had written, by writing in this way: *I know who I am, and to whom I write. I am a fellow-mystic of Paul, the sanctified, the martyr, most blessed; under whose feet may it be my lot to be found when I attain to God; who in every epistle makes mention of you in Christ Jesus.* Polycarp advises that the Philippians be ^D *subject to the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ*, which our Ignatius inculcates so often. Regarding the deacons: *Likewise the deacons [must be] blameless before his righteousness, as deacons of God and Christ, and not of men.* Our Ignatius to the Trallians: *But it is necessary that the deacons also, who are the ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, should please all in every way; for they are not ministers of meats and drinks, but servants of the Church of God.* Polycarp commands the Philippians that they be *not neglectful of the widow, or the orphan, or the poor*, when Ignatius had described the heretics of his time thus: *They do not care for love, nor for the widow, nor for the orphan, nor for the oppressed*, and had given this command to Polycarp himself: *Let not widows be neglected.* Whence these things, which we now read only in Latin, if not from our Ignatius? "But I have perceived nothing of this kind in you, nor have I heard of it, among whom the blessed Paul labored; who are in the beginning of his epistle: for he boasts of you in all the churches." "Nothing," says Polycarp to the Philippians, "is hidden from you," as Ignatius to the Ephesians: *Of which nothing is hidden from you.* And besides other things, Polycarp praises the epistles of Ignatius at length, as if in his own words, namely, that they contain *the edification which pertains to the Lord*, as he says: *You are prepared for good works which pertain to God*, and elsewhere: *Of those things which pertain to the Church*, and: *The service which pertains to the common good*. These things show that Polycarp was not negligibly conversant with these very epistles of Ignatius which we also possess at length.

And it would be time to put an end to this disputation here, had not Daillé, slipping from this argument, afterward, as is his wont, created a new annoyance for us, and, as if forgetting himself, brought back this controversy after the fact, as if he had something stronger which he had omitted before. For in the thirty-sixth chapter: "This," he says, "is certainly the witness of Polycarp which the Latins use no less speciously for those six Ignatian epistles, which they assert besides the Usserian collection, than the most reverend Ussher and the most learned Hammond do for their first six." Do they say so, "no less speciously"? I marvel greatly. Do they use the witness of Polycarp speciously, or rather at all, in that matter? If Daillé had not said this, I would not believe it; indeed, after he has said it, while I weigh it with myself, I do not believe it. The Latins

^A all know to be most false? Namely, that the authority of Polycarp's testimony ceases in both cases? That it is no more valid for us with the most learned men than it is for the Latins with the most learned men? How false an assertion! How iniquitous a demand! This is as certainly iniquitous as it is false. The Latins never objected to these things; if they had objected, they knew they could have achieved nothing, for the response would have been immediate: that Polycarp’s testimony does not pertain to those Epistles which neither Eusebius, nor Jerome, nor anyone in the fifth century had mentioned. But as for our Epistles, no one of them, none of our own, has said that Polycarp did not have them in view. For us, therefore, the authority of such a great Father is, and will always be, much more valid against anyone whatsoever than it is for the Latins against us, who have not, nor could they have, brought it forward against us or against anyone else. How iniquitous, therefore, is the demand that his authority should cease in both cases, when in the one it has never succeeded; in that case, where it is brought forward by everyone, it can never be obliterated! Therefore, we most justly bring forward, emphasize, and urge the authority of Polycarp in its proper place; and we will also discuss and dispel the minor objections raised against the Epistles confirmed by his testimony in their own proper place.

CHAPTER VI. The testimony of St. Irenæus is liberated from objections.

It is frivolous and inept to think that that was cited from anywhere other than the Epistle to the Romans. The distinction between "he said" and "he wrote" is empty. No apophthegms of Ignatius are mentioned by the ancients. It is asserted without any reason that Irenæus was ignorant of the Epistles of Ignatius. A negative argument has no force against the testimony of Irenæus.

The next point is the testimony of St. Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, which the most learned man calls the second argument for the Ignatian [Epistles]. For Eusebius asserts that Irenæus made mention of these Epistles when he said: "As a certain one of our own said, having been condemned to the beasts on account of his martyrdom to God, 'I am the wheat of Christ, and by the teeth of beasts I am ground, that I may be found the pure bread.'" ^B The most learned man replies: "I concede that these words were truly Ignatius's; but what does that have to do with the Epistles?" You ask? Because they are in the Epistles, and nowhere else in the most ancient monuments, not even in modern ones, except when transcribed from the Epistles. Not even one apophthegm of Ignatius is recorded by the ancients. But Irenæus does not here make mention of an epistle; yet neither does he make mention of the blessed Ignatius. You concede, however, that these words are truly Ignatius's; why not also the Epistle? Since they are found in the Epistle of Ignatius, and nowhere else? For neither you nor we should believe otherwise than that which is found in his Epistle; ^C for others besides Ignatius had been condemned to the beasts. Eusebius frequently proves the Apostolic Epistles and our Gospels by the fact that the primitive Fathers produce testimonies out of them; which would be almost entirely vain if we measured testimonies by this reasoning; for those most ancient writers rarely named the books or epistles from which they ^D plucked their words and sentiments. Let Daillé recall the words of...

his words concerning Dionysius: “Since what he cites is read verbatim in the Ignatian Epistle to the Romans, it is frivolous and inept to speculate that they were cited from anywhere other than this epistle.” For since what Irenæus cites is read verbatim in the Ignatian Epistle to the Romans, why is it not equally frivolous and inept to speculate that they were cited from anywhere other than this epistle?

But the most learned man has something to reply from Parker: “Irenæus writes nothing else, except that the person he mentions said this.” If he at least said that he had *written* these things, his argumentation, although false and evanescent, would at least have some semblance of color. For thus you might legitimately conclude that Irenæus had these words of his from some writing of Ignatius, although you would still not prove that the writing of Ignatius from which he had taken them was the very same epistle to the Romans which we have today inscribed under his name. Two points reside there, therefore: first, that it is read in Irenæus “he said,” not “he wrote”; ^B second, that if we were to read “he wrote,” our argument would still only have a false and evanescent color.

I begin with the latter, and I oppose Daillé with Daillé, for he strikes hard against Maximus’s evasion regarding a similar sentiment produced from the same epistle by Pseudo-Dionysius. The author of the Areopagitic works, whoever he is, had produced a testimony from the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans; all the ancients believed that epistle to have been written under Trajan, shortly before the martyrdom of Ignatius. The same men thought that Dionysius the Areopagite had died under Domitian. From this, a most valid argument is constructed, that the true Dionysius could not have written those things, especially in a work dedicated to Timothy. Maximus, pressed by this objection, devised wonderful evasions, and those quite “Daille-an.” First, as regards our matter, *perhaps it is habitual for him to be an apophthegm, just as "Theophorus" is often both said and written of him*, perhaps these words, “My love has been crucified,” are an apophthegm familiar to Ignatius. Thus he, along with Daillé, recurs to apophthegms, and indeed with much more plausibility. “My love has been crucified” ^C possesses the most perfect appearance of an apophthegm, and could have been familiar to the holy man throughout his entire life, both in his sayings and in his writings. There was no need to flee to the times of Trajan; Ignatius could have said, and at some point written, this apophthegm even under Domitian. The nature of Daillé's apophthegm in Irenæus is not the same: “I am the wheat of Christ, and I am ground by the teeth of the beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.” Who would think this was a statement familiarly used by Ignatius throughout his whole life, or uttered at any time before his condemnation to the beasts, or written in any other document than that epistle which was composed on his journey? And yet this is the very apophthegm of Daillé that he himself denies to another.

The evasion would be valid, he says, if the author of the Dionysian works wrote that Ignatius *spoke* these things: but it is clearly otherwise when he says he *wrote* them, *for the divine Ignatius writes*—as if, forsooth, that which is said more often ^A could not also have been written more than once. Maximus asserts that this apophthegm was not said once by Ignatius, nor written once; therefore, whether Dionysius wrote that Ignatius said or wrote these things, it will be the same. Certainly, this device of Maximus cannot be refuted in this way, since this distinction is clearly frivolous and unworthy of Daillé. For in the same work, he does not hesitate, along with Albertinus, to assert that Pseudo-Dionysius derived these very things from Origen; but Origen does not write that Ignatius *wrote* these things, but only that he *said* them. His words are: “Finally, I recall one of the saints said, Ignatius by name, concerning Christ, ‘But my love has been crucified.’” Therefore, “to say” and “to write” are clearly the same in this business; nor does this or that device of Maximus either help or hurt. Once this vain distinction is clearly omitted, that which Daillé aptly observes either kills the argument or it is nothing. “Since what he cites is read verbatim in the Ignatian Epistle to the Romans, it is frivolous and inept to speculate that they were cited from anywhere other than this very epistle.”

Secondly, Maximus, in order to show that this is an apophthegm used by Ignatius often, both by word of mouth and in writing, says: *It is a proof that it is not appended, "He writes to some," that is, to the Romans; but simply, "The divine Ignatius writes."* By this argument, therefore, Dionysius spoke of the apophthegm of Ignatius because it is not added, “he writes to some,” namely to the Romans, but simply, “the divine Ignatius writes.” To this Daillé replies: That which Maximus brings forward to the contrary—that his Dionysius says simply “Ignatius writes,” and not “writes to some”—as if this meant that an epistle other than the one written to the Romans is understood, that, I say, has absolutely no force; since it is known that the sentiments and passages of authors are often cited by our own learned men now, and indeed much more often cited by the ancients, without the specific book or chapter from which they are taken being designated by name. These things indeed are quite right and apposite. For when Daillé argues against our people, he is Maximus; when against Maximus, he is clearly ours. Therefore, we also say that if Irenæus had said that Ignatius wrote those things which he brought forward, our argument would not have merely a false and evanescent color, but rather the denial of it would have no force at all; since it is known that the sentiments and passages of authors are often cited by our own learned men now, and indeed much more often cited by the ancients, without the specific book or chapter from which they are taken being designated by name. Thus, therefore, we conclude—the most learned man leading the way—from the usage of our own learned men now, and much more so of the ancients, that if Irenæus had said that Ignatius wrote what he refers to, those same things would have been taken by him from the epistle inscribed under his name to the Romans.

To return to the first point: I say equally that that distinction between these two, “he said” and “he wrote”—when we know that the words themselves were indeed written—has absolutely no force, since it is known that sentiments and passages were cited by the ancients through this word “said” no less, nay, far more

often than through the word “wrote.” Clement of Alexandria, *Stromateis*, Book 1, ^A says: “Moses permitted eating those things that have a cloven hoof and that ruminate, signifying,” says Barnabas, “that we ought to cleave to those who fear the Lord,” and many other fine things, which follow in Clement, and are now found in the Epistle of Barnabas. Book 2: “Citing as my witness the apostolic Barnabas (who was of the seventy, ^B and a fellow-worker of Paul) in these words, saying thus.” Where two longer passages are brought forward from that same epistle which exists today. In the same book: “Rightly therefore the apostle Barnabas, ‘From what part,’ he says, ‘they received,’ and so forth.” And again: “Indeed, mystically, Barnabas: ‘But God, who rules over the whole world,’ he says, ‘may give you wisdom.’” [E] Book 5: “But also Barnabas, who himself preached the word together with the Apostle upon his ministry to the Gentiles: ‘More simply,’ he says, ‘I write to you, that you may understand,’ and then, putting forward an trace of mystic tradition more clearly, he says.” Thus Clement testifies that Barnabas said many things, and did not write anything, even though all those things exist attributed to him in the Epistle of Barnabas, and cannot be referred to as apophthegms. Thus indeed have all the ancients spoken. In the same manner wrote Eusebius, just as Irenæus had written. The latter: “Irenæus mentions the epistles of Ignatius, saying thus,” that is, *writing*; the former: “A certain one of ours said,” that is, *wrote*. To such an extent is Irenæus addicted to this phrase, that he writes that Scripture itself *says*. Book 3, chapter 2: “And this therefore was made by his Word, as the Scripture of Genesis says.” And speaking of the Pastor of Hermas, book 4, chapter 37: “Well therefore did the Scripture proclaim, which says: ‘First of all believe that there is one God.’” As often as he brings forward the sentiment of any author, he says not that he wrote it, but that he *said* it. Thus he speaks of the most ancient poets: “What Hesiod said about Pandora.” Of whom the poet Homer said: “As the gods sat by Zeus and debated,” and again: “Homer, their own poet, will accuse them, he himself saying these things: ‘For that man is hateful to me…’” In the same manner he speaks of philosophers, of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato, when he does not look to their dictated remarks or apophthegms, but to written sentiments. Similarly he cites the prophets and apostles: “On account of this, the apostle Paul also says to the Corinthians,” and elsewhere: “He was saying to the Corinthians.” Well in the prophecy does Malachi say: “The Church nourishes such presbyters, of whom the prophet also says: ‘And I will give your princes in peace, and your bishops in justice.’” In the same way also, as often as he praises any sentiment written by an ecclesiastic, he always speaks: “Well did Justin say,” *Καλῶς ὁ Ἰουστῖνος ἔφη*, “for before the advent of the Lord, Satan never dared to blaspheme God, not yet knowing his own condemnation.” Elsewhere: “And well did Justin say in that book which is to the Marcionites.” And I do not doubt that he had the *Apology* of Justin in mind, when he wrote those things about Simon Magus, ^A mentioning: “Indeed when he was under Claudius Cæsar, by whom he is even said to have been honored with a statue.” Irenæus asserts that five books were written by Papias: But when he cites words from them, he speaks in the same way: And he added, saying: “But these things are credible to the believers.” And, “Judas,” he says, “the traitor not believing, and questioning, etc.” So also in the Preface, *καθὼς ὑπὸ τοῦ κρείττονος ἡμῶν εἴρηται*, when he borrows an elegant simile from an ancient writer. When he recites long passages from the writings of the Valentinians, he prefaces thus: “This is what convinces the foolish, saying with the very words thus,” and: “They signify that John, the disciple of the Lord, taught the first Ogdoad, saying with the very words thus, etc.: But these men say that they were tending toward the higher and more Gnostic [level], ^B explaining the first Tetrad thus, and: ‘The most transcendent Tetrad that he alone described thus.’” Indeed, however often I have observed Irenæus to cite a sentiment from some writer, I have noticed that he always used that word *said*, but never the other, *wrote*. Dallæus brings forward no place at all to the contrary, Parker indeed one, but most unhappily. For he says: “When he cites Clement, he uses this word, *wrote*.” But how, I ask, does he use it? His words are in book 3, chapter 3: “Under this Clement therefore wrote the church which is in Rome the most powerful letter to the Corinthians.” No sentiment is cited here, no testimony of an author is brought forward from his writings, not even Clement is invoked as an author; it is only said that a letter was written under Clement, which is nothing to the point. Vainly therefore is it objected that Irenæus indeed testifies that Ignatius *said* this sentiment, but did not write it, since he never speaks otherwise as often as he cites any words from the books of the ancients. Therefore, *said* must have the same force with Irenæus when reciting the sentiments of the ancients, as it has with others: mostly *said*, sometimes *wrote*. So that we do not fear to say with Dallæus: “That what he cites is read with the same words in the Ignatian Epistle to the Romans, is frivolous and inept—that it was cited from elsewhere than this Epistle is being guessed-at.” He yet still wants Irenæus to have obtained these things of Ignatius from elsewhere, namely, from apophthegms which he could have learned either from Polycarp or from the Acts of the martyrdom themselves. We read everywhere the Epistles of Ignatius, nowhere the apophthegms. Maximus alone, pressed by such an argument as that by which Dallæus is now being pressed, dreamed up apophthegms. We know the epistles were collected by Polycarp; we are ignorant of apophthegms disseminated by him; ^D in the Epistle edited by Polycarp we find the very sentiment which Irenæus praised; there is no need to have recourse to rumor, since we hold it in the writings; and however it may have been used afterwards, we do not doubt that it was drawn from the epistle. There are no apophthegms of Ignatius that preceded the epistles: if any were chanted about afterwards, that they were taken from the epistles is both easily understood and known with sufficient certainty. From Ussher indeed Dallæus and Jerome,

^A understood that some Acts of his martyrdom also favored their own opinion; but neither do those make anything for this matter. I confess indeed that Jerome wrote that the words which exist in Irenæus were spoken by Ignatius, when he heard the roaring lions, as we read in some codices. For in others, that statement does not appear in that place. And when he had already been condemned to the beasts, and in the ardor of suffering heard the roaring lions, he said: For from these it does not appear as clearly in Rome that he said these things, as it appears in the present case, and as it were in the very arena, from the mind of Jerome. Certainly that which is found in the Roman Breviary, and is confirmed by the Greek version of Sophronius, seems to demand a different meaning; for he was not condemned to the beasts at Rome, but at Antioch; but he could hear the roaring lions as well at Smyrna as at Rome. Nor does Sophronius seem to understand the present matter, who translated "I pray to be ground by the teeth of the beasts," as "I pray to be ground by the teeth of the beasts." But I do not dwell on the mind of Jerome in this matter; it little concerns us what he meant by those words, which were spoken by him without any authority. Everything he has in his *Catalogue* concerning the Ignatian writings, he took from Eusebius: from him he transcribed this sentence praised by Irenæus. Eusebius offers nothing of the sort, Irenæus offers nothing of the sort: those words which seem to denote time, he added either incautiously or rhetorically; and thus he transmitted less correctly what he had received from Eusebius; which in this work is habitual to him. Treating of Apollonius, whose martyrdom Eusebius had described, he makes him a senator on his own authority, attributes to him a notable volume, and refers him to the *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, and even counts him among those in the 84th epistle, "who so fill their books with the doctrines and opinions of philosophers, that you do not know what you should admire in them first, the erudition of the age or the knowledge of the Scriptures." These things Jerome extracted and exaggerated from Eusebius by his own ingenuity. Nor must we listen to Josephus Scaliger, who asserts that when he was writing these things, he had not the Greek copy of Eusebius in his hands, but the Latin translation of Rufinus; or Henry Valesius, who holds that he undoubtedly drew these things from the poor interpretation of Rufinus. For this could in no way happen, since Jerome wrote his *Catalogue* so many years before Rufinus translated Eusebius. Jerome wrote these things in the fourteenth year of Theodosius, that is, circa A. D. 392, as he himself testifies at the end of the work: Rufinus translated the *History* of Eusebius after the death of Theodosius, having ravaged the frontiers of Italy by Alaric the leader of the Goths, as he himself professes in his preface. But Alaric did not enter Italy before A. D. 400. Therefore, at the very least, Rufinus published Eusebius in Latin eight years after Jerome had written his *Catalogue*. Valesius also conjectured wrongly that Jerome, for the same reason that Eusebius had omitted the works of Methodius who was more hostile to Origen, had intentionally omitted Rufinus, with whom he had exercised hostilities, in his book *On Ecclesiastical Writers*. For not even at that time ^B had he exercised hostilities with Rufinus, and therefore in this very book he placed the book published by Pamphilus among the other writers, which had been so divulged by Rufinus; nor had Rufinus himself written any other things at that time which could be mentioned by Jerome. Therefore, Jerome, deceived by no one, added those things to the Eusebian material on his own initiative. In the same way he acted in describing the other, Apollonius. "Apollonius," he says, "a most eloquent man, wrote against Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla a notable and long volume, in which he asserts that Montanus and the insane prophetesses perished by hanging." For indeed Eusebius says that Montanus spoke of hanging, but he attributes his narrative to another writer, and specifically an anonymous one, book v, cap. 16, from whom he quite clearly distinguishes Apollonius in cap. 18. Eusebius says that Apollonius wrote a [Greek word omitted], Jerome calls that a notable and long volume, when he himself, forsooth, had added to it three other books written by an anonymous author. Nay, the same man even attributes this anonymous work to Rhodon. "Miltiades," he says, "of whom Rhodon makes mention in his work which he composed against Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla." Since he who mentions Miltiades is the same man who handed down that Montanus and Maximilla had finished their lives by hanging, Jerome therefore added these things from his own. For the fact that Gravius reads Apollonius for Rhodon neither removes the error nor fits Jerome, who says that Rhodon composed a notable work against the Cataphrygians. To note something concerning the time, which is more convenient to the present matter: Jerome, in his *Catalogue*, under Clement, has this: "There exists also after Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, who later ruled the Church with Narcissus, an epistle concerning the ordination of Asclepiades the confessor to the Antiochenes." As if Alexander were either bishop of Jerusalem before he ruled the church with Narcissus, or wrote the epistle when he was bishop of Jerusalem; which epistle, I say, he signifies he sent through Clement of Alexandria, who seems to have died before his Jerusalem episcopate. It is therefore not at all surprising if Jerome, in extracting the sentence of Ignatius cited by Irenæus from Eusebius, erred in time or occasion. Nay, even regarding Ignatius himself, he does not speak more accurately; for when he had mentioned the epistles written by him at Smyrna, "and departing from there," he says, "he wrote to the Philadelphians and to the Smyrnaeans, and properly to Polycarp, commending to him the Church of Antioch." You would believe that Ignatius had written these epistles either from the suburb of Smyrna, or from the first or second milestone; for what someone is said to have done "departing," is understood to mean that he did it in the very departure or when he was departing. But Ignatius wrote these epistles, as Eusebius, from whom Jerome had these things, and the epistles themselves testify, at Troas, to which there was a journey of some days from Smyrna; and there Ignatius remained for some time, and heard something concerning the more peaceful state of Antioch, before he commended the Church of Antioch to Polycarp. It is not, therefore, either by abbre-

abbreviations or exaggerations that Jerome is to be trusted, where we have the authors themselves whom it is established he followed.

Regarding the Acts of the martyrdom, they are not those which existed in the age of St. Irenæus, but others entirely different, composed in the sixth or seventh century, and augmented with fabulous narratives; in which they introduce Ignatius speaking as if in an amphitheater, whereas the most ancient Acts narrate that he did not utter a single word at that time. The architect of that history, therefore, attributes to Ignatius sentences as if uttered by a living voice, which he himself extracted from his epistles; and this not only from the genuine ones, but also from the fictive ones. As that which he narrates as said by him before Trajan: “What sedition and war have you known our people to stir up? Do they not rather submit to the magistrates in matters in which submission is free from danger?” The Old Interpreter: “For which of us have you known to meditate war? And not rather to be subject to princes, where subjection is not dangerous?” Which is taken from the Epistle to the Antiochians. As also the Menaea relate: “He cried out with longing in the midst of dangers: I pursue Christ rejoicing; with Christ ^A I have been crucified; I live, yet no longer I, but Christ alone lives in me,” he said. He cried out with desire in the midst of dangers: “I pursue Christ rejoicing; with Christ I have been crucified; I live, yet no longer I; but Christ alone lives in me,” [Gal. II, 19, 20] he says, from the interpolated Epistle to the Romans. Not a few such things do later patchers-together of the Acts attribute to Ignatius, as if they were pronounced by him in the very arena, which they had never received by report as the apothegms of a martyr, but had taken them from the epistles as they existed in their own age. Therefore, in the same way, this sentence of the martyr which Irenæus cited, in the Acts written several centuries later, is attributed to Ignatius at his final struggle—not from report, not from more ancient Acts in which it does not appear, ^B but taken from the Epistle to the Romans and applied to the present matter; whence later Symeon Logothetes added to this sentence other things from the same epistle, as if uttered at the same time, *in order to obtain God* and *just as I say*. Since, therefore, the sentence cited by Irenæus exists in the Epistle to the Romans, since no mention of any apothegms of Ignatius has ever been made by the most ancient writers, and the name of "apothegm" in this matter was so unhappily devised by Maximus to protect his own escape, and since the most ancient Acts of the Ignatian martyrdom have commemorated neither this nor any similar sentence, while the later Acts have extracted sentences from the epistles (genuine, interpolated, and even fictive) which they inserted into the mouth of the most holy martyr at the very time of his struggle: it is frivolous and inept to speculate that that sentence was cited by Irenæus from any source other than this very epistle.

The learned man therefore takes refuge in a negative argument as in a most secure asylum, and asserts ^C that Irenæus neither took nor could have taken these words from this Epistle to the Romans, because it was unknown to Irenæus; and that it was unknown to him, the rest of the Ignatian epistles (which our people confess were collected and ordered by Polycarp in the same volume with this one) were unknown to Irenæus, he attempts to prove by this argument in his fifth chapter. Irenæus refutes all the heretics before him with arguments drawn from tradition and testimony. There are, however, in the epistles of Ignatius, very many passages most brilliant for that argument: these he proves at length in his own fashion. He had, therefore, a suitable and almost necessary cause to cite, or at least to indicate, those passages from the epistles. But it is discovered that he neither mentioned them by a single word, nor indicated them by even a nod; nay, not even one of them. Therefore, he clearly was ignorant of them.

Although it may be answered easily and briefly that a celebrated sentence from the Epistle to the Romans was adduced by Irenæus—and that this has been observed by Eusebius more than once, acknowledged by many others, denied by no one before this century, and also proven and confirmed by us; and that Irenæus, who knew this Epistle to the Romans, could not have been ignorant of the others contained ^D in the same volume and placed after the Epistle of Polycarp—nevertheless, many things must be set down here. For since the learned man has used great diligence to accomplish nothing, I think that I must use no less to make it appear to all that he has accomplished nothing. The unique sentence, therefore, being set aside for the present—although Irenæus cited or intimated no passages from Ignatius opportune for his purpose—it does not follow from that that the epistles were unknown to him; nor do Daille’s arguments persuade us that Irenæus surely must have used such testimonies if they had been known to him. Indeed, it is much more probable, supposing that the Ignatian writings were most well known to him (as our people affirm), if we look at the manner of writing observed by him, that he preferred to abstain from the excerpting of sentences, just as he is said truly to have abstained.

St. Irenæus wrote five renowned books against heresies, not at the same time or continuously, as appears from the prefaces. We know the third book was written under the pontificate of Eleutherus; but since the ancients write that he sat for 15 years, about which year Irenæus wrote that book is not yet certain. As for the later books, I do not doubt, since we know from the very first book (which was sent to him to whom he dedicated his work some time earlier) that he describes the heresy of the Encratites, which they had first received from Tatian. He affirms that Tatian himself, while Justin was still alive, had been infected by no heretical doctrine. After the martyrdom of Justin, he retreated from the Church and, as Epiphanius witnesses, betook himself to the East, where he concocted a heresy partly from the tenets of Saturninus and Marcion and partly from the follies of Valentinian, having added also some things of his own. From him the Encratites were born, and having been disseminated even into the West, they could not have become known in Gaul under Marcus Antoninus; nor did Irenæus, unless under the times of Eleutherus, edit the third book.

^A Commodus, and with the pontificate of Eleutherus now adult, he was able to depict them so graphically. Furthermore, Theodotion mentions a version of the volume [in] lib. III, cap. 24, who was first *ex deadochis* of Marcion, [and] from the camp of the Marcionites he crossed over to the Ebionites, and since he had been circumcised, he learned the Hebrew language; he finally labored on a version of the Old Testament, and, as Epiphanius testifies, he published it under the Emperor Commodus. It is certain, therefore, that the first three books were indeed written under Eleutherus, but when his pontificate was now drawing to a close; it is evident that the rest were written either toward the very end of Eleutherus, or at the beginning of Victor.

Wherefore men most celebrated in the Church wrote before Irenæus: Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, Quadratus, Aristides, Agrippa, Castor, Justin, Melito, Athenagoras, Theophilus, ^B Dionysius of Corinth, Apollinaris, Bishop of the Hierapolitans, and Hegesippus; Irenæus, therefore, a most curious investigator of all doctrines, as Tertullian calls him, knew the writings of all these perfectly; at the very least, as Dalleus confesses—without which the force of a negative argument is nothing at all—we can rightly assume this. Yet some of these are nowhere named by Irenæus; no sentences are excerpted from them and applied as testimony against heretics. Such as Barnabas, Quadratus, Aristides, Agrippa, Melito, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Dionysius, Hegesippus: certainly more in number than those who are named by him. Will they say that all these were, therefore, unknown to Irenæus, because they are not mentioned by him in the books which we now have, since many more have perished? Barnabas is often cited and copied by Clement of Alexandria, [a] contemporary of Irenæus: the apologies of Quadratus and Aristides were most well-known, and most dear to all, because, having been presented to the Emperor Hadrian, they extinguished the persecution. Agrippa Castor [is] a most excellent writer to Eusebius, a very learned man to Jerome. Tertullian praised the elegant and declamatory genius of Melito: Dionysius was of great eloquence. Hegesippus [was] a neighbor of the apostolic times, as Jerome testifies. Therefore, Irenæus could not have been ignorant of such illustrious writers; wherefore they were neither named nor unknown, and it is incorrectly and plainly inferred that someone was utterly unknown to Irenæus because he was not named in those books of his that we possess.

You will perhaps say that the Ignatian sentences are suitable to Irenæus's argument, [but] theirs are not: that he had a just and necessary cause for naming Ignatius, but none for mentioning them. But in truth, there is no room for this evasion here either. There are very many places in the Epistle of Barnabas which openly refute the heretics against whom Irenæus wrote. He has many things which establish the Father of Christ as the creator of the world; upon which matter Irenæus dwells so lengthily, and for the sake of which alone he cited the Epistle of Clement: he has very many things from the writings of Moses and the prophets, which lean upon this sentence as if it were a foundation: the Prophets, having the gift from Him, into that prophet ^C were called; many things which were drawn by Clement of Alexandria to his own *gnosis* and Gnosticism against those who were called Gnostics *apo pseudonymou gnoseos* (from false-named knowledge). Quadratus presented a book to Hadrian composed for our religion, *ex hou katidein estin lampra tekmēria tēs te tou andros dianoias, kai tēs apostolikēs orthotomias* (from which it is possible to see bright proofs both of the man's intellect and of his apostolic sound-cutting), as Eusebius says, a book very useful and full of reason and faith, and worthy of apostolic doctrine, as Jerome testifies. But whatever there was of faith and apostolic doctrine, it could not but be useful and suitable for refuting the Irenæan heretics; especially since it was written by him who testified that he had seen many who had been healed in Judæa, oppressed by various calamities under the Lord, and who had risen from the dead, or at least that they had survived into his own age. Which must also be thought equally concerning Aristides, who, as Jerome testifies, gave a volume containing the reason of our dogma to the prince Hadrian at the same time as Quadratus. For that which contains the reason of our dogma necessarily overturns the foundations of those heretics. The same must also be said of Apollinaris, the Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, who gave a distinguished volume for the faith of the Christians to M. Antoninus, as also of Melito. Theophilus composed a book against Marcion under the Emperor M. Antoninus; he wrote another against the heresy of Hermogenes. Agrippa Castor argued most forcefully against the volumes of the heretic Basilides, which he had composed against the Gospel. Melito had written many things before the supplicatory booklet given to M. Antoninus concerning the prophets, concerning the Church, concerning the faith, concerning the generation of Jesus Christ, concerning the Incarnation of God; Athenagoras also had written, besides the Apology, concerning the Resurrection, all of which pertained to Irenæus's argument. Finally, as Eusebius reports, *Hist. eccles.*, 1. iv, c. 21: In the same times Hegesippus flourished in the Church, and Dionysius, Bishop of the Corinthians, Pinytus also, Bishop of the Cretans, Philippus, moreover, and Apollinaris, and Melito, Musanus also and Modestus, ^D *kai epi pasin Eirenaios* (and over all Irenæus), and finally, or after all these, Irenæus. But, by the same witness, Philippus composed a most brilliant book against Marcion, Modestus exhibited his errors to be seen by all above the rest; Musanus wrote a book *epistreptikōtaton* (most turning-back) against the Encratites, who had first sprung up; nor, however, does Irenæus mention any of these. Although they could not have been unknown to Irenæus, and had many things in their books then published which were suitable to his argument, they were nevertheless not named by him. It is therefore poorly asserted by Dalleus so peremptorily that any even illustrious author was totally unknown to Irenæus, for that reason only, because when the opportunity was removed he did not name him.

Again, Hermas, Clement, Polycarp, Papias, Justin, of the many who wrote before him, few were indeed named by Irenæus; but did he excerpt many bright passages from them relevant to his argument, which the most learned man demands concerning Ignatius, and into

^A whose opinion he is led, the controversy is of words alone. To these he directs the latter part of the epistle, beginning at page 915; which part the Latin interpretation poorly interrupts on the following page: "We, however, again attacking those who say the Word is a creature, and do not wish him to be the legitimate and natural Son, show that they receive reasons and demonstrations against themselves from human examples of father and son." Which words both disturb the tenor of the dissertation and strangely confuse the persons and the matters themselves. The Greek stands thus: *Καὶ αὐτοὶ γοῦν ἐνιστάμενοι πάλιν πρὸς τοὺς κτίσμα λέγοντας εἶναι τὸν Λόγον, καὶ μὴ θέλοντας αὐτὸν γνήσιον Υἱὸν εἶναι, ἐξ ἀνθρωπίνων παραδειγμάτων υἱοῦ καὶ πατρὸς εἰλήφασι τὰς κατ' αὐτῶν ἀποδείξεις.* "And they themselves, in fact, standing against those who say the Word is a creature, and do not wish him to be the genuine Son (namely, the Arians), have taken demonstrations against them (the Arians) from human examples of father and son." These, therefore, with whom Athanasius deals, were disputing against the Arians, and they professed the same faith as Athanasius; they did not yet, however, admit the word *ὁμοούσιον*, and that because of reverence and honor toward those Fathers who had condemned Paul of Samosata. Athanasius, that he might remove this scruple for them, teaches that one should not contend if a prior synod rejected *ὁμοούσιον* and a later one recommended it: for this was done from a different sense. Then he produces an example of the holy ^B Fathers who accepted *ἀγέννητον* in different ways. "Ignatius," he says, "stated the Lord to be both *γεννητόν* and *ἀγέννητον*; others after Ignatius said, *τὸ ἀγέννητον ὁ Πατήρ*, the Father alone is unbegotten." But both Ignatius and those others were right according to the different sense to which they themselves attended when they wrote. Thus he. Tell me, I beg, by your faith, how many passages from Ignatius did Athanasius produce against the Arians? As it seems to you, one; as it seems to me, not even one. What, therefore, we know to be true of Athanasius, why should we not say the same of Irenæus? Athanasius wrote very many things expressly against the Arians, more than we have written by Irenæus against all heretics. There are many things in Ignatius sufficiently clear for refuting the Arians, yet he brought forward no passage from him against them, nor even named Ignatius himself; and yet he knew him very well, and once cited him to his beloved and brothers. Irenæus likewise extracted nothing against heretics from the epistles of Ignatius; yet he knew them very well, and once cited them ^C in passing. But he strangely joins Athanasius, Bellarmine, Theodoret, and Gelasius together and opposes them to us, who produced so many passages from Ignatius. But then, "I beg, by your faith," he says, "would Athanasius and Theodoret bring forward and recite these Ignatian passages against the Arians and Eutychians, in whom, as being not yet arisen, they were not written? Would Irenæus not oppose the very same to those against whom they were properly written, the Gnostics, Valentinians, and Docetists?" I do not now dispute against whom the Ignatian writings were properly written, a matter about which perhaps at some point I will have to discourse both expansively and accurately. It is sufficient that Eusebius has taught us, and the fact itself testifies, that he wrote against the heretics of his own time; it is sufficient that whether he wrote against some or against none, explicitly, like Clement of Rome, the authority of a most holy and most ancient man avails much against heretics arisen in any century. I say that this completely destroys and ruins the whole force of his argument: Athanasius could have produced not a few passages from our epistles of Ignatius which would explicitly strike at the Arian heresy, since even all his adversaries confess that they were written before the rise of that heresy. He indeed wrote various very strong books against the Arians, yet he never crushes them with the authority of Ignatius, nor opposes any passage from his writings against them. In a certain epistle, *πρὸς τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ γνωρίμους*, to his acquaintances or disciples, as Socrates designates it, he disputes first against the Arians, then he deals with those whom he denies to be Arians, those who he testifies accept everything else written by the Nicene synod except the single word *ὁμοούσιον*, whom he calls *ἀγαπητούς*, beloved, and to whom he speaks as a brother to brothers, with whom ^D he shared the same sentiment, but the controversy was of words alone. To these he directs the latter part of the epistle, beginning at page 915. At Theodoret more, rightly, but what is this to Irenæus? The latter wrote in the second century, the former in the fifth. We, however, previously taught that towards the end of the fourth century it was first observed from long experience that heresies and schisms could not be removed by disputations; and that the most certain remedy would be the *ἐκδόσεις τῶν παλαιῶν* (editions of the ancients) brought forward as testimony. Which Sisinnius was the first of all to persuade Theodosius and Nectarius. After, therefore, the severe law of Theodosius was passed against the heretics, they, having become a little wiser, admit-

463 the testimonies of those Fathers who had written before the division had arisen and who had been celebrated in the Church. Before this age we do not see ecclesiastical writers weaving catalogs of the Fathers and bringing forth crowded sentences from their writings against the heretics. This was first done in the fifth century, and by Theodoret among the first; before that time it was done sparingly and incidentally; but in the age of Irenaeus it could by no right be done. For the heretics against whom he wrote attributed nothing to the more ancient Catholics; they thought nothing of all their writings, and put forth very many books composed by their own people, and known only to them, under the names of the ancients, and they even rejected very many of the writings of the evangelists and apostles, and feigned many things against which no one of the ancients had discoursed. To refute these, Irenaeus in the first book disclosed their opinion, in the second overturned it with arguments, in the third he employed the Scriptures and tradition—to which the heretics sometimes appealed—in the fourth he disputed chiefly from the Old Testament, and in the fifth from the remaining doctrines of our Lord and from the apostolic epistles, as he himself professes in the Prefaces. He testifies that he would never use the testimonies of the ancients against their opinion, he never writes out any passages suitable for that purpose, and if by chance he adduces anyone, he names him only to confirm tradition; he does indeed praise the opinion of Justin against Marcion as fervent and full of zeal; but Marcion was older than Justin, and his authority was of no avail for refuting the errors of the Marcionites, nor was it adduced for that end. Therefore, the method of Irenaeus and Theodoret is entirely different: they had not the same mind or occasion in writing. It is in vain, therefore, and without any foundation, that the most learned man asserts that, since Theodoret brought forward so many passages from Ignatius, Irenaeus also ought to have brought forward no fewer, if he had known the Ignatian epistles.

464 ^A ...a soul bold and shameless, warming itself by empty air, conspicuous for equal beauty and elegance. But you, Dalleus, can you gather from these that Irenaeus necessarily wished to praise sentiments from the Ignatian epistles, if he had known them? You, I say, who call all the Usserian [epistles] sad, rugged, rude, and unrefined? You, who accuse the discourse as horrid and like a torrent hardly struggling through the crags of mountains, through precipices and rocks and reefs and steep places? You, who observe a great obscurity of sense everywhere, and either no connection or a malicious one of words among themselves? You, who believe yourself to read the ancient oracles of Loxias, Apollo, or the leaves of the Sibyls? For so you argue. Irenaeus put a ^B *telauges prosōpon* (far-shining face) on his work, he adorned the preface with a certain elegant sentiment of some ancient, and he employed another of similar beauty elsewhere; therefore he was entirely ignorant of the Ignatian [writings]: otherwise he would have brought forward some rude and unrefined, sad and rugged sentiment to adorn and illuminate his commentaries. He praises certain iambics poured out against the heretic Marcus by a certain divine elder and herald of the truth, which I here represent restored to their numbers by Scaliger and Petavius:

^C Idol manufacturer Marcus, and seer of portents, Skilled in astrology and the magic art, Through which you strengthen the doctrines of error, Showing signs to those who are led astray by you, Enterprises of apostate power, Which your father Satan always provides for you To perform through the angelic power of Azazel, Having you as a precursor of anti-divine craftiness.

The restitution of which is confirmed most highly by the old version: Idolorum fabricator Marce, et portentorum inspector, Astrologiæ cognitor, et magicæ artis, Per quas confirmas erroris doctrinas, Signa ostendens his qui a te seducuntur, Apostaticæ virtutis operationes, Quæ tibi præstat tuus pater Satanas Per angelicam virtutem Azazel facere, Habens te præcursorem contrariæ adversus Deum nequitiæ.

The later [version], which Petavius rendering metrically expressed poorly: Hæc tu illa Satanæ fretus auxilio patris, Azazelisque mira designas ope, Præcursor illi fraudis in Superos datus.

For these make Marcus a precursor of Satan or Azazel; whereas that divine elder wished to describe him as a precursor of Antichrist, which *antitheos panourgia* here signifies. ^D But now, could Irenaeus have sought anything similar from the Ignatian writings if he had known them? Or will anyone affirm that he did not know them, because he who turned verses from elsewhere against Marcus did not sprinkle anything from Ignatius into him? He brings forward, in book IV, cap. 79, an observation of some person before him concerning the double reception of the word "Son," pertaining to the interpretation of Holy Scripture. For he claims that in the Sacred Scriptures the impious and the faithless are called sons and angels of the devil; and he brings forward the testimony of some one of the ancients, who said that "Son" is understood in a double way, either of birth, or of making, or of...

^A doctrine's mastery: "For he who is taught by the word is said to be the son of the one teaching, and he [is] his father." As later Clement of Alexandria [says]: "we call those who catechize [us] fathers forthwith," and Gregory Nazianzen: "Yet to me [they are] parents who have taught me what is good, / And I [their] children whom I have taught." But because he brought forward one from the ancients, who in a similar manner before him interpreted the Scriptures, lest he should seem to have affixed a new meaning to them: must it therefore be that he ought to have cited something from the Ignatian [epistles], or should we concede to him that they were unknown to him, in which such things could neither be found nor expected?

^B But if these [arguments] seem to avail little for confirming the opinion of the most learned man, surely the rest avail nothing at all. For they are only the testimonies of certain men, brought forth not in writing but by word of mouth; which Eusebius rightly calls "memorabilia" [ἀπομνημονεύματα], lib. v, cap. 8, and *of the memorabilia of a certain Apostolic elder, whose name he has passed over in silence*, he makes mention. Ruffinus the interpreter [says]: "But he also makes mention, as if by memory, of the discourse of a certain apostolic man, whose name he has kept silent." Thus the ancients believed that the Gospel of Mark was nothing other than the "memorabilia" [ἀπομνημονεύματα] of Peter. Thus Papias in Eusebius, lib. iii, cap. 39: "Mark indeed, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he recalled [ἐμνημόνευσεν]"; and again: "For Mark did not err in writing some things as he recalled [ἀπεμνημόνευσεν] them." As Lucian professes that he faithfully recalls from memory the words of a certain Cynic about Peregrinus, "and as I shall be able, I will endeavor to recall [ἀπομνημονεῦσαι] for you those very things as they were said." Thus, therefore, Irenæus lib. v, cap. 5: "As I heard from a certain presbyter, who had heard from those who had seen the apostles, and from those who had learned [from them]." Where it is diligently to be observed that Irenæus here has plainly imitated Papias, from whom he received the doctrine of the thousand years; for thus Papias committed to memory those things which he had learned in this way from the ancients, as he himself testifies concerning himself: "But if anyone who had followed the elders should come, I would inquire into the discourses of the elders, what Andrew, or what Peter said, or what Philip, or what Thomas, or James, or what John, or Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord; and [what] Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, were saying: for I did not think that things from books would profit me so much as those from a living and abiding voice." If it happened that I met someone who had conversed with the elders, I would curiously inquire of him what were the sayings of the elders: what Andrew, what Peter, what Philip, what Thomas, what James, what John, what Matthew, or what the other disciples of the Lord were accustomed to say, and what Aristion and John the presbyter, the disciples of the Lord, were handing down. For I did not think that I could gain as much profit from the reading of books, as from the living voice of those who were still surviving. Papias asked the elders what they had heard from the apostles or disciples, and he wrote what he had received from them, "and thus," he says, he ^C was too stirred up, and inquired likewise from the elders, what they had heard from those who had seen the apostles' disciples, and when he preferred to his writings these things brought forth by word of mouth and handed down to him, he wrote down likewise what he had received from them. By the authority and testimony of these elders, therefore, he makes use [of them] sometimes to confirm tradition, [and] more often to establish his own private opinions concerning the years of Christ *which He spent on the earth*, concerning those which He is about to spend again in the same place, concerning the state of the dead, [and] concerning the number of the Apocalyptic beast. But what follows from this? Is it primarily that all the Ignatian [writings] were unknown to Irenæus, because nothing written by him is found among all these testimonies? By no means. Irenæus could not consult Ignatius, for he was born after he died. The elders recount to Irenæus what they had heard; Ignatius, long before given to the beasts, could not do this. In vain, therefore, would you look for him bringing his own suffrages among those elders. Those elders told what they had heard by living voice, not what they had read in writings; in vain, therefore, would you also expect some piece of writing by Ignatius from them. Ignatius himself, condemned to the beasts and confirming the Churches on his journey, did not, like Papias—"being little in understanding" [σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν]—write in epistles what he or others had received by word from this or that apostle or disciple: hence, therefore, it can by no means be gathered that his epistles ought to have been lauded by Irenæus, or that for that reason they were unknown to him.

Not yet, therefore, did the matter seem to have been sufficiently settled, but the most learned man thinks he can prove it much more clearly from a certain passage of the same writer; namely, that in which he mentions two epistles to the Churches, one of Clement to the Corinthians, another of Polycarp to the Philippians. Wherefore he asks here: why, if our Ignatius was known to him, did he make mention of none in a place so opportune and so necessary? Let Irenæus answer now, not so much for us as for himself. For we are much safer from the conjectures of Daille than is St. Irenæus from his censure. Thus, therefore, he [says] lib. iii, cap. 3: "Therefore the tradition of the apostles, manifested in the whole world, is present for all who wish to hear the truth to observe; and we are able to enumerate those who were instituted by the apostles as bishops in the churches, and their successors down to us, who taught no such thing, nor knew [of] what is babbled by them." Tradition, therefore, according to Irenæus, was in every Church—Roman, Alexandrian, Antiochene, Hierosolymitan, and the rest; and if he had wished, he could have enumerated all the bishops instituted by the apostles, whom they had left as successors, handing down their own place of magisterium, and the successors of those [as well]. "But since," he says, "in such a volume as this, it is a long task to enumerate the successions of all the Churches; [but] that very great, and ancient, and known to all, Church founded and constituted at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul, [having] the tradition which it has from the apostles and the faith announced to men, coming down through the successions of bishops..."

^A And since he had preached the same thing with the Romans, that he turned many of the heretics, against whom these books were written, to the Catholic faith at Rome, and reconciled them to the Roman Church, he testified what St. John felt about Cerinthus, and what he himself felt about Marcion. But of these things, nothing could be said about Ignatius. Indeed, he mentions his epistles in passing, but he does not even quote any passage from them; nor does he even say that they contain the same tradition which prevailed in the Roman Church. Therefore, he cited Polycarp only because he taught at Rome the same things as the Roman Church, and resisted the heretics there. Nor was there an equal reason for naming both.

That which the most learned man adds, that Irenaeus made mention of Polycarp in his epistle to Florinus, but not of Ignatius, whose epistles contain many things against the blasphemy of Florinus, has no force at all. The blasphemy which Florinus defended at that time was peculiar to him, as the heretics who were outside the Church never dared to profess it. Afterwards, indeed, as Eusebius testifies, he lapsed to the Valentinians. However, the epistle of Irenaeus had as its only argument that God is not the author of evils, for although another title, *On Monarchy*, might seem to show that Florinus had introduced two principles and had adhered to the dogmas of Marcion and Cerdo, as observed by the most learned Valesius; nevertheless, since Irenaeus himself asserts that the dogmas of Florinus were never handed down by the heretics, and Eusebius adds, *taútηs yàp toi tñs yvóµns, oûtos édóxei mpoaomτiÇeiv*, Irenaeus seems to have disputed about that matter only against Florinus: *"Whether, namely, God was the author of evils."*

^B But how many things, I ask, do the epistles of Ignatius contain that are opportune for refuting the blasphemy in that matter? Or if they did contain them, whence would it be permitted to conclude that Irenaeus wished to extract opinions from them to refute Florinus? Certainly, this does not follow in any way from the example of Polycarp. He implies, indeed, that he wrote more epistles, but he does not adduce a single opinion from any of them. He names him, but in that place where, *pereis-mōs*, he deals sparingly and lightly with Florinus, where he shows that the elders who had lived with the apostles had taught him nothing of the sort. He knew that Florinus had been familiar with some of them; he names one of them, namely Polycarp; and he chooses him specifically for many reasons which he signifies. First, with respect to Florinus, who had heard Polycarp, but also when he was with him, Irenaeus himself says: *eidon gar se, inquit, pais ōn eti en tē katō Asia para tō Polykarpō lamprōs prattonta en tē basilikē aulē, kai peirōmenon eudokimein par' autō*. "For I saw you, when I was yet a boy in lower Asia with Polycarp, behaving splendidly in the royal court, and striving greatly to approve yourself to him."

^C Second, with respect to himself, whom he depicts as the best witness of this matter, because the things which he then heard from Polycarp adhered more firmly to his memory than those which had happened recently. *Tauta kai tote spoudaiōs ēkouon hypomnēmatizomenos ouk en chartē all' en tē emē kardia, kai aei auta anamē- [nēskō, etc.]*

Thirdly, [I rely upon] the reason of the argument which he [Dallæus] deemed most powerful. For he [Polycarp/Irenæus] heard Polycarp at that time—who had that association with St. John and the others who had seen the Lord—and he diligently observed what things he had heard from them reported concerning Christ, and how all those things, which he had observed from those who had looked upon the Word of Life, were in agreement with the Holy Scriptures. This is the very same argument which Irenæus so often uses either to refute heretics or to confirm his own opinions. But he could say nothing of these things regarding Ignatius; for Florinus never associated with him; Irenæus did not see him; he never heard him discourse about the apostles or the disciples of the Lord, nor did he read it in his epistles. There were, therefore, sufficient reasons for Irenæus to cite Polycarp according to his custom rather than Ignatius against the blasphemy of Florinus.

Wherefore, since Irenæus cited the well-known sentiment of St. Ignatius, which we find written in those very words in his epistle to the Romans: since Eusebius asserts that Irenæus drew it from the same epistle, and others after him affirm the same: since there appears no force at all in that distinction between *said* and *wrote*: since no apophthegms of Ignatius are to be found in the most ancient writers or in the Acts, but in later ones they are extant, and are most certainly taken from the epistles: since, finally, no reason has yet been devised which might persuade us that Irenæus was ignorant of the remaining epistles of Ignatius; while many reasons abound which give us faith that no opportunity of citing Ignatius was offered to Irenæus in those places where our adversaries clamor that it was just and necessary; I conclude that it is frivolous and inept to speculate that Irenæus took the sentiment from elsewhere than our Ignatian epistle to the Romans, and that therefore the testimony of Irenæus is rightly and aptly brought forward by us to confirm the authority of the Ignatian letters.

CHAPTER VII. Testimonies of Origen are vindicated from objections.

I. They are not in vain, because they refute the errors of his impostor and the hallucination of Eusebius; and besides, they utterly overturn the negative argument. II. They are not false. The work on the *Song of Songs* is by Origen himself, not by the Latin author, but by the interpreter, indeed by Rufinus. The Homilies on St. Luke are by Origen himself, not by the Latin author, but by the interpreter, indeed by Jerome.

The third testimony deduced by us from Origen is [said by] this most learned man to be, first, useless, and second, false. “In vain,” he says, “do they recite the homilies of Origen written about 140 years after the last struggle of the martyr. For this is a late and empty defense of the Ignatians.” I answer first that this testimony is not useless; because two immense errors of Dallæus would be convicted of manifest falsity by this one argument alone, even if others were wanting. The first is that the impostor did not bring these epistles to light until 200 years ^A after Ignatius. How could this happen if Origen saw, read, and transcribed two sentiments from those same epistles 140 years after the last struggle of the martyr? Could Adamantius praise them 60 years before they were edited? This one testimony refutes and expunges whatever is peculiar to Dallæus in this work. Salmasius and Albertinus admit that the epistles written under the name of Ignatius existed long before Origen was born; Blondellus [admits this] before Origen wrote. Only Dallæus—unless perhaps Bochartus should be added to him—affirms that they were all written long after the death of Origen; and he formed many of his sixty-six arguments for this epoch, which collapse once this single testimony is confirmed.

^B The second most false assertion of Dallæus is that Eusebius is the fountain of every error concerning the Ignatian letters; who, having first arisen from here, afterward spread most widely, and pervaded almost all the learned men of the Christian name of the following centuries. It is not in vain, therefore, that we bring forward Origen, who utterly uproots so vast an error, disgraceful to so many great men. For did Eusebius lapse first, who followed Origen? Or did he accept a newly born and adulterine fetus, which Origenes had fostered and kissed for so long before? Or did the other Fathers follow Eusebius, who was erring *unexamined* (ἀβασανίστως), while they most certainly knew that he had not erred at first, inasmuch as they continuously read Origen? If Origen had written those homilies 140 years after the death of Ignatius, these things would have been observed not in vain, but quite opportunely for overturning the Dallæan reasons.

But I answer second, that the homilies of Origen were not written so late, nor finally 140 years after the last struggle of the martyr, but long before. A most explicit mention of the Ignatian epistle exists in his homilies on St. Luke. Origen wrote those homilies while still a youth, and before man’s estate. ^C A most rich witness is St. Jerome, an assiduous reader of Adamantius, and, while he was writing those things, an admirer. For he says thus in his preface to his version: “I confess, therefore, that in these treatises of Origen, I play as a boy: his others are manly, and the works of his old age are serious.” Therefore, Origen did not write his homilies on St. Luke as an old man, nor when he was of man’s age, but while still an adolescent. When he was in his eighteenth year, he was made prefect of the catechetical school at Alexandria. Eusebius states this explicitly: *Etos de ēgen oktōkaidekaton, kath’ ho tēs katēchēseōs proestē didaskaleiou* (He was in his eighteenth year, when he was placed over the catechetical school), Hist. lib. vi, c. 3, which St. Jerome supports. This year was the eleventh of Severus; for in the tenth of Severus, Origen lived through his seventeenth year, as witnessed by Eusebius and Jerome. ^D Severus remained in the empire for almost seven years afterward. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that Origen wrote the homilies on St. Luke at the beginning of Caracalla, while he was still a boy or an adolescent. Now, indeed, from the tenth of Trajan, in which Ignatius is said to have written the epistles, to the beginning of Caracalla, there are scarcely 105 years. Within so many years, therefore, of Ignatius

Origenes is believed to have provided written testimony. This is worth observing, not only to show that what Dallæus asserts regarding the interval is false, but also to wrench from him the negative argument in which he so greatly delights. He invokes Launoy, a most learned theologian of the Sorbonne, who argues at length on the force of the negative argument. But Launoy himself expressed his view thus: "When no writer of equal or near-equal standing provides testimony, then an effective argument is drawn from a general silence, which can be estimated at more or less two hundred years." But here the most noble writer Origen, a contemporary of Ignatius, born in the same century in which he wrote, provides the most brilliant testimony to his epistles; and if no one before him had mentioned Ignatius, not even then would a general silence of about two hundred years have preceded such that an effective argument could be drawn from it. Wherefore, if St. Polycarp and St. Irenæus had been silent, the testimony of Origen would, according to Launoyian principles, sufficiently blunt the force and efficacy of the negative argument. Therefore, Origen alone, if he is admitted as a legitimate witness, thoroughly refutes the opinion of Dallæus and renders vain many arguments devised by him; he is therefore not cited by us in vain.

I appeal also to ancient critics among the Christians. For when there was a famous controversy in the Church regarding the writings of Dionysius, who was older than Ignatius, and the matter at issue was testimonies; those who contended that their author was not the true Areopagite did not object to the silence of the second century, but only to this, that Origen and Eusebius had made no mention of him. Thus Maximus, against whom they disputed in this way: ^C *Nai*, φασὶν, ἀλλ' οὐκ ἔγραψεν αὐτοῦ τὰς συντάξεις Εὐσέβιος ὁ Παμφίλου, καὶ μὴν οὐδ᾽ Ωριγένης. “Nay, they say, Eusebius Pamphili did not write his treatises, and indeed neither did Origen.” Truly, they say, Eusebius Pamphili did not transcribe his works, nor did Origen. If their testimonies were brought forward in vain, if these were late and hollow protections for the Dionysians: why did ancient critics among the Christians demand them? If Maximus had been able to answer this question for his Dionysius, as we answer for Ignatius, that answer—namely, that Origen and Eusebius had explicitly mentioned him—would no doubt never have been held as vain. For the same Areopagitic works, Hypatius, bishop of Ephesus, required the testimonies of the blessed Cyril and the blessed Athanasius, and added: “But if none of the ancients records them, whence can you now demonstrate that they are his? I do not know.” We have Theodoret, a contemporary of Cyril; we have Chrysostom, Jerome, and Athanasius himself; we have from the more ancient ones Eusebius and Origen, who, just as they were not demanded from them in vain, so are they not brought forward by us in vain.

But the most learned man proceeds, and answers both locations brought forward from Origen at once: that it is of little moment to the matter at hand that the authority of the small works from which they were cited is doubtful and uncertain. Thus, indeed, he speaks a little more gently at first; soon, as is his custom, more confidently: "Those books, from which [these citations] were brought, appear to be not from Origen, nor indeed from any Greek writer, but rather from a Latin one." Therefore, in the first place, he denies that the work of Origen on the Song of Songs, from the prologue of which I have adduced the testimony, belongs to Origen; he denies that it belongs to any Greek writer, and contends that it is the work of a Latin. And in this matter he has authors to follow. In the first place, he names Erasmus, whose censure he calls grave and true, although it is most trivial and false. To this he adds Amerbach and Cocus; he could also have named others, who followed Erasmus ^D *ἀβασανίστως*.

To these I oppose Jacob Merlin, who was greatly versed in the works of Origen, whose words concerning these homilies are: “If you attend carefully to the very matter which is treated in them, you will attribute them to Origen himself.” To this I add Genebrard, who later edited Origen and enriched him with several books not previously published. To this I add the latest editor, who exerts himself with the greatest diligence, learning, and judgment in discovering, editing, and adorning the Greek works of the same, Daniel Huet: “Erasmus must be castigated,” says he, “who himself feels—and also brought it about that the Magdeburgians should feel—that this work is that of a Latin man, beautifully learned and well-spoken.” Indeed, in order that the Dallæans might understand Huet's opinion regarding their Erasmus, these are his words: “Unbridled, truly, I say again, and reckless is the temerity of Erasmus, who so mixes the writings of the ancient Fathers with his own empty conjectures that, had the studies of later theologians not resisted, we could scarcely establish anything certain about the doctrine of the nascent Church.” Erasmus is therefore a most suitable author for Dallæus, who argues on the use of the holy Fathers in such a manner.

To these three editors of Origen, I add most learned men and sworn enemies of the Ignatian position: first, Blondell, who, in his apology, to prove that Origen acknowledged only two orders of priests and deacons, according to the example of the master Clement (section 2, §13), produces a testimony from the second homily of this work. Therefore, Blondell recognizes not some Latin, but Origen himself, the disciple of Clement of Alexandria, as the author of this work. Second, Albertin, who argued so brilliantly against Halloix, in *De eucharistia*, lib. 2, c. 1. Where he attributes this very work on the Song of Songs, and this very passage which we have adduced among the testimonies, to Origen, and concludes most verisimilarly that the masked Dionysius drew his material from Origen himself. Moreover, he understands Origen to be the true one, namely he who was never accused by anyone of plagiarism, since he was of such a fruitful intellect that he was an author for others rather than an imitator or transcriber of anyone. Dallæus follows Albertin in *De libris suppositis Dionysio Areopagitæ*, lib. 1, c. 17. “Our Albertin, arguing against the same Halloix,” he says, “rightly indicated that your Dionysius stole or at least borrowed this whole passage from your Origen.” For how could Albertin rightly judge that, if that writer were neither Origen nor any of the Greeks, but a Latin I know not whom? Since Halloix, as he defended his Dionysius...

^A in defending his own, would have corrupted it and judged that this passage ought to be exterminated from his book; Dallæus orders him to leave with his most fastidious and inept criticism, and says: "what the whole world has hitherto borne with an even mind in Origen (a man who, by your leave, I think was much more learned than your Dionysius), do not bear more inequitably in Dionysius." Therefore, the author of the commentaries on the *Song of Songs*, when Dallæus writes against Dionysius, is Origen, and the passage which we have adduced, the whole world has hitherto borne with an even mind in that same Origen: why then is he not the same? Why does Dallæus war against the whole world when he takes up arms against Ignatius?

We have compared authors with authors; now let us compare reasons with reasons. "That he was not a Greek, you may gather even from this," says Erasmus, "because in the Prologue he cites the Greeks as aliens." He says: "As among the Greeks, who seem learned and wise." He is completely unskillful and inept. For he cites the Greeks as aliens not from their language or their race, but from their religion. For it is certain that here the Greeks are not opposed to the Latins, but to the Christians. For it follows: "It would not, therefore, be a wonder if even among us, where there are so many more simple people, there should also seem to be so many more and more unskillful ones." Which words certainly pertain not to the Latins only, but to the assemblies of all Christians; and besides, they point us to Origen, who speaks almost everywhere about simplicity and unskillfulness. Nor indeed does anyone oppose the Greeks to the Christians more frequently than Origen; ^B of whose work I have thought one passage should be mentioned, so that I may simultaneously correct it. While I am unfolding the commentaries on St. John, in the recent edition, page 211, I read: *Ὡς Πέτρου διδάσκοντος μὴ καθέλειν ἅς προσκυνεῖν*, with no sense at all. But Ferrarius had rightly translated it, "just as if Peter had taught that it is not fitting for us to adore after the manner of the Gentiles;" therefore Huet, the editor, notes on the margin that one should read *κατ' ἐθνικούς* for *καθελεῖν ἄς*, regarding the sense rather than the words, and having Ferrarius more before his eyes than Origen. For the very letters teach that for *καθελεῖν ἄς* one ought to restore entirely *κατ' ἐθνικούς*, and I note that it is so read in our manuscript, a codex far more excellent than the Huet. Meanwhile, it is most certain that the Greeks are opposed not to the Latins, but to the Christians, in that place which Erasmus indicates; and Huet gathers much more probably from the same that the author of this work is Origen, because here the *Symposium* of Plato is praised in no obscure words, where he deals with *Ἔρωτος*, which book the same Origen praises, and the passage about Love, against Celsus in book iv. Thus unhappily has Erasmus been occupied in this argument.

Raynaud the Jesuit urges this objection somewhat better. "The author himself," he says, "twice professes that he is a Latin, when dealing with logic in the division of philosophy." For there the Latins are explicitly opposed to the Greeks. "The general disciplines, by which one arrives at the knowledge of things, are three which the (Greeks) have called ethics, physics, and theorics; (we may call these moral, natural, and inspectiva)." Some indeed (among ^C the Greeks), the logic (which we can call rational), have placed in the fourth number. Yet this author does not profess himself a Latin. For those things which we have enclosed in parentheses are the interpreter's, not the author's. For when he had first rendered the Greek, in Latin letters indeed, but in Greek words, lest by chance they might not be understood by Latins, or lest he himself might appear not to have understood them, he wished to interpret the same things again in Latin, which is very familiar to the ancient interpreters. But that the place itself was written by Origen is argued even by the fact that Jerome follows it in his *Ecclesiastes*, as he was accustomed to do, then especially when the Origenian things had not yet so much displeased. For dealing with the three books of Solomon, and observing their order and arguments with Origen, he says: "The followers of the philosophers instruct their own disciples not far from this order of doctrines; so that first they teach ethics, then interpret physics, and when they have seen that one has progressed in these, they lead him even to theology." Which passage, if Henry Valesius had had in his mind, he would never have brought forth that observation in his annotations on Eusebius: "Certainly in the books of Jerome you will never find theology to be said, but in Greek *θεολογίαν*." Nor, if he had considered that Jerome in epistle 155 wished to express this passage of Origen, would he have immediately preferred the reading of the Memmian codex to the vulgate, or said that this "theoricen" [contemplation] is without sense. The words of Jerome are: "Philosophers are wont to divide their disputations into physics, ethics, and logic; so also the divine utterances, either to dispute about nature, as in *Genesis* and *Ecclesiastes*; or about morals, as in *Proverbs*, and in all the books dispersed here and there; or about logic, for which our people vindicate for themselves 'theoricen,' as in the *Song of Songs* and in the *Gospels*." Which, since anyone may understand it to have been sought from Origen, who will not be able to suffer "theoricen" in that place, when he knows it to be defined thus by Origen: "It is called 'inspectiva' [contemplative], by which, having surpassed things visible, we contemplate something of divine and celestial things, and behold them with the mind alone?" These things, therefore, are entirely Origen's, and Jerome drew them from him.

"But the same," says Erasmus, "is clear from the interpretation of love, charity, affection, and desire." Not at all. For the author does not provide the interpretation of these four words, but the interpreter uses them only to express two words, which the author compares among themselves, namely *ἔρωτα* and *ἀγάπην*, and he translates *ἔρωτα* into either love or desire, and *ἀγάπην* into either affection or charity. Origen indeed had collected the passages of Scripture ^D according to his custom, so that he might show that *ἀγάπην* signifies the same thing for the sacred writers as *ἔρως* does among others. But to explain these passages, it was necessary for the interpreter to add "affection" to "charity," because the author often used the word *ἀγαπᾶν*, which in Latin does not correspond to "charity." These things appear sufficiently clearly from the passage itself. It seems to me, however, that the divine *Scripture*, wishing to take care that some fall might not arise for the readers under the name of love, for the sake of the weaker ones, that which among the sages of the age is called "cupido," or "amor,"

regarding the newer term, he used "charitas" or "dilectio." For example, when he spoke of Isaac: "And he took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her," ^A *ἀγαπᾷν* is rightly translated as "to love," and *ἀγάπη* was rendered in ancient times not less by "dilectio" than by "charitas." The old glossaries: *dilectio, ἀγάπη; ἀγάπη, dilectio*. Tertullian, concerning the *agape* of the ancient Christians: "Our feast shows the reason for its name: it is called what 'dilectio' is among the Greeks." But just as he added "dilectio" to "charitas," so also he added "cupido" to "amor." The old glossary: *Ἔρως, amor, cupido*. This Jerome had done before him in his first homily: "may he be inflamed with spiritual desire or love." But these things, as they do not in the least betray a Latin author, so they further show that Origen himself was the author, who in those writings which we possess, uses *ἔρωτα* in divine matters so frequently: and as St. Gregory of Nyssa is wont to do in this very matter, in his first homily on the Canticles: *Ἐπειδὰν τοίνυν σοφία ἐστὶν ἡ λαλοῦσα, ἀγάπησον ὅσον δύνασαι ἐξ ὅλης καρδίας τε καὶ δυνάμεως, ἐπιθύμησον ὅσον χωρεῖς· προστίθημι δὲ θαῤῥῶν τοῖς ῥήμασι τούτοις καὶ τὸ, ἐράσθητι.* Since therefore it is Wisdom who speaks, love as much as you can, with all your heart and with all your strength; desire as much as you can grasp: I add also boldly to these words: Love. Plainly as in the Hieronymian version of the first homily of Origen, "and that I may say something more daring, may he be inflamed with spiritual desire and love."

That this work is attributed to Jerome in some books, and is cited under the name of Ambrose by Lombard and Thomas, men of the greatest ignorance in these matters, does not mean that either this one or that one was the author of this work, since all know that it can belong to neither. But from this arises a more just suspicion that it is rather Origen’s own, because Ambrose and Jerome translated many things of Origen into the Latin tongue.

Therefore, the arguments brought against Origen have no force; but those which we shall bring forward for him are most valid. For whatever things can be said about any work being ascribed to Origen, they apply primarily to this one. And it is no wonder, since, as Jerome once observed, when Origen surpassed everyone else in other books, in the Canticle of Canticles he surpassed himself. For first, the old character of the Origenians, prefixed to many manuscripts in St. Peter's College at Cambridge, is recognized as Origen's discourse by the abundance of its authorities. ^B Nowhere, however, is this character more manifest than in this work: in which the author always ranges abroad, and brings in passages of Holy Scripture from wherever he can, and draws them to his own purpose. Second, Origen everywhere pursues the tropological [sense], as all Christians note, even Porphyry himself. Moreover, he perpetually tracks three senses throughout this entire work: the historical, the tropological, and the anagogical; nor does he explain the other passages of Scripture which he brings in incidentally in any other way: as here ^C Origen surpasses himself. Third, no one ever praised his own previously written works as much as Origen. For as often as he incidentally cites a passage of Scripture, he is accustomed to refer the reader to his own expositions. He frequently did the same in this work; for he cites his homilies on Exodus, and on Judges once, on Numbers four times; his explanations on Leviticus, and his commentaries on the New Testament. Fourth, it is Origen's custom to interpret proper Hebrew names, and to fish out tropological senses from their interpretations. Nowhere does he do this more frequently than in these volumes. In the prologue he says, "Israel is named for the contemplation of divine things." Zareth, "alien descent"; Deborah, "a bee" (as in homily 5 on Judges); Barach, "lightning" (as in the same homily); Solomon, "peaceful." First homily, Eden, "delights"; second, Cedar, "darkness" or "obscurity." Jerusalem, "vision of peace" (as in homily 21 on Joshua, "of Jerusalem we have frequently said that it is interpreted as the vision of peace"). Abdimelech, "servant of kings"; Mambre, "vision"; cherubim, "fullness of the knowledge of God" (as in homily 2 on Ezekiel). Engaddi, "eye of my temptation" (as in homily 2 on the Canticles translated by Jerome): third, Bethel, "house of God." But whoever has weighed those wonderful theorems which the author deduces from these interpretations will certainly attribute these commentaries to no one but Origen. Fifth, certain peculiar opinions have been attributed to Origen, especially concerning the soul and the angels, from which the Latins particularly recoiled. Yet these are proposed everywhere in this short work. Finally, Origen in his tomes, where he applies himself to explaining the mystical sense, often turns himself to God with prayers, so that, illuminated by the grace of God, he may perceive those great mysteries, as he calls them. Which happens here very often. If, therefore, we look at the matter of the books and the mode of treatment, everything tastes of Origen alone.

Moreover, there are also other things which completely convince us that these commentaries are by no other than Origen. The two homilies of Adamantius on the Canticle of Canticles were faithfully translated by Jerome, dedicated to Pope Damasus, and acknowledged by Rufinus. Their sentiments, however, are similar and germane to those which are contained in this work, so that it is apparent that both were formed on the same anvil; as the most learned Huetius observed, who collected not a few places, and could have collected many more. But a clear fragment of Origen removes every doubt, which still exists in Greek at the end of the *Philocalia*, taken from the second tome of the commentaries on the Canticle of Canticles. For the Latin which we possess in the second homily of this work responds clearly to this Greek fragment. For although the former part of the fragment is interpreted there more freely, the latter part is nevertheless rendered more tightly: and in that former part itself, those words of the fragment, *οὕτω δὲ καὶ μήποτε σκληρύνει Κύριος τὴν καρδίαν Φαραώ*, are better explained by that old [translator] than by Tarinus recently...

Tarinus translates it thus: "So never does the Lord harden the heart of Pharaoh," which is alien to the mind of Adamantius. The ancient interpreter, because of this, perhaps says God is said to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Correct: for *μήποτε*, a word very frequently used by Origen, does not mean "never," but "perhaps": for Adamantius is accustomed to propose his expositions somewhat doubtfully under that formula of speaking almost everywhere.

It is therefore most certain that the work on the Canticles, from which we transcribed the opinion and used as testimony for our Ignatius, is by Origen himself, and not by some Latin author. That this may appear yet more manifest, I shall also name the interpreter; and I assert that he is Rufinus, moved not only by conjectures which Huetius has embraced, but also supported by fitting testimony which is provided by Cassiodorus, who lived one hundred years after the death of Rufinus. For he, in the book *De divin. lect.*, chapter five, has these things: "In the Canticles of Canticles, the same St. Jerome, that egregious propagator of the Latin tongue, provided for us the exposition of Origen in two homilies with his usual probable translation. These same, Rufinus, a most eloquent interpreter, having added certain passages, explained more broadly in three books up to that precept which says: 'Take for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards.' Although these things were spoken obscurely by Cassiodorus, yet the work itself indicates strictly that it ends at that verse: 'Take for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards.'"

There is therefore no reason for one to indulge in suspicions, relying on the judgment of Erasmus (as Blondell said in a similar matter regarding the letters of Innocent), and much less in that of Amerbach, who is fluctuating here, and asserting nothing else surely, except what we also assert. For thus he said in the preface to the seventh volume of Jerome: "As for the rest, I do not wish to dispute at present about the four homilies on the Canticles of Canticles, whether they are Origen's or not; there are certainly many things ^A which prove them to be of a Latin man, not a Greek. This I would dare to affirm, that even if they are of a Greek man, Jerome did not translate them." Which we also affirm.

To refute the first testimony of Origen, the most learned man has used the authority of Erasmus; to elevate the second, he proceeds with his own strength, and no less unhappily. First, he wishes the author of the thirty-nine homilies on Luke to be a Latin, which is both wonderful in itself, and I suppose, unheard of before this day. The marks of these Latin origins which he detects are these. First, he observes, he says, that "full of grace" is said in Greek *κεχαριτωμένη*. But who, I ask, observes this? The author, or the interpreter? He says neither, cautiously enough; but the homily observes it, which is strangely stated, and from there he concludes that the author was not a Greek, but a Latin. I openly say that St. Jerome, the interpreter of the homily, observed this incidentally, and was forced by a certain necessity to insert such an observation into the work itself. ^B St. Ambrose had transcribed this very place from Origen before him, content with the version alone. But since Origen had observed that the word in the salutation was entirely unusual, and Jerome had rendered it "full of grace," with two words, that is, neither of which is rare, it was necessary for him to add what is said in Greek, *κεχαριτωμένη*. Second, he objects these things from the fifth homily: "I, however, [Greek script: ἄλογος]," which, although the Latin expressed it otherwise, yet can be properly translated as "without speech or reason." But here too we have Origen as the author, and Jerome as the interpreter. The author proves the Israelitic people mute because they had rejected the Word, that is, Christ; and this he explains through many places of Scripture: which is plainly Origenic. He cites those things from Moses, Exod. v, 12: *Ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι*. Because the interpreter could find nothing of the sort written in Latin codices, but rather perhaps that which we now read, "I am uncircumcised of lips," as the Hebrew sounds, and the version of Theodotion, or "of slow of speech," as it was read in antiquity, he thought it necessary to admonish one correctly understanding Origen, that although the Latin expressed that word *ἄλογος* otherwise, yet it can be properly ^C translated as "without speech, or reason." And this is plainly Hieronymian, as all know. St. Jerome himself, certainly, at chapter XLIV of Ezek.: "And in Exodus Moses spoke in the sight of the Lord, saying: 'Behold, the sons of Israel have not heard me, how shall Pharaoh hear me? I, however, am of slow of speech': for which the LXX said *Ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι*, which is held better in the Hebrew, 'I am uncircumcised of lips.'" Third, he says that it is of the same nature that it is observed that "corpse" (*cadaver*) received its name from "fall" (*casu*), hom. 16. But these have no similarity with the preceding, but are a pure translation, or a naked rendering of the Greek words. In that place he explains verse 34 of chapter 11 of the Gospel according to St. Luke: *ἰδοὺ οὗτος κεῖται εἰς πτῶσιν*: "Behold, this one is set for a fall." Origenes, according to his custom; and finally he applies to this the place of St. Matthew. And concerning this fall it is said: *Ὅπου γὰρ ἐὰν ᾖ τὸ πτῶμα, ἐκεῖ συναχθήσονται οἱ ἀετοί*, "wheresoever the corpse shall be, there will the eagles be gathered together." That this may not appear too forced, he added, *πτῶμα γὰρ ἀπὸ πτώσεως λέγεται*, "for 'corpse' is named from 'fall'." Anything of a like kind you might read in Hippolytus in his booklet on Antichrist. Fourth, he wishes it to be of the same nature that from hom. 22, because the Greek speech sounds this, which is "to be converted into stones," more significantly *ἀπολιθοῦσθαι*. But that entire treatise on raising up sons of Abraham from stones is plainly Origenic; and these words, which ought to be included in parentheses, were manifestly inserted by the interpreter Jerome. Fifth, he notes the judge among the Greeks is placed with the article, which is a signifier of singularity, and presently he says concerning the discrimination of a noun when placed with the article or without the article, that it is more understood among the Greeks, hom. 35. But easy

response: the author of the homily notes the judge ^A when placed with the article; the interpreter adds, "among the Greeks, because among the Latins the article is not placed." Here Origen explains verse 58, chapter xii of the Gospel according to Luke. He observes that *archonta* is said without the article, *pros ton Kriten* with the article: from thence he gathers that the prince is one of the angels, who are many, but the judge is that one alone, Jesus Christ. This is clearly Origenian. For no one urges the force of the article as often as Adamantius. Jerome, when he saw that a man skilled only in the Latin language could not grasp these things, noted that this is more easily understood among the Greeks. Lastly, he says, in the same homily he warns that a quadrant, or a farthing, can be called *tenue* in Greek. Correct. But we have here both the author Origen and the interpreter Jerome. While Origen explains those words, "*until thou pay the very last mite*," he plays, as he is wont, upon the word *lepton*, and shows that sin is either gross and thick, or thin and subtle. Jerome saw that these things could not be understood by the Latins either through "quadrant" or "mite," and warned that that which is called a "mite" can be said in Greek to be *tenue*, whence the things that follow can at last be understood. ^C "These things," he says, "deny the author wrote in Greek,"in which language it is known that Origen composed all his works. Indeed, they do not deny the author wrote in Greek, but only that an interpreter translated from Greek into Latin, and, where there was need, rendered an account of his version, than which nothing was more familiar among ancient interpreters," they show. Bellarmine thought the fifth tractate, and so the rest on Matthew, were of a Latin author: "but his reasoning does not seem firm to me," says Labbeus. And it was certainly most infirm, as now appears from the commentary published in Greek by Huetius. And the words of Huetius are worthy to be observed by such hypercritics: "Although the reading of the Greek codex openly refutes this judgment of Bellarmine, yet if we were lacking it, it would have no more weight against this book of Adamantius than against the others, which we read rendered into Latin by the study of ancient interpreters: for in them there frequently occur such additions of interpreters gratifying the men of their own tongue." Nor are these things true only of Origenian matters. Among the Latin Irenæus we read: *Ennææ*, that is, thought. Hermes, as it is expressed in the Greek tongue, *Aemilious te logous kai epiklopon ethos ep' autous kattheto*, so that we might say with this very Latin speech, words of fraud or seduction, and he instilled subtle morals into their senses to seduce the foolish of men, that they might believe in figments. For the mother, that is Leto, secretly moved them; whence she is also called Leto, according to the significance of the Greek speech. Again: The poet Homer said: *Oi de theoi par Zeni kathemenoi egoroonte Chryseo en dapedo*. Which we will interpret in Latin, "But the gods, sitting beside Jove, were engaged in speech on a golden floor." And again: "Likewise also Sabaoth is written through the Greek alpha in the last ^D syllable; but through the Greek O, as for instance Sabaoth, it manifests the first heaven. In the same way also Jacob... just as according to the Latins, the Lord of hosts and Father of all." These are indeed words of the Latin man, not of the author, but of the interpreter. For Irenæus did not write in Latin; yet all these things are his, besides what the interpreter added.

^B But whether this author of the homilies was Greek or Latin, Origenes, in the judgment of Dallaeus, could not be he. For by the very genius, custom, and sense of Origen, some things in the same work are foreign. What we have seen thus far is clearly Origenian; what, therefore, are those things that cannot belong to Adamantius? First, homily 23: The Holy Spirit is called the third person from the Father and the Son. Which usage of "person" thus distinguished in divine matters is alien to Origen. But in this very place the author speaks in such a way that you would not believe him to have been anyone other than Origen. He says that some, through inordinate charity, say that Paul sits at the right hand, and Marcion at the left of the Savior, and by "advocate," the Spirit of truth, they understand the apostle Paul: "Which indeed," he says, "we suffer in the Church. For the many, while they love us more than we deserve, boast of these things and speak them, praising our discourses and doctrine, which our conscience does not accept. But others, slandering our tractates, accuse us of holding those things which we know we have never felt." Who does not see that Origen wrote these things about himself? But he incidentally calls the Holy Spirit the third person from the Father and the Son; but could Origen not speak thus? The Latin Fathers translated *hypostasis* as *persona*. But Origen always acknowledged three in divine affairs. He himself in the second tome on John: *Hemeis mentoi ge treis hypostaseis peithomenoi tunchanein, ton Patera, kai ton Huion, kai to hagion Pneuma* (so it is read in our ms.; and Huetius acknowledges those words *kai ton Huion* in his edition were omitted through the carelessness of the printer); Ferrarius the interpreter: "But we, who believe there are three persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." There are many things in the Latin works of Origen concerning the Trinity of persons, but the wavering faith of the interpreter Rufinus makes them suspect to Huetius. And indeed, where matters of the unity of the Trinity or the equality of the persons are treated, one ought deservedly to doubt the interpreter; but speaking only of the Trinity, there is no reason why we should doubt. In the sixth tome on John we still read *proskyneten Triada*, the adorable Trinity: and this Saint Basil had observed before, book 1, *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 29. For nothing is more certain than that Origen acknowledged three persons in divine affairs, and argued against those who asserted one *hypostasis*; but if he taught them to be distinct in substance and unequal, by that very fact it is more certain. But he also handed down not only the distinction but also the order, who in book V *against Celsus* was not afraid to call Christ *deuteron theon*, a second God; and whom Jerome reports in his letter to Avitus, in book I *On First Principles*, to have taught that the Son also is lesser than the Father, because he is second from him, and that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son, and dwells in each of the saints. Indeed the same

⟩ ^A epistle, Jerome, on Adamantius: "He asserts that the Holy Spirit, in dignity and honor, is the ^B third person after the Father and the Son." Therefore, it is sufficiently in accordance with the principles of Origen to assert that the Holy Spirit is the third person after the Father and the Son. Secondly, he objects to the "long discourses" between persons speaking among themselves, contrary to the custom of Origen, such as, he says, "that dialogue of Christ with the tempter: I answer you, O deceitful and wicked one, who do not fear to tempt me, and so forth." But these "so forths" are merely these: "The word of God, which gives life to man, is another bread." Oh, long discourses! Oh, prolix dialogue! But the speech of the guardian angel to the prince of the angels is more prolix; nay, the unhappy Dalleus, who acts as the guardian angel of someone sent by the prince of this world and seeking an occasion for snares, to see how he may subvert us, is more prolix. This whole passage is so purely Origenic that I am ashamed to dwell upon it. Thirdly, since Origen himself teaches that the Sadducees admitted only the books of the Law, in homily 39, citing passages from Isaiah and the Psalms, he adds: "To the Sadducees, who were a portion of the Jews, and who understood all these things corporally, the Savior says: Ye know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God." But Origen does not here say what is contrary to what he taught elsewhere; for he does not affirm that the Sadducees received the prophets into the canon of the Scriptures. He only says that the Sadducees understood the prophets badly; but they could have understood, and even understood badly, those things which they did not hold as Sacred Scriptures. The Sadducees indeed followed the Samaritans, "thinking things similar to the Samaritans, keeping all things equal to the Samaritans," as Epiphanius speaks. And that they rejected the traditions of the Pharisees is evident from Josephus. But who would bear it to be numbered in traditions that they believed in the prophets and the hagiographa [Hebrew: D'biim and Ketuvim]? The interpreter of Origen, whom Dalleus cites, says they did not read Sacred Scriptures outside the Mosaic books, but the Greeks deny only that they "admitted" [them], that is, in determining controversies of faith. For they used this foundation, that no article of faith should be admitted which could not be proven from the Mosaic books. But they themselves read the other books of Scripture, and interpreted them in such a way that they would not appear to contradict their foundation. Many of their interpretations are brought forward by the Rabbis. As Abenezra on the chapter of Daniel XII, 31, calls the Sadducees, who took the "saints" [Hebrew: tsaddikim] for the Mecca [Hebrew: ha-mekom], blind. He similarly derides them because they poorly expounded a passage of Leviticus, explaining the "saints" [Hebrew: tsaddikim] from the book of Ezra. The same person rebukes Japheth ben Eli the Sadducee, as it seems, because he attempted to mock the final words of Daniel, "and you shall stand in your lot at the end of the days" [Hebrew: v-ta'amod l-goralecha l-ketz ha-yamim], with an absurd interpretation, namely, if by chance you might be among the living then. And the Talmudists often relate disputes in which the Sadducees and Samaritans respond to passages brought forth from the prophets and hagiographa, and recently a man skilled in Talmudic matters has noted ^C the most learned John Lightfoot, in the chapter of the cathedral of Ely, our colleague, on the Gospel of St. John, chap. iv, verse 15, where the Samaritan woman names the Messiah. Furthermore, Origen wrote these things both as a young man and to the people; therefore, perhaps he did not know [at that time], or certainly he did not have need to note the peculiar opinion of the Sadducees: for he observes that the Sadducees were only a portion of the Jews. However, this whole treatise convicts Origen himself; and especially that first opinion: "Those who shall be like the angels, shall indeed be angels." Nay, this very question, which the author of the homily calls troublesome (namely, where it is written, "because they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage 10"), is of no one but Origen. For he himself proposes it in the commentaries on Matthew, and solves it laboriously, showing that this opinion is contained in the Scriptures not indeed *autolexei*, in the very words, but *en tropologia*, tropologically, and from here marvelously contending that the tropological exposition of Scripture is absolutely necessary, because for him who does not admit this, it is necessary to pronounce the place corrupt, or not to believe Christ as if He did not speak the truth, or to flee to apocryphal books. He shows that this question arises from the words of Christ in Matthew and Mark, but not from those in Luke. And indeed in the homily on Luke, he omits the words of Luke, and in their place substitutes the words of Matthew, to introduce this question. ^D Stronger arguments for us in favor of Origen and the interpreter Jerome against the Latin author are available. St. Jerome in the *Catalogus* among the works edited by him, cites thirty-nine homilies on Luke; but he himself never wrote the homilies. In the prologue to Paula and Eustochium, he shows that he translated them from Origen with these words: "Wherefore you ask that, having despised such trifles, I might at least translate for you the thirty-nine homilies of our Adamantius on Luke, as they are held in the Greek. A troublesome thing and similar to torture, to write with another's stomach, as Tullius says, and not one's own: which nevertheless I will do now, because you ask for nothing more sublime." But that this prologue of Jerome himself is certain, is because Ruffinus transcribed the whole thing into his invective, and attacked it quite severely. Nay, what ought to put an end to this dispute, and which cannot be avoided by any force of wit, the same Ruffinus, while Jerome was still alive and meditating responses, shows or implies what he translated unfaithfully in this very work. His words are: "I followed what I saw you had done in the homilies according to the Gospel of Luke, where you had not correctly found [the text] about the Son of God in the Greek, you skipped it, in that place where it says: 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior 11,' you know that regarding the soul, if you did not skip those things which are accustomed to be said; but you wrote more lucidly even from these assertions added by yourself, as in that place: 'Behold, as the voice of thy salutation came into my ears, the infant leaped in my womb 12,' where you say that it was not"

that to be the principle of his substance and nature. These and a thousand other like things you have subtracted in your translations, whether in these very homilies, or in Jeremiah, or in Isaiah, but most of all in Ezekiel.

Ruffinus, therefore, complains in these very homilies that certain things which were Origen’s in the Greek ^A had been subtracted by Jerome, some changed, and some added which were not in the Greek: he noted the very passages so that, when the Greek texts were extant, they might be easily perceived. He even recited one from the version itself, which still exists as the fourth homily, where we still read: "Behold, he says, Elizabeth, as thy salutation came into my ears, the infant leaped with joy in my womb." He was still in his mother’s womb, and had already received the Holy Spirit. For that was not the principle of his substance and nature. Ruffinus, a contemporary, recites these words from the Hieronymian version of Origen which he translated from Origen, and he notes what the translator added from himself, namely those words, "and nature." We still have both what is Origen’s and what is the translator’s. It is therefore most certain that these homilies are Origen’s and were translated by Jerome; nor can there be anything in matters of this kind more effective than this argument.

Although these things be so clear regarding both the author and the translator, Blondel has nevertheless not feared to call Ruffinus the translator of these homilies on Luke; and in his very light notes on the letter of the most illustrious Vossius, he asserts that it is his task to prove that the sixth homily, from which our testimony is sought, is not Ruffinus’s, pinning his own dreams on Origen, but Origen’s himself. ^B But we have most abundantly proved this very thing, so that it appears these are not the dreams of Ruffinus, but of Blondel. For what? Can it be the interpretation of Ruffinus, which St. Jerome testifies more than once was done by himself, and which he published long before Ruffinus had translated even a single word from Origen into the Latin tongue? Can it be Ruffinus’s, which Ruffinus himself attributes to Jerome, and in his Invective so greatly rails against? I confess, indeed, that Ruffinus, towards the end of his life, published his own interpretations under the name of Jerome. But this cannot be said of the homilies on Luke, because Jerome himself recognizes them, and places them under the number of seventy homilies translated by himself, and Jerome’s prologue is read inserted in Ruffinus’s Invective, which Ruffinus wrote at that time, when he had not yet touched any homily of Origen, having translated only the book Περὶ ἀρχῶν, by Jerome’s own admission. For he says thus in his first Apology: "For so many years I have been translating so many things, and I have never been of scandal; you, at your first and only work, previously unknown, have suddenly become noble by rashness." And again in his second: ^C "Do you wish to translate Origen into Latin? You have many of his homilies and tomes in which a moral topic is discussed and the obscurities of the Scriptures are laid open: translate these, give these to those who ask. Why does your first labor begin with infamy?" Therefore, before Ruffinus had written anything, Origen’s homilies on Luke were published by Jerome as translator; the same were censured in Ruffinus’s Invective before Ruffinus had translated anything of Origen’s into Latin other than the book Περὶ ἀρχῶν.

However, for greater confirmation, these things can be added further: that Jerome translated more than 70 of Origen’s little books, which he called homiletic, into Latin, as Ruffinus reports in his preface to the books Περὶ ἀρχῶν. Jerome himself confesses this in his first Apology: "Seventy of his books, as my traducer claims, I had translated into Latin, and many of the tomes. There was never an issue regarding my work; Rome was never moved." Ruffinus in his Invective notes the homilies on Luke, on Isaiah, on Jeremiah, and on Ezekiel. Jerome himself testifies that he only translated 14 on Jeremiah and the same number on Ezekiel. His words are in the prologue to Ezekiel: "And so, after fourteen homilies on Jeremiah, which I had long since interpreted in a confused order, I dictated these fourteen on Ezekiel at intervals;" and in his Catalogue: "On Jeremiah and on Ezekiel, twenty-eight homilies of Origen, which I translated from Greek into Latin." The homilies on Isaiah, however, are only nine; if you add to these two on the Canticle, ^D there are still only thirty-nine. Therefore, beyond the 70 books translated by Jerome, you will never be able to find any, unless you include those thirty-nine homilies on Luke mentioned by Ruffinus, just as he also enumerated them. Wherefore Dalleus badly deserts his own Erasmus here, who in his index of the Works of Jerome counts these very homilies among the γνήσια, that is, those things which are truly Jerome’s, or about which there is no doubt that they were published by Jerome, in these words: "Thirty-nine homilies on Luke translated by Jerome." The number is omitted in the preface. But this passage is reported here by Ruffinus in the second book of his Invective: "I am interpreting at least thirty-nine homilies of our Adamantius on Luke, just as they are held in the Greek."

And yet Dalleus was finally forced to have recourse to this dream of Blondel. For when he had said it seemed clear that the author of these homilies was someone other than Origen, yet thinking that this could not possibly be persuaded to learned men, he immediately added, "Lest I bring forward the point that it is sufficiently agreed that those things of Origen which exist only in Latin have been so interpolated by Ruffinus and other translators that it can scarcely be understood from them what is truly Origenic." Since it is certain that not Ruffinus, but Jerome, is the translator of these homilies; if, however, he puts Jerome among other translators who so foully interpolated Origen, the slander is manifest. We have nineteen homilies of Origen on Jeremiah in Greek; we have twelve of them in Latin from the interpretation of Jerome; yet this interpretation corresponds so well to the Greek that Huetius did not think it necessary to add another, and thus he published them with Jerome as the translator. But which of them are so interpolated that what is Origenic cannot be understood? The same must be entirely felt concerning the homilies on Luke, in which nothing adds—

to the natural order; and thus that testimony for Ignatius from the sixth homily remains ^A sound.

We admit that Rufinus was the translator of the Commentaries on the Song of Songs; yet we do not concede that it is impossible to understand what is Origenic in them. For the rule of Dallaeus himself is explained in the last chapter: that those things in the Origenic works translated by Rufinus ought to be suspect which depart from the known opinions and manners of the author himself or of the age in which he lived; and if it is evident from elsewhere that those things agree with them, then indeed they are to be acknowledged as the author's genuine work. And by this very rule we acknowledge those things which Origen brings forward in the commentaries on the Canticles for the beloved as his genuine work, because they do not depart from his opinions: and we pronounce the testimony of Ignatius likewise to be genuine, because we know that he employed the testimony of the same martyr from his homily on Luke.

And there was indeed a time when Dallaeus himself received and embraced these testimonies of Origen for Ignatius, when he was content with his own Catos, and had not yet fallen into that dream which he has recently published. For in *De jejuniis et Quadragesima*, book II, chapter 4, he says: "Some writers of the third and fourth centuries, Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, Theodoret, and Gelasius the Roman, cite some things from the epistles of Ignatius." If Origen, a writer of the third century, and indeed not yet fully an adult, cited some things from the epistles of Ignatius—a fact admitted by Dallaeus—how iniquitous, nay, how ridiculous it is to seek for an impostor who might have first forged or published them at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century.

CHAPTER VIII

^B What could be found more praiseworthy in historians than Eusebius? Pope Pelagius II once said. By Gelasius of Cyzicus he is called *philalēthēstatos*, most loving of truth, and *axiopistotatos*, most worthy of belief. By the great Basil he is called *axiopistos dia polypeirian*, most worthy of belief for this reason, that he was most experienced in the affairs of the Church and in the most ancient monuments.

Among other things which he included in his *Ecclesiastical History*, his purpose was to recount what books had been written by the ancients—*hosoi*, as he himself puts it, *kata genean hekastēn dia syngrammatōn ton theion epresbeusan logon*, how many in each generation had cultivated theology with their writings. Before he undertook this work he was most suitable and prepared for its completion. He had already written very many volumes, by which he showed a varied range of reading and the greatest skill in all Greek literature; for, as Sozomen testifies, he was *polymathestatos histōr*, instructed with such knowledge of all things that he applied his mind to writing history. Long before this he had lived on most familiar terms with Pamphilus, who had established a remarkable library of ecclesiastical writers; he frequented this daily, studied it assiduously, and compiled a catalogue of all its books. He also used the library of Jerusalem, which Alexander, the bishop of that city, had seen to the construction of; in which, among other things, the epistles which ecclesiastical men had sent to one another in the handling of Church affairs were preserved. Finally, he was so devoted to written books, and so happily versed in them, that when Emperor Constantine wrote to Caesarea in Constantinople, he specifically gave orders to him that he should ensure fifty codices of the Holy Scriptures be written most artfully on parchment, and send them thence to the royal City.

Hactenus the most learned man complains that the testimonies brought forward by us are either spurious or less correctly understood and twisted to confirm the epistles: what follows from Eusebius does not allow for these responses. The things said by him are so clear and perspicuous, so received by all; the epistles which we have appear by such certain ^C tokens to be entirely the same as those which Eusebius had, that his testimony (which also extends to the first two, those of Polycarp and Irenaeus) can be held neither as spurious nor as badly applied. To what then does Dallaeus now turn himself? He takes refuge in what alone remained: namely, that Eusebius was deceived; that the good man was deluded by an impostor; that the man, for the rest most diligent, had erred—which is human—and by his own authority, which he held to be the greatest in matters of literature, had first led Athanasius, then the whole world, into the same error.

I marvel indeed that it did not enter his mind, even in this matter, to use that argument to which he often clings elsewhere: namely, that the book of Eusebius, from which ^D the testimony is derived, is apocryphal; but since it is apocryphal, it was not written by Eusebius, but, as he usually argues, is spurious and fabricated by some impostor. For thus Gelasius, the Roman bishop, in his council, declared the History of Eusebius Pamphili to be apocryphal. But how ridiculous this argument would have been here, he himself saw, and refrained. Let us see, therefore, whether this which he urges concerning Eusebius's hallucination, on the ground that he omitted the supposition, be either more fortunate or more plausible.

For now, is it likely that a voracious devourer of books, spending his life among ancient parchments and papers, daily either transcribing or excerpting so many volumes of the ancients, would have been so easily exposed to the art of an impostor and acted as midwife to an adulterous birth? Or can we think such a man was the *hermaion tōn ta toiauta epipseudomenōn tois bibliois, kai thēsauron hetoimon tois kapēlois autōn*, a "windfall for those who fabricate such things for books, and a ready treasure for their peddlers," as Lucian says of his own ignorant man? Could the man, experienced in matters [of literature], find nothing in the parchments, nothing in the writing, that would detect the novelty of the work?

^A Must we not rather think that, when he chanced upon such a codex of epistles, he would have shuddered at the first glance at those which he had seen neither in the library of Pamphilus at Caesarea, nor in that of Alexander at Jerusalem, and concerning which he had not even heard by report that they had been in the hands of others before that time? Assuredly, that man, being already forty years of age, knew well what era written books carried with them; he was not ignorant by how many ways novelty might be betrayed. It is therefore in no way probable that the vigilant Eusebius should have been so easily and so foully deceived. But if the imposture had not at first glance been sensed by him, yet since he examined the epistles so diligently, since he numbered the individual names of the bishops, since he noted all the moments of the journey, since he observed the tradition of the apostolic doctrine, since he noticed that heresies were refuted, since he transcribed so many sentences from them, since in examining no other author had he shown equal diligence; are we to think it possible that, if there were so many things written in them which manifestly undermine the credibility of the times, which are clearly at variance with the apostolic diction and that of the apostolic men, which are far removed from the modesty, doctrine, veracity, and prudence of the martyr, and which are in themselves absurd, affected, inept, and insipid, Eusebius would immediately digest all these things, seize upon them as truly Ignatian, and consecrate them to eternity? ^B Let Jew Apella believe it (HORAT., Sat. I, v, 105).

But the most learned man observes other errors in Eusebius, by no means lighter than these, which he prefers to leave unmentioned, so that we might believe, forsooth, that that good man could have been so easily and so shamefully deceived and led astray. Yet, I think, the sensible man suppressed these errors in silence because they did not pertain to the matter at all. If he could name any ancient author whom Eusebius recognized, and whose authority he went on to confirm by the testimonies of others, who was later detected as a forger or even called into doubt, he might indeed say something that would free him from the charge of temerity and impudence, as he himself puts it. Truly, I contend that Eusebius used such diligence and such judgment in examining the writings of the primitive antiquity of the Christians, in which he judged the apostolic tradition to be contained, that no one has ever subsequently doubted his trustworthiness or the writings which he held to be indubitable. ^C But the adversaries require the diligence and attention of Eusebius in bringing forward the testimony of Irenaeus; but I think it should be praised, because he found, observed, noted, and applied the golden sentence existing in the epistle of Ignatius, near Irenaeus. But, deluded by a vain and empty appearance, he imagined that Irenaeus had also seen the epistles, and indeed even (which is certainly crasser and more inexcusable) had mentioned them. But whence does it appear that he who was in other respects most diligent and most sharp-sighted was thus deluded? Eusebius saw many writings of Irenaeus which have now perished, which he himself commemorates in book V, ch. 26: «and these are the things of Irenaeus which have come to our knowledge,» he says. From these he could have become more certain that he had seen the epistles of Ignatius; nay, he knew from that selfsame sentence which he adduced that he had seen them, because Irenaeus had transcribed it from his epistle. For the fact that we read in him that [Ignatius] merely spoke, and did not write, is worth absolutely nothing: for we have already shown that Irenaeus never spoke otherwise concerning written sentences. But [it is said] he had it from the Acts of the Ignatian martyr. So, certainly, says Parker: "Someone perhaps had collected the sayings of Ignatius before the time of Eusebius, and reduced them into the form of epistles." But the most ancient Acts which existed at that time exhibit neither that nor any similar sentence of the martyr. All later ones were written long after Irenaeus, long after Eusebius: and their interpolators transcribed the sentences which they possess from the epistles, as we have shown before. These things, therefore, repeated again and again, avail nothing.

Secondly, it is objected that there was a similar carelessness in him regarding Polycarp, because he did not notice those two passages which he cited from his epistle, that they openly fight against each other. ^D Indeed, if these things were true, if Eusebius were to cite two passages openly fighting against each other, and did not at all notice that repugnance which was so open, I do not see how he could be excused. And yet Dallaeus confesses that this carelessness regarding Polycarp is more worthy of pardon than that which was in Irenaeus. Why, I pray? Surely because he knows that the things which he has objected are most false: and he thought not Eusebius, but us, to be careless when he wrote those things. Whoever reads through those passages which Eusebius cited from the epistle of Polycarp will confess that there is no fight between them, not even a shadow of a contradiction. But, he says, at the end of the latter passage, something of the sort is found. Truly, Eusebius did not cite those things which are at the end: therefore it is falsely asserted that the passages which he cited fight against each other; and if there were any fight, it would be a battle between the passage he cited and that which he did not cite, and of which only Photius makes mention, more than five hundred years after Eusebius: and yet there is no fight between the Eusebian and Photian accounts, as we have fully proved. Certainly if Eusebius was careless here, then the entire Church was careless.

Since the whole of Asia, as Eusebius cited, was publicly reading the entire epistle for so many centuries.

Eusebius therefore knew perfectly well that these passages of Polycarp and Irenaeus provided undoubted testimony to the Ignatian epistles, nor did he wish to bring forward others, although he could have done so without any doubt. For after he had conceived this opinion in his own mind, why should he name other, later writers? Why, beyond his usual custom, would he accumulate and pile up witnesses for a matter of no controversy at all? The argument therefore which Dallaeus weaves here against the testimonies of Origen is weak. He said not a word about Origen. For why would he speak about Origen, when he had already named those most ancient authorities, Polycarp and Irenaeus? But if he had said anything useful for his present purpose, he would not have omitted it here, for no one ever read the books of Origen more studiously than he did. Indeed, he read them most studiously; he even published six apologetic books, and spent a great part of the sixth book of his *Ecclesiastical History* in narrating matters concerning him; he often invokes his books to illustrate his own history, and explains what he thought concerning the books of Holy Scripture, and what tradition he had received concerning the apostles. Yet he never brought him forward as a witness to confirm any of the writings of the apostolic men. Why, then, should he not omit him in the case of Ignatius, whom he omitted in all other cases? The laws which he had fixed for himself for discerning and judging the books of the ancients, he observed here purely and completely; he ^A named the ancient ones, namely, the attested ones—Polycarp and Irenaeus. Thus, the diligence of Eusebius is kept intact, and his prudence and judgment remain safe: there is no error here, no oversight, no hallucination—things which Dallaeus, without any foundation, so liberally attributes to the Father of *Ecclesiastical History*. Finally, the silence of Eusebius in no way prejudices the testimonies produced from Origen. For we know from other sources quite certainly that both of these works are truly Origenian. That St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote Commentaries on the Song of Songs is testified in his preface: *“But if, since Origen labored diligently upon this book, we also have eagerly desired to commit our own labor to writing, let no one accuse us…”* But if Origen bestowed much labor and study upon this book, and we also have willingly resolved to commit to writing that which has been worked out by us, let no one accuse us. This work which we possess, they place beyond all controversy as being in part by them, ^B both because the exposition of Nyssa is consonant with it, and from the thing itself, and from the fragment preserved in Greek in the *Philocalia*, and from the testimony of Cassiodorus concerning Rufinus as interpreter. Similarly, it is certain that Origen wrote homilies on St. Luke, which he himself praises in his tomes on Matthew and John, and of which Jerome testifies to Paula and Eustochium: *“Wherefore you ask that, despising trifles of this sort, I should at least translate the thirty-nine homilies of our Adamantius on Luke, as they are held in the Greek.”* And he himself asserts that he has done this; we have the homilies of Origen from the interpretation of Jerome, just as they were held in the Greek.

These things are light compared to those which follow. For this error of Eusebius alone occupied and infected the whole Church of Christ! First, Athanasius drank it in, who, having chanced upon a certain excellent passage in the epistles of Ignatius that was useful to his own cause, praised him by name; but he was deceived; he did not indeed sin (the most learned man grants this), but he was deluded by the authority ^C paraded by Eusebius. But then, from Athanasius on one side, and Eusebius on the other, it came about that few thereafter could think them to be false. This whole collection of conjectures and suspicions can be dispersed with no effort. For with what confidence is it said that Athanasius was deluded by Eusebius, he who had read Polycarp and Irenaeus no less than Eusebius had? Why could Polycarp and Irenaeus impose upon Athanasius no less than upon Eusebius, if they had not truly testified that which it is said our men claim they testified? Was he more diligent than Eusebius, or sharper in matters of this kind? Moreover, how had Eusebius brought the Ignatian writings out of darkness into light for Athanasius, when he had read the same in Origen long before? It is asserted by Albertinus and even by Dallaeus that pseudo-Dionysius drew his Ignatian materials from Origen; why did not Athanasius learn from the same source that these epistles were written by Ignatius? Why not from that ancient writer, from whom Basil had taken his Ignatius, who was a contemporary of Athanasius? No one doubts that Athanasius had read all these; but ^D it is not established that he had diligently gone through Eusebius’s *Ecclesiastical History*, or indeed had seen it at all when he wrote those things. Dallaeus maintains that it was written in the final times of Eusebius, around the year 330. Before that year he had been vexed by the Meletians and Eusebians in the presence of Constantine, and had been summoned from Alexandria to Constantinople. Immediately after that year, he was accused concerning the broken chalice and the murder of Arsenius; shortly thereafter, forced to prove his case before Dalmatius, who had been given to him as judge at Antioch, he was occupied in searching for Arsenius. But then a council was summoned at Caesarea, which he refused to attend precisely because the same Eusebius, who had not long before published his *History*, was the bishop of that place; soon forced to be present at the council in Tyre, under judgment before our Eusebius among others, and condemned there, he escaped thence and fled to Constantinople, where he immediately received a sentence [190 C] of relegation and was sent into exile in the Gauls. Having been restored, he indeed went to Alexandria, where, however, he was not safe for long; but stirred by the heat of the heretics at home, he appealed to the Roman pontiff, and, laden with new accusations, set out for Rome. Soon he was deposed at the Antiochene synod, and Gregory was put in his place. He remained, therefore, in the West for several years, where the fame or care of the Eusebians was of no account. He participated in the synod of Sardica, from which he was restored to his see, yet he scarcely dared to return to Alexandria for a long time thereafter: he first sought Naissus, then Aquileia, then again the Gauls, and later Antioch. After he had arrived there, and had arranged all things in the Church most honorably, an edict for his condemnation went forth from Constantius: and soon with the army of Syrianus at Alexandria

^A oppressed by flight he escaped, and having introduced George, he withdrew into the desert: where having tarried for a long time and being completely hidden from the eyes of his enemies, he wrote many things, especially those in which he praised St. Ignatius. Who will now doubt that Athanasius was either well-versed in the History of Eusebius before he wrote these things, or that he wished to commend Ignatius to his beloved brethren from that man’s authority? I, indeed, do not doubt that when he cited St. Ignatius, he did not pronounce it from the authority of Eusebius—which I feel how slight it was with him—but from his own singular wisdom, which the matter itself then being most evident, and the nature of the case, persuaded him.

However, I at last perceive why Dallæus concedes that Athanasius did not sin: for he maintains that he merely retained the name which the epistles bore and which was accepted among his adversaries; in the same way, namely, by which Salmasius and Blondellus used the name of Ignatius and cited the epistles, although they thought them to be fictitious, spurious, supposititious, and inept; hence that he did not present a shield to our Ignatius, and attributed no authority to his epistles. These things are indeed wondrous, and such as, I think, can be borne by no one, even the most hostile to the Ignatians. Whatever he may have thought about the Holy Fathers, St. Athanasius certainly does not speak in this matter in the way that Salmasius and Blondellus do. About to produce words from his epistle, he prefaces it thus: ^B *Ignatius therefore having been appointed bishop in Antioch according to the apostles, and having become a martyr of Christ, writing about the Lord has said.*

He asserts, therefore, that he whose sentiment he was about to communicate to the brethren was not an impostor, nor some common person, or an author from the gutter, but an apostolic man, and what is something greater, the bishop of the Antiochene—that is, the most ample—Church, and what is greatest, that he was a martyr of Christ. In that sentiment which he adduces from Ignatius, Christ is called the Unbegotten (*agennētos*); but he shows that others after Ignatius spoke otherwise, that the Father is the one Unbegotten (*agennēton*). Then, indeed, he most openly demonstrates how great the authority of Ignatius was with him, and how great it ought to have been with his brethren and beloved. *If indeed,* he says, *we are disposed in opposition to these, let there be a struggle for us also against the synods.* If, therefore, we oppose these, let us also have a fight against the synods. If we do not accept the sentiments of these men, if we doubt their authority or truth, if we resist such great Fathers, let us take up arms against the synods also, or let us reject and trample upon the one that condemned Paul of Samosata, or even this one which condemned Arius. For I do not deny: nor is the authority of these synods greater for me, or ought it to be for you, than the authority of these Fathers. *But if knowing their faith in Christ we are persuaded that also the blessed Ignatius wrote rightly.* If, however, knowing their faith in Christ, we have it persuaded that the blessed Ignatius ^C had written correctly, and others too, who seem to have held the contrary in their very wording, why should we not also admit the Nicene Synod, and that which condemned Paul? ^D As those received *agennēton* in one way, so these received *homoousion* in another. Nothing could ever be said more confidently about the true and undoubted author of the epistle, or more honorably about Ignatius himself: nothing that could more firmly establish the authority of the Ignatians, which has been embraced and defended by our own against dissentients; which those words of the most learned Hammond, as it seems to Dallæus, truly significant and, to me, indeed magnificent, true, and modest, clearly indicate. After Eusebius, he says, Athanasius the Great also offered his own shield to our Ignatius. I find nothing magnificent in these words, unless perhaps that in citing Athanasius as a witness he calls him Great, which title, albeit always ascribed to him, now seems too honorable; or that he calls him our Ignatius, whom nevertheless they do not wish to be theirs. For that Athanasius, if he truly be great, offers his testimony to our Ignatius—if he can be called ours whom we defend—and holds him out as a shield, as it were, against the present-day enemies of Ignatius, cannot be denied. The most learned man wishes him to have held out his shield also, but for truth, not for Ignatius; but against the darts of the Arians, not against the enemies of Ignatius. But how could he have held it out for truth then, if he does not hold it out to the Ignatians now, when they are called into doubt? The truth of Christ does not need the help of impostors: nor could the epistolary Ignatius be a shield, unless he himself were also true, apostolic, that is, and bishop, and martyr, as Athanasius describes him. But that he wishes him to have used this shield against the darts of the Arians is clearly false. He often disputes against the Arians about the word *agennētos*, but he never uses the testimony of Ignatius in that matter. And in his second oration against the Arians, he teaches that they drew that word from the heathens, and opposes to them his Asterius, the defender of the Arian heresy (not, however, Ignatius), who had called *the wisdom of God agennēton*, although the same man had also asserted that *the Unbegotten is one*. And in his epistle on the decree of the Nicene Synod, he cites Origen, both Dionysii, and Theognostus against other dogmas of Arius; ^D he does not name Ignatius at all, either against these things, or in the disputation about the word *agennēton*, about which he treats at length. He uses the authority of Ignatius only to the brethren and beloved, and to those who had been with him in the doctrine concerning the nature of Christ: not as a writer otherwise doubtful, but one received by those to whom he had written, and decorated in all ways by him, and not called into doubt by anyone when he wrote these things. To what end, therefore, does he here advocate Salmasius and Blondellus, as if they had cited the epistolary Ignatius in the same way, whom they believed to be spurious and supposititious? Nay, why does he also simultaneously rebuke Hammond, as if he were sad and severe, and using a facetious animadversion—nay, a jest so diluted and far-fetched? But what is it that he argues that Hammond, a man indeed most excellent and most learned, was so sad and severe? Who is he, I pray,

who knows Salmasius, who would not easily believe that he, having spoken so variously concerning Ignatius, had changed his mind? What, then? Did not Claudius Sarravius, a senator of Paris, know Salmasius? Did he not admire all his work, and especially that labor on the primacy of the Pope, to which he inscribed this eulogy: "If you continue to shake Rome with these engines, soon SHALL ROME FALL FROM HER HIGH SUMMIT"? And yet this highest friend and patron of Salmasius did not fear to pluck the sandal of that Venus. "It does not please me," he says, "that you blame in the apparatus those things which you praise in the work itself." I refer to the Ignatian epistles, which in the apparatus, which is read first, you deservedly convict of spuriousness, and yet you use their authority quite often as if they were legitimate, and the title did not belie the author. You might at least have signified something concerning this change of your opinion. Let the learned now judge whether Hammond or Sarravius plucked the sandal of that Venus more gently: meanwhile, Athanasius and Sarravius absolve Hammond. No impostor deceived Eusebius, no Eusebius deceived Athanasius.

CHAPTER IX. The testimonies of St. Chrysostom vindicated from objections. The first in the panegyric from the epistle to the Romans. Chrysostom neither ignored nor despised the epistles of Ignatius. He excerpted the sentiment not from the Acts, but from the epistle. Cyprian commended by Chrysostom. The second from the epistle to Polycarp. The oration on the one author of the Old and New Testament is ascribed to Chrysostom. The conjectures of Savile and Ussher are answered.

We have set forth two testimonies from St. Chrysostom, although Dallaeus praises Hammond for having omitted this witness; and he triumphs most in this, that in the ^A famous oration which he held on the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, he made no mention of his epistles; and thence he gathers either that he was ignorant of them, which is not likely; or had despised them, which he rather embraces, and therefore thought them not truly Ignatius's. But we have adduced the most eloquent sentiment which Chrysostom transcribed in that very oration from the epistle to the Romans; and therefore he neither ignored it nor despised it; rather, he held it as truly Ignatian—otherwise he would never have recited his words in the panegyric. The most learned man denies that he transcribed it from the epistle, and thinks he took it from the Acts. I am therefore compelled to repeat more often that the Acts which existed in the age of Chrysostom did not at all record that sentiment: but the later ones, composed after his death, drew the sayings of Ignatius from the epistles. To say, therefore, that Chrysostom drew these words from elsewhere than from the epistle, which everyone at that time confesses existed both elsewhere and especially at Antioch, is rambling, frivolous, and inept. That most excellent orator does not indeed say that he "wrote": he ^B only says *ephthéxato* (έφθέγξατο), he "spoke," just as he is accustomed to do elsewhere. Thus, in the eleventh homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians: "A certain holy man said (a thing which might seem bold, but nevertheless he spoke it): What is this? Does not even the blood of martyrdom wash away this sin of schism?" And although he names no one, and although he asserts that he spoke it three times but never wrote these things, I do not believe there is any doubt but that he understood St. Cyprian and referred to the little book on the unity of the Church, in which we read these words concerning schismatics: "Even if such as these are killed in the confession of the name, this stain is not washed away even by blood. The inexpiable and grave fault of discord is not purged even by passion." This is what Chrysostom calls "bold," which Cyprian yet proves by many arguments, and at his example Chrysostom himself also pursues it there at greater length.

"But from Chrysostom we are certain," says Dallaeus, "that Ignatius said these things at Rome to the Romans present. It is therefore little likely that he had already written the same things to the Romans before him, while he was staying at Smyrna." But whence we might be certain from Chrysostom that Ignatius uttered those words at Rome, or to the Romans present, I do not understand. For he does not say he was then at Rome, he does not imply that the Romans were present when the most holy martyr uttered these things. He only asserts that he generously and with pleasure courted death, and *asménōs* (ἀσμένως), with a certain joy, had looked upon the beasts. But *póthen toúto* (πόθεν τοῦτο); "Whence," he says, "does this appear?" As if he were saying, "Whence have we known this?" From his Acts we can gather nothing of the sort: those who accompanied him did not narrate how he bore himself in the theatre, from whose company he was withdrawn with haste into the amphitheatre, then immediately thrown to the beasts. Whence, therefore, does this appear? *Apò tôn rhêmátōn hōn apothnēskein méllōn ephthéxato* (ἀπὸ τῶν ῥημάτων ὧν ἀποθνήσκειν μέλλων ἐφθέγξατο), "From those words which, when he was about to die, he uttered." When, however, was that? For he was long *apothnēskein méllōn* (ἀποθνήσκειν μέλλων), "about to die." Let us hear Chrysostom further: "For having heard (*akoúsas gàr* — ἀκούσας γὰρ) that this mode of punishment awaited him: 'Would that I might enjoy those beasts,' he said." When he had heard that this mode of punishment awaited him: "Would that I might enjoy those beasts," he said. Did he first hear at Rome that he was to be subjected to beasts? Or did he of necessity speak these things to the Romans present? Certainly he was condemned to the beasts by Trajan at Antioch; from that time he knew what kind of death he was to undergo: after that time he said: "Would that I might enjoy those beasts, to which I have been condemned." This we believe he said and wrote at Smyrna to the Romans, indeed, but absent; but that he pronounced the same words at Rome (although no one will deny that this too might have happened) neither Chrysostom nor anyone before him has said. And if he recited those words to anyone at that time, he certainly recalled those same words to the memory of the faithful at Rome from the epistle which he had written to them; for thus his most ancient Acts: "To some, however, he announced to be silent, to those who were fervent and saying that they should quiet the crowd and not seek to destroy the just man. Whom, immediately recognizing by the spirit, and saluting all, and asking from them true charity, more..."

^A than the things which he was discussing in his epistle, and persuading them not to envy one who was hastening to the Lord. Perhaps, therefore, among the rest which he had written to Rome from Smyrna, he also repeated this sentiment; thus there is nothing certain from Dallaeus, either from Chrysostom or probable from elsewhere.

We, however, are far more certain that that sentiment of Ignatius was taken from his epistle by Chrysostom. For this appears sufficiently clearly from the following words: *Ἐγὼ τῶν θηρίων*, he says, *ἐκείνων ὀναίμην*, he said. *Τοιοῦτοι γὰρ οἱ ἐρῶντες ὅπερ ἂν πάσχωσιν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐρωμένων μεθ’ ἡδονῆς δέχονται*. "Would that I might enjoy those beasts," he says. "For such are lovers: whatever they suffer for their beloved, they receive with pleasure." He alludes moreover manifestly to those famous words in that same epistle, chanted by all: *νῦν γὰρ οὐ γράφω ἐρῶν τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν, ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται*. Nay, truly, throughout that whole oration where he speaks of Ignatius, he aimed principally at this, but also at other ^B points. When he praises his soul so much as one *ὑπερορῶσαν ἁπάντων*, and *τῷ θείῳ ζέουσαν ἔρωτι*, and one *τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα τῶν ὁρωμένων προτιμήσασαν*, scorning all present things, and burning with divine love, and preferring those things which are seen to those which are not seen, he openly regards the epistle to the Romans, in which these three chapters are treated especially, and ardently, and at length. When he compares him to the sun (*καθάπερ ἥλιός τις ἐξ ἀνατολῆς ἀνίσχων καὶ πρὸς τὴν δύσιν τρέχων*, as some sun rising from the east and running towards the west), without doubt he had these words of the epistle in mind: *τὸν ἐπίσκοπον Συρίας κατηξίωσεν ὁ Θεὸς εὑρεθῆναι* (or *πορευθῆναι*) *εἰς δύσιν, ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς μεταπεμψάμενος*, God deemed the bishop of Syria worthy to proceed into the west, summoning him from the east; and when soon after he adds: *Οὗτος δὲ εἰς τὰ τῆς δύσεως ἀπελθὼν μέρη, φαιδρότερον ἐκεῖθεν ἀνέτειλε*, he alluded far more openly still to those things which follow in Ignatius, *καλὸν τὸ δῦναι ἀπὸ κόσμου πρὸς Θεόν, ἵνα εἰς αὐτὸν ἀνατείλω*. When he asserts that he had conversed with the apostles, *καὶ ῥητῶν καὶ ἀποῤῥήτων αὐτοῖς κοινωνήσαντα*, a participant not only of expressible things but also of arcane things, he cannot but look to those things which Ignatius writes to the Trallians concerning celestial things, concerning angels and principalities, which now displease so many. When, finally, he narrates the journey which he completed, *μακροτέρους διαύλους τοῦ δρόμου*, and mentioning *τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν συγκρότησιν*, and the cities *κατὰ τὴν ὁδὸν συντρεχούσας*, he openly follows that which was in the epistles, which so displeased the Magdeburgenses. From the very panegyric of Ignatius, therefore, it is certain that St. Chrysostom knew his epistles perfectly, and valued them highly, and from one of them extracted a famous sentiment.

But he did not name the epistles, since he was laboring under a lack of the martyr's own praises. Nay, truly, that most consummate orator knew perfectly well what would most adorn a panegyrical oration, and so he omitted the epistles and followed other things. He instituted his oration *περὶ τῶν κατορθωμάτων*, concerning the deeds performed by Ignatius in a distinguished manner, as he more than once professes; concerning those things which most ^C of all would move the hearers. And so he commemorates the fellowship of the apostles, and the episcopate, so as to extol the greatness of the city and the antiquity of the Church of Antioch; but he describes the martyrdom elegantly, so that he might the more vehemently inflame the people to the veneration of the relics. He does not omit the epistles, as a matter known to all, and not convenient for the panegyrical kind of speaking. Gregory Thaumaturgus held a panegyric before Origen; he does not praise his writings, nor even name them; nay, he does not even indicate that he wrote anything. The epistles of St. Cyprian have always been very famous; St. Augustine praises them several times: but when he was instituting a few sermons on his birthday, he never commemorated them; he praises where he disputes, he does not even mention them where he plays the panegyrist, where he represents him as a most merciful bishop and most faithful martyr, not as a most elegant writer. He thought these things sufficient for the memory of the present place, the festival of the most solemn day, the proposal of a most wholesome example. Likewise, St. Chrysostom in his panegyric does not commemorate the epistles, although he uses them and frequently looks to them; in another oration, however, he cites an epistle to a certain priest, namely Polycarp. Now that oration exists in volume VI, the title of which is: "That one is the legislator of the Old and New Testament," from which we have produced the second testimony of Chrysostom.

What the very learned man [Ussher] thought of that oration, I do not know with sufficient certainty; I do not doubt, however, that he would have stored up for us, had he lived, what the venerable old man Ussher wrote; since he used the Usserian manuscripts very often. He, however, adjudges that oration away from St. Chrysostom, so that he might be able to number the epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp among the fictitious ones. But I do not accede to his opinion in this matter. More powerful for me is the authority of Photius, a most excellent judge of the writings of the ancients, who in code 277 of his Bibliotheca, extracted very many things from this oration as well as others. *Ἐκ τοῦ λόγου, ὅτι παλαιᾶς καὶ νέας Διαθήκης εἷς ὁ νομοθέτης. Καὶ εἰς τὸ ἔνδυμα τοῦ ἱερέως καὶ περὶ μετανοίας*. Which title of this oration now exists in the same words. And the words, which indeed he collected in great numbers from there, even now appear in this oration, although not sufficiently sound. It is most certain, therefore, that Photius saw it and held it to be truly Chrysostomian. But D. Savile, of Eton College (to whom I owe the first fruits of letters), and the ornament of our country, felt a little differently. "Nor indeed," he says, "is the authority of Photius so great with me (who received certain other things not of the best mark) that I should judge this oration to be numbered among the doubtlessly genuine ones." This is indeed sufficiently cautious; the authority of Photius moved him not to place the oration even among the disputed ones, yet it did not persuade him to number it among the genuine ones without controversy. But if he had had testimonies older than Photius, perhaps even he would have numbered it among the genuine ones. But almost a hundred years ago, Pope Hadrian I cited this very same oration in an epistle to King Charles under the name of St. John Chrysostom; and before him Epi-

Epiphanius the deacon wrote against Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea. Before him, as we read in the second Council of Nicaea, the venerable president, Theodosius, brought forward a scroll of the same blessed Father, John Chrysostom, to St. Andrew at Nesius, which Antony the monk read, having received it into his hands. The oration of our Father of blessed memory, John Chrysostom, is entitled: "That there is one legislator of the Old and New Testament, and concerning the vestment of the priest." Its beginning is: "The prophets indeed announce the Gospel of Christ’s kingdom," (plainly as they now sound in Greek: Τῆς Χριστοῦ βασιλείας τὸ Εὐαγγέλιον κηρύττουσι [μὲν] προφῆται), and a little later: "I also have loved the waxen image, because of my piety. For I have seen an angel in the image of the barbarians, repelling the clouds; I have seen the hosts of the barbarians trampled, and David truly saying: 'Lord, in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.'" ^A Which we read in the same oration in Greek as follows: Εγὼ καὶ τὴν κηρόχυτον γραφὴν ἠγάπησα εὐσεβείας πεπληρωμένην· εἶδον ἐν εἰκόνι ἄγγελον ἐλαύνοντα νέφη βαρβάρων, εἶδον πατούμενα βαρβάρων φύλα, καὶ τὸν Δαβὶδ ἀληθεύοντα, Κύριε ἐν τῇ πόλει σου τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ ἐξουδενώσεις. There are, to be sure, very few orations of St. Chrysostom for which so many and such ancient testimonies can be brought forward.

As to the style and character of the discourse, it is not easy to determine anything here with certainty; for the oration itself is not sufficiently intact, but is corrupt in many places, and it does not seem to me that Chrysostom’s elegance is lacking from elsewhere. They have no reason to complain about the allegories, for he uses them quite frequently only when the argument demands it, namely, when he is discussing the vestments of the priests. The objection that the same argument concerning the "one legislator" is ^B often excellently [γυμνασθὲν] in his genuine writings, while here it is scarcely and coldly touched upon, rather vindicates the oration for Chrysostom than denies it to him; for only one of the three parts in this little book is devoted to this argument, and the author himself warns that he has discussed this matter before, and is now only calling to memory what was said earlier: "I know," he says, "that I treated this topic before, but I repeat it for the sake of reminding you." Finally, that they wish for this oration to have been written when the nations of the barbarians were threatening the destruction of the Eastern Empire, which can hardly fit the times of Chrysostom, has absolutely no force at all. Not many things were written by Chrysostom the deacon, and some also by the Reader. But at that time the Emperor Valens was at Antioch, whence, having been summoned, he proceeded to Constantinople, where he found the people in a state of alarm, "for the barbarians, having overrun ^C Thrace, were already devastating the suburbs of Constantinople:" that is, the barbarians, who had already depopulated Thrace, were plundering even the suburbs of Constantinople itself; and while engaging them, Valens perished (Socrates, lib. IV, cap. 38). Moreover, after the departure of Valens from Antioch, the Saracens immediately ceased, if Socrates and Sozomen are to be believed: Πάντα οὖν τὰ ὑπὸ τὴν ἀνατολὴν ὑπὸ τῶν Σαρακηνῶν κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπορθείτο χρόνον. "All places therefore towards the east were at that same time being devastated by the Saracens." Was this not a sufficiently opportune and just cause for the orator to exhort the people to repentance, so that they might move God thereby, ἵνα πολέμους ἀφανίσῃ, καὶ βαρβάρους σβέσῃ? But also, when he had already been created bishop of Constantinople, Gainas’s barbarian tyranny broke out, who summoned the whole nation of the Goths from their own lands and terrified all the Romans with a multitude of barbarians, whom he even led into the city of Constantinople itself, καὶ βεβαρβάρωτο ἡ πόλις ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν μυριάδων, as Socrates says. It is handed down that it was then that this angelic vision occurred, which repressed the efforts of the barbarians: whence, perhaps, the phrase γρᾳφὴ κηρόχυτος, which is proposed in this very oration, can be explained. ^D Therefore, there was no reason why the Archbishop should rehearse this single one of the Savilian arguments.

However, since the reverend elder Ussher indulged his own conjectures further, and doubted whether the things we have brought forward were said by the author of the oration or by an interpolator, these must be examined by us much more strictly. "In the Roman edition," he says, "of Cardinal Sirleti and the Basle edition of Jo. Jacobi Beurer, these things are not contained." For these are not two exemplars, but one only; for the Greek with the Latin of Sirleti published at Basle by Beurer was without the help of another codex, and Beurer himself complains that that Roman exemplar was written down faultily and carelessly and is gaping with lacunae in some places. These gaps D. Savilius filled up from the Imperial codex. Therefore, there is no just suspicion here of an interpolator. D. Savilius noted that some pages were missing in the Roman codex; and this is manifestly detected from the very passage. For so it was read in Sirleti and Beurer: Κελεύει οὖν τὴν κεφαλὴν μὴ εἶναι γυμνὴν, ἀλλὰ κεκαλυμμένην, ἵνα μάθῃς τί καὶ μεταξὺ τούτων οἱ κώδωνες, that is, "He commands the head by no means to be bare, but covered, so that you may know what is even among these bells." But who does not see that the latter part of this sentence is separated from the former by a whole heaven? Who does not immediately perceive that some pages are missing between ἵνα μάθῃς and τί καί? Which is very common in old manuscripts. For where a copyist falls upon a codex from which one or more pages have perhaps been cut out, he is accustomed, whether not noticing or not caring about anything, to describe everything in the same tenor: and this has often happened not only in the same work, but also in different works comprised in the same volume, where the end of one and the beginning of another had previously been cut out from the exemplar being copied. Learned men have long since detected this in the epistles of Polycarp and Barnabas: I myself have observed this in the manuscripts of Thomas Magister, and of the Theodorian Penitential, which are preserved among us at Cambridge. Since, therefore, the edition of D. Savilius supplies everything so clearly and transparently, such that the former part of the sentence, so awkward in those [others],

^A is joined to the parts that properly follow—"that the head may not be bare, but covered, that the head of the people may learn that he has a head"—and the latter part of the same sentence is subjoined to those things which properly precede—"and the flowers are meeting of a priest, a discourse, good character, wholesome speech, faith, glory, truth, righteousness, and among these are the bells, the harmony of good works"—any person may perceive that no spurious interpolation has been inserted, but a just and necessary supplementation has been made from the Caesarean codex. This, indeed, also exists in the Baroccian codex 131, p. 178 at Oxford, under the name of Chrysostom, and is confirmed by Photius, who in his excerpts recognizes those things which are now found in the supplement. Furthermore, this oration exists in another Baroccian codex, namely 186, fol. 26, where the gap is much larger than the one that was in the Roman edition. For thus we read there: "he commands even the head [to bring] an offering and concerning sin," so that everything is missing from page 645, line 14, up to page 646, line 35 of the Savilian edition. The conjecture about an interpolator is therefore vain; our testimony has been brought forth by the very author of this oration; the epistle to Polycarp was written not by an impostor, but by St. Ignatius.

CHAPTER X.

Thus far we have defended the testimonies of those Fathers against whom an adversary raised a dispute, and whom he pronounced to be either not witnesses at all of what we desire, or, if this could in no way be said, to have been deceived and deluded. But since we have also cited Dionysius as a witness—whom Dallæus himself not only admits to have commemorated the opinion written by Ignatius in his epistle to the Romans, but also elsewhere vehemently contends—it remains only for us now to defend the age assigned by us to him, and to number him among the witnesses contemporary with Eusebius, if the case itself permits. They hold that the Ecclesiastical History was written in the last days of Eusebius; I believe the Dionysian [works] were published at the same time, namely in the last days of Eusebius.

No one is ignorant of how deeply the great esteem for the Areopagitic books has taken root in previous centuries, and with what consent and veneration the writings commonly attributed to Dionysius, as the genuine offspring of that most ancient disciple of the apostles, have been received. But that these books do not bear that age, and cannot be attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, is at last known and confessed, I think, by the learned on every side. For that opinion, indeed, having been exploded by very many men before, has recently been thoroughly overturned and crushed by Dallæus; and, lest he should only be doing what was already done, he added much from his own store, especially concerning the age of the author and the origin of ^B the opinion which he refutes. But while I confess that the opinion which he defends regarding the spurious nature of "the Dionysius" is most true, and I deny that it could in any way have come about that Dionysius the Areopagite wrote those things which are borne under his name, yet I feel that what Dallæus asserts regarding the origin of the contrary opinion and the age of the faker is entirely abhorrent to the truth. The arguments which he received from others he explains rightly and, according to his custom, no less forcefully than diffusely; but those things in which he has followed his Blondel, or which he himself has devised, I consider to contain nothing solid. He reports that no one among Catholics before the year of our Lord 630 either affirmed or believed that Dionysius was the true author of the Areopagitic works: this is the first point. He also wishes the author, whoever he may be, to have lived either in the fifth century, which was precipitous, or even in the beginning of the sixth; and not to have edited these offspring of his, falsely and fraudulently attributed to Dionysius, before the year of our Lord approximately 520: this is the second point. But neither of these is asserted with any appearance of truth or probability. To make these things apparent to all, and that I may proceed to derive the true age of the pseudo-Dionysius by a certain method, I think I must begin with those things which are the most recent, and show which Catholics before A.D. 630 both believed and affirmed that Dionysius the Areopagite was the true author of those things which were attributed to him.

Leontius, therefore, in his book *De sectis*, first acknowledges Dionysius the Areopagite, and names him among the most ancient Fathers, and elsewhere notes that he was of the age of the apostles, and cites the book *On the Divine Names*, as Dallæus himself admits. In both places, therefore, he acknowledged the same Areopagite as true and not fictitious. But, he says, it is certain that he wrote *De sectis* not before A.D. 591. Why not? Because he mentions Eulogius, as if he were the bishop of Alexandria at that time. Rightly so. But Eulogius died in A.D. 608. Nor do I deny this. But Nicephorus of Constantinople thinks the years of the episcopate of Eulogius were not 27 (which is read incorrectly in Baronius), but 17. Therefore, he was not bishop before A.D. 591. So indeed is Nicephorus edited at Paris by Goar; but Baronius followed Anastasius, who translated Nicephorus before that codex was written which Goar represents. Two ancient Greek codices, the Oxonian ^D and the Londoner, agree with the Anastasian codex, and Theophanes supports them. Anastasius, from Theophanes, holds Eulogius to be the prelate of the Church at Alexandria in the second year of the reign of Tiberius.

Therefore, Leontius could have written that book *De sectis* for a long time before A.D. 591. And it is necessary that all should confess that it was written before the year 608, in which Eulogius died, which is more than 20 years before the year 630, or, as I myself think, more than forty. Certainly, at the same time, John, Patriarch of Constantinople, in a homily concerning the pseudo-prophets, acknowledges the Areopagite in these words: "Where is Evodius, the sweet fragrance of the Church and successor of the holy apostles? Where is Ignatius, the habitation of God? Where is Dionysius, the bird of heaven?" This homily, indeed, is poorly [attributed] by some..

to John Chrysostom; and Ussher thinks it should rather be attributed to John Nesteutes: nor do I doubt that he is right. For its contents both smack of the patriarch and point to the age of Maurice, in which so many heresies were springing up; and that free and severe rebuke of the bishops, for being given to gluttony and for using overly splendid garments, is suited above all to Nesteutes, who macerated himself with fasts and never cast off his monastic habit.

Long before Leontius and John Nesteutes, Ephraemius, patriarch of Antioch, acknowledged Dionysius the Areopagite, in the third treatise of a certain book which contained an apology for the Council of Chalcedon. Here I deemed it necessary to warn the reader that this book was not titled *On the Sacred Laws of Antioch*, as the most wretched interpreter of Photius indicated, when he thus translated the following words: *Ἀνεγνώσθη βιβλίον τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Ἐφραιμίου, ὃς τῶν ἱερῶν τῆς Ἀντιοχείας θεσμῶν ἡγεῖτο, ἐν λόγοις τέσσαρσιν*—"I have read another book by the same holy man which tells of the sacred laws of Antioch, in four books"—when the words *τῶν ἱερῶν τῆς Ἀντιοχείας θεσμῶν ἡγεῖτο* indicate nothing other than that he was the bishop of Antioch. In that apology, then, Ephraemius says, as witnessed by Photius in Codex 229: ^B *Ὅτι, φησὶν, ἓν πρόσωπον, τουτέστι μίαν ὑπόστασιν τοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένην κηρύττομεν· ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἁπλοῦς Ἰησοῦς συνετέθη, κατὰ τὸν ἐν ἁγίοις Ἀρεοπαγίτην Διονύσιον. Καὶ ἐπὶ μὲν τῆς καθ' ὑπόστασιν ἑνώσεως δικαίως παρὰ τῆς εὐσεβείας τὸ σύνθετον λέγεται· σύνθετον δὲ οὐσίαν οὐδεὶς εἰπεῖν ἐτόλμησε πλὴν Ἀπολλιναρίου.* Which the most inept interpreter translated thus: "He asserts, he says, one person, that is, we proclaim one hypostasis of the incarnate Word. Since Dionysius the Areopagite places Jesus as simple; and concerning the hypostatic union, it is justly called composite against piety; but to say composite substance no one would dare except Apollinarius." You should translate it thus: "We proclaim, he says, one person, that is, one hypostasis of the Word, incarnate: since Jesus, even though simple, was composed, according to the holy Dionysius the Areopagite. And indeed, concerning the union according to hypostasis, it is justly called composite by piety itself; but no one has dared to say the substance is composite, except Apollinarius." ^C This Ephraemius became patriarch of Antioch about the same time that Justinian obtained the empire, as Theophanes testifies, that is, before the Areopagite appeared in the hands of the Severian heretics before Hypatius, about the year of our Lord 526, and he wrote before he was brought forth a second time by the Acephali about the year 560; for Ephraemius himself died before the year 543. Hence two of Dallæus's assertions immediately collapse: namely, that all catholics of that same age thought the same as Hypatius of Ephesus the archbishop, and that, until the year of our Lord 553, and even beyond, the true sentiment of Hypatius concerning the books attributed to Dionysius remained among the catholics. To this may also not unworthily be added that Jobius the monk seems to have been of that same century, who held Dionysius the Areopagite in high regard; for when he had happened to bring forward the testimony of St. Paul, he at once subjoined: *Καὶ ὁ γνήσιος δὲ τούτου μαθητής, ὁ σοφὸς Διονύσιος, τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς μικροῦ διαμαρτύρεται ῥήμασι, καὶ μάλιστά γε ἐν τοῖς περὶ τοῦ τελείου καὶ ἑνός*—"And his genuine disciple, the wise Dionysius, testifies to the same things in almost the same words, especially where he treats of the perfect and the one," that is, in the final chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*; which, however, is omitted in both places by Suidas, who lists the parts of this book twice.

Andreas, bishop of Caesarea, a grave and catholic man, with Bellarmine and Ussher agreeing, wrote about the year 500: he certainly cites no one who might be the younger St. Cyril, nor does he seem to be the younger Hypatius. He, however, in his commentary on the Apocalypse, chapter 10, treating of the six wings of the four animals, says: *ταῦτα ὁ μέγας φησὶ Διονύσιος, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς*—"Thus says the great Dionysius," etc. And in chapter 18, he teaches that the seven angels received the occasion for prophesying from the first, *κατὰ τὴν τῷ μακαρίῳ Διονυσίῳ διωρισμένην ἀγγελικὴν εὐταξίαν*—"according to the angelic order distributed by the blessed Dionysius." And again in chapter 45, observing the vials given to the seven angels by the four animals, he says: *δηλοῖ τὸ ἐκ τῶν πρώτων ἀεὶ εἰς τὰ δεύτερα τὴν γνῶσιν τῶν πρακτέων ἐν οὐρανοῖς μετοχετεύεσθαι, κατὰ τὸν μέγαν Διονύσιον*—"it signifies that the knowledge of what is to be done is derived in heaven from the first to the second, according to the great Dionysius." These things clearly show that certain catholics, not only before A.D. 630, but throughout the entire sixth century, held the Areopagitica in high esteem. But once this has been demonstrated, the other point will be much more easily proven, namely, that the author of the Areopagitica published them long before the year 520. For it will scarcely seem credible to anyone that so many learned men were deceived by the first appearance of a book so unusual.

^D Anastasius Bibliothecarius in his epistle to King Charles concerning the Areopagitica, speaks as follows concerning the edition of Dionysius promoted by him: "The scholia themselves, or *paratheseis*, which have at their end the sign of the life-giving cross, are reported to have been invented by the Blessed Maximus, confessor and monk. The others, however, are said to be the work of the holy John of Scythopolis (so it is correctly read in the Oxford manuscript, not Sycopolitanus, as others read corruptly), the bishop." Therefore, John of Scythopolis wrote the scholia on the books of Dionysius, concerning whom Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, has this in Photius, Codex 231: *Ἰωάννης ὁ ἐν ἁγίοις ἐπίσκοπος Σκυθοπόλεως, ὃς καὶ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐν Καλχηδόνι συνόδου σοφῶς τε καὶ θεοφρόνως ἐσπούδασε*—"St. John, bishop of Scythopolis, who wrote wisely and piously for the Council of Chalcedon." Against him wrote Basilius Cilix. *Ἦν δὲ οὗτος ὁ Βασίλειος πρεσβύτερος, ὡς αὐτός φησι, τῆς κατ’ Ἀντιόχειαν Ἐκκλησίας, ἀρχιερατεύοντος μὲν τῶν ἐκεῖσε Φλαβιανοῦ, Ῥωμαίων δὲ Ἀναστασίου βασιλεύοντος*—"Now this Basilius was a presbyter, as he himself says, of the Church of Antioch, while Flavianus was high priest there, and Anastasius was reigning over the Romans."

as Photius reports in codex 107. Therefore, this Basilius wrote against John of Scythopolis before the twenty-first year of the reign of Anastasius, the year in which Flavianus suffered exile, as Theophanes testifies. Thus, John of Scythopolis wrote either before the sixth century or at its very dawn. But those who write scholia on an author consider him to be some ancient figure; therefore, the books of Dionysius were published long before the sixth century.

Maximus also indicates that many had written commentaries on Dionysius before his time, and had illustrated them with various interpretations; as, for example, on the eleventh chapter of the book *On the Divine Names*: "Some have taken the 'whole unity' to be the simple and indivisible cause of beings, towards which all things turn as if subsisting in it; others, [to be] the harmony of the whole, mixed together from elements of diverse nature." Throughout the entire passage concerning the "unity," some have understood it as the simple and individual cause of things, toward which all things are turned, as if subsisting in itself; others, as the harmony of the universe, mixed from elements of diverse nature. And in the very commentaries of Maximus there are often various expositions, beyond doubt derived first from diverse scholiasts; but among these various scholiasts he names one primarily for the sake of honor, who is without controversy an ancient one, at the fifth chapter of the *Celestial Hierarchy*: "Ο γοῦν μέγας Διονύσιος, ὁ Ἀλεξανδρείας Ἐπίσκοπος, ὁ ἀπὸ ῥητόρων, ἐν τοῖς σχολίοις οἷς πεποίηκεν εἰς τὸν μακάριον Διονύσιον τὸν συνώνυμον, οὕτω λέγει. Magnus igitur Dionysius, Alexandriæ episcopus, e rhetoribus, in scholiis quæ in beatum Dionysium sibi cognominem fecit, ita dicit." And John Cyparissiotus, in decade 1, chapter 1, when he had brought forward a Dionysian sentiment from the epistle to Titus, adds: "This saying S. Maximus and Dionysius the Alexandrian annotated." And when he had cited another sentiment from the same epistle, ^C in decade 2, chapter 2, "The other," he says, "Dionysius, discussing these things, says that those who have heard of an open and unveiled theology form types in their own thought, which might assist listeners toward understanding." Whence it is sufficiently certain that Dionysius the Alexandrian wrote scholia on the Areopagite, not on the bishop of the Corinthians, as Halloix so ineptly commented. I do not believe that this Dionysius, whom Maximus designates as "from the rhetors," was the bishop of Alexandria, because in the list of the bishops of that see I find no one before Maximus marked by that name, except that one of the third century, whom I acknowledge to have indeed been an excellent orator, but I do not think he wrote scholia on the Areopagitica, which could not have existed at that time. Nor, however, does the usual license of Daille please me here, who says that Maximus was willing to be deceived, following the blind zeal of his own mind; who notes his craftiness; who asserts that he perverted the mind of the ancients; who, that he might persuade others of his own dream, does not simply [cite] Dionysius—

^A the Alexandrian rhetor, as Anastasius and Choniates [did], but wishes him to mean that great Dionysius, the bishop of Alexandria from among the rhetors. With these reproaches and revilements, as is his habit, he lacerates the most holy and most learned Maximus—that Maximus whom he himself confesses to have been in great estimation among Catholics for his erudition and sanctity: 'Expñv οὖν εὐλαβῶς τοῖς τῶν πατέρων πόνοις προσέχειν· ἀλλὰ μὴ πρὸς διαβολὴν ἀντὶ τοῦ εὐγνωμονεῖν ἑτοίμους εἶναι. "It is necessary to attend reverently to the labors of the Fathers, and not to be ready to slander rather than to think well of them," as Eulogius the patriarch of Alexandria wisely said. But certainly, Maximus could not have perverted Choniates, who lived so many centuries after him, and [who] changed the words of older men. He did not pervert Anastasius, who was older than himself, but faithfully recited his words. For Anastasius himself did not call that Dionysius simply "Dionysius the Alexandrian rhetor," as Daille falsely teaches, but the "great Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria from among the rhetors." His words are in the work which is inscribed *Guide*: "Ο γοῦν μέγας Διονύσιος, ὁ Ἀλεξανδρείας Ἐπίσκοπος, ὁ ἀπὸ ῥητόρων, ἐν τοῖς σχολίοις οἷς πεποίηκεν εἰς τὸν μακάριον συνώνυμον αὐτοῦ Διονύσιον, οὕτω λέγει." These Maximus transcribed most faithfully, with not even a little word added, or detracted, or changed; as is clearly apparent from both passages described by us faithfully from the authors themselves. Whence both Maximus is freed from the slanders of Daille, and Dionysius the scholiast of the Areopagitica is shown to exist against the conjectures of Halloix. "For if," he says, "he had understood the Areopagite, he would rather have spoken thus, as the custom of writers dictates, in the notes which he wrote on this very Dionysius; for he was then dealing with Dionysius the Areopagite." But Maximus does not speak with his own words, but with another's and [words] transcribed from Anastasius (Anastasius, however, was not dealing with Dionysius the Areopagite), and therefore John Cyparissiotus, dec. 8, cap. 10, citing the position of the Areopagite, where he usurps the word *agennetos*, transcribes the exposition of Maximus, as is his habit, but brings forward that of Dionysius the Alexandrian not from Maximus, but from the blessed Anastasius. Therefore, both Anastasius and Maximus testify that a certain rhetor named Dionysius wrote scholia on Dionysius, commonly called the Areopagite: they themselves cite some of his words from it, and John Cyparissiotus [cites] more; they both also call him the bishop of Alexandria: who, although he could not have been that noble bishop of the third century, was nevertheless a sufficiently ancient author, and sufficiently demonstrates the antiquity of this Dionysius, upon whom he wrote scholia as into an ancient author. ^D Furthermore, Suidas in his collections from some old writer reports these things: Ἰστέον δὲ ὡς τινες τῶν ἔξω σοφῶν, καὶ μάλιστα Πρόκλος, θεωρήμασι πολλάκις τοῦ μακαρίου Διονυσίου κέχρηται, καὶ αὐταῖς δὲ ξηραῖς ταῖς λέξεσι: "One must know that some of those outside the wisdom, and especially Proclus, have frequently used the theorems of the blessed Dionysius, and even the very dry words themselves."

: "One must know that some of those outside the wisdom, and especially Proclus, have frequently used the theorems of the blessed Dionysius, and even the very dry words themselves." ^A And *soros* is nothing other than a coffin or chest, and *soropēgos* is not a stone-cutter, who cuts sepulchers from rock according to the custom of the Jews, but one who joins together and constructs such small chests. The ancient Glossary: *Soros*, a funeral chest. Julius Pollux, book VII, chap. 33: "a maker of coffins, a coffin-joiner, a little coffin, *soros*; this might also be called a basin, a chest, or a vat." Therefore, the patriarch Juvenal sent the funeral chest and the grave-clothes or vestments to Constantinople from Jerusalem, after he had persuaded Pulcheria that they had belonged to the holy Virgin, both by tradition and by the testimony of Dionysius. When Dallaeus saw that this argument would avail nothing, he replied in the second place: "Historians are accustomed to introduce men saying things, not that they truly and certainly said, but that they think they could have said." If this response is admitted in matters of this kind, almost every method of admitting the testimonies of the ancients is removed. For as often as some author introduces another writer citing the writings of a third party, no sufficiently certain trust can be placed in him; because it cannot be deduced that he actually said or cited that, but only that he could have said it according to the intention of the one reporting him. Meanwhile, it is most well-known that it is customary for Nicephorus not to attribute his own works to others, but to make the work of others his own, and to compile his own History from ancient historians, relating past events even in their own words, as is clearly perceived from those who still survive; whence it often happens that ancient ecclesiastical historians are either illustrated or even corrected by him; and it is entirely credible that he did the same in other works that have perished, and that he transcribed this very history from Theodore the Lector. But if these things be true, who would not concede that the writings of Dionysius existed in the fourth century?

^B Certainly Erasmus, in Volume V, *On the Short Way of Arriving at True Theology*, thinks that this Dionysius was older than St. Augustine. "Although," he says, "the divine Aurelius Augustine discoursed accurately and copiously in the four books to which he gave the title *On Christian Doctrine* upon this very subject. And before him, I believe, a certain Dionysius in a work which he inscribed *On the Divine Names*; and again in a little book to which he gave the title *On Mystical Theology*." Whether Dallaeus knew this had been the opinion of Erasmus, I do not know; he certainly attacks it in chapter 22, led by the lightest of conjectures. For when he had dealt equally with Dionysius and St. Augustine concerning the sponsors, and had replied to the objection concerning the words spoken for an infant in baptism: "Not undeservedly," says Dallaeus, "do ^C I suspect that this man was by no means older than Augustine, with whom he treats these matters." But in truth, this suspicion has arisen clearly without merit. For what kind of reasoning is this? "Dionysius and Augustine cannot be older." Certainly, if this logic holds against Erasmus, it will also hold against Dallaeus: therefore, Augustine cannot be older than Dionysius. For Dallaeus established him as being an entire century older than Dionysius. It would indeed have some force if the practice of the Church, about which both have disputed, had not been older than St. Augustine; but that custom for a long ^D time

before had been certain, and Boniface, in that very 23rd epistle of Augustine, clearly signifies this with these words: "Therefore, I ask that you deign to reply briefly to these questions, so that you do not prescribe to me according to custom, but render a reason." Since, therefore, this custom was old in the age of Augustine, either Dionysius or anyone else much older than Augustine could have discoursed on the same matter. Thus far, therefore, the opinion of Erasmus remains intact.

I, however, think that Dionysius wrote not only before Augustine but also before Jerome; and I use the same foundation for his antiquity as Dalleus employs to demonstrate his novelty, namely, the words of Petavius: "Dionysius was the first to place ^A the nine orders and degrees of angels distinctly and definitely"; and: "You will not readily find this nine-fold number of orders in any older author (one must look through the ages), since the writings of Dionysius, by whom it was first brought forth, were not yet in existence." These things he says, and indeed most truly, in the judgment of Dalleus. Moreover, that Dionysius by whom the nine-fold number of invisible orders was first brought forth certainly lived before Jerome, for we know that he (Jerome) brought forth the same number. Commentaries on the Psalms exist under his name, in which we read these things regarding Psalm CXII: "God the Father placed the Son in the heavens at his right hand; and he rules over the princes, that is, over the nine orders of angels, according to that saying: 'I am the prince of the host, or prince of the virtues.' And furthermore, he placed the saints and his own members with those same nine orders of angels." But this is not the work of Jerome, they say: and indeed, it does not seem to be entirely his; yet no one can deny that very many things contained therein are truly Hieronymian: and I see no reason why these very things should be denied to him. For the noteworthy passage of Jerome from the commentaries on the epistle to the Ephesians which Petavius cites is of no account; for those very commentaries are almost nothing else than excerpts from the writings of the ancients, as Jerome himself admits: and the passage itself which is cited seems to be entirely Origenic. Nor does it move me that he enumerates seven orders in Book I *Against Jovinian*, which he wrote as a young man; although Petavius concludes from this, quite inconsequently, that "the number and appellation of the orders had not yet been established for Jerome." For the nine-fold number and appellation of the orders was well enough established for Jerome when he wrote his second apology against Rufinus, in which he rhetorically depicts the heretical view of Origen: "In the restitution of all things, when the principal indulgence shall have come, cherubim and seraphim, thrones, principalities, dominations, virtues, powers, archangels, angels, the devil, demons, and the souls of all men, as well Christians as Jews and Gentiles, shall be of one condition and measure." Therefore, Jerome clearly expressed the nine-fold number of orders, which Dionysius first brought forth: Dionysius was therefore older than Jerome. Nor ought this to seem strange, since Basil of Seleucia, a contemporary of Jerome, enumerates the same nine orders in his 39th oration, as if they were most well known in his time: ^B "Let me run through the choirs of angels, and let me leave their leaders (the archangels) with them; let me be carried up above the splendor of the thrones, the honorable height of the dominations, the rule of the principalities, and the brightness of the powers; and furthermore, above the strength of the divine virtues, the perspicacity of the purity of the cherubim, and the pathless motion of the six-winged seraphim on every side."

Furthermore, not only does Laurentius Valla indicate that there were most learned men of his age who judged these books to be by Apollinaris, but also some of the ancients, who denied that they were by the Areopagite, ascribed them either to Apollinaris or to Didymus; and the reverend Ussher did not hesitate to attribute them either to Apollinaris, or at any rate to some contemporary Dionysius, that is to say, the one to whom Apollinaris wrote, of whom we read in the conference held before Hypatius under Justinian: "For we show that even that famous epistle of the blessed Julius was manifestly written by Apollinaris to Dionysius." I do not think the Areopagitica were indeed written by Apollinaris, whose booklets were ascribed by heretics now to Athanasius, now to Pope Julius, and now to Gregory Thaumaturgus, according to the bishop Leontius of Neapolis; both because they are not similar to the fragments of his that survive, and because they are not in the least consistent with his dogmas, which Maximus often observes. Nor do I believe they are to be attributed to Didymus, who, being an Origenist, is not to be thought to have written them. I only conclude from this that it is most likely that the author lived in the age in which Apollinaris and Didymus flourished, which is the fourth century.

What of the fact that it has been observed by others that Gregory Nazianzen, who died before the end of the fourth century, made use of very many things from this Dionysius? Billius has certainly collected not a few passages in his observations from Nazianzen, and compared them with the Dionysian ones. Dalleus himself also observed one thing quite appositely; and I ^D have many things observed by myself to the same effect. But it is asked, he says, which of the two borrowed from the other. And I indeed believe that Dionysius did not borrow them from Gregory at all; because that writer is clearly different from all other ecclesiastical writers, and is like only to himself. He conformed almost everything to the recent school of the Platonists, and abhorred both the words and the notions of the holy Fathers in the highest degree. Whoever [considers] the entire structure of his work, the admirable roundness of the sentiments drawn from philosophy, and the [roundness] of the words in

^A which he reports, will never believe, I think, that he drew his perpetual wellspring from Gregory or any other Christian. But anyone who has read the orations of Nazianzen, depicted with all the native colors of rhetoric and triumphing especially in the finest genre of speech, will confess, as often as he deflects toward certain more obscure and more philosophical matters, that he derived those notions from another source, and rendered them as clearly as he could. And we believe that these were indeed borrowed sometimes from the ancient philosophers, but more often from Dionysius. On the contrary, Dallæus contends with two arguments that Dionysius borrowed his material from Nazianzen: the first of which suffers from a manifest begging of the question, and has as its foundation a very slight conjecture devised by himself. "But truly," he says, "since it has been demonstrated by us above with clear and certain arguments that the Areopagitica were not published and known until after the fifth century, it is foolish and absurd that Gregory, who died in the year 389, should have perused these books, which were to be born a hundred and more years after his death." Certainly, if we believe Dallæus, 130 years elapsed after the death of Gregory before the Areopagitica were published; but this is only stated by him, and nowhere demonstrated. For he who has observed the number of various readings in the Dionysian codex in the age of Maximus; who has observed the various scholiasts who evidently wrote notes upon it before Maximus; who has considered the certain age of John of Scythopolis, and the uncertain age of Dionysius of Alexandria, and therefore, as is credible, [the fact that he is] much further removed from that of Maximus; who has weighed the judgment of the holy Fathers of the sixth century concerning the true Areopagite, and of others concerning the great and blessed Dionysius; who has considered the remaining evidence which we have adduced concerning the fifth century; and finally, who has known the antiquity of the manuscript codices, which others mention, and which a man most expert in such things while he lived, and most dear to me, asserted to be of no less antiquity than is the codex of the Septuagint Interpreters in our king's library—he will never consider these things said about a sixth-century edition as demonstrated, but rather as having been put forth merely from conjecture and a preconceived opinion. Therefore, no "inevitable ratio of the times" hinders us here. ^B Secondly, he says: "Why did Gregory, if he had borrowed these things from Dionysius, treat the author with ungrateful silence? Why did he not publish his name, venerable among all?" I answer first, that his name was not so venerable in the age of Gregory; that Nazianzen did not recognize him as the true Areopagite; and that the author, in the century in which he wrote, was indeed accepted as a great man, but one who published his work under an assumed name. I answer second, that Nazianzen is not accustomed to name ecclesiastical writers, if perchance he happens to cite their sentiments. At least I, while perusing his works, have not noticed anyone among the Catholics named by him in such a way. He does indeed name Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato, and also Aquila and Symmachus; but the names of Christian writers, as often as ^C he refers to any of them, he always, I think, passes over in silence. I do not call this silence ungrateful: let him use, by my leave, the style of speaking which pleased him greatly, as he is a supreme orator. Certainly he was no more ungrateful toward Dionysius than toward the rest. For he indicated him more than once according to his custom without mentioning his name, as it seems to me. For in his 38th oration, *On the Theophany*, and also in his 42nd, *On the Pascha*, he has these words: Οὕτω μὲν οὖν τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, ἃ καὶ τοῖς Σεραφὶμ συγκαλύπτεται, καὶ δοξάζεται τρισὶν ἁγιασμοῖς εἰς μίαν συνιοῦσι κυριότητα καὶ θεότητα, ὃ καὶ ἄλλῳ τινὶ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν πεφιλοσόφηται κάλλιστά τε καὶ ὑψηλότατα. "Thus then, the holy of holies, which is even hidden from the Seraphim and glorified by three sanctifications approaching into one Lordship and Deity, is that which also has been philosophized by someone else before us, most beautifully and most sublimely." That Gregory signifies by this "some other" Dionysius, was observed by that man supreme in the Greek tongue, Guillaume Budé: although Elias of Crete has noted that St. Athanasius is implied here. But two things chiefly forbid me to understand these things as being about Athanasius: the consideration of time, and the genre of writing. For first, Gregory calls him τινὰ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν, that is, "a certain one who lived before him"; a manner of speaking Greek writers are accustomed to use when they mean a man who is dead, either before they themselves were born, or at least before they reached the age of memory. However, Nazianzen spent the greater part of his life together with Athanasius: he seems to have delivered these very orations in Constantinople within seven years after the death of Athanasius; yet he wrote them, since they treat of fixed solemnities, perhaps even before Athanasius died. Now, he who lived in the same age, even if he is defunct before the one who is writing, and before he writes, is wont in Greek to be called τις καθ' ἡμᾶς, "a certain one who lived in our time," as he expresses himself in oration 36: 'Ως τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς φιλολόγων τις. For in Greek, τὸ καθ' ἡμᾶς and ἐπὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων χρόνων sound the same; therefore, τὸ πρὸ ἡμῶν is properly the same as πρὸ ἡμετέρων χρόνων, "before our time." Thus Gregory himself in orat. 44: Καθὼς ἤδη τινὲς τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν τὸ Σολομώντειον ἐξειλήφασιν. Orat. 28: Τὸ ἕτοιμον εἰς ἐξουσίαν ἀργὸν εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν, ὥς τις ἔφη τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν· and orat. 36: Τούτων οὐδὲν φαμεν, εἰ καὶ τισὶ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν ὡς ἰσχυρὰ τέθειται. Therefore, Nazianzen indicates someone whom he himself does not know on account of his age: which cannot be said of Athanasius. ^D Secondly, those words, ὑψηλότατα πεφιλοσόφηται, seem to indicate someone who has pursued that matter with a certain grand and sublime locution: that, however, Nazianzen never wished to attribute to Athanasius, whose simplicity of style he himself knew best, whose sublimity of oration he never praised in his panegyric, and whom he called only τὸν λόγον, σοφώτερον τὴν διάνοιαν. Neither of these, therefore, fits Athanasius, but both fit Dionysius; who, according to our judgment, wrote in the final times of Eusebius. I have certainly said what seemed most probable to me, and I submit the whole matter to the judgment of the more learned.

CHAPTER XI. Argument from silence is refuted. It is not rejected because it is negative, but because it has no force in this matter. Affirmative argument from testimonies destroys the negative. Within about 200 years how many authors provide testimony to the Ignatian epistles. The Ignatian letters were not unknown to the Alexandrians. The narrative of Eutychius is examined. It is proven that there were more bishops in Egypt before Demetrius. The origin of the Ethiopian Church and its bishops is discussed at length. The argument concerning the Ionians and Boiarians is answered; and concerning Jerome and Epiphanius. It cannot be demonstrated that the Ignatian letters were unknown to Tertullian; nor to Gaius, nor to Clement of Alexandria, nor to Origen, nor to Julius Africanus, nor to Lactantius, nor to Dionysius of Alexandria. The collection of the argument is expunged by the collection of responses.

Since it is my purpose in the former part of the ^AVindiciae to discuss everything pertaining to the external argument drawn from testimonies, and since I have already freed individual witnesses brought forward to confirm the Ignatian letters from the objections of the adversary, it is necessary that I should at the same time examine that argument which goes about to enervate the force of all testimonies at once, and that I should disperse the formidable cloud of deep and long-standing silence. For behold, Daillé has fabricated and set forth an argument which he confesses to be sufficient for him alone; insomuch that he brings forward all the rest only for the sake of satisfying those who distrust not this argument, but this sort of arguing. This he therefore pursues at length in five entire chapters, beginning from the fifth. "The primary," he says, "and indeed the common argument against all these epistles, is drawn from the silence of ecclesiastical writers who flourished before Eusebius among us."

I am not now disputing the force of an argument from a negative testimony, or one sought from the silence of writers; I do not deny that something of this kind sometimes carries weight even regarding the supposition of some writing: nay, I willingly not only concede, but also contend that Eusebius himself, whom we follow, sometimes relied on such an argument to reject the authority of certain books; as he repudiated the Acts of Andrew and John and other apostles, of which "no one at all among the churchmen who followed the successions has thought fit to mention in his writings." None of those who ever taught in the Church in the succession continued from the apostles deigned to mention them in their writings (Hist. eccl. lib. III, c. 25). He also rejects the second epistle of Clement, giving this one reason: "Yet we do not know it to be as familiar as the former, because we do not know that the ancients used it." But we hold it as certain that it was not received and approved in the same way, since we find that the more ancient authors did not use its testimony (lib. III, c. 38). It is diligently to be observed what standard Eusebius applied in judging these very books; the former he condemns utterly and completely, not only on account of the lack of testimonies, but also because the material was in no way consistent with the apostolic writings, and was clearly heretical; the latter, however, because it was destitute of the testimonies of the more ancient, he held as not so much received and only held it ^B by investigation, from whence it was later received by others. It is certain, however, that Eusebius did not receive any book as indubitably true among the canonical or ecclesiastical ones, which he observed had been passed over in silence by the ecclesiastical writers before him and was completely destitute of the testimony of the ancients; nor did he reject and condemn any as indubitably false, unless he had detected something vicious in the matter of the book beyond the lack of testimonies, as in the dialogues of Peter and Apion published under the name of Clement: "No mention of them at all is found among the ancients; for it does not even preserve the pure character of apostolic orthodoxy." (Of which no mention at all exists among the ancients: for the mark of sincere right faith handed down from the apostles is not found expressed in them). Therefore, we do not absolutely dodge the argument from negative testimony; but where it has some force, we willingly admit, nay, we even urge it. We admit it in the case of epistles ascribed to Ignatius, but not mentioned by Eusebius or Jerome; and since no one for four centuries after the death of Ignatius has mentioned them, we reject them completely. We do not even urge the argument in the case of epistles altogether unheard of before this century, and not even now extant, but thought up solely to elude the testimony of St. Polycarp; and since they were never known to any age, we hold them as a figment. Finally, we discuss the negative argument if it is offered; if, after discussion, it appears to us to have no force in itself, we deny it; and we provide the reason for our denial.

"I indeed," says the most learned man, "would not deny that there are some [cases] of this kind in which you might incorrectly employ this type of argument." And I would not hesitate to affirm that our case is of such a nature that it can hardly be rightly employed in it. For if ever an argument from negative testimony is of no value, it is especially so when an affirmative argument from testimony is given, which claims and proves something clearly contrary to it. For against the affirmation of witnesses worthy of all trust, and laboring under no suspicion of falsehood or weakness, the negation of others, much less their silence, is of no value. In this case, indeed, the negative argument denies itself; for it is founded on general silence: but when several, or even one, speak, it is not a general silence. Those who defend its force the most contend that it is only effective when no equal or ^C comparable writer provides testimony; but where either several or even one bears witness, it cannot be said that he provides no testimony at all. Our cause, therefore, by no means admits this argument. For we have not only Eusebius, who lived, flourished, and was a presbyter within two hundred years after the death of Ignatius as a most abundant witness, but also several even before him, from the very passion of the most holy martyr. St. Polycarp collected, edited, and committed to posterity these very epistles—not others or different ones—in the same year in which they were written, as has been proven at length.

Philo and Agathopus, ^B the blessed Ignatius's companions from Syria, as has been published in the Acts this past year, ^A appear to mention the Epistle to the Romans. St. Irenaeus transcribed a remarkable sentiment from no other source than that same epistle. St. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, or at any rate that ancient author known as St. Basil of that same century, borrowed yet another sentiment from the Epistle to the Ephesians. In the third century Origen mentioned this same work while still a young man, and in old age he excerpted another passage from the Epistle to the Romans, naming Ignatius in both instances. Therefore, there was no profound or long-lasting silence in the Church. St. Ignatius's epistles were both well-known and famous from the very moment of their birth, once they were midwifed into this world by St. Polycarp—not Eusebius—the genuine offspring of the martyr. Since his Epistle to the Philippians rang out in the public assembly of Asia, the Ignatian letters, being so highly commended, could not have remained hidden in any way. There is, therefore, no silence here; no foundation for an opponent's argument.

The sum of the argument produced by that most learned man is this: if those epistles of Ignatius were true, they would have been most familiar to learned men—above all to Justin, and to Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and other writers of that same rank and age. But they were not known to those most learned men. Therefore, the epistles of Ignatius are not genuine. He then assumes, as a concession, that we would deny this one thing: namely, that these epistles were unknown to those men. Yet we deny two things here. First, even if perchance Justin, or Clement, or Tertullian, or all of them were ignorant of Ignatius's epistles, while Polycarp, Philo, Agathopus, Theophilus, Irenaeus, and Origen—who were older than them or their contemporaries—had known them, it does not follow in any way that these epistles of Ignatius were not genuine; the consequence is therefore merely probable, not necessary. In the second place, we deny that these epistles were unknown to those men, and we do so for two reasons: because we think it can never be proven that they were truly ignorant of them, and because we conclude with better right that they knew them perfectly. For those epistles that were known to Polycarp, Philo, Agathopus, Theophilus, Irenaeus, and Origen do not seem to have been unknown to Justin, Clement, Tertullian, and other writers of the same rank and age. But St. Ignatius's epistles were ^D known to them, as we have shown at length. Therefore, they were known to the others as well. And if in their works which survive today no mention of these epistles is made, it is nonetheless possible that in those which have perished—which we know to be very many—the Ignatian [works] were mentioned, just as they are mentioned by those whom we have named. But even if they had mentioned no Ignatian works, neither in those published nor in those lost, it still does not follow in any way that they were completely ignorant of what others knew. For it was not the intention of any of them to name every ecclesiastical writer, or even the most preeminent ones. Finally, if perchance these men, or any of them, were ignorant of them, or did not see them, or did not have them in their library, the ignorance of one or even of several cannot cause that which was seen and read and used by others to have not existed at all. Since, however, it is now clearly apparent that there is no room in the present matter for an argument that negates [their existence], the only thing that remains, just as Dallaeus wished, is that we deny that the Ignatian works were unknown to the most famous men and Churches, and that we respond to his conjectures, upon which, when his confidence was shaken, he asserted things of which he himself was most certainly ignorant. He begins with Irenaeus, about whom he argues at length; but we have refuted all those points in their proper place. From Irenaeus, however, he moves to the Alexandrian Church.

"But not even for the Alexandrians," he says in chapter 7, "is it clear from some singular tradition of that Church that the epistolary Ignatius was better known than to Irenaeus and the Asians." And indeed, let it be clear that our Ignatius was not *better* known to the Alexandrians than to Irenaeus and the Asians; for he could not be better known to the Alexandrians or to any others, since he was most well known to them. The sentiment he excerpted speaks on behalf of Athanasius, and the epistle of Polycarp, which was read among the Asians for so many centuries, speaks on behalf of [the knowledge of] the Asians. "But this doctrine," he says, "was inculcated by Ignatius, that individual Churches of Christ cannot and ought not to be governed otherwise than by one bishop presiding over the presbyters." Ignatius said nothing about individuals, and there may be something hidden in that expression; but if it is understood correctly, that was indeed Ignatius's doctrine, and, as I believe, one most worthy of a disciple of the apostles and a bishop. But was this doctrine unknown to the Alexandrians, so that we may even conclude from that that Ignatius was completely unknown to them? Nothing of the sort. In no Church was this doctrine ever more accepted and observed than in the Alexandrian. There are no documents more certain, or more universally acknowledged, than those which have been produced concerning the Alexandrian Church. Whence the very great man, Hugo Grotius, who thought that from the beginning the Churches were governed by the council of the presbyters—who, as he says, were all also bishops, according to Paul and Clement—was of the opinion that the extraordinary authority of the bishops began to be introduced elsewhere after the death of Mark in Alexandria, following that example, as he himself testifies in epistle 162. Certainly everyone writes that St. Mark established the Church at Alexandria; Jerome in his preface to Matthew states that he held the episcopate there; they relate with the same consensus that he ordained a bishop by the name of Anianus or Ananias: they likewise report that he joined to Anianus, as bishop, a certain number of presbyters and deacons. Eutychius himself, the Patriarch of Alexandria, whose origins [supporters of Dallaeus] use against Ignatius, narrates it no differently: "Ananias believed in Christ at that time, whence Mark baptized him and appointed him patriarch of Alexandria. And he was the first of the patriarchs who presided over Alexandria. The evangelist Mark, moreover, together with the patriarch Ananias, appointed twelve presbyters, who were, in fact, to remain with the patriarch." The old author of the History of Mark [states]: "The blessed Mark ordained Anianus as bishop there, and three presbyters, and seven deacons." Behold the very face of the Ignatian Church! For Ananias, the same [man]

held at Alexandria what Ignatius held at Antioch, and what Polycarp held at Smyrna. It cannot be denied that he had authority over the presbyters, since those who even wish them to have been ordained by presbyters describe them with that very authority. Saint Jerome also [states] in his epistle to Evagrius: "For also at Alexandria," he says, "from Mark the Evangelist until the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always named one chosen from among themselves, placed in a higher rank, as bishop, just as if an army were to make an emperor." Therefore, the successors of Ananias, unique bishops of Alexandria down to Heraclas or Demetrius, were in a higher rank than their presbyters: and indeed with authority and power over the presbyters, as an emperor has over soldiers. ^B Thus Synesius himself, the bishop, recognized in Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, "the authority of the evangelical succession," that is, the supreme and peerless authority, not acquired at that age, but derived from the very succession of Mark the Evangelist (epist. 66); and therefore he addresses him thus: "I wish, and divine necessity lies upon me, to consider as a law prescribed to me whatever that throne shall decree as if divinely indicated" (epist. 67). When, therefore, Ignatius wrote his epistles, the same form of ecclesiastical government existed at Alexandria as existed at Antioch, and as the epistles testify it to have been in other cities.

^C Indeed, even before Heraclas, the same doctrine which was set forth by Ignatius was preserved in the Alexandrian Church as being delivered from the beginning. This is that utterance of the martyr, upon which the rest hangs: "The bishops appointed throughout the ends of the earth are in the intent of Jesus Christ." That is, bishops appointed throughout the bounds of the earth by the decree of Christ, namely, by the will of Christ known to the apostles and ordained by them. By this, nothing else can be understood than that the episcopate was instituted by the apostles by the will of Christ. Clement of Alexandria, instructed beyond controversy by Pantaenus, taught his peers long before the episcopate of Heraclas: "Since even here in the Church, the advancements of bishops, presbyters, and deacons are, I suppose, imitations of the angelic glory and of that dispensation" (Stromat. VI).

^D Pertaining to these to presbyters and deacons in holy Scripture were given: "And how many precepts pertaining to elect persons are written in the holy books: some for presbyters, some for bishops, some for deacons, others for widows" (Pædagog. III, c. 12). Clement, therefore, a presbyter of the Alexandrian Church, a student of Pantaenus—who after his death held the ecclesiastical school at Alexandria and was a master of catechisms according to Jerome—recognizes not only the three ranks, or advancements, of bishops, presbyters, and deacons in the Church, accepted by usage, but also that that usage was derived from apostolic institution. For he recognizes four kinds of persons chosen in the Scriptures; he distinguishes the precepts given to bishops no less from those enjoined upon presbyters, than those given to deacons from those which are prescribed to widows. But the persons or offices are distinct, to which different precepts are entrusted. Clement of Alexandria therefore recognized that distribution of sacred orders whose usage Blondell acknowledges, having been instituted divinely through the apostles. This Clement [held] from the school of Pantaenus; and from Clement, Origen [held] the same. For thus the youth [Origen] still writes in homily 13 on St. Luke: "If it is permitted to speak boldly pursuing the meaning of the Scriptures, in each of the churches there are two bishops, one visible, another invisible; the one apparent to the sight of the flesh, the other perceptible to the sense." And again: "I think it possible for the angel and the human to be found together as good bishops of the Church, and in a way to be partakers of one work. Since this is so, let us ask the omnipotent God that the angels and human bishops of the churches may be our aid, and that we may know that both are judged for us by the Lord." These clearly are pure Origenian [thoughts], so that there can be no doubt about the author of these homilies. Origen, however, retrieved this from the sense of the Scriptures, as he himself confesses; according to their doctrine, therefore, he recognizes in individual churches one visible human bishop. The same [author] in homily 17: "For just as not only fornication but also nuptials repel one from ecclesiastical dignities; for neither a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon, nor a widow can be a digamist [married twice]; so perhaps a digamist will be cast out from the assembly of the firstborn and of the unstained Church, which has neither spot nor wrinkle; not that he is sent into eternal fire, but that he has no part in the kingdom of God." Who, however, does not immediately see that these things also are truly Origenian? In these matters, however, insofar as ecclesiastical dignities are concerned, Origen follows Clement his teacher, and counts them as four distinct [grades] subjected to one—in this matter, an apostolic—precept, yet delivered separately. Thus he himself in his commentaries on Matthew attempts to resolve the difficulty of what is sought "according to the prescription of the Apostle concerning ecclesiastical matters." He proposes it in this way: "For no one of those of the Church..."

who has attained some dignity above many, as if in symbols, does Paul wish to have made trial of a second marriage." ^A Then, indeed, in order to show that all ecclesiastical dignity is subject to this law, he treats of each distinctly, proving first of all concerning bishops, secondly of deacons, thirdly of widows, fourthly of presbyters, with individual passages from St. Paul produced.

Then in the solution itself: "Might it be that since the bishop, and the presbyter, and the deacon are signs of true things according to these names, he willed them to be symbolically monogamous?"

These three distinct degrees, or ecclesiastical dignities, Origen derives from the sacred code itself, and with Clement he acknowledges as many distinct offices regulated also by specific apostolic precepts. As in that excellent book on prayer, not yet published, but shortly to be issued by Huet, ^B or treating of "Debts in the Lord's Prayer," after he had discoursed on the general duties of all Christians, just as that Clementine pedagogue had done, he adds these things: "But besides these things which are more universal, there is a certain debt of the widow, whose care the Church maintains, and another of the deacon, and another of the presbyter, but the debt of the bishop is most weighty, being required by the Savior of the whole Church, and avenged if it is not paid." As he himself also states in the fifth homily on Ezekiel: "According to the measure of their degrees, each one will be punished. He has a greater penalty who presides over the Church and does wrong (that is the bishop). Does not the faithful catechumen merit mercy more by comparison? Is not the layman more worthy of pardon if he is compared to the deacon? And again, does not the deacon merit more pardon by comparison with the presbyter?" Clearly, as the same author says in his homily on Jeremiah: "or (this is, as Jerome translates it) more is required of me than of a deacon, more of a deacon than of a layman. But he who holds the citadel of the whole Church shall render an account for the entire Church." ^C Origen was a presbyter, and therefore he says: "More is required of me than of a deacon, because the degree of the presbyterate is superior to the diaconate; more of a deacon than of a layman, because the layman, according to his opinion, holds no dignity in the Church; but," says he, "he who [is appointed] to the supremacy over all these, both laymen, deacons, and even presbyters, is ordained, that is, he is a bishop, still bound by a greater debt." Which words Blondell, with the worst intention, concealed in his apology, when he himself knew that all his conclusions, badly deduced from the prior words, were most openly refuted by these very ones. ^D The same author, in book three against Celsus, hands down the characteristic of the bishop, and describes it not from human institution or from Church custom, but from apostolic precepts, and opposes to it an argument deduced from Scripture: "And it is clear that in the characteristic of those called bishops, when Paul describes what sort of person the bishop ought to be, he also ordained the teacher, saying that it is necessary for him to be able to refute those who contradict, so that he may stop the mouths of the vain talkers and deceivers through the wisdom that is in him; and just as he prefers to the episcopacy one who is married to one wife rather than one married to two, and one who is blameless rather than one who is blameworthy, and one who is sober rather than one who is not sober, and one who is orderly rather than one who is even a little disorderly, so he wills him who is to be promoted beforehand to the episcopacy to be apt at teaching and powerful toward silencing those who contradict." And it is manifest that in the very characteristic of those who are called bishops (among us), Paul, describing what sort of man the bishop ought to be, also posited the teacher, saying that he must be powerful at refuting contradictors, so that he might stop the mouths of vain talkers and seducers through his own wisdom. And just as he prefers the husband of one wife in the election to the episcopacy to one who enters into marriage again, [preferring] the blameless to the blameworthy, the sober to one far different, the temperate to the intemperate, the man of composed manners to the little-composed one; so he wishes him who is to be promoted beforehand to the episcopacy to have the faculty of teaching, and to be powerful at obstructing the contradictors. And indeed, Origen notes the characteristic of the bishop elsewhere, as in the commentaries on Matthew: "But of those who are noble, I think, and of those who possess all the things that inwardly constitute and describe the bishop, it was their work to exhort those who have the ability, and those who are obedient to the exhortation, and by providing from the common stock to them and to others, to encourage them further toward this." And in the same commentaries: "Because of which, also defining what sort of bishops there ought to be, he says thus: not litigious, not strikers, but gentle, orderly 14 and whatever is found among the faithful and wise servants and stewards whom the Lord has set over his family, as Luke 15 says." There were, therefore, the characteristics of the bishop according to Origen, clearly, just as he speaks in his commentary on St. John, all delineated according to the Lord's or the apostolic precepts. And the passage is altogether memorable in the same book, where he [compares] the Churches of the Christians on the one hand with the Churches...

of the Gentiles. For the Church of God, for example, which is in Athens, is gentle and well-composed, inasmuch as she desires to please God, who is over all; but the assembly of the Athenians is seditious and by no means to be compared with the Church of God that is there. And you shall say the same thing about the Church of God which is in Corinth, and the church, or assembly, of the people of the Corinthians; and, for example, about the Church of God which is in Alexandria, and the assembly of the people of the Alexandrians. Origen therefore mentions, by way of example, three Churches most well-known to the Greeks: the Athenian, the Corinthian, and the Alexandrian. He shows that in these cities the populace of the Gentiles is in no way to be compared with the Christian populace. Thence he proceeds to ecclesiastical dignities, and compares them with the magistracy and senate of the Gentiles, comparing the senate of the Church of God with the senate established in each city, ^A and opposing the Christian [senators or councilors] to those of the Gentiles. And these Christians were indeed presbyters. After these, therefore, he ascends to the prince or supreme magistrate in each city: "In the same way, the prince of the Church of each city is to be compared with the supreme magistrate of those who are in the city." But that the presbyters are counselors, so the bishop is, as he himself says in his commentaries on Matthew: And this, according to Origen, obtained not only at Athens, at Corinth, and at Alexandria, but in each individual city. The same is also [said] in his homily on Luke: "If Jesus the Son of God is subject to Joseph and Mary, shall I not be subject to the bishop, who is ordained for me as a father by God? Shall I not be subject to the presbyter, who is set over me by the dignity of the Lord?" Thus he spoke when he was still young, not yet having been made a presbyter. Yet he acknowledges that in the Alexandrian Church the bishop is ordained by God Himself as a father, no less than the presbyter is set over [the people] by the Lord's calling. Whence, in his commentaries on Matthew, he says: "He takes all the irreproachable bishops and blameless presbyters as parents instead of those two whom he left behind." Moreover, he depicts the antiquity and dignity of the episcopal order a little later: ^D "It is a struggle to cast down [one's] pride due to having been reared by parents in Christianity"—and especially when it happens that one boasts of parents and ancestors who were deemed worthy of precedence in the Church, of an episcopal throne, or the honor of the presbyterate, or of the diaconate for the people of God. "And the leader," he says, "as a minister... but I think that he who is called a bishop in the Churches is so named as he who ministers to those served." And these things indeed the word of God teaches us, ^B and these things also the word of God teaches—for as he observes later: "He sins against God, whoever is a bishop who does not minister like a servant to his fellow-servants, but like a master." The same [author] in his 16th homily on Ezekiel: "But those who utterly turn away from religion, to such an extent that they do not care for the bishop, for the presbyters, for the deacons, for the brothers, but sin with every impudence, they become like a harlot with the confidence of a prostitute." And in his 6th homily on Isaiah: "Therefore [he] says this, that a bishop, casting water into a basin and having laid aside his garments, and girded with a linen towel, should wash my feet? If indeed, he says, you ought to wash one another's feet. If this is what is said, none of you will keep the commandment. For no one, taking a linen towel, does a deacon or a presbyter or a bishop wash the feet of those who come. But if you understand those things which are written, those who are truly blessed, the bishops serving the Church, send the water of the Scriptures into the basin of the soul, and attempt to wash away the filth of the disciples' feet, and to cleanse and cast it off. And thus do the bishops keep the commandment, following Jesus. So too the presbyters." With these agree those things which we read in the commentaries on John, ^C presented in our manuscript more faithfully than in the published versions, p. 390: "And do not marvel if it behooves you to bring up the [fact] that he washed the feet of the saints, where those who are the counterparts are commanded to be 'elder-women' and 'good teachers' for the presbyters. But observe whether it is not also laborious for everyone who is being discipled to Christ, wishing [to fulfill] the commandment which says, 'and you ought to wash one another's feet,' to wish to do this as a duty which is owed—to wash the bodily and sensible feet of the brothers; so that those faithful persons who happen to be in any position of life, whether those who seem to be in ecclesiastical preeminence as bishops and presbyters, or also in other worldly dignities—so that after this, even the Lord comes..."

to wash the feet of the believing slave, and the parents of the son; which was the custom, but it is not done now, or at least very rarely, and only among the very simple and rustic people. And you shall say the same regarding him who desires the episcopate for the sake of reputation among men, or for flattery from men, or for profit from those who come by the excuse of piety. Such a bishop does not desire a good work, nor can he be irreprehensible, nor sober, nor prudent, being drunk with glory and intemperately filled with it; and you shall say the same concerning presbyters and deacons. Similarly, you will say regarding him who desires the episcopate, so that he may attain glory among men, or catch the assentation of men, or receive gain from those who, embracing the word of faith, give it for the sake of piety. Such a bishop therefore does not desire a good work, nor can he be irreprehensible, nor sober, nor prudent, [17 in 1 Tim. III, 2] inasmuch as he is drunk with glory and has intemperately engorged himself upon it. The same you will also say concerning presbyters and deacons. These things produced either from the Greek, or from that which was quite faithfully translated by Jerome—with which things translated by Rufinus are also in agreement. As from the second homily on Numbers, which finally it is established was translated by Rufinus, from the prologue found in the Emeric Bigot codex and published by Henri Valois in his edition of Eusebius, which also exists in the manuscript in the library of our college of the Most Holy Trinity. And the title indeed reads thus: *Here begins the prologue... on Numbers to Ursacius.*

The remainder is clearly erased, on account of the name of Rufinus, as it seems. The first sentence of the epistle, *I use the words to you, brother, of the blessed martyr, you advise well, dearest Donatus*, certainly refers to St. Cyprian, whose words those are at the beginning of the second epistle: *You advise well, dearest Donatus.* The rest in our manuscript entirely accords with the Bigotians, except that for *breve saltim* it reads *brevi saltu*, and for *hæc perurgente*, much more correctly, it reads *hæc perurgente te*; for he is addressing Ursacius, as Huet observed well. From the version of Rufinus, therefore, these words of Origen are held: "Do you think that those who perform the priesthood, and in the priestly order glory, walk according to their order and do all things worthy of that order? (or as in our manuscript: *what is worthy in that order?*) Similarly, do you think that deacons also walk according to the order of their ministry? And whence is it that we often hear men blaspheming and saying: 'Look what kind of bishop, or what kind of presbyter, or what kind of deacon!' Are not these things said, when either a priest or a minister of God has been seen in some way to come against his order, and to act in any way against the priestly or Levitical order?" But in truth, if Blondel is to be believed, although he might seem to admit indiscriminately three kinds of heads in the clergy, favoring the custom of churches; yet here he recognizes only two degrees of priests and deacons, following the example of his master Clement. I, however, find three degrees both in Clement the master and thus also in Origen the disciple: one of the deacon in the order of ministry, and two, namely of the bishop and of the presbyter, in the order of the priesthood, as he himself explains, and more fully. Cyril, Patriarch of the Church of Alexandria, in book XII *On Adoration in Spirit and Truth*: "And if anyone should wish to investigate the order of the Church, he would rightly marvel at the prefiguration in the Law. For to the bishops, as having been allotted to preside at that time, and to those who manage the lesser order—I mean to the presbyters—the altar and the things within the veil are entrusted, to whom it is also fitting to say, 'And they shall keep their priesthood.' To the deacons, however, [it is said], 'They shall keep the charges of the tent.'" But if anyone wishes to inquire further into the order of the Church, he will rightly marvel at that prefiguration which is in the Law. For to the bishops, as if they had then obtained the sovereignty, and also to those who hold the lower degree—I mean the presbyters—the altar and the things within the veil are entrusted, to whom it is also fitting to say: *And they shall keep their priesthood*; but to the deacons that: *They shall keep the charges of the tent.* Moreover, from the version of Rufinus, the Commentaries of Origen on the Song of Songs are held. In the second homily, as it is now called, we read these things: *"He saw also the seat of his young men,"* (he speaks regarding the Queen of Sheba and Solomon) "I think he means the ecclesiastical order, which is held in the seats of the episcopate or the presbytery. He saw also the ordinations or stations of his ministers, the deacons, as it seems to me, he mentions the order of those standing by the divine ministry." And a little later: *"These things, therefore, all when he saw in the house of the king of peace, nay rather of Christ."* Thus he teaches that three orders in the Church of Christ were prefigured under the Old Testament. Blondel saw only two, because seats are attributed both to presbyters and to bishops. On which matter elsewhere. Meanwhile, the opinion of Origen concerning the different degree of those who presided over the people in cathedras is sufficiently open from those things which I brought forth in homily X on Jeremiah, where he counts himself among those *sitting in the presbytery*, and yet acknowledges *the one entrusted with the authority over us all*, and elsewhere he distinguishes between the *episcopal throne* and the *honor of the presbytery*.

^A It is sufficiently established, says the most learned man, “from a certain singular tradition of that Church, clearly and thoroughly adversarial;” and he later calls that tradition a “custom.” It is indeed strange if any custom, and a peculiar one at that, could demonstrate that all things which are alleged to have been written by Ignatius were entirely unknown to those among whom that custom perchance obtained. “Why do you bring forward to me the custom of one city?” Jerome once said; especially if we consider the custom, or that usage, according to the opinion of those who handed it down, to have been engaged in long before Ignatius, from the very founding of the Alexandrian Church, which they traced back to the most celebrated evangelist and companion of St. Peter. The Alexandrians could certainly have received the writings of Ignatius and retained some peculiar custom obtaining among them from the beginning, even if it were perhaps contrary to them. And that they wished to do so is credible for this reason, that it is called a “peculiar” custom, and thus one opposing the custom of all other churches. For why, because *Ignatius’s* opinion alone was revealed to them, should they abandon that which they had hitherto retained against the tradition of all the churches? Or if it should seem that such great authority is to be attributed to the Ignatian writings, it would be much more correct, from such a usage, if [it were indeed contrary to the Ignatian], to conclude that it [the Ignatian teaching] derived from the apostle himself; that Origen, a contemporary of Demetrius, derived the same order from legal types, from the sayings of the Savior, and from apostolic precepts, and never confused it with the presbyterate, but always numbered bishops, presbyters, and deacons alongside Ignatius. As afterwards Isidore of Pelusium, an Egyptian presbyter, calls the bishop a “type of Christ” (lib. 1, epist. 136), the episcopate an “ascent to such a height” (lib. 1, epist. 104); and ^B he recognizes the name and the thing itself of the episcopate as divine and superior to every polity and dignity (lib. 11, epist. 125), in so far as it is distinguished from the presbyterate: for he is dealing with the episcopate, which Hierax the presbyter refused. This doctrine, therefore, regarding the apostolic institution of bishops according to the mind of Christ, regarding a rank distinct from and superior to the presbyterate, and regarding the obedience to be shown to them by all as Fathers constituted by Christ—a doctrine repeated and inculcated by St. Ignatius even to the disgust of certain men—was most accepted in the Alexandrian Church. It was proposed from the beginning in that eximia and most memorable catechetical school, repeated and inculcated—though more sparingly by Clement, and more by Origen—perhaps to the disgust of those same men; the form of government also, so often celebrated by Ignatius in the Asiatic churches, was represented in all respects at Alexandria. Indeed, not only is the Ignatian form of the Church celebrated everywhere by Origen, the most celebrated teacher of the Alexandrians, as most ancient and derived from the forefathers; but the epistles of Ignatius are also expressly cited by him, as we have shown at length. It is therefore impossible that any argument could be formed to show that the Ignatian epistles were unknown to the Alexandrians until the times of Eusebius.

But Salmasius saw that in Origen which Blondel could not see, by which he might prove that only one rank of bishop and presbyter was handed down by him, as also by Clement: “For he recognizes,” he says, “one *systema*, that is, a college of men viewed for their life and doctrine, by which individual churches were governed.” In order to show Origen’s opinion concerning this one governing system, he most unhappily cites this passage from book VI *Contra Celsum*: “We, who know in every city another system of our fatherland, established by the Word of God, exhort those capable in word and sound life to rule so as to rule the churches.” He interprets this primarily for his own purpose thus: “We indeed, in individual cities, know of another body or college of a fatherland, instituted by the Word of God, of those who use sound doctrine and life and are fit for ruling, whom we invite to take up the governance of the churches.” Then he observes that by that “system in every city established by the Word of God,” it is plain that he understands the presbytery of each city, instituted by God through the apostles. But in truth it is plain that all these things are twisted and miserably forced: for Origen did not simply say *systema*, or “a college of men viewed for their life and doctrine, by which individual churches were governed,” so that a presbytery might be extracted from it; but *systema patridos* [system of the fatherland], and indeed *allo* [another], that is, a *system of the fatherland* opposed to that among the gentiles in the same city. “Celsus urges us also towards the ruling of the fatherland.” Indeed, Celsus exhorts us to hold magistracies in the fatherland: Origen responds that Christians recognize another *system of the fatherland*, and in that system appoint magistrates; quite as he speaks elsewhere of the Churches of God, and the churches of the people in the same city, which we mentioned above. Salmasius makes no mention of the *fatherland*, but converts it into a “system of men viewed for their life and doctrine,” clearly against the mind of Origen and the construction of the words. You should translate it thus: “We indeed, in each city, knowing another system or assembly of the fatherland instituted by the Word of God, exhort those who are capable and use sound speech and life to take up the prefecture of the churches.” In the first place, I omit *archein* [to rule] in the interpretation, since it is clearly pleonastic. Thus, however, all things are clear, and by that *other system of the fatherland* nothing else can be understood than the assembly of the Church, opposed to the assemblies of the gentiles. Which the words that follow immediately also ^D manifestly prove: “Kal ei archousin oi kalōs archontes en tē Ekklēsia hypo tēs kata Theon patridos, legō de, tēs Ekklēsias eklegomenoi; archousi kata ta hypo tou Theou protetagmena.” As if those who rule well in the Church, being elected by the fatherland according to God, that is, the Church, rule according to the things ordained by God. And those things which we brought forward previously from the same work *Contra Celsum* concerning the Church of God and the church of the people in the same city confirm this most of all.

From these things it is clear that Clement of Alexandria, from the School of Pantaenus, before Demetrius the bishop, derived the rank of the episcopate superior to the presbyterate from the apostle himself...

^A Dionysius wished to be included in that custom, says he; therefore, according to him, the last to be made bishop under that custom was Demetrius, in the 10th year of Commodus, the year of our Lord 190. Wherefore, Jerome and Eutychius must be said to disagree not slightly concerning the time. And so, in order to remove this dissonance between the two witnesses, Selden devised a marvelous distinction, and since both speak only of the fact, or the custom, and narrate the matter nakedly in a historical manner, he says: "The one speaks of the fact along with the simple law of the place, before any change in custom or fact whatsoever was introduced there; the other speaks of the simple law and the change of the institution." O excellent and subtle distinction, and such an one as perhaps you might adapt to various periods of Justinian law: yet you will never show that it squares with these little historical narratives! He assigns the former part to Jerome; he wishes him to be discussing both the fact and the simple law of the place, when he, making no mention of law at all, speaks only of the fact, and conveys that so briefly and so obscurely that you can scarcely understand what he intended. "The presbyters nominated one chosen from among themselves and placed in a higher rank as bishop." By what right or by what injury this was done, Jerome does not say; indeed, he does not teach that they did anything other than nominate the bishop. Selden, indeed, wishes it to be gathered from the words of Jerome that the patriarch had to be elected and ordained by the presbyters, whereas Jerome teaches neither. He does say the bishop was chosen from the presbyters, but he does not teach that it was by the presbyters; it could have been chosen from the presbyters by others—either by the people or by other bishops; and certainly the bishops of Alexandria seem from most ancient times to have been chosen by the people. And this can be gathered with better right from the ancient custom observed by Epiphanius; whose words in heresy 69 are these: "The custom is in Alexandria, that upon the death of a bishop, the ones being appointed do not linger, but that it happens at once for the sake of peace, so that there may not be friction among the people, with some desiring this one, and others that." ^{B C} But to me the discrepancy does not seem so slight: for when Jerome says that custom lasted until Heraclas and Dionysius, he either hands down the duration as uncertain, or certainly indicates that Heraclas was the last to be made bishop according to the former custom, and Dionysius the first to be made bishop according to a different one. Heraclas, according to Eusebius, was created bishop of Alexandria in the eleventh year of Alexander, that is, A.D. 232. But Eutychius records that the patriarch Alexander forbade that the presbyters should henceforth create the patriarch; the first, therefore, who was made bishop of Alexandria according to a different custom, according to Eutychius, was Alexander’s successor Athanasius, who was created in A.D. 326, after the Nicene Council. Between the creation of Heraclas, therefore, who was the last to be made by the presbyters, according to Jerome, and the consecration of Athanasius, who was the first to be consecrated by bishops, according to Eutychius, there are nearly one hundred years. Indeed, Selden, the primary architect of this argument, recognizes a greater discrepancy here: For neither Heraclas nor ^D this custom supposes that the people of Alexandria, as in other churches, had their part in ancient times in electing the bishop. Certainly the Eusebians, who wished to abrogate the creation of St. Athanasius, objected to the defect of a popular election, and the bishops of Egypt, gathered in a synod, in a letter written to all the bishops of the catholic Church, asserted and testified to the contrary with great contention of spirit, that "all the multitude and all the people of the catholic Church, as if having come together from one soul and body, shouted and cried out, requesting Athanasius as bishop of the Church." That is, all the multitude, and all the people of the catholic Church, as if from one soul and body gathered, demanded Athanasius with shouts and vociferations.

^A And if they had not done this, neither would these others have done so, if the votes of the people had held no place of old in the election of a bishop. Indeed, Gregory Nazianzen in his 21st oration opposes this election not to the former, but to the latter, calling it apostolic: "Thus, then, and for these reasons, by the vote of all the people, not according to the wicked one who later prevailed, nor violently and tyrannically, but apostolically and spiritually he is led up to the throne of Mark." Thus, therefore, and for these reasons, by the suffrages of the whole people—not, however, according to the wicked example which later became established, nor through force and slaughter, but in an apostolic and spiritual manner—he is raised to the throne of Mark. Since, therefore, the whole people took part in the election of the bishop, and the city was most ample, and abounded with a very great number of Christians, and furthermore the presbyters had their own distinct assemblies or Churches there (as Epiphanius observes, haer. 69: "For as many as are the churches of the catholic Church in Alexandria, they are under one archbishop, and presbyters are specially appointed to these for the ecclesiastical needs of the inhabitants." For as many Churches of the catholic communion as are at Alexandria are subject to one archbishop, each having its own assigned presbyter, because of the ecclesiastical necessities of the inhabitants; and as Sozomen also notes, lib. 1, cap. 15: "For it is a custom in Alexandria, as it is even now, while there is one bishop over all, for presbyters separately to hold the churches, and to gather the people in them"). Since this custom, which even now remains at Alexandria, exists—that while one bishop presides over all, the presbyters occupy the churches separately and gather the people accustomed to convene at them—it is to be thought that the elections were made suddenly, so that delay might not provide occasion for tumults and factions. And from this it is reasonable to believe that there arose that custom, certainly peculiar to the Alexandrians, which Liberatus mentions in his Breviarium: "Indeed, it is the custom at Alexandria that he who succeeds the deceased keeps watch over the body of the deceased, and places his right hand upon his own head, and when he is buried, receives with his own hands the pallium of St. Mark onto his own neck, and then sits legitimately." There was, therefore, at Alexandria, for the sake of peace, great haste in electing a bishop, and an unusual ceremony in his creation out of honor for St. Mark. But Jerome mentions neither the method in the election, as far as relates to the suffrages, nor the ceremonies used in the creation, nor any right given or conceded to the presbytery above others, except that which de facto was observed until Heraclas, namely, that the bishop was elected and promulgated by them.

For as for what Selden pretends—that Jerome, being unconcerned about the time preceding Heraclas because he knew that no bishop existed in Egypt before the times of Demetrius, did not wish to descend to later times, because it could scarcely perhaps be believed that the patriarchal ordination, after bishops, at least ^A Heraclean, were instituted in such numbers, was done without bishops—this conjecture is clearly destitute of all verisimilitude. For although no one will believe that the patriarchal ordination was performed without bishops when there were many bishops in Egypt, who nevertheless will guarantee that it was known to Jerome that before the times of Demetrius no bishop existed in Egypt save the one Alexandrian bishop? Eutychius is found to be the first of all to have divulged this, from whom it was impossible for the same Jerome to have learned it. Nay, who would believe that Jerome, if he had known this, or if he had heard it by hearsay, would have wished to hide it from Evagrius on this point, which would have contributed much more to the adorning of the dignity of the presbyterate? Therefore, neither did Jerome write anything in law concerning the matter, nor did he so scrupulously limit the time in practice, but he merely described a certain ancient tradition, which he had received from I know not whom, sufficiently obscurely, and used it to suppress the insolence of certain deacons of the Roman Church. ^B

Nor does the other member of the distinction answer any better to the Eutychian narrative; for Eutychius does not dispute concerning the law, but concerning the fact, namely regarding the custom, and its duration and expiry, which he attributes to the edict of the patriarch Alexander. Nor did he cease, he says, that custom of the presbyters of Alexandria of appointing the patriarch from those twelve presbyters until the time of Alexander. But Selden teaches wrongly that Eutychius attributes to Alexander the decree that was made at the Council of Nicaea, in the fourth canon; for Eutychius ^C hands down that Alexander not only instituted the creation of the patriarch by bishops, but also the election from others than the Alexandrian presbyters, concerning which that Nicene canon has nothing. Nor does he conjecture rightly that that canon arose from the wish of Alexander or from that Alexandrian custom; for there is no doubt at all that the first canon, which is called apostolic, was composed long before that Nicene canon: "Let a bishop be ordained by two or three bishops." For no one, after the Nicene Fathers had required three bishops for an ordination, would have said that two were sufficient. What is more, the part of the decree made by Alexander, which does not pertain in any way to the Nicene canon, should be especially noted, because it seems to restrict the ancient custom concerning electing the patriarch not to an election *by* the presbyters, but to an election made *from* the presbyters, concerning which we spoke regarding the words of Jerome. For he hands down that the ancient custom ceased because Alexander decreed that, when the patriarchate was vacant, they should elect from whatever region it might be, whether from those twelve presbyters or others, some excellent man of proven probity, and create him patriarch. Thus the election of some excellent man of proven probity put an end to the ancient custom; to which those words of pseudo-Ambrose in chapter 4 of Ephesians seem to have looked: "Finally, in Egypt, the presbyters ordain, if a bishop is not present." But because successor presbyters began to be found unworthy to hold the primacy ^D

^A of rank, the procedure was changed, so that a council might see to it that merit, not mere order, should create a bishop established by the judgment of many priests, lest an unworthy person should rashly usurp the position and be a scandal to many. But whatever the discrepancy between Jerome and Eutychius may be, the most learned man argues the sum of the matter thus: "Ignatius denies that anything should be done without a bishop. At Alexandria, the presbyters, without a bishop, make not only a presbyter, but also, what is most important, a patriarch. Therefore, Alexandria did not know that a contrary custom was truly apostolic. Consequently, it did not hold the Ignatian letters in known regard."

I respond first, that our Hammond, in Discourse 3, Chapter 10, has answered this very argument (taken by Blondel from the Annals of Eutychius) with many points, to which Daillé replies nothing here. What cause he had for such silence, I do not know; at least we miss his usual diligence here. I respond second, that this Alexandrian custom, such as it was, is not so contrary to and diametrically opposed to Ignatian discipline that an ignorance of the Ignatian letters can be inferred from it. For it prevailed during a vacancy of the see, and concerns itself only with election or promotion: but Ignatius wrote nothing about a vacancy of the see, or about the election or promotion of a bishop. He addresses the Christian people and urges them to render obedience to their own bishops set over them, and he advises that nothing should be done in ecclesiastical matters without them; he does not teach at all what ought to be done when a bishop is dead. He addresses those to whom he writes regarding living bishops, not dead ones; regarding their own, not others'. He explains himself sufficiently in the Epistle to the Smyrnæans: "Let no one do anything of those things which concern the Church without the bishop; for instance, let that Eucharist be considered firm which is under him, or which he himself has surely permitted. It is not lawful without the bishop to baptize or to hold an agape; that is, divine offices are not to be performed in the Church without the bishop or his permission." Thus, he admonishes Polycarp the bishop that nothing should be done without his judgment. But as this admonition given to Polycarp could not apply to those things which, after he was dead, would need to be performed in appointing a successor, neither could the rest. If the words of Ignatius be extended beyond his own purpose to include foreign bishops, whom he never considered, the statement, "nothing is to be done without a bishop," cannot be applied to the election of a future bishop; for that has never been a practice in the most ancient churches, that they were bound not to elect a bishop without a bishop. Are we to think that the Ignatian letter meant to say: "Without a bishop, elect no one as bishop"? Regarding election, therefore, it is most certain that it being done by presbyters or from among the presbyters without a bishop was not contrary to the Ignatian counsel. Wherever it was done, whether through presbyters, or the laity, whether from among the presbyters or from others, it could have been done entirely without a bishop. Therefore, this custom of the Alexandrian Church in choosing a bishop cannot be said to be contrary to the discipline handed down by Ignatius. ^B

What they contributed beyond the election of the presbyter of Alexandria to the bishop, is uncertain: "They called the one placed in a higher grade a bishop," says Jerome. From such general words, what was done specifically beyond election cannot be understood. Eutychius adds that they laid hands upon his head, blessed him, and created a patriarch. But it cannot be doubted that Eutychius spoke according to the custom of his own age. For in the earliest times of the Alexandrian Church, there were no patriarchs among Christians. Salmasius in his *Apparatus* holds the same view both concerning the imposition of hands and the blessing: "I think," he says, "Eutychius referred to his own age, in which, from the time of the Alexandrian patriarchs and the Nicene Council, bishops were consecrated by the imposition of hands, and similarly presumed that when the presbyters elected a bishop, they used this same rite." Yet Jerome clearly narrates that without consecration—that is, without the imposition of hands—a bishop chose himself. Whatever, therefore, Jerome may have said about election, and whatever Eutychius may have said (from the same tradition, as they wish) about the added imposition of hands—which he merely thought up from the custom of his own age, and wrongly attached to the presbyters—it is possible that another tradition is also true, which maintains that even then, when Jerome and Eutychius wish it to have been that they were chosen from among the presbyters, the Alexandrian bishops were ordained by others. For in Book VII, Chapter 48 of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, we read: *Τῆς δὲ ᾿Αλεξανδρέων ᾿Αννιανὸς πρῶτος ἀπὸ (vel ὑπὸ) Μάρκου εὐαγγελιστοῦ κεχειροτόνηται· δεύτερος δὲ ᾿Αβίλλιος ὑπὸ Λουκᾶ καὶ αὐτοῦ εὐαγγελιστοῦ.* "The first of the Alexandrian Church, Anianus, was ordained by Mark the evangelist; the second, Abilius, by Luke, the same evangelist." In the fourth year of Domitian, in Jerome's *Chronicon*, Abilius, as he himself wishes it, elected from the presbyters, was ordained by S. Luke according to the Greek tradition. To Abilius (whom the anonymous author of the *Life of S. Mark* seems to call Melius, not only because in manuscripts written by hand it was the custom to draw the letters β and μ with almost the same shape, as Blondel notes, but also because in manuscripts, η and ι are often used interchangeably due to the affinity of their pronunciation: nor did the Latin legendaries make Melius out of Abilius, but, I suppose, found it written so by the ancients; certainly Severus, from the monuments of the ancients, calls him Melianus, whom others call Abilius, and Eutychius, Philetium) succeeded Cerdon, at whose ordination, as well as those of others after him and before Demetrius, bishops from that region assisted, as Severus reports, who wrote the *Lives of the Patriarchs of Alexandria* in Arabic, according to Ecchellensis. Therefore, it is still not apparent that the presbyters of Alexandria made a patriarch, which is the most important thing, as Daillé says: much less is it apparent that the presbyters made a presbyter, which he maintains without the authority of Jerome, without Eutychius, without anyone at all. Selden indeed wishes it to be clear from that passage of Jerome that formerly the Alexandrian presbyters had full legitimacy to ordain both an Alexandrian bishop and at least presbyters

and fortresses; it has for its metropolis Tomes, a large and opulent city. ^A Yet the ancient custom remains there even now, that one bishop alone governs the churches of the whole nation. Sozomen relates these things regarding those times in which Vetranio was bishop of Tomi, who embraced the doctrine of the Nicene synod. But it appears there were more churches in Scythia at that time than there were in Egypt before Demetrius. For whoever considers to how many Gentile superstitions that nation was devoted, how many thousands of Jews hostile to the Christian religion lived there, what a great sedition they stirred up under Trajan in Libya, Egypt and Alexandria, Cyrene and the Thebaid, as Eusebius testifies, and how all Libya was desolate at that time, with its inhabitants killed, so that had not the Emperor Hadrian later brought in colonies collected from elsewhere, the land would have remained utterly empty and stripped of inhabitants, as Orosius relates, he will easily agree that there were more Christians in the province of Scythia under Valens than there were before the times of Demetrius in the Egyptian diocese. For when Valens had ordered Vetranio the bishop to be led into exile, he desisted from his resolve, lest that whole province, then subject to a bishop, should stir up rebellion. To this Vetranio, I think, succeeded Theotimus, bishop of Tomi in Scythia, who published short and incisive treatises in the manner of dialogues and the old eloquence, and wrote other things, as Jerome speaks in his *Catalogus*. Now this man greatly favored St. Chrysostom and opposed Epiphanius because he condemned the writings of Origen, whose books he himself defended zealously; whence we conclude that he, especially in that age, could not have been ignorant of Ignatius, even though a single bishop presided over so great a province.

Since, therefore, that custom regarding the election and promotion of the Alexandrian bishop, whatever it may have been (for Salmasius does not admit ordination, nor does Blondell admission), is not directly opposed to any Ignatian dictum, and indeed even assumes that the same form of government flourished in Alexandria from the beginning, which Ignatius requires and praises; and since during this custom, under the times of Demetrius, Origen, the most renowned catechist of the Alexandrian school, knew and cited the epistles of Ignatius; from this rite it can in no way be gathered that Ignatius’s epistles were entirely unknown to the whole Alexandrian Church.

But there is also something else, says Daillé, which Eutychius teaches that is no less wondrous, namely that for approximately 120 years from Mark to Demetrius, the whole Church of Egypt had no bishop besides the one Alexandrian. Hence he argues thus: Ignatius defines it as necessary that nothing be done without a bishop. But all ecclesiastical ministry was performed without a bishop in all the cities of Egypt, except Alexandria, until A.D. 190. Therefore, the Egyptian Church did not know the epistolary Ignatius.

I answer first, that it is indeed wondrous what Eutychius teaches, but even if it were true, it would not follow from that that the whole Egyptian Church was ignorant of the letters of Ignatius. For all the Egyptian churches, whether they had some bishop or none at all, were subject to the Alexandrian bishop; nor does Eutychius deny this. Ignatius indeed asserts that that ecclesiastical ministry alone is rightly performed which is done either under the bishop himself or which he has permitted. But this could have happened in the Egyptian churches subject to the Alexandrian bishop, which possessed no other bishop. From this, therefore, ignorance of the Ignatian writings does not follow. The bishop of the Scythians attended the Nicene council, Euseb. *De vita Constantini* lib. III, c. 7, ^B when the Ignatian writings were most well known. Yet there was one bishop in all of Scythia. Sozomen, lib. VII, c. 19: «Ἀμέλει Σκύθαι πολλαὶ πόλεις ὄντες ἕνα πάντες ἐπίσκοπον ἔχουσι». Certainly in the province of Scythia, although there are many cities, there is one bishop of all. And lib. VI, cap. 21: «Τοῦτο τὸ ἔθνος πολλὰς μὲν ἔχει καὶ πόλεις καὶ κώμας καὶ φρούρια· μητρόπολις δέ ἐστι Τόμις, πόλις μεγάλη καὶ εὐδαίμων.... Εἰσέτι δὲ καὶ νῦν ἔθος παλαιὸν ἐνθάδε κρατεῖ τοῦ παντὸς ἔθνους ἕνα τὰς ἐκκλησίας ἐπισκοπεῖν.» The province of Scythia contains many cities and villages ^C and fortresses; it has for its metropolis Tomes, a large and opulent city.

I answer second, that that story about the three bishops first made in Egypt by Demetrius is by no means worthy of faith, whether you look at the author or the matter itself. The first author of this wondrous narrative is Eutychius, indeed Patriarch of Alexandria, but too removed from the origins of that Church, being a writer of the tenth century: he was indeed a bishop of the Melchites, but the Jacobite bishop Macarius, who was much greater at Alexandria at the same time, had very great friction with him and with his people—the Melchites, I mean, over whom he presided. For thus Elmacinus speaks of this Eutychius. In his time there were many dissensions, and a continuous hatred between him and his people. This is also testified by Ebn Abi Osaibea in the *Life of Eutychius*. But in order that Selden might win greater faith for this Arabic writer, "For me indeed," he says, "Eutychius in these matters is quite an Egyptian Bede," and again: "I have no doubt that his *Annals* owe much to the very archives of the Alexandrian Church." These things are indeed said quite magnificently about Eutychius and his *Annals*; but without any semblance of truth. For that Arab was not only much younger than our Bede, and more removed from the origins of the Church (insomuch as he was born in A.D. 876, when the natal day of Bede is referred to A.D. 673, so that our man appears 200 years and more later than him); but

he was all the more unprepared and inept for uncovering and explaining the antiquities of his own Church. As for the archives of Alexandria, to which he thinks so many Annals owe their existence, it is utterly incredible. All the books of the Alexandrian library, once the city was captured by the Muslims, perished forthwith. Omar ibn al-Khattab ordered them to be scattered throughout the baths of Alexandria and burned to heat them: thus they were consumed in the space of half a year, as Gregory Abulfaragius relates. Listen to what he says occurred, and marvel. Nay, one should be more inclined to marvel if, after almost 200 years, a bishop of a few Melchites could find there the origins of the Alexandrian Church. ^A Certainly, he recounted the history of the Alexandrian Church so negligently that it appears he was no more familiar with its monuments than with those of any other. He states that the Evangelist Mark came to Alexandria in the ninth year of Claudius, and was crowned with martyrdom there in the first year of Nero; and yet he relates the same, that in the time of Nero, Peter wrote the Gospel of Mark, at Mark’s dictation, in the city of Rome. He gathered these things without judgment, not from the archives of Alexandria, but from various writers who have handed down contradictory accounts. Selden wished to reconcile these, indeed, but in vain. It is not only in the time of Nero, but in the first year of his reign, that our author must needs have had this Gospel written, for it is plain from those things which he has below regarding the end of both Peter and Mark in that same year. For if it be supposed that the Gospel of Mark was written in the first year of Nero, the remaining details cannot consistent. For in the same year in which Mark died, he could not have dictated the Gospel at Rome in Alexandria; for neither Eutychius, nor anyone else, teaches that Mark traveled from Egypt to Peter in Rome: nor could Eutychius have taught that this was done in the first year of Nero, since he himself states that Peter was slain in the 22nd year after the passion of the Lord, that is, before the reign of Nero. But all these things are nonsense. ^B Eutychius reveals the names of the patriarchs, and often marvelous ones indeed: he even enumerates the years, but he does not commemorate their achievements at all. When he arrives at Demetrius, he repeats what he had stated before: He was the first of the patriarchs who ordained bishops in the dominion of Egypt; just as he says of Heraclas: In his time the Alexandrian patriarch was called Baba, that is, grandfather. But what was done in the Church at that time, and how Origenes was treated there, he does not teach at all: so that it appears he was entirely ignorant of that Adamantius. Nor is this a mere conjecture; for he himself, writing about the fifth council, says: There was also in the time of Justinian an Origenes, bishop of Manbag, who asserted metempsychosis, denying the resurrection. But this very man, whom he calls the Bishop of Manbag, was none other than Origenes Adamantius, that most famous prefect of the Alexandrian school and contemporary of Demetrius. Him, however, if we are to believe this Eutychius, the emperor Justinian summoned to Constantinople, and Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicated him. He added to him three companions in his journey and excommunication, Ibas, bishop of ^C Edessa (Rohes), Thaddaeus, bishop of Massines, and Theodoretus, bishop of Ancyra, whom he teaches appeared before the emperor and the patriarch; understanding by "Thaddaeus of Massines" Theodorus of Mopsuestia, and calling Theodoretus of Ancyra instead of the Cyrrhian. For he correctly names only Ibas as "Rohensem," that is, Edessene. For Rohes and Edessa are the same city. Whence to Abulpharagius he is the Abgar, king of Rohes, who in Eusebius is called "Abgar, toparch of Edessa." But Abgar (or Abgarus) was the common name of the Osdroene dynasts, of whom the royal seat was at Edessa, as Procopius testifies. The same writer hands down that Antonius was slain between Rohes and Haran, as we read in the Chronicle of Eusebius: Antonius is killed between Edessa and Carrhae. Thus Eutychius relates that Constantine’s Helena found these things in Rohes, that is, Edessa. Which, if Selden had observed, he never would have said in his *Eutychiana*: "Where this Rhoa is, I confess I know not," nor would he have taken refuge in the city of 'Raphas' in Phoenicia, nor would he have brought Drepana in Bithynia from there, nor would he have changed the words of Cedrenus "concerning the city of Dacia" into "concerning the city of Raphia," and rendered the whole history of Helena, in itself sufficiently uncertain, more uncertain by so many conjectures and emendations. ^D Therefore, Eutychius hands down that four men, most famous in ecclesiastical history, appeared before Justinian, all of whom had died long before: of whom the most ancient was Origenes, not the bishop of Manbag, but the presbyter and catechist of Alexandria, the very Adamantius, whom Demetrius drove from Egypt—and this through the aid of three Eutychian bishops, as Selden drifts into guessing. But what kind of faith is to be placed in his account of Demetrius, who did not even know Origenes? But this Demetrius, just as he ordained three bishops in the dominion of Egypt, so he wrote to three bishops outside of Egypt. At that time, he says, Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria, wrote to Gabius, bishop of Jerusalem, Maximus, patriarch of Antioch, and Victor, patriarch of Rome, concerning the method of the Paschal computation and the fasting of Christians, and how it is derived from the Passover of the Hebrews. Yet he himself hands down that Gabius was created bishop at Jerusalem in the 17th year of Aurelius and sat for only three years: thus, either toward the end of the reign of Aurelius, or immediately at the beginning of Commodus, this epistle was written. At which time, neither did Demetrius preside at Alexandria (but Julian), nor Victor at Rome (but Eleutherus). Certainly, when letters were sent from the East to Victor concerning the celebration of the Pasch, Narcissus was bishop of Jerusalem; between Gaius, whom Eutychius calls Gabius, and Narcissus, nine patriarchs sat at Jerusalem. Nor does there exist any record of an epistle written by Demetrius to Victor; only the bishops of Palestine indicate that the Alexandrians agreed with them on the day of observing the Pasch, and that this was evident from letters sent to one another, with no mention of Demetrius ever made. Therefore, the things which Eutychius said about Demetrius, from the archives of the Church

of the Alexandrian church; let us see if he hands down ^A more certain information regarding Alexander, under whom he says an ancient custom ceased; among other things he states: Alexander, he says, cast down Achillas, his companion, who had been patriarch before him, from the patriarchal rank, because, having accepted Arius, he had acted against the mandate of Peter of Alexandria. Yet he had previously narrated that Achillas, after he had sat for six years, had died. How, therefore, toward the end of the Nicene Council, could Alexander have deposed him from the patriarchal rank? A similarity of name, as I believe, deceived him. For there was a certain presbyter named Achillas, who agreed with Arius, whom Alexander excommunicated along with Arius. Eutychius, therefore, is not so worthy of belief that we should credit him either alone or as the first author of this history.

I answer thirdly, that it is clearly incredible that there was no bishop in all of Egypt besides the bishop of Alexandria alone, before the patriarchate of Demetrius; and that the contrary assertion can be demonstrated from the best monuments of history. An epistle was written by the Emperor Hadrian to the consul Servianus about A.D. 132, almost sixty years before Demetrius became patriarch; for he did not become bishop in A.D. 175, as Salmasius teaches in his *Apparatus* with an ^B enormous prochronism; but in the tenth year of Commodus, as Eusebius reports in his *Chronicle*, about A.D. 189. Phlegon, his freeman, preserved this, and Flavius Vopiscus transcribed it from him, as he himself relates in his *Life of Saturninus*. The words of this epistle are: "Egypt, which you were praising to me, my dearest Servianus, I have found to be fickle, wavering, and flying at every breath of rumor. Those who worship Serapis are Christians; and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are devoted to Serapis. There is no archisynagogue of the Jews, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the Christians, who is not a mathematician, a soothsayer, or an aliptes. Even the patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is compelled by some to worship Serapis, by others Christ. We have here the patriarch, the bishops of Christ, and the presbyters of the Christians." And indeed, ^C not only Casaubon, but also Salmasius considers the term "patriarch" as referring to the Alexandrian bishop. Is then, he says, the bishop of Alexandria called "patriarch" in the times of Hadrian? Therefore, the name "patriarch" is not as recent in the Christian Church as some wish it to appear, who think that neither was it common in the age of the first Nicene Council—so long an interval after Hadrian—for the one who presided over the whole diocese and was called the exarch of the diocese. I shall refute them elsewhere; and this passage itself refutes them here. How he later fulfilled what he promises in this place, I leave for others to inquire. Certainly, in his book *On the Primacy of the Pope*, chapter 4, he still retains the name of "patriarch," although he thinks otherwise, I suspect, about the exarch of the diocese. If any man was called "patriarch" at that time, as is evident regarding the bishop of Alexandria, whom his epistle, placed by Flavius Vopiscus in the *Life of Saturninus*, shows to have been so entitled in the age of the Emperor Hadrian, it is certain that it did not carry the same meaning during that time as it did afterward. But to me, ^D it does not at all appear that the patriarch himself is to be understood as the Alexandrian bishop. Not only because that title does not appear to have been attributed to any bishop in that age or the following century; but also because the things which Hadrian relates concerning the patriarch do not in the least fit the bishop of Alexandria. When, he says, "he comes into Egypt"; he is speaking, therefore, of one who was not accustomed to live in Alexandria, but traveled to Egypt only occasionally, inasmuch as he lived in some other region. "When he happened," he says, "to go to Egypt, he was compelled to worship not only Serapis, but also Christ"; he was, therefore, an alien to the worship of both. I am surprised, therefore, that it could have entered anyone’s mind that these things were said about the bishop of Alexandria; as if he only occasionally went to Egypt, and when he were there, was compelled to worship Christ; especially since both fit the Jewish patriarch of that age most appropriately. I understand the patriarch of the Jews, who lived in Palestine, not one who was settled in Alexandria, as Petitus and Petrus de Marca thought. Concerning whom Origen speaks in *De Principiis*, Bk. IV, ch. 1: "They say there still remains a prince from the race of Judah, this one, namely, who is the prince of their nation, whom they call the patriarch." He speaks of a matter not unknown to him, since he was an Alexandrian; and he describes the patriarch not as one set over this or that region, but as prince of the whole nation. If this man, therefore, happened to come into Egypt, he was compelled to worship both Serapis and Christ. The patriarch, therefore, should no doubt be numbered with the archisynagogues of the Jews of Hadrian’s time. But the bishops of Christ and the presbyters of the Christians belonged to the Egyptian Church. And Hugo Grotius rightly observes in his notes on the Justinianic law among the scattered remarks: "The Emperor Hadrian, in the epistle which is in Vopiscus' *Saturninus*, distinguishes Christian bishops from presbyters. For would Hadrian have spoken thus of them if there were only presbyters in Egypt at that time, and no bishops?" It is a strange subterfuge that Selden uses: "Hadrian speaks not so much of bishops, as of those who called themselves bishops there"; as if those who called themselves bishops were not bishops. He does not accuse them of feigning the name, or of assuming a fictitious one; but of betraying their religion, because they who worshipped Serapis—whom they called not simply "bishops," but "bishops of Christ," and thus in the first place claimed for themselves the care of the Christian religion—because when the bishops of other churches could by no means be forced to sacrifice to the gods of the Gentiles, they, due to the levity inherent in the nation, worshipped Serapis. Hadrian, therefore, speaks of bishops: "And yet it does not follow from this that there was any bishop there at that time other than the patriarch, since," he says, "the name or dignity of bishop was held to be superior to the name of presbyter, or was considered distinct from it." As if, indeed, Hadrian knew that mystery which those men so much vend, that at one time the same men were called bishops and presbyters: as if he followed the custom of the apostles, and understood those terms otherwise than men of that time commonly did.

Certainly Adrian clearly distinguishes bishops from presbyters, and makes the former superior. In the first place, he names Christ's bishops, and when he speaks of Christians, he says that those men, as it were, namely, are the leaders of the Christians, or devoted to Serapis: afterwards he names the presbyters, and counts them as inferiors, or numbers them between the aruspices and the aliptae, or makes them aruspices and aliptae; all of which things signify a manifest distinction and inequality, and show that the name of bishop is not only distinguished from the name of presbyter, but is also held to be superior. ^A

To omit those things which Hammond and Thorndike have handed down regarding the Egyptian episcopate, about which Valentinus fell into error before the epistle of Adrian, and the parishes over which Demetrius is said to have presided according to Eusebius, it is certain that neither to the Greeks nor to the Latins was that tradition known about bishops in Egypt being first made by Demetrius. There exists an epistle in the name of Evaristus to all the brothers throughout Egypt, that is to say, the bishops; we grant, indeed, that this epistle is not by Evaristus; but it is necessary that adversaries also grant that the author of the epistle supposed that there were many bishops in Egypt in the age of Evaristus. Not a few have believed that Leonides, the father of Origen, was such at the beginning of Demetrius's time. Thus certainly Suidas, from some ancient author: "Origen had a father Leonides, a bishop and martyr." The same is also testified by the Chronograph Joel, writing of the Emperor Severus: "In whose time Leonides, the bishop and father of Origen, suffered martyrdom." For although I have believed that Leonides was never a bishop, he nevertheless certainly, whoever he was, who first handed him down as a bishop, believed that there were bishops in Egypt before the Dionysian triumvirate. For Selden notes that Demetrius, the greatest adversary of Origen, had instituted three bishops for himself, without doubt as auxiliaries; this institution, therefore, belongs to the later time of Demetrius; for he was for a long time very friendly to Origen, as Eusebius testifies (lib. vi, c. 8). Therefore, Demetrius instituted three auxiliary bishops, so that, aided by their help, he might oppress Origen in a synod with greater weight of authority: for no one has ever heard of a national synod being convened without bishops. Now, if Demetrius, defended and reinforced by only three auxiliary bishops, and those against the most ancient custom of the Alexandrian Church, nay, of all Egypt in the ordering of things, had brought forth a synodical verdict against Origen; would Origen himself, or Eusebius, his most fierce defender, have remained silent? Demetrius, having convened a synod, decreed by a sentence that Origen should be driven from Alexandria, as is produced in the Apology of Eusebius. From that text, Photius narrates the matter in these words (cod. 118): "A synod of bishops and certain presbyters is gathered against Origen," which are less correctly presented by Huet: "The former synod, consisting of some bishops and presbyters"; for the Greek does not mean this, but: "indicates a synod of bishops, and also some presbyters," which is something else; namely, that there were many bishops, but some presbyters also. Blondel, however, as he is accustomed to do, has adapted these things wondrously to his own case. For in his Addenda to page 199, line 8, of his Apology: "Ascribe," he says, "it to the decree of the presbyters that Origen was cast out, as Photius reports in cod. 297." Photius does not indeed have so many codes; but he has, without controversy, looked to these words which are found on page 297: 'H [Σύνοδος] ψηφίζεται, the synod makes a decree, says Eusebius in Photius, a synod of bishops, at which some presbyters were present. ^B But who could bear for this decree of the synod, over which Demetrius presided, and in which so many bishops sat, to be simply called a decree of the presbyters? If only three bishops had met with Demetrius, would either Eusebius or Pamphilus have called it a synod of bishops? Would not Eusebius have drawn something from that paucity of bishops for the defense of Origen? When he describes a certain later gathering, which deprived Origen of the priesthood, which was not done previously in the synod: "But indeed Demetrius, along with certain Egyptian bishops, declared him removed from the priesthood," he says; does he not imply that a smaller number of bishops consented to his deposition? And would Demetrius have accepted the subscriptions of fewer than three bishops? If so few had consented against Origen, and those newly instituted by Demetrius as auxiliaries, without doubt Origen himself would have disputed concerning the abrogated ancient custom, and concerning the authority of a few novitiate bishops: but he complained not of new bishops, but of new letters, not of the paucity, but of the multitude of those who had conspired against him with Demetrius: "The enemy having fought most bitterly against us through his new letters, and truly hostile to the Gospel, and having stirred up all the winds in Egypt against us." ^C Against us, the enemy fighting most bitterly, through his new letters truly hostile to the Gospel, and stirring up all the winds of Egypt against us, as he himself speaks of Demetrius in the preface to the sixth tome on John. If, finally, only three bishops in Egypt had aided Demetrius, would the entire world, except Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Achaia, have consented to the decrees of those synods, as St. Jerome testifies? There is therefore no doubt that Demetrius stirred up very many bishops out of Egypt against Origen; whom, therefore, Eutychius falsely reports to have established only three; and that they were established for this very purpose, that they might drive out Origen, Selden asserts without any reason. ^D

Furthermore, it is certain from the epistle of Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, that before the Nicene Council, nearly one hundred bishops of Egypt consented to the condemnation of Arius and also of some bishops. It is also certain that there is never any mention of fewer bishops in that diocese in earlier times. Therefore, it is very likely that in the past there were not many fewer. To approach closer to those times which Eutychius indicates: Dionysius, who succeeded Heraclas in the fifth year of the Emperor Philip, six years before Origen's ...

death, whom he loved most especially, said nothing about the auxiliaries of Demetrius or Heraclas; he speaks of various bishops, not as though they were new, but as others are accustomed to speak of those in their own dioceses. He wrote to Conon, bishop of Hermopolis, to Hierax, an Egyptian bishop, to Ammon, bishop of Berenice, to Basilides, bishop of the Pentapolis, and others. Under his pontificate, in the Pentapolis of Upper Libya, at that time some of the bishops began to hold the views of Sabellius; some of the bishops in the Pentapolis held to the opinion of Sabellius, while some orthodox ones accused him before Dionysius the Roman. ^A There were therefore at that time in the Pentapolis many bishops, and no fewer, I think, than existed there about the time of Alexander. For when later Palæbisca and Hydrax, villages of the Pentapolis, had taken care to have their own bishops, it was reported to Synesius that it was an ancestral and apostolic custom that the Erythrite churches were these, and that these churches were contributed to Erythrum by patrial and apostolic ordination; the Erythrite bishops therefore referred their jurisdiction to the apostolic times according to the custom of the Egyptian Church. And Siderius, the bishop of Palæbisca, succeeded no one, or died without a successor; for by the decree of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, Palæbisca and Hydrax were ordered back into the ancient order, and contributed to Erythrum. Dionysius also relates that Chæremon, bishop of the Nile, ^B being of extreme old age, moved by persecution, had withdrawn into Arabia with his wife; whom it is credible held that see before Demetrius added to himself auxiliaries against Origen. In fact, he wrote two books *On Promises*, moved by the book of Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, who had promulgated the doctrine of the Chiliasts, and had long since died. This Nepos left behind a *Psalmodia*, "up to this time," says Dionysius in Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl.* VII, 25, "many of the brethren find their joy." That phrase "up to this time," signifies an interval of no small duration. He says again: "When I was in the Arsinoite prefecture, where long ago this dogma had prevailed," in which long since this opinion had become rampant: where that "long ago," or "long since," cannot be understood of an opinion recently arisen, but a veteran and inveterate one, which nevertheless relied upon the book left by Nepos. Therefore, Nepos was long dead ^C as bishop of Egypt before the pontificate of Dionysius, and became bishop long before the auxiliaries of Demetrius.

For he had given bishops, presbyters, and deacons to the churches far and wide. In the Greek Synaxarion, St. Mark is described as "working miracles everywhere, and adorning the Churches of Christ by the ordination of bishops and of the clergy." Nicephorus Callistus, lib. II, c. 43: "In Cyrene and the Pentapolis, having performed many and infinite works, and having rebuilt churches, and having duly provided for clergy and bishops and other things, he returns again to Alexandria." These are the Greek [accounts]. The *Life of St. Mark*, described from a most ancient manuscript 100 years ago: "But the blessed Mark ordained Anianus as bishop of Alexandria, and three presbyters, that is, Melius, Sabinus, and Cerdo, and seven deacons, and eleven others pertaining to the ecclesiastical ministry. And he proceeds to the Pentapolis... and ordaining bishops through those regions and clergy, he came again to Alexandria." Rabanus Maurus relates the same as the Metaphrast, as do Notker, and Alfric, bishop of Canterbury, and Ordericus Vitalis. Among the Arabs, the *Martyrology of the Melchites*: "Mark stayed for some time in the city of Cyrene of the Cyrenians, and from there proceeded to Alexandria, which is near the Pharos: then he set out for Barca, and produced many miracles, and adorned the churches of Christ, constituting for them bishops, and priests inferior to them." And Severus, *On the Lives of the Patriarchs of Alexandria*: "He himself, however, departing, proceeded to the Pentapolis, and stayed there for two years, announcing and ordaining bishops, presbyters, and deacons in all its provinces." As is to be seen in Ecchellensis. There is, therefore, no foundation for the Eutychian tradition. Finally, that tradition concerning the three bishops made by Demetrius first in Egypt was unknown to all Greeks and Latins; but the tradition contrary to it, concerning the bishops instituted in the Egyptian diocese by St. Mark, was known to Greeks, Latins, and Arabs alike. Simeon Metaphrastes on St. Mark: "He constituted and confirmed churches throughout Libya, Marmarica, the Ammoniacum, the Pentapolis, Alexandria, and the places which were called the Bucolic..." ^D I answer, fourthly, that Eutychius himself does not even report this little history as a tradition received from his predecessors, but as a solution, made in honor of his own Church, to a Critical or Philological question agitated among the Arabs of his time. For the Arabs thought, or wished it to be thought, that the name of Pope, peculiarly attributed to the Roman pontiff in his own age, was first given to the Alexandrian bishops, and usurped by the Egyptian populace, and devolved from them to the Roman pontiffs, as Georgius Homaidius and Abubacrus Habbasides report in Ecchellensis. Therefore, when they understood from erudite Greeks that this title was first attributed to the Patriarch of Alexandria, Heraclas by name, by Dionysius (whom Eutychius calls a writer; for no writings of any Alexandrian bishop survived before him), who had recorded these things in his epistle to Philemon: "I received this canon and type from our blessed Pope Heraclas." This rule and form I received from our blessed Pope Heraclas; when they had received these things, I say, from the Greeks, they worked out a reason why this title should be attributed especially to Heraclas; and when they saw the word *papan* [Greek: πάπαν] inclining toward *pappon* [Greek: πάππον]—for there were not wanting "little Greeks" [Græculi] who would even pull it toward that—they concocted this marvelous history, by which not in the time of Demetrius, but of Heraclas, the people [made] that distinction between the bishops of Egypt

and the Alexandrian patriarch, so that afterwards they would call the common bishop "Abba" and the patriarch "Papa"—that is, grandfather—since the bishops themselves called the patriarch "Abba." That this is the truth is seen from the fact that Eutychius does not weave a continuous narrative, nor does he immediately join the history of the institution of bishops to the election of presbyters, but inserts the question as an aside: Why was the Alexandrian patriarch called "papa"? This question Selden ^B suppresses, so as to introduce it later as though it were part of the previous history. For he represents Eutychius as speaking thus: "He also (namely, Alexander) asked of them that the Alexandrian patriarch not be called 'papa,' which signifies 'grandfather.'" Thus he translates "asked of them," and from another codex he said, "or gave a mandate to them," as if Alexander had decreed that henceforth the Alexandrian patriarch should not be called "papa," when Alexander himself was commonly called by that very name by his own people. The inscription of the epistle in Athanasius, in the book *On the Synods*: "To the blessed papa our bishop Alexander, the presbyters and deacons, greeting in the Lord." The first sentence of the epistle: "This is our faith from our ancestors, which we also learned from you, blessed papa." And in the body of the epistle: "As you yourself [said], ^C blessed papa." Athanasius, the successor of Alexander, called Alexander "papa," and he himself was called "papa" by Ischyras, Arsenius, and Constantius. But Ecchellensis sufficiently attacked this translation. Our most learned Pocockius renders it thus: "But as to what [some] ask, why the Alexandrian patriarch is called 'papa' (the meaning of which name is 'grandfather') [it must be known]." To answer that question, Eutychius relates those unheard-of things about three bishops made by Demetrius and twenty by Heraclas, as is the custom of those who dispute about the origins of words. But all that he relates is futile, false, and absurd. For he established that *abba* or *papan* signifies "grandfather," a title given to the patriarch when another was fitting for the rest of the bishops; and that it was given this way first at Alexandria, so that it might ^D later be attributed, of course, to the Roman pontiff. That this fable may be thoroughly exploded, I will show first that the word *papan*, which is attributed to Heraclas, never signified "grandfather." Some grammarians wish this word to be Syracusan. Suidas: "Thus it is said among the Syracusans, 'papa' [is] the father." Eustathius: "Others, however, [say that] among the Syracusans 'papa' [is] the father." The Etymologist otherwise: "Thus it is said among the Syracusans, 'papa'—the father." Which indeed may be true, but the other [the derivation from "grandfather"] is not. For the word *papas* is much older than the Syracusans themselves. For Syracuse was founded by Archias either under Clidicus, as Eusebius says, or rather under Aeschylus, king of the Athenians, as the Parian Marble says; but this word was used by Homer under Diognetus with regard to Nausicaa, *Odyssey*, Z, "And she, standing very near, addressed her dear father: 'papa'..." where the interpretation of the word is most certain: "Father." ^A For she addresses him as "dear father." Hesychius: "*Pappa*, an address of a child to a father." Therefore the primitive meaning of *papas*, or poetically *pappas*, is "father." The same word *pappazein*, derived from it, is used in the *Iliad*, E: "Nor do children upon [his] knees call him 'papa' (*pappazousin*)." Where the ancient Scholiast: "*Pappazousin*: saying 'papa,' they call him father." Hesychius, after the word *Paxoinis*, has *pappazoien, parakaloien*. But I have decided that both places, which lie in error after the recent editors, must be emended in passing. First, therefore, *Paxoinis, hoi kat' Italian*, are manifestly corrupt, and the series of letters demands *xi* instead of *zeta*. Thus, therefore, you should read: *Paxoi, nesoi kat' Italian*, i.e., "Paxae, islands near Italy." Concerning which Pliny, bk. IV, ch. 12: "Around it are some, but tilting toward Italy are the Thorones, and by Leucadia two Paxae, five miles distant from Corcyra." Concerning which Polybius is also to be understood, bk. II: "They encountered the ships of the Achaeans around the so-called Paxae," or perhaps, "the so-called [feminine] Paxae." Secondly, instead of *pappazoien, parakaloien*, as anyone immediately sees, it must be read: *papazoien, patera kaloien*. Thus in Aristophanes, the best interpreter of the Attic tongue, Trygaeus addresses his daughters in *Peace*: "When you ask for bread, calling me 'papa'." "When you ask for bread, calling me 'papa'." Looking to which place, Hesychius says: "*Papas*, an endearment for a father." And thus the daughters address Trygaeus: "O *papia*." Thus, again, in the *Wasps*, where the Scholiast says: "*Papia*, O father." This was, therefore, from the very beginning of the Greek language, a tender appellation given by children to a father. Later Greeks attributed this same appellation also to those whom we hold in the place of fathers. The Scholiast of Homer: "*Pappa*, an affectionate address of a younger [person] to an elder." Juniors attributed this title to seniors as children do to their parents; and where some dignity was added to the age, the title was held [as one] of veneration. "The term *pappa* and *appa* is not simply 'father,' but a venerable word toward a father," [says] Suidas. Under this note of veneration, *papas* by the Greeks and *papa* by the Latins, in the early times of the Church, was attributed to bishops, whom they held in the place of spiritual fathers. No notion of a grandfather, no notion of a father of fathers [is] here. And this is evident from the fact that, at the same ^D age in which it was used for Heraclas, this title was common to other bishops besides patriarchs. The Roman clergy [wrote] to the Carthaginian clergy: "We have learned that the blessed Papa Cyprian has withdrawn, by Clementius the subdeacon." The same [is seen] in the title of an epistle written to him: "To Papa Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, greeting." Thus at Rome, thus in Africa they spoke: "All the confessors to Papa Cyprian." Saint Jerome sometimes calls Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, "papa," as in the *Apology against Rufinus*. Therefore both the epistle from Papa Theophilus and Epiphanius and other bishops seek you, lacerate you; and a little later: "Having recently read the epistles of Papa Theophilus..."

and Papa Anastasius, who persecute the heretic throughout the whole world." Nay, in an epistle sent to Theophilus, he calls Anastasius "pope": "By the dispensation of God, I think it came to pass that at that same time you also wrote to Pope Anastasius." He designates others too by the same name: "Do not send me to the six thousand books of his, which you accuse the blessed Pope Epiphanius of having read"; and again: "He broke out at one time against Pope Epiphanius, in his second Apology." In the proem of the Commentaries on Jonah: "However, we are not ignorant, O venerable Pope Chromatius." In an epistle to Augustine: "May the clemency of Christ the Lord protect you, safe and mindful of me, O venerable and most blessed Pope." Thus the rest of that same age bestowed the name of "pope" upon any bishop whomsoever. Third, that this title was customary even before Dionysius and Heraclas we are taught by Tertullian in his book *De pudicitia*, chap. 13, who says these things concerning the Roman bishop: "In that exit of a man, so far as you can, you preach as a good pastor and blessed pope in the allurements of mercy." Since, therefore, the word "pope" never signifies "grandfather," but has always been attributed to all bishops, and indeed to the Roman bishop before the Alexandrian, all things on account of which the Arabs devised this history are empty; and the history handed down for the confirmation of these things is likewise false.

We have examined the Egyptian tradition, which we contend was never born, and was merely fictitious on the part of the Arabs; but behold, it is even revived and survives to this very day! Daille says that this same institution confirms the Eutychian tradition, preserved to these very times in the most ancient and noble Egyptian Church tradition, that is, the Ethiopian Christianity. For in the entire Ethiopian Church there has been, for a long time, one bishop, the *Abuna*, as they call him—that is, the patriarch—who even today is consecrated and sent by the Alexandrian patriarch. He subsequently shows what those "ancient times" are; he says that in the most ample and most Christian cities of Ethiopia, just as in Egypt, there were no bishops until A.D. 190, but only an Ethiopian *Abuna*, just like the Alexandrian patriarch.

But I ask how the most learned man has all these things for certain. He brings forward four witnesses: Alfonso Mendez, Nicolao Godinho, João dos Santos, and Francisco Álvares—all recent writers, Jesuits or Dominicans. But what do they testify? Do they testify that Ethiopian Christianity was from the beginning a derivative of the Egyptian Church? Do they testify that from antiquity down to A.D. 190 there was in Ethiopia a patriarch or *Abuna* with very many presbyters, but no bishop? Or that this form of government was derived from the Egyptians ^A and remained inviolate among the Ethiopians to its own times? None of these. They only assert one thing: that in the previous century there were no bishops in the Ethiopian Church, but only one *Abuna* elected and created by the Alexandrian patriarch. Let us grant, then, that this is true, which is confirmed by their testimony, even if many more people clearly teach them the contrary, among them Salmasius himself. Does it follow from this that the Eutychian tradition truly held sway in Egypt from the beginning, and that all faith in the Ignatian epistles should be abrogated? There were no bishops in Ethiopia besides one *Abuna* in the sixteenth century. Therefore, there were no bishops in the entire Egyptian diocese in the first or second century up to A.D. 190, besides the Alexandrian patriarch; and therefore the epistles of Ignatius are forgeries. I believe this most learned man does not approve or admit this consequence. For all the remaining things we have enumerated are necessary for confirming the Eutychian tradition, but more are necessary for rejecting the Ignatian epistles: things which are supported by no testimony thus far, nay, which can be supported by nothing.

For first, Ethiopian Christianity does not appear to have been an offshoot of the Egyptian Church from the beginning. For, as Irenaeus testifies (book III, c. 12), the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians was sent into the regions of Ethiopia to preach that which he himself had believed. Eusebius (book II, c. 1) testifies the same, as do St. Jerome in *Isaiah* 53 and St. Cyril in his 17th *Catechesis*. Whence the Ethiopians themselves profess that they were converted to the faith by the Apostle Philip. Some also hold that St. Thomas preached the Gospel to the Ethiopians, others St. Matthew, as Socrates (book I, c. 19) and Rufinus (book X, c. 9) relate. However that may be, for the traces of the ^B first gospel promulgation, just as among other peoples far removed from the Greeks, are very obscure among the Ethiopians, yet no one of the ancients said that the Ethiopians learned the Christian religion from the Egyptians in the first or second century; which was necessary to be proven primarily for establishing the Eutychian tradition. And it is a marvel how many and what kind of conjectures about Ignatius this taught Daille, things of which he was previously completely ignorant. For he himself says in his *De Pseudepigraphis apostolicis* (book I, c. 2): "But let us dismiss the Ethiopians, of whom we know nothing except very recent things; we are entirely ignorant of their ancient history." Truly we confess that whatever was done in those regions by the Eunuch, or Thomas, or Matthew, the Ethiopians at some time derived the Christian religion from the Egyptians, which many things demonstrate. The question is only regarding the time, the knowledge of which was absolutely necessary for this argument. For unless it is proven that the Ethiopians had an *Abuna*, created by the Alexandrian bishop, who ruled that church with presbyters without another bishop before the time of Demetrius, the Eutychian tradition will in no way be confirmed. The things which Daille brings forward to demonstrate that Ethiopian Christianity was propagated from Egypt are only these: the *Abuna*, specifically, being accustomed to be sought from and ordained by the Alexandrian patriarch, and the ancient schism of Dioscorus, to which the whole nation holds even to this day, ^C of the Council of Chalcedon and Leo of Rome: [the text ends abruptly here]

^A abhorring the memory of the bishop. But these things reach neither to the year of our Lord 190, nor to the times of Eusebius; and therefore they do nothing at all for the present matter. The Arabs indeed refer the origins of the Ethiopian Church almost to Constantine. Abulfaraius notes that from the time of Constantine the Christian religion exercised itself until most of those nations that are neighbors to the Romans embraced it—and likewise as many as were inhabited by Copts and Nigritae, of every sort from the Ethiopians, Nubians, and others. By the Nubian geographer are mentioned the Nigri, who were called Albani and are said to be Greeks, and to have professed the Christian religion from the days of the Copts, before the sect of the Mussulmans arose; but they fell away from the faith of the Christians, for they are Jacobites. But in the age of Constantine, there were more than a hundred bishops in Egypt; and at the same time Eusebius commended the epistles of Ignatius to all the churches most honorably. Nay, truly it seems that even in the age of Athanasius himself, who both knew and received the epistles of Ignatius, the Egyptian Church—which was previously unknown or non-existent—either had its origin or recovered itself. And this is evident from the history which Rufinus relates concerning Frumentius, whom he records to have traveled to India with Meropius. For although Rufinus weaves the history as if Frumentius had journeyed into farther and eastern India, yet it is certain that this India was nearer to Egypt, and a part of Ethiopia. For the Indians were called Ethiopians in antiquity, as in Virgil regarding the Nile: 18 *And he bears the river down from the colored Indians.*

That it was to this India that Frumentius first arrived is certain: from there he returned to Alexandria, and into it he was sent again, and ordained by Athanasius as bishop of the Axumites. But Axumis was the metropolis of the Ethiopians. Stephanus in *De Urbibus*: "Axumites, masculine, metropolis of the Ethiopians." In Arrian, in the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* (which is called by Procopius of Gaza the "Indian Sea"): "From this place to the metropolis itself, called the Axumite, is five days' journey." Nonnosus in Photius: "The city of Axuma is very great, and a kind of metropolis of all Ethiopia." And even more clearly Procopius in *Persian Wars*, book 1: "Opposite the Homeritae, for the most part in the continent over against them, dwell the Ethiopians. They are called Auxumitae, because their royal seats are in the city of Auxumis." Axumis was therefore the metropolis of Ethiopia, and the royal seat of the Ethiopians was situated therein. To this Axumis, therefore, and to this India, which is a part of Ethiopia nearest to Egypt—not to the India within the Ganges, or to that Axumis which Ptolemy places on the eastern side of the Indus river—it is to be believed that Frumentius was sent by St. Athanasius: both because Constantius wrote a letter to Aizanas and Sazanas, the tyrants of that place, in order that Frumentius the bishop of Axumis should be expelled from thence ^B (says Athanasius in his *Apologia*), in which document he calls those tyrants brothers, and imparts to them equal rights with the Romans, whereas no federates of the Roman emperors were beyond the Ganges: and also because the same Constantius made a law in these words, which wonderfully illustrates the matter: "No one who has been ordered to the nation of the Auxumitae and Homeritae should remain at Alexandria beyond the space of a year's time, for the future." These, therefore, were the so-called Auxumitae, Ethiopians, as Philostorgius speaks, joined to the Homeritae, bordering on the Roman Empire, and federates of the Romans in the time of Constantine. To them, therefore, were often sent envoys who first sought Alexandria, thence journeyed into Ethiopia, and from Ethiopia returned to Alexandria, to whom that constitution pertains. This was the occasion of converting them to the Christian faith under the first Christian emperors.

Now, truly, before this Frumentius, there appeared no traces of the Christian religion in this India, or among the Ethiopian Axumites. Thus Socrates is entirely to be understood in the preface to this history: "The inner India, however, which is inhabited by many nations of barbarians using diverse languages, the word of Christianity had not yet illumined before the times of Constantine." Moreover, the interior India, which very many nations inhabit, using diverse languages, had not yet been illumined by the faith of Christ before the times of Constantine. The same is also made known from the history itself. For Frumentius himself, when he first had come to that India, or Ethiopia, and by the wonderful providence of God was of the greatest authority with the king, and had found no Christian among the Ethiopians, began to inquire more anxiously if there were any Christians among the Roman merchants; and he gave them power to hold conventicles in each location, to which they might assemble for the sake of prayer according to the Roman rite. Which being done, returning and coming to Alexandria, he taught what had been done by him; and he was first designated, and then ordained bishop of the Axumites by St. Athanasius in a council of priests. ^C And when he had set out for this India, adorned with episcopal authority, so great a grace of virtues is said to have been given to him by God that apostolic signs were wrought through him, and an infinite number of barbarians were converted to the faith. From which, in the parts of India, both a multitude of Christians and churches were made, and the priesthood began, as Rufinus bears witness in *Hist. eccl.* 1. x, cap. 9. To whom concur Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Nicephorus.

^D Where now is that Ethiopian Abuna, that patriarch without bishops, in those most ample and most Christian cities, even to the year of our Lord 190? Where are those men, removed from the commerce of other nations, so tenacious of ancient rites, that when the Egyptians—a light and unstable race—admitted bishops under Demetrios and Heraclas, they faithfully preserved the custom handed down by the Alexandrians in the best faith, and content with one Abuna, never wished to admit more bishops? From which these things have been recovered from historical monuments: from which the Church's an-

- ^Acient status, the first priesthood, the first bishop in the metropolis of Ethiopia, is clearly revealed, at a time when Athanasius was presiding in Egypt not without a hundred bishops, and he himself explicitly acknowledged and preached the epistles of Ignatius.

Philostorgius, either ignorant or rather concealing this history, reports that Theophilus was sent to the Axumite Ethiopians under Constantine; Nicephorus refers this to the times of Constantius and George the Alexandrian bishop. And that Arian bishop is entirely to be thought to have gone to Ethiopia after Frumentius was either recalled or died. That there flourished more bishops in Ethiopia after them, cannot be doubted. For we read in Palladius, whom the learned Edward Biss, knight, recently edited from the Royal Library: "I myself reached only the headlands of India a few years before, with the blessed Moses, the bishop of the Aduleni." Adule, or Adulis, was a city of Ethiopia. Stephen says: "Adulis, a city of the Ethiopians," and Procopius in *Persian Wars* lib. I: "Adulis, a city of the Ethiopians." In the *Life of St. Chrysostom* written by Palladius, mention is made of Palladius, bishop of the Blemmyes. Now the Blemmyes are Ethiopians. Strabo lib. XVII: "The Blemmyes are subject to the Ethiopians, and are neighbors to the Egyptians," concerning whom Pliny lib. v, cap. 8.

Nor indeed had the Christian religion yet grown much in Ethiopia. But in the 16th year of the reign of Justinian, Adadus, king of the Axumites, became a Christian and received from the emperor a bishop and clergy, as Theophanes reports; "bishops and clergy," as Cedrenus narrates; and that whole nation gave its name to Christ. From that time, I believe, Christianity took root among the Ethiopians, whereby men began to speak more freely concerning the Council of Chalcedon, especially in Egypt. Under the rule of Theophilus, there was a bishop in Ethiopia named Jacob, whom, while the king chanced to have departed for war, the queen sent into exile, and they appointed another bishop in his place. But rain was not given to them, and they were struck by pestilence, so that the great kingdom felt the loss. The bishop, however, came into Egypt. And when the king returned from the war, he rebuked his wife and sent to the patriarch, seeking pardon from him and asking him to remit the bishop. Which he did; and they received him with great joy, as Elmacinus reports.

After these times, as I think, the Arabic canons of the Council of Nicaea were composed; which Turrianus edited, and which were adapted to the later state of the Church and to customs born long after the Council of Nicaea. In chapter 36 of those it is decreed: "That the Ethiopians cannot create or elect a patriarch; but rather their prelate should be under the power of him who holds the see of Alexandria. Let him be, however, in the place of a patriarch among them, and be called *catholicos*: yet let him not have the right of constituting archbishops, as a patriarch has"; since there were, without controversy, bishops in the Ethiopian Church when this canon was first established. The right of a patriarch to create archbishops or metropolitans—those, namely, who by their own authority might create bishops—was denied; whence it is supposed that the right of creating bishops was granted to them themselves. And because in that age he had many bishoprics under him, he obtained the name of *catholicos*, who is commonly called *abuna*. I appeal here to Salmasius, who in *De primatu papae* cap. 14 has this: "With the number of Christians in Ethiopia increasing, as is probable, where that province began to have many bishops, one metropolitan was placed over all, who on account of the multitude of bishops subject to him and the amplitude of his jurisdiction had the name of *catholicos* and patriarch, although he was subject to another patriarch."

If history should fail, the monuments of the Church itself, of whatever time they may be, show with sufficient clarity that there were many bishops in that province. The Liturgy of the Ethiopians printed at Rome: "Be mindful of all our archbishops, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, who point out to us the way of the orthodox word." In other liturgies and missals, which our most learned man Castellus possesses, there are very many prayers in which the people pray in these words: "For our fathers the bishops, for our brothers the priests, for our helpers the presbyters."

Since, therefore, out of that thin knowledge we have of the Ethiopian Church, the names of some bishops remain; since it is evident from the Arabic canon that the right of creating archbishops properly so called was not granted to the Ethiopians; since the Egyptian liturgies taught the people to pray daily for their bishops in times long past; it is not long since the Ethiopians were content with one *abuna* without bishops, if that be true which the Jesuits and Dominicans, against the testimonies of others, report. Since before the times of Justinian there were so few Christians in Ethiopia, before Constantine either none, or certainly wholly unknown to the Egyptians; since their first one, at least from Egypt, was the apostle Frumentius, being sent and ordained by Athanasius, who had more than a hundred holding bishoprics in Egypt; it is manifest that the current state of the Ethiopian Church, such as it is, is of no avail at all for confirming the very ancient tradition of the Egyptian Church, if any such ever existed. Since, finally, the argument denying it is founded on the silence of all before Eusebius, before whom there is no report of Ethiopian Christians, or a very uncertain one; since Athanasius, who after Eusebius mentioned the Ignatian [epistles], was the one who sent the first bishop from Egypt into Ethiopia; since Dallaeus himself admits that the Ethiopians receive the Clementine Constitutions, as if dictated by the apostles themselves, in which more are contained concerning bishops than in the Ignatian ones, nothing from this can be formed in any way to diminish the authority of the epistles of St. Ignatius.

^A Thus far concerning the Alexandrian tradition confirmed by the Ethiopians, as they wish, which would have had some appearance of argument if all things they brought forward had been true. But as to that which follows, even if it be granted as true, I know not what force it can have for rejecting the Ignatian epistles, or what it contributes to the silence of writers before Eusebius. For how will that which was done in the eighth century prove that this writing did not exist in the second and third centuries, which in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh was received and approved? Namely, that around A.D. 736, the Christian faith flourished among the Germanic people of the Bavarians, and there were presbyters, while yet there were no bishops among them. Whence it is clear that not even in those times was the authority of the Ignatian epistles known to Christians throughout Germany. First, what kind of consequence is this? The Bavarians in Germany did not know them: therefore, the Christians throughout Germany [did not know them]. Or were there no Christians throughout Germany besides the Bavarians? Or did all others ignore whatever was unknown to the Bavarians? Or are they who had bishops to be said to have ignored the authority of Ignatius, because others are said not to have had them? Second, whence is it clear that the Christian faith flourished among the Bavarians when they did not have bishops? Namely, it appears from the epistle of Gregory III to Boniface, he says; and not only this, but also that Gregory himself sent to them a certain Vivilon, whom he had consecrated as bishop for them. But Gregory does not say that Vivilon was their first bishop, nor does he say that he sent him, but only that he ordained him. For Vivilon was sent to Gregory, and that by the Bavarians, so that he might be ordained bishop; they, therefore, already knew then that they ought not to live without a bishop. Whether they received this from Ignatius, let those see who think that no one else taught them that necessity. Vivilon himself is even reported to have been sent for the reason that the prior bishop had died. And the epistle of Gregory exists with the title: "To our most beloved bishops constituted in the province of Bavaria and Alemannia, Wigo, Luidon, Rodulf, Vivilon or Adda, Pope Gregory." So that Vivilon appears to have been neither the first nor the only bishop of the Bavarians at that time; and since Boniface is called the apostle of the Germans, that time cannot be shown in which the faith of Christ among the Bavarians flourished under presbyters without a bishop.

Of an altogether different kind is the argument which he seeks from Scotland. For there it cannot be denied that there were singular bishops in the churches according to the form of Ignatian rule. For, as Bede testifies: "A certain abbot was a presbyter, to whose jurisdiction both the whole province and even the bishops themselves were subject." So indeed Bede; but worth noting are the words omitted, [because of the] unusual order. ^B Selden acknowledged that the unusual order was observed by Bede: "But," he says, "which from the most ancient custom there and from the discipline of the centuries prior there was accepted." But what was the custom among the Ionian presbyters most ancient in Bede's age, or how many were those prior centuries? Certainly from the death of Columba, who founded the monastery, to the birth of Bede, who wrote these things, only 76 years are counted. But what follows from this?

If we grant that the Ionians were ignorant of the Ignatian epistles, it was necessary first to show what they knew, rather than to object [to the epistles] that which they were ignorant of. Previously, indeed, he argued in this manner: "If Ignatius had written the epistles, they would have been known to Justin, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian." For these men were most studious of all literary antiquity, and especially of Christian, and were the same as most acute investigators. Is the same to be judged concerning the Christians of Scotland of the seventh century? Are the Ionian monks reported to have been most studious of antiquity and most acute and learned investigators? Nay, indeed, even further: were those Ionians such, in the discussion of the monuments of the ancient Greeks, of so refined a nose as critics, that the error of Eusebius, as they wish—which deceived Athanasius, Jerome, Theodoret, and Gelasius—should especially have been smelled out by them? For this must necessarily be said concerning the testimony of the seventh century for it to have any force; for then the authority of the epistles of Ignatius was most widely received among Catholics and even heretics.

After the most learned man has mentioned the Bavarians and the Ionians, and has wandered far from his argument, which was sought from the silence of writers before Eusebius, he added the testimonies of Jerome and Epiphanius: the former he brought forward because, as he says, he approved the *isotimia* [equality of honor] of the presbyterate with the episcopate; the latter, because he condemned that opinion as heresy in Aerius: two witnesses marvelously conspiring for Ignatius, [who was] already long since received. St. Jerome often mentions St. Ignatius, observes what the apostolic man and martyr wrote, and transcribes and approves the Eusebian [testimony]: what, therefore, [is] his [position] against the Ignatian epistles? "I am anxious to think," he says, "either that those many things were not yet in them, which today we read there concerning the necessity of the episcopate and its excellence above the presbyterate, or certainly that Jerome thought, however great the authority of the martyr might have been, it nevertheless was not sufficient to overcome a matter confirmed by the express words of Scripture, nor ought it to." But what if the most learned man truly thought that which he thinks...

^A? And does it follow from this that all those letters were composed and forged in the third century? If they lack authority equal to the Scriptures, or if one or another statement regarding the necessity and excellence of the episcopate were not present in the Hieronymian exemplar, which appears in ours, does it immediately follow that they were all fabrications? Especially since St. Jerome considered those which he himself possessed to be true and genuine. That most learned man admits that the letters we have now are the very same that Eusebius possessed, and after him Athanasius and Theodoret. By what logic, then, could one be led to doubt the exemplar of Jerome alone, who lived after Eusebius and Athanasius, and before Theodoret? Jerome surely did not see so much regarding this matter in Ignatius: as if, had Ignatius said fewer things about the same subject, Jerome would have abrogated the entire faith of God. Is that authority only valid which consists of the same sentiments being ^B often repeated in identical tones? How many sentiments in Ignatius must be obliterated so that the episcopate and presbyterate might not be thought to be condemned by him in their principles, and that the doctrine which adversaries represent as being Jerome’s might appear in no way contrary to the Ignatian? Yet, in truth, Jerome’s opinion, if it be taken as one and simple, and rightly explained, is in no way contrary to the opinion of Ignatius; for the contrariety which is alleged concerns only the origin, about which Ignatius says nothing. But the rest of what Jerome possesses, which is certainly very much, concerning the distinction and pre-eminence of the episcopate from the presbyterate, and the necessity and antiquity of both in the Church of God, both crushes the dogma of Aerius and is entirely conformable to the Ignatian writings; these he imitates and follows so often that it cannot be doubted that he saw everything which we see in the genuine letters; certainly, it cannot be asserted that he saw less. For in the letter to Nepotianus: "Be," he says, "subject to your father in God [pontiff], and receive or look up to him as the parent of your soul." This exhortation is not Aerian, but Ignatian. For Nepotianus was a presbyter. Thus Jerome writes concerning him in Epist. 3: "He becomes a cleric, and is ordained a presbyter through the usual degrees." Therefore, Jerome warns that a presbyter ought to be subject to his bishop, and indeed as a son to a ^C parent. For he always recognizes the bishop as the father of the presbyter. In Epistola 62 to Theophilus: "We are not so puffed up in heart as to be ignorant of what is owed to the priests of Christ. For he who receives them does not receive them so much as the One whose bishops they are. But let them be content with their own honor: let them know they are fathers, not masters." Regarding Heliodorus, the bishop of Nepotianus, he speaks thus: "How much more do you, both as uncle and bishop—that is, father both in flesh and in spirit—grieve that your bowels are absent, and sigh as if torn from you." To Nepotianus, Epist. 3: "The glory of the father is a wise son"; let the bishop rejoice in his own judgment, when he has chosen such priests for Christ. Thus he himself addresses St. Augustine: "Farewell, my dearest friend, a son in age, in dignity ^D a father." And: "The honorable man, my brother, the son of your dignity, Orosius the presbyter, I have received both by his own merit and at your command." Since these things are so, those words in the suspected work on Psalm XLIV can hardly be judged away from Jerome: "There were, O Church, apostles your fathers, because they themselves begat you. But now, because they have departed from the world, you have in their place bishops as sons, who were created by you: for these also are your fathers, because you are ruled by them." This Hieronymian subjection, however, is nothing other than the Ignatian ύπακοή or υποταγή. Second, Jerome very often recognizes three degrees or orders in the Church—the episcopate, the presbyterate, and the diaconate—no less than Ignatius. In the Dialogus adversus Luciferianos: "The ark is constructed beginning from thirty cubits and gradually decreasing to one cubit: similarly, the Church, consisting of many degrees, ends at last in deacons, presbyters, and bishops." Thus he speaks, comparing the sacraments of the ark with the Church. In the Commentary on Micah, cap. VII: "Do not trust in princes, not in a bishop, not in a presbyter, not in a deacon, not in any dignity of men. I do not say this because you ought not to be subject to such degrees in the Church. For whoever insults father or mother shall die the death; and the Apostle teaches that those set over others in the Church must be obeyed. But it is one thing to honor princes, another to place hope in princes. Let us honor the bishop, let us defer to the presbyter, let us rise for the deacon, and yet let us not hope in them." In the Apologia prima adversus Ruffinum: "Let him know it makes a great difference to say of angels, and Seraphim, and Cherubim, that they become demons and men, which Origen affirms, and that these angels have themselves been allotted different kinds of offices among themselves, which is not repugnant to the Church. In the same way, among men, the order of dignities is diverse due to the variety of labor: since the bishop, and the presbyter, and every ecclesiastical degree have their own order, and yet all are men." Epistola 27, which is to Eustochium: "There were present the bishops of Jerusalem and of other cities, and an innumerable multitude of priests of a lower degree, and of Levites." They will say that Jerome speaks of diverse degrees or orders according to the custom of his own age—the same I affirm regarding Ignatius. And indeed, Jerome refers these same degrees to the apostolic times: so that it is no wonder that Ignatius, after the death of all the apostles, spoke in this way. In the first epistle to Heliodorus: "He who desires the episcopacy, desires a good work." We know these things: but couple what follows: "It behooves, however, such a one to be irreprehensible," etc. And with the rest that follow about him having been explained, he applied no less diligence to the third degree, saying: "Deacons likewise chaste." Lib. I adversus Jovinianum: "You see, therefore, that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon are not blessed because they are bishops, or presbyters, or deacons; but if they have the virtues of their names and offices. Otherwise, if a deacon were holier than his bishop, not because of that which...

is on a lower level is he worse in the sight of Christ. Or would Stephen the Deacon, who was the first crowned with martyrdom, be destined to be lesser in the kingdom of heaven than many bishops, or than Timothy and Titus, whom I do not dare to subject, just as I do not dare to place them before him? The same [Jerome] makes the episcopate out to be the highest order in the Church, teaches that the Church is committed to the bishop, and attributes primacy to him. In the third letter to Nepotianus: "Let the bishop be aware, to whom the Church has been committed, whom he places in charge of the distribution of alms and the care of the poor." In the letter to Theophilus, concerning John, the bishop of Jerusalem: "Either, as a pontiff, let him rule over all equally; or, as an imitator of the Apostle, let him serve equally for the salvation of all." In his Commentary on Isaiah, chapter LX: "I will appoint," he says, "thy princes in peace, and thy bishops in justice"; in which the wondrous majesty of Holy Scripture is seen, in that it has named the future princes of the Church as bishops. In his Catalog of Ecclesiastical Writers: "Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, and ordained bishop of Smyrna by him, was the prince of all Asia." In his Commentary on Isaiah, chapter III: "But it can also be referred to our princes, if they wear down the people subject to them, and publicly rebuke and shame the poor who are delinquent, while they do not dare even to nod to the rich who are committing greater sins," etc. And chapter V: "Let us use this testimony against the princes of the Church, who rise in the morning to follow strong drink, and drink until the evening," etc. In his Commentary on Titus, chapter I: "For the Apostle, in forming a prince of the Church, does not forbid him to be a boxer and a pancratiast," which he later explains in Book I against Jovinian: "For the apostolic discourse does not describe a boxer, but institutes a pontiff." Epistolary 3: And prudently Ennius: "The populace," he says, "in this place stands before the king; it is permitted for the populace to weep, while it is not honorable for the king to do so." As with the king, so with the bishop; nay, rather less to the bishop than to the king. Since these things are so familiar to Jerome, even those things which we read under his name on Psalm XLIV do not seem to be passed over: "Christ has established his saints over all the world. For in the name of God the Gospel has been spread abroad to the ends of the world, in which the princes of the Church, that is, bishops, have been appointed." Furthermore, Jerome defends the necessity of these ranks in the Church, and indeed of the episcopate, no less than Ignatius. For thus he says in the Dialogue against the Luciferians: "It is not a Church which does not possess priests." And he indicates clearly enough whom he wishes to be the priests, speaking of Hilary: "Not having bishops and presbyters"; and the same appears from the following words: "But, skipping over a few men who are both laymen and bishops to themselves, listen to what must be thought about the whole Church." Which is proven primarily from the same book: "The salvation of the Church depends upon the dignity of the high priest; to whom, if a certain surpassing and eminent power is not given by men, there will be as many schisms in the Church as there are priests." These are purely and simply Ignatian, and ^A strongly abhorrent to the dogma of Aerius. Finally, Jerome derives this very distinction of orders from apostolic times, nay, from the very apostles themselves. For in that same epistle to Evagrius, which opponents trouble so much, he has this: "That we may know that the apostolic traditions were taken from the Old Testament, what Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the temple, this let bishops, presbyters, and deacons claim for themselves in the Church." Where first is an open distinction of orders: for one is the order of Aaron, or of the high priest, whom he terms by excellence the priest, or even the chief priest, or as Josephus speaks, he means the high priest; another is that of the sons of Aaron, or the secondary priests, whom they call *kana'as*, or simply in common, *kohanim hedyotim*, or with a diminution, *kohanim*, or secondary priests, or by part; another, finally, is that of the Levites: whose diverse offices and dignities are referred to in Scripture. But Jerome asserts that the bishop corresponds in the Church to Aaron, or the high priest; the presbyters to the secondary priests; and the deacons to the Levites. Secondly, he portrays the antiquity and authority of this distinction of orders, for he teaches that it was born from apostolic tradition and derived down to his own times. Blondell in his Apology applies no observation to these things, though he promises an elucidation in the sixth section of that work, when he has edited only three sections. But what he could have answered to these things is sufficiently perceived from those things which he wrote in the Prolegomena to Pseudo-Isidore, ^B miserable and unhappy, and altogether unworthy of a man who is either learned or upright. For thus he introduces Turrianus arguing: "If there were a difference between the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and if bishops and presbyters are such, then there was always a distinction of them." Yet the former is true, by the witness of Jerome in his Epistle to Evagrius. Then he subjoins his own response: "But such are not the bishops and presbyters; but bishops (in whom, by the authority of Jerome, nay, of the Apostle, presbyters are included) and deacons. Therefore Turrianus is deceived." This response consists of two parts, one negative, the other affirmative. Bishops and presbyters are not the sons of Aaron and the Levites: this is the first. Bishops and deacons are the sons of Aaron and the Levites: this is the second. But what are these things, I ask, to the words of Jerome? Was Turrianus so insane as to say that bishops and presbyters were such as were the sons of Aaron and the Levites? By no means. He argued with us thus, in Book V for the Decretal Epistles: "Jerome writes thus in the Epistle to Evagrius: 'That which Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the temple, this let bishops, presbyters, and deacons claim for themselves in the Church.'" Now who would say that there was not in the temple a difference between the high priest Aaron and his sons, the lesser priests? But if it was always so, ^C there was therefore always, by the authority of Jerome, a difference in the Church between bishops and presbyters. These are the words of Turrianus, which Blondell ^D miserably distorted, so that by them...

^A he might replace Aaron's sons and the Levites in place of bishops and presbyters; and then he replies that they are not such bishops and presbyters—which no one ever said. But we say, according to Jerome, that the bishop corresponds to Aaron, the presbyters to the sons of Aaron, and the deacons to the Levites. And since a bishop ought to claim for himself in the Church what Aaron was in the temple, he is bound by apostolic tradition to assert the distinction of order, to assume the pre-eminence of dignity, and to demand subjection from the presbyters. Jerome institutes the same comparison elsewhere, with no mention made of Levites or deacons. In his Epistle to Nepotianus: "Let us know that Aaron and his sons are this bishop and these presbyters." Where clearly the bishop is compared, as a singular, to the high priest, and the presbyters to the minor priests. This is customary for Jerome. Thus he himself, already a presbyter, writes in Epistle 99: "I was judged by the opinion of almost everyone to be worthy of the high priesthood, that is, of the episcopacy." And in Epistle 61, against John of Jerusalem: "If the honor of the priesthood and the veneration of the name did not restrain me, and if I did not know that saying of the Apostle: 'I did not know, brethren, that he is the high priest; for it is written: Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people' 18*, with what outcry and indignation of words I would complain of your narrative! Even though you yourself diminish the dignity of your name, when you despise almost all bishops in both work and word." ^C To this point particularly tend the things we have brought forward before, that the health of the Church hangs upon the dignity of the high priest. Since, therefore, Jerome has discoursed so copiously on the distinction of the episcopacy from the presbyterate, as well as on its pre-eminence and power, and furthermore on its necessity and antiquity; it cannot be thought that he either agreed with the Aerian dogma by any appearance of reason, or that he had not seen the closely argued opinions of Ignatius.

He joins Epiphanius strangely to Jerome, from which he observes two things above all: first, that he does not mention the Ignatian writings; second, that he put forward certain things that most openly conflict with the Ignatians. Because of these two points, he says that one of three things must follow: either Epiphanius did not see the opinions on the episcopacy, as being inserted later by an interpolator; or he did not know the epistles; or he despised them as forged—which he thinks more likely. And, truly, I admit at the outset that Epiphanius never mentions Ignatius in his books *On Heresies*; but it does not follow from this that he was ignorant of them, nor that he despised them. Nor, if he was ignorant of them, at a time when so many knew them best and spoke most highly of them, does this in any way damage our opinion, nor does it possess any appearance of an argument of negation. That he was ignorant of them does not follow, because he did not praise a great many most lauded authors—who were most suitable to his subject—whom it is not likely that he was ignorant of. Such were Papias, Hegesippus, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Pantaenus, Agrippa, ^D Melito, Caius, Dionysius of Corinth, Dionysius of Alexandria, Philip the bishop of Crete, Musanus, Modestus, Rhodon, Miltiades, Apollonius, Serapion, Theophilus of Caesarea, etc. These and truly very many others wrote much that was most appropriate to the argument of Epiphanius, of none of whom does he make mention; yet no one will say that he was ignorant of all these, and others whom he passed over, or that he despised them. He does indeed mention the epistles of Clement of Rome, but only in passing, not to transcribe any opinion from them to refute any heresy, but to show that that book was adulterated by heretics, which was called the *Periods of Peter* under the name of Clement. He also quotes certain words from the epistle to the Corinthians, not against heretics, but only to prove that Clement had at first rejected the episcopacy. Justin had written against all the heretics of his own time: yet Epiphanius names him only once, and for no other end than to show that the heretic Tatian was his contemporary. He cites Irenaeus a few times, so as to spare his own labor and transcribe the history of the heretics from him: but he never brings forward any opinions from the same source to confute the dogmas of heretics. Nay, as he himself observes, Irenaeus reviews the heretics in the first book, and refutes them in the rest: ^B *acrōtata de autous en tē hexēs deuterō autou logō kai tois allois diēlegxe perittōterōs*, which, translated quite carelessly by Petavius, he corrects thus: "But he refuted them most accurately in the following or second book, and in the rest by way of superabundance." Yet from the first book, being only historical, Epiphanius brought forward excerpts; to the second he referred once; the others he never touched; he did not bring forward even one testimony from them against heretics. He names Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, but only as reliable witnesses of the history which is told regarding St. James.

Why, then, should not Eusebius be equally reliable for him in the Ignatian writings? He also cites this Clement there against the gods of the Gentiles, and in no other way. Furthermore, he brings forward the long disputation of St. Methodius against Origen *On the Resurrection*, either to spare his own labor or to avoid envy. For at that time the name of Origen flourished in the world, as Jerome says. Indeed, he transcribed the entire epistle of St. Athanasius to Epictetus; but this was in order to describe the heresy of the Dimoeritae more clearly, and at the same time to take care that he himself might not seem to be attributing dogmas to them. He also added the profession of faith of Paulinus, so that he might better illustrate their History. He happens to mention that he saw Eusebius of Vercelli at Scythopolis. He shows in two places, above all, what he himself felt about those who had written against heresies before him, for what use they were to him in composing his own work. Thus, regarding the heresy of Valentinus: "Seeing that others have labored, I mean Clement, and Irenaeus, and Hippolytus, and many others, who have wonderfully performed the refutation of them."

^A And against the heresy of the Manichaeans: "Now indeed, great men have wonderfully made refutations of his check; Archelaus, as it has been said, the bishop; Origen, as I have heard; Eusebius of Caesarea, and Eusebius of Emesa; Serapion of Thmuis; Athanasius of Alexandria; George of Laodicea; Apollinarius of Laodicea; Titus; and many others against him. And it will not hurt to say even from our own poverty a few things for the shame of that miserable man." ^B Indeed, long ago, admirable lucubrations were published for the refutation of his errors: for instance, by Archelaus the bishop, as has been said before; by Origen, as we have received; by Eusebius of Caesarea and the other from Emesa; by Serapion of Thmuis, Athanasius the Alexandrian, George the Laodicean, Apollinarius the Laodicean, Titus, and many who wrote against him. Yet it will not be troublesome if we say a few things, for our own lack, to increase the infamy of that wretched fellow. I opine that Epiphanius did not name more than these Catholic writers in his books *On Heresies*, which are indeed long and elaborate; he omitted an almost infinite number, therefore, and of those whom he did name, he did not bring forward a single sentence by which he might confirm his own arguments or refute the dogma of any heretic.

Let us therefore hear what the most learned man observes concerning Epiphanius, and what he concludes from that observation. He says, "Epiphanius mentions none of the Ignatian [epistles], than which there is nothing more distinct in all antiquity against the opinion of Aerius. Therefore, either the epistles were interpolated later, or he did not know them, or he despised them." None of these. For Epiphanius never brought anything from all antiquity to refute any heresy; he never used the authority of the ancients to suppress any heretic. Although, therefore, these very epistles, as we have them now, existed in the age of Epiphanius (which is known most certainly, and Dalleus, who with Salmasius, Blondellus, and Albertinus admits they are the same that Eusebius and Athanasius had, cannot deny it), if he knew them perfectly and esteemed them most highly, and even had them at hand when he was writing, it is nevertheless incredible that he would have wished to bring forth even one sentence from them against Aerius, he who had a different purpose in that whole work, and who in no disputation against any heretic ever brought forward even one sentence from any of the ancients to beat back the other's arguments. Why, therefore, would he, who passed over all the rest, praise Ignatius alone? ^C The second observation taken from Epiphanius is worth much less. "He posits," he says, "some things in his disputation against the dogma of Aerius that are most clearly in conflict with the Ignatian [epistles], indeed, as many monsters from the hierarchical laws of the Ignatian epistles: by which [laws] Epiphanius clearly overthrows the primary dogmas of the epistles." If these things were true, he not only solves the arguments of Aerius lightly and with a soft arm, but he also imprudently betrays his own cause.

But the matter is clearly otherwise. Times must be distinguished, and the state of the Church, which Epiphanius accurately observes, and all things will immediately and clearly be in agreement; no sign or trace of a disagreement between Ignatius and Epiphanius will appear. Epiphanius speaks of the age of St. Paul; Ignatius, of his own. The former speaks of individual churches not yet perfect in all respects, and still to receive the [plē-rōmata oikonomias] (fullness of the economy); the latter, of those already fully constituted, and formed and established by the last hand of the apostles. Thus the former speaks of Aerius: "He who has ignored the sequence of the truth, and not encountered the deeper histories, does not know that the holy Apostle was writing to what was occurring while the preaching was new." Ignorant of the sequence of the truth, and not versed in the more recondite histories, he does not understand that the holy Apostle, while the preaching of the Gospel was fresh, wrote for the situation as it arose. To wit, the Apostle tempered his writings as the occasion offered itself from the circumstances of the time. In some places at that time, there was a bishop with deacons, with presbyters not yet constituted there, on account of the scarcity of the faithful; in others, there were presbyters with deacons, with no bishop yet constituted there, because no one was yet found who was worthy of that function. These things Epiphanius had drawn from more recondite histories, which it seemed to Aerius that he had not examined. ^D "Thus," he says, "were those places at that time; for indeed each thing did not have everything from the beginning; but as time went on, things were perfected for the needs." Thus, through that time, the state of such places existed; for everything was not perfect in every respect from the beginning; but with the passage of time, those things which pertain to the perfection of all needs were constituted. He proves this widely from the Old Testament, and thus asserts that the words of the Apostle are to be understood, and with this one foundation laid, he concludes that all the objections of Aerius fall, and we likewise think that all contradiction, and the [enantiopha-neian] (seeming contradiction) with the Ignatian [writings], are removed by the same means.

The seventh chapter having been examined, the eighth follows with this title: "It is demonstrated by five arguments that the Ignatian [epistles] were unknown to Tertullian." But he admits that the fifth weapon does not strike the Usserian Ignatius; four, therefore, only remain for us to repel. First, he teaches that Tertullian [taught] that which is contrary to Ignatian doctrine. Therefore, he did not know them. For he would never have taught anything against an apostolic man and martyr known to him. This is a marvelous consequence regarding any writer, and most marvelous regarding Tertullian. Has no one ever taught anything which was contrary to men who were apostolic or to known martyrs? Or were the apostolic men and martyrs of greater authority than the apostles and evangelists themselves? Some have certainly sometimes contradicted their doctrine; not ignorant of the Scriptures, or despisers of their authority, but led either by inadvertence or carried away by some prejudice. Does Ter-

- ^A tullianus, unless perhaps Ignatius also? But when Ignatius adds, *χωρὶς τούτων* [apart from these], that the Church is not called such without bishops, priests, and deacons, Tertullian surely spoke with the same notion, at least while he still remained in the Catholic Church. For when he speaks of the apostolic churches, he has this: "We have also churches which are disciples of John." For even if Marcion rejects the Apocalypse, yet the order of bishops, traced back to its origin, will stand with John as its author. And in *De praescriptione haereticorum*, ch. 32: "Let them therefore bring forward the original foundations of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in such a way from the beginning that that first bishop had as his author and predecessor someone from among the apostles or apostolic men who, however, persevered with the apostles." For in this way the apostolic churches offer their registers: just as the Church of the Smyrneans reports that Polycarp was placed there by John; just as the Church of the Romans likewise [reports] that Clement was ordained by Peter. In like manner, the others also exhibit those who, having been appointed to the episcopate by the apostles, they possess as shoots of the apostolic seed. Since, therefore, he speaks properly and catholically about the Church, he shows that he thinks exactly the same thing that Ignatius thought, namely, that it cannot be intact without a bishop. Concerning the term "Church," indeed, he speaks so often that he attributes it even to heretics; whom neither he nor anyone else ever acknowledged to be in the Church properly so-called. "Wasps," he says, "make combs; Marcionites also make churches"; but he teaches how unjustly that name is attributed to them: "It has, indeed, those churches, ^B but they are its own, as late as they are adulterous; if you seek their origin, you will find it more apostatic than apostolic." He also speaks mystically about the Church in the book *De pudicitia*, ch. 21: "For the Church, properly and principally, is the Spirit itself, in which is the Trinity of the One Divinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. It gathers that Church which the Lord established in the three. And so, from then on, the whole number [of those] who have joined together in this faith is considered a Church through the Author and Consecrator. And therefore, indeed, the Church will forgive sins, but the Church which is the Spirit through a spiritual man, not the Church which is a number of bishops." Since, therefore, Tertullian sometimes uses the word "Church" properly, for such [a body] as the apostles established, and sometimes improperly, and in another notion, as when he says it is the Spirit, while he bestows the same name on the assemblies of heretics, or on three laymen, whom he himself calls priests in some sense (for it is as true, according to Tertullian’s opinion, that three laymen are three priests as it is that where there are three laymen, there is a Church)—since, I say, he speaks so improperly about the Church, that decree is in no way contrary to the Ignatian, since Ignatius speaks of the Church properly and integrally understood, in the same way that Tertullian does elsewhere, [and] as St. Cyprian does, who called Tertullian master: "They are the Church, the people united to the priest, and the flock adhering to its shepherd. Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in

^A the bishop, and whoever is not with the bishop, is not in the Church," epistle 69; in the same way Optatus the African likewise has: "The Church has certain members, bishops, presbyters, deacons, and the multitude of the faithful"; in the same way Victor Vitensis, also an African: "By what rivers of tears shall I pursue them, when he condemned bishops, presbyters, deacons, and other members of the Church to exile in the desert."

Secondly, he concludes that our Ignatius was unknown to Tertullian, because, as he enumerates by name not only his own predecessors, but even the contemporaries of the heresiarchs themselves, he has not so much as mentioned Ignatius; let us see how correctly. Tertullian, writing against the Valentinians, observes first the origin of them in Valentinus, and notes his followers, Colarbasus, Ptolemaeus, Heracleon, Secundus, Marcus, and Theotimus, who, although they were called Valentinians, nevertheless differed much from Valentinus. Therefore he determined first to deal with the principals, not with the leaders, as he says, of the passive disciples; secondly, he endeavors to persuade his readers that he has not invented subjects, that is, attributed to them dogmas which they themselves did not proclaim; because not only his predecessors, but the contemporaries of the heresiarchs themselves, had both brought forth and refuted them in most instructive volumes. Then he names those who wrote those instructive volumes, by which they exposed and refuted all those heretical opinions, whom he himself desires to equal in this genre of writing. The first of these is Justin the philosopher and martyr, who wrote not only insignia volumes against Marcion, but also another book against all heresies, as Jerome testifies in his Catalogue. The second is Miltiades, the sophist of the churches, who, as the same Jerome testifies, we know wrote an excellent volume against Montanus. The third is Irenaeus, whose most instructive volume against the Valentinians exists. The fourth, whom he names Proculus, is uncertain as to who he might be, and what he wrote, I suppose, is unknown. But now, does the most learned man demand what is fair, when he requires that Ignatius be mentioned in this place among these four men, or be judged as completely unknown to Tertullian? Did Ignatius write some most instructive volume against heretics? Did he investigate their names, ages, and the monstrosities of their opinions, and bring them into the open? Did he refute the madness of perverse dogmas by either reason or testimonies of Scripture? Did he live in that age in which Justin, or Miltiades, or Irenaeus lived, who are named here as contemporaries of the heresiarchs? Did he write with such abundance or elegance that Tertullian would wish to equal him in that work? We find nothing of these in Ignatius, all of which were seen in those whom Tertullian named, and on account of which he named them at all. It is dissonant, therefore, to look for Ignatius among them, and unfair to demand it; to affirm that Tertullian therefore completely ignored him because he did not name him in that passage is alien to all reason.

Thirdly, that Tertullian supposed them to have been forward and abortive ^A Marcionites, who called Christ a phantom; and he proves this from the apostle John. But Ignatius touches upon their doctrine: therefore Tertullian would have added him as a witness to John, if he had known the man. As if indeed there were need of the testimony of Ignatius for that matter, for which he had the apostle as a witness. On the contrary, not only was there no need for him to employ him; but he would have acted absurdly if he had employed him. For he notes the first authors of his opinion, and proves their antiquity; he shows them to be so forward, that they existed in the age of the apostles; and that he may confirm this, he adduces the apostle himself as a witness, who pronounced them Antichrists for denying that Christ had come in the flesh. But now, how absurd it would have been to add the testimony of Ignatius, who is said to have written in A.D. 107, and to have condemned the phantasiasts. Could it have been clear from his letters that the Marcionites were so forward that it is certain they existed before Saint John wrote his epistle? Or could Tertullian conclude from the fact that Ignatius, near to death, warned Christians to beware of those who were then attempting at that time to scatter false doctrine in the Church, that they had taught the same things so many years before? But he says that neither here, nor anywhere in the whole work against Marcion, does he make mention of Ignatius, whose many sentences against Marcionite fictions are read. He does not indeed mention Ignatius, who mentions no one; in the whole work against Marcion he does not cite even a single ecclesiastical writer; he fights with the Scriptures, tradition, and arguments, and indeed with Ignatian ones, nor does he transcribe any sentence by name from Ignatius, nor from any other. If Ignatius is to be said not to have written letters for that reason; then all books that are found to contain anything excellent against the Marcionite heresy must be considered spurious and forged. Tertullian not only in this, but in the whole work that exists, never once excerpted any sentence by name from any ecclesiastical writer with the same words. He names Barnabas, but as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is now believed to be Saint Paul's. He cites Hermas, whom he now admits as authentic, and now rejects as apocryphal. He praises Clement as bishop of Rome, not as the writer of an epistle. He says he wrote some Opuscula to the Gentiles, πρὸς Ἕλληνας, he names no one. ^C He seems to recite the words of someone: "Since indeed Mary was betrothed, therefore she is also pronounced a woman by the angel and by the apostle: for being betrothed is in a way being married"; but he does not teach whether they were written, and he brings them forward only to refute them. He names Justin, Irenaeus, Miltiades, and Proculus once, whom he also professed to follow. Besides these, he, who praises very many heretics and almost two hundred heathens, did not deign to name a single one of the ecclesiastical writers; and of those whose writings he does name, he does not use even one sentence to refute heretics, or to confirm any Christian doctrine, as a testimony or under the guise of authority. Therefore the silence of Tertullian is nothing

to diminish the authority of the apostolic epistles, nor is it suitable for confirming the discipline of the masters by immediate right. Thus, he diminishes the authority of the very one he produces; and he did this even when he did not cite the epistle of Barnabas himself, but that which is written to the Hebrews, which is now in the canon and is believed to be the Epistle of St. Paul. ^B Nay, to what purpose would the Catholics—or indeed he himself—object with the testimony of a writer only approved by the Church, when he despised and flouted the entire Church itself? But in truth, the Ignatian writings were not of such a kind that they could be rightly and appositely employed by Catholics in this case; for they neither concerned the question that was being agitated at the time, nor could they be brought to confirm the opinion of the Catholics unless dragged in by the neck, or combined with the scripture of Hermas, which, as Tertullian says, alone loves adulterers. For the question was whether Christians, having been cast out for the crime of adultery, ought to be received back into the Church through penance. Ignatius, however, has nothing to say about adulterers; he has nothing to say about those who, while within the Church, perpetrate this or any other grave crime. He exhorts the Philadelphians to ecclesiastical unity and to consensus with their bishop: "For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ, these are with him," he says, "and as many as in any case, having repented, come into the unity of the Church, these shall be of God." And again, after a few words: "Where there is division and wrath, God does not dwell." Therefore, God forgives all who repent, if they repent unto the unity of God and the council of the bishop. These things our Ignatius speaks concerning heretics and schismatics returning to the unity of the Church and to the council of the bishop. Everything that precedes or follows both opinions proves this to be most true. He says nothing of adulterers, nothing of assassins, nothing of idolaters. "Flee from division and evil teachings," ^C he says, and he pursues this argument widely. He threatens eternal punishment to those who persist as schismatics and heretics, but for those who come to their senses, he urges reception and promises salvation, to whom reception into the Church was never denied. Nay, even the gravest sins committed outside the Church by schismatics or heretics—even in the judgment of the Montanists—did not preclude reception into the Church for those who repented. For to whom is it doubtful, says Tertullian in this very book *On Modesty*, that a heretic, deceived by teaching, after the lapse has been made known and expiated by penance, both obtains pardon and is restored to the Church? Therefore, these Ignatian writings did not pertain to that question, nor could they be used by Catholics in that matter; hence, that our Ignatius is not named in that book does not show that he was unknown either to the Catholics or to Tertullian. Thus, the eighth chapter—so far as it concerns us—is answered, along with the conjectures ill-begotten from Tertullian’s silence.

The next person to whom our Ignatius is said to have been unknown is a certain Caius, as it seems, whose writings have all perished. If his books were extant, perhaps we might have something certain from them by which this conjecture could be clearly refuted. Now, since only a certain fragment exists in Eusebius, and that without the name upon which the argument relies, it is much more diff...

difficult to provide a refutation, but indeed the conjecture itself is much weaker. If that Caius had frequently mentioned our Ignatius in his books—a thing which no one, except Dallæus, can certainly deny could have been done by him (for he lived in the third century, after, as Salmasius and Albertinus claim, the epistles of Ignatius were forged)—yet that does not benefit us to whom those books have not reached. From the design of the author and his manner of writing, nothing that we have already done regarding Irenæus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius can be repeated. Therefore, we can respond to the argument derived from the fragment solely on the basis of that fragment. It stands as follows: Artemon was teaching that Christ was a pure and mere man; Ignatius taught the contrary. Correct. Those who followed Artemon asserted that their doctrine was ancient, that it had lasted up to Victor, and that it had been altered under Zephyrinus. Caius, in opposition, produces those who wrote before Zephyrinus, who preached Christ as both God and man. Among them he does not name Ignatius; therefore, he was ignorant of him. For it to be maintained that Caius was ignorant of Ignatius because he did not name him, it must also be maintained that he named everyone he knew to have written in the same vein. But this cannot be maintained; for there were very many who wrote before Zephyrinus and called Christ God and man, whom Caius neither names nor can be thought to have been ignorant of. Indeed, it is certain that Caius omitted the testimonies of some whom he knew, and, as concerns our matter more closely, he passed over some things because he thought they were known to all; among which number Ignatius, as the most famous of all, certainly deserves to be placed. Even that most learned man admits that, if he wrote those epistles, they could not but be most known to all, without which assertion the argument to the contrary would have no weight. Moreover, that ambiguous author decided to produce writers of a certain kind, not others—a class in which St. Ignatius was least included—namely, those who wrote against the Gentiles, and specifically against the heretics. We see, therefore, that his intention and purpose was to produce such authors as Ignatius was not, and to omit such as Ignatius entirely was. From the silence of Caius, therefore, an ignorance of Ignatius cannot be inferred. All these things are found in the words praised by Eusebius. For when the followers of Artemon said that all the ancients, even the apostles, had handed down their doctrine, and that it had been kept in the Church up to the episcopate of Victor, and was finally adulterated under the pontiff Zephyrinus, that Caius, who is thought to have written under Zephyrinus or not long after, replies to these things thus: ^D "It would perhaps be credible, were it not that the divine Scriptures were first opposed to them, and then the writings of certain brothers, older than the times of Victor, which they wrote for the truth against the Gentiles and against the heresies of their own time—I mean Justin and Miltiades and Tatian and Clement and many others, in all of whom Christ is spoken of theologically. For who is ignorant of the books of Irenæus and Melito and the rest, which proclaim Christ to be both God and man?" ^A And perhaps that which is called credible would seem so, were it not that they were contradicted, first indeed by the divine Scriptures, then by the writings of certain brothers, older than the age of Victor, which they wrote against the Gentiles for the truth, and against the heretics of their own time. I mean Justin, and Miltiades, and Tatian, and Clement, and many others, in all of whose books Christ is represented as God. For as for the writings of Irenæus and Melito and the rest, who is ignorant that they preach Christ as God and man at the same time? By which words you see he wishes to bring forward the writings of certain brethren, to assign a time before the age of Victor, to point out authors of a certain class, namely, those who wrote professedly against the Gentiles and the heretics of their own time. You can observe that the names of many others were omitted by him on purpose, especially of those who were most famous. Caius therefore did not assign a reason why he should name Ignatius; but he provided an excellent and most opportune one for why he omitted him. Therefore, there is no danger to our Ignatius from the silence of this fragment.

The same must be judged concerning Clement of Alexandria, he says. But indeed, from the silence of Clement of Alexandria, nothing can be affirmed clearly, nothing can be concluded with certainty. For very many of his writings have perished, such as the eight books of the [i]Hypotyposes[/i], the book [i]On the Passover[/i], the [i]Disputation on Fasting[/i], the first book [i]On Detraction[/i], the book [i]On Ecclesiastical Canons and against the Judaizers[/i]. Whether he mentions Ignatius in these or in any one of them, no one can affirm with certainty. In the [i]Exhortation to the Gentiles[/i], in the three books of the [i]Pedagogue[/i], in the two treatises, of which sometimes one and sometimes the other occupied the place of the eighth book of the [i]Stromateon[/i], which now at last both exist, Clement names no Christian writer at all. But in the books of the [i]Stromateon[/i] he names many Gentiles and Christians, but Ignatius never. He indeed names very many Gentiles, but what is this to Ignatius? He also cites not a few heretics, but Ignatius is not to be sought even among them. He names not many Christians—that is, Catholics—but very few, indeed only three, if indeed they all be Catholics: Barnabas, Clement, Hermas—all certainly as contemporaries of St. Paul, and as sacred rather than ecclesiastical writers. "Clement," he says, "the apostle, the apostle Barnabas, the power divinely speaking to Hermas through revelation." He does not name even one Catholic writer of the second century: if he passes over Ignatius, he also passes over Polycarp, and Papias, and Quadratus, and Aristides, and Justin, and Melito, and Athenagoras, and Dionysius, and Hippolytus, and Hegesippus, and Irenæus; all of whom I do not think he was ignorant of, any more than his teacher Pantænus. But it is strange, he says, that he who copied three or four places into the work of the [i]Stromateon[/i] from even the one epistle of Clement to the Corinthians; he did not find even one sentence to note in so many of Ignatius. Why does he not also produce Barnabas, who more often

in that work? Why not also Hermas, who is cited even more frequently? Whoever knows Clement’s *Stromateis* well will never be surprised that he omitted Ignatius, while citing the other three so often. He sets out there his Gnostic, not imbued with ordinary theological principles, but one raised above the lot of other Christians, and who, as a master of Origen, pursues everywhere ^A things mystical and anagogical; whereas such things as occur in abundance in the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas are not to be found in the letters of Ignatius, which are filled only with the most simple and wholesome instruction. But you will say, Clement’s epistle also breathes apostolic simplicity; yet he cites three or four passages from it. That is true indeed. But Clement of Alexandria observes in it something not simple or common, but showing forth a *gnosis teleioteran* (a more perfect knowledge), which he extracts from it more than once. He observes that Clement of Rome describes the differences of those who are approved in the Church, and places among them *ton dynaton gnosin exeipein* (one able to express knowledge); he cites that passage twice, therefore, both in the first book and in the sixth. He observes him *typon tina tou Gnostikou hypographein* (delineating a certain type of the Gnostic), a form which he describes, and to which he refers almost all parts of the epistles in a wonderful way in his fourth book. He also notes his "worlds beyond the ocean," which he compares with the Platonists. Things of this sort were not to be found in our Ignatius. The silence of the Alexandrian, therefore, does not indicate that the Ignatian writings did not exist, but that they were not at all suitable for training a Gnostic, or for illustrating mystical, anagogical, and tropological doctrine, or for cultivating philosophy.

But he points out a certain and definite place for us in the *Stromateis*, Book VII, p. 764, where without doubt Clement would have put the name of Ignatius if he had ever seen his letters. Truly this is a wonderful perspicacity, and a careful observation of the habit of writing among the ancients, which could indicate in what place anyone should have named anyone more ancient than himself. Where he relates that the sects of the heretics began to coalesce only in the times of Hadrian Augustus, that was an opportune place for mentioning our Ignatian writings. But what indeed? Could he have drawn anything from the Ignatian writings for his own opinion? Was Ignatius a suitable witness for him, from whom he might prove that the heretics did not begin until under the empire of Hadrian, when he himself suffered before Hadrian, in the middle of the reign of Trajan? That is not what the most learned man intends; to confirm his own opinion, Clement could not name Ignatius; he ought to have done so to refute it. He truly imposes a harsh law upon ancient writers, who imposes upon them the necessity of citing the most illustrious prelates of the Church against their own opinion. Nor does the most learned man intend this; what then? If he had known the Ignatian epistles, which are most openly opposed to his tradition, he would certainly have done something that he did not do; but what is this? Either he would have refuted them; nay, in truth, he would never have done this. Did any of the ancient Christians ever have such an opinion concerning the older Fathers and bishops, the disciples of the apostles and martyrs, or such a presumption ^B about himself, that he would hold them guilty of falsehood and false testimony if he did not bring them forth to refute and deny? But if he had not done this, he would have corrected his own tradition to this standard. He had said before that this was an opportune place for mentioning our Ignatian writings; now, if he had mentioned them, he would have corrected his opinion; but he could not correct it otherwise than by entirely obliterating and expunging it. But could this have been an opportune place for this, to overturn and expunge everything? All these are mere conjectures, and very unfortunate ones at that, fitting neither the epistles of Ignatius nor the purpose of Clement. Clement did not consider all heresies, but only some, most conspicuous in his own age and celebrated everywhere in writings at that time, by which the catholics were most vexed, while other, more ancient ones had already almost vanished. He indicates the beginnings of these in some way; he shows the later ones of the Church, not indeed as old as they themselves boasted. For that Basilides claimed Glaucias as his master, whom his disciples affirmed to have been an interpreter of Peter; or that the Valentinians referred the origin of their heresy to Theodas, as a disciple of S. Paul; all these things he rejected as if they were not sufficiently certain, and as things which by no means proved the antiquity of these heresies. The most learned Clement surely knew full well that heretics had existed not only under Trajan before Hadrian, not only at the time of the martyrdom of Ignatius, as Ignatius himself indicates, but even in the age of the apostles, as ecclesiastical history and the Holy Scriptures themselves also testify. It is most unfair, therefore, to demand in this place that Clement should have cited our Ignatius if he had known him; to conclude that he was ignorant of him because he did not cite him is entirely alien to all reason.

^C But truly, he says, the reason for the opinion of another certain Clement is the same. For he asserts that Christ preached on earth for only one year; but our Ignatius expressly writes that the Lord preached the gospel for three years after baptism. But in truth our Ignatius never wrote this. For the things which Daillé recites from the epistle to the Trallians on page 76 are indeed found in the same place in Ussher; but the whole page is forged, and those words are to be referred not to the author, but to the interpolator of the epistle; and they do not concern us, who defend the epistle to the Trallians, indeed, but cleared of all additions. And yet he brings forward this single argument to prove that Ignatius was unknown to Origen, and to Julius Africanus, and to Lactantius. Of the same stamp are the things that he has concerning Paul being married, and concerning the resurrection of Christ: things which were brought forward against Ignatius by Baronius, and not by our own. He brings forward, however, nothing else to prove that Ignatius was also unknown to Dionysius of Alexandria. As far as they are concerned, therefore, those great names of Origen, Julius Africanus, Lactantius, Dionysius of Alexandria, and even of Jerome himself, ought to be entirely expunged from the title of the chapter. Nothing has certainly been brought forward so far whereby it is proved or rendered likely that our Ignatius was known to Clement.

unknown to the Alexandrian: yet we contend with better right that He was known to him. For it is in no way probable that he whom Origen, ^A even as a young student (as we have shown), knew so well, did not know Clement, his master.

Having brought this forward from Clement, he at length concludes with an argument from negative testimony, to wit, from the silence of writers before the time of Eusebius, which is indeed varied, miscellaneous, and prolix; by which he thinks he has proved that the Ignatian epistles were unknown to all before Eusebius, and therefore that they did not exist. But that he has not proved this of anyone, we have shown; not of Irenaeus, not of the Alexandrians, or Ethiopians, not of Tertullian, or Gaius, or Clement of Alexandria: much less of Origen, Julius Africanus, Dionysius of Alexandria, or Lactantius, for whose ^B ignorance he has adduced nothing from our epistles; not of Epiphanius or Jerome, not of the Bonoarians or the Ionians, whose ignorance, even if it were proved, would add no weight to the argument of one who denies them. Wherefore, we argue with much better right thus: since Polycarp, Ignatius’s disciple, since Philo and Agathopus, his companions, since Irenaeus, Polycarp’s disciple, since Theophilus, at one time successor to Ignatius in the Antiochene see, or someone else of that same age, since finally Origen, a disciple of Clement, have clearly made mention of the epistles of Ignatius, or have openly alluded to them; since all those who are alleged to have been ignorant of them have provided us with no sufficiently just cause for attributing such ignorance to them; we declare that an argument drawn negatively from silence is of no validity at all, and that from those who knew, it cannot be concluded that the rest did not know, or that if some of them perhaps were ignorant, an argument can be made from thence.

PART TWO. Wherein arguments for the epistles of Ignatius drawn from themselves are brought forward, and the objections of Dallaeus are refuted.

CHAPTER I. Arguments for the Ignatian epistles drawn from the epistles themselves are brought forward. St. Ignatius wrote circa A.D. 107. The subject matter of the epistles is most appropriate to that age in general. The writings of impostors are accustomed to smack of their own age. Nothing in these epistles looks to later times. It is certain that bishops existed in Asia when St. Ignatius was being led to martyrdom. The author of the epistles describes bishops and presbyters in such a way that what he says of them applies to that age, but not to a later one. Two heresies were most prevalent in the time of Ignatius, one that asserted Christ to be man in appearance only, another that asserted Him to be a mere man. Ignatius touches upon these two only, and simply ^C proclaims Christ as God. The tradition of apostolic doctrine in the epistles does not contain those unwritten traditions mentioned in later centuries. Many things are further handed down in them which savor of nothing but the age of Ignatius. Nothing convicts a writing of being a forgery more certainly than a violation of times. Various examples of this fact. Forged works generally betray themselves by the nature of the times. The epistles of the Socratics edited by Allatius are convicted of falsity by this means. The confused treatment of these matters by Dallaeus is censured.

Since we have divided our arguments for the works that are truly Ignatian into external and internal; and we have already prosecuted the external, derived from testimonies, at length in the former dissertation, have vindicated them from objections, and have clearly refuted the witnesses brought to the contrary; we now propose the internal, drawn from the epistles themselves, which clearly show them to be in perfect agreement with their author who is constantly assigned to them by the Holy Fathers, to bear the antiquity of the prescribed time most excellently, and to respond fully to the piety, zeal, prudence, journey, bonds, hardships, and consolations of so great a man, and an apostolic man, and a bishop, and a martyr; so much so that the subject matter of the epistles themselves and their texture, conjoined with the authority of the witnesses by an equal suffrage, extorts the fullest belief and cuts off every handle for doubting. For where not only witnesses greater than any exception are adduced, whom one must think neither to have wished to deceive, nor to have been able easily to be deceived; but also the thing itself, to which they bear witness, appears to be such that nothing suggests they were false; no one can doubt with prudence, nor resist without stubbornness.

But that this epistolary work may be shown to belong rightly to an apostolic man, it must be supposed in the first place that a certain Ignatius, ordained by the apostles as bishop of the Church of Antioch, held that see for at least thirty years, as Georgius Syncellus and the Chronography attributed to Nicephorus in ancient manuscripts, with which Anastasius concurs, bear witness; that at length, by the Emperor Trajan, in the Parthian expedition, he was condemned to the beasts; and that, having been dragged from Antioch, ^D if he wrote anything on the journey, it was in part at Smyrna, in part at Troas, and indeed in the tenth year of the reign of Trajan, the one hundred and seventh year of the vulgar Christian era, but, as I deem it, the year of Christ 113. We say, therefore, that these epistles, which Eusebius possessed, and which we now possess, if they are inspected most thoroughly, if they are discussed with the most critical acumen, if the subject matter and the mode of writing are weighed most exactly, respond most excellently to the author, to the time, and to the occasion; and to a man who is a student of the truth they offer not the slightest handle for thinking of any forger, and they are altogether repugnant to the Dallaean impostor brought onto the stage two hundred years later. Johannes Launoy, the Parisian theologian, of the ancients

^A a most severe censor of authors, observed aptly in his judgment concerning the books of Dionysius the Areopagite, regarding the character of the most ancient Fathers: "Those who write at this time labor in elaborating three principal types of writings. Some compose apologies for Christians, in which they interpret the sincerity of the new religion, or affirm the innocence of those who profess it, or withdraw the minds of princes from persecutions. Others write epistles, by which they might strengthen Christians in the faith they have received, or instruct the heads of churches with wholesome precepts, or teach the utility of Christian doctrine and contempt for earthly things, or urge them to undergo torments for Christ, or explain without pretense matters they themselves have already endured. Finally, others publish commentaries, by which they defend the Christian faith and refute the heresies that were then arising. This is the condition and the character of the age in which Dionysius the Areopagite lived: this is the occupation of the writers who sustained the burdens of the nascent Church with their works." As these observations of Launoy rightly refute the Pseudo-Dionysius, so they also assist St. Ignatius not a little; for they show that the epistles handed down to posterity under his name were composed according to the character of that century. For there is no one who does not see that in them Christians are corroborated in the received faith, and are armed against the schisms and heresies which had then arisen; that the heads of churches are instructed with salutary precepts, or are praised for their constancy in defending the truth, and are held up to the people as examples of piety; and finally, that contempt for present things is taught, the prospect and expectation of future ones are urged, and the crown of martyrdom is amplified in every way. This condition and this character of the age in which St. Ignatius lived shine forth most clearly in these epistles; therefore, their material, when viewed in general, responds perfectly to the author assigned to them by the ancients.

But to descend to more particular matters, and to show that what is contained in these epistles is such that it becomes apparent that it was not at all invented by an impostor, especially by the Dallaean one: I shall not use any other foundation of disputation than that which Dallaeus himself uses more than once. The plan, he says, of this impostor in adorning these epistles and attributing them to Ignatius seems to have been the same as that of most other craftsmen of the same sort. Thus he says in his 38th chapter; and in chapter 4: "Many publish their own inventions under the names of others with this principal purpose, that they may establish and confirm new things of their own age under a false name of antiquity." Indeed, he thought this so applicable to the whole class of such little men that he did not fear to say: "You tell us of wonderful impostors, who indeed perpetrate an imposture, but then labor to receive no fruit from that for which they do it." (De pseudo-apostolicis, lib. II, cap. 15.) And in truth, it is plainly incredible that an impostor, who lived toward the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, would write epistles and attribute them to St. Ignatius, which would in no way smell of that age of the impostor, which would in nothing ^B betray the rites of the Church that arose after the death of the martyr, which would strike at no heresy of those that sprouted up afterwards, which would teach no doctrine alien to the minds of apostolic men, which would introduce nothing from the Platonic school, which others immediately embraced, which would preserve the primitive simplicity in all things, which would everywhere respond to so great a man and martyr, and would paint in vivid colors proofs of the great gifts of the Holy Spirit. Dallaeus rightly says in chapter 10: "It is difficult even for the most learned and cunning impostor to be so on his guard on all sides, that something does not fall from him imprudently that might betray the trick." Now, indeed, I assert clearly and openly that nothing appears in these epistles known to Eusebius that savors of, or in any way smells of, that age which Dallaeus suggests, or even that which Blondellus or Salmasius indicates. There is nothing here regarding the heresies then arising, nothing regarding the customs or institutions of Christians that had then greatly changed, nothing regarding the new rites first usurped after the death of Ignatius, nothing regarding the usage of the Church which prevailed a little after the death of Ignatius, by which the fictitious Dionysius betrayed himself: all things are rather represented as being quite different from these, most conformable to the times closest to the apostolic age, and not a little abhorrent to the century of the impostor.

Regarding the bishops of Asia, Ignatius speaks much, who it is certain were there at that time: for St. John, the last of all, wrote his Gospel, asked by the bishops of Asia, so that, as Jerome says, he might speak from ancient tradition. He says the same regarding one of them in his Catalogue: "Polycarp, disciple of the apostle John, and ordained by him bishop of Smyrna, was the prince of all Asia," which two most famous writers of the second century, Irenaeus and Polycrates, testified long before him. Regarding another, we read in the eleventh action of the Council of Chalcedon: "From St. Timothy until now twenty-seven bishops have occurred; all were ordained in Ephesus." In which number it is not to be doubted that Onesimus, whom Ignatius mentions, was included. Ignatius himself calls himself bishop of Syria; but he is recognized also by Jerome ^D as the third bishop after Peter the apostle of the Church of Antioch, as also by others. Regarding the bishops instituted by St. John long before the martyrdom of Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria speaks according to ancient tradition in Eusebius, lib. III, cap. 23: "For when, upon the death of the tyrant, he had moved from the island of Patmos to Ephesus, he would go away, when requested, also to the neighboring parts of the nations, where he would appoint bishops, where he would organize entire Churches, where he would ordain as clergy one of those marked out by the Spirit." The most learned Valesius rightly restored this passage from three manuscript codices: "For when John had returned from the island of Patmos to Ephesus, he betook himself, at their request, to the neighboring provinces, in part to appoint bishops...

^A in part to form entire churches, in part to set apart such men as were indicated to him by the Spirit for the clergy." Hence that compelled interpretation of Walo Messalinus falls, who strangely interprets bishops as many here, presbyters in the city, κλῆρον ἕνα, one presbyter, or a chorepiscopus in the country. Tertullian disputes against the heretics from the succession of these bishops (*contra Marcionem* lib. iv, cap. 5): "We have churches that are disciples of John." For although Marcion rejected his Apocalypse, yet the order of bishops, when traced back to its origin, will stand with John as its author. To omit remaining points, no Christian and Catholic writer has ever said that there were fewer orders or grades in the church than three in the second century, or in any part of it; in which very century Ignatius wrote. It is in no way credible, therefore, that fewer existed then. If anyone were to be thought to have said this, he would certainly be found among those who believed that the names of bishop and presbyter were confused in the writings of the apostles. But all these themselves, when they believed the names were confused, or at least before the second century, said that the orders or grades were distinct, as I shall show in its proper place. I posit, therefore, without controversy that bishops were in Asia at the time when Ignatius was hastening toward martyrdom. Indeed, the author of the epistles describes the bishops of his own time, and always speaks of them in such a way that it cannot be doubted that all things said by him refer to those very times. For he uses the bare title of the office or order; he attributes to them no more arrogant title; he does not call them ἀρχιερεῖς (high priests), or ἱερέας (priests), or ἄρχοντας (rulers), as those of later times were wont to do. With him there is no mention of thrones, none of ordination, or election, or succession. No prerogative of any episcopal see is depicted here; no appeal to one church above others is mentioned; no obedience is commanded, except that which is necessary to avoid schisms and to preserve the unity of the Church. Meanwhile, he does not depress the presbyters, whom he always joins with the bishops; he proclaims their dignity and authority, and defends them most studiously: he calls them θεοπρεπέστατον εἰ ἀξιονόμαστον, εἰ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἄξιον πρεσβυτέριον (a God-befitting and worthy-named presbytery, worthy of God), ^B he places them εἰς τόπον συνεδρίου τῶν ἀποστόλων (in the place of the council of the apostles), he designates them νόμον Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (a law of Jesus Christ), he celebrates them as ἀξιόπλοκον πνευματικὸν στέφανον πρεσβυτερίου (a worthily-woven spiritual crown of the presbytery), and he persuades Christians to obey them ἀπερισπάστῳ διανοίᾳ (with an undistracted mind). Whence Walo Messalinus: "That this writing appeared at the first time when the episcopate began to be built up and placed over the presbyterate, is evidenced by the fact that he so extols the episcopate that he does not depress the presbyters. For he preserves for them their own dignity, which they held in the first Church, while he pronounces that honor is to be rendered to them as to the apostles themselves, and affirms that they hold the place of the apostles." But as the third century declined, or the fourth began, the authority of the presbyterate, even by the admission of adversaries, was greatly diminished. There was no council of presbyters ^C at that time in the Christian world to whom these eulogies could be attributed by anyone. If we were to peruse all the writings of that age, we would find nothing so honorably said about that order. These things, therefore, do not suit that age; and an impostor would clearly be delirious, or rather insane, who would devise these things to confirm the tyranny of bishops (as Dallæus wished after Socinus), and at the same time attempt to restore and reintegrate the authority of the presbyters, which had long since been diminished and collapsed. Ignatius, from whom the ecclesiastical offices are simply distinguished by their functions and names, recognizes only three sacred orders, attributes to each its own honor and dignity, derogates nothing from one to serve another, and moves the people to render obedience to all, and that to this end alone, that schism may be avoided and unity preserved.

Secondly, Eusebius observes that Ignatius fortifies the churches primarily against the heresies burgeoning and spreading widely in his own age; which, since it is credible in itself (for what could be more opportune for that admonition, or more worthy of an apostolic man?), we find to be most true from these epistles. Two heresies in particular were prevalent in that time concerning the nature of Christ, contrary both to Catholic truth and to themselves: of which one was that of the Docetae, sprung from the Simonians, who were destroying the reality of human nature in Christ; the other that of the Ebionites, who were completely denying the divine nature and eternal generation, and urging the ceremonies of the Law. Ancient writers recognize these heresies of the first century; all admit that they flourished exceedingly in the Ignatian age. Whence Theodoret has divided the books of heretical fables in such a way that the first ^D included those who invented another creator, and said δοκήσει δὲ φανῆναι τὸν Κύριον εἰς ἀνθρώπους, the second, however, included those who ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν Κύριον προσηγόρευσαν. Regarding the former, Jerome against the Luciferians: "While the apostles were still in the world, and while the blood of Christ was still fresh in Judea, the body of the Lord was asserted to be a phantasm." Regarding the latter, the same in his *Catalogue*: "John the apostle wrote his Gospel last of all, being requested by the bishops of Asia against Cerinthus and other heretics, and especially against the then rising dogma of the Ebionites, who assert that Christ did not exist before Mary." Epiphanius also observes that these flourished especially in Asia (Heresy 51): "For there Ebion and Cerinthus and those about them—I mean in Asia—preached Christ as a mere man by friction." Since Ignatius teaches that one must always beware of schismatics and heretics, he attacks these heresies especially, and strikes those others frequently, carefully, and openly: he slays the former, that of the Docetae—disseminated at that time by the disciples of Menander, and, as is credible, already defended by Saturnilus at Antioch—in the epistle to the Smyrnaeans and Trallians; the other, which proceeded from Ebion and was spread widely through the East, he refutes in the epistle to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, Magnesians, and Philadelphians. Besides these two heresies he touches absolutely nothing;

whatever is written in these epistles regarding any particular heretical doctrine can and ought to be referred to them. Therefore, all these things are perfectly consistent with the faith, the doctrine, and the time of St. Ignatius. Ignatius was certainly among those who were engaged in the theology of Christ, as the Catholics of that age did. For those who had forsaken our religion, as Pliny reports, affirmed this to be the sum of their fault or error, that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn, and to sing a hymn to Christ as to a God among themselves. As that ancient author ^A correctly observed in Eusebius (Book V, c. 28): "Psalms and odes of the brethren, written from the beginning by the faithful, celebrate Christ the Word of God, hymning His divinity." Thus, indeed, Ignatius simply calls Christ God, as in the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans: "I glorify Jesus Christ the God," and: "Receiving as deacons of Christ God," to Polycarp: "In our God Jesus Christ," to the Ephesians: "For our God, Jesus the Christ, was carried in the womb by Mary," to the Romans: "According to the faith and love of Christ our God." But after the Platonic doctrine was received in the Church, writers of both the second and third centuries were not accustomed to preach Christ as God so simply everywhere, so that these expressions clearly savor of the Ignatian age. Photius once objected to Clement of Rome: "Calling our Lord Jesus Christ high priest and president, he did not even let slip those appellations regarding Him that are fitting for and more exalted than God; that is, referring to Him as the supreme high priest and president, he did not use those expressions concerning Him which would be considered fitting and sublime for God." And he applies this aid to his second, less received epistle, because at the very beginning he preaches Christ as God. For the first words of that epistle are: "Brothers, we ought to think of Jesus Christ as of God." Therefore, in the first times of the Church, the excellent critic Photius deemed this ^B appellation to be most appropriate; and, repeated so often by Ignatius and brought forth without any of the limitations of later writers, but everywhere preached nakedly and simply, it exhibits the greatest appearance of that venerable antiquity and simplicity.

Thirdly, Eusebius described the epistles of Ignatius with such diligence because they seemed to him to preserve the apostolic tradition, exhorting, he says, "firmly to hold to the tradition of the apostles." But we advise that this should be understood, as the ancients themselves intended, not as recent writers understand it; as if Ignatius had it in mind to commit to writing traditions received from the apostles, which they had in no wise consigned to writing; a notion which deceived Cardinal Baronius and others so greatly. Eusebius meant nothing other than that Ignatius, as an apostolic man, presented in his epistles the evangelical doctrine which he had received in any way from the apostles, and earnestly begged the Churches to adhere to them. For Eusebius explains himself sufficiently, while he professes that he would only commemorate those in whose monuments the "tradition of apostolic doctrine is borne," as, for example, Ignatius and Clement; just as Irenaeus speaks of the epistle of Clement which the Roman Church sent to the Corinthians, "renewing their faith, and the tradition which they had recently received from the apostles," announcing their faith and the tradition they had recently received from the apostles. As, therefore, the epistle of Clement is not a storehouse of unwritten traditions, neither is that of Ignatius. He commended no unwritten traditions to us in his genuine epistles, which they call apostolic, whether truly or falsely. He hands down nothing concerning feasts, nothing concerning the fixed times of fasts, nothing concerning the manner of celebrating Easter, nothing concerning the observance of Pentecost or the Sabbath, nothing, in short, concerning any ritual whose antiquity can come into controversy. Indeed, very many such things are found both in the interpolations and in the forged epistles: nor can anyone rightfully affirm or believe that an impostor of the third century would have wished to abstain from all such rites used in his own time. Therefore, these things seem to suit no age but the Ignatian.

Fourthly, he makes mention of the charisms then flourishing most in the Church, and of the Holy Spirit sometimes speaking to them, which later writers are not accustomed to do. He uses the testimonies of Holy Scripture very sparingly. He everywhere imitates the Pauline epistles, which from the beginning were most received in all the churches; he cites the Gospels more sparingly, which were received later and were distinguished from the spurious ones; and which the writers of the second century, now grown, and of the third, used most frequently. The very style of the writing is no small indication of the same age. There is nothing extraneous in these epistles, nothing proceeding from the erudition of the Gentiles; all things smell of doctrine purely evangelical, and the simplicity of an apostolic man. Those who wrote later were accustomed to usurp the opinions of the learned among the Gentiles, and sometimes even to mingle their dogmas with the Christian religion: this they did from that knowledge of things with which they had been endowed before they became Christians, as Tertullian observes. Ignatius had long been a bishop, and had received the Christian religion at a time when very few learned from among the Gentiles had become Christians; in him, therefore, we perceive a soul purely Christian, not formed by schools, not exercised in libraries, not nourished by academies and Attic porches. If you observe the nation and the church over which he presided, for a man who had dwelt so many years among the Syrians, if not also born and educated among them, the accumulation of several epithets is most fitting, as is the imitation of the very long prefaces of St. Paul. Condemned by the Roman emperor himself as a martyr, ^D

from the metropolis of Syria, Antioch, he was led bound to the mistress of the world, ^A a spectacle for angels and men; and that ardor, that desire of suffering for the Christian religion, and a strong and constant longing to remove all delays and obstacles, became him most of all—which he expressed in words full of pious fervor, not only to others, but especially in that epistle to the Romans.

It must indeed be conceded that nothing proves a writing or a suspicious narrative more certainly or firmly than the violation of the truth of historical time. Laertius relates that the philosopher Anaxagoras, having seen the tomb of Mausolus, brought forth this sentiment: *A high-priced tomb is but a phantom of stony substance.* I do not believe it. For that Anaxagoras died in the 88th Olympiad; ^C but the tomb of Mausolus was not founded until after the 106th Olympiad. Therefore, either the philosopher never said these words, or he surely said them on another occasion; for he never saw the Mausoleum—a fact which, I believe, has not yet been observed by the annotators of Laertius. Thus, Plutarch indeed exposes Stesimbrotus in the *Life of Themistocles* because he reported that he had been a disciple of Anaxagoras, *not correctly touching upon the times*. Thus, Cicero notes in his letters to Atticus (Lib. vi, ep. 1) that the consensus of historians regarding the death of Eupolis was refuted by the diligence of Eratosthenes: "For who has not said that Eupolis, the poet of the Old Comedy, was thrown into the sea by Alcibiades when he was sailing to Sicily? Eratosthenes disproves it, for he produces the comedies which he [Eupolis] taught after that time."

Holstenius narrates that Porphyry, when he had grasped the first foundations of letters and wisdom, being still almost a boy, was drawn by the reputation of Origen and went to Alexandria to receive his instruction. I do not believe it; although he may think he has shown this by the authority of Porphyry from Eusebius and Vincent of Lérins. Vincent indeed reports the same, but from words of Porphyry wrongly understood in Eusebius, which do not at all teach that he went to Alexandria to see Origen; for he only says: *“whom I have met, being still very young.”* Certainly, Porphyry could not have been a disciple of our Origen at Alexandria, for he was born in the borders of Tyre in the tenth year of Alexander Severus; and in that same year Origen was driven from Alexandria. Furthermore, the ancients write that there was a certain Origen who was a fellow-disciple of Plotinus, and who together with that great ^D philosopher heard Ammonius for almost eleven years at Alexandria. Scholars, and especially Holstenius, wish this to have been our Origen. I do not believe it; for the times, no less than other things, contradict it. Plotinus did not see Alexandria before the eleventh year of Alexander Mammea, as Porphyry testifies in his *Life*, and shortly after he gave himself to his teacher Ammonius, at a time when our Origen had already been forced to leave Alexandria, never to return. Therefore, he was not at Alexandria when Plotinus heard Ammonius, much less when Plotinus was taking his leave of both Ammonius and his Origen. Origen therefore, the fellow-disciple of Plotinus, cannot have been our Adamantius.

Some, especially Selden in his *Marmora Arundelliana*, wish Susarion and Sannyrio to have been the same poet. But I cannot bring my mind to believe it, since the calculation of time forbids it. For the Icaria-born Susarion was the first inventor of comedy among the Athenians, according to the witness of Clement of Alexandria, Diomedes the scholar, and an ancient author in the prologues prefixed to Aristophanes. But it is established from the Arundelian marble itself that this Susarion found comedy before the tyranny of Pisistratus. But Sannyrio, as Suidas testifies under the entry *Διοκλῆς*, was contemporary with both Diocles and Philyllius, and truly lived in the age of Aristophanes. Certainly, he wrote after the publication of Euripides' tragedy *Orestes*: for his verses from his own *Danae* are extant, both in the Scholiast of Euripides and of Aristophanes, in which he attacks Hegelochus, the actor of Euripides, who, playing Orestes, had mispronounced that little verse: *From the waves again I see a calm once more.* More than 140 years, therefore, intervened between Susarion, the first inventor of comedy among the Athenians, and Sannyrio, a writer of Old Comedy. Therefore, Susarion and Sannyrio could not have been the same poet. And I am amazed that Isaac Casaubon could be so deceived as to write these things in Athenaeus (Lib. vi, cap. 9): "I do not remember the very ancient poet Sannyrio being praised elsewhere in these books, except here where it is written: *Sannyrio in Gelo: O Batides, O gray-eyed head.*" This poet was the most ancient of the Old Comedy, about whom, and about that comedy of his, it is read in the Scholiasts of Aristophanes: *“But the ancient one itself differs from itself, for those who in Attica first established the practice of comedy (and these were those around Sannyrio) also introduced the persons without order, and laughter alone was what was constructed.”* For Athenaeus mentions Sannyrio elsewhere, and also the same play, in Lib. iii, c. 13: *“But concerning Meletus, Sannyrio himself says in Gelo thus: Meletus the one from the Lenaeum...”* Then, in the words of the Scholiast, it is thought that the word *gelōs* denotes the play of Sannyrio, when it signifies nothing else here than laughter simply, which the first editors of comedies were ^D merely looking at, whom he calls *those who first established the practice of comedy*. Finally, he did not see that an error lies hidden in the name; for it is certain that for *Sannyrio* one should read *Susarion*: as we read a little later in another argument, *they say that comedy was found by Susarion.* Diomedes the grammarian: *“The first comic poets were Susarion, Mullus, and Magnes.”* Clement of Alexandria, *Stromata*, book 1: *“Susarion [corr. Susarion] the Icarian invented comedy.”* Diomedes the Scholar in the Royal Library manuscript in his *Exposition of the Grammar of Dionysius Thrax*: *“Therefore a certain Susarion was the first leader of metrical comedy, whose dramas, however, were consigned to oblivion.”* In the most ancient Arundelian marble: *“Since...”*

^A he was not then, who went to Asia straightway before the death of Socrates, and did not come to that city until six years later. And while Xenophon replies to this letter, he frequently disparages the writings of Plato, complaining that he did not admit the poets, though he himself proved to be just such a one in his own books; nay, he seizes upon an opinion from Plato’s letter to Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily—all of which were published long after the death of Socrates. Thus, the ape of Xenophon, when he had seen in a genuine letter of his—a fragment of which exists in Eusebius—that Plato was censured for his “Sicilian table,” he himself also disparaged those things which had to do with Sicily; but while he pretends that the letter was written immediately after the death of Socrates, he violates the order of time and betrays himself.

Moreover, Aristippus sends a letter to his daughter ^B when he had already left the tyrant of Sicily, and was already near death on the island of Lipara, and advises his daughter to set out for Athens, and to lead a holy life with Myrto and Xantippe; as if those two wives were living in the same house for so many years after the death of Socrates, and were instructing women philosophically; whereas Myrto, if she ever was the wife of Socrates, died before him. Leo Allatius, indeed, holds that Socrates lived at least 16 years after the magistracy of Laches, but this is against the opinion of all the ancients. Demetrius Phalereus, a sufficiently suitable author according to Laertius, Diodorus Siculus, and Aristides, with whom that ancient chronographer of the Arundelian Marble agrees, says: *“From the time when those who were with Cyrus returned, and the philosopher Socrates died, having lived 70 years, in the 137th year, when Laches was archon at Athens.”* ^C He places the return of those who went up with Cyrus, and the death of Socrates, most excellently under the same archon. For Xenophon, under whose leadership they returned, *“went up with Cyrus under the archon Xenaenetus, in the year representing the one before the death of Socrates,”* as Laertius reports from some of the ancients. Nothing, therefore, in history seems to be more certain than that opinion, known to all in a most famous matter, that Socrates died under the archon Laches. And the foundation on which Allatius relies—that Socrates in Plato’s Dialogues speaks a few times about those matters which happened long after the magistracy of Laches—is most infirm. For chronological truth is not to be taken from Plato’s Dialogues. Well known is that statement of Macrobius, *Saturnal.* lib. 1, cap. 1: *“That the years of those who come together are added to the list, with the example of Plato supporting us, does not hold true.”* ^D Indeed, Plato introduces those as if they were holding conversations, who never conversed; and he represents some often saying things of which they never thought, and which they could by no means have known. *“Having read Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias said to those present that he had neither said nor heard any of these things from Plato.”* Athenaeus reports the same thing about the *Phaedo*; Laertius also reports it about Socrates: truly, as nothing proves that a certain writing is spurious more than violated fidelity of time, so works ascribed to some author, but written by a fabricator in a later century, almost always betray themselves by this very reason, and are convicted of supposition by the violation of times. Leo Allatius published the Socratic letters, which he vehemently contends, in a sufficiently long dialogue, were written by those very men whose names they bear, but in vain; for the order of time does not permit it in the least. To the sole argument drawn from there concerning the oration of Polycrates delivered at the trial of Socrates, to which the 14th letter makes mention, he replies in such a way that he stirs up a dispute with all the ancients concerning the year in which Socrates died, yet he accomplishes not one whit. For all things in that letter and the following one are so conceived that no regard is had for time, and thus all things clearly appear to be faked. Euclides and Terpsion complain that Xenophon, when Socrates was dying, was not at Athens, but at Lacedaemon; when he was at Lacedaemon

^A they say that Socrates, upon hearing Plato read the *Lysis*, exclaimed, "O Hercules, what a lot of lies the young man tells about me! For the man has written many things that Socrates never said." Since, therefore, Socrates is sometimes introduced in a dialogue of Plato discussing matters that occurred after the magistracy of Laches, it cannot be concluded from that that Socrates was alive at that age, but rather that Plato wrote the dialogue after the death of Socrates, and attributed to him the conversations he himself wished. It is therefore evident that all the Socratic epistles edited by Allatius, both from other sources and from the consideration of the times, were written not by those to whom they are attributed, but were fabricated by some philologist.

Since, therefore, writings published under alien names, and especially epistles, are accustomed to betray themselves in this way, it is no small argument that our Ignatius’s epistles are genuine, because nothing can be found in them that savors of another or later age, which proves that they were written after the 10th year of Trajan. Dallaeus, examining the epistles themselves most accurately, and searching most diligently, ^B has not yet found anything of this kind, as we shall soon show. But if such a scrutinizer with prying eyes could find no such thing, it is not to be feared that this will be done by another later. Having premised these things to confirm our opinion, we must reply to those points by which the most learned man attempts to prove that the epistles of Ignatius known to Eusebius, and approved for so many centuries, agree neither with the age in which they are said to have been written, nor with the character and customs of the man by whom they are said to have been edited.

But before I gird myself to ventilate the arguments of the adversaries, I cannot but observe that Dallaeus, who has depicted the epistolary Ignatius at the very threshold of his work as if he were a Geryon, appears in his arguing altogether two-bodied or three-bodied, and manufactures and directs his arguments both against the ancient Eusebian epistles and against the spurious ones, and indeed the interpolations themselves; and thus he militates not only against Ussher and Hammond, but also against Baronius, Halloix, and others among the Latins, dealing a blow now to these, now to those. He does this, however, so perplexingly that he both casts a cloud before the eyes of the readers and often lays ambushes for our thesis, while he attempts to overthrow the Eusebian epistles, which our side contends are genuine, with no other weapons than those with which they reject the interpolations and spurn the new and spurious epistles. ^C He himself professes that he wishes to treat this whole business of the Ignatian epistles at once and together, which we both take poorly and contend should not have been done. For this confused treatment of matters creates too much trouble not only for me, who have the laborious task of distinguishing and discriminating the genuine from the spurious—especially for a later reader who would not want himself to be deceived—but it also creates a manifest occasion for prejudice for the reader, who does not wish, or is not able, to consider things individually with attention and always observe the differences between them. We most readily admit that many things in the spurious epistles, and many things in the interpolations, both strike at the credibility of the times, are repugnant to the character of Saint Ignatius, and do not in the least mirror his diction. And we think it could not have been otherwise: indeed, we draw from this an argument both sufficiently open and efficacious, that since the forger of the other epistles and the interpolator of the true ones are both mimics of the true Ignatius, and each carefully represents the archetype for his own measure, he is so easily and manifestly caught in his imposture, and so often confuses times and reports things so alien to the character of a martyr, the author of the Eusebian epistles appears to be the true Ignatius for the very reason that he never confuses times, and teaches nothing alien to Ignatius.

CAPUT II.

That I may show that the things which that most learned man observed against the epistles known to Eusebius have no force at all to diminish their authority, I shall go through everything, one by one, in the same order in which he wrote them. He begins ^D from an argument derived from time, and in chapter 10 he affirms that "not a few things occur here and there which gravely strike and pull down the fixed and immutable credibility of the times, the most certain criterion of truth." But I, on the contrary, assert that very many such things are found in the fictive and interpolated works, but neither here and there nor even a few such things are found in the epistles that our side defends, and indeed they are plainly and utterly absent. "But," he says, "the author speaks here and there about many heretics and heresies that arose only after the death of the martyr." So he says. We, however, with Eusebius, who is most expert in ecclesiastical antiquities, admit that Ignatius touched upon some heresies, but only those which had arisen at that time, when he wrote, and before he suffered martyrdom; and we contend that this is most true. Again, he says, "he explicitly names certain ones of his kind, and those whom he does not name, he sometimes exposes their dogmas so plainly and clearly that it cannot be doubted whom he means." We say that both are freely and openly false: and thus far it is a bare contention of assertions; he says it, we deny it. He attempts to prove the former order with this one argument: "The author of the epistles publishes the names of Basilides, Theodotus, and Cleobulus in the epistle to the Trallians. But it is certainly established that these three broke out after the martyrdom of Ignatius." I will not dispute the age of these heretics now, as I am to act regarding Basilides later; that much at present I warn, that to this argument...

of refutation it is abundantly sufficient that the author of the epistles wished to name no heretic, and intentionally abstained from the nomenclature of them all. For thus he himself speaks concerning the heretics while writing to the Smyrnaeans: "Their names, being unbelieving, it did not please me to write down; nay, may it not even be granted to me to make mention of them until they repent." The old translator: "Their names, being unbelieving, it did not seem to me right to inscribe; nor let it be permitted to me to record them until they repent." This intention of mind he religiously preserved in the remaining epistles as well, so that he never put forth the name of any heretical man. Certainly, the author of the epistle to the Trallians—the creator of the wondrous epistles, as Synesius speaks—never named Basilides, Theodotus, or Cleobulus; rather, it was the interpolator. "But every interpolation is to be believed to be later," as Tertullian says. Their names are found in the fragments of that epistle among the red-lettered passages; they do not appear in the Florentine codex, nor in the sincere Latin translator; perhaps they pertain to Baronius and Halloix, but they do not at all pertain to us.

And this response to the tenth chapter could suffice, were it not that ^A when he brings forward those words from "his own ape of Ignatius" to the Trallians: "Flee also from the offspring of his own most wicked one, Theodotus and Cleobulus," he seizes the opportunity to castigate Ussher and Hammond as well. "Cleobulus," he says, "is so covered by his own obscurity that he cannot be convicted." Nay, but it is so evident that this Cleobulus was registered among the most ancient heretics by the Holy Fathers that, had the author of the epistle to the Trallians named him himself, no dispute could be raised against him from antiquity on that account. For Cleobulus, or Cleobius, was a disciple of Simon; whence the Cleobians are numbered with the Dositheans and Gorthenians and other most ancient heretics. Blessed Theodoret, *Haer. fab.*, lib. 1, cap. 1, concerning the Simonians: "From this most bitter root branched the Cleobians [read Cleobians], Dositheans, Gorthenians, Masbotheans, Adrianists, Eutycheans, Canisteans." And lib. 1, c. 1, where he testifies that God had converted a great part of the tares into wheat, he has these words: "And the cities and villages testify, which are delivered from the tares of Simon and Menander, and Cleobius, and Dositheus, and Gortheus, and Adrianus, and Saturnilus, and Basilides, and Isidorus, and Carpocrates, and Epiphanes, and of others simply of such kind." The author of the *Imperfect Work on Matthew*, homil. 48: "For there came Dositheus and Simon and Cleonis [read Cleobius]." These men obtained this from the most ancient writer of ecclesiastical affairs, Hegesippus, in Eusebius, lib. IV, c. 22, who places this Cleobius in the first class of heretics: "From whom [came] Simon, whence the Simonians, and Cleobius, whence the Cleobians, and Dositheus, whence the Dositheans." Cleobius, therefore, was a contemporary of Simon and lived before the martyr Ignatius himself. But as he says, "in order for us to think this Cleobulus to be the same as that Cleobius, of whom mention is made sometimes among writers," this, as I think, compels nothing. ^C Nay, in truth, it does compel [belief through] the illustrious passage of Epiphanius, heresy 51: "Thence also those around Cerinthus and Ebion held that Christ was a bare man, and Merinthus, and Cleobius, that is, Cleobulus," that is, "and Cleobius or Cleobulus." For these things show clearly enough that the same heretic was accustomed to be named Cleobius by some, and Cleobulus by others, just as some called the same heretic Saturnilus, and others Saturninus. Moreover, Epiphanius teaches that this Cleobius, or Cleobulus, preached Christ as a bare man together with Ebion and Cerinthus: and it is known that Theodotus—to whom the interpolator joins Cleobulus—taught the same heresy. Therefore, obscurity does not cover Cleobulus.

But concerning the red-lettered Theodotus, who is nothing to us, he creates wondrous difficulties and stirs up turmoil for us. For because he refers him to A.D. 194, what is that to us, who think the interpolator was born some centuries later? Because he exclaims that this leads Ussher to substitute "Theododus" for "Theodotus," contrary to the faith of all Greek and Latin codices, he does a great injustice to a most upright man. Ussher certainly did not undertake the defense of the interpolator, whom he himself was the first to detect and expose; nor did he do anything against the faith of the codices, but, for [the sake of] the singular diligence he was accustomed to use, he indicated that the Baliolense codex held not "Theodotus" but "Theododus," warning only that it had something in common with [the word] Theodoti. Therefore, the outcries and calumnies with which he burdens a most accurate man are most unjust.

But the "passage of Jerome, who disputed against Helvidius," moves the most learned man, as he "distinctly counts Ignatius the first among the apostolic writers who wrote against Ebion, and Theodotus the Byzantine, and Valentinus." He speaks cautiously here—"the first," and "indefinitely": he moves the man, but he does not show to what; he does not add to what purpose [Jerome] might think; he wished it to lie hidden from us what he concludes from thence. Does he move [him] so that you should not number Ignatius among the apostolic writers, when Jerome himself distinctly numbers him among them? Does he move [him] so that you should think the interpolator betrayed the name of Theodotus to the younger Ignatius, which none of us denies? Does he move [him] as you think Jerome does, who never saw the interpolator, inasmuch as he was much younger than himself? However it may be, from wherever or toward whatever Dallaeus may be moved, both Ussher and Hammond are beaten. The former, because "he seems to take Jerome not of the epistles, but of some other work of Ignatius that may have existed in his age, and which is missing to us." But Ussher says nothing of such a work, only stating what all will concede to be most true: "If mention of the name of Ignatius had been made in any work of Theodotus the Tanner, it would be convicted as a manifest forgery by the very reasoning of the times." Ussher did not assert that such a work existed in Jerome's age, nor did he attach other books to Ignatius, so that this entire dispute instituted against him is plainly futile. And when he says that the errors of Theodotus are most openly refuted in these epistles, not even that does anyone deny. But no other errors of Theodotus are refuted in them, except those that pertain to the Ebionites...

and Jerome names Ebion at the same time as Theodotus: nor is the question in this passage about the heresy, but about the heretic, whom we deny was named or refuted by Ignatius. The heresy of Theodotus has been refuted in [the persons of] Ebion and Cerinthus; Theodotus himself remains untouched in the genuine epistles.

Hammond, indeed, confesses that it does not need to be said that Ignatius wrote new volumes against Valentinus or Theodotus. He is right in this, not in order to contradict Ussher, who never said that this was necessary, but in order to interpret Jerome, whose words he believed should be understood not conjunctively, but divisively: and it is clear that this was observed most correctly if one understands the statement not only about writings against heresies, but also about the heretics themselves. For neither Polycarp against Valentinus, nor Justin, or Irenaeus, as far as we know, wrote expressly against Theodotus; certainly it is evident that those four apostolic men did not all write distinctly against those three heretics; and from this it is correctly gathered that, in Jerome’s mind, those things which Ignatius wrote in his epistles against the Ebionites and Gnostics are sufficient, even if they wrote nothing against Valentinus and Theodotus. Hammond indeed thought so; "but he is mistaken," says Daillé, "and he immediately gives the reason, for unless Ignatius is understood to have written against Theodotus, what Jerome says will be clearly false." This is a surprising assertion; but it is not without a certain reasoning of its own. "For no apostolic man wrote against him, not Polycarp, and not even Irenaeus or Justin, or any other of the same standing, so that it is plainly necessary for what Jerome says about Theodotus to refer to Ignatius." But I, likewise, am permitted to argue: No apostolic man wrote against Theodotus—not Ignatius the martyr, not Justin, or Irenaeus—so that it is necessary for what Jerome says to refer to Polycarp. The same applies to Justin, the same to Irenaeus. So that all these things may be rightly understood, and the weakness of Daillé’s argumentation appear, the passage of Jerome must be recited in its entirety, which he cautiously omitted. His words against Helvidius are these: "Could I not produce for you the whole series of ancient writers, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin the martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men who wrote volumes full of wisdom, holding these same opinions, against Ebion and Theodotus the Byzantine [and Valentinus]? If you had ever read them, you would be wiser." Jerome does not enumerate only four, but adds "and many other apostolic and eloquent men," indeed, he summons "the whole series of ancient writers," of whom, if just one wrote expressly against Theodotus, it is not necessary that Jerome should have thought Ignatius did so, any more than Polycarp, or Justin, or Irenaeus, none of whom, the most learned man admits, did so. But he also meets this objection to some extent. "How," he says, "could either Polycarp, or Justin, or anyone of the apostolic men have written against Theodotus ^A who arose long after their death, under Victor, bishop of Rome, that is, about A.D. 200, at which time it is incredible that anyone lived who had seen the apostles, as all died before A.D. 100?" Here he first takes "apostolic men" to mean only those who had seen the apostles, which is entirely alien to Jerome’s mind. For when he cites Justin and Irenaeus and others as apostolic, he undoubtedly regarded them as apostolic: yet neither Irenaeus nor Justin saw any apostle. Others also speak in the same way, as Theodoret in *Haeret. fab.*, lib. 1, c. 2: "Καὶ Εἰρηναῖος, οὗ καὶ πρόσθεν ἐμνήσθημεν, ἀποστολικὸς δὲ καὶ οὗτος ἀνήρ," i.e., "And Irenaeus, of whom we made mention above, is also an apostolic man"; and again, c. 5: "Εἰρηναίου τοῦ τὴν Ἑσπέραν φωτίσαντος ἀνδρὸς ἀποστολικοῦ παραθήσομαι μαρτυρίαν," i.e., "I shall produce the testimony of Irenaeus, an apostolic man who enlightened the West." But Irenaeus died some years after A.D. 200, so that he did not even see St. John, who died before A.D. 100. Theodoret, therefore, did not call Irenaeus an apostolic man because he saw some apostle on earth, but because he was, as he speaks elsewhere with Epiphanius, "τῶν ἀποστόλων διάδοχος" ("a successor of the apostles"), as St. Basil mentions in *De Spiritu sancto*, c. 29, "ἐγγὺς ἀποστόλων γενόμενος" ("having become close to the apostles"), and as St. Augustine ^B says, "not long from the times of the apostles." Jerome indeed calls him, as here, an apostolic man, and elsewhere, a man of apostolic times—not because he saw the apostles themselves, but because he was a disciple of the apostles’ disciples. For thus he speaks in Epistle 19: "Irenaeus, a man of apostolic times, and a disciple of Papias, who was a hearer of the evangelist John." Thus Hegesippus is called by Photius "ἀρχαῖος ἀνὴρ καὶ ἀποστολικός" ("an ancient and apostolic man"), cod. 232, who is said by Eusebius to have been "τῆς πρώτης τῶν ἀποστόλων γενόμενος διαδοχῆς" ("having been of the first succession of the apostles"), and is known to have written under Eleutherus. In reality, the ancients were called apostolic for a double reason: both with respect to age, and with respect to doctrine. With respect to age, those were also called apostolic who lived with the apostles, even if they dissented from their doctrine, as Tertullian speaks against Hermogenes, c. 1: "Even the apostolic Hermogenes himself did not persevere in the rule." But those were called so especially who received the doctrine from the apostles, and persevered in it, as the same author says in *De praescript. haer.*, c. 32: "That that first bishop had as his author and predecessor someone ^C from among the apostles, or from among apostolic men who nevertheless persevered with the apostles"; and a little later: "Their very doctrine, when compared with the apostolic, from its diversity and contrariety, shows that it is the work of neither any apostle nor any apostolic man: because, just as the apostles would not have taught things diverse among themselves, so neither would apostolic men have taught things contrary to the apostles." With respect to doctrine, those were also called apostolic who flourished greatly in the faith of the apostles, even if they did not hear the apostles themselves—such as, perhaps, Papias, certainly Hegesippus, and Irenaeus; whence, in St. Athanasius, the "πιστὸς καὶ ἀποστολικὸς ἀνήρ" ("faithful and apostolic man") is simply opposed to a heretic, in whatever age he may have lived, tom. I, pag. 275, as the same ^D

distinction existed among apostolic men as existed among apostolic churches. For some churches were called apostolic because they were founded by the apostles themselves or by apostolic men; others, because, although they arose later, they agreed with those apostolic [churches] in doctrine. Tertullian, *De praescript. haer.*, cap. 20: "The apostles founded churches in every city, from which the other churches have borrowed and daily borrow the slips of faith and the seeds of doctrine in order to become churches; and by this they are also deemed apostolic, as being the progeny of apostolic churches." The same, cap. 32: "In this way, apostolic ^A churches bring forward their lists, just as the Church of the Smyrneans reports that Polycarp was placed there by John, just as the Roman [Church reports] that Clement was likewise ordained by Peter; in this way, surely, the others also exhibit those whom they have as slips of apostolic seed, having been established in the episcopacy by the apostles." And a little later: "To this form, therefore, they shall be proved by those churches which, although they may put forward no author from among the apostles or apostolic men, as being much later, yet, conspiring in the same faith, are deemed no less apostolic on account of the consanguinity of their doctrine." ^B Therefore, just as they called churches apostolic which arose after the times of the apostles, so also they designated as apostolic men those who never saw the apostles. And as concerns Jerome, it is not surprising that he spoke thus, if we weigh the words of Rufinus in his second *Invective*: "If you correctly make yourself an imitator of Origen, whom you call second after the apostles, why do you condemn him who followed him, Didymus, whom you nevertheless name a prophet and designate an apostolic man?" and a little later: "Whom you designate by the name of apostolic man of the senses." Although, therefore, neither Ignatius nor Polycarp, who saw the apostles, nor Justin or Irenaeus, who are called apostolic for another reason, did *not* do this, yet among many other apostolic and eloquent men, someone could expressly refute Theodotus, which is sufficient for Jerome's intent if he is speaking of the heretic himself being refuted; whence that which he says about Theodotus will be most openly false, nor is it to be applied to Ignatius.

Moreover, if one objects to Jerome interpreting himself so strangely, that this does not apply to Ignatius (as if he were writing against Theodotus nearly 100 years before the heresy of Theodotus began to be known), and if one answers this objection himself by saying that it does not befit Ignatius the martyr, but is true of our "epistolary" Ignatius—that is, that he was understood by Jerome in this place [as such]—well, if Jerome understood the "epistolary" Ignatius here, he certainly understood the martyr; for he knows no one else as "epistolary" than the apostolic one and the martyr. In this very place, he ^C not only numbers him among the apostolic men, but while reciting the series of the ancients, he places Ignatius in the first rank, not only before Irenaeus and Justin, but even before Polycarp. Ignatius is, therefore, to Jerome—just as he is to us—both "epistolary," and apostolic, and martyr. Nor could the most learned man who devised this little distinction deny these things; ^D and therefore he confesses that Jerome was false; for in order for us to have a false Ignatius, it is necessary for us to have a false Jerome. Lest Ignatius be true, Polycarp is false, according to Dallaeus; Origen is false, Eusebius is false, and finally, even Jerome is false. But why does he confess him to be false? "Because he numbered this Ignatius of his, born long after the apostles and apostolic men, among apostolic men." Whence did such a gross error settle upon a most learned Father, one most experienced in the monuments of the Church! It is from the precept of the Ignatian error drawn from the reading of Eusebius. But it is established that neither did Eusebius err, nor did Jerome follow Eusebius alone. He read Polycarp and Irenaeus, whom Eusebius followed, and whom he himself calls apostolic; he read Theophilus, whose opinion, taken from Ignatius, he returned to its author; he read Origen, who more than once praises the "epistolary" Ignatius as apostolic—nay, he himself translated the work of Origen in which the same Ignatius is clearly cited; he read Athanasius, Basil, and others who were not accustomed to follow the errors of Eusebius; he read or knew no one to whom the epistles of Ignatius were even in the slightest degree suspect. If Jerome were false, his error, common to the whole world, is most unjustly attributed to Eusebius; especially since it is certain that Jerome wrote these things against Helvidius, long before he transcribed his account of Ignatius in the *Catalogue* from Eusebius.

But whether he truly or falsely wished to ascribe the epistles to Ignatius in this place, did he see that Theodotus was so refuted in other places that he could easily have inferred that Ignatius was spurious? So indeed the most learned man feels, but he is moved by a most trivial conjecture, led by no reason. For he does not think that Jerome read the name of Theodotus where we read it; he does not deny that it was inserted into the epistle to the Trallians by an interpolator long after the age of Jerome, or at least long after that book against Helvidius, which was written under Damasus: nothing in that epistle, to which the name of Theodotus was later inserted, touches upon the errors of that heretic. But Jerome had read other things, and those most clear [things] against Theodotus, which Dallaeus described from the epistles to the Ephesians and Magnesians; therefore, Jerome ought to have inferred that there was no true Ignatius, who wrote after Theodotus. Indeed, by this argument, so weak, so null, the holy Father is most unjustly accused of falsehood, when he himself said that the things which Dallaeus described before from the epistles to the Ephesians and Magnesians splendidly refute the blasphemy of Artemon. And in truth, our Ignatius wrote against Artemon as well as against Theodotus—that is, if you look at the persons of the heretics, against neither; if [you look at] the heresy itself common to both, [he wrote] against the opinion of both, and therefore, in some true sense, against both. For the same heresy existed in the age of Ignatius, having proceeded from Ebion, and defended by his disciples, and by the Nazarenes, and by Cerinthus, and later resurrected by Theodotus and Artemon. *Ταύτης δὲ τῆς φάλαγγος ἦρξεν Ἐβίων*, "The leader of this phalanx was Ebion," as Theodoret says.

If, therefore, Jerome had noted not a few things in our Ignatius ^A against the heresy of Theodotus in most eloquent terms, he could not have inferred otherwise than very ineptly that the author of the epistles lived after Theodotus; since he himself knows full well that whatever he could observe from those epistles against the heresy of Theodotus, all those things could have been said against Ebion. But one could have written against Ebion, even if he did not live after Theodotus. Therefore, just as elsewhere he joins Ebion and Photinus, as being struck down by the same apostolic sentiment, so here he joins Ebion and Theodotus, as being refuted by the same Fathers.

It is in vain, therefore, in this argument, and not without the utmost injustice, that the most bitter censor of the Fathers notes: "Sometimes Jerome is carried away by a certain natural vehemence of spirit, and pours forth certain things that have not been sufficiently accurately weighed," when nothing appears in this matter that seems to carry him away, or move him in any way; nothing has been said by him that is not consistent with the truth; nothing that is contrary to the same opinion set forth in other places. But if this observation about the vehemence of Jerome’s spirit must sometimes be admitted, then it may be used with better right when he writes, having been provoked against the deacons of the Roman Church, when he heaps up so many things about the authority of the presbyterate to diminish their dignity, and when, to establish it, he is judged to set it as almost equal to episcopal power itself: which interpretation of Jerome's opinion represents him as most inconsistent, and pouring forth things contrary to his own writings. If ever, therefore, in this very controversy about the distinction of holy orders, one were permitted to say that Jerome is carried away by a certain natural vehemence of spirit, and pours forth things not sufficiently accurately weighed: if this response is deemed both sufficiently suitable and valid, there will be no need to add anything to tear down the foundation of the Blondellian opinion. But since he contends that this most bitter censure regarding Jerome’s impetuosity is true, because he writes here that many apostolic men wrote against Theodotus of Byzantium, when the ratio of the times proves that Theodotus could have been known to no apostolic man, he misses the point completely. For Jerome said not only that many apostolic men wrote, but also eloquent ones, as in Book 1 ^C against Jovinianus: "To these also writes the successor of the apostle, of whom the apostle Paul makes mention, the epistles, and he stitched together almost all his discourse on the purity of virginity; and thereafter many apostolic and martyr and illustrious men, as much in sanctity as in eloquence, whom it is very easy to know from their own writings." Nor does he say that they wrote only against Theodotus, but against Ebion (for most manuscripts, and among them two Cambridge ones, are silent about Valentinus) no less than against Theodotus; nor should he be thought to have looked so much at their persons as at the sentiment, for they agreed in the same; nor, finally, is it true that Theodotus could have been known to no apostolic man. For how long before Victor did he ^D divulge his own heresy? It is not known: but after he was excommunicated by Victor, he could have been known to apostolic men; for those were called apostolic who were imbued with apostolic doctrine, even those who were born in the age immediately after the apostles. He could certainly have been known to Irenaeus—nay, he could not have been unknown to him, who flourished most under Victor and died after Victor, and yet was called an apostolic man by the Holy Fathers, and indeed by Jerome himself. For thus he says, at Isa. ch. 64: "Concerning whom the apostolic man Irenaeus, bishop of Lugdunum, and martyr, writes most diligently."

In chapter 11 he proceeds to the second order of heretics, and asserts that our Ignatius also touched upon other heretics who arose even after the death of the true Ignatius, though they were not named. I answer first that Ignatius wrote in general (which Eusebius very truly observes) against the heresies rampant in his time, and that he appropriately warned and armed beforehand all the churches to which he wrote his epistles as he neared martyrdom. But the same heresies, which arose in his age in Syria or bordering churches, sprang up again under other names in the same or other regions of the world, in the following centuries. Therefore, those things which were written by Ignatius against the heterodidaskaloi of his time could have been most appropriate for refuting the opinion of some heretic who was born long after the martyr's passion; not because the author of the epistles knew the later heretic himself, but because he condemned the same error in the former that the later man followed. With this single observation premised, the particular objections are easily refuted.

He wishes for the apostolic Ignatius to have regarded two dogmas of Saturninus, one concerning marriage, the other concerning the putative Jesus, and therefore to have lived after they were published by Saturninus, and so [to have reasoned that] Ignatius cannot be the martyr. But Saturninus's dogma on marriage is not in the genuine epistles; it is taken from the additions which we reject. The other, concerning the putative Jesus, was not first produced by Saturninus. Even if, therefore, the author of the epistles wrote against this heresy, which Saturninus defended, it does not follow from this that he knew Saturninus, or wrote against him, or [lived] after him; because the heresy of the Menandrians was the same, most of whom were older than Saturninus. Nay, Saturninus himself drew from Menander. Irenaeus, book 1, ch. 22: "Saturninus indeed in the same way as Menander, etc." Epiphanius says clearly: "After him arose a certain Satornilus, and he himself [drew] from there the premises, I say from Menander, and from the former." Moreover, the Menandrians and Simonians all taught that Christ was a man putatively, and that he suffered putatively; specifically, having been taught by Simon, who said to the Jews that he himself was the Son, *παθόντα δὲ μὴ πεπονθέναι, ἀλλὰ δοκήσει μόνον*, "having suffered but not having suffered, but only in appearance," as the same Epiphanius relates. But Menander seduced many at Antioch, as Justin Martyr testifies, whom our Ignatius could not have been ignorant of. Nay, he was himself from Antioch.

Saturninus, as Irenaeus testifies, concerning the age of whom we shall discourse more fully when the occasion arises.

He next brings forward two passages from the Epistle to the Philippians, clearly, as he says, striking at Praxeas, in addition to those he had adduced before: but these also were from the same epistle, or from that to the Tarsians. We, however, defend neither, but profess both to be most clearly spurious.

He finally brings forward Theodotus the Tanner again, as if the author of the epistles had even known him, a fact which has been refuted in the Usserian edition regarding his blasphemy. And, indeed, I concede that the Usserian Ignatius ^A refuted the blasphemy which Theodotus defends; but I strongly deny that he knew Theodotus. Dallaeus himself puts this forward hesitatingly: "If it is true," he says, "what Caius, or some other most ancient writer among Eusebius, says—namely, that Theodotus was the first to assert that Christ was a mere man; for he knows full well that these things, if strictly taken, are not true; he knows that many others long before Theodotus, and not a few even before Ignatius, had promulgated the same heresy, whose catalogue is read in Epiphanius. But he calls that writer most ancient; we shall therefore grant him his contemporary Tertullian: 'Cerinthus contends that Christ was only a man without divinity.' And again: 'This opinion may fit Ebion, who constitutes Jesus as a mere man.'" He says these things in his book *On the Flesh of Christ*. We shall grant him Irenaeus, who is more ancient than Caius, who in Book I, chap. 25, says this about Cerinthus: "He did not subject Jesus to be born of a Virgin (for this seemed impossible to him), but that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, in the same way as all other men." The same author in the following chapter: "But those who are called Ebionites indeed agree that the world was made by God; but regarding those things which pertain to the Lord, they do not opine [I read *consimiliter*] as Cerinthus and Carpocrates." And lest we appear to lean too much on our own emendation, the same, lib. IV, c. 58: *Ἀνακρίνει δὲ καὶ τοὺς Ἐβιωναίους, Πῶς δύνανται σωθῆναι, εἰ μὴ ὁ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ τὴν σωτηρίαν αὐτῶν ἐπὶ γῆς ἐργασάμενος; ἢ πῶς ἄνθρωπος χωρήσει εἰς Θεὸν, εἰ μὴ ὁ Θεὸς ἐχωρήθη εἰς ἄνθρωπον;* The ancient translator: "Yet he will judge also the Ebionites; how can they be saved, unless it is God who has worked out their salvation upon the earth? And how shall man pass into God, if God has not passed into man?" But not only did Ebion live long before the martyrdom of Ignatius, but also Cerinthus, who was known to St. John. But if the interpolator, wishing to clarify and expand upon those things which were written against the Ebionites and the disciples of Cerinthus, considered them to be referred to Theodotus who resurrected the same heresy; did he therefore think that Theodotus was known to the first writer of the epistles? That does not follow at all; for he himself inserted many things which he could by no means refer to the age of the first writer. But if that mere trifler so thought, it is nothing to us; for it is enough for defending the antiquity of the first writer and for [vindicating] that which he had first written, to directly strike at the heresy of Ebion and Cerinthus and others older than himself, or to disseminate the same more freely in his own age, after the death of all the apostles.

CHAPTER III.

These things are indeed lighter, and seem so, I think, to all; but a greater difficulty arises for us in chapter 12 from a passage which they clearly wish to refer to Valentinus, and to violate the time of the authors; regarding which Salmasius and Blondellus had labored before Dallaeus. It exists indeed in the Epistle to the Magnesians, and is conceived in the Medicean codex in this way: *Εἷς Θεός ἐστιν ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος, οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών*. The Usserian translator: "There is one God, who manifested himself through Jesus Christ his Son, who is his eternal Word, not proceeding from silence." ^B But the paraphrase of the interpolator is as follows: *Εἷς Θεός ἐστιν ὁ παντοκράτωρ, ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος οὐ ῥητὸς, ἀλλ᾽ οὐσιώδης· οὐ γάρ ἐστι λαλιᾶς ἐνάρθρου φώνημα, ἀλλ᾽ ἐνεργείας ^C θεϊκῆς οὐσία γεννητή*. The common translator: "There is one God omnipotent, who manifested himself through Jesus Christ his Son, who is his Word, not prolative, that is, but substantial; not a locution of articulated voice, but an operation of Deity, substantial, that is, begotten."

The most learned man wished to say what he judges of these words before he undertook to explain and defend the argument itself; but for his judgment he brought forth a most empty conjecture. "No one," he says, "will think that such a difference between the Ignatian codices occurred by chance": no one, doubtlessly. Is anyone so dull-witted as to think that from the negligence or simple error of copyists writing one letter or word for another, two whole lines ^D were born from three words? Is anyone so foolish as to think, in these epistles especially, in which the interpolator inserted not only some sentences, but sometimes whole pages, when he might have noticed some remarkable difference, that it was caused by the negligence or error of copyists? To what end, I ask, this caution? "Indeed, if this did not happen by chance, no one will deny that this speech of the writer was changed by the interpolator consulto, and for some reason." Nay, although it may not have happened by chance, it does not follow that it was done consulto in such a way that some particular reason drove the interpolator to change these words in particular: the very general method of paraphrastically interpolating and explaining everything, as elsewhere, even...

^A when it was sufficient. Among all the interpolations, none happened by chance; but he who would render some particular reason for each one would truly be a great Apollo. That impostor changes everything at his own whim: sometimes he omits more obscure phrases entirely, sometimes he expresses them with other, clearer ones; sometimes he restates very plain things in another way, sometimes he inserts passages of Scripture, sometimes he stuffs in the customs of his own time, sometimes he substitutes for Ignatius his own, lengthier [Gk] phrases [/Gk]; so, eager to illustrate and amplify all things Ignatian, he made them his own. In this very Epistle to the Magnesians, he indulged his own caprice so greatly that you would scarcely find three or four verses in which he has not changed anything, so that it is not to be wondered at if any causes for these changes, especially subtle ones, are sought altogether in vain. For [Gk] θεοπρεπεστάτου [/Gk] he writes [Gk] θείου καὶ ποθεινοῦ [/Gk], although he has retained that word elsewhere; for [Gk] διαφυγόντες Θεοῦ τευξόμεθα [/Gk] he has only [Gk] διαφεύξεσθε [/Gk]; for [Gk] συγχρᾶσθαι [/Gk], [Gk] καταφρονεῖν [/Gk]; for [Gk] κατὰ δύναμιν [/Gk], [Gk] μετὰ γνώμην [/Gk]... for "not to flesh is the Word, but to God," he writes: "not to man, but to God he has the reference"; for "without any hypocrisy," "against no one to gainsay"; for "each to his own place," "each of those called to the place of him who was found"; finally, he so interpolated the whole passage about the two coins that not even two of Ignatius's words are found together in him. What reason can be rendered for these and very many others of the same stamp, except that that buffoon thought he could write better than Ignatius had written?

But why the interpolator should have thought these things most of all ought to be changed—the reason is not obscure to a most learned man. "For it is the truth that these, if they were read, would betray the epistles as being not Ignatius's, but of some other more recent author." O the splendid genius of the interpolator! O the sharp nose! O the keen judgment! What Origen, what Eusebius, what Dionysius and the buffoon himself, what Athanasius, Jerome, Theodoret, Gelasius could not see, he immediately scented—that these epistles, forsooth, could not be the work of Ignatius the martyr, that they were forged by some more recent impostor, and that they needed his own aid in order to be held as truly Ignatian. But how is he thought to have detected these things? "He saw that this emanation of the Word, from Sige, forsooth, smelled of Valentinus, who is more recent than Ignatius; therefore he thought it ought to be deleted, lest it should betray the drama of the personated Ignatius." These things surely argue a cunning man, and one improperly prudent; but one must by all means see whether they fit the interpolator. For why? Did he take care lest anything be found in that Epistle which seemed to smack of the age of Valentinus, he who mutated almost all the epistles so that they would speak after the manner and custom of his own time, and smack of the three centuries after Valentinus? Or did he fear lest he should betray the age of the epistolary Ignatius, who represents him writing thus to the Philadelphians: "Presbyters, deacons, and the rest of the clergy, together with the whole people, the soldiers, the magistrates, and the Emperor, let them obey the bishop himself," which things were not written before the Roman Emperors ^B were made Christians? Did Turrianus and Leibius, Vedelius, Ussher, and Daillé see this? Was he afraid that some oblique words, peradventure pointing to Valentinus according to his opinion, would render all of Ignatius's epistles suspect; he who thought the name of Theodotus should be expressed in the Epistle to the Trallians, whom everyone knows to have lived so long after Valentinus? Let those words be recalled which Daillé himself wrote a little before, near the end of the previous chapter, according to his own opinion. That these and other things were said as if against Theodotus, the interpolator of the epistles himself is acknowledged to have accepted, in that, eager as is his custom to illustrate and amplify this passage to the Trallians: "Flee the evil offshoots that produce deadly fruit," and therefore adding here the names of the heretics themselves whom he thought to have been noted and refuted in the epistles he was interpolating, he expressly published Theodotus among them. Therefore, the interpolator, if he had thought that these things pointed to Valentinus, would not have deleted them lest they should betray the author, but, according to his custom, even in the judgment of Daillé himself, would have published the name of Valentinus. For who, in the name of the heretics whom he thought to have been noted in the epistles he was interpolating, had wished to add—why would he insert Theodotus and omit Valentinus, when Theodotus was much junior to Valentinus, and would much more manifestly betray the age of the writer? But he is not to be thought to have considered any such thing; nor are reasons to be excogitated, nor is the providence of God, I know not why, to be summoned hither; according to his custom, the interpolator, eager to illustrate and amplify everything, changed these things; just as in this very epistle, a little before, for these words: [Gk] Ὃς πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ Πατρὶ ἦν, καὶ ἐν τέλει ἐφάνη, [/Gk]: "Who before the ages was with the Father, and in the end appeared," he paragraphed this substitution: [Gk] Ὃς πρὸ αἰώνων παρὰ τῷ Πατρὶ γεννηθείς, ἦν Λόγος Θεός, μονογενὴς Υἱός· καὶ ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων ὁ αὐτὸς διαμένει. Τῆς γὰρ βασιλείας αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔστι τέλος, φησὶ Δανιὴλ ὁ προφήτης. [/Gk]: "Who before the ages was begotten by the Father, [who] was the Word [and] God, the only-begotten Son: and in the consummation of the ages the same remains. For of his kingdom there shall be no end, says Daniel the prophet." As, therefore, in these there is no diversity of reading in the former, nor yet any manifest cause for change, but the former are the words of the author, the later of the paraphrast—who, according to his custom, judged that he could hand down more lengthily, more explicitly, and more ornately what was briefly said by the martyr—we do not admit Ignatius, but we reject the interpolator entirely, whether he was an Arian or not, and we pronounce this conjecture to be likewise most empty. ^C He also uses other conjectures introductory to this argument, and they are no better. For he wishes Petavius to have agreed with him that there is something new in Ussher’s edition which argues the author to be more recent than Ignatius; and [he claims] this is evident from his evasion by which he attempted to wrest those words about Sige from the sense of Valentinus. And does he count such men as witnesses for himself? Those who agree with him from such an argument, and he makes them his own from ours! If Petavius truly thought the same as Daillé, ^D as he suspects, and Sige of the Valentinians...

he approved in spirit, but denied in words; he is certainly the one whom he associates with himself, whom elsewhere he asserts «spoke truly and generously concerning the Ignatian [epistles], whom, after he saw the Vossian and Usserian edition of Ignatius, he says he immediately noticed and professed, for his singular learning and for his certain solemn generosity, to be genuine,» and [he would have to be] both a liar and a deceiver, and by no means generous or truthful as he would have needed to be. If there is any faith in a man, in this case our [ally] is Petavius; if none, then [the faith must be] in those others. But I do not believe at all that the honesty of Petavius should be doubted. If he thought the epistles of the Medicean codex were no less forged than the common ones, why did he thereafter always reject these, admit those, and often use their authority? Why did he show himself honest in rejecting the ones, and a liar in receiving the others? Certainly that which Daillé—a most distinguished man—calls a wondrous evasion, does not convict him of such base tergiversation. For I also think that the sense of Petavius concerning the simple silence is true; and although the words of the author might be referred to the Sige of the heretics, as others wish, there is nothing new therein in the epistles, nothing which argues that the author was younger than Ignatius, as I feel with our own, and I trust that I will demonstrate this most firmly. ^A

Nor does he yet approach the argument itself before he notes that which shows his own argument to be superfluous and of no use. For he observes «that these words of the epistle are so apt and apposite to the dogma of Valentinus, that, even if the mind of the author had looked elsewhere while he was writing them, it could not have happened but that Irenaeus, if he had known them, would have seized upon them, and used them somewhere against the phantom exposed by him of Valentinus.» But it is evident that Irenaeus never mentioned them. Not so did Salmasius argue, nor Albertinus, who voluntarily confessed that these epistles had been written before the books of Irenaeus, nor even dreamed that they were unknown to Irenaeus. They know enough, and we have abundantly proven, that one must not think in any way that Irenaeus, if he had known these words perfectly, if he had had them at hand when he was writing, would have wished to use them against Valentinus. Therefore, when the most learned man concludes thence: «Therefore, from wherever these words were taken, and whatever their meaning may otherwise be, they nevertheless provide for us an evident argument for demonstrating the novelty and supposition of these epistles:» he demands that which is most unfair. Is it then truly so, that whatever the meaning of these words may be, whether the author looked to Valentinus or not, the argument for the novelty of the epistles will be equally evident, and that in the sense of Daillé? In our sense it may perhaps be equally evident, that is to say, in no way evident. We can perhaps rightly assert that, whether the author looked to the heresy of Valentinus or not, it is the same; for neither in any way avails to overthrow the antiquity of the epistles, as far as we know. But as for him, who contends that these words were written against Valentinus, who therefore asserts that they could not have been written by Ignatius because Valentinus was younger than Ignatius, who produces the argument itself ^B to prove that [the author] exposed a heretical dogma that arose after the death of Ignatius: that he, I say, should write that it is the same whether the author looked to Valentinus or not, seems to me indeed wondrous. No one would have ever said this, who thought that he could validly prove both that the author looked to Valentinus and that Ignatius the martyr, because of his age, could not have written against Valentinus. Whence I conclude that this most learned man greatly distrusts this argument, whether it be Salmasian or Blondellian, and relies most of all on his own negative. But this fluctuation destroys both at once. For if the author did not look to Valentinus, but had something else clearly in mind, and intended nothing but simple silence, the internal argument, derived from the epistle itself, perishes; and if the author intended only this, certainly Irenaeus could have truly understood him; but if he understood it thus, he would never have wished to urge the words of Ignatius against his own mind in opposition to Valentinus, and so the external argument drawn from the lack of testimony falls. Nor is it proven any more that this epistle did not exist in the age of Irenaeus, from the fact that Irenaeus did not cite these words against Valentinus, than that it was not in the hands of men in the fourth century, because Eusebius, Athanasius, and Basil did not cite those words against Marcellus—words which were most opportune for refuting his heresy, ^C «who is his eternal Word.» For Marcellus taught that Christ was a simple Word, and by no means eternal, as the Eastern bishops asserted: indeed, he asserted that sometimes the Word did not exist, and does not exist even now. Thus St. Basil explains his opinion in epistle 52: «He grants that the Only-Begotten is called the Word, [proceeding] according to necessity and for a time, and again returning to whence he went out, neither existing before the departure, nor subsisting after the return.» Who indeed concedes that the only-begotten is called the Word, proceeding according to usage and in time, but again returning to him from whom he went out, neither existing before the exit, nor subsisting after the return. Nay, indeed, Marcellus himself expresses himself in Eusebius, as if before the entire production of things there was «a certain silence, the Word existing in God, but when the world was to be created, then the Word proceeding became the creator of the world.» Where I note in passing that the words which follow in Eusebius, «which he also previously called inwardly in an intellectual sense,» require a double amendment, and should be read first: «which also previously inwardly and intellectually preparing him» (as they are read in the book *De eccl. theolog.* c. 8, and lib. III, c. 3), and should be translated in this manner: «who also before inwardly and intellectually prepared him.» What is more apt for refuting these views of Marcellus than that saying of Ignatius, «who proceeded not from silence»? Which nevertheless those ancients, ^D Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, to whom our Ignatius...

was so well known, did not turn against him. And indeed Eusebius compares this opinion of Marcellus with that ancient one of the Gnostics, nor yet does he object against Marcellus that Ignatian one which he himself knew full well. For he speaks thus in book II, c. 19: “But the things which Marcellus dared to posit, speaking of God as being from long ago, and depicting a certain silence together with God as characterizing Him, according to that very leader of the godless heretics, he who, dogmatizing godless things, declared saying, ‘There was God and Silence,’ and after the silence and the quiet, the Word of God proceeded in the beginning of the creation of the world by an active operation.” But the things that Marcellus dared to suppose, saying that God existed previously, and describing a certain quiet together with God (according to that very leader of the impious heretics, who, dogmatizing impious things, defined it saying, *There was God and silence*), but that after silence and quiet the Word of God proceeded at the beginning of the creation of the world by an effective operation. ^A Since, therefore, Eusebius has censured Marcellus, because he said that the Word proceeded after silence, and at the same time has also observed that these things were drawn from the Gnostics, among whom there were first God and silence; since the same person also certainly knows these things which we now read in Ignatius, and yet has not used them in a sufficiently opportune place against the heresy of Marcellus, who does not see that it is asserted without any foundation that the Ignatian writings did not exist in the age of Irenaeus, because he did not use them against the phantasies of Valentinus? Wherefore, having dissipated the light skirmish of the preceding conjectures, I approach the argument itself drawn from Valentinus; and that I may show that it contains no force for weakening the authority of Ignatius, nor even any appearance or probability, I shall complete the whole matter in four propositions, by which I shall both lucidly set forth the truth and most manifestly encounter all the objections of the adversaries. I assert, therefore, first, that it is most clearly evident that the author of the epistle to the Magnesians looked to no other heresy by the words brought forward from it than that which was most known in the age of Ignatius, namely that of the Ebionites and Nazarenes. But since the adversaries contend so assertively that these words of the epistle look to the fiction of Valentinus, and strike his peculiar delirium ^B in actual fact: I assert, secondly, that the words themselves, as they are brought forward by the author of the epistle, do not look to Valentinus at all, nor can they be applied to explain and refute his heresy without a violent distortion. If, however, anyone still wishes to believe that these words could have looked to the dogma of Valentinus, lest this unrighteous conjecture should seem to have any weight against the antiquity of the epistle: I assert, thirdly, that that very heresy, in so far as it is thought to be struck by these words, was more ancient than Valentinus, and was most certainly derived from the more ancient Gnostics who were contemporary with Ignatius himself. But if anyone even still wishes to maintain more stubbornly that the author of the epistle looked to Valentinus himself with these words, and should concede that silence was known to prior heretics after so many open testimonies of the ancients: not even thus ^C will the matter be concluded according to the opinion of the adversaries: I assert, fourthly, that it can be proven by no argument sufficiently firm that the peculiar errors of Valentinus himself were altogether unknown to the martyr Ignatius.

CHAPTER IV

But that which I thought should be asserted in the first place, that the author of the epistle to the Magnesians looked to the heresy of the Ebionites, and none other, by the words brought forward from it, is most lucidly proved. For two conjunctive particles, one inserted at the beginning of this sentence, the other at the beginning of the one following, show sufficiently manifestly to what the whole sentence should be referred, and at what the author of the epistle was aiming when he wrote it. The particle *yap* [for] shows that this very sentence contains the reason for the former; and the particle *oun* [therefore] of the following one shows that it ought to follow from this. But both the preceding sentence and the following ones strike the Ebionite clearly; therefore both this which explains the reason for the former, and that which provides the occasion for the succeeding ones. The preceding one is this: «For if even now we live according to Judaism, we confess that we have not received grace.» Concerning the Ebionites, Irenaeus lib. I, c. 26: «They are circumcised and persevere in these customs which are according to the law, and use the Judaic character.» All who follow Irenaeus testify to the same thing: the preceding sentence, therefore, strikes the Ebionite clearly. But the things which follow: «If therefore those who were conversant in ancient things have come to the newness of hope,» and the rest, tend plainly to the same end, that those who embrace Christianity should recede from Judaism, indeed: all of which directly militate against the Ebionite and his followers. This very sentence begins from an argument which the ancients were accustomed to use against the Ebionites ^D and similar heretics: «For the most divine prophets lived according to Christ Jesus.» And to demonstrate that they had done this, inspired by the grace of Christ, he says that they manifested themselves through his Son, «who is his eternal Word,» against that same Ebionite, who asserted that he was a naked man, [and] denied [he was] the eternal [Word]. For not only those who preached Christ as from a man and a woman, but even those who acknowledged him as born of a Virgin, «not, however, in the same way do these also confess him to be the preexisting God, being Word and Wisdom,» that they did not confess him to have preexisted as God the Word and Wisdom, as Eusebius testifies, lib. III, c. 27. Thus, all things most fittingly concur for the refutation of the heresy of Ebion.

^A And Dallaeus himself brings forward those words, öς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος, as being most eloquent against Artemon and Theodotus, who embraced the heresy of Ebion. As to the simple interpretation of their words, οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών, I well know what Dallaeus thought, from those things which he argued against Petavius. For that Jesuit of most acute intellect followed this sense, which is not a little more convenient and easier. Ignatius, he says, asserts that the Word, or discourse, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not such as is a created and human word, which begins in time and ends in time; for it is not eternal. Ignatius intended this one thing, and nothing else. However, Dallaeus calls this explanation of Petavius a cold and empty quibble. In it, I see nothing cold, nothing empty, nor even anything quibbling; rather, all things seem plain, perspicuous, appropriate, and most conformable to the common speech of the Greeks. But first, he says, "how cold it is to admonish the Magnesians that the Son of God is his word, yet not of such a kind that it proceeded after silence." Now Dallaeus plays the critic, but unhappily. For what if this is cold, does it follow therefore that it cannot be Ignatian? Is it necessary that the most holy martyr should have written better than the famous orators among the Greeks, on whose orations the ancient critics noted many frigid remarks? Concerning Isocrates, a supreme man, Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarks: Σχηματίζει δὲ φορτικῶς, καὶ τὰ πολλὰ γίνεται ψυχρός. Indeed, he observes that the imitators of Isocrates are cold, among whom he names Timaeus, Plato, and Sosigenes. Longinus mentions Timaeus and likewise Plato, to whom he also joins Xenophon. It does not, therefore, diminish the authority of the martyr if he perchance said something coldly; long before him, the greatest men in Greece were noted for having written many things coldly. But I do not yet see why this expression is considered so cold: "For indeed," he says, "as if there were anyone so foolish, that when he hears that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, he could think the same to have arisen from silence?" Shrewdly put, indeed; for he omits that which is principal in this matter, to wit, the Word or discourse. Although he is called the Son of God, while yet he is called the same Word or discourse, such a concept is easily formed in the mind of the hearers, or rather an objection is formed. It is indeed true that Ignatius, while he wishes to show Christ to be the eternal Word, rightly calls him also the Son: for this is not cold, but necessary. Thus judged the great Athanasius, the best interpreter of his Ignatius, in the book *De Synodis*: "ἵνα μὴ πάλιν τις ἀκούων μόνον λόγον νομίσῃ τοιοῦτον εἶναι οἷός ἐστιν ὁ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀνυπόστατος, ἀλλ' ἀκούων ὅτι Υἱός ἐστι γινώσκῃ τοῦτον εἶναι ζῶντα Λόγον καὶ ἐνούσιον σοφίαν." "Lest anyone, hearing only 'Word,' might think him to be such as is human speech, unsubstantial, but hearing that he is the Son, might know him to be the living Word and substantial Wisdom." And that no one, hearing "discourse," might think him to be such as that of men, lacking subsistence, but hearing that he is the Son, might know this to be the living discourse and substantial wisdom. ^B nor can they look to anything else, unless we bring to bear the force manifest in the words.

When he had already called Christ the eternal Word, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος, he briefly explains this in the words, οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών, "The Word, I say, eternal, not proceeding from silence," as is every word or discourse which is not eternal. For this addition is nothing other than an exegesis or explanation of the eternity of the Word, and that clearly natural and obvious, and, without any regard to any other special heresy, most proper, rendering the true notion of the eternal Word, and rightly distinguishing it from another word that is not eternal. This is the common concept of all men regarding a word, such that it respects silence. Thus, with Virgil, Juno¹⁸: ...Quid me alta silentia cogis Rumpere, et obductum verbis vulgare dolorem? Where Servius says, "To break silences, however, is properly said of speaking." From silence, therefore, a word exits, or bursts forth. To this "breaking of silence," the contrary among the Greeks is τὸ ἐχεμυθεῖν. Hesychius: Ἐχέμυθος, ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸν λόγον, ἤτοι κρατῶν τὸν λόγον σιωπῇ. And again: Ἐχεμυθεῖν, σιωπᾷν, λόγους στέγειν. Whence, by Ammonius, it is called σιγὴ στέρξις λόγου, where I think it should rather be read στέξις, for the Greeks say στέγειν the word in that sense, not στέρξιν, as I opine. Hence, the antithesis of silence and the Word is familiar to all, as Gregory Nazianzen in poem 12 to the bishops: θύσω καὶ σιγὴν, ὡς τοπάροιθε λόγον. And oration 14: Οἱ τοῦ λόγου τοσαύτης ἐσμὲν σιγῆς μέτοχοι. Since, therefore, we are accustomed to conceive of a word or discourse taken commonly in such a way that silence always precedes it; but the author of the epistle had already said that the Word, which is Christ, is eternal; and that cannot be eternal which is preceded by something else: rightly and opportunely, when he calls Christ the Word, he admonishes that it should not be understood as of such a kind as would proceed from silence. But silence, whether it be called σιγή or σιωπή, is the same. As Clement of Alexandria, *Admonition to the Gentiles*: Τοῦτο ἦν ὁ ᾐνίττετο ἡ Ζαχαρίου σιωπὴ ἀναμένουσα τὸν πρόδρομον τοῦ Χριστοῦ καρπὸν, ἵνα τῆς ἀληθείας τὸ φῶς ὁ Λόγος τῶν προφητικῶν αἰνιγμάτων τὴν μυστικὴν ἀπολύσηται σιωπὴν Εὐαγγέλιον γενόμενος. "This was what the silence of Zacharias indicated, awaiting the fruit, the forerunner of Christ, so that the Word, the light of truth, might dissolve the mystic silence of the prophetic enigmas, having become the Gospel." ^D The Word is therefore commonly looked upon as the σιγῆς or σιωπῆς ἀπόλυσις—the solution, that is, of the preceding silence. Rightly, therefore, our Ignatius admonishes that Christ, when he is called the Word, is nonetheless eternal, and therefore is not such as breaks forth from a preceding silence. This is the reason for our assertion, briefly explained.

What the learned men think regarding those things which we have said about the heresy of Ebion, I do not know; for as I opine, these things have not yet been said by anyone; to me, however, it is enough

^A to say this, etc. Maximus of Turin: "Lest you think that the Word himself is not the substance of truth, but a prolative speech of God, he is called the Son." And yet there have been many, and those not foolish, who believed in Christ and the Son of God, and in the Word, and yet did not believe in an eternal Word, and thus believed that it proceeded from silence; whence Tertullian denied that God was endowed with speech from the beginning, and that he first silently thought and disposed within himself things which he was about to speak through a word, and Origen in his commentary on John teaches that many existed in his own age, who, as if it were a self-evident thing, admitted that the Son of God was called the Word, ^B thinking that the paternal prolative utterance was, as it were, the Son of God lying in syllables, and attributing to him no substance or subsistence. If, as often as the notion of the Word is thus handed down and explained, it is at the same time freed from such conceptions, the language is frigid; certainly all the writings of the Holy Fathers are frigid, all the expositions of the theologians are frigid. For all are solicitously careful that, when Christ is called the Word, we do not conceive in our mind such a word as is wont to proceed from the human mouth, or that is in any way not eternal. Clement of Alexandria, *Strom.* v: "For the Word of the Father of all is not this prolative [word], but is the most manifest wisdom and goodness of God." Eusebius, *De eccles. theolog.*, lib. 1, c. 20, notes that John said ^C *God was the Word*, and not *divine*, lest anyone should say he is similar to that which is among men, and elsewhere he notes that God has not "a sensible word uttered by the tongue and proclaimed to mortals by prolative utterance." St. Cyril of Jerusalem, as if he were acting as a paraphrast to Ignatius, as he does elsewhere, *catech.* 4: "Believe that there is one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word before all ages; a Word not prolative, dispersed into the air, nor assimilated to unsubstantial words." The most serious writer Gregory of Nyssen: "By what word and by what spirit? For neither is the Word a speech, nor is the Spirit a breath." Novatian, *lib. De Trinitate*: "The Word is the born Son who is not received in the sound of struck air, or in the tone of a voice constricted from the vitals, but is recognized ^D as being in the substance of a virtue produced by God." St. Hilary, *De Trin.*, l. vii: "The only-begotten God is the Word; but the unbegotten Father is never entirely without the Word. Not that the prolation of a voice is a nature of the Son, but [he is] God subsisting from God with the truth of generation." Vigilius Tapsensis when, to those words of the Psalm: "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established," he had asserted that the Word in that place is the Son of the Father, he immediately added: "Where he says: By the Word of the Lord, do not take it to be the sound of a voice lacking substance, which, if someone sent from the mountains, an echo is wont to resound."

This distinction between the divine Word and human [speech] was pursued by St. Augustine, whose passage from his sermon *De Nativitate Domini* Petavius adduced as being most accommodated to this matter, and completely conspiring with the explanation of the Ignatian passage. ^A "What is that generation, by which In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word?" or what is this Word, which was not silent before it was about to speak; by which speaking, he who was speaking did not fall silent? What is the Word without time, through which times were made? The Word which opened the lips of no one as a beginning, nor closed them as an end?" To this I join a twin passage of the Blessed Fulgentius, to Trasimundus lib. iii, c. 18: "The Word was an infant according to the flesh, and had not the faculty of speaking: but the same Word could never be restrained by any silence, because he himself is the eternal utterance of the Father." Both, however, clearly explain the eternity of the Word of God, and distinguish him from human speech, which on neither side is eternal, as it begins from silence and ends in silence. What does the most learned man say to these things? ^B First, he flies at St. Augustine, who alone is praised by Petavius, and chides him most bitterly because he "catches at subtleties, and is almost entirely involved in them, nor is it a wonder that he trifled with something of this kind." It would be fairer to bear this in St. Augustine, because he is not accustomed to treat the other Fathers any more mildly. But whatever kind of writer Augustine may seem to him, he certainly did what Ignatius the epistolary writer did before him: he distinguished the divine Word from human [speech], as not similarly beginning from silence; nor in that notion, as it is expressed by Ignatius, is there anything subtle. He responds secondly: "Augustine does not say that which ours [Ignatius] does." This is indeed a wonder: for clearly he says the same. Ours [Ignatius]: "The Word which does not proceed from silence;" he [Augustine]: "What is this Word, which was not silent before it was about to speak?" What could be said more similar? ^C He speaks of the same Word, and asserts the same of the same. "But St. Augustine considers the Word alone and apart, severed from the notion of person;" therefore he does not say what Ignatius does. A wonderful evasion this, and openly false. Augustine speaks no less of the Word taken personally than Ignatius. For thus he begins: "What is that generation, by which in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word?" He speaks of the eternal generation of the Son, who is certainly a Person; he speaks of the Word, which was in the beginning, which was with God, which was God; which certainly is a Person: he speaks of the Word without time, that is eternal, through which times were made; which without doubt is a Person; he speaks entirely of that Word which St. John described in the beginning of his Gospel, which no Catholic denies to be a person. And Augustine therefore and Fulgentius spoke in exactly the same way in which we contend that Ignatius spoke. ^D We have spoken of the cold and the subtle; now we must speak of the empty. "For it is a superfluous sense," he says, "which Petavius attaches to these words. For he had sufficiently denied it to be a man's word, in that he had said it to be God's Word. But when he had said it was God's Word, he had not sufficiently denied that which Petavius later asserts he is denying, namely, that that Word of God is of such a kind, that is, as is a created and human speech." Another

^B objection is raised: "But he had already stated it quite clearly enough when he had called the word of God eternal." Certainly, if anyone wishes to examine the writings of the ancients by these standards, he will make everyone into a Stammerer. Do not all men sometimes explain themselves, and often say the same thing in different words? Do they not often meet objections that can or usually do arise, and, in order to do so, present the same thought in other words? Very many pleonasms in the Old and New Testament, through synonymous, opposed, and negative expressions, have been observed by learned men; yet these are not thought to be frigid or superfluous, but emphatic.

But finally, the wording of the epistle itself is, to the sense of Petavius, inept, discordant, and unusual. This is a strange objection from Daillé, who says elsewhere that all the epistles of this author contain such expressions—inept, discordant, and unusual. But if you admit that our author intended to signify the Valentinian Silence (Sigē), the whole discourse will be clear, serious, necessary, and even plain and legitimate; that is, on Daillé’s own admission, very unlike the Ignatian style. Therefore, in order for the author to be consistent with himself, for this discourse to harmonize with the rest, and for this expression not to conflict with the others, we cannot explain it in terms of the heresy of Valentinus. It would have been better for Daillé to say: "Petavius's exposition makes everything clear and plain, while Salmasius's makes everything muddled and discordant, and is more accommodated to the style and genius of this author; and for that very reason, the Salmasian exposition is to be preferred to the Petavian." And I do not say this in jest, but seriously and from the heart; for I do not doubt that I shall soon show that the exposition which invokes the Valentinian Silence here is clearly discordant, and that that discourse, "the Word not having proceeded from Silence," taken in that sense, is neither clear, nor legitimate, nor familiar to the Gnostics, nor to our own.

Now, as to his carving out the meaning he wants from the words themselves, he observes that both the Gnostics, regarding the emissions of their Aeons, and our own, regarding the emanation of the Son and Holy Spirit, used the word *proelthein* (proceed). Perhaps. But it by no means follows from this that the word cannot be used otherwise, or that it must be taken in that way in this passage. The word that the Valentinians used most in this matter was clearly another, namely *probalesthai* (to project), whence they are so often attacked by the Holy Fathers. Thus Irenaeus, accurately reporting the opinion of the Valentinians in Book 1, Chapter 1, relates that the Abyss (Bythos) is the principle of all things, and that Silence (Sigē) ^C was projected together with him; and that along with this, the Monogenes (Only-Begotten)—that is, Nous (Mind)—perceived this; and he continues: "From the Word and the Life, Man and Church were projected according to a pair (syzygy)." He always uses that word regarding the Aeons. Origen also uses the same word when dealing with the Valentinians in his Commentary on John, Volume III: "But to those who have invented a mythology concerning the Aeons in pairs, and who think that the Word and the Life were projected by Mind and Truth, it is not unreasonable to raise questions about these things as well." And this is the genealogy of the Aeons according to "projection," as Irenaeus puts it. Nor does that Valentinian, whose very words Irenaeus transcribes, speak otherwise: "John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to tell of the generation of the all, according to which the Father projected all things, posits a certain beginning of what was first begotten by God, in which the Father projected all things seminally; and by this, he says, the Word was projected." Indeed, another Valentinian, whose words Epiphanius recites, always uses "to manifest" (*anadeixai*) instead of "to project" (*probalesthai*), and never "to proceed" (*proelthein*). Therefore, although Irenaeus himself, dealing with the production of material things, may use the word *proelthein*, and although he says that the Tetrad came from the Tetrad, the Decad from the Ogdoad, and the Aeons from the Tetrad in relating the opinion of Marcus—describing the differing opinion of Ptolemy, that Nun and Alethia thus proceeded as images of the affections of the Father’s Will and Thought—and although that word is also found in the *Anatolic* writings of Clement of Alexandria; yet, since the Valentinians themselves spoke differently, since Irenaeus—accurately reporting the errors of the Valentinians while he enumerates the generations of the individual Aeons—uses *probalesthai* so constantly, and since the Holy Fathers so often cast "projection" (*probolē*) in the faces of the Valentinians: if the author of the epistle had wished to strike at the Valentinians directly and speak in their manner, he would not have said "having proceeded (*proelthōn*) from Silence," but rather "projected (*problētheis*) from Silence."

Moreover, the fact that he observes that our own writers used the word *proelthein* to signify the emanation of the Son from the Father does not weigh at all; indeed, what he brings forward from our Ignatius weighs even less, since he says that Christ Jesus "preceded from one Father." "One and the same word," he says, "is used in both places, which the ancient Usserian interpreter rendered as *exire* (to go out) in the former, and *progredi* (to proceed/go forward) in the latter." So far, he is correct. Therefore, our author denies that the Son went out from Silence just as he says that he went out from the Father. What kind of sequence, I ask, is this? Does he who says that the Son goes out from the Father, but does not say he "proceeds," and that the Word does not "proceed" from Silence, but does not say he does not "go out"—does he deny that the Son goes out from Silence just as he states he goes out from the Father? By no means. The argument thus derived from the interpretation is entirely futile, indeed, clearly null. But the interpreter could have rendered it as "to go out" in the latter place just as in the former. He could have, indeed; but he could also have rendered it as "to proceed" in the former place just as in the latter, if he were rendering it against the sense of his own mind. But the most faithful interpreter rendered a word of wide significance in the way that he felt it best suited the passage he was interpreting. Therefore, he says the Son

^A goes out from the Father, he denies that he proceeds from silence; nor did he understand an eternal emanation according to the Catholics, nor did he even dream of a Valentinian emission. Sometimes the Greeks use [Gk] in such a way that its force is felt to come from the words placed alongside it. Since, therefore, Christ had said, John viii, 42, Ignatius ought to be thought to have wished to signify the same thing when he writes that which the interpreter translates «going forth from one Father». Certainly, no reason compels one to denote by those words an emanation from the Father ^B. We know what Theodore Beza wrote concerning that passage of John: «Christ speaks, in my own judgment, of the advent into the flesh, not of the eternal generation, to which it would also be improperly attributed.» And the manifest reason is gathered from the words immediately following: «For I have not come of my own accord, but He sent me.» If, however, the apostle has not spoken in that place concerning the eternal generation of the Son, much less did Ignatius, who speaks in this way concerning his advent, so that he even speaks of his return: «One going forth from one Father, and existing in one, and about to return.» So that it expresses that which is in John xvi, 28: «I went forth from the Father, and have come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father.» Neither, therefore, when the author of the epistle says that the Son goes forth from the Father, has he thought of eternal generation; nor, when he denied that the Word proceeds from silence, did he dream of the emission of Valentinus. Certainly, from that single word, nothing of the kind can be explored; for since it is of the widest significance, its proper force must be mined from the other words to which it is joined: we cannot in any way contend that it must be taken in that same ^C sense when it is referred to God the Father concerning the Son, and when it is referred to silence concerning the Word. Especially since we know that that very term is customarily attributed by the Greeks even to a proferential word, which is not capable of substantial or personal generation, as we read in John Philoponus, *De mundi creatione*, book vi, chap. 4: «For it is not right to attribute to God a proferential word which is dissolved at the same time it goes forth.» And Marcellus, in Eusebius, says that Christ is the proferential word ^D of something or directive from God. These are mere logomachies; wherefore at length he seems to tighten a stronger argument. «For these words signify,» he says, «that from which something has gone forth, whether it has been a place, or a cause, or a constitutive principle (as the schools say) of that which has gone forth from it.» Subtle indeed, but an extraordinary disputation. I do not ask what that constitutive principle is, which is not a cause, so that it might occupy the place of the third member here. Certainly, the schools do not speak in this way. I ask that: can it not be used, except regarding something that goes forth from a place or cause? And neither is it a place, nor a cause, nor a constitutive principle. In the generation itself, concerning which our opponents wish to speak, something is said to be made from a privative principle rather than a constitutive one. Thus Aristotle, *Physics*, book 1, chap. 7: «But for something to be made from something, and not *this* to be made *this*, is said rather of those things which do not remain, as for one who is unmusical to become musical, but not from a man; for from privation, which is, in itself, not being, something comes into existence from what does not exist.» Nor, if Petavius thought that that phrase ought to be explained in such a way, that the Word is not of such a kind that it proceeded from silence, or after silence, was he to be so agitated, as if they differed so broadly, when Eusebius most clearly shows in this very matter that these two things are worth the same. For he accuses Marcellus, because he taught that the Word went forth ^A after silence, and because of that opinion he pronounces him addicted to Gnostic heresy. Grammarians note that *ex* is sometimes used for *post* (after), as in Virgil, *ex illo tempore* for *post illud tempus*, and in Cicero, *ex eo die* and *ex consulatu*, and *ex hoc tempore*. Which is also familiar to the Greeks. As for those verses of Homer, *Iliad* E: «From the heat, the ill-blowing wind is stirred.» The old scholiast notes: [Gk] is for [Gk]. And Eustathius: «But the preposition [Gk] is not only taken here for the preposition [Gk], but also elsewhere; for example: *piomen ek botanes*, that is, after the feeding; and, *ek nykton d' anemoi chalepoi*, that is, after the nights.» *Iliad* N: *Piomen ek botanes*. *Ek botanes*, for *meta ten botane kai nomen*. ^B That is, after the grazing, and it is, they say, similar to, *ex aristou paresomai* (I shall be present after breakfast), for *meth' ho aristesome* (after I shall have breakfasted). *Aitheros ek dies*, after the clear condition. *Ek siges* (from silence), *apo siges* (from silence), *apo d' autou thores-sonto*. *Apo d' autou*, from this time, afterwards. And that just as elsewhere the preposition *ek* is taken for *meta*, so here *apo* is taken. *Apodromon met' epanodon*. Therefore, there is nothing more common among the Greeks than that [Gk] should be taken for [Gk] among the Latins, than that [Gk] and [Gk] are taken for *after*. And he who denies that the Word comes forth from silence or after silence, seems to me to deny the speech of all men. We therefore judge that both the mind of the author and the version of the old interpreter ^C are to be staunchly defended; which we sense to be plain, simple, proper, and perspicuous, not cold, or captious, or vain; and we sense it is the only one to correctly express the author's mind, and, regarding the error of the Ebionites, which the author had in mind at the time he was writing, ^D

we contend that it holds the greatest validity for warning them to avoid that heresy. Thus, the first assertion remains unshaken until now: that the author of the Epistle to the Magnesians had regard for no other heresy in the words brought forward from it than that ancient one of the Ebionites, which was described in so many ways in the same epistle; and since this heresy flourished excessively in the age of Ignatius the martyr, what was written against it cannot be seen to strike against the faith of those times.

CHAPTER V.

The first assertion having been established, the second follows, namely, that the words themselves, "not having come forth from Silence," as they are brought forward by the author of the Epistle to the Magnesians, do not pertain to Valentinus at all, nor, without a violent distortion, can they be applied to explain and oppose his heresy. For if the author of the epistle had wished to strike at Valentinus's delirium regarding the emission of the Logos, and had intended to do so in only three words, and those placed negatively, and mentioned only in passing while he was disputing against others and especially against opposite heretics—against whom the same words would apply no less than against Valentinus—it could not possibly be that he would not have expressly denied that very thing which Valentinus had clearly and in as many words asserted. For a negative statement can strike nothing else except an opposite affirmation; so that if one denies what the other never affirmed, his denial does not directly strike Valentinus. These things are so certain that we have Daillé himself admitting it: "I for my part," he says, "answer that it is clearly necessary that the one to whom the writer refers, whoever he may otherwise be, has certainly taught this: that the Logos came forth from Silence." What Ignatius denies is clear from what he affirms; he affirms that the Logos is eternal, against the Ebionites; he denies that he came forth from Silence. If he had intended to mark and refute the delirium of Valentinus, it would certainly be necessary that it was said and asserted by Valentinus that the Logos came forth from Silence. But I deny that Valentinus ever expressly taught this. If you examine all the fragments of the Valentinians, if you unfold all the expositions of their opinion, if you run through one by one the objections of the holy Fathers who have set forth the heresy of Valentinus professedly and at length, you will never find this written either by the heretics themselves, or exposed or objected to by those Fathers.

For first, ^A such a genealogy is not found in those fragments of the Valentinians which still exist, and it is explicitly taught from which Aeon the Logos was emitted, and from which Aeon the Word was emitted. One of these exists in Irenaeus, another in Epiphanius: in the former, the Logos is from Arche, that is, Nous, or Monogenes, and Aletheia; in the latter, he is said to be emitted either from the same, through the mediation of Anthropos and Ecclesia, or from Anthropos and Ecclesia—in neither case from Bythus and Sige. Secondly, the opinion of the Valentinians is set forth at length by Irenaeus in book 1, chapter 4, and principally of Valentinus himself in chapter 5, but nowhere does Irenaeus mention a Logos produced by Sige; nor after him does Tertullian, nor Epiphanius, nor Philastrius, Augustine, or Theodoret, nor anyone of those who have intentionally exposed the delirium of Valentinus. Moreover, that this was never said by the Valentinians is evident from the fact that it could not be said in the school of Valentinus. For according to his doctrine, the Aeon emitted from Sige was contained within the first quaternion, which they called the primordial and authentic tetrad, from which the Logos was excluded. But that Aeon, begotten from Bythus and Sige, by virtue of his generation shared with the supreme Father: he was known to Bythus, but the others were not. Thus Irenaeus: "For they say that the Propatur is known only to the Monogenes who resulted from him, that is, to Nous, but to all the rest he remains invisible and incomprehensible." Nous, therefore, is called Monogenes, or only-begotten, because he alone was born from Bythus and Sige. Whence Tertullian calls that Nous of Valentinus "Monogenes from father Bythus and mother Sige": and although he makes an exception against the name Monogenes, he does so not with respect to the Logos, or any other Aeon after the Logos, but only with respect to Aletheia, who arose from the same parents. Thus he himself says, "He is also called Father and the beginning of all things, and properly Monogenes." And yet not properly, because he is not known alone; for with him truth proceeded as a female. If he is Monogenes because he was the first-born, how much more congruously would he be called Protogenes? With respect to Aletheia, that is, who is after him, but proceeded from the same Bythus and Sige; but with regard to the other Aeons, he is properly ^B Monogenes. And yet this was so proper and peculiar to that Monogenes that the greatest privileges came to him from then on above all other Aeons. Bythus was known to him alone, because he was born from him. The Logos, inasmuch as he was not emitted by him, just as he was not from Sige, did not know the Propatur, precisely because he was not born from him: for which reason he is called the blind Aeon, of the sort that could not be emitted by Sige from Bythus. Irenaeus, book II, chapter 48: "Similarly, however, again concerning the Logos, granting him a third emission from the Father, whence he also ignores his greatness." Tertullian, chapter 9: "But this also is an exception of persons, that he alone, Nous, out of all, enjoys the notion of the immense Father, rejoicing and exulting."

[309] ^A ...while they, indeed, are grieving." He who was emitted from Bythus and Sige was similar and equal to Bythus himself: but not the Logos, who was emitted into a state of diminution. Tertullian, chapter 7: "She receives immediately and becomes pregnant, and brings forth, certainly in silence, Sige; and whom she brings forth is Nous, most similar to the Father and equal in all things." Irenaeus, book 2, chapter 24: "They say that he who is emitted from the Nous of the Progenitor (so I read) of them is the Sermo, emitted into a state of diminution. For they say that the perfect [Aeon] generated by the perfect Bythus could no longer make the emission from him perfect, but he was blinded concerning the recognition and greatness of the Father, and that the Savior showed this symbol of the mystery in him who was born blind." These, therefore, are the most certain dogmas in the school of Valentinus. Nous, because he was emitted from Bythus and Sige, knew Bythus most fully, and was equal and like unto him: but that Bythus and Sige did not wish other Aeons to be generated, and therefore Nous was called the Monogenes. But that other Aeons might be emitted, Nous became also Arche and Father. But the Logus, who was generated from him, is generated into a state of diminution, because he was not emitted from Bythus and Sige, and therefore he is altogether ignorant of Bythus, and is called a blind Aeon. Therefore it is evident that in the school of Valentinus the Logus could not be said to have been emitted from Bythus or Sige.

Blondellus, in order to avoid these things, has woven for us a marvelous genealogy of the Aeons, and expresses the opinion of the Valentinians fashioned in this manner: "Dreaming of a supreme Aeon, Bythus, called by them the Progenitor, who from the complex of Sige had received a dual offspring, Nous or Father, and Aletheia; again, they imagined that Nous or Father, mixed with the mother Sige, had produced the Logos and Zoe." This, therefore, is their genealogy, according to the opinion of Blondellus:

Bythus — Sige | Nus — Veritas | Nus — Sige | Sermo, Vita.

He admits that the Fathers set forth something else; yet he says that he received this from a fragment of a book of the Valentinians, which has been inserted by Epiphanius into his Panarion. This he says in his preface to the Apologia. In his notes, however, on the epistle of Isaac Vossius, he asserts that the book is by Valentinus himself, and according to him the Logos proceeded immediately from Nous and Sige. But first, that book is ascribed to Valentinus himself without any foundation. For Epiphanius, disputing against the Valentinians and reciting a fragment of this book, calls it their book, not his—namely, of some Valentinian, not of Valentinus himself; and at the end of the fragment he adds: "And let these things, being brought forward in part from their books, be said by me thus far," and let these things inserted here from a part of their books be taken as spoken for me so far. Moreover, it is certain that it is falsely assigned to Valentinus himself. For his proper opinion is reported by Irenaeus, which differs much from the delirium of this book; and everyone knows that the disciples of Valentinus often differed both from their [310] master and from themselves. Secondly, the genealogy of the Aeons, which Blondellus represents, is not contained in that fragment at all, but quite another, namely:

Bythus — Sige | Pater | Pater — Sige | Veritas | Pater — Veritas | Homo, Ecclesia | Sermo, Vita.

Blondellus indeed recites certain words from that fragment to confirm his genealogy, but very deceptively: for he omits those things which make most to the point; but our [version] is clearly gathered from the very words of the fragment itself. That Valentinian, first describing Bythus and Sige, says: *Kai autē autō migeisa anadeiknusi Patera tēs Alētheias*, "And she, being mixed with him, brings forth the Father of the Truth." The first emission, therefore, is that by which the Father of the truth is generated from Bythus and Sige, whom they also called *Anthropon* (Man). *Meta touto de hē Sigē physikēn enotēta phōtos proenenkamenē syn tō anthrōpō (ēn d’ autais hē syneleusis to thelein) kai anadeiknusi tēn Alētheian.* Postea autem, Sige, naturalem unitatem lucis proferens cum homine (erat autem illis velle congressus), parit etiam Veritatem. The second emission, therefore, is that by which Truth is generated from the Father, or Man, and Sige. *Meta touto hē Alētheia mētrikēn proenenkamenē prouneikian ethēlyne ton Patera heautēs eis heautēn, kai synēēsan heautois aphthartō mixei kai agēratō [read akēratō] synkrasei, kai anadeiknusi tetrada pneumatikēn arrhenothēlyn, antitypon tēs proousēs tetrados.* Postea Veritas, maternam proferens lasciviam, effeminavit Patrem suum ad seipsam, et congressi sunt invicem incorrupta mistione, et immortali coitu, et parit tetradem spiritualem prioris tetradis repræsentativam. The third emission, therefore, is that by which the second tetrad (Man and Church, Sermo and Vita) is generated from the Father and Truth. This is the genealogy of the Aeons of the first ogdoad described in the fragment of the book of the Valentinians in Epiphanius; from which Blondellus has fabricated a genealogy entirely new and hitherto unheard of, which you can find neither in that fragment nor elsewhere. This, however, he himself has concocted so that he might produce his Logos immediately from Sige; a thing which is repugnant to all the genealogies of the Valentinians. And he seems to confirm his opinion from the words which follow, *hētis ēn Bythos, Sigē, Patēr, Alētheia; hautē de hē ek tou Patros kai tēs Sigēs tetras, Anthrōpos, Ekklēsia, Logos, Zōē.* But if these words were to prove anything, they would teach that the Logos was not produced immediately from Sige; for they are only an explanation of the former; but in the former [part], the second tetrad is not produced immediately from Sige, but from the Truth: these things, therefore, do not make at all for the opinion of Blondellus. But as in that fragment many things are corrupted, so here...

also the passage does not seem sound to me; for either the phrase "which is from the Father and Sige" ^A immediately looks to the "Truth" preceding, which according to this Valentinian was begotten from the Father and Sige, and then something is missing before the word "tetrad" that follows; or for "Sige" one must by all means read "Truth," so that these things may agree with what precedes. In vain also does Blondellus invoke here those corrupted words of Cyril in Catechesis 6: "He begat Sige, and from Sige he brought forth the Word." That passage still lies in a state of corruption, and has not been understood by the interpreter: "That Bythos begat Sige, and from Sige brought forth the Word, who is by the Greeks [called] Zeus; this one is worse than he who is mingled with his sister; for Silence was said to be the child of Bythos." In such a way are the Greek words edited and punctuated, which Joannes Grodecius has translated thus: "That Bythos, that is, the profundity, begat Sige, that is, Silence, and from Sige produced the Word, who is Jupiter to the Gentiles, and [who is] worse and inferior to him who has been mingled with his sister. For Sige was said to be the daughter of Bythos." ^B The interpreter here reports strange things about the Valentinian Word who is the Jupiter of the Gentiles. For he reads in his manuscript the word *Logon*, but written corruptly, wherefore he distinguished it in the Greek both from those things that precede and those that follow, but in the Latin he joined it to both clauses, since he connects it with "brought forth," as if it had been written *Logon* (as it is read in the Oxford manuscript) he joins it with "of Zeus," as if it were read in the same case, and thus he confuses everything. If indeed we read *Logon*, the meaning of the words here is clear: "Bythos begat Sige, and from Sige he begat the Word. He is here worse than the Jove of the Gentiles, who is mingled with his sister. For the daughter of Bythos was said to be Siope [Silence]." But that word *Logon* which has troubled this passage so much is entirely unnecessary, whether you look at the preceding words or the following ones. It does not fit what follows, as Grodecius wished. For Cyril compares not the Word, but Bythos, to Jove. Neither does it fit what precedes, nor is *Logon* necessary; for "to produce children," whoever those children may be, is sufficient to express the meaning of this passage. For Cyril teaches that Jove was mingled with his sister, [and] that Bythos produced children from his own daughter: which is more disgraceful. Although it still pleases me very much, which once came into my own mind, that it is to be read, to wit, not *Logon* or *Logon*, but *Logon tou Dios*, "after the fashion, or likeness, of Jove," in that way in which Jupiter produced children, so that *Logon* may be taken adverbially, and not look at all to the Valentinian Aeon. Certainly if we admit *Logon*, it must be said that Cyril confuses the dogmas of Valentinus in a wonderful way; nor does the excuse of Blondellus have any value, as if he posits that Bythos or the Propatore had been confused with the Nun or Father of the Valentinians. For if you suppose that here the Father, or Nun, ought to be taken for Bythos and Propatore, everything will still be utterly foreign to the school of Valentinus. Bythos is said here to have begat Sige, but that Sige was begat by Nun, no one of the Valentinians ever dreamed. Bythos is said to have begat the Word from Sige. Although the Valentinians ^C were willing for them to have begat the Word, they never admitted that the Word was emitted from Sige. Here Bythos begets children from Sige as if from his own daughter: but if any Valentinian says that Nun, or the Father, begat some Aeon from Sige, they taught that this was done not from a daughter, but from a mother. Blondellus therefore has made very unfortunate use of the Word of Cyril; and it is still manifest enough that it was never said by Valentinus that "the Word proceeded from Sige."

Having set forth the opinion, and having defended our arguments against the wiles of Blondellus, let us see what moved Dallaeus to think differently: "These very words," he says, "as I think, are not more obscure in being applied to Valentinus, and in striking his delirium." First, how timidly, "as I think," and, "not more obscure"! Nay, in truth, most certainly more obscure, and, as I think, more absurd; which will appear more clearly from the proof of that most learned man. From Irenaeus, indeed, he sets forth the fabulous divinity of Valentinus, and asserts that Tertullian, Epiphanius, and others report the same. I am not examining these things now; but does Irenaeus, or anyone else, in narrating the divinity of Valentinus, report that Sige brought forth the Word, or does he not say that the Word was emitted from nothing other than Sige? He does not say this, which he ought entirely to have said, if he wished to bring forward anything that would have value for confirming his opinion. But in its place he said only this: "There is no one among them who does not commemorate the Word emitted by Valentinus from Sige, either immediately as a son from a mother, or at any rate mediately as a grandson from a grandmother." Nay, in truth, this distinction in this matter between mediate and immediate emission is devised either by him or by Blondellus; nor has such an emission been set forth by any of these Fathers; no one of them said that the Word was emitted either mediately or immediately either from Sige or from any other Aeon. This subtlety of distinguishing is recognized as being far inferior to the age of Valentinus and the Fathers; nor ought it to be used there, where inquiry is being made about their bare opinion. Furthermore, what is the point of this distinction into two members, so that the Word may be either a son of Sige, or a grandson? Or does any of those whom he commemorates name the Word the son of Sige, or emit him immediately from Sige, so that Dallaeus might correctly be able to call him the son of Sige? Irenaeus did indeed say *Logon Huion monogenous*, "The Word, the Son of the Only-Begotten," but he did not call him the son of Sige. He himself brings forward Irenaeus to show ^D that Nun proceeded from Sige, but that Nun and his Aletheia emitted the Word, and asserts that Tertullian and Epiphanius taught the same. Yet if these things be true, then no one of them commemorates the Word as emitted from Sige immediately as a son from a mother. And yet, when he had said those things so unfortunately, as if the matter were already concluded, he says: "These things are enough for us to have touched upon, so that anyone may understand that the writer of the epistle to the Magnesians was thinking of this *mataeologia* [vain discourse] of Valentinus." He was thinking, forsooth, that ancient writer [beforehand] of the mediate and immediate emission of the Aeons; he saw, according to the opinion of Valentinus, by men writing the same things, that the Word was emitted from Sige either as mother or as grandmother, and therefore he simply denies that the Word proceeded from silence. These things

^A no one could assert who had not heard his ravings? But this does not agree with the fables of Valentinus. Correct: and from this perhaps we may conclude that the author of the epistle was not a Valentinian: nor does anything else follow from it. Fourth, "he adds that Christ the Son of God is his Word." From this, perhaps, it may be rightly inferred that our author wrote after St. John the Evangelist, but by no means after Valentinus. "Valentinus indeed did divide Jesus and Christ from the Word." But is it the same thing to say all these things together as it is to refute Valentinus? Is calling the same person Jesus and Christ and the Word the same as destroying his impious delirium? I think not. For the Valentinians themselves also named the same person Jesus and Christ and the Word. Theodoret expressly hands this down, lib. 1, cap. 7: *Προβάλλονται διὰ τούτων τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ὃν καὶ Σωτῆρα προσαγορεύουσι καὶ Χριστὸν Λόγον.* "From these they produced Jesus, whom they also call Savior and Christ the Word." Irenæus himself also hands down to us *perfectum fructum Ἰησοῦν, ὃν καὶ Σωτῆρα προσαγορευθῆναι καὶ Χριστὸν καὶ Λόγον πατρωνυμικῶς, καὶ πάντα,* "Jesus, whom also to be called Savior and Christ and Word patronymically, and all things." Fifth, "he called the Word an eternal discourse." Indeed, he followed the Apostle in a catholic manner, uttered the voice of the Church, and used it against Ebion. If Valentinus did not believe him to be eternal, Ebion denied him to be eternal before him. To what end therefore is Valentinus summoned here, when Ebion is at hand, against whom the author of the epistle disputes expressly? Sixth, "concerning the true Word of God he finally adds *οὐκ ἀπὸ Σιγῆς προελθόν.*" Correct, for thus he says exegetically what he had said before, when he had declared him to be an eternal Word. Thus he explains the Apostle, refutes Ebion, and forewarns the Magnesians; as if he were to say: This Word which is spoken of Christ is eternal, not temporal, such as is wont to arise from silence, nor does it proceed except after silence; which must always be urged against Ebion and his followers; not as if he were saying: "This Word has nothing in common with the Valentinian Word, which an impostor imagined to go forth from Sige." For this is not about Valentinus, but about Ebion; therefore he is importunately summoned in this place: nor did that impostor ever say that the Word was emitted from Sige, but from Monogenes, the only-begotten son of Bythos and Sige. Dallæus himself delineated his opinion from Irenæus, and says that the rest follow him: there is no generation of the Logos from Sige there; ^D and thus there is no allusion here to Valentinus. And six arguments wonderfully stitched together from one opinion do not have the force of even one.

Wherefore, regarding this passage, now sufficiently vexed and distorted, he at last recalls those things which the author of the epistle had said about Christ in the immediately preceding passage, so that he may find the heresy of Valentinus refuted in that place, in which Ignatius disputes about no heresy, but only warns the Magnesians that they should beware of schism, and should tightly embrace the Christian truth, which he explains bit by bit, then adorns with an argument drawn from the unity of God and Christ: which is also by itself sufficiently appropriate.

^A The first tetrad taken from the books of the Valentinians themselves, according to Epiphanius, is this: Bythos, Sige, Pater, Aletheia, where from the Father and Truth the Logos is generated. Therefore, according to the Valentinians, the Logos went forth not from Sige, but from the Father. Wherefore, if the author of the epistle had those heretics in mind, he would never have denied what they did not affirm, nor would he have said what they said.

But if he does not strike at Valentinus when he writes that he went forth from the Father, he certainly aims at him, in that he says he went forth from one Father. Not at all; for Valentinus did not teach that the Logos went forth from many fathers. "But," he says, "he did not say he went forth from one father, Nu, but also from the mother, Aletheia." A truly remarkable argument! Was he less from one Father because he was also from a mother? Concerning the posterity of Abraham, the Apostle says (Heb. xi, 12), *Διὸ ἀφ' ἑνὸς ἐγενήθησαν*, "Therefore also from one did they spring." Did they not, therefore, have a mother, those who descended from Abraham? Or, because they sprang from one, could they not have a grandfather or grandmother? Nazianzen says in his first oration *De Adamo*: *Πάντα ὑπὲρ πάντων εἰς ἕν, καὶ ὑπὲρ ἑνὸς τοῦ προπάτορος*—"All things for all men into one, and for one, the forefather." That is, Adam, that one forefather of the human race, although Eve was also the mother of all the living. With such unlucky omens does the most learned man proceed in this passage, yet he concludes that the final words—[Jesus Christ as one, namely the Father, existing and returned]—were intended for nothing other than the fictitious Christ of Valentinus. But the final words of the sentence undoubtedly refer to the same person as the earlier words of the same sentence; the author understands the same person as going forth from the Father and returning to the Father. Dallæus wishes for the former to strike at the Logos of Valentinus, and for the latter to strike at his Christ; since in the School of Valentinus the Logos and Christ are entirely and plainly distinct. Therefore, the author strikes at neither the one nor the other—in fact, he strikes at neither. Be that as it may, it cannot be maintained that he directs us to the Logos and Christ of Valentinus, while claiming at the same time that these words were written by the author of the epistle according to St. John. For what need is there that he should have looked to Valentinus, when he was thinking of expressing the mind of St. John? Surely, what has this to do with the generation of the Logos, since it treats of the Incarnation or the arrival into the world? As I have taught that this passage should be placed above.

^C And these are all the things which the most learned man has brought forth to show that our author, while writing these things, had Valentinus and his fables in mind; of which there is nothing that compels assent, nor, I think, even in the judgment of the man himself. As I feel, however, there is nothing that would move anyone even slightly, unless he reads the epistles of Ignatius in the same way that Valentinus once read the Scriptures—that is, drawing everything to his own sense and converting it to his own character. But if it pleased anyone to do so, how easy it would be to convert any Catholic Father into a Valentinian! For example, I take the most sweet hymns of Synesius, in which I read these things—and indeed concerning the Logos: *Λόγος, ὃν μεγάλῳ Πατρὶ συνυμνῶν Νέος* ^D and is called, and is the beginning of all things, and properly the Monogenes.

^A You see that all these things are from the school of Valentinus. We have an ineffable Father, a Mind, and a Word, three primary masculine Aeons. Valentinus himself thus defined an unnameable dyad, of which the one part is called the ineffable, and the other silence. Therefore, the Ineffable is the same as the Bythus, from the Bythus the Mind, from the Mind the Word. Thus, Synesius would be a pure and unadulterated Valentinian. For the things which follow, too, appear to be from the same workshop: *Πρῶτος πρώτας Προθορὼν ῥίζας, Ῥίζα δὲ πάντων Τῶν μετὰ κλεινὰν Τὰν σὰν γένναν.* ‹First-born from the first root; the root, however, of all things that were created after Thy renowned birth.› For they used to call the first tetrad the root of all things, and the Word brought forth from it, the Father of all things that would be after it. In the same author I read: *Μάκαρ, ὅστις μετὰ μοίρας Ἐπιβὰς Νόου κελεύθων, Βυθὸν εἶδεν θεολαμπῆ.* ‹Blessed is he who, having traversed the fates, following the paths of Mind, saw the Bythus shining with divine light.› You see how he establishes the highest blessedness in the vision of the Bythus, and that this is revealed through the Mind. Which he appears to express again in this manner: *Ἐπιβαλλόμενος Προσιδεῖν αἴγλαν Ἀκάμαντι Βυθῷ Ἀμαρυσσομέναν.* ‹While he attempts to behold the splendor shining in the tireless Bythus.› Truly, he calls God the Father the Fore-father, and the Aeon-begetter, and both female and male. Could the Valentinians themselves speak otherwise? By the same argument, it could be proven that Lucian in his *Philopatris* inveighed against Valentinus, where he mocks the doctrine of the Trinity. For thus says Critias: “I do not know what you are saying, one three, three one; do not bring the tetrad to me, or the Pythagorean, or the ogdoad, and the triacad.” To whom Triephon replies: “Be silent about the things below, and about things worthy of silence.” For who does not know the tetrad and the octonary, and the ^B thirty Aeons of the Valentinians, who also, as Irenaeus bears witness, called the tetrad the first and primeval Pythagorean tetractys? What of the fact that Triephon, replying immediately, says that these things are worthy of silence, just as the Fathers also often speak in this regard? Clearly, if words, used by Valentinus according to his own character, are received in the same sense when they are read in other writers, we may make whomever we wish an enemy or a friend of Valentinus. As they made Ignatius, so I have made Lucian an enemy, and Synesius, however, a friend. By equal right each has been done, that is to say, none.

But that it may appear clearly that all these explanations and allusions to the ravings of Valentinus of most learned men are not entirely necessary or opportune, but rather entirely alien to the mind and purpose of the author, and are indeed inventions, which violently distort the whole series of the Ignatian discourse; we shall set forth the passage itself in its entirety, and with a most simple explanation, and one most accommodated to the matter we intend, we shall defend it from importune glosses. The former passage is nothing other than a vehement exhortation to ecclesiastical unity, so often ^C inculcated by Him Himself, and adorned with so many encomiums by the Holy Fathers; for, as Chrysostom says, nothing is equal to peace and harmony. Thus, therefore, Ignatius addresses the Magnesians: *ἐν ὁμονίᾳ Θεοῦ σπουδάζετε πάντα πράσσειν*, ‹in harmony of God, be eager to perform all things,› and *μηδὲν ἔστω ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ δυνήσεται ὑμᾶς μερίσαι*, ‹let there be nothing in you that can divide you.› Be united to the bishop and those who preside. As the Lord did nothing without the Father, *ἡνωμένος ὤν*, ‹being united, neither by Himself nor through the apostles; so neither do you perform anything without the bishop and presbyters.› Let there be, he says, *ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό*, ‹one rule, one prayer, one mind, one hope.› He immediately gives the reason, and that indeed an apostolic one: *Εἷς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός*, ‹There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is better.› As St. Paul, exhorting the Ephesians to keep ‹the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, ye were called in one hope; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,› ‹everywhere he has placed the 'one' and the 'one',› says Theodoret, ‹joining the Church into harmony›: so also Ignatius pursues the same argument. ‹All of you, therefore, as into one temple, come together (by which words he appears to represent the primitive unity of the Church described in the Acts of the Apostles), into one altar, into one Jesus Christ,› whom, since he proposes him again, he describes more broadly as coming out from one Father and existing in the one, and returning. Joining St. John to St. Paul, in whom Christ himself says: "I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father." From the unity, therefore, of Christ and God the Father, the Apostle leads the argument for Ignatius to commend ecclesiastical unity. For, as St. Chrysostom well observed: *Ὅταν ἐπί τι μεῖζον παρακαλῇ ὁ μακάριος Παῦλος, συνετὸς ὢν σφόδρα καὶ πνευματικὸς, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ποιεῖται τὴν παράκλησιν.* ‹When the blessed Paul exhorts to something greater, being very prudent and spiritual, he makes the exhortation from those things which are in the heavens.› Therefore, since this whole passage is nothing other than an exhortation to unity, and that expressed by evangelical and apostolic words and senses; since to draw an argument from the unity of Christ and God the Father is a solemn practice in this very matter; ^D the thought of a far-fetched exposition or refutation of heretical dogmas is clearly importune; and it is a violent distraction of the author's mind, being most attentive to his own hypothesis.

But the other passage which follows, and indeed one quite prolix, is entirely compared to shunning heresy. *Μὴ πλανᾶσθε ταῖς ἑτεροδοξίαις*, as in the epistle to the Smyrnaeans, *καταμάθετε καὶ τοὺς ἑτεροδοξοῦντας*; whence the word *ἑτερόδοξοι* is so familiar to Origen, which Jerome translated poorly. But what kind of heterodox or heretics these were, against whose dogmas he warns the Magnesians, he teaches immediately with these words, *μηδὲ μυθεύμασι παλαιοῖς ἀνωφε*

ἀνωφελέσιν ἐνεχέσθε* ("do not be carried away by old and useless fables"), ^A not because the author wrote after Clement of Alexandria, as Blondellus wished, that he called the myths of the Valentinians old or ancient; for this contradicts all the writings of that age, which always attack the dogmas of the heretics as if they were new; but he refers to Jewish institutions mixed with fables, which are often brought forward by the Apostle as "old and useless." Thus, he himself a little later says the ancient Jews were "conversant in old things" (*ἐν παλαιοῖς πράγμασιν ἀναστραφέντας*). Likewise, Epiphanius disputes against Ebion, "that one ought not to use baptisms and useless customs" (*ὅτι οὐ χρὴ βαπτισμοῖς χρῆσθαι καὶ ἔθεσιν ἀνωφελέσιν*). But who among the Valentinians would ever call their own fables merely "useless," of whom Irenæus says: "Their rule is blasphemous above all others." For although they might sometimes call the doctrine of the philosophers, from which they derived their own to some extent, old and useless, they still condemn their own *mateologia* as both new and blasphemous. And therefore the interpolator, or paraphrast, having followed the sense, expressed the author's mind in these words: *Μηδὲ μύθοις ἐνέχετε καὶ γενεαλογίαις ἀπεράντοις, καὶ Ἰουδαϊκοῖς τύφοις*, "Do not attend to fables, and endless genealogies, and Jewish inflation," looking to the place of Saint Paul to Timothy ^B (1 Tim. 1:4), to which he also added those things to the Corinthians: "Old things have passed away, and behold all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). Certainly, the very reason for the exhortation that is immediately appended admits no other exposition of this passage: "For if we still live according to Judaism, we confess that we have not received grace." For unless the previous statements are understood concerning Judaism, these will be utterly ridiculous. Why, I ask, these things, unless those heretics against whom he argues were recalling Christians to a Judaic character of life by those old and useless fables? But the school of Valentinus taught no such thing; for he wrote so abjectly about the Demiurge that he never recalled his disciples to the Mosaic law. The Ebionites urged this, who observed that Christ Himself was obedient to Jewish rites, and they wished to bind all Christians by His example to observe those same rites. For they taught that they were absolutely in need of the legal religion, as if they would *not otherwise be saved by faith in Christ alone and the life lived according to it.* ^C They believed the observance of the Law was entirely necessary for themselves, as if they could not attain salvation through faith in Christ alone and the life led from that faith. (Euseb., lib. III, cap. 27). Therefore, Ignatius warns the Magnesians to beware of them; for indeed Ebion had disseminated his dogma in Asia, as Epiphanius reports: "This Ebion also had his preaching in Asia" (*οὗτος μὲν οὖν ὁ Ἐβίων καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ εἶχε τὸ κήρυγμα*). Therefore, he argues specifically and at length against those judaizers. "For the most divine prophets," he says, "lived according to Christ Jesus; for this reason they were also persecuted, being inspired by His grace."

^D From this it is most firmly gathered, so that it cannot be denied even by those incredulous heretics themselves, *ὅτι εἷς Θεός ἐστιν ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ*, that the God whom they worshipped is one and the same who revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, with whose grace they were filled: Jesus, I say, His Son Christ, not such as they teach (liton, or common, or a mere man, or vulgar, *κατὰ ἐκλογὴν Υἱὸν Θεοῦ κληθέντα*, called the Son of God by election, *ὃν φάσκουσιν οὐκ ἐκ Θεοῦ Πατρὸς γεγενῆσθαι*, whom they say was not begotten of God the Father), but *ὃς ἔστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος*, who is the eternal Word of God Himself, according to that of St. John (1:1): "In the beginning was the Word," the Word, I say, nevertheless eternal, *Λόγος οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών*. For it is not some common word, such as that of a man, of course, or of any creature, which is wont to proceed from silence, and thus to acknowledge something preceding, but the Word of God, coeternal with God. These things directly struck the Ebionites, of whom even those who seemed better than the rest, who did not deny that Christ was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, *οὐ μὲν ἔθ' ὁμοίως καὶ οὗτοι προϋπάρχειν αὐτὸν Θεὸν λόγον ὄντα καὶ σοφίαν ὁμολογοῦντες τῇ τῶν προτέρων περιετρέποντο δυσσεβείᾳ*, "nevertheless, since they in no way confess that Christ, being God the Word and Wisdom, existed before all things, and thus deny that the most holy prophets were inspired by His grace, they have fallen into the same impiety as the former; *μάλιστα ὅτε καὶ τὴν σωματικὴν περὶ τὸν νόμον λατρείαν ὁμοίως ἐκείνοις περιέπειν ἐσπούδαζον*, especially since they were eager to observe the corporal ceremonies of the Mosaic Law just as they did," as Eusebius teaches. Wherefore it was also observed by Epiphanius that St. John *ἐλέγχει αὐτοὺς κατὰ πάντα τρόπον, λέγων, ὅτι ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν Λόγος*, refutes the Ebionites in every way, saying, that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Certainly, if John refutes them, Ignatius also refutes the Ebionites with these words; nor can this be clearer than from those things which immediately and openly strike them. "For if," he says, "those most divine prophets, living in the old things, came into the newness of hope, not sabbatizing, but living according to the Lord's life, etc., how shall we be able to live without Him, whom even the prophets, being His disciples, expected in the Spirit as their teacher?" Since, therefore, all these things which are contained in this section so directly strike Ebion, and not even the smallest sentence is idle or looking elsewhere, but all things collectively and conjointly seek and slay that heretic; there can be no place at all for the ravings of the Valentinians. Hence, our second assertion does not seem to us to have been posited without injury, "Nor the words themselves, *οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών*," nor any other...

contained in these two sections, to look at all toward Valentinus, and therefore they cannot, without a violent distortion of the words, be applied to the explanation or refutation of his heresy.

CAPUT VI.

The third assertion: that this heresy was older than Valentinus and was accepted from the ancient Gnostics. The same is asserted by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Theodoret. It is shown that Bythus and Sige were among the combinations of the ancient Gnostics, against Blondel. It is proved that they also derived Nun and Aletheia from Bythus and Sige, and from Nus or Anthropos, the Logos, against Daillé. The three arguments brought forward by Daillé to the contrary are refuted.

Although I seem to myself to have satisfied the argument of the adversaries by the second assertion set forth and proved, nevertheless, I have thought that a third should be added. For although I am most thoroughly persuaded that the author of the epistles never explicitly had reference to Valentinus himself or his heresy, and although I think this has been sufficiently clearly demonstrated by me, yet, lest any doubt should remain in the minds of those who have been hitherto accustomed to the reasonings of Salmasius, Blondel, and Daillé, and lest I should appear to desert even our own Ussher, Vossius, and Hammond, whose responses I believe to be most firm, I have decided to resume and confirm them: so that, if there should still be anyone who thinks that the author aimed at the heresy which Valentinus embraced, even this should have no validity to show a violation of the times, or to elevate the authority of the epistles in any way. For I assert thirdly, that this very heresy was older than Valentinus and derived from more ancient Gnostics; and that, because of its age, it could have been looked upon by the holy martyr Ignatius, insofar as it was put forth by more ancient Gnostics, and before it was transformed into the character of Valentinus, so that it is not necessary to recur to Valentinus here. For even Daillé himself says: "If there be anyone, he says, older than Valentinus, who has posited this in such a way, I shall confess that for this, in order that some right and legitimate sense of these words of the epistles which we have brought forward may be established, we are forced by no necessity to recur to the heresy of Valentinus."

I will, therefore, prove this assertion by the most luminous testimonies of the ancients who have discoursed concerning this heresy; for there is none of them who does not explicitly hand down that Valentinus resuscitated an old opinion. Irenaeus, lib. 1, cap. 5: "For he who is the first, from that which is called the Gnostic heresy, transferring ancient doctrines into his own character, Valentinus, thus defined." There were, therefore, ancient doctrines which Valentinus transferred into his own character. The same, lib. 2, cap. 18: "These things, however, which we have said concerning the emission of the Nous, are similarly adapted also against those who are from Basilides; and against the rest of the Gnostics, from whom also these, receiving the beginnings of their emissions, were convicted in the first book." Valentinus therefore received the generation of the Nous, and the beginnings of other emissions, from Basilides and the remaining Gnostics. The same in the same chapter: "Concerning that which is..." ^A from these of the second emission of man and the Church themselves, their fathers, falsely called Gnostics, fight against one another, indicating their own and convicting themselves as evil thieves." The Gnostics therefore complained that the Valentinians had stolen their own, and indeed, that they were thieves the worse for having badly transferred these things into their own character. Immediately after Irenaeus, Tertullian concerning Valentinus: "Having obtained the seed of a certain ancient opinion, he delineated the way for Colarbasus." To which sense seem to be understood those things which he has in *De anima*, cap. 18: "Do the heretical seeds of the Gnostics and Valentinians already shine forth?" Epiphanius also, when he had proposed to himself four things to be said about Valentinus, whence he came, when he lived, what his doctrine was, *καὶ ἀπὸ ποίων τὰς προφάσεις εἴληφε*, "and from whom he took his arguments," expressed the last of these in these words: *Καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν τῶν ὅλων ποίησιν εἰς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ νοῦν λαβὼν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν σὺν αὐτῷ καὶ πρὸ αὐτοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐκπεπτωκότων τὴν ὑπόνοιαν κτησάμενος*. "He himself also conceiving ethnic poetry in his mind, and having borrowed the sentiment from those who with him and before him fell from the truth," etc. But who those heretics were, from whom Valentinus drew his deliriums, the same indicates: *Φημὶ δὲ Οὐαλεντῖνον καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ διδασκαλίαν, τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς μεγάλης ταύτης γνωστικῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὑπάρχουσαν*. "I mean Valentinus and his doctrine, which exists from this great Gnostic profession." For although Epiphanius calls Valentinus a heresiarch, he nevertheless hands down that he drew his own doctrine from the Gnostics, and therefore he observes more often that he imposed their name upon himself and his own. ^B *Ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν Οὐαλεντίνων αἵρεσιν διέξειμι, τῶν δὴ καὶ Γνωστικῶν ἑαυτοῖς ἐπιθέντων ὄνομα*. "I pass on to the heresy of the Valentinians, who imposed the name of Gnostics upon themselves." And a little after: *Καὶ πάντες Γνωστικοὺς ἑαυτοὺς ἐκάλουν, Οὐαλεντῖνός τε, φημὶ, καὶ οἱ πρὸ αὐτοῦ Γνωστικοί*. "And all called themselves Gnostics, and Valentinus, I say, and those who were Gnostics before him." And again concerning the same: *Εἰς πολλοὺς γὰρ οὗτος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ὀνειροπολίαν ἐπισπείρας, Γνωστικὸν ἑαυτὸν καλέσας*. "For this man, scattering his own daydreaming among many, calling himself a Gnostic," etc. After Epiphanius, Theodoret, when he had given the heresies of Simon, Menander, Saturnilus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus explained, *ἐκ τούτων*, he says, *πασῶν τῶν αἱρέσεων ὁ Βαλεντῖνος λαβὼν ἀφορμὰς τοὺς ἀπεράντους συνέθηκε μύθους*, "Valentinus, taking pretexts from all these heresies, composed interminable fables."

^C Since our Ussher had cited some of these testimonies in the Ignatian Appendix, Blondel, in a letter written to him and published by Hammond, replied these things: "The place of our Irenaeus, upon which you chiefly rely, which I have never denied, teaches that Valentinus, by the example of others, fashioned his own syzygies." Blondel is followed by Daillé: "That, indeed, I concede is legitimately concluded and gathered from this place of Irenaeus and other similar places of Theodoret and Epiphanius, that the very forest of things ^D

and the matter from which Valentinus composed his own ^A syzygies, he had fashioned after the example of others, as Blondel confesses? Where is that forest and matter from which he composed his own, as Daillé teaches? Or what did he derive from the Gnostics, if he himself produced all the combinations and the entire vain-babbling [matæologiam]? And the matter from which Valentinus composed his own [system] had already, among the older Gnostic heretics in part, and in part also among pagan poets or philosophers, existed. We have, therefore, this conceded by them: that Valentinus fashioned his syzygies after the example of others, and that he derived the very forest and matter of things from the older Gnostics. The true Ignatius, therefore, could have alluded to that heresy which Valentinus is later said to have embraced, if you consider its forest and matter; for that matter of heresy had been promulgated by the older Gnostics in the age of Ignatius. And thus far we agree. But in that forest, among the syzygies of the older ones, those Aeons could have been found whom the author of the epistles intends to have observed, namely Sige and Logos.

But, leaving the dispute behind, I will confirm our opinion, and I will show first, against Blondel, that the first combination of Valentinus, namely of Bythos and Sige, had been derived from the older Gnostics; and secondly, against Daillé, that Logos also had been produced from Nous, who was emitted by Sige, according to the older Gnostics: Irenaeus, in the preface to his second book, repeating the argument of the first book, professes that he has exposed the doctrines of the Valentinians and of those Gnostics who are of the school of Simon; in ^B this, however, he promises that he will overturn their entire rule. And in order that this may be done, "it is necessary," he says, "in order to dissolve Bythos, through the indication and overturning of the manifest conjunctions, to dissolve their hidden conjunctions." Bythos, therefore, belonged as much to the rule of the ancient Gnostics as to that of the Valentinians. The title of chapter 32 of book I is this: "What are the genera of the Gnostics, and what are their opinions." That Irenaeus is dealing there with the Simonians is sufficiently evident from the previous chapter. "Others, however," he says, "again speak monstrous things: that there is a certain first light in the power of Bythos, blessed and incorruptible and unbounded." That these Simonians were older than Valentinus is sufficiently indicated by the words of the next chapter: "Those who are of Valentinus, just as their very opinions and rules show, it was necessary to refute manifestly from such mothers, and fathers, and ancestors." This is clearly proven by another place in Irenaeus, book I, c. 19: "Since, therefore, the detection and conviction against all heresies is various and manifold, and it is our purpose to contradict all of them according to their own character, we have judged it necessary first to relate their source and root, so that, by knowing their most sublime Bythos, you may understand a tree from which such fruits have flowed." There was, therefore, in the source and root of Gnostic doctrine, Bythos. And Sige was either contemporary with Bythos, or perhaps her name was more ancient than that of Bythos; certainly, Ennoea was present with Simon himself, who is also Sige, and indeed was called Sige from the beginning, as Eusebius shows in *Ecclesiastical Theology*, book II, ch. 9: ^D "According to that very leader of the godless heretics, who, dogmatizing impious things, declared, saying: 'There was God and Sige.'" And Irenaeus speaks of the first syzygy of Bythos and Sige as acknowledged by all the old Gnostics, not by the Valentinians only, in book I, chapter 5. For when he had noted a certain new primal octad devised by some of the disciples of Valentinus, "they wish," he says, "these virtues to have been before Bythos and Sige,"

ἵνα τελείων τελειότεροι φανῶσιν ὄντες, καὶ γνωστικῶν γνωστικώτεροι

and more Gnostic than the Gnostics." And he immediately cries out: "O empty babbling sophists!" or, as we read in the Latin, "O you worthless and laughable sophists, and not men." ^A Dallæus, in response to this passage (brought forward by Hammond long ago), restricts the Gnostics here to Valentinus and his disciples, who similar to Axionicus kept the rules of their master entire and without any additions; but he offers no reason why he should restrict them to these.

I confess, indeed, that Valentinus and the disciples similar to Axionicus called themselves Gnostics; but I do not see why they alone should be understood in this passage under the general name of the perfect and the Gnostic, or how that could be correct. Valentinus was unique, and such disciples as these who followed him in all things, and added nothing to his inventions, were very few in Irenæus’s age: in the age of Tertullian, surely, Axionicus alone remained of them. How feeble, ^B then, would this reproach be, that they wanted to appear more perfect and more Gnostic than a few particular Gnostics! Especially since the objection would apply to the Secundians, the Ptolemaeans, the Marcosians, and all the rest, whoever added anything to Valentinus's doctrine; for all of them wanted to appear wiser and *gnostikōteroi* (more Gnostic) than their master and such disciples. Why then does Irenæus reproach those who devised a different octonation? Why does he immediately break out into that exclamation, if they only sold themselves as wiser than a very few? Nay, indeed, this primary octonation was not only from Valentinus and disciples similar to Axionicus, but from the combinations of others who, emerging from the school of Valentinus, departed from him in many things, and it differed from the doctrines of all older Gnostics, and in that kind of fiction it far surpassed them all. Those, therefore, who devised these things wanted to seem wiser than all Gnostics before them absolutely; and Irenæus wished to express this with a certain indignation and mockery. I interpret in the same sense that which Epiphanius relates of Ptolemaeus, who, "being of those called Gnostics and of the heresy according to Valentinus," when he embraced both the heresy of the Gnostics and the Valentinians, "devising things other than those of his own teachers," feigning things beyond those which he had received from the teachers, whether Gnostic or Valentinian, "devised two spouses to God, who was called Bythus by them, and granted [to him] two spouses, whom they, both Gnostics and Valentinians, called Bythus." For this, indeed, Ptolemaeus added to the doctrine of the ancient Gnostics and Valentinians; whereas they had attached only one spouse to their Bythus, namely Ennoea or Sige, he joined to that same marriage also Thelema or Will. Nor do I doubt that Basilides the Gnostic, before Valentinus, had Sige in his first combination, and called his *Ennoia* Sige. For he taught, as Irenæus testifies (lib. 1, ch. 23), "that one ought not to speak of their mysteries at all, but to contain them by silence." ^A Certainly, that "per silentium" (by silence) was translated by a faithful but unskilled interpreter, as if it had been written in Greek *dia Sigēs*, when it is most likely that it was written by Irenæus *dia tēn Sigēn*, that is, "because of Sige," as Tertullian speaks: "But the mother Sige intervened, she, namely, who prescribes silence even to those heretics of hers."

Finally, there is a most luminous testimony which Gregory Nazianzen provides for us in his 23rd Oration: "When the Simonians and Marcionites, and certain Valentinians, and the Basilidians and Cerdonians, and the Corinthians and Carpocratians, and all the babbling and deception concerning them, having for a long time divided the God of all, and having waged war for the Good against the Creator, were subsequently swallowed up by their own Bythus and Sige, having been betrayed, as was fitting." ^B To which passage Elias Cretensis notes this: "And the Simonians indeed used to honor the number eight on account of those Aeons whom they worshipped. For they babbled that Bythus, having had intercourse with his Sige, had begotten Mind and Truth, etc." And Nicetas on Oration 44: "The Simonians indeed held the octad in honor on account of those eight Aeons of their master. For he fabled that Mind and Truth were procreated from the intercourse of Bythus with Sige, and thus he fashioned the first parents, as has already been said, Bythus and Sige." That those ancient Gnostics before Valentinus had Bythus and Sige among their Aeons, very many have said; that they did not have them, before Blondell, I think no one has said. And indeed, that Valentinus not only received the first syzygies from earlier heretics, but also continued their names, is persuaded by the very fact that when Epiphanius had added new nomenclatures to them, *Monoteta* and *Henoteta*, *Monada* and *Hen*, ^C Irenæus immediately exclaims, "Io, io, alas, alas," giving the reason: "for he himself placed names on his figment which were placed by no one else." This, indeed, would not have been worthy of so much admiration, if Valentinus had imposed entirely new and previously unheard-of names on the same Tetrad a little before Epiphanius.

Second, we shall likewise prove that *Logos* was also among the fictitious deities of the old Gnostics, and that it was arrived at from Sige through certain syzygies, as in the school of Valentinus; which is enough to confirm our opinion against the objections of Dallæus. For neither did those Gnostics, nor did Valentinus himself, ever explicitly say that *Logos* was emitted from Sige. Basilides was older among the Gnostics than Valentinus, but he felt the same regarding *Logos* as Valentinus did. Theodoret (*Hæret. fab.* lib. 5, ch. 11), when he had recited Valentinus's opinion concerning the Word, ^D this add...

added: "Basilides likewise [taught] another Only-Begotten, another Word, and said that Wisdom was something else." Therefore, he distinguished the Only-Begotten and the Word in a similar manner, because he similarly derived the Word from the Only-Begotten. Thus Irenæus says of Basilides in book 1, ch. 23: "He shows that *Nous* was born first from the unbegotten Father, and from this the *Logos* was born." In the school of the ancient Gnostics, therefore, the *Logos* was from *Nous*, and *Nous* from *Bythos*, exactly as in the school of Valentinus. But Basilides and those Gnostics among whom he lived did not teach that either *Bythos* or *Nous* had procreated any Æon without their *syzygies*. For Basilides was a disciple of Menander, who handed down the *syzygy* of the unknown Father and *Ennœa*; and Basilides did not break down his opinion, but extended it immeasurably. ^B Wherefore, when Irenæus began to dispute against the "first order of emission, by which they say that *Nous* and *Aletheia* were emitted from *Bythos* and his *Ennœa*" in book 2, ch. 16, he concludes in chapter 18 as follows: "But these things which have been said concerning the emission of Sense (that is, of *Nous*), are likewise fitted against those who are from Basilides, and against the remaining Gnostics, by whom these too, having received the beginnings of the emissions, were convicted in the first book." Now, it must be further inquired what those beginnings of the emissions were which the Valentinians derived from the earlier Gnostics. Elias of Crete asserts that the first octad of Valentinus was derived from them; for, dealing with the Simonians, he says: "And they imagined the Æons, the princes of the race, *Bythos* and *Sige*, and from these the second, *Nous* and *Aletheia*, from these the third, *Sermo* and *Vita*, and from these finally the fourth, *Homo* and *Ecclesia*." ^C Nicetas hands down the same; both indeed assert that Valentinus received the first Ogdoad from the Simonians, but that he added the decade and dodecade of his own; which is also confirmed by Irenæus. For when he had refuted the emission of the *Logos* in order, and arrived at the emission of *Homo* and *Ecclesia*, which were the last Æons of the first Ogdoad, in book 2, ch. 18, he notes that the parents of the Valentinians, the older Gnostics, accused them of a theft evilly committed. But regarding that second emission of *Homo* and *Ecclesia* which is from them, their own fathers, falsely called Gnostics, fight against one another, indicating their own [beliefs] and convicting themselves as bad thieves, saying that it is more fitting that the *Logos* be emitted from *Homo*, but not *Homo* from the *Logos*, and that *Homo* is prior to the *Logos*, and that this one is the God who is above all things. Therefore, the Gnostics were the parents of the Valentinians; from them these openly took—or stole—the first three *syzygies*; nor did the Gnostics treat these things as bad; but they accused them of bad theft, because they had placed the *syzygy* of *Homo* and *Ecclesia* after that of the *Word* and *Life*; whence, after Valentinus, many of his disciples, being admonished by the Gnostics, changed the order of their master and placed *Homo* and *Ecclesia* before *Word* and *Life*, and thus moved the *Logos* further away from *Sige*. ^A Since these things have been so firmly proven by us, nothing remains but that we respond to the arguments of the most learned man, by which he strives to prove the contrary. He first compiled [an argument] in this rather convenient form: "No one before Valentinus taught that there was another God besides the Creator; all who introduced *Bythos* and *Sige* taught that there was another God besides the Creator: therefore, those who introduced *Bythos* and *Sige* before Valentinus were none." I admit the minor premise of this syllogism; I concede that all who preached these Æons recognized the Demiurge or Creator as something other than the supreme and eternal God, and thus taught [of] another God besides the Creator. But I deny the major [premise] and pronounce it openly false. For many before Valentinus denied that the supreme God had created the world, and thus taught that there was another God besides the Creator. Before Valentinus, [there was] Basilides, of whom Tertullian [says] thus: "He places the God of the Jews, that is, the God of the Law and the Prophets, in the lowest [heaven of the] angels, and those who made this world, whom he denies to be God, but calls him an angel." Before Basilides, Saturninus said that angels had made the world and that the God of the Jews was one of the angels. These two disciples of Menander, therefore, taught of another God besides the Creator. Before Saturninus, Cerinthus taught that the world was not made by the first God, but by a certain power very much separated and distant from that Principality which is above all things, and which was ignorant of the God who is above all. But this was the very opinion of the Valentinians, who handed down the same thing concerning their Demiurge. But why do I name individual heretics? All the Gnostics taught the same, no less than Valentinus. Irenæus, book 5, ch. 26: "Therefore, those who blaspheme the Demiurge, either in words themselves and manifestly, as those who are of Marcion, or according to the subversion of the opinion, as those who are from Valentinus and all who are falsely called Gnostics." The same, book 2, ch. 56: "And that there is no other God of all, but that it is the title of the Almighty alone, and this will be similarly adapted against those who are from Marcion, and Simon, and Menander, and whosoever others who similarly divide the creation which is according to us from the Father." The same, book 4, ch. 14: ^D "But this is the fabricator of heaven and earth, as is shown from his words, and not the false Father invented by Marcion, or Valentinus, or Basilides, or Carpocrates, or Simon, or the rest of the falsely named Gnostics." Which passage of Irenæus, joining the Gnostics with Simon (whom he elsewhere calls now the disciple of Simon, now of Menander), not only proves what we intend, but also shows that those who taught that the apostolic times had been stained by the Gnostic plague rely not on their own conjectures, but on the authority of the ancients. And both are confirmed by the same Irenæus, book 3, c. 11: "Announcing this faith, John the disciple of the Lord, wishing by the announcement of the Gospel to remove that error which had been sown in men by Cerinthus, and much earlier by those who…"

are called Nicolaitans, who are the extraction of that which is falsely called knowledge; in order to confound them and persuade them, that there is one God who made all things by His Word, and not, as they say, one who is the fabricator, and another the Father of the Lord.” For if Cerinthus, ^A before St. John wrote the Gospel, taught that the Fabricator, that is, the Demiurge, was someone other than the Father of the Lord; if the Nicolaitans taught the same thing long before; if the Nicolaitans were an extraction of the Gnostics (this is *apospasma*, as I think; Gloss: *Apospasthèn*, torn away. *Apospasis*, an extraction; as Epiphanius often speaks: "Theodotus again rose up, being an extraction from the aforementioned irrational heresy," and "From this the Noetians are an extraction of his"); it follows both that some taught before Valentinus that there was a God other than the Creator, and that the Gnostics had defiled the apostolic times. Such were Simon and Cerinthus (as Nazianzen says: "cutting off the God of all, and warring against the Creator on behalf of the good"), as we have shown; such were Hymenaeus and Philetus to Epiphanius, "announcing another God," ^B and saying that the world was not made by God, but by principalities and powers. After these, who would believe such open testimonies, that no one before Valentinus taught that there was another God besides the Creator? Especially since that very learned man has brought forward nothing else to confirm this proposition, except those words: "If we listen to Tertullian." But Tertullian’s words are not to be pressed against the consensus of the ancients; nor must it be said that Valentinus and Marcion alone and first taught these things, on the sole authority of Tertullian, who elsewhere says that Marcion first asserted these, when yet he himself acknowledges Cerdo as the teacher of Marcion. "He had," he says, "also a certain Cerdo, an informant of this scandal." For since the Valentinians and Marcionites were the most famous heretics in the age of Tertullian, as often as he argues about heresies, he aims mostly at them, and strikes at Valentinus and Marcion as if they were the leaders; ^C although he himself acknowledges the Marcionites to be premature and abortions under the apostles, namely the Docetae; but he could have recognized others also among the ancients distinguishing the Demiurge from God, who were no less premature Marcionites.

The second argument of Daillé is: "All heretics older than Valentinus will deny that they themselves introduced the Logos as either the son or the grandson of Sige." Perhaps. We indeed admit, nay, we prove, that neither of the ancient Gnostics nor of the Valentinians did anyone introduce the Logos as the son of Sige, and this we point out as worthy of note to refute the opinion of Daillé. But neither did those Gnostics or Valentinians philosophize anything about the grandsons of Sige. But when he adds that this wreath belongs to Valentinus, who of all the heresiarchs was the first to establish that Ogdoad of Aeons, in which from Bythus and Sige, through Nun and Alethia, the Logos proceeds with Zoe; that holds, he plainly says, no one before him affirmed it, and for the contrary many have asserted. We have brought forward their testimonies, who clearly taught that the first Ogdoad had been put forth by the ancient Gnostics, and the Decad and Duodecad added by Valentinus. We have shown from Irenaeus that Nun and Alethia proceeded from Bythus and Sige according to the ancient Gnostics; that the Valentinians were thieves, and indeed wicked for this reason, not because they received this tetrad from them, but because they handed down the second tetrad wrongly, because they brought forth Man and the Church from Logos and Zoe. To confirm his own views, the very learned man brings forward nothing else but that in all the Theogonies of the heretics older than Valentinus, as recounted by Irenaeus, there does not appear the emission of the Logos from Sige; thus, to stabilize what he affirms, he brings forward absolutely nothing, and to what he denies, he offers nothing else but the silence of Irenaeus in constructing genealogies. And indeed, if Irenaeus had nowhere indicated what we affirm, if he had represented the genealogies of all the heretics in their entirety with all the Aeons and all their names, there would be some strength in this argument for diminishing the credibility of others posterior to Irenaeus in this matter. But since not only does Irenaeus himself say many things, which pertain to confirming the opinion of those who handed down that the first Octonation of Valentinus was taken from the Gnostics, as we have shown; since Irenaeus has not represented the entire genealogies of all, as we shall now show, anyone will admit that there is no force in this argument at all. For if the genealogies of individual heretics proposed by Irenaeus were not complete, if elsewhere he himself attributes to heretics what is not found in their genealogies, if similarly in describing the opinions of those who followed Valentinus many things are omitted which no one will deny must be attributed to them, if all these things follow necessarily from the very method of writing which he adopted; then there will be no reason to deny to anyone all those names which do not appear in his genealogies found in Irenaeus. But that the method of writing observed by Irenaeus, which Daillé has by no means weighed, may be made clear; I observe the words of that very learned man: "The first chapter shows that it pertains to Valentinus, and the title prefixed to it, and the preface of the work itself." But in actual fact, both the preface and the title and the whole sequence of the chapter itself show that it pertains to his disciples, who all have noted, strayed from him in very many things. In the Preface itself he openly confesses that when he had read their Commentaries, as they themselves say, of the disciples of Valentinus, and with some of whom he had even had congress, he wished to expose their opinion, especially that of the Ptolemaics, which he does in the first chapter. For he never had congress with Valentinus; nor does he explain his Commentaries, but those of Ptolemaeus in that chapter. The title of the chapter stands thus: "A narrative of the whole argument of the disciples of Valentinus." The chapter itself begins thus, *Legousi gar*, "for they say," looking back to the final words of the Preface, *hupo tēs ekeinōn pithanologias ousēs*

"arising from their persuasion which is such," *ab illorum suadela quæ est talis*. First, therefore, in the first chapter, Irenæus intended to depict the school of the Valentinians at length, and to set forth the sum of their doctrine, together with all their Æons and the names of the Æons, and the remaining things which pertained to their heresy, at once and under one view, as it were; later, however, ^A to set forth briefly the individual opinions of the Gnostics, from whom they drew their own, and of Valentinus himself, and of his disciples, a labor which would not require touching upon individual points, nor repeating what he had said before. Therefore, he does not enumerate all their genealogies one by one, nor does he recite all the names of the Æons. For which reason, he deals with Valentinus himself only in the fifth chapter, so as to speak of the rest separately afterwards, that he may mark their differences and observe their origins; not, however, as Dallæus maintains, that he exposes all of Valentinus’s trifles in two places. With these points correctly observed, who does not immediately understand that in the individual genealogies of the Gnostics, and of Valentinus, and of his disciples, one ought not to require or expect all of their Æons, or their names? Among the Æons of Basilides, Ennœa is numbered before Valentinus; but that Basilides did not name Sige, who would infer from that, because Irenæus does not affirm this, when the Ptolemaeans, disciples of Valentinus, are found in the description of their own opinion to have possessed Ennœa alone—whom, however, no one would affirm that Valentinus rejected as Sige? Certainly, that the same Ennœa whom the Ptolemaeans call—alone—there, Ptolemy also called Charis, is certain from elsewhere; for he himself, in a fragment which still exists in Irenæus, speaking of St. John, says, "He accurately ^C declared the first tetrad, calling it Father and Charis, and the Monogenes and Aletheia." Therefore, he diligently points out the first quaternation, calling it Father and Charis, and the Monogenes, and Truth. In the very Genealogy of Valentinus, in the fifth chapter, in the first place is put the first Æon under the sole name of *Arrhetos*, whom afterwards, indeed, but in passing, he names *Bythos*, not *Arrhetos*. Irenæus does not name the entire genealogy of Basilides: for, according to Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, book IV), "Basilides assumes Dikaiosyne and her daughter Eirene to remain in the Ogdoad, having been established." Basilides, moreover, supposes both Justice and her daughter Peace to be, as it were, existing and disposed to remain in the Ogdoad; which you would seek in vain in Irenæus. From the imperfect and shortened genealogies of the ancient Gnostics in Irenæus, therefore, a negative argument cannot be correctly formed. Especially since in that of Basilides we have Ennœa, or Sige, and even Logos clearly described. In the syzygies of Simon there was *Phōnē*, which his disciples, after the publishing of St. John’s Gospel, turned into *Logos*, and Basilides followed them. For as to the fact that Dallæus wishes to claim that Basilides did not divulge his heresy before the death of Ignatius, we shall refute that opinion in the next chapter.

The third argument for him is from the words of Irenæus (book I, ch. 5), previously vexed by Blondel; and, turning further to his interpretation: "For the first, from the so-called Gnostic heresy, having adapted the ancient doctrines to his own character of teaching, thus set them forth." ^D Hence he brings forward two points to confirm his opinion, one from the disposition of the word *prōtos*, the other from the exposition of the word *metharmosās*, both weak and forced. He interprets the former words of the sentence in such a way that the mind of Irenæus is that Valentinus was the first among the Gnostic heresy who handed down the dogma which he subjects, having translated and adapted [the doctrines] from the ancient ones to his own form. But to make this appear so, he cites these words of Irenæus: "Valentinus, having defined thus, first from the Gnostic heresy," wrongly and deceitfully. Then indeed he slanders Petavius, a learned enough interpreter, and one certainly who, in that time, when the Usserian [works] had not yet appeared, was not at all considering evasions. This is the interpretation of Petavius: "For indeed, he who first translated certain beginnings, taken from the Gnostic heresy, to the form of his peculiar sect, Valentinus, defined it thus." What does the most learned man find fault with in this interpretation? "In vain," he says, "does Petavius, joining those words *apo tēs legomenēs Gnostikēs haireseōs* with the word *metharmosās*, interpret it in such a way as to wish for Valentinus to be understood as having taken those doctrines from the Gnostic heresy?" But what then? Could he have interpreted Irenæus otherwise than that those ancient doctrines, which Valentinus translated into his own character, or form of a peculiar sect, were taken from the school of the ancient Gnostics? Or did those ancient doctrines exist anywhere other than among the Gnostics? Dallæus himself concedes the very forest and matter of things, from which Valentinus composed his own, to have been among the more ancient Gnostics. But were that forest and matter of things anything other than ancient doctrines? Or did Valentinus translate them from elsewhere than from that heresy in which they existed? Petavius innovated nothing here, but intended exactly the same thing that all interpreters before him, Billius, Cornarius, Vetus, had intended, and what Irenæus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, Theodoret had taught. Certainly, when Dallæus, in order to separate and disconnect those words *apo tēs legomenēs Gnostikēs haireseōs* from the word *metharmosās*, connects them with the word *prōtos*, and places "first" immediately after those words, "from the Gnostic heresy," to serve his hypothesis, he confuses everything. For that word *prōtos*, in the mind of Irenæus, is not referred to the Gnostic heresy, but to another: namely, to the former statement, not the subsequent one. "Let us see now also the inconsistent opinion of these men, when there are two or three of them, as to how they do not say the same things about the same [subjects], but provide contrary responses both in facts and in names. *Ho men gar prōtos*,"—"For the first," (as the old interpreter has rendered it faithfully enough) "from those few, namely two or three, whose opinion...

^A he had intended to treat in the first chapter (for he had undertaken to deal with the Valentinians and especially the Ptolemaeans, whose opinion he calls *anthysma tēs Ouakentinou scholēs*), he brought down ancient doctrines into his own character from the Gnostic heresy, *houtōs exērophorēse*. "A corrupt word," says Petavius, "in which it is useless to try for a divination." Hammond reads for it *exephrēsen*, and Isaac Vossius, with a lighter mutation, *elērophorēse*. But Billius thinks the old interpreter read *ephē*. I rather think that the old interpreter by no means understood the word he read, and therefore omitted it, thinking it could be done while preserving the sense. I feel, therefore, that the most ancient reading was *exērophorēsen*, and perhaps it proceeded from Irenaeus himself; for *xērophorein* may mean the same thing as to relate something *xērais lexesin* ("in dry words"), as the Greeks say. Be that as it may, Valentinus is named here as the first of those whose opinion Irenaeus had related: it is asserted that he brought down ancient doctrines from the Gnostic heresy into his own character; and his character is at once briefly explained, in which some things drawn from the Gnostics are found. At length, it is clearly seen how infirm Dallaeus's argument, drawn from the word *prōtos*, is. "If these things," he says, "Valentinus defined first from the Gnostics, certainly no Gnostic before him had defined them so. Therefore, that the Logon was fructified from Sige (which is one of those things defined by Valentinus) no Gnostic had raved before him." It rests upon an interpretation which strangely confuses the opinion of Irenaeus, and is entirely foreign ^B from his mind: and he posits that "the Logon fructified from Sige" is one of those things defined by Valentinus, whereas Valentinus does not say the Logon was fructified from Sige, but from the first tetrad, *ek tēs tetrados tautēs karpoporeisthai*, and that not because it was emitted from Sige, but from Alethia, who was in the same tetrad after Sige. But we do not understand these things in such a way that no other doctrine was contained in Valentinus's character except those ancient ones drawn from the Gnostics, or that his heresy added nothing to the Gnostic heresy. The fable of the thirty Aeons was peculiar to him; he added, I think, the decade and duodecad. He did not himself devise the first ogdoad, but accepted it from the ancients; he only changed the order of the second tetrad; in which some of his own disciples did not follow him. In that ogdoad were both Sige and Logus, and in both cases Logus was brought forth from the tetrad in which Sige was, yet not by Sige, but by Alethia, who was in the same tetrad but the second duad. No other change appears here; nor is the force of the word *metharmosei* such that all the names of the old Aeons were changed by Valentinus, and all the syzygies reduced to a better form. For *metharmizein* often signifies simply "to transfer," or "to adapt," not always "to change," much less "to correct for the better," or "to amend." The Basilidians, accepting the theorems of the mathematicians, transferred them into their own character of doctrine, as Irenaeus reports (lib. 1, c. 23), not that they might amend them, I think, but so they might illustrate their opinion with them. Regarding the disciples of Marcus, he reports the same, lib. 1, c. 17: "Some of those things which are placed in the Gospel, they transfigure into this character; not that they might amend the Gospel, or change its words, but so that they might insert evangelical words into their own doctrine." He teaches the same thing about the Valentinians ^C also in other words, cap. 1: "And taking each one of the things said, they took them away from the truth and, abusing the names, they transferred them into their own hypothesis." Thus, taking away each of those things which are said (in the beginning of the Gospel of St. John) from the truth, they transferred them into their own argumentation by abusing the names. Truly, the third assertion, confirmed sufficiently by our arguments and freed from the Blondellian and Dallaean objections, remains thus far unshaken: that this very heresy, which they wish to suggest the author of the Epistle to the Magnesians had in mind, was older than Valentinus, and derived from the older Gnostics; at least insofar as in their Gnostic syzygy the first was Sige, but in the inferior syzygy the Logos; which is just as valid for interpreting the words *ouk apo Sigēs proelthōn* according to their mind as the heresy of Valentinus itself.

CHAPTER VII

If, however, anyone is not satisfied even with these, and wishes Valentinus himself to have been the one attacked by the author of the epistle, not even then will the matter be settled according to the opinion of the adversaries; for there still remains the fourth assertion, namely: That it cannot be proven for certain that the errors of Valentinus himself were completely unknown to Ignatius the martyr. The heresy of Valentinus has been sufficiently exposed by the ancients; his life and history are more uncertain. From those monuments of the ancients which remain, it certainly cannot be gathered that Valentinus lived so late, or fell into that heresy, that his doctrine could by no means have become known to St. Ignatius. But if one cannot prove that the delirium of Valentinus himself could not have been known to the holy martyr before his death, the argument drawn from the violation of time perishes, the force of which they place only in the fact that they think they can firmly demonstrate that Valentinus laid the foundations of his heresy long after the death of the holy martyr.

I, however, conclude that Ignatius could have known the opinion of Valentinus in this way. If the doctrine of Polycarp was known to Ignatius, and to St. John, and also to other apostles, the doctrine of Valentinus could also have been known at least to Ignatius. But the doctrine of Polycarp was known both to Ignatius, and to St. John, and to other apostles who, before John...

^A died, had appointed him bishop, as Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, relates clearly in book III, ch. 3: "And Polycarp not only having been taught by the apostles and having conversed with many who had seen the Lord, but also having been appointed by the apostles in Asia as bishop in the Church at Smyrna, whom we also have seen in our first youth; for he remained for a long time, and being very old, having witnessed gloriously and most brilliantly, he departed from this life." The old interpreter of Irenæus: "But Polycarp not only instructed by the apostles, and conversed with many of those who had seen our Lord, but also appointed by the apostles in Asia in the Church which is at Smyrna as bishop, whom we also saw in our early age; for he persevered much, and, being very old, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed from this life." Polycarp was therefore ordained bishop by St. John and other apostles; to whom his doctrine was certainly known at that time, otherwise they would never have ordained him bishop. ^B Now, if we grant that Polycarp was made bishop in A.D. 82, as Blondel himself teaches, the doctrine of Polycarp was known for 25 years before Ignatius hastened to his martyrdom. No one, therefore, will deny that the doctrine of Valentinus could have been known to Ignatius, if indeed Valentinus died while Polycarp was still alive. But that Valentinus died before Polycarp, I posit as being beyond all controversy. For thus Irenæus writes of him, book III, c. 4: "For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus." The old interpreter: "For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, but grew in strength under Pius, and extended his time until Anicetus." But that word *παρέμεινε* (remained), which this interpreter translates as "extended his time," in the words recently cited regarding Polycarp, *περεσέμεινε*, indicates altogether how long he lived. Valentinus therefore reached the times of Anicetus, and lived no longer; but Polycarp came to Rome under Anicetus, by the same witness of Irenæus, and spent some years in Asia after he had returned from Rome, before he suffered martyrdom. Since, therefore, for 25 years before Ignatius wrote, the doctrine of Polycarp was known to all, if we consider the order of times in a general way; the doctrine of Valentinus, who died before Polycarp, could also have been clear to Ignatius when he wrote. And if anyone asserts the contrary, and places the foundation of his argument therein, it is incumbent upon him to bring forward those things which demonstrate the age of Valentinus to have been so much later than the age of Ignatius that the most holy martyr, already hastening to the end of his life, could by no means have known what that heretic taught. Wherefore the very learned man, in order to serve his hypothesis, prolongs the life of Valentinus after Anicetus and Soter up to the episcopate of Eleutherius, without any verisimilitude at all. For Irenæus wrote his third book under Eleutherius, in which he deals with the age of Valentinus and the more recent origin of the heresiarchs ^C at work. If Valentinus had lived under the same bishop under whom he wrote, would not that most diligent writer have noted it? Or could he have said "he lasted only until Anicetus," if he had lived after Anicetus and Soter under Eleutherius? These things certainly cannot be. But Daillé, relying on the testimony of Tertullian, taught this. But I do not believe that Tertullian, who borrowed almost everything pertaining to this matter from Irenæus, intended this; or if he did intend it, I know he was clearly deceived. For thus he writes, *De præscr. hæret.* cap. 30: "Where then was Marcion, the ship-master from Pontus, the student of Stoicism? Where was Valentinus, the follower of the Platonic school? For it is agreed that they were not of such distant date, being almost under the reign of Antoninus, and that they had first believed the doctrine of the Catholic Church at the Roman Church, under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherius, until, on account of their always restless curiosity, which the brethren also avoided, being cast out once and again, Marcion indeed with the two hundred sesterces which he had brought into the Church, and finally being relegated to perpetual discord, they disseminated the poisons of their doctrines." If we understand Tertullian in such a way that both Valentinus and Marcion together at Rome under the same bishop, namely Eleutherius, believed in Catholic doctrine and were frequently cast out, we certainly mean to say that which cannot be borne at all. As far as Valentinus is concerned, he preached after coming to Rome, where he was even thought to have had some part of piety and true faith, as Epiphanius relates; but that he was cast out of the Roman Church once and again, no one of the ancients has taught. The things which are commemorated here by Tertullian concerning repeated ejection and perpetual discord are attributed not to Valentinus, but to Cerdo by Irenæus, book I, cap. 4. For after he had dealt very briefly with Valentinus in the words already cited, he added these things concerning Cerdo: "But Cerdo, who was before Marcion, and he too under Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop, having come into the Church and made confession, thus continued: at one time secretly teaching, at another making confession, and at another being refuted for those things which he taught wrongly, and departing from the assembly of the brethren." The old interpreter: "But Cerdo, who was before Marcion, and he too under Hyginus, who was the eighth bishop, often coming into the church, and making confession, thus concluded, now indeed teaching secretly, now indeed making confession, and now indeed being refuted by some in those things which he taught wrongly, and being abstained from the gathered assembly of religious men." Irenæus's words were clearly looked toward by Tertullian, by which those things which he writes of him, whom he joined to Marcion, are clearly attributed to Cerdo, not to Valentinus. The matter itself, therefore, does not fit Valentinus, much less that time in which they wish these things to have been done by him, namely the episcopate of Eleutherius. Is anyone so much a stranger in ecclesiastical annals as to believe these things to be true concerning Valentinus? Was he cast out once and again under Eleutherius, he who is said by Irenæus, carefully handing down his age, to have remained until Anicetus, and by that very fact sufficiently

^A proven to be a novelty? Or did he, having believed into the Catholic doctrine at Rome under the episcopate of Eleutherius, only then disseminate the poison of his own doctrine—he against whose heretical books, and the commentaries of so many of his disciples, Irenæus wrote under the same bishop? Irenæus, who also clearly distinguishes Valentinus from those who taught that heresy in his own age, right at the beginning of his first book? Or did Valentinus himself, the father of the sect, believe in the Catholic doctrine under Eleutherius, when Justin Martyr wrote against the Valentinians, as even Tertullian admits in chapter 5? But he wrote before Eleutherius, before Soter, and indeed even before Anicetus, as the times of Anicetus are now arranged by chronologers from Eusebius. These things, therefore, can be true neither regarding Valentinus, nor regarding Cerdon, nor even regarding Marcion, whom Saint Polycarp—whose disciple Apelles, already very old, Rhodius, a disciple of Tatian and contemporary of Irenæus, addressed, and whose other disciples' disciples he described—used to avoid as one convicted of manifest heresy and the firstborn of Satan under Anicetus or earlier. Away, therefore, with those dreams derived from the passage of Tertullian: "Valentinus died at the beginning of the pontificate of Anicetus." On this side, our argument is firm; it is only a question of the beginning of his life or his heresy.

Blondellus, who in the reckoning of time is usually accurate beyond measure and where there is no need, is content with this reasoning: "Valentinus was not acknowledged as a heretic before the 40th or 36th year after the martyrdom of Ignatius. Therefore, he could not have been refuted by anyone before that year." But whence did he learn that Valentinus was not acknowledged as a heretic before the 40th or 36th year after the martyrdom of Ignatius? Because, forsooth, Valentinus was not acknowledged as a heretic before the year 144. For thus says Eusebius at that year in his *Chronicon*: "Valentinus is acknowledged as a heretic and remains until Anicetus." Thus indeed says Eusebius, but he does not say what Blondellus says, that he was not acknowledged as a heretic before this year. Nay, rather, the same Eusebius clearly refutes Blondellus. For in the Greek text at the third year of Antoninus Pius, he has: "Under Hyginus, bishop of Rome, Valentinus was known as the introducer of his own heresy at Rome." Valentinus was thus acknowledged as the founder of his own heresy at Rome under Bishop Hyginus in the year 141, according to Eusebius. In that year, then, he was acknowledged at Rome, according to the Eusebian calculation; elsewhere, earlier—indeed, even before the year 144—he was so acknowledged that he was even refuted, which Blondellus asserts could not have happened. Eusebius in his *Chronicon*, at the year 142: "Justinus the philosopher presented a book written on behalf of our religion to Antoninus." In that very book, Justin writes as follows: "We have also a treatise composed against all the heresies that have existed." And it is hardly to be doubted that that book was written towards the end of the reign of Hadrian, ^B especially if we believe Cedrenus, who, writing about that emperor, says: "Under him, Justin the philosopher acted manfully against all heresies." In that book, therefore, Justin wrote against the Valentinians, as Tertullian testifies; therefore, before the year 144, he could not only have been refuted, but he was himself refuted, and his disciples as well. Therefore, before that year, he was acknowledged as a heretic, and indeed long before. For Justin Martyr, in his *Dialogue with Trypho the Jew*, written at the beginning of [the reign of] Antoninus Pius, makes mention of the disciples of Valentinus as heretics, whom he calls "godless and impious," and with whom he testifies that the Catholics had no communion. "And there are among them," he says, "some who are called Marcionites, some Valentinians, some Basilidians, some Saturnilians, and others by other names, each named after the prince of the doctrine. And there are some of them who are called Marcionites, but others Valentinians, Basilidians, Saturnilians, each obtaining a name from the principle of their opinion." Long before, therefore, was Valentinus acknowledged as the prince of a blasphemous heresy and cast out from the Church. The question now is not when Valentinus was acknowledged at Rome as a heresiarch, but when he first fell into heresy, when he first brought forth the rudiments of his doctrine.

Epiphanius remarks that the origin of Valentinus was obscure, which is no small sign of his antiquity. He relates that he first formed his heresy in Egypt and infected it with his own poison; at what time this happened, he could not relate. The history which Tertullian tells tends the same way: "Valentinus had hoped for the episcopate, because he was capable by nature and eloquence; but indignant that another had obtained the place by the prerogative of martyrdom, he broke away from the authentic rule of the Church, and turned to attacking the truth." For it is reasonable to believe this happened in Egypt, but when it happened, he does not tell. That Valentinus was very ancient, however, was first asserted by the Valentinians themselves, and then it is persuaded by the monuments of the ancients correctly observed. Clement of Alexandria, *Stromata*, book VII: "Likewise they also report Valentinus to have heard Theodas; and this man was a disciple of Paul. Similarly, they also report that Valentinus heard Theodas; for this man was a disciple of Paul." If these things be true, there can be no further doubt about the antiquity of Valentinus. I suspect, indeed, that those who handed down these things were Valentinians, who, although they could hardly have been mistaken in that matter, could certainly have deceived. Since, however, they cannot be refuted by us, let us see whether what they handed down agrees with those things which have been reported by the Catholics. Irenæus, in the Preface to book IV: "They," he says, "who were before us, and indeed much better than we, were nevertheless not able to contradict those who are of Valentinus, because they were ignorant of their rule." He speaks of those who lived before his own age, and says they were not able to sufficiently refute the Valentinians, although

they were most excellent men. Now, Irenæus lived not long after the times of the apostles, as Augustine says, ^A *being near the apostles*—as Basil says; therefore, the times of the Valentinians were near the apostolic age, and Valentinus himself associated with apostolic men. This can be gathered much more firmly and certainly from the age of Marcion, if these arguments do not seem firm enough. Indeed, Irenæus records that Marcion flourished under Anicetus, who presided over the Roman Church under Antoninus Pius; whence Tertullian in Book V and Book I calls him an Antoninian. However, it is certain that he is an Antoninian heretic, impious under Pius. But the time when he first lapsed into heresy, since he had not discovered it in Irenæus, he neglected to inquire. As for the very year of Antoninus the Elder in which he exhaled his dog-star air from Pontus, I have not cared to investigate. Since Tertullian openly admits these things, I wonder at Baronius, who asserts that the certain year of the beginning of Marcion's heresy can be marked from his words. Indeed, the words follow in him: "From Tiberius, moreover, up to Antoninus are almost 120 years and half a year with half a month. They place the same amount of time between Christ and Marcion." But since he wishes to count from the death of Christ, it is known from what has preceded that this is openly false; and when he teaches that a certain year is indicated—namely, the seventh of Antoninus—he explains Tertullian against his own intention, who deduces the calculation only to the first times of Antoninus and has no concern for any year of his reign. For even those Christians who wrote before Tertullian counted more than 115 years from the 15th of Tiberius to the beginning of Antoninus. Let us see, therefore, whether we can elicit anything more certain concerning the origin of that heretic from the oldest monuments of the ancients; for those who trust in later ones have not been able to find anything certain up to this point. Origen, *Against Celsus*, Book V: "Celsus also mentioned the leaders of the Marcionites, Marcion." Celsus mentioned the Marcionites, the followers of Marcion. Before Celsus wrote, therefore, the heretic Marcionites were well known to all—not only to Christians, but also to heathens. The age of this Celsus is described by Origen as follows: "We have learned that there were two Epicurean Celsi; the former under Nero, the latter under Hadrian, and later." ^B Therefore, Celsus, who mentioned the Marcionites, lived under Hadrian; it is not certain, however, that he wrote under Hadrian, because he remained after the reign of Hadrian. For I do not approve of what Baronius wrote: "If we believe Origen, who records that Celsus, the Epicurean, wrote his commentaries against the Christians under Hadrian, in which he makes mention of Marcion's heresy, it is necessary to say that Marcion's heresies were already promulgated before the times of Antoninus." For Origen did not say that Celsus wrote under Hadrian, but that he lived under him; and the fact that he was an Epicurean who wrote under the reign of Antoninus Pius, the words of Origen appear to suggest entirely: but the disciples of Marcion were quite famous then. Certainly, Justin Martyr mentions the Marcionites in his *Dialogue with Trypho the Jew*, written, as we have said, immediately at the beginning of Antoninus Pius; or if we listen to Scaliger, at the end of Hadrian's reign. For thus he says to Eusebius's *Chronicon*: "He wrote the *Dialogue with Trypho* at the time of the Jewish War, that is, under Hadrian, as he himself shows." "Trypho," he says, "is my name; I am, however, a Hebrew by circumcision, a fugitive from the recent war, and I am accustomed to spending most of my time in Greece and Corinth." There were, therefore, at those times, famous heretics, the disciples of Marcion. Concerning Marcion himself, he says the same in the First *Apology*, which in the editions is wrongly held to be the second, as learned men have noted: "And a certain Marcion from Pontus, who even now exists, teaching those who are persuaded." In which place he indicates that Marcion had long since scattered his heresy before Justin wrote those things. But he wrote those things in the fourth year of Antoninus Pius, as Eusebius records in his *Chronicon*; nor does he appear to have written it later, for he calls the Barchochebas war, which ended under Hadrian, "the recently occurred Jewish war" in the same *Apology*. Wherefore, since Justin, at the beginning of almost the reign of Antoninus the Elder, mentioned Marcion's disciples, who had been cast out from the communion of the Church, and declared that Marcion had long since promulgated his heretical dogmas, can anyone be led to believe that Marcion was not a heretic a few years after the beginning of Hadrian's reign? I do not indeed think that what Philastrius wrote about Marcion is true: "Who, having been defeated and driven out by the blessed John the evangelist and by the presbyters from the city of Ephesus, sowed this heresy at Rome." However, I think that these are some argument for the antiquity of that heresy. And from those things which have been said in passing, I observe that it is highly probable that the father of Marcion was a bishop in Pontus before the martyrdom of Ignatius, and indeed ^C *distinguishing himself in the episcopal office*, as Epiphanius says, long before those times when Blondel and Salmasius decide that the episcopacy first raised its head. These things, moreover, gathered from the oldest monuments of the ancients concerning the age of Marcion, are of very great value for eliciting the age of Valentinus. For all the ancients teach that he was older than Marcion; how much older he was, in this way, unless I am mistaken, we shall be able to learn to some extent. There is no one who does not state that Cerdo was the teacher of Marcion: "Cerdo, who was before Marcion," and: "Marcion, however, succeeding him," says Irenæus, Book III, Chapter 4, who also in Book I teaches that Cerdo derived his own [tenets] from the Simonians: "Succeeding him," he says, "the Pontic..."

Marcion enlarged the school." So Tertullian; so the others. And indeed Irenæus reports that Valentinus came to Rome first under Hyginus, then Cerdo. But from this, nothing certain concerning the time can be gathered. For Irenæus assigns no years to the Roman pontiffs, nor does he compare them with the Roman emperors. Eusebius, indeed, in his Chronicle attributes the first year of Hyginus to the second year of Antoninus Pius, but Eutychius to the sixth year of Hadrian. Eusebius desires that Hyginus sat for three years; the author of the most ancient catalog in Bucherius says twelve years, three months, and six days. And in truth, I think the beginnings of the pontificates of Anicetus, Pius, and Hyginus are thus far unknown. Therefore, from the succession of the heretics, one must rather judge concerning the beginning of Valentinus, and such a succession of them has been handed down to us by the ancients; Cerdo succeeded Heracleon, as Epiphanius [says]: *Κέρδων τις τούτους καὶ τὸν Ἡρακλέωνα διαδέχεται ἐκ τῆς αὐτῶν σχολῆς ὤν.* “A certain Cerdo succeeds these and Heracleon, being of their school.” Cerdo then succeeds Heracleon, Heracleon succeeded Colarbasus, Colarbasus, Ptolemy, Ptolemy, Epiphanes, Epiphanes, Secundus, and Secundus succeeded Valentinus. Valentinus, therefore, from whose school the others emerged, was some years older than Cerdo. But if we establish that Cerdo disseminated his ravings, if not before, then immediately at the very beginning of Hadrian’s reign—which we have shown to be most probable—no one will deny that even Valentinus could have been sowing his own before the eleventh year of Trajan; and no one will deny that this could have been known by Ignatius before his martyrdom.

^A Dallæus also uses another argument: “Saturnilus and Basilides began to disseminate their ravings more than 20 years after the martyrdom of Ignatius. But Valentinus erupted after these two.” First, I indeed admit that Valentinus erupted after those two, but not by a great interval. Secondly, I also acknowledge that Saturnilus taught his heresy before Basilides, which Baronius, led by a frivolous suspicion, denied. But in the meantime, I openly deny that it can in any way be proved that Basilides began to disseminate his ravings so many years after the death of Ignatius. He names more than twenty years in this place, but in chapter 10, to which he refers us, he fixes the epoch of the Basilidian heresy, counting 27 years after the martyrdom of Ignatius, and he cites the words of Eusebius in the Chronicle for the 17th year of Hadrian (134 of our Lord) as the foundation for his opinion. The words of Eusebius are: “The heresiarch Basilides dwells in Alexandria, from whom are the Gnostics.” But how wrongly these are drawn to the beginning of the heresy, which rather indicate the end of that heretic? In that very year he is said to still dwell in Alexandria, who after that year nowhere appeared. Thus Jerome, who translated those words from the Greek, interpreted Eusebius. For in his Catalog, under the entry “Agrippa,” he has these words: “But Basilides, from whom the Gnostics [originate], died in Alexandria in the times of Hadrian.” Who, however, does not see that he refers to other Eusebian matters? ^B The words that follow also prove the same thing: “In this time, Chochebas, leader of the Jewish faction, killed the Christians with various tortures.” For to that same year of Hadrian, these words are appended in the Chronicle of Eusebius: “Chochebas, leader of the Jewish faction, kills with all manner of tortures those Christians who were unwilling to bear arms for him against the Roman soldiery.” That year, therefore, which Dallæus seized for his own argument, I set as the foundation for my own; and I maintain that Basilides died in the 17th year of Hadrian, about 27 years after the martyrdom of St. Ignatius. While I was hastily scanning the sheets of the Notes of John Cotelier on the Apostolic Constitutions, I saw that he understands Jerome differently, and reads “remained” (*moratus est*) instead of “died” (*mortuus est*). Three things moved that learned man to do so. First, that the passage in the Catalog fits that in the Chronicle so aptly; second, because he had found it written in five codices as *moratus est*; third, it concerns the passage from Clement of Alexandria. But these things neither compel nor persuade us to abandon the vulgate reading, nor to believe that Basilides lived after that year. Not the first, because that heretic could both dwell in Alexandria and die in the same year; Eusebius could point to one, Jerome to the other; and since he treats of the age of Agrippa Castor in the Catalog, he is to be thought of as looking to the death of Basilides, against whom Agrippa wrote under Hadrian, rather than to his dwelling there; and it is likely that he understood Eusebius in such a way that he wished to show Basilides lived up to the year noted in the Chronicle, if indeed Jerome wrote *commoratur* (“dwells”) in the Chronicle. ^C For not even this is certain; since in that place it is read also as *commemoratur* (“is mentioned”): and although Pontacus teaches that in some manuscripts it is read *commoratur* (as I also found it written in one Cambridge codex), the same is nonetheless held as *commemoratur* in the majority: which implies: if this word is accepted, the similarity of the places perishes. Nor does the second point have any value, because both the editions and two of our Cambridge manuscripts, which I was able to inspect while writing, prefer *mortuus est* (“died”), and the Greek version under the name of Sophronius, without doubt far older than those five manuscripts, represents and defends this vulgate reading: *Τελευτῶντος Βασιλείδου Γνωστικοὶ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ἐκλήθησαν ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις Ἀδριανοῦ.* “Upon the death of Basilides, the Gnostics were called [so] in Alexandria in the times of Hadrian.” ^D We deal concerning the third point against Dallæus. But Dallæus does not know how true this is; “it certainly does not seem to harmonize,” he says, “with those things which Clement handed down, namely, that Basilides arrived at the age of Antoninus Pius.” But Clement does not clearly state even this in that obscure passage which we will soon consider; nor, if he had said it, would it add much to the cause of the adversaries; for it could not be proven from that, that Basilides lived for more than five years after that year. From this I also infer that it can in no way be proven that he sowed his heresy in Egypt after the death of Ignatius. Which opinion, from the customs of the ancients...

^A I confirm thus. Under the reign of Hadrian, Agrippa Castor wrote a brilliant refutation of Basilides, in which he also made mention of the books written by him on the Gospel, as Eusebius testifies, Hist. lib. IV, cap. 7. Nor did he write only against Basilides, but also against his son and disciple Isidore, as Theodoret testifies. Seeing that he had published so many books under Hadrian, and had a son and disciple who was also a known writer at that time, it is reasonable to believe that he taught his doctrine under Trajan. Joel the chronographer, therefore, treating of the Emperor Trajan, has this: ^A "Under whom also Simeon, son of Cleopas, and Ignatius Deifer, and Basilides, and Nicolaus, and the Ebionite, were known as arch-heretics and enemies of the truth." Dealing with the same emperor, Abulfaraius states: "At this time there appeared at Antioch a certain man by the name of Soterinus, or Saturninus. Basilides also appeared." Nor is it surprising that these more recent authors reported these things, since the ancients handed down similar accounts. Epiphanius, in his 31st heresy, writes: "This Valentinus, in time, succeeds those set forth before him—namely, Basilides and Saturnilus, and Ebion and Cerinthus and Merinthus, and those around them. For all these sprang up in their life to the ruin of the human race at one time, though those around Cerinthus, Merinthus, and Ebion were somewhat earlier." ^B There did not, therefore, elapse much time between Cerinthus the heretic being known in Asia, before St. John had written his Gospel, and Basilides, as Epiphanius testifies. Furthermore, Jerome himself counts Basilides among the heretics of the apostolic age, arguing against the Luciferians: "But why do I speak of those who came later? While the Apostles were still in the world, in Judea, an image of the Lord's body was asserted, while Christ's blood was still fresh. The Apostle again travails for the Galatians who were led back to the observance of the law. He strives to draw the Corinthians, who did not believe in the resurrection of the flesh, back to the true path by many arguments. Then Simon Magus and his disciple Menander asserted that they were deities; then Basilides invented the supreme God Abraxas with three hundred and sixty-five Aeons." ^B If we are to believe the Basilidians themselves, Basilides had a teacher named Glaucias, and that man was an interpreter of St. Peter. Clement of Alexandria says, Strom. lib. VII: "Just as Basilides, even if they claim Glaucias as a teacher, as they boast, the interpreter of Peter." Nor is this to be immediately rejected, because what was said by the Basilidians does not in the least conflict with that age, which our own side also acknowledges. If Glaucias was an interpreter of St. Peter, he was a contemporary of Menander, whom all ^A confess was a disciple of Simon Magus; certainly Justin Martyr calls him a disciple of Simon. Both, therefore, as regards the nature of the time, could have heard both Glaucias and Menander, unless the premature death of that Glaucias were already known to someone. Simon died under Nero; therefore, Menander flourished under Vespasian; therefore, it is credible that he heard Saturnilus and Basilides under Domitian, that he formed and produced his heresies under Trajan, and that he founded schools or churches under Hadrian. Of whom Eusebius says: "Of whom one established schools of impious heresies in Syria, but the other in Egypt." Whence Clement of Alexandria proves these human assemblies were posterior to the Catholic Church. ^C Although these things have been so clearly proven by us, the critic Daillé still has authors, as he thinks, who report that this Basilides—that disciple of Menander, father and master of Isidore—first broke out under Hadrian and began to teach his heresy. And first he names for us Clement of Alexandria, whose passage, I believe, they quote so often, having been wonderfully corrupted or misunderstood. We shall therefore examine it part by part. Where the word *Augustus* cannot be correctly placed in that latter position; for it cannot be understood of Augustus himself, after the middle of whose reign Christ was born; nor does that word fit Tiberius where both are named together. Sylburgius recognizes the error and, with the interpreter, reads "of Tiberius" instead of "of Augustus." And indeed, it is said well enough in Greek "in the middle of the time of Tiberius," but I doubt whether Clement would speak that way, who indeed acknowledged that Christ was baptized by Tiberius and thought that He suffered after one year, but assigned only [a few] years to Tiberius. Since, therefore, a lighter change would seem sufficient, perhaps we should read "halving the times of those Augusti," or, with each emperor taking half the time for himself. As he himself speaks, lib. I: "In the fifteenth year, therefore, of Tiberius and in the fifteenth of Augustus, are thus completed the thirty years until the time in which Christ suffered." But the best correction is to be expected from a better codex. I only observe that that passage, as it is now edited, lies in error. "But the teaching of his Apostles until the ministry of Paul is finished under Nero." These things regarding the antiquity of Christian doctrine; concerning the novelty of the heresies, he speaks thus: "But further down, about the times of the emperor Hadrian, those who devised the heresies..."

^A He does not deny that any heretic existed before the time of Hadrian; for this could not be denied. He does not say that those of whom he speaks first taught their delusions under Hadrian, which our adversaries assert, but which we deny. He says only this: that those who devised the heresies existed around the times of Hadrian. The ancients themselves understood Clement in this way: for Cedrenus has this from them: "For as Clement the Stromatist says, Saturnilus, Basilides, and Carpocrates existed under Hadrian." As the author of the *Stromata* says, Saturnilus, Basilides, and Carpocrates were under Hadrian. And Clement adds: "And they extended their age even to the time of Antoninus the elder, as did Basilides." That is, Pius, who succeeded Hadrian. From which words it is evident that Clement was looking to the later times of these heretics, not the earlier; as if he had said: Those heresiarchs, whose disciples still exist, were inferior or later than those who first preached the Christian faith; for the doctrine of the apostles was completed under Nero, but these people lived under Hadrian and lasted until Antoninus Pius; therefore, they were later than the apostles. ^B Of these, he names three: Basilides, Valentinus, and perhaps Marcion; perhaps, I say, for those words: "For Marcion, having come into the same age as them, as an old man, associated with the younger ones," as they are commonly expounded, cannot be sound, nor can the words that follow: "After whom Simon, while Peter was preaching for a little while, obeyed," as they are read and expounded today. For who in ecclesiastical history can stand it, either that Marcion was an old man while Basilides and Valentinus were young men, or that Simon, who heard S. Peter, existed after Marcion? Epiphanius thought otherwise about Marcion, as we have shown: the ancients also spoke otherwise. Justin Martyr makes mention of the Valentinians and Basilidians, and teaches that they were named from the names of the heresiarchs; indeed, he says: "And there are among us some called after the name of those men from whom each doctrine and opinion began." He mentions Marcion alone as if he were still among the living when he himself was writing, and after he had written against all the heresies. Would he have signaled that only he was among the living then, if at the same time Basilides and Valentinus had not only been living, but had even been young and in the prime of life? Irenæus, in discussing the age of the heretics, observes that Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, and that Marcion prevailed later under Anicetus; did he think that Valentinus was younger, when Marcion was already an old man? These things, therefore, at least as they have been expounded by them, could not have proceeded from Clement. Wherefore Isaac Vossius applied a remedy to this passage as if it were not at all sound, and for what we have provided, reads: "For Marcion, having come into the same age as them, as an old man, associated with the younger ones, after whom was Simon." Which, if I rightly understand, sound like this: "For Marcion, in the same age, lived as a younger man among those with whom Simon was an old man," etc. So he, acutely indeed, as he is wont. But Henricus Valesius thought nothing should be changed, but that *μεθ' ὃν*, or "after whom," means the same as "before whom," and he attempts to prove this in his Annotations to Eusebius. Whether such an exposition can be borne, let the learned judge. I have no doubt that Blondell, who asserts that Clement in this place refers to Valentinus after Marcion, was deceived by the Latin version alone; which, however, does not openly say what he intended. I feel that the mind of Clement can be correctly expressed in this way: "For as regards Marcion, he indeed lived under the same empire of Hadrian, under which Basilides and Valentinus lived, but being an old man, he conversed with those heretics who were younger, more recent, or later." For the word *νεωτέροις* should not be joined with *αὐτοῖς*, as if those were younger or later than Marcion himself; the entire sense of the word *αὐτοῖς* refers back to *αὐτήν* [the age] and is completed in the word *γενόμενος*; *νεωτέροις* is strictly joined to *συνεγένετο* and denotes those with whom Marcion conversed as a disciple, and from whom he borrowed certain principles of his own heresy, who indeed were themselves disciples of Basilides and Valentinus. ^C Thus Clement uses the word elsewhere as in Book I: "Thales, a Phoenician by birth, is said to have associated with the Egyptian prophets; just as Pythagoras also associated with these same men, and with the best of the Chaldeans and Magi." Where *συμβεβληκέναι* and *συγγενέσθαι* are the same. Thus Clement agrees very well with the ancients. By no means, therefore, is it gathered from this passage that Valentinus lived after Marcion, as Blondell wished, or that Basilides never taught before the empire of Hadrian, which Daillé wished to elicit from this.

Nor indeed do the others who speak of Hadrian determine anything other than what we also determine, that Basilides was under his empire, or had a school. Theodoret on Saturnilus and Basilides: "Both of them were in the time of Hadrian Caesar." ^D Eusebius indeed institutes a narrative about the schools of Saturnilus and Basilides around the times of Hadrian: "Of whom one established schools of god-hated heresies in Syria, and the other in Egypt." He does not say that he taught the heresy then for the first time, but that which proves the exact opposite, he teaches that he received the heresy from Menander, the successor of Simon; and that under the same emperor some ecclesiastical men fought against them with their writings, and especially that Agrippa Castor wrote against 24 volumes of Basilides, and that Basilides himself, interpreted by Jerome, died under the same emperor.

^A I confess that Valesius notes on this passage: "Eusebius rightly says that the heresy of Basilides erupted in the reign of Hadrian." But how rightly he judged so will be clear from the reason which he subjoins: "For then first did heretics begin to emerge from their hiding places and lift up their heads, when all the apostles were already dead, thinking that a favorable time had arrived for them to disseminate the dogmas of their errors." Although there were many heretics during the apostolic times, as the ancients very often record, and often dispute about them; yet, with all the apostles removed, they promulgated their dogmas much more freely. But were not all the apostles removed before the reign of Hadrian? Did any one of them survive after Saint John, who died at the beginning of Trajan’s reign? Or were they unable to seize any favorable opportunity during the whole of Trajan's reign by which men who were zealous and learned, and by no means fearful of the heat of persecution, might expose their dogmas? Without doubt, throughout that age, they were polishing the doctrines received from Menander, committing them to writing, gathering disciples, and finally, under Hadrian, they had their ^B *synelyseis*, as Clement puts it; *didaskaleia*, as Eusebius; *ecclesiae*, as Tertullian, publicly in many places. Therefore, at that time, very many ecclesiastical men resisted them; then first did some write out volumes against their heresy, which was then spreading openly and widely, and against books flying everywhere. The ancients who spoke of the age of Hadrian wished for nothing else.

Furthermore, those who speak more generally of the age of heretics subsequent to the times of the apostles show much less that Basilides did not teach his heresy before the times of Hadrian. Indeed, the words of Firmilian are in his *Epistle to Cyprian*: "But the time of both Valentinus and Basilides is manifest, that they themselves, after the apostles and after a long age, rebelled against the Church of God with their wicked lies"; from which I first observe that Firmilian thought both Basilides and Valentinus were older than Marcion, contrary to Blondel’s opinion, as will be clear to anyone inspecting the entire passage. Nor does Firmilian’s argument make anything against our opinion concerning the beginning of the Basilidian heresy. He is treating of his rebellion against the Church, which the heretics of that age always avoided as long as they could, as we often read. He speaks of the apostles in the same way that Clement of Alexandria writes about the same matter; for just as he says that apostolic doctrine was completed through Saint Paul under Nero, so he understands it through the apostles Peter and Paul when arguing against the apostolic tradition produced, as he says, falsely by Stephen, the Roman pontiff. He explains himself thus, while Stephen is refuted, as if defaming Peter and Paul, the blessed apostles, as if they themselves had handed this down. Therefore, long after Peter and Paul, Basilides rebelled against the Church according to the opinion of Firmilian; which we also admit; nor can any other thing ^C be carved out from that epistle.

But Irenaeus affirms that the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians is older than the heretics who imagine another God above the Demiurge, that is, as is clear, the Gnostics. From this, indeed, it appears that Basilides did not at all reveal his dogmas before the times of Hadrian. For that epistle "was written not many years before the martyrdom of Ignatius." So he says; but Blondel himself admits that the epistle was dated between A.D. 68 and 76; therefore, it was written more than 30 years before Ignatius’s martyrdom. Concerning this, the words of Irenaeus are: "Since it is older than those who now falsely teach, and imagine another God above the Demiurge and creator of all these things that are." Daille completely omitted those words, "who now falsely teach," so that his argument might have some appearance of weight; which the antiquity of the Clementine epistle and the words of Irenaeus himself now openly show to be nothing at all. But he writes again elsewhere, "all those heretics are far later than the bishops to whom the apostles handed down the Churches, and therefore also than Ignatius, who was one of these bishops." Here also he omitted the words that follow, "and this we have manifested with all diligence in the third book." Therefore he says nothing in this place which he had not said before. But while he used every diligence, he said nothing about the age of Basilides, which is now being disputed. He mentions Valentinus, indeed, among the heretics; Linus, Anacletus, and Clement among the bishops: against all of whom we acknowledge both Valentinus and Basilides to be much later. Therefore, the most learned men have not yet proven, nor do I think anyone will prove, that Valentinus lived so late, or fell into heresy, that his errors were necessarily entirely unknown to Saint Ignatius, who was hastening to his martyrdom.

Finally, as I hope, the argument derived from the *Sige* of Valentinus has been abundantly answered. For I have brought forward four assertions, all, as it seems to me, of certain and explored truth. They are, however, arranged in such a way that if even one of them should be overturned, that single one crushes the entire force of the adversaries' argument.

CHAPTER VIII

The last four arguments for the violation of time are answered. The author of the epistles suspected nothing concerning Constantine’s Christianity. The word of Leopardi does not diminish the antiquity of the epistle to the Romans. Daille’s figments concerning the appellation of a certain order of soldiers. It is shown against Bochart that the word of Leopardi was in use before the age of Constantine. The reception of penitents does not prove the novelty of the epistles. Albaspinaeus’s opinion is disputed. It is asserted falsely that Onesimus, whom Ignatius says presided over Ephesus, was dead during the time of the Ignatian martyrdom. The various opinions of some concerning Onesimus do not prove it.

So far concerning the heretics and heresies: but in the thirteenth chapter he piles together many other things, which he thinks were fictitiously composed outside the trustworthiness of the times; most of which strike either the fiction-maker or the interpolator; such are the things he writes concerning Anacletus, the Nicolaitans, the ordinations of ecclesiastical orders, the colleges of virgins, the Quadragesima, and Saint John. Yet I see that there are four which strike the author himself,

^A regarding the princes, the leopards, the penitents, and Onesimus.

Firstly, the author of the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans writes: "And beyond the heavenly things, and the glory of the angels, and the princes visible and invisible, if they do not believe in the blood of Christ, there will be judgment for them as well." The most learned man touches upon this passage in passing, and considers the words to be quite strange; as far as the visible princes are concerned, he perhaps wishes the author to have said these things because in his own age some rumor was already spread concerning the propensity of Constantius, or Constantine his son, toward Christianity. How obscure is this conjecture, how doubtful, how uncertain! Either he heard something about the Christianity of Constantius, or of Constantine, or at least of their propensity. Constantius was not made Augustus before the year 304, and that indeed in Gaul; Constantine was not created Caesar before the year 306, and that indeed in Britain. Therefore, if this Greek writer had looked toward any one of them as a prince, he could not have written before these times. But Dallaeus himself perhaps says these epistles were written in the waning of the third century, Blondel at its beginning, Salmasius and Albertinus in the middle of the second. None of them believed that the author of the epistles dreamt of any Christian prince; much less do we believe Dallaeus, we who have brought forth so many testimonies for these epistles before the fourth century. But our author, whoever he is, said nothing specifically about Christian emperors; he mentioned only ἄρχοντας (rulers), who are any magistrates whatsoever; he warned that no place or dignity should puff one up (for very ancient writers also called ecclesiastical overseers ἄρχοντας, and ἄρχοντες are termed princes and magistrates, says Tertullian), since neither angels nor superior men can attain salvation without faith in Christ. This is a doctrine which equally befits any time, whether there be Christian princes or not; hence nothing here strikes at the faith of the times, and Salmasius, Blondel, and Albertinus would laugh heartily if they understood how these things would bring trouble to anyone.

Secondly, when the author of the Epistle to the Romans said he was bound to ten leopards, he diligently teaches what this is. "I am bound," he says, "to ten leopards, which is a military squad." But in the judgment of Dallaeus, this is an interpretation foreign to the age of Ignatius. But whose age, I ask, is it foreign to, for one to interpret himself and his own words? Is this not equally lawful in any age? The most holy martyr says, by the example of St. Paul, that he fights with beasts; he calls them leopards on account of their ferocity; he then interprets himself, saying that they—those whom he calls beasts and leopards—are the soldiers to whose custody he has been committed. Why should he not do here what he often does elsewhere? He bids the Trallians ^D to abstain from "strange fodder," and adds an explanation, "which is heresy." Speaking of the Docetists, if there are some who are atheists, he subjoins, "that is, unbelievers." Why should anyone not speak in this way under the reign of Trajan, just as in any other age? Indeed, the author feared lest those Romans to whom he writes the leopard-like soldiers to whom he says he is bound, might not understand: that Ignatius had not feared.

But why could Ignatius not have feared, if anyone else could have? Why should he not have thought it necessary to take care that his own words were not wrongly understood by the Romans? He had said he was bound to ten leopards; but this was something that commonly happened when the bestiarii were about to die, as Saturninus was bound to a bear, and tied to a boar, as we read in the Passion of St. Perpetua. Therefore, when St. Ignatius had written that he was already bound to ten leopards (leopards, however, were among the bloodthirsty and man-eating beasts, to which the bestiarii were accustomed to be exposed, as we read among the ancients), he could not inconveniently warn that they were not to be beasts that would immediately devour him, but soldiers who were to lead him to the city of Rome. Yet Dallaeus suspected something else. For he knows that in the age of Ignatius, that common designation of a certain rank of soldiers was known and familiar to everyone, especially to Roman citizens. Indeed? Is "leopard" the designation of a certain rank of soldier? And was it known and familiar to everyone in the age of Ignatius? Certainly this observation either proceeds from a remarkable knowledge of antiquity, or it is an extraordinary fabrication. Whence, on whose authority, does he teach us this? He praises no one; he brings forward no one's testimony. I certainly do not yet find that meaning for "leopard." Under Trajan wrote Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Florus; under Trajan and Hadrian lived Suetonius. At the same times, there wrote in Greek Plutarch, Arrian, Aelian, all of them sufficiently knowledgeable in Roman affairs, especially military matters. Did any of them record that this designation of a certain rank of soldiers was familiar in their own age? I do not believe it. But the thing and the name of the thing ceased to be in use before the two hundredth year after the death of Ignatius! Since, therefore, that certain rank of soldiers had disappeared, and with the rank itself the name was also extinguished? Who has handed this down to us? Who was the reformer of the Roman militia? Who eradicated the order and obliterated the name? How that which never was in use ceased to be in use, I do not yet see. But these things are most certain, and are not to be denied by anyone: for the simulator of Ignatius did indeed retain the name of "leopards" for the sake of the appearance of antiquity, but lest he should confuse his readers because of the obscurity, he also thought it had to be interpreted, and so by too much diligence he betrayed himself. Oh, the foolish cunning of the simulator! Oh, the fatuous astuteness! Who, by his own indication, perished today as if by a field mouse, because he could not foresee the sharpness of the genius of Dallaeus: nay, rather, the Censor's witty comment and empty conjecture, who, in order to make the martyr an impostor, dreamed up so many masks of antiquity and fabrications after so many centuries. This, however, is worthy of admiration, that Dallaeus published these things three years after the *Hierozoicon* of Samuel Bochart appeared, which he himself in his dedicatory epistle calls, "Good God, a learned and laborious work." For he, in order to prove that an impostor wrote in the fourth century, and indeed from this very passage, used an argument entirely different and contrary to the *Hierozoicon*.

^A He mentions the word *leopardus*, in order to acknowledge that it was much older than his own times. For he has this in the *Life of Antoninus Geta*: "It was familiar to him to propose grammatical questions, so that they might say how individual animals emit their voice, such as: lambs bleat, piglets grunt, doves coo, bears growl [or rage], lions roar, leopards snarl [rictant], elephants trumpet, frogs croak, horses neigh, donkeys bray, bulls bellow, and to approve these with [the authority of] the ancients, or to have them approve them." Thus, Spartianus shows that 100 years before Constantine, Geta asked the grammarians whether it was suitable to say that leopards *rictant* [snarl/gape], and which of the ancients had attributed that word to leopards. The word *leopardus* is therefore sufficiently ancient. An old Glossary, published under the name of Benedict, seems to be entirely not a little older than the reign of Constantine, in which we read: *Leopardus*, πάρδαλις. Pompeius Festus [says]: "Bigenera ['twice-born' or hybrid] are called animals born from a different genus, such as the leopard from a lion and a panther." But if that Festus, who is praised by Charisius and Macrobius, is not sufficiently ancient, certainly Verrius Flaccus, whose *Epitome* of books he wrote, lived in the age of Augustus; and who could assert that these were his words, without being refuted? With caution, therefore, the most diligent Bochart omitted this passage of Festus, where he had the most opportune occasion to bring it forward. For when he had brought forward what the ancients said "concerning the mating of lionesses with a leopard, from which a new monster is produced, he says that the word *leopardus* seems to have been invented to designate this"; but he confirms that conjecture with no testimony, even though this passage of Festus was at hand, most suitable for that matter. ^B Furthermore, if the word *leopardus* was first invented to designate that monster, as it seems to Bochart, it was undoubtedly invented before the age of Constantine; for then it was used for any leopard whatsoever, which he proves with many [examples], and correctly so. Therefore, that worn-out but catachrestic usage of the word is earlier, and the proper [usage] must be later. If, therefore, that word was invented by the Romans, it seems to have been imposed for the first time when the thing itself was known to them. As Tertullian [says] concerning the *pallium*, although it is more Greek, yet the language is already in the possession of Latium; with the word, the garment entered. There is no doubt, then, but that the word flowed from the first knowledge of the thing itself. For the Romans either accepted the words themselves along with the things, or they gave their own names to the things received. ^D "The camel," says Varro, "came into Latium by its own name, as the camelopard was lately brought from Alexandria, because it was in figure like a camel, and in spots like a panther." Either, therefore, those who first reported the nature of that monster born from a lioness and a leopard to the Romans were describing it under the name *leopardus*, just as the Alexandrians [did] *camelopardalin*; or the Romans gave that name from the description, just as for the garment which the Greeks introduced, [they gave] the name *pallium*. But the thing itself, or the nature of that monster, was well known to the Romans under the rule of Titus. For Pliny describes it in *Naturalis Historia*, book VIII, chapter 16. Whether, therefore, the Romans or the Greeks first devised that name, there is no doubt

that it existed before the times of Trajan, so that St. Ignatius, having lived in Syria, whence Vopiscus could obtain a hundred Syrian leopards, might also have used [the word] for panthers. Nor is it true, as Bochart thinks, that this word is nowhere else to be found among Greek writers. For I read these things in St. Athanasius, in the *Life of St. Anthony*: «Καὶ ἦν ὁ τόπος εὐθὺς πεπληρωμέ- νος φαντασίας λεόντων, ἄρκτων, λεοπαρδάλων*, ταύ- ρων καὶ ὄφεων, ἀσπίδων καὶ σκορπίων καὶ λύκων.» ^A And the same place was suddenly filled with specters of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, and serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves. The word "leopard" is therefore old enough. Meanwhile, if we believe Bochart, we must not believe Dallaeus; if we place faith in Dallaeus, we shall renounce Bochart; so poorly do they agree among themselves in attacking Ignatius. We, certainly, in this matter, while neither believes the other, rightly judge that neither should be believed.

Thirdly, St. Ignatius, in his epistle to the Philadelphians, exhorts them to ecclesiastical unity as being useful and salutary not only to himself but to others. «For as many, says he, as are of God and of Jesus Christ, these are with the bishop; and as many as in any case repent and come into the unity of the Church, even these shall be of God.» And again, after a few words: «Where there is division and wrath, God does not dwell. God therefore forgives all that repent, if they repent into the unity of God and the council of the bishop.» What is more true, what more salutary, what more ancient than these things? But this decree concerning the admission to penance of the lapsed openly strikes at the Montanists and Novatians, who arose long after Ignatius. ^B Can this not have been written before the Novatians, or even the Montanists? Can no one state that which is true before it is denied by another? Heretics or schismatics have always been convicted on this ground, that they denied that truth which was previously preached in the Church. These things strike the Donatists no less than the Montanists; but adversaries admit that those [epistles] were written before Donatus, why then not before Montanus? To bolster his argument, he adduces the authority of Albaspineus, who for the same reason denies that a certain Clementine canon is apostolic and could have been sanctioned before Cyprian. But Albaspineus is speaking about the reception of penitents—who are, by his own interpretation, adulterers, assassins, and idolaters—a matter which was long disputed in the ancient Church. The author of the epistles, however, is speaking of heretics and schismatics returning to the unity of the Church and to the council of the bishop, to whom reception was never denied, as was shown in the first part. But neither is that true which Albaspineus observes. Before the age of St. Cyprian, even adulterers were admitted to penance. So he himself testifies in epistle 52: «And indeed, some of our predecessors among the bishops in our province did not think that peace should be given to adulterers, and altogether closed the place of penance against adulteries; yet they did not withdraw from the college of their fellow-bishops, ^C nor did they break [the unity] through the stubbornness of their hardness or censure, provided that peace was given to adulterers by others, for one who did not give it would not be separated from the Church.» Therefore, adulterers were received by African bishops through penance before the age of Cyprian, and consequently before the Novatians. And Cyprian narrates that this was done by the Church; there existed, therefore, no decree at that time in the African Church for the complete removal of adulterers from penance. Nor is it surprising that some bishops at that time also thought that adulterers should be completely excluded, since we know that very many in Africa, who nevertheless remained in the Church, were entangled in the errors of the Montanists. They concede that there was a decree under Zephyrinus that adulterers should be admitted to penance; but they proclaim that it was new and unheard of, and contrary to the prior sentiment of the Church. Entirely erroneously. Tertullian himself admits that this opinion of the Roman pontiff had been published a little before he wrote his book *De Pudicitia*, while he was already outside the Church. «I hear, says he, that an edict has been proposed, and indeed a peremptory one, that the *pontifex maximus*, that is, the bishop of bishops, issues an edict: "I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to those who have performed penance."» But he also freely confesses that this was the position of the Catholic Church before the decree of Zephyrinus appeared, in these words: «Therefore there will also be here a title against the Psychics, against the society of my own opinion back among them, by which they may the more object to me the charge of fickleness.» The Psychics, that is, the Catholics, and Tertullian himself along with the Catholics, taught the same thing before the decree of Zephyrinus. Nothing, therefore, was here introduced into the Church that was new or unheard of, as Albaspineus thinks. Long before Zephyrinus, Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, a contemporary of Soter of Rome, taught that all who go through penance, not even excepting adulterers or those burdened by any other most grievous crime, should be received. For in his epistle to the Amastriani, as testified by Eusebius, book IV, chapter 23: «Πολλὰ περὶ γά- μου καὶ ἁγνείας τοῖς αὐτοῖς παραινεῖ· καὶ τοὺς ἐξ οἵας δ' οὖν ἀποπτώσεως ἢ πλημμελείας, εἴτε μὴν αἱρετικῆς πλάνης ἐπιστρέφοντας δεξιοῦσθαι προσ- τάττει.» He also instructs them with many things concerning marriage and chastity; and he orders that all who return from any fall, whether by sin or even from heretical error, should be kindly received. Here is the old πρόσταγμα, or episcopal mandate, concerning the reception of the lapsed, adulterers, heretics, and others converted through penance. Nor do I doubt that the sin of Valens was of this kind, concerning whom St. Polycarp [writes] in his epistle to the Philippians: «I am greatly troubled for Valens, who was once made a presbyter among you, because he so ignores the position that was given to him. I therefore urge you to abstain from all avarice (πλεονεξίας, as Hammond rightly [translates]) and to be chaste and truthful.» But concerning this Valens he says afterwards: «I am, therefore, greatly troubled for him and his wife, to whom may God grant true penance. Be ye therefore sober in this matter; and not as enemies

^A tiat. By what reasoning, I do not see. Is it because the Menæa and Metaphrastes describe a certain Onesimus a martyr, yet do not say that he was bishop of Ephesus: or because the compiler of the Constitutions reports that Onesimus was bishop of Beroea: or because Dorotheus and Hippolytus record that Gaius succeeded Timothy at Ephesus; or because Nicephorus teaches that Onesimus died under Domitian; that therefore no Onesimus could have presided over Ephesus in the eleventh year of Trajan? Do any of these, or do all of them put forward anything that might prove this? Let us grant that Onesimus was a martyr, not of Ephesus, but of Beroea; let us grant that Gaius succeeded Timothy as Onesimus; let us concede that Onesimus—whom neither they nor Nicephorus name as bishop of Ephesus—died under Domitian: could any of these things, granted as they are, make it impossible that a certain Onesimus was presiding over Ephesus as Gaius' successor when Ignatius was dragged to martyrdom? Does not Nicephorus himself name a certain Onesimus who, after Saint Andrew and Stachys, was bishop of Byzantium, to whom Polycarp succeeded? Do not these things make the author of the epistle ^B ridiculous, whom they do not touch at all; but rather, Dallaeus attempts to make Ussher look ridiculous, while he praises the modesty of that man who, with such diligence, collected these testimonies which would cut the throat of his own cause? But it is still sufficiently safe from those Greek writers who did not record that Onesimus, the disciple of Saint Paul, was bishop of Ephesus. Therefore, Dallaeus flees to the Latins, and asserts that Bede, Ado, Notker, and others affirm with great consensus that this Onesimus, mentioned in the epistle of Ignatius, was the disciple of Paul. Truly, I do not find such a consensus. Bede has nothing regarding the Onesimus of Ignatius; the Roman Martyrology has nothing; in Usuardus that narrative did not exist, but was inserted by Joanne Molanus in a different font and with the letter A prefixed, by which the reader might very easily perceive that these things are not Usuardus', but Ado's, as Molanus himself warned in his preface. Now indeed Ado, who makes Onesimus, the disciple of Saint Paul, the Ignatian one, does not narrate that he died under Domitian: Nicephorus, a recent writer, makes Onesimus a martyr under Domitian, but does not narrate that he was ^C bishop of Ephesus. And since he alone reports that he underwent martyrdom at that time, Baronius not undeservedly denies him credibility, especially if he is understood to be the bishop of Ephesus. For if he was bishop of Beroea, and not of Ephesus, as others more ancient than Nicephorus desired, it does not pertain to us. For who does not see that Onesimus, the disciple of Saint Paul, bishop of Beroea, having died in the times of Domitian, another Onesimus could have presided over Ephesus after Timothy and Gaius under the reign of Trajan? But because Dallaeus notes that Baronius attributes ^D the error to Nicephorus, «by no other authority than these epistles,» which as yet come into controversy; and yet he confesses, «If they were truly and certainly Ignatius' (which to me indeed seems both true and certain) the faith of them should be followed rather than that of Nicephorus;» let us see if it does not appear absurd from elsewhere that Onesimus [should be] bishop of Ephesus

Those who teach that Onesimus was bishop of Ephesus wish him to have succeeded either Gaius or Timothy: Eusebius certainly acknowledges ^A Timothy as the first bishop of the Ephesian Church; the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon and the ancient martyrdom of St. Timothy, which may be found in Photius, cod. 254, testify to the same thing: «Ὅτι πρῶτον Τιμόθεον ἡ παροῦσα συγγραφὴ φησιν Ἐφέσου ἐπισκοπῆσαι — It is to be noted that the present writing records that Timothy was the first bishop of Ephesus.» But now, Nicephorus himself hands down that Timothy was crowned with martyrdom under Vespasian: his own martyrdom in the Bibliotheca of Photius testifies to the same. Moreover, the second persecution under Domitian was stirred up in the final years of that emperor. Eusebius, at his 14th year: «Second after Nero, Domitian persecutes the Christians.» Looking toward this passage, Jerome in his *Catalogue*, concerning St. John: «In the fourteenth year, therefore, he says, the second persecution after Nero, being set in motion by Domitian, he was relegated to the island of Patmos and wrote the Apocalypse.» It must be believed that Timothy fell asleep under this persecution; but it was short, as Tertullian testifies in his *Apologeticus*: «Domitian, a man of Nero’s portion in cruelty, had also attempted [it]; but, being a man, he easily repressed his attempt, even restoring those whom he had relegated;» which Hegesippus also testifies to in Eusebius. Now, who would believe that Onesimus—who if by chance he was substituted as bishop in the Ephesian Church either to Timothy himself or to his successor Gaius—suffered under the ^B same persecution, and did not rather endure until the eleventh year of Trajan? For what Daillé attempts to prove from the order of the times is worth nothing. For it does not follow from that that he was 100 or 90 years old when he died. He thinks that Paul wrote to Philemon in the year of the Lord 56. But St. Paul wrote to Philemon from Rome, and when he had already been in bonds for a long time, as is evident from the Epistle itself, and as Jerome and Theodoret demonstrate. But no one will prove that St. Paul saw Rome before the vulgar year of the Lord 64. But from the year 65 to the year 107, in which we say Ignatius wrote, there are only 42 years. Let us suppose, therefore, that Onesimus was 26 years old when St. Paul converted him to the Christian faith; he would not yet have been seventy when St. Ignatius stayed at Smyrna. Therefore, whether there were two Onesimuses in the age of St. Ignatius, one a bishop of Beroea and the other of Ephesus, or whether there was only one and he the Ephesian, nothing has been said up to this point that in any way proves that no Onesimus presided over Ephesus when Ignatius was being led to martyrdom.

When, therefore, all things that seemed to challenge the reliability of the times have been called to examination, nothing new has been found in these epistles; rather, everything appears perfectly in agreement with the Ignatian age.

CHAPTER IX.

The next collection of arguments is gathered and patched together from those things which are alien to the person to whom the epistles are attributed, whether in character or dignity or talent or piety, or rather [so] they appear to unfair judges of matters. But he generally adduces those things which were written either by an interpolator of the genuine [epistles] or by a forger of the rest; whose character, dignity, talent, or piety our [defenders] do not defend. In the whole of chapter 14 he has brought forward nothing else from our Ignatius except that warmed-over [claim]: «that the Church is not called without a bishop, presbyters, and deacons;» which is not **repugnant** to the character, nor to the dignity, nor to the talent, nor to the piety of the martyr, and to which we have previously given answer. Chapter 15, in as much as it deals with feasts, the Sabbath, and fasts, is entirely concocted from the spurious [writings], and does not touch our Ignatius.

In chapter 16, he produces many quasi-heretical things, but from the spurious ones as well; yet from ours, he brings forward only one passage, which seems to him «not sufficiently sound;» namely, that Christ was Υἱὸν Θεοῦ κατὰ θέλημα καὶ δύναμιν Θεοῦ, Son of God according to the will and power of God. But are these things to be reckoned as heretical, which are brought forward by the blessed Theodoret for the catholic opinion of the Church against heretics? In him, indeed, we read *θεότητα* (divinity), but in our codex *θέλημα* (will), as also in the Usserian interpreter, «will.» Who does not see that there is a variable reading here, and indeed a very ancient one? What the interpolator saw in his own codex, whether he read *θεότητα* or *θέλημα*, he did not wish us to know, to such an extent did he change everything. Be that as it may, if they follow the reading of Theodoret, and we suppose that the author of the epistle wrote *θεότητα*, the Dallaean objection falls which is founded on the word *θέλημα*; «for it is harsh and hardly to be endured,» he says, «that the Son is from the Father from eternity through the will and power of the Father;» if we read *θέλημα*, even so, the same objection collapses; for it is evident that our [Ignatius] is not speaking of the eternal generation of the Son, but rather of the incarnation, as the things preceding and following demonstrate; whence the interpolator, drawing these things to the divine nature, was forced to change the order of the words. But we read it thus: Αληθῶς ὄντα ἐκ γένους Δαβὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, Υἱὸν Θεοῦ κατὰ θέλημα καὶ δύναμιν Θεοῦ γεγενημένον ἀληθῶς ἐκ Παρθένου. The Usserian interpreter: «Truly existing from the generation of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, born truly of the Virgin,» quite as if he had looked toward those words of the angel in the evangelist: *The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore also that which will be born of you will be called the Son of God.*

No one denies that the Incarnation of Christ took place through the will and power of God. "The Word was made flesh by the will of God," says Tertullian, *De carne Christi*, ch. 19. If, furthermore, anyone wishes to receive these words concerning the eternal generation of the Son—which is not necessary—why should this not be tolerated in Ignatius the martyr, what we tolerate in others? As in Justin Martyr, when he speaks of God the Word, *Dial. cum Tryphone*: «ἐκ τοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς θελήσει γεγενῆσθαι», that is, "born from the volition of the Father," and who, looking back at the same passage later, says: «Καὶ ἐν τοῖς προειρημένοις διὰ βραχέων τὸν Λόγον ἐξήτασα, εἰπὼν τὴν δύναμιν ταύτην γεγενῆσθαι ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς δυνάμει καὶ βουλῇ αὐτοῦ.» We tolerate Clement of Alexandria, who called the Word "the will of the Father." We tolerate these things in Tertullian: "What God is born in it? The Word and the Spirit, who was born with the Word by the will of the Father." We tolerate them in Synesius: «Ὠδῖνα Πατρός, γόνιμον βουλήν», and again, «Ἐπὶ παιδὶ χυθείς, ἰότητι σοφῇ», which, as Hesychius interprets, means "by desire, by will." Why, therefore, should we not tolerate "Son according to will" in Ignatius, if we do not wish to accept the reading of Theodoret, nor allow him to speak concerning the Incarnation, either of which removes all difficulty? ^B

In chapter 17, the learned man desires in the author of the epistles that reverence which is owed to the divine books; not because he treats any part of Holy Scripture irreverently, but because he steals certain things from apocrypha and presents them as true and indubitable. He proposes two examples of irreverence from spurious works, one from ours, from the epistle *to the Smyrnaeans*: "And when he came to those who were with Peter, he said to them: 'Take hold of me, touch me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon.'" These words of Ignatius were cited by Eusebius, Jerome, and Theodoret; yet they noted no irreverence toward Holy Scripture in anyone, nor did they suspect anything in these words unworthy of the most holy martyr; we follow their judgment. Indeed, the passage from St. Jerome is most noteworthy, who praises this Gospel and St. Ignatius together as witnesses in the book *Against the Pelagians*: "In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldean and Syriac language but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes use to this day according to the apostles, or as most suppose, according to Matthew, which is also kept in the Caesarean Library, the story relates," etc. Ignatius, an apostolic man and martyr, writes boldly: "The Lord chose the apostles who were sinners above all men." If you do not use these testimonies for authority, use them at least for antiquity, for what all ecclesiastical men have thought. But Dallaeus is much more sharp-sighted than they. For he says these words were from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is apocryphal. Perhaps; but Dallaeus has this very thing from St. Jerome—both that Ignatius drew these things from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and that that Gospel is apocryphal; yet, since he believed both to be true, he also did not fear at the same time to attribute this epistle to Ignatius himself. ^A

But let modern writers be wiser, if Dallaeus seems so to them; certainly Isaac Casaubon, both of our profession and a critic of the highest name among all the learned, when he knew all these things perfectly well, nevertheless defended Ignatius in this way: "Nor is it a wonder that the man of God, Ignatius, should cite an apocryphal, rejected, and reprobate writing in passing. For how many books of the same standard does Clement of Alexandria praise? It is most true, surely, that at that time there was a need that many books, which in the first centuries had been of at least doubtful authority, should be rejected by the authority of the Church." Blondel himself observes that not then was anyone found who remembered that all apocryphal things were to be avoided, or that it was the height of prudence to seek gold in the mud: which Jerome later did. But even long before Clement of Alexandria, others did this. For Eusebius narrates that Papias, as he is accustomed to bring forward his testimonies for various books of Holy Scripture, also explained another story concerning a woman who was accused of many crimes before the Lord, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains. Dallaeus objects that Papias was a man of mediocre talent, in the judgment of Eusebius. But if the judgment of Eusebius has any weight against Papias, why would it not have weight for Ignatius? Since Eusebius judges concerning the writings of Papias, that most learned man embraces his opinion; when he passes judgment on the epistles of St. Ignatius, he freely pronounces that he erred, slipped, and was deceived. What will be the authority of his judgment against Papias, who is said to have fallen so basely and to have been so deceived in Ignatius? However that may be, Eusebius did not therefore call Papias, or anyone else, of mediocre talent because he used the testimonies of apocryphal books: just as he did not hold St. Ignatius in lower esteem because he brought forward these words as if spoken by the Lord, when he himself was entirely ignorant of where they had been taken from. He objects, secondly, that it cannot be known whether the same history exists among our evangelists. A truly excellent observation by Eusebius, if it could be doubted whether that history, which Papias touched upon, existed in our evangelists! Why, I ask, would he say it was found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, if it had appeared in our own? Especially in that place where he brings forward the testimonies of Papias for our books? Who does not know that it is the custom of Eusebius, when he deals with ancient writers, to recite which books they cite as canonical and which as apocryphal? And I do not believe it ever occurred to him to mention those passages which were read in the canonical and apocryphal books alike. In our own, indeed, there is now held the woman accused of adultery; but she about whom Papias wrote was «ἐπὶ πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις διαβληθεῖσα», "accused of many crimes," and as to what else was written about that woman by Papias, or in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, it is entirely unknown. Grotius indeed asserts that the history found in St. John was sufficiently proven from Jerome to have been in the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes; but from which book of Jerome he drew these things, I—

still have not learned. Nor, indeed, must one inquire how Papias used it, since that cannot be known; Eusebius simply observes that he used this Gospel once, as he mentions that Hegesippus frequently brought forth things from the Gospel according to the Hebrews (lib. IV, c. 22). But if Papias is both younger than Ignatius and of weaker intellect, Clement of Rome, both older than Ignatius and always held in great esteem, more than once cites foreign things, the source of which we are no less ignorant of than Eusebius was ignorant of whence that Ignatian quote flowed. For whence, I ask, were those words of Moses taken: "I am the vessel ^A from the kiln" (as the manuscript has it, not "from the pot")? Our Fell learnedly proves that these things could have been extracted from a Hebrew codex somewhere; but it is not read that Moses used those words in Holy Scripture. Whence also comes this: "It is written: Cleave to the holy, for they who cleave to them shall be sanctified." ^B Nam quæ sequuntur: "And again in another place he says: With a man innocent you shall be innocent, and with an elect one you shall be elect, as the manuscript codex has it, and with the crooked you shall be perverted." And again in another place he says: "With an innocent man you will be innocent, and with an elect man you will be elect, and with a perverse man you will be perverted," are found in the same words in Psalm XVII. But whence also comes this: "Far be it from us, O Scripture, where it says: 'Miserable are the double-minded and those who doubt in their soul, who say: We have heard these things of our fathers, and behold we have grown old, and none of these things has happened to us'? Far be it from us, that Scripture where it says: 'Miserable are they who are of a double and inconstant mind, who say: These things we heard in the age of our fathers, and lo! we have grown old, and none of these things has happened to us'?" In the second epistle of Clement, these things are referred to a prophetic word and are brought forward by the occasion of the word "miserable" preceding, as in the former epistle from the preceding admonition, "Let us not be double-minded." And if it is permitted to interpret the first epistle from the second, then even the following words of Clement will not be his, but taken from the same author: "O fools, compare yourselves to a tree; take the vine: first it loses its leaves, then a shoot is produced, then a leaf, then a flower, and after these ^C an unripe grape, then the grape standing ready." For in the second epistle these things are placed under them: "So also my people had troubles and afflictions, then it will receive the good things." Which, when he had brought them forward as if from a prophet, he immediately addresses his own people with his words: "Wherefore, my brethren, let us not be double-minded." However the matter may be, we are not the first to have noted these things; Photius himself observed some of this kind in Codex 126, for he says regarding the second epistle: "Yet he introduces certain sayings as if from Holy Scripture which are foreign, of which the first [epistle] is entirely empty." Photius, therefore, observed that some foreign, or apocryphal, things were contained under the name of sacred writings in that epistle of Clement, which he himself elsewhere had called noteworthy and publicly acknowledged to be read. And that it is rash and clearly dangerous to doubt the antiquity or truth of any writing from the citation of apocrypha is shown by those words of Jerome in his *Catalogue*: "Judas, the brother of James, left a small epistle, which is among the seven catholic ones. And because he takes testimony in it from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, it is rejected by many. Nevertheless, it has earned authority by its antiquity and use, and is counted among the holy Scriptures."

Furthermore, it must again be observed what Isaac Casaubon wrote about this matter: "And perhaps it is truer that Ignatius did not transcribe those words from the Hebrew Gospel, but rather alleged an unwritten tradition, which was later recorded in letters and inserted into the Hebrew Gospel that they attributed to Matthew." And this indeed seems much more probable to me. For although Jerome said that testimony was sought from that Gospel, nevertheless Eusebius professed that he did not know whence he had it, although he himself knew the Gospel according to the Hebrews very well. And indeed correctly. For those words were not found only in that Gospel, but also in other books, such as in the one that was called the *Doctrine of Peter*. Origen, ^D *De Principiis*, lib. i: "But if anyone wishes to bring forward to us from that little book which is called the *Doctrine of Peter*, where the Savior seems to say to the disciples that he is not an incorporeal demon, first we must reply to him that that book is not held among the ecclesiastical books." Many of Christ's sayings certainly existed in the mouths of the most ancient Christians which are not found in our Gospels, nor perhaps were they ever written in any others. Of such a kind was that: "Become approved moneychangers," which is frequently cited by many of the ancients as a command of Christ, and indeed distinct from the admonition of St. Paul; yet it is quoted from no apocryphal writing, nor is it found in our codices, nor was it collected by the Fathers from the parables of Christ, although even heretics used it, and indeed before the Catholics, as is evident from Apelles in Epiphanius. In Barnabas these things are read: "For it will avail us nothing, all the time of our life and faith, if we do not have hatred for iniquity and future temptations. As the Son of God says: Let us resist all iniquity, and let us hate it." These things, however, we do not read said by Christ elsewhere. The same one brings these forward as if said by the Lord: "Thus, he says, those who wish to see me and lay hold of my kingdom, must be pressed and suffer many things to receive me." Grotius [is at work on] this.

[He] brings forward essentially the same reasoning for the antiquity and truth of Clement's epistle, that it makes use of certain sayings not as written, but as handed down by recent memory through [the hands of others]. Twice indeed he calls the Corinthians back to the very words of Christ, and recites them; but in such a way that he does not appear in the least to have drawn them from some written codex. ^A Thus he says, "Thus indeed he said," namely the Lord Jesus: "Be merciful that you may be shown mercy; forgive that it may be forgiven you. As you do, so shall it be done to you; as you give, so shall it be given to you; as you judge, so shall you be judged; as you show kindness, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you." Some things not dissimilar to these are found in St. Luke, chapter VI. But that Clement, the fellow-disciple of Luke, wrote these down from his Gospel, does not seem likely to me, given such a distinction in the words; nor do I doubt that Clement recognized each one of those sentences as having been uttered by Christ; whence he immediately adds: "By this commandment and by these orders (thus MS) let us establish ourselves." We establish ourselves by this precept and these mandates. And again: "Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for he said: 'Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, for he said:' 'Woe to that man; it were better for him if he had not been born, rather than to cause one of my elect to stumble; it were better for him that a millstone were hung about him and he be sunk in the sea, than that he should cause one of my little ones to stumble.'" Here Patrick Young judged that some things should be placed in the Greek in the margin and inserted into the Latin interpretation, so that these might better correspond to the passage in Luke. Since it seems more consonant with the truth to me that Clement received these from the apostles themselves, or their disciples. Why, then, might not St. Ignatius equally, who had been in the company of the apostles and their disciples, especially at that time when perhaps it was not permitted to him, already in bonds, to use the written Gospels, explain the same history which St. Luke tells, in other words?

^B But he is so headstrong, he says, that he forbids the Romans from interceding for him, whether by their prayers to God or by their services among men, so that he might be freed from the punishment to which he had been condemned. But what then? Would you have a most courageous Christian, nay, even a leader, already captured by the Gentiles, condemned, and dragged to the arena, expect other Christians to pray that they might intercede with God or men, so that he might be less subjected to punishment? Or do you know of one man imbued with Christian piety who, in so many persecutions of the early Church, has thus conducted himself, or if he have, has been celebrated by the Church for it? "This, the voice of the martyrs prays: 'Deliver my soul from the fear of the enemy; not that the enemy may not kill me, but that I may not fear the enemy who kills,'" as St. Augustine observes on Psalm LXIII. The most learned man did not intend that; he does not demand that piety or modesty, but that he not forbid Christians from doing these things. But in truth, why should he not forbid that which no one requests? Or why did others never seek it, unless because they thought it by no means fitting for themselves? And why did they not signify that they did not want others to seek it, because they could not seek it themselves without the reproach of their own religion? Ignatius asks of the Romans that they allow him to enjoy the martyrdom already prepared, that they pray to God that he may be offered as a sacrifice pleasing to Him, that they not cast envious eyes upon his eternal reward, nor hinder him from immediately attaining immortality. He teaches that to hinder this is the work of the devil, and partakes more of hatred than of Christian charity. This is the sum of those things which he, condemned to the beasts, bound in chains, and snatched away for his punishment, asks of his own, being deservedly a most glorious martyr. All of which are so far removed from juvenile levity and a headstrong spirit that they can and ought to be held as most manifest signs of a subdued and well-founded constancy, of a spirit fervent with the zeal of God, of a mind longing for future joys, and of the full assurance of faith concerning an eternal reward. ^C If St. Paul, when he only foresaw his bonds, and was still among his own, rebuked the disciples who were deterring him from his journey, saying: "What are you doing, weeping and afflicting my heart?" If he immediately rendered the reason for this rebuke: "For I am prepared not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus": if the disciples acquiesced in this statement of his, saying: "The Lord's will be done," trusting, that is, that sufferings pertain to the will of God: for they had attempted to hold him back not out of a spirit of dissuasion, but of affection, as desiring the apostle, not as dissuading him from martyrdom; why, then, should St. Ignatius, already long since condemned by the emperor himself, dragged by the hand of raging soldiers to his punishment, ^D condemned by an imperial sentence, kept most strictly in the hands of the executioners, about to be led away to the site of his destined and certain execution, made a spectacle worthy of God, and of angels and men: I contend that a most holy man placed in that condition wrote nothing in that whole epistle to the Romans that was unworthy of a most perfect disciple of Christ.

Chapter 18

^A would certainly be most likely to move the pity of all the Christians in Rome, and to excite their most tender affections by his sordid appearance, he warns them in advance not to afflict his heart, and not to obstruct in any way the death he so greatly desired for the sake of the name of the Lord Jesus, but rather to compose their own feelings, to acquiesce patiently, and to say, "The Lord's will be done." If Christ Himself, hastening toward the death of the cross, said to Peter: "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matt. XVI, 23), why should Ignatius, too, not warn the Romans that to obstruct a death undertaken for the name of Christ is an act of the devil rather than of a man who is a Christian? Such, certainly, was the opinion of Origen, a man who was so often a candidate for martyrdom, whose words in his tenth homily on Numbers are these: "Therefore the devil, knowing that through the suffering of martyrdom there comes a remission of sins, ^B does not wish to stir up against us the public persecutions of the Gentiles. For he knows that if we are brought before kings and governors for the name of Christ, for a testimony to the Jews and the Gentiles, it becomes a joy and exultation for us, because our reward is great in heaven. The enemy does not cause this, either because he envies our glory, or perhaps because He who foresees all things knows beforehand that we are not fit to endure martyrdom." He brings forward another reason in book VIII *Against Celsus* concerning why the devil would sometimes not wish to stir up public persecutions of the Gentiles against Christians, and expresses his opinion in this manner: "I, for my part, believe that the demons, because they perceive that the victory of the pious is harmful to their power, and that those who succumb in this contest and deny godliness become subject to them, sometimes contend in favor of the Christians who are being brought to trial." The mind of St. Augustine was the same, who wrote these things concerning the great African martyr: "Cyprian knew, when he heard from the proconsul: 'Consult for your own safety,' that what the flesh and blood were saying foolishly, the devil was saying craftily: and he beheld in one body two things: the latter with his eyes, the former by faith. The one did not want him to die; the other did not want him to be crowned. Therefore, he was placid about the former, but cautious about the latter: he openly answered the one, and openly conquered the other." Nothing, therefore, is demanded by Ignatius that is unworthy of a most holy martyr, nothing that is improper for a Roman, ^C not having accepted deliverance.

But Dallæus mentions that no example of such words exists in the entire abundance of Christian martyrs. Perhaps. For it is better provided for us that the records of the most ancient martyrs, to whose blood the Church of Christ has always owed so much, should not depend on the memory of one man, or be subjected to his spirit. As for the epistles of other martyrs, we do not have their words; God grant that more of this kind may daily become known to us; we hold, however, the very substance of the matter, that the martyrs themselves fervently prayed to God that they might enjoy martyrdom; they begged earnestly of the faithful that they, too, might seek the same from God; if they saw any who were requesting the opposite and desiring that he might rather avoid martyrdom, they would most constantly refuse this, and would disregard the wishes and prayers of everyone. Celerinus the confessor, to Lucianus the confessor, among the epistles of St. Cyprian 21: "Pray that I too may be worthy to be crowned with your number." And again: "O happy man, accept your own wishes, which you have always desired, even while sleeping on the earth: you longed to be sent to prison for his name, which now happens to you, ^D as it is written: 'May God give to you according to your heart's desire'." But if St. Ignatius had said: "May God give to me according to my heart's desire," how many commotions would Dallæus have stirred up over this! That Lucianus composed a flowery confession, which, if it existed today, I do not doubt would be subject to the same objections; for it is more fitting for martyrs to make a modest, rather than a flowery, confession, as they intend. Concerning St. Felicitas, we read that she was seized while pregnant; what then, does she pray that she, or the innocent embryo, be spared? Not at all; "When she was in her eighth month of pregnancy, as the day of the spectacle was at hand, she was in great grief, lest she be put off on account of her pregnancy, because it is not permitted that pregnant women be brought forward for punishment; she desires to die sooner, than to be allowed it by the very judgments of the Gentiles; she rejoices in her passion, she complains of the delay." Did the rest of the faithful condemn this grief as troublesome, and something that sprang from rashness or arrogance? Not at all; but even her fellow-martyrs were gravely saddened, lest they leave so good a companion alone, as it were, on the road of the same hope. Therefore, with a united groan, they poured out their prayer to the Lord before the third day of the exhibition. Immediately after the prayer, the labor pains seized her. Behold what kinds of prayers the confessors of that time poured out, what kinds were heard by God! Such, indeed, as those of Ignatius, so that nothing might impede the martyrdom, so that nothing might be a cause of delay for one hastening toward the prize. So those noble confessors in Eusebius, lib. V, cap. 2: "With tears they entreated the brethren, begging that earnest prayers be made that they might be perfected." "With poured-out tears they implored the brethren, that continuous prayers might be made to God, that they might at last be perfected." Touching St. Cyprian, Pontius his deacon: "Meanwhile, there gathered many of an excellent and most illustrious order, and those also noble by the standing of the age, who, on account of their friendship, would constantly persuade him to withdraw; and that the simple persuasion might not be enough, they even offered the places into which he might withdraw." I do not care what our adversaries would have said if they had been present at that time: I ask what St. Cyprian did. He, however, had already neglected the world with his mind suspended toward heaven, and did not assent to the flattering persuasions. He would perhaps have done then also, what was requested by many of the faithful; if it

were ordained by divine command." For as Pontius himself teaches in the former retreat: "He obeyed the Lord then commanding a hiding place." But the faithful people, when S. Cyprian was led to punishment, were so far from praying that he might be spared, or in any way impeding the martyrdom, that they wished rather to die with him at the same time. "For although that which the common vows desired could not happen, that the whole plebs should suffer together in the fellowship of equal glory; yet whoever, under the eyes of Christ watching and the ears of the priest, wished to suffer from the heart, sent letters to God as if by a suitable witness of his vow and embassy." S. Jerome on the Life of Paul the Hermit: "Under the persecutors Decius and Valerian, at which time Cornelius at Rome and Cyprian at Carthage were condemned to happy blood, a cruel storm ravaged many Churches in Egypt and the Thebaid. It was the vow then of Christians to be struck by the sword for the name of Christ. But the cunning enemy, seeking out slow punishments for death, desired to stifle souls, not bodies; and, as Cyprian himself says, who suffered from him: 'To those desiring to die, it was not permitted to be killed.'" Known also is that word of the martyr S. Polycarp to the proconsul, threatening him now with beasts, now with flames: τί βραδύνεις, φέρε ὅ βούλει, "Why do you delay? bring what you wish," ταῦτα καὶ ἄλλα πλείονα λέγων θάρσους καὶ χαρᾶς ἀνεπίμπλητο, "when he said these and many other things, he was filled with confidence and joy," as his most ancient Acts testify. But those many things which, full of fortitude and exultation, he pronounced—what, I pray, were they, if not similar to the Ignatian [words]? If they were not consonant with that voice which he heard from heaven, Ἴσχυε καὶ ἀνδρίζου, Πολύκαρπε, not: "Be modest," but: "Be strong and act manfully, Polycarp." Most well-known is also that voice of the Roman Caesarean deacon heard at Antioch, ποῦ μοι τὸ πῦρ, "where is my fire?"

^A The second objection is sought by them from those things which Ignatius is said to pledge regarding himself: namely, that he writes he will provoke the beasts to accelerate his own death, and this even without precedent. There are two words which seem wonderful to them, κολακεύσω, εἰ προσβιάσομαι, "I will flatter the beasts, nay, I will compel them." "O dire," he says, "and truculent voices! Nay, truly holy, and strong, and to be received with all veneration! They are worthy of no other soul than one which, weary of its own life, and, as the poet says, hate-filled toward the light, rushes headlong into death (like the slaves of the age who are desperate, as Blondel says)," nay, they are most worthy of that soul which condemns all things of the present age, which desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which aspires to the rewards promised to martyrdom, which desires the propagation of the Christian religion, which attempts to express the force and vigor of the Spirit dwelling within, which strives to overwhelm all gentiles and idolaters with shame, to seize them into admiration, to drive them to desperation, or to move them to embrace the Christian faith! Is an example of this thing sought, when there exist almost as many as there are Acts or memories of the martyrs? In the most ancient epistle of the Church of Smyrna, Germanicus is represented, as another Ignatius, ^B ἐπίσημος θηριομάχων, "a distinct and noble beast-fighter." But what found in the judgment of the most ancient Church is ^C ἐπίσημον, distinct or noble in his martyrdom briefly described? Is his placid and humble and modest soul described, which alone Dalleus admires in his martyr? By no means: but rather that which he condemns in Ignatius as precipitous, as juvenile, as light. Βουλομένου γὰρ τοῦ ἀνθυπάτου πείθειν αὐτὸν καὶ λέγειν, vel λέγοντος, τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ κατοικτείραι, ἑαυτῷ ἐπεσπάσατο τὸ θηρίον προσβιασάμενος, and, as Eusebius has it, παροξύνας. "For when the proconsul wished to bend him, and said that he pitied his age, he drew the beast to himself, compelling and stimulating it." For he is narrated to have done this, so that he might accelerate his martyrdom. And from this it came about that all, even the ethnic persecutors, admired τὴν γενναιότητα τοῦ θεοφιλοῦς καὶ θεοσεβοῦς γένους τῶν Χριστιανῶν, "the nobility of the God-loving and God-fearing race of the Christians." That Germanicus, therefore, whom the ancient and famous Church of Smyrna proposed as a distinct and noble martyr before the rest, whose noble deed the ethnics themselves admired as the nobility and generosity of the Christian race, did nothing else except what Ignatius said he would do; indeed, he seems to have done this because Ignatius had said it; for the Church of Smyrna uses the same word, whence Ignatius had given this epistle to the Romans, to express the deed of Germanicus, which Ignatius had used to indicate the ardor of his own soul: ἐγὼ πρὸς τῷ ἀποστασάμαι, says he, here ἀπεσπάσατο προσβιασάμενος. Whence we also warned before, that there is no doubt but that the Smyrneans looked to this very place of the epistle to the Romans when they wrote those things. And the words of the Roman Martyrology are to be observed: "At Smyrna, the birthday of the blessed martyr Germanicus, who, when he flourished with the beauty of early youth, under Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius, by the grace of the virtue of God, excluding fear of bodily fragility, of his own accord provoked the beast prepared for him, having been condemned by the judge, whose teeth crushed, he deserved being incorporated into the true bread, the Lord Jesus Christ, dying for Him:" so that from this also, a martyr most similar to Ignatius is represented. I wonder, therefore, that Dalleus could have written that in the Acts of the Smyrnean martyrs nothing similar to the language of the epistle writer could be found: as if the distinct, noble deed of Germanicus were either nothing, or not similar to the Ignatian language, when it is expressed by the same vocabulary. Nor did the martyrs ^D apply force only to the beasts, but also to the judge himself, like that Roman deacon from Palestine, but who perhaps was stationed at Antioch, whence Ignatius was drawn, "when he found that many soldiers had fallen for the Church, he did not suffer the devil to exult, but attacks the exulting judge regarding those who had been defeated, applying force, and, having seized the kingdom, says: 'You shall not depart joyfully; for God has soldiers who cannot be overcome,'" as Eusebius hands down, *De resurrectione*, lib. II. And thus he produces αὐτοκέλευστον ἱερεῖον, "a spontaneous victim."

^A But they declare not only that these things are true, but they preach them as the highest glory of the Christian religion. Justin Martyr confesses that he became a Christian because it seemed to him that no evil man could look upon death with longing, "not that he denounced himself to be murdered, much less that anyone should spontaneously offer and betray himself to be killed," which Christians of that time did. Clement of Alexandria, indeed, disputing against the Valentinians and other Gnostics, who denied that any suffering for the truth was necessary, instructs his Gnostic such that he should not undergo martyrdom unless compelled; yet he confesses that other martyrs were differently disposed, and the Gnostic is described as distinguished from him: "In this being separated from the others called martyrs, namely, that the former, providing opportunities for themselves, throw themselves into the very dangers, I know not how (for it is right to speak well), but he is separated not only from those who offered themselves spontaneously, but also from those who, either from fear of punishment or from the hope of an eternal reward, have suffered, such as I believe all the martyrs of whom we read have been; certainly they were accustomed to explain themselves thus in judgment." Tertullian *ad Scapulam*, cap. 1: "We, indeed, neither fear nor dread the things which we suffer from the ignorant: for we have come to this sect upon the received condition of this agreement, that we should also commit our souls to His authority in these struggles, desiring to obtain those things which God promises, and fearing to suffer those things which He threatens to the opposite life. Finally, we contend against all your cruelty even by rushing forward spontaneously, and we rejoice more when condemned than excused." The same, cap. 2: "Far be it that we should take it ill to suffer those things which we desire!" And cap. 4: "See only lest by this very thing, that we endure such things, we appear to rush to this solely, that we might prove this very thing, that we do not fear these things, but rather call them upon us." ^B When Arrius Antonius in Asia was persecuting them relentlessly, all the Christians of that city offered themselves before his tribunal in a body; when he, having ordered a few to be led away, said to the rest: "O wretches, if you wish to die, you have cliffs or halters." If it pleased this to be done here, what will you do about so many thousands of men, so many men and women, of every sex and station, offering themselves to you? St. Cyprian, when he had praised martyrdom at length, concludes his preface thus: "The matter is to be embraced and desired, and to be sought by all the prayers of our petitions, that we who are servants of God may also be friends." ^C And again at the end of the book: "Who, therefore, does not strive with all his might to arrive at such great glory, that he may become a friend of God, that he may rejoice immediately with Christ, that after torments and earthly punishments he may receive divine rewards?" Concerning the ninth persecution, Sulpicius says: "They rushed in rivalry into glorious struggles; and martyrdoms were sought by glorious deaths much more greedily than now bishoprics are sought by ready ambitions." ^D There is no wonder, then, that some challenged the beasts already prepared for their slaughter, or voluntarily made use of instruments of cruelty placed in readiness to accelerate their martyrdom; since it is most certainly established — which is a much greater thing — that very many others desired death for the name of Christ, and when they were not in the power of their enemies, they pointed themselves out, and provoked the enemies themselves to inflict punishment. Concerning the Christians of his time, Lucian in *Peregrine* says: "For those miserable men have persuaded themselves that they would be wholly immortal and live for all time; wherefore they also despise death, and many of them voluntarily surrender themselves." Tiberianus, Governor of Palestine under the reign of Trajan, speaks thus concerning the Galileans or Christians: "They do not cease to point themselves out for execution." These things the Gentiles testify concerning the most ancient martyrs.

The same, in his epistle 11 to the blessed Martin: "But if, during the times of Nero and Decius, it had been permitted for him to take part in the struggle which then existed, I call the God of heaven and earth to witness that he would have climbed the rack of his own accord and would have plunged himself into the flames... But if, following the example of the Doctor of the Gentiles, he were being led to the sword—among other victims, as often happens—he would have been the first of all to compel the executioner, and he would have seized the palm of blood." Valerian, Bishop of Cemelenum, in his homily *On the Good of Martyrdom*: "Who is there, being wise, who does not despise the usury of this life, and if such an opportunity arrives, does not ambitiously hasten toward martyrdom, when he sees that to have accounted death as the profit of life pertains to the gain of the soul? Why, then, does a man not run, devoted to so precious a work, and boldly cast himself into the hands of the impious, for whom the celestial grace of reward is waiting?" St. Chrysostom observed under the empire of Julian that ^B "every age and both sexes were leaping toward the slaughters for the sake of piety." He provides this reason for why Julian the Apostate did not want to attempt an open persecution against the Christians: "For he knew—he knew clearly—that if he dared this, they would all have surrendered their own souls for Christ." "For all," he says, "as if toward a honeycomb, will come as if flying toward martyrdom."

Nor, indeed, did the Christians of the ancient Church only speak strong words, but they also did and suffered. Pre-eminent was the name of the martyr Phocas, who, having by chance received into his home as guests the bailiffs who were saying they had been sent to kill Phocas, promised that on the morrow he would show them Phocas; and, standing at the place previously prepared for his burial, he said to them: "I am that Phocas." When they already hesitated, he added an exhortation for them to kill him, and as it is said, "He spoke, he persuaded, he suffered, and, having been beheaded, he was offered as a sacrifice pleasing to God," as Asterius of Amasea, contemporary of Epiphanius, speaks. During the persecution of Valerian, Priscus, Malchus, and Alexander were chiding one another as if they were slothful and idle, because they had hung back when the opportunity was offered, ^C not having seized the crown of martyrdom; wherefore, having approached the judge and being condemned to the beasts, "they were adorned with divine martyrdom," as Eusebius narrates in book VII, ch. 12. Whence the Roman Martyrology on the fifth day before the Kalends of April: "At Caesarea in Palestine, the nativity of the holy martyrs Priscus, Malchus, and Alexander, who, in the persecution of Valerian, being residents of a suburban field of the aforementioned city and setting before themselves the celestial crowns of martyrdom, ignited by the divine heat of faith, went of their own accord to the judge," as he was being slaughtered for the name of Christ, "and were handed over by him to be devoured by beasts." ^A Romanus, a deacon of Caesarea, seeing many sacrificing, and a "zeal for divine worship inciting him, drew nearer," and with a loud voice, crying out, rebuked them, offered violence to the judge (as we have said before), and being arrested for his boldness, "he was proven to be a martyr of the truth, more noble than it is possible for anyone else to be," and "was crowned with a martyrdom as noble as any other," says Eusebius, lib. IX, c. 2. Moreover, Apphianus, in the heat of persecution, secretly, without everyone else in the same house and even the cohort of soldiers knowing, seized the right hand of Urbanus the prefect and forced him to cease his sacrifice, and, surrendering himself to the most severe torments, he suffered. Eusebius, who was intimate with him, judged that he had done this, "divine virtue impelling him to this very thing, and all but crying out through the deed itself," and he narrates that Aedesius, having tried to do the same as his brother, suffered in the same way. It would be long to recount everyone whom Eusebius and others commemorate as having offered themselves to martyrdom of their own accord and deliberately.

But, they say, "Christ's martyrs await death, they do not seek it." Let them go, therefore, and let them strike from the number of Christ's martyrs all those who offered themselves to the passions of their own accord, and let them tear down the trophies raised over the Gentiles, and, under the pretext of a single virtue of modesty, let them obliterate all heroic virtues! The ancient Fathers, who either suffered the tortures and torments themselves or saw others suffer them, speak otherwise. They are not accustomed to set before us the modesty of martyrs supremely, but "virtue, courage, nobility, zeal for divine worship, moral goodness, freedom of speech, boldness, daring, eagerness, noble resolve, the undertakings, the deeds of valor, the achievements," and other things of this kind as most certain "proofs of the Spirit," with which this epistle is filled. But Chrysostom praises these things especially in Ignatius: "Christ saying that 'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,' he surrendered it with all courage for the sheep." When Christ said, "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep," he handed it over for the sheep with all fortitude. St. Cyprian also admonishes in Epistle 6 that confessors ought to be humble, and modest, and quiet; but he understands modesty toward superiors in the Church: in those things, that is, which ecclesiastical discipline demands according to the teaching of the Scriptures. Although here, too, manifest signs of modesty are not lacking, such as where he says: "Now I begin to be a disciple," which is pronounced by a most severe critic as having been said wrongly and inopportunely. For does he truly know Christ himself to have said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own soul, he cannot be my disciple"; when he already knows also that he himself is fully persuaded to lay down his life for Christ, and that he cannot be moved from that will either by terrors or by blandishments?

^A And a reason worthy of so great a man. "Lest when I go to sleep, I be a trouble to anyone." The most ancient Christians, who are considered to have known best the times of Ignatius and the martyr himself, certainly thought this a serious reason and one worthy of so great a man. For we read this in his most ancient Acts: "He was set before the cruel beasts by the impious, so that the desire of the holy martyr Ignatius might be fulfilled at once, according to that which is written: 'The desire of the just is acceptable,' so that he might not be a burden to any of the brethren through the collection of his relics, as he, anticipating it in his letter, longs for his own fruition to be accomplished."

Since, therefore, all these things seem quite worthy of the pious, legitimate, and renowned thought, counsel, and deed of the martyr, I fear it might be odious to assert ^B that this letter was written to the Romans for no other reason than that they might see and marvel at these glories of the man. Certainly, if these things are legitimate and pious, it is proper to believe that neither did an impostor write such things, nor did the most holy martyr write them with any other intention than that he might imbue the Romans with the same piety, move them to a similar contempt for earthly things, raise them to an expectation of the future life, and, finally, encourage them, if it should so seem good to God, to meet death for the Christian faith with the utmost alacrity. In which nothing is rotten, nothing odious, nothing tasteless, or imprudently written.

Now, the third objection is clearly of no account: nor does it contain anything unworthy of Ignatius. For what he desires—that all the particles of his body be so devoured and consumed that nothing of them remains for burial—is not in the least abhorrent to the piety of a most consummate martyr, and indeed of Ignatius himself. We assert that Ignatius himself wrote: "I am the grain of God, and I am ground by the teeth of the beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ." Dallaeus confesses that Ignatius said these things; Irenaeus praises this as the most beautiful sentiment of the martyr; therefore, nothing in that sentiment ought to be considered unworthy of that most great man. But how, I ask, could he be ground as grain by the teeth of the beasts so that he might become bread, unless all the particles of his body were devoured by those beasts? "But hear," he says, "a serious ^C and a reason worthy of so great a man. Lest when I go to sleep, I be a trouble to anyone."

CAPUT X.

In chapter 19 he proceeds to other things alien to veracity and the knowledge of divine matters; which indeed are three, of which two are brought forward by the interpolator, one by our own [text]. What he brings forward from our own is this: "That he wrote falsely to the Ephesians that Paul the apostle makes mention of them in every epistle in Jesus Christ." Are these things written falsely? I do not believe it: how does the most learned man prove it? Not even by one tiny word. Does it befit a Christian to accuse a most ancient writer of falsity, and to offer no reason at all for the accusation? Blondellus did this before him, he proposed the objection as a bare question: "Whether it is truly written concerning the Ephesians, *Παῦλος ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολῇ μνημονεύει ὑμῶν*;" he asks whether it is true, he sub-indicates that it is written falsely; he does not show in what the falsity consists. That S. Paul made mention of the Ephesians is beyond doubt, and indeed in an epistle: yet they think that Ignatian [passage] to be false, as I suppose, because he did not do that in every epistle; they thought...

^A that Ignatius represented St. Paul as making a remembrance of them in Jesus Christ. Was this stated by the martyr not idly or coldly, but truly, nay, significantly and vigilantly? For the whole epistle written to the Ephesians looks especially to the Ephesians themselves, and to their honor and care, and transmits their highly honorable memory to posterity. In other epistles, the Apostle often sharply rebukes those to whom he writes, or at any rate praises them not at all, or sparingly; or he disputes at greater length on matters pertaining to faith, or on questions to be settled. Here, he constantly applies himself to the Ephesians in every way, and treats them as excellent Christians, firmly believing in the Gospel of salvation, and sealed by the Spirit of promise, fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household; for them he prays often and ardently, exhorts them, adjures them, praises them, and diligently instructs every age and either sex, everywhere demonstrating his singular affection for them. *Πολλῆς ἔδει τῷ Παύλῳ σπουδῆς πρὸς ἐκείνους γράφοντι*, says St. Chrysostom, “he writes to the Ephesians with great effort.” *Λέγεται δὲ καὶ βαθύτερα τῶν νοημάτων αὐτοῖς ἐμπιστεῦσαι, ἅτε ἤδη κατηχημένοις.* “It is said that he entrusted even deeper concepts to them, because they had already been instructed by him,” and because he had left Timothy with them; whence Ignatius calls them ^B St. Paul’s fellow-initiates, to whom he had revealed the whole counsel of God. Origen, in his 15th homily, observes a great distinction between the Corinthians and the Ephesians: “See how Paul speaks to the Corinthians: ‘I fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.’ And because they still had need of milk, they learn the things that little children are wont to learn: ‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman: but, because of fornication,’ etc. And again they are instructed not to eat things offered to idols. All this doctrine is the milk of those who are infants in Christ. But when he writes to the Ephesians, he offers them solid food. For fornication is not heard of in Ephesus; idolatry and the eating of things offered to idols are not heard of in Ephesus.”

The things which Dallæus imagines here concerning the interpolator are wondrous. For he says that, because the interpolator kept finding Paul’s mention of the Ephesians in every epistle, he substituted “us” for “you,” and “prayers” for “epistle,” as in the phrase *ὃς πάντοτε ἐν ταῖς δεήσεσιν αὐτοῦ μνημονεύει ἡμῶν*, “who is always mindful of us in his prayers.” ^C For first, the interpolator did not substitute “us” for “you.” We have three Greek copies of the interpolator; in one, indeed, the Augustan, *ἡμῶν* is read, but corruptly, since in the Nydpruccian and the Anglican copies *ὑμῶν* is read, as the Vulgate interpreter reads, who rendered it “your.” Indeed, the authority of the older writer refutes this substitution, since in the Medicean codex *ὑμῶν* is read, and in the old interpreter “your.” Therefore, there was no reason why Ussher should embrace the reading of one codex against the consensus of all the others, or why Dallæus should seize upon it. Secondly, it is not established that the interpolator

^A should have substituted prayers for the epistle; for it seems rather that he rendered *per panta* in every epistle, and added *en tais deêsesin* (in prayers) to explain *mnêmoneuei* (he makes mention), because he saw that St. Paul in the prayers scattered throughout the whole epistle commended the Ephesians in Jesus Christ; or he might have been looking at that verse, *ou pauomai eucharistôn huper humôn mneian humôn poioumenos epi tôn proseuchôn mou* — "I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers." I defend the Laurentian codex; I do not approve of the confusion of both codices made by Hammond.

Chapter 20 deals only with Paul's marriage and touches the interpolator only. Chapter 21 contains four objections, one of which concerns the interpolator of Solomon and Josiah, while the rest attack the author himself. Concerning him, it has this: "A most audacious man did not hesitate ^B to write that Christ the Lord was seen by him in the flesh. Chrysostom denies that Ignatius saw Christ. Therefore, the writer of the epistles is convicted of a manifest lie." This is the sum of the argument. With what certainty Chrysostom said that Christ was never seen by Ignatius the martyr, I do not ask. Certainly, if the writer of the epistles two hundred years after Ignatius, as Dallæus wishes, said that Christ was seen by him in the flesh, he was both a most audacious and a most mendacious man; just as Pseudo-Abdias, not without the greatest audacity and open lying, narrates in book VI of the *Apostolic History* that he himself saw the Lord with his own eyes, although in the same book he not only names Hegesippus but also transcribes his words from the translation of Ruffinus. The author of the *Politia SS. Patrum* (Life of the Holy Fathers) of Metrophanes and Alexander ^C in Photius, codex 256, was also a most audacious and mendacious man, if he wrote that he saw Constantine serving among the ephebes in Palestine under Diocletian. But the writer himself did not say this; rather, Schottus translated the more obscure contraction of Photius in that way, and his interpretation is refuted by the same Acts, more fully edited recently by Combefis; from which it is established that it was not the writer, but Maximian, who then saw Constantine. I assert equally that the author of the epistles which we defend never wrote that Christ was seen by him in the flesh. If he had written this, Salmasius and Blondellus, with their own skill in these matters, would not, I think, have wished to omit it; but he did not write it at all. The words of the author of the epistle concerning Christ are these: *Egô gar meta tên anastasin en sarki auton oida kai pisteuô onta.* Thus it is read in the Laurentian codex; the same reading is found in Eusebius; Theodoret represents the same; the Greek vulgate codices retained the same, as well as the Nydpruccianus, the Tylinganus, and the Anglicanus, all free from the interpolator's hand in this place. There is, therefore, a consensus of codices ^D and excerpts here; which, however, the most learned man attempts to tear down with wondrous conjectures, he who elsewhere is wont to exclaim, as often as some reading of old codices is called into question.

Firstly, he says that the vulgate Greek edition is nothing but a late interpolation. But we produce these words from it, free from all interpolation; namely, *meta tên anastasin en sarki auton oida kai pisteuô onta*. Therefore, whatever has been interpolated, these things certainly remain sound and whole, consenting with the Laurentian codex, Eusebius, and Theodoret. Secondly, Eusebius is hallucinating, or the antiquarians, or Ruffinus, that he rewrote *oida* (I know) from the books of Eusebius to Theodoret, and that it flowed down into the writer of the Florentine codex. O laughable fabrication! The *History* of Eusebius had been in the hands of everyone nearly a hundred years before Ruffinus translated it into Latin; the copies were dispersed everywhere throughout the entire Oriental Church and received with the great admiration of all. Would Ruffinus, therefore, in the Latin Church, have wished to change a single word in his codex on purpose, or could he have hoped that his correction would be received in all the remaining copies of the Orient? Ruffinus was not so insane; especially since his fiercest enemy, Jerome, had published his own catalogue so many years before this translation. Therefore, there is no just suspicion that Ruffinus corrupted Eusebius's *History* by changing the words. Furthermore, what he conjectures about the copyists—that they, observing the absurdity of the matter, deliberately corrected the words of Ignatius as handed down by Eusebius—repels every probability. For who will ever think that those copyists joined together to consult, delivered a judgment on the writings of Eusebius, and agreed upon the change of a word? Who will judge them wiser than Eusebius himself, the greatest author of his time, they who all learned men who are well-versed in these matters confess and complain were men in every age ignorant of good letters, hired only for the sake of transcribing? If something had been attempted in the codex of Eusebius, who will grant that Theodoret was imposed upon by that correction, he who transcribed so many other places not from Eusebius, but from the very epistles of Ignatius? Who will guarantee that the writer of the Laurentian codex, having left his own exemplar, had consulted either the *History* of Eusebius or the disputations of Theodoret? These conjectures are too diluted; and it is a most fair demand that those things be taken for the words of the author of the epistles which are recognized by all Greek exemplars and ancient excerpts. But by these words, it is not said, as Dallæus alone has objected, that St. Ignatius saw Christ in the flesh. For *oida* is one thing, and *eidon* or *idon*—and it is not written *eidon*, which is to the Greeks "I saw"—is quite another; but *oida*, which to them is always "I know" or "I understand." Thus the author of these epistles distinguishes elsewhere. To the Ephesians: *di' ôn pantas humas kata agapên eidon*, "through whom I saw you all according to love." To the Magnesians: *oida hoti ou phusiousthe*, "I know that you are not puffed up," and *oida hoti entrepesthe*, "I know that you are reverent." To the Philadelphians: *oiden gar pothen erchetai, kai pou hupagei*, "for he knows whence he comes and whither he goes." These things I take first for certain and indubitable. But Dallæus argues from the old version, which

^A represents the author's words thus: "I saw him in the flesh after the resurrection." But the question is not what the interpreter did, but what the author of the epistle wrote, and whether that interpreter ought to have rendered the words of the author in that way. I grant him simplicity and faithfulness, but not skill in the Greek language. That he could have erred in explaining the mind of the Greek writer, no one can deny; that he did err in this place, I affirm. But I confess that Jerome fits perfectly with the most ancient interpreter; but after Jerome, Ruffinus disagrees; it is asked who hit upon the mind of the author better, Jerome, or Ruffinus, or the Usserian, or the vulgate interpreter; that is, we must return entirely to the force and meaning of the word οἶδα. He himself does not dare to contend with those who deny that the word οἶδα can be taken for "I saw." But either he must contend with them, or give up. For when the true reading is now placed beyond doubt, nothing else can be placed in controversy, except what is the true and genuine meaning of the word. But "Sophronius," he says, "rendered the same thing clearly: Ἐγὼ δὲ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἐν σώματι αὐτὸν εἶδον." What, I ask, is this "same thing" which Sophronius clearly rendered? Not that which is in question; for that is [the question of] what the author of the epistle wrote; but Sophronius did not translate Ignatius, but Ignatius’s interpreter, Jerome. If he who is called Sophronius, whoever he is, had acted as a scholiast to Ignatius, he would never have rendered οἶδα as εἶδον. But since he translated Jerome’s book, who had written "I saw" (vidi), he rendered that as εἶδον, [but] could not correctly render it for οἶδα. As with the word "Quadratus," ^B where he said ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι γενόμενος, the Latin of Jerome is "visiting Eleusis," looking at the word, not however at those things which Jerome had before his eyes, Ἐλευσίνια ἐποπτεύων; ^C translating ἀθετήματα as "those who have rejected and despised" (qui spreverunt contemnentes); who, from poorly understood Greek [passages] of Eusebius, made Apollonius a senator, attributed to him a famous volume, and placed him in the Catalogue of ecclesiastical writers? From poorly understood Greek [passages] of Eusebius, I say: for the conjecture of Joseph Scaliger is to be rejected entirely, as he asserts that Jerome, when writing those things, did not have the Greek copy of Eusebius in his hands, but the translation of Ruffinus. For that could by no means happen, since Jerome wrote his Catalogue so many years before Ruffinus translated the History of Eusebius. If in all these places, and in very many others, that is indeed the truest sense which Jerome exhibits, we shall grant either that οἶδα signifies "I saw," or that the true reading is εἶδον. But since he, whether through haste or hallucination, could render this place no less incorrectly than countless others, the true reading of the Greek epistle ought neither to be changed against the consensus of all the manuscripts, nor distorted by an alien interpretation, [one which is] contrary to the mode of speaking most familiar to the Greeks. Certainly Freculphus, not moved by the excellent erudition of Jerome, although he was wont to transcribe almost everything from him, nevertheless changed these things into these words, tom. II, lib. II, cap. XI: "I however both believe that he was in the flesh after the resurrection, and I believe because I know it." But the most learned man contends that the sense rendered by Jerome is the truest, based on "the rumor concerning Christ being seen in the flesh by Ignatius," which (unless it were propagated from this place in the epistle, it is very difficult to say or suspect, especially among the Greeks, who were almost entirely incurious about Latin books). Let us suppose that the Greeks were incurious about Latin books, did they not have the Greek book from which they could have imbibed that error? Whatever "I saw" (vidi) [could do] in Jerome, the same could εἶδον do in Sophronius: however, the version of Sophronius was well known to the Greeks of the following centuries. ^D Suidas transcribed him very often, and before Suidas, Photius is discovered to have known him. Therefore, as the Latin of Jerome, so the version of Sophronius could have been a source of deception for the Greeks. But it is not likely that that rumor arose from this place: for here it is related, as they wish, that Ignatius saw Christ in the flesh after the resurrection: but that rumor related nothing of the sort, but that Ignatius was among the little children brought to Christ and taken up into the very hands of Christ. These two things, however, are plainly different. If Ignatius had said that he saw Christ in the flesh after the resurrection, would anyone thence infer that he himself, as a little child, had been carried in the hands of Christ before his death? Surely no one. Therefore that rumor arose from elsewhere; nor does this suspicion

^A satisfy, but it is described through both. As the Apostle says, *fully assured* [πληροφορηθείς]. Furthermore, elsewhere he expressed them together: *and being fully assured of this, I know* [καὶ τοῦτο πεποιθὼς οἶδα], Phil. 1:25. Saint Athanasius imitated this in his *First Oration against the Arians*: *For I know and am persuaded that there shall be for those who endure a reward from the Savior* [Οἶδα γὰρ καὶ πέπεισμαι ὅτι τοῖς ὑπομένουσιν ἔσται μισθὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ Σωτῆρος]. So that it is the same in our author: *I know and I believe* [Οἶδα καὶ πιστεύω], which is the same as *knowing I believe* [εἰδὼς πιστεύω], or *believing I know* [πιστεύων οἶδα]. For these words speak of nothing other than the firmness and certainty of faith. "But when he has placed two different words, he shows that he knows Christ was in the flesh in a different way than he now is in the same." Here, it seems to me, is the source of all errors in this matter. I believe that first Jerome was deceived, then the interpreter, and finally Dallæus. They wanted two times of the Lord's flesh to be signified: after the resurrection on earth, and after the ascension in the heavens—things which are utterly alien to the mind of the writer. The word "was" [fuisse] is a fiction, which they bring forward from Vairlenius. Ignatius only said "being" [ὄντα], which must be connected with "in the flesh" [ἐν σαρκί]. That unique thing is what Ignatius said here that he embraces with full faith: Christ *being in the flesh* [ἐν σαρκὶ ὄντα], even still after the resurrection. About the ascension, he said nothing here, he proved nothing. It is ridiculous for the writer to say two things, one of which he saw, the other he believed; then to bring forward many testimonies for that which he had seen, but for that which he believed, none at all. For all things which follow only prove that Christ, while he was on earth, was in the flesh; nor did Ignatius know or believe this from any other source than from those testimonies which follow. To this also pertains the fact that they think *oida* [οἶδα] has the significance of the past tense and *pisteuo* [πιστεύω] of the present. But this is likewise false. For the verb *oida*, although it is a form of the past tense, is nevertheless present in meaning among the Greeks, and it is placed with a verb of the present tense with the same significance, as in Homer:

*But I in my mind perceive and know everything.* [Αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ θυμῷ νοέω καὶ οἶδα ἕκαστα.]

And therefore the Latin interpreters render it with a verb of the present tense, as Mat. 6:32: *For your Father knows* [Οἶδε γὰρ ὁ Πατὴρ ὑμῶν]; 24:36: *Nobody knows* [Οὐδεὶς οἶδε]. The *Old Glossary*: *Oida*, I know, I recognize; and another Glossary: I know, *oida*. The *Etymologicon*: *Oistha* [Οἶσθα], instead of *ginōskeis* [γινώσκεις]—you know. Rightly, therefore, *oida* is both conjoined with *pisteuo* and referred to *onta* [ὄντα], as in Xenophon, *I know myself to be inferior* [οἶδα ἐμαυτὸν ἥττονα ὄντα]; rightly the unique object of faith is recognized here, which is confirmed by the following testimonies. Nor, indeed, are they any less becoming to Ignatius, nor are they more potent for eliciting the meaning of the writer, because they are not conceived in the very same words which are now read in the Gospels. They are most suited for proving the thing which the writer had asserted; but if we make a double assertion, they prove neither the one nor the other. They do not prove that Ignatius saw Christ after the resurrection; they do not show that Christ, after

^A ascension in the flesh, was seen by him, no matter whence these sayings are taken; according to the opinion of Daillé, they are nothing. There has been a broader discussion already concerning the apocryphal character; here, therefore, I conclude that the author of the epistle never wrote that Christ was seen by him in the flesh.

What he says about the star shining more brightly in no way proves that Ignatius is a fabrication; nor does he himself offer any objection, except that these things were written rashly, and that none of the interpreters have followed them. The words of Ignatius are: "A star in heaven shone above all the stars, and its light was unutterable; and its newness provided astonishment. And all the other stars, together with the sun and the moon, became a chorus to that star; but it itself was casting its light above all. And there was a disturbance as to whence this newness, so unlike them; by which all magic was being dissolved." The Old Interpreter: "An star in heaven shone intensely over all the stars, and its light was ineffable, and its newness caused amazement. But all the other stars, together with the sun and the moon, were made a chorus to that star; but it itself was casting its light above all. And there was a trouble, whence the newness which is different from them; from which every magic was being dissolved." These things Daillé dismisses as rashly said, inasmuch as they are foreign to Scripture and abhorrent to the very use of this star, namely, for pointing out the house at Bethlehem where Christ was born. But I do not see how these are more foreign to Scripture than those things which others have handed down concerning the same star. Nor has anyone yet acknowledged that single use, for pointing out the house in Bethlehem. ^B There were two aspects of that star: one in the East, the other at Jerusalem. The use of the first appearance was for stirring up the magi from their own land to seek the King of the Jews; of the second, for pointing out the house. The ancients speak much about the former, which Scripture merely indicates, while Ignatius says little: neither he nor they took from Scripture what they said, but freely pronounced what they themselves felt about the matter. "Where is he who is born King of the Jews?" say the magi, "for we have seen his star in the East, and we have come to worship him" (Matt. II, 2). How that star appeared in the East, how the magi from thence believed the King of the Jews was born, and how, being moved, they came to worship him, has been questioned by all. Ignatius sets forth his own opinion, that that star was the most illustrious of all, and that by its own brilliance it led the magi to Jerusalem. Nor did this opinion seem so absurd that no one among the ancients followed it, which I truly wonder at having been said by Daillé. For hardly anything is written in this opinion that very many did not say afterward. Almost all the same things are touched upon in that one passage of Clement of Alexandria in the *Excerpts*: "Therefore a strange and new star arose, dissolving the old astrology, shining with a new and non-mundane light." These words ^C anyone may doubt whether they look to this very saying of Ignatius, whether it concerns his appearance, or it concerns the dissolution of the star-worship, or the art of the magi? For even Tatian says that *astrologia*—that is, the discipline of the magi—was invented by the devil. Upon the wonderful light of it, surpassing the splendor of the rest of the stars, Leo the Great, in his *Homily on the Nativity*: "In the region of the East, a star of new brilliance appeared, which, more illustrious and beautiful than the rest of the luminaries, would easily turn the minds and eyes of those looking upon it." Maximus, *Homily 3*: "For who doubts that the star itself shone with a wider light and more gleaming rays, which was casting the light of heaven and earth upon human eyes? And it was necessary that this star should be clearly distinguished in a brighter sphere from the rest of the luminaries, for it was announcing Christ, whose nativity differed from all mortals." St. Chrysostom, *Homily 6 in Matthew*, concerning this star: "For it does not appear by night, but in the middle of a shining day, which is not the power of a star, nor even of the moon. For that which, surpassing all the stars so much, is hidden and disappears when the solar ray has shone. But this one, by the excess of its own brilliance, also conquered the solar rays, appearing more clear than them and gleaming more in such great light." Whence he calls it ^D *inusalatam* [unusual]: "a great and strange star, so that it would strike the magi with its size and the clarity of its appearance." But these things Chrysostom said, after he had promised that he would say everything from Scripture itself. Nor is it a miracle that Ignatius represented the star to us as more splendid than all the rest and even the sun itself, when the weighty author Gregory of Nyssa, in the *Life of Moses*, attributes to it a splendor greater than the solar thorn-bush: "another light shining around the eyes of Moses, above the solar light." Concerning the dissolution of magic, Gregory Nazianzen, in his *First Oration*: "For this reason the star went forward, and the magi prostrating themselves and offering gifts, so that, namely, idolatry might be dissolved." The same, in *Arcana*, poem 5, when he had noted the newness of the star: "Then, when at once the designs of the art for the astrologers fell." And St. Basil, in his *Oration on the Nativity of Christ*, concerning the magi: "But perhaps also the opposing power, having become weaker from the appearance of the Lord, felt its operations being abolished,"

^A considering the new and unusual star. Chrysostom in sermon 105: "If, when the magus saw human concerns, he saw that his own arts had failed, etc." And a little later: "Therefore, brothers, by the present reading, the magic error is not strengthened, but dissolved." Indeed, as Origen observes in Book 1, *Against Celsus*: "The Magi, seeing a divine sign in the heavens, conjectured that the man prophesied by the star had arrived into this life, and that he was stronger than all the demons and those things customarily imagined and activated by them; having anticipated this, they desired to worship him. Seeing a prodigy in the heavens, they conjectured that he who was announced by the star had arrived into life as a man, more powerful than all demons and familiar spirits, and resolved to adore him." Tertullian, *On Idolatry*, chap. 9: "Regarding Christ, certainly, there is a reckoning today; he observes and proclaims the star of Christ, not of Saturn and Mars and of whoever else of the same order of the dead. But indeed that knowledge was granted only up to the Gospel, so that Christ being published, no one thenceforth should interpret the nativity of anyone from the heavens." Neither, therefore, did Ignatius say those things rashly or absurdly, which so many men prominent in the Church have followed.

These things are too light; and yet that which follows, by the avowal of Dallaeus himself, is lighter. "He asserts," he says, "that Christ both ate and drank after the resurrection. But that he ate is known from the Gospel; that he drank is not known." A grave crime, O Caesar! As if indeed that which is not known from the Gospel, if it be known from the Acts of the Apostles, were not true. ^B Μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν συνέφαγεν αὐτοῖς καὶ συνέπιεν, "After the resurrection Christ ate and drank with the disciples," says Ignatius. But what does Saint Peter say, Acts x, 41: Οἵτινες συνεφάγομεν καὶ συνεπίομεν αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν. "Who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead." But, he says, "Luke writes that the apostles, after Christ had risen from the dead, ate and drank; but he never says that Christ himself (as our author claims) ate and drank with them." Nay indeed, if he said the former, he certainly said the latter, συνεφάγομεν καὶ συνεπίομεν αὐτῷ, that is, by Beza’s interpretation, "we ate and drank together with him," not among ourselves, but "together with him." In the old Beza codex in our library, it is added, καὶ συνεστράφημεν, "and we associated with him." For they were the chosen witnesses, and were brought in more familiarly, that Christ, raised from the dead, might become conspicuous to them in human nature, and through them to others: so that this might happen, "and they ate and drank together with him," that is, he eating and drinking, they ate and drank at the same time, and thus after his death, just as before his death, they associated with him familiarly. But if you say for that reason that they did not drink with Christ, because Luke in the Gospel does not write that Christ drank; you must say that they did not eat with Christ either, since in the Gospel it is written ^C that the apostles ate; it is not written that Christ also ate in their presence. If you cannot say that, because Luke in the Acts asserts what he had not stated in the Gospel; the same must be said of the other thing. In the same way certainly συνεπιεν αὐτῷ, as συνεφαγεν αὐτῷ, and to the same end; but Christ eating, they ate, therefore, he drinking, they drank. Luke affirms neither in the Gospel, but both in the Acts. Thus, not only Ignatius, but also the most learned of the Fathers understood Saint Luke in the Acts: Jerome in his book *Against the errors of John of Jerusalem* brings these things from Origen, I believe, concerning Christ: "He ate after his resurrection, and drank, and appeared clothed, and offered himself to be touched, so that by this he might create faith in the resurrection for the doubting apostles." Blessed Theodoret in dialogue 2 notes that Saint Peter taught this more clearly: Ὁ δὲ θειότατος Πέτρος σαφέστερον εἴρηκεν· Οἵτινες συνεφάγομεν καὶ συνεπίομεν αὐτῷ μετὰ τὸ ἀναστῆναι αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τῶν κατὰ τὸν παρόντα βίον ἴδιον τὸ ἐσθίειν, ἀναγκαίως ὁ Κύριος τῆς σαρκὸς τὴν ἀνάστασιν διὰ βρώσεως καὶ πόσεως ἔδειξε τοῖς μὴ νομίζουσιν ἀληθῆ. "And the most divine Peter said more clearly: Who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. For since it is characteristic of those who are in this present life to eat, the Lord necessarily demonstrated the resurrection of his flesh to those doubting its reality by means of food and drink." Saint Augustine, epistle 49: "Let him who has proposed these questions know, certainly, that Christ after the resurrection showed to those who doubted scars, not wounds, for whose sake he also wished to take food and drink, not once, but often, lest they might judge that it was not a body but a spirit, and that he appeared not solidly but imaginarily."

CHAPTER XI

It is reasonable to believe that some Docetae abstained from the Eucharist. The Simonians did not vanish immediately after the death of Simon. It does not appear that Ignatius said the Roman faithful could easily have rescued him from execution. Nor, if he did say so, does it call his truthfulness into doubt. Saint Ignatius could well have hoped for an opportunity regarding the writing of his second epistle to the Ephesians. The redemption from the harassment of the soldiers, and the privilege of free custody, accustomed to be procured for confessors by the Churches, is described at length. The martyr's modesty, both towards the Trallians and towards Polycarp, is defended. ^D In chapter 20 he pursues two arguments, and both attack our Ignatius. The first is that he reports that the heretics abstained from the Eucharist. But he thinks this is false: for no one in the age of Ignatius did this. In what age, therefore, did they do this? Or two hundred years after Ignatius, when the Dallaean impostor forged these epistles? Not at all. Or in any other age before that time? By no means. The writer lied, therefore; which can in no way be believed of Ignatius, but can easily be believed of an impostor. But why would the forger invent that which has absolutely no verisimilitude?

Does it have something that does not correspond either to the age of Ignatius or to his own? Surely, if no one had ever abstained from the Eucharist, not even a forger would have said this, or accused anyone of such an unheard-of crime. There is, therefore, no room to doubt that such heretics existed. But who are they, he asks? If he asks, we too ask: who were those heretics of whom Tertullian speaks? ^A “They have no churches, they have no mother, they are without a seat, faithless, outcasts, wandering without a home.” When, I ask, did they celebrate the Eucharist? What care did they have for widows and orphans? But he asks further: who are those who abstained from the Eucharist because they denied that it was the flesh of the Savior that suffered for us? I answer: the Docetae—those whom Ignatius describes, who attacked the truth of human nature in Christ, ^B who denied His passion and resurrection, against whom Ignatius warns, and to whom the Gospel must be held fast, “in which the passion has been shown to us, and the resurrection is perfect.” Dallaeus confesses that there were many heretics of old who denied this part of the Christian faith, and that this is most certain. But he asks again: who of the heretics of that time wrote that they abstained from the Eucharist? I answer: no one besides Ignatius affirmed this explicitly regarding the heretics of that time. Yet a writer of the same age and year, St. Polycarp, strikes at these same heretics, indicates the foundation of this abstinence, and touches upon the rest along with Ignatius. For this is what he says concerning the Docetae: “For everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is an Antichrist; and whoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is from the devil. And whoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own desires, and says that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, this one is the firstborn of Satan.” ^C By these words he teaches that those who at that time denied the truth of human nature in Christ, likewise denied His death, and did away with the resurrection and judgment. He teaches, moreover, that these men seduced vain people; he warns the Catholics that, avoiding their corruptions, they should keep watch in prayers and adhere to fasts; after which it is well known that the Eucharist was accustomed to be celebrated in that age; he also exhorts them to visit the sick, the widows, the orphans, and in no way to neglect the poor, who were all wont to be sustained from the offerings and the agapai, where the Eucharist was celebrated. Wherefore Polycarp points to the same thing that Ignatius explicitly spoke. “But if it were true, it would have been mentioned either by Irenaeus or by some other.” We have given another, and indeed a most suitable witness, St. Polycarp. Irenaeus, moreover, was a most curious investigator of the Valentinian heresy, and a most accurate seeker of all things that have sprung from it: he briefly describes the ravings of the older heretics, and scarcely ^D touches upon their discipline. Distinct heresies of the ancients were then still surviving. Irenaeus, therefore, in describing the Valentinian heresy accurately and refuting it painstakingly, very often warns his readers that the older heretics were refuted by the same arguments. It is no wonder, then, if some Docetae abstained from the Eucharist, and yet Irenaeus made no mention of that fact.

Yet Irenaeus does teach that which we wish to point out; he says that they came from the school of Menander, who asserted that one must not believe in Him who was crucified: of whom this was the saying: “If anyone confesses a crucified one, this man is still a servant.” How, therefore, could they, who did not deem Christ essentially dead, who rejected faith in Him who was crucified, come to the Eucharist, which was instituted for the commemoration of the death of Christ? “For the type is redundant when the truth is taken away,” as the blessed Theodoret says. What he holds against Bellarmine concerning the Simonians is of no value. Under that name are understood not only those who worshipped Simon, but also his disciples, who, coming forth from his school, received their beginnings from him, and variously transformed his opinion, and after his death handed down a most pestilential dogma under his name. Although even those who worshipped Simon continued long after his death. Regarding his own age, Justin Martyr says in his Second Apology: “And Samaritans almost all, and a few also in other nations, confessing Him as the first God, worship Him also.” And in the same apology he asserts that demons incited Simon and Menander from Samaria, who also, “having performed magical powers, deceived many,” and that he holds them as deceived, ^A not, as the interpreter says, “those whom they may seduce.” Whence he speaks thus of himself in the other apology: “I also despised the impious and erroneous Simonian dogma in my own nation.” Similarly, Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Simonians of his own age, Stromat. lib. II: “The followers of Simon want to be assimilated in morals to the Standing One whom they worship.” Later, Origen, lib. VI against Celsus: “Nowhere in the world are there Simonians.” Yet he himself says in lib. I of the same work: “But now in the whole world it is not possible to find more than thirty Simonians, I think, and perhaps I have said more than there are. There are very few around Palestine, but in the rest of the world his name is nowhere held in that opinion in which he wished himself to be held.”

^A In the age of Eusebius, there were those existing who professed his heresy; although they feigned to be Christians, they privately committed themselves to the worship of demons, as he himself testifies in book II, chapter 13. Therefore, in the age of Ignatius, there were very many Simonians who celebrated certain profane mysteries, though not the Eucharist, and who indeed worshipped Simon but under the name of Christ: “Though he was a deceiver, he assumed the appearance of the name of Christ,” as Epiphanius testifies. Since this is the case, it is apparent that the Simonians were by no means extinguished under Claudius, and that at the time of Trajan and the martyrdom of Ignatius, there were a great many of them in existence, and that therefore one can apply to them what was said by the writer of the epistles concerning certain heretics of his own time.

What he discourses concerning Marcion, who taught that the body of Christ was phantastical and yet celebrated the Eucharist, does not relate to the age of Ignatius; nor does it show what the Docetists may have done at that time. For they taught many things concerning the death of Christ which Marcion in no way sustained. And Tertullian testifies in that very place which is cited, that Marcion had his own sacraments apart. But Ignatius is without doubt to be understood as speaking of the sacrament of the Church, from which even Marcion abstained. Finally, since he seeks an argument from the interpolator (from whom he never seems to depart unless he is more learned), who appears to have omitted these words because he thought them less true; first, we oppose to the interpolator the authority of the Blessed Theodoret, who transcribed these very words as purely Ignatian and most true, and objected them to the heretics of his own time, nor did he fear that those words might betray the author of the epistles as someone other than Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch and martyr. Secondly, it must be thought that the interpolator himself, who was accustomed to omit whatever he wished according to his own whim, by no means omitted those words because he thought them not true, as is apparent from those things which were substituted in their place: “They are ashamed of the cross, they mock the passion, they turn the resurrection into a joke.” For who would think that they had used the sacrament of the Eucharist, who “are ashamed of the cross of Christ, who deride his passion, who make a mockery of the resurrection, who have an unfaithful enmity among themselves”? He certainly set these things down, because he thought that the same thing was taught by these words as was said by Ignatius concerning those who abstained from the agape, from the Eucharist, from the oblations, and who were flying over from the Church into the camps of the devil.

The second argument of this chapter pertains to the epistle to the Romans, in which he signifies that it was in their power to free him from punishment. Perhaps. Does it therefore follow that Ignatius did not write that epistle? Truly, I do not understand. “For if it is so,” he says, “it follows that the Romans sinned most gravely: for they did not free him.” Indeed, it does not follow. For it is possible that the Roman Christians could not accomplish what Ignatius thought they could have accomplished; yet they were not sinning most gravely by not doing what was not ^B in their power to see. It is also possible that they could have done it, but thought that it should not be done, moved by reasons given by Ignatius himself, or perhaps because the opportunity was taken away, and they were forestalled by the fury of enemies, when Ignatius “was led with haste into the amphitheater,” as we read in his Acts. Finally, it is possible that they could not have accomplished it without the danger to the lives of many Christians, or even without sin. But he who does not do good, when he might do a greater good, or when he cannot do it without sin, does not sin. “I do not ask,” he says, “what and of what kind that power is which is attributed to the Romans by ours.” But it was altogether necessary to inquire, or rather to conclude, what kind of power this was, before pronouncing that they would have sinned most gravely if they were unwilling to use it in this cause; and whether it was of such a kind that it could in no way be stolen from them. But he affirmed these things so many times, and yet it is false. That what he is said to have affirmed is false has not yet been proven, nor can it be proven in any way; whether the writer said it so many times remains to be seen. For first, he who said that he, 「if they were willing, and if they did not hinder, would die,」 did not immediately say, 「that his death, if they were willing, would not happen.」 These are clearly different things. The holy martyr knew that all the pagan Romans would most eagerly execute the emperor’s decree and would be delighted by his death. Therefore, unless the Roman faithful interceded and attempted in some way to hinder his martyrdom, his death was most certain, just as it was most desired by him for Christ’s sake. It does not follow, however, that he said there would be no death if the Christians were willing or attempted to hinder it; for even he who had said these things could doubt whether they would be able to bring this about. He knew that the infidels had both been able and willing to kill him; therefore, this would certainly have happened, unless someone hindered it. He knew that he had been called by God to martyrdom; no man besides the Christians stationed at Rome was to be believed to have wanted to hinder it. If, therefore, they were of the same mind that he was, or did not hinder it, the martyr’s death was most certain, whether they could have actually prevented it or not. For many Christians have attempted to free confessors from death, who could not actually achieve it. Regarding Peregrinus, Lucian says: “When he was bound, the Christians, thinking it a calamity, moved everything in an attempt to rescue him; then, when this was impossible, every other care was not done perfunctorily, but with diligence.” ^C So they moved all things in an attempt to rescue him. Presently, when this was impossible, every other care was not done perfunctorily, but with diligence.”

Thus, the two places which the most learned man has produced do not achieve what he intended; but the third seemed to him to assert that it was easy for them to do. “For to you,” he says, “it is easy to do what you wish.” Therefore, the writer of the epistle thought it was very easy for the Roman faithful to free Ignatius from the sentence of the emperor and from death. But in those words there is nothing in the least regarding death. ^D

^A nor can he be suspected, nor under such a supposition or suspicion, of fearing lest they should use that power for his release, thus hindering the martyrdom which he desired above all things, and to which the will of God so openly called him. Therefore, he exhorts them to strive to be most pleasing to God; and he makes it clear to them that it was of God that he should now undergo martyrdom for the name of Christ. "He who lives," he says, "and speaks in me, says to me within: Come to the Father." Nor does he show himself to doubt that Christ wished to make known this will of God to them also; whom meanwhile he makes certain that he wrote these things not according to the flesh, but according to the mind of God. There is nothing, therefore, in the Epistle to the Romans said concerning their power, which could not have been written by St. Ignatius.

^B Chapter 23 having examined the interpolations or spurious passages, a single argument is forged against the author himself, which is sought from that matter which is confessed not to abhor the gravity of the martyr, but his judgment and wisdom—not by a great deal, indeed, but in some measure. However, this defect of judgment and wisdom is detected and perceived through the prudence of the interpolator. Thus, clearly, to Daillé the author of the epistle is someone inept, an imprudent sciolist, in whom the most ancient Fathers could find nothing of the sort; yet the interpolator is acute, prudent, and, what is wonderful, even bold, whose ineptitudes all see. But what, finally, is that thing which so abhors the judgment and wisdom of the holy martyr? It is, forsooth, that he should promise to send a second book to the Ephesians. This is contrary to the prudence and wisdom of St. Ignatius. For in the ^C constant meditation of death, and amidst the vexations of the leopards, it would be foolish to promise this.

Before this censure is admitted, let us see what he promises, and how. What he promises is δεύτερον βιβλίδιον, "a second little book," or epistle. βιβλίδιον, indeed, is any small writing among the Greeks, as is evident from Plutarch, in whose *Life of Cimon* the Chians are described: Τοξεύοντες ὑπὲρ τὰ τείχη βιβλίδια προσκείμενα τοῖς ὀϊστοῖς, "sending little books attached to arrows over the walls." He calls this epistle, which he then wrote, the first little book, because it was slightly longer than the others which he wrote (as Jerome to Augustine, epist. 89: "I have received three letters, or rather little books, at once through your deacon Cyprian;" and epist. 2: "joining this little book to his little book," concerning the first two epistles), he promises that he will send a second as well. ^D But how does he promise? Not absolutely, but under a condition—and not one condition only. First, if God should will it, ἐὰν θέλημα ᾖ; second, if he should understand that the Ephesians were in such a state that it would be fitting to write to them the things he had meditated upon. These things do not savor of rashness or folly, but of piety and prudence, if you consider the matter and the manner of the promise. But, you will say, the condition and the state of mind of the martyr hinder him from promising even under those conditions: "to wit, the constant meditation of death, and the vexations of the leopards." Nay, truly, in no way. For there was in him

^A a meditation on death coupled with zeal for God and care for the churches; nor did he look to the salvation of others any less than to his own. The same cause, therefore, which moved the holy man ^B to send the first epistle to the Ephesians, and to promise a second as well, if need be, moved him. But he could not wisely promise this among the vexations of the leopards. Why not? Could he who had already written one epistle while in the hands of the soldiers—whom he calls leopards—not write another?

That this objection may be fully and clearly resolved, it will suffice to observe that the vexations of the soldiers, into whose custody the confessors were delivered, were accustomed to be redeemed by the Christians. Indeed, for this purpose—that they might be guarded more loosely and enjoy a freer prison—funds were distributed by the faithful, both to feed the confessors themselves and to mitigate the iniquity of the guards with bribes. ^C The most ancient and reliable witness to these matters among the heathens is Lucian, in his epistle *On the Death of Peregrinus*. For after he was cast into prison, the widows and orphans immediately flocked to the doors of the prison, and those among them who were in authority slept inside with him, having bribed the guards. Then various dinners were brought in, and their sacred discourses were delivered. "Their magistrates" (that is, those initiated into sacred orders, who were called *archontes*) "even slept inside with him, the guards having been bribed; then various dinners were brought in, and their sacred sermons were delivered." Behold here a most ancient custom of the Church described by a heathen, where in prison *agapae* were celebrated, widows and orphans were sustained, and Christian rites were ransomed from the guards. "And even from some of the cities of Asia some came, the Christians sending them from the common fund, to assist, plead for, and comfort the man." Some also came from certain cities of Asia, sent by the Christians in common, to bring aid to the man, and to defend and comfort him. And this also teaches that it was done according to the custom of the Christian Church. "They show an incredible speed whenever anything of this kind happens in public; for in a short time they are unsparing of everything. They immediately spare nothing." "And indeed much money was then sent to Peregrinus by them under the pretext of his bonds, and he made no small profit from this." This passage of Lucian is very remarkable, graphically depicting the charity, care, and zeal of the ancient Christians towards the confessors, in a very well-known matter which occurred towards the end of the reign of Hadrian, during the first journey of this philosopher. But let us hear the Christians themselves speaking on the same matter. Tertullian, already become more mature and a Montanist, in his book *On Fasting*, attacks the charity of the catholics even more bitterly and invidiously than Lucian himself: "It is your custom to display cookshops in the prisons ^D to martyrs who are uncertain, lest they seek after vanity, lest they weary of life, lest they be scandalized by the new discipline of abstinence, which neither that Pristinus of yours, not a Christian martyr, had touched: whom I think having been made rich for some time with the opportunity of free custody, with all the baths, as if better than baptism, and with all the luxuries of retreats, as if more secret to the Church, and with all the allurements of this life, as if more worthy of the eternal [life], this one was bound so that he would not wish to die." Yet the same Tertullian, in *To the Martyrs* chapter 1, speaks more calmly of this same custom of the Church: "Among the provisions of the flesh, blessed martyrs-designate, which Lady Mother Church and individual brothers supply from their own resources into the prison for you, something may also reach you from us which contributes to the nourishing of the spirit as well." And chapter 2: "Let us compare in the meantime the very conversation of the world and of the prison, to see if the spirit does not acquire more in prison than the flesh loses; nay, even the things that are just, the flesh does not lose, through the care of the Church and the *agape* of the brothers." These resources of the Church and of the faithful were entrusted to deacons, who would both aid the confessors with counsel, and sustain them with food, and redeem them from the iniquity of the guards by the payment of a price. In the age of Tertullian, St. Perpetua writes in her *Passion*: "Then Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed deacons who ministered to us, arranged by a bribe that we might refresh ourselves for a few hours in a better part of the prison." Regarding this most ancient custom, St. Cyprian writes in epistle 11: "And I had indeed believed that the presbyters and deacons who are present there would warn and instruct you most fully concerning the law of the Gospel, just as has always been done in the past under our predecessors, that the deacons, coming to the prison, might govern the desires of the martyrs with their counsel and the precepts of the Scriptures." The same, in epistle 5: "As for the supplying of expenses, whether for those who have confessed God with a glorious voice and are established in prison, or for those who are poor and needy and yet persevere in the Lord, I ask that nothing be lacking, since the entire sum which has been collected is there with the clergy, to be distributed for such cases." St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, apud Eusebius, lib. VII, cap. 11, regarding Eusebius the deacon: "Eusebius, whom God strengthened from the beginning, and prepared to fulfill the services for those who were in the prisons with great eagerness." "Eusebius, whom God had already strengthened from the beginning, and impelled to exhibit ministries strenuously to the confessors placed in custody." The author of the *Apostolic Constitutions*, lib. V, cap. 1, regarding a confessor: "Do not neglect him, but out of your labor and sweat send to him for his sustenance and for the payment of the soldiers, so that he may be lightened and receive care, so that as far as it is in you, your blessed brother may not be oppressed." Victor Vitensis de...

describes this custom in the African persecution: "But the people of the aforementioned city, always faithful in the Lord, having given a gift to the jailers, frequented the martyrs of Christ day and night."

That this was the very ancient custom of the Church, it is certain that it was also done in the case of the chains of Ignatius. For St. Chrysostom in his Panegyric observes these things: "For the cities along the way, running together from all sides, were leaving the athlete, and were sending forth many provisions, participating with him through prayers and intercessions." For cities along the way were encouraging the athlete as they gathered, and were sending him off with abundant provisions, competing with him through their prayers and companionship. He always acknowledges that rest (ἀνάπαυσιν) which he had from the churches, and that almost through the deacons; as to the Smyrnæans: "In all things you have refreshed me," and concerning Burrhus: "In all things he has refreshed me"; to the Ephesians concerning Crocus: "In all things he has refreshed me," as also the Father of Jesus Christ shall refresh him. This rest, or refreshment (ἀνάψυξις), was that solace of which the ancients speak. By all means, therefore, the deacons and others sent by the churches were ministering to Ignatius on his journey; and in so far as it lay in them, they were redeeming him from the vexations of the soldiers with rewards. From this it is correctly understood what he writes concerning the soldiers, whom he designates as leopards, "who even when treated with kindness become worse"; that is, the more money they received from the faithful for the relaxation of the vexation, so much more keenly did they vex the holy martyr at intervals, so that they might extort a greater amount of money and drain the Christians more copiously. Wherefore, since such frequent refreshment of mind occurred to Ignatius, and redemption from the iniquity of the soldiers, and, as Tertullian speaks, "the opportunity of free custody," he could easily have written those epistles which we possess, some of which could have been written in the space of not much more than one hour; nor is there any among them so prolix that it would require more than three hours. "Certainly," says Jerome to Chromatius, "one night is sufficient for even long epistles." Why, therefore, he who wrote this epistle to the Ephesians could not have promised to himself the occasion and opportunity for writing another, if there were need, I see no reason. Whence all that foolishness and insipidity concerning the promise of another book vanishes completely. I have recorded this here the more willingly, and have pursued it at greater length, that I might at the same time respond to the question of Blondel. "By which bribe (palpo) was it granted to appease the beastly rage of the leopards, so that they would allow their prisoner not only to enjoy the solace of one or another pious person, but also to be joined by neighboring churches from all sides, without the fear of the fire consuming the Christians in the whole world?" For these same works are scattered. For he who will read our pages will immediately see both the bribe and will not wonder at the fact that there was such a concourse of Christians. ^A

In Chapter 24 he gathers those things which occur in the epistles that are not sufficiently consistent with the modesty of the martyr: which, however, he confesses to be less elevated than those which we heard above. These things, moreover, he divides into four arguments; of which two regard interpolations or forgeries, two are directed toward our Ignatius. The first is a violation of modesty, because he claims for himself a knowledge of super-celestial things. ^B As if, truly, it were not appropriate for a Christian man, and indeed a bishop, and one taught by the Apostles, to have some knowledge of super-celestial things. Or are "super-celestial things" (τὰ ἐπουράνια) mentioned so often by the Apostle that Christians could know nothing and write nothing about them? These things seem wonderful to me, and yet because of this one opinion is this writer straying from modesty for a double reason. "First, he attributes to himself things which are not granted to any mortal man." I deny it, I strictly deny it. He says that he is "knowing many things in God" (πολλὰ φρονεῖν ἐν Θεῷ). Is this not granted to any mortal? Or is it not rather required of all Christians? All are called to wisdom in God, and indeed to much of it; especially he whom St. Chrysostom does not fear to call a peer of Peter the teacher. He says he is able to write those things which the Trallians could not grasp. Is this not granted to any mortal? It does not appear to us that such great knowledge existed among the Trallians at that time. When he had made mention of super-celestial things, and of things visible and invisible to the Smyrnæans, he immediately adds: "He who can grasp, let him grasp." Finally, he defines these "super-celestial things" more clearly, ^C when he says that he is able to understand the "angelic locations" (τὰς τοποθεσίας τὰς ἀγγελικάς) and the "archontic arrangements" (τὰς συστάσεις τὰς ἀρχοντικάς). ^D Yet it is not clear that these are of such a kind that no mortals could know them. We perhaps do not rightly understand what the writer of the epistles meant by those words, but that he himself did not understand what he intended to signify by these words, certainly no mortal knows. By *topothesias*, Dallaeus thinks are meant the places in which either individual angels or orders of angels are placed by God in this universe. But one may not without reason doubt this interpretation. For although Cicero used that word as an elegant one, among the Greeks, however, as I think, it rarely appears; and in Cicero it is taken in a meaning which does not suit the angels. *Topos* in this very writer is taken for office and dignity, as to the Smyrnæans, *topos mēdena physito*. An old interpreter: "Let no one be puffed up by his quality," as Isaac Vossius rightly warned that we should read; for Usserius did not rightly transcribe *qualiter* from the manuscript. The interpolator: *Topos kai axiōma kai ploitos mēdena physitō*. To Polycarp: "Vindicate thy place" (*exdike sou ton topon*), that is, the office and dignity which you hold as bishop. Which place Origen undoubtedly had in mind when he wrote in his *Commentaries on Matthew*: "Since they, defending the place of the episcopate, use the word." If *topothesia* taken in that sense can perhaps be more rightly applied to the orders of angels; the most ancient Christians, however, acknowledged their varied offices and dignities. *Systaseis archontikas*, Dallaeus again translates as "certain stations and battle-lines of principalities," although *systasis* signifies neither a station nor a battle-line. Of these we shall perhaps treat more fully at some time. In the meantime, I confess, concerning the nature of angels, of—

functions, dignities, and diverse orders, that he knows the writer of the epistle affirms certain things which he thought the Trallians could not grasp; and this refers rather to the place of St. Paul indicated by Ussher than to that by Dalleus, where it is not about knowledge, but about the religious ^A veneration of angels. Wherefore I believe this sentiment pertains properly to St. Ignatius, and was spoken by him not immodestly, but truly, and can be rightly accommodated to what follows. Irenaeus, in commemorating the charisms in the primitive Church, mentions *those who were expounding the secret mysteries of God*. As Ignatius to Polycarp: *Invisibilia autem petas ut tibi manifestentur, ut nullo deficias, et omni charismate abundes.* “Ask that invisible things may be manifested to you, that you may lack nothing, and may abound in every charism.” St. Chrysostom asserts that St. Ignatius received certain secrets from the apostles: *Cum apostolis genuine conversatus aquis spiritualibus rigatus est. Qualem idcirco eum fuisse par est, qui cum illis nutritus, et ubique conversatus, et de dicendis et de arcanis participavit?* “He lived genuinely with the apostles and was watered by spiritual streams. What manner of man is it therefore fitting that he should have been, who was reared with them, conversed with them everywhere, and participated with them in things to be spoken and in things secret?” Where he speaks of secrets, I do not doubt that he referred to this place, and similar ones in the epistles. Furthermore, in the Excerpts of Clement *from the oriental doctrine*—which surely could not have been unknown to St. Ignatius—not a few things are mentioned concerning the various offices and dignities of angels. Nor does the fact that he said these things indicates that they would “strangle” the Trallians to such an extent that they are sublime. For this was said to them as to infants, who are easily strangled by solid food; which is a familiar metaphor. As Tertullian, epistle 64, speaks of the Origenians: “From which they wish it to be understood that we, who have not yet been initiated, ought to hear a lie, lest as little ones and sucklings we be suffocated by the eating of solid food,” which is *strangulatio*. And Dalleus himself, in chapter 29, while citing these words of Ignatius, observes: “the traces of the Pauline sense are openly expressed in them.”

But, he says, this was “untimely.” Nay rather, it is most appropriate both to this place and to the time. But the writer does not seem modest enough to recent censors, while he writes to Polycarp, as a master to a novice: *pete prudentiam ampliorem ea quam habes.* “Seek prudence greater than that which you have.” O excellent specimen of immodesty! He admonishes him as a senior to a junior, as a friend to a dear friend, ^B as a confessor to a bishop, and encourages him to acquire increments of spiritual gifts, and to seek them from the fountain of every good. This admonition is clearly not immodest, but pious above all and faithful; and one which the ancients who handled commonplaces thought they must diligently write down for themselves. Nor is it a trivial suspicion that these things were said significantly, and something is hinted here that is very worthy of note. For in the inscription to Polycarp he also writes: *Episcopo Smyrnæorum, magis autem visitato a Deo Patre et Domino Jesu Christo.* “To the Bishop of the Smyrnæans, but rather visited by God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He seems to hint at the place in the Apocalypse, where it is written to the angel of the Church of the Smyrnæans: “I know thy works.” If this observation is correct, there will be no doubt that those seven angels of the churches were the bishops properly so called.

CAPUT XII. Arguments taken from diction are refuted. The true notion of the word *Theophoros* among the ancients. That word was attributed to St. Ignatius while he was still alive. The conversations of Ignatius held with Trajan are explained. Martyrs were called by the pagans *kakodaimones*, miserable, or unhappy. The fable about St. Ignatius as a boy in the arms of Christ.

^A of men already mentioned. Orations 37: "As one of the small men..." before [him] philosophized as a God-bearer. From the God-bearing athletes of Christ, learn the heavenly life of these. Quintus: the fifth anathema of St. Cyril as translated by Anastasius: "If anyone dares to say that Christ is a man—that is to say, a man using God—and bearing [or carrying], and does not truly say that he is God, let him be anathema." And yet the Blessed Theodoret says, "We do not reject the 'Deiferum' [God-bearing] man, as he has been termed by many holy Fathers." But Cyril says: "We say, indeed, that Christ ought not to be called by anyone a Deiferous [God-bearing] man, lest he be perceived as just one of the saints." Eulogius, in Photius, concerning St. Cyril: The same God-bearing man in the second anathema also cries out the same things. Photius, epistle one concerning the fifth synod: By the presence and aid of one hundred and sixty-five God-bearing fathers it was confirmed. Concerning the sixth: To one hundred and seventy God-bearing men, undergoing the struggle. Concerning the seventh: The God-bearing and holy assembly of those blessed and sacred men. It is to be noted that he also called the order of holy thrones "God-bearing," as bearing God ^B resting intellectually. See, therefore, since the blessed Basil the Cappadocian also called the flesh "God-bearing," one must consider how that has been said. For the flesh of the Lord himself is united by substance and by hypostasis to God the Word himself; therefore, he is also said by the Fathers to be a flesh-bearer and to have put on flesh. What absurdity, then, is it if his flesh also is called "God-bearing," as bearing God the Word according to an inseparable union, his flesh being both called such and existing as such properly and in truth? But these men, having God within themselves by grace, in an ineffable manner and by an incomprehensible intellect, are also called "God-bearers" for this reason.

The term "God-bearer" ^C is most familiar to ancient writers of the Church; as to this writer himself, the Ephesians are called such. Thus Clement of Alexandria asserts in the *Excerpts*, and in the *Stromata*, book VII: "Do you not know," says the Apostle, "that you are the temple of God?" Therefore the Gnostic is divine and already holy, bearing God and being borne by God. St. Dionysius, in *Celestial Hierarchy*, chapter 7, teaches that the name "throne" among the angelic orders denotes ^D. St. Basil *On the Holy Spirit*, chapter 5: "From the human mass," the God-bearing flesh was joined together. "It was necessary for the Spirit and the power of the Most High to establish that God-bearing flesh." And again in his homily on the Psalm LX: "A sandal of the divinity is the God-bearing flesh, through which he stepped toward men." The necessity of worshipping not a "God-bearing man," but God as "flesh-bearer." Gregory Nazianzen in epistle 2 to Cledonius, concerning the Apollinarists, in his third oration: He desires that for us it should not be permitted to disbelieve what has been said by the God-bearers. Observe the order of the holy thrones as "God-bearing," as bearing him who resides intellectually as God. Wherefore, since even the Blessed Basil the Cappadocian called [his] flesh "God-bearing," one must consider how that statement is made. For the flesh of the Lord himself, by substance and by subsistency, is united unto God the Word himself: wherefore he is also said by the Fathers to bear flesh, and to put on flesh. What absurdity is it, then, if his flesh also is said to be "God-bearing," as bearing God the Word according to an inseparable union; seeing that his flesh is both called and is [God-bearing] properly and in truth? But these men, having God in themselves by grace, in an ineffable manner and by an incomprehensible intellect, are for that reason also called "God-bearers." This true notion of the term, when the ancients...

^A with one consent acknowledge, no one doubts whether the same is peculiarly attributed to St. Ignatius; the only question is what the antiquity of this surname is, whether it appears to be older than the fable and was imposed upon Ignatius while he was alive; or whether it is rather of a later origin born from that fable. First, therefore, I demand that this be granted to me, that the name *Theophoros* was attributed to Ignatius before Eusebius wrote his history; for if it had been inserted later, it could not diminish the authority of the epistles which we defend, since even adversaries acknowledge them to be the same ones that Eusebius saw. Nay, this name seems to me to be able to be quite aptly gathered to be coeval with the epistles themselves from the epistles themselves. For thus the writer speaks to the Smyrnaeans: "Τί γάρ με ὠφελεῖ τις, εἰ ἐμὲ ἐπαινεῖ, τὸν δὲ Κύριόν μου βλασφημεῖ μὴ ὁμολογῶν αὐτὸν σαρκοφόρον; Ὁ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ λέγων τελείως αὐτὸν ἀπήρνηται ὡς νεκροφόρος· τὰ δὲ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν ὄντα ἄπιστα οὐκ ἔδοξέ μοι γράψαι. What profit is it to me if anyone praises me, but blasphemes my Lord by not confessing that He is a 'flesh-bearer'? He who does not say this has perfectly denied Him, being a 'corpse-bearer.' But it did not seem good to me to write their names, as they are faithless." For who does not see that Ignatius is alluding to the name *Theophoros* prefixed to the epistle, which he recognized had not even been denied to him by the Docetae? He did not accept their praises, while they called him *Theophoros* but denied that Christ was a *sarcophoros* (flesh-bearer), and proved themselves to be *necrophoroi* (corpse-bearers); nor did he wish to recite their names. And in the epistle to the Magnesians: "Καταξιωθεὶς γὰρ ὀνόματος θεοπρεπεστάτου ἐν οἷς περιφέρω δεσμοῖς ᾄδω τὰς Ἐκκλησίας. For having been made worthy of a most God-becoming name, I sing to the Churches in the bonds which I carry about." Where learned men join that name to "in which," and think it to be equivalent to "Christian," as if he had not been a Christian before he was cast into bonds; or "confessor" or "martyr," since the name of confessor does not seem to be so ancient; yet Ignatius never calls himself a martyr. And altogether those words "in the bonds which I carry about" seem rather to be attached to the following "I sing to the Churches." And this is still better understood from the sentence pronounced by the emperor; for under this name *Theophoros*, and with relation had to its exposition, he was cast into bonds, as we read in the Acts: "Trajan sentenced: We command Ignatius, saying that he carries about the crucified one in himself, to be led bound by soldiers to great Rome." To such an extent did the emperor condemn Ignatius not without sarcasm. But we have witnesses far older than the times of Eusebius. For these most ancient Acts explicitly recount concerning St. Ignatius being brought before the Emperor Trajan: "Trajan said: Who are you, evil spirit (*cacodaemon*), who hasten to transgress our commands and persuade others to perish miserably? Ignatius said: No one calls a *Theophoros* (God-bearer) an evil spirit." Again: "Trajan said: And who is the *Theophoros*? Ignatius said: He who has Christ in his breast. Trajan ^B said: Do you then carry Christ within yourself? Ignatius said: It is written: *I will dwell in them and walk among them*.*" Which passage of the prophet is employed by St. Cyril for the explanation of *Theophoros*. By these words, both the true antiquity of the name and its true meaning are asserted. But Daillé thinks the author of the Acts lived "long after the times of Ignatius," because, he says, other things confirm it, and "among other things, the conversations which these Acts feign to have been held by the martyr with Trajan, beyond all semblance of truth and decorum." I wonder, indeed, since he has never industriously refuted these Acts of Ignatius, especially since they offer such an illustrious testimony to the epistle to the Romans, which he rejects so disdainfully. What those other things might be, I do not know; certainly the conversations do not disturb the reasons of truth or decorum. Only one word used by Trajan gave occasion to all the rest; which no one would say is ill-suited to the emperor, who understood it correctly. Perhaps it will seem wonderful to some that Trajan should have thus addressed Ignatius: "Who are you, *cacodaemon*?" But he who knows what *cacodaemon* signifies, and how Heathens were accustomed to address Christians in judgment, will easily feel that this is both true and decorous. Thus the Latin interpreter in the Passion of Andronicus: "Maximus said: What have you now to do, evil demon (*male daemon*)," when the governor seems to have said nothing else than *cacodaemon*. Moreover, *cacodaemon* is nothing else than "an unhappy man." Old Glossary: *cacodaemon* "calamitous." As Dio Chrysostom, who lived under the reign of Trajan, addresses the Alexandrians in Oration 32: "Τί οὖν τοῦτο λαμπρόν, ὦ κακοδαίμονες; What therefore is so glorious about this, O unhappy ones?" He addresses them thus, because of those who threw away their lives without reason. "Φασὶ γοῦν ἤδη τινὰς τῶν ἀπολωλότων διὰ τὴν τοιαύτην πρόφασιν νεανιεύσασθαι, μὴ παραιτουμένους τὸν θάνατον, ἀλλὰ προσλιπαροῦντας, ὅπως ἀκούσωσιν ἐπιπλέον. They say, therefore, that already some of those who perished for such a cause behaved spiritedly, not deprecating death, but begging that it might be permitted them to hear more." He calls them *destycheis* (unfortunate), *talaiporous* (wretched), *cacodaimonas* (unhappy); and they thought entirely that Christians hastening to martyrdom were such, and for the most part then called them miserable and unhappy men. As Arrius Antoninus ^C addressed the martyrs in Asia according to Tertullian: "O wretches (*a deiloi*), that is, O miserable and unhappy men!" The Scholiast on Homer: *a deiloi*. Hesychius: "*a deiloi*": *deiloi*, and *cacodaimones*. Whence the same is to be corrected immediately from the beginning, *kai to a arthron, hos par' Homero, deloi*. For it must be read: *kai to o arthron* (namely, *deloi*), *hos par' Homero, "A deiloi*." Recent editors warn that "a" here is not an article, but that Hesychius intended "a" at Homer to be placed for the article; for in his own place: "O arthron," of the vocative case, as "O anthrope." Read therefore *kai to o*, just as we read in Suidas, *kai to o, Homeros, o deiloti kakon*, where it is also to be read, *"A deiloi, ti kakon*?" Odyss. K, 451:

se, as "O anthrope." Read therefore *kai to o*, just as we read in Suidas, *kai to o, Homeros, o deiloti kakon*, where it is also to be read, *"A deiloi, ti kakon*?" Odyss. K, 451: "O wretches, whither are you going? Why do you desire these evils?" ^A To these words of Homer, "Why do you desire these evils so much?" Arrius Antoninus seems to have alluded. Thus, the magistrate Maximus addressed the confessor Probus: "Rest from your vanity; do you remain in your hardness, wretch?" And: "Heed your body, wretch." And Andronicus: "Do you not feel the torments, wretch?" And Tarachus: "Have mercy now upon yourself, wretch." And so it is frequent. Not otherwise Ammianus Marcellinus: "And the miserable men, led to cruel execution, could have been defended by the help of Christians, had they not all indiscriminately blazed with hatred against George." When, therefore, Trajan used this address to Ignatius, "O kakodaimon" [O evil-spirited one], he, seizing upon this occasion, lashes out at the demons of the Gentiles, as was the custom of the most ancient Christians. For the heathens thought that people were *kakodaimones* by serving evil spirits, that is, demons. Dion Chrysostomus says, in oration 23: "It is necessary to call him unhappy, joined to and serving an evil spirit." For, as Chalcidius observes, "according to the usage of speech among the Greeks, demons are as much holy as they are polluted and infected." He shows, therefore, that he is not joined to an evil spirit, but rather to God, even by the very title *Theophoros*, which was attributed to him by the Christians. With these observations, the remaining remarks are sufficiently consistent with both the persons and the matter itself. Let them, therefore, enjoy that opinion of antiquity which Ussher, the best judge of ancient things, has reconciled for them. Nor does this word impress upon them any sign of novelty. The epistles themselves, before Eusebius’s History, by the confession of opponents and by our own disputation, edited by Polycarp, sufficiently support this antiquity. Nor do I doubt that Saint Dionysius had regard to the title when he called him "Divine Ignatius." Three noble writers of Greece harmonize with the epistles: Ephræmius, Jobius, and Gobarus. Ephræmius, Patriarch of Antioch, and successor to Ignatius after an interval, makes mention among the Fathers of "Ignatius the Theophoros," as Photius testifies in codex 227. Jobius the monk, in the same, codex 222: "For he says that Ignatius the Theophoros [spoke of] three things having escaped the prince of this world." Stephanus Gobarus, cod. 232: "Ignatius, however, the Theophoros, and Clement the Stromatist." At the end of the sixth century, Leontius of Byzantium, and at the beginning of the seventh, Antiochus, as seen in the *Testimonies*, testify the same. In the same century, the author of the *Chronicon Alexandrinum*, whose testimony we omitted because it concerns the interpolated epistle, [says]: "That the Lord, having preached the Gospel for three years, came to the voluntary and life-giving cross, Ignatius the Theophoros and martyr teaches, having been the genuine disciple of John the Theologian, and bishop of the most holy Church at Antioch, constituted by the apostles." {That the Lord, when he had preached the Gospel for three years, came to the voluntary and life-giving cross, Ignatius Deifer and martyr teaches, Matt. xvi, 3, who was the genuine disciple of John the Theologian, and ^B constituted bishop of the most holy Church of Antioch by the apostles.} Wherefore, a little later, he shows those who were betraying Christ to have preached for four years and some days, "opposing the stated Theophoros and martyr." Maximus succeeded them in the next century, who provides an illustrious testimony to this matter: "As also the word *Theophoros* [is] often said and written to him," so that the word *Theophoros* [is] often used by him in speech and writing. For that text concerns the epistles, but the *dictum* concerns the Acts; and that one confirms the titles of the epistles, this one confirms the discourses held with Trajan. It is established that this Act was followed by Bede in the same seventh century, as it was by Ado in the eighth. Yet there does not appear even now, of this fable or of another meaning of *Theophoros*, either a track or a vestige.

^C The most ancient of all those whom Dallæus brings forward for his fable are Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Simeon Metaphrastes; of whom the latter did not write the *Lives of the Saints* until after the beginning of the tenth century; the former, however, toward the end of the ninth, edited the eighth synod in Latin. But among the notes, he interspersed this: "The Greeks recount that the little child whom the Lord set in the midst, saying: 'Unless you be converted and become as this little child,' etc., was this Ignatius, and therefore they call him *Deifer* [Theophoros]. Wherefore even the apostles hesitated to lay their hands upon him further when he was being promoted to the prelacy of the Church; naturally, whom they knew to be praised by the mouth of God and sanctified by His touch." But who, I pray, were these Greeks who handed down such fables about St. Ignatius? Not the ancients, certainly; not any of those who wrote in the Greek Church before Anastasius. St. Chrysostom, a presbyter of the Church of Antioch, openly refutes both fables, while he relates that Ignatius never saw Christ, and that the apostles raised him to the order of the episcopacy by the imposition of hands. "I admire the man, because he received this authority from those holy ones, and the hands of the blessed apostles touched that sacred head." After St. Chrysostom, the Blessed Theodoret, a bishop in Syria, who held so many sermons at Antioch, [says] in dialogue 1: "You have surely heard of that Ignatius, who received the grace of the high priesthood through the right hand of the great Peter." "You have surely heard of that Ignatius, who received the grace of the pontificate through the right hand of Peter," etc. After Theodoret, Felix, the Roman bishop, to Zeno concerning Peter Mongus: "Who most indignantly thrust himself into the holy Church of Antioch, and polluted the holy seat of the pontificate of Ignatius the martyr, who was ordained bishop by the right hand of Peter." ^D Neither to the Greeks nor to the Latins did the ordination of Ignatius without the imposition of hands become known in the fourth or fifth century. I do not doubt, therefore, that those Greeks who handed these things down, they...

^A usually change common nouns when they are converted into proper names. The term *Theophoros* was an epithet which clung in a particular way to the name of Ignatius, not because it was or became his proper name, but because the people consistently attributed this epithet to him. As St. Athanasius reports regarding St. Anthony: "Therefore, all the people of that vicinity with whom he was acquainted, who loved what is beautiful and honorable, seeing him endowed with these habits, called him *Theophiles*." ^B Those who came later, the Greeks, accepted it as a proper name and wrote *Theophoros*, because accents are accustomed to be pulled back in proper names. Thus, many things are found that are *oxytone* [acute on the last syllable], which, when they become proper names, are *barytonized* [the stress moves to the penultimate syllable], such as *xanthos* (yellow), *Xanthos*; *pyrrhos* (red), *Pyrrhos*; *glaukos* (gleaming), *Glaukos*; *leukos* (white), *Leukos*. And so on. Thus, *agapetos* (beloved) becomes *Agapetos*; *niketes* (conqueror), *Niketes*; *anthéros* (blooming), *Antheros*; *Athēnaios* (Athenian), *Athēnaios*. Such a word, which had no accent in the Marmor Arundelianum, was so wrongly interpreted by Selden. For *PHRONTISTĒS ATHĒNAIOS* is not "the Athenian thinker," but *Athēnaios*, which is a man’s name, as is evident from the context. Thus, the old collection says: *Athēnaios*, "Athenian"; *Athēnaios*, "Athenaeus," a proper name. Thus, these proper names are thought to retain the same meaning even under an unfamiliar accent. Perhaps Didymus held this opinion, according to Harpocration: *de prope-rispan axioi tounoma, all’ hēmeis ouch heuromen houtō tēn chrēsin*. The Greeks indeed, after accents were invented, observed this distinction in compound words; it seems that long before, Homer was forced to explain himself (Il. P, 5):

*First-born, a maiden, not before knowing the birth.*

Where the old Scholiast says regards *Prōtotokos*, [*first-born*], "one who has given birth for the first time"; with the accent on the penultimate syllable so that it may be active; but with the accent on the antepenultimate syllable, the word denotes "one who is born first." Ammonius (on similar and differing words), edited with care by Bonaventura Vulcanius, but greatly in need of the help of manuscripts. Vulcanius saw that the passage was mutilated; we advise that it should be supplied from a manuscript code in our King’s library thus: ^C *Agronomos*, "if we accent the penultimate syllable, it is he who pastures in the fields." For words that are proparoxytone like to be analyzed into their segments. *Agronomos*, "if we accent the penultimate syllable, it will mean he who is pasturing in the fields; but if we accent the antepenultimate, it will mean he who is pastured in the fields." *Agronomos*, *Ag-ronomos*, *...* "he who was killed by the bull"; but *tauroktonos* [bull-killer] accented on the penultimate syllable is "he who killed the bull." The Greeks observed these things with such accuracy that although it was a canon of grammarians that words of more than two syllables ending in *-os* and having an accent on the penultimate ^D syllable reject the stress, they always used this exception, unless it is a compound word that is accented on the penultimate syllable for the sake of its active meaning, as the Etymologus says: *V. Ay-*

- *ous* ^A. This perpetual observation of the Greeks regarding adjectives of this kind, where they are paroxytone to indicate the active sense, as the Scholiast on Homer says, or proparoxytone to denote the passive, as Ammonius says, is not at all observed in proper names, which change the accent without changing their meaning. Therefore, those later Greeks have completely invented this definition of *Theophoros* and the fable based upon it. For *Christophoros* is a word commonly used by the ancients, just as *Theophoros* is; and by our Ignatius, the Ephesians are called *Christophoroi*. Phileas, an ancient writer, says in Eusebius (book x, ch. 8), in his epistle to the Thmuites: "Διὸ ζηλώσαντες τὰ μείζονα χαρίσματα οἱ Χριστοφόροι μάρτυρες," that is, "Therefore the Christ-bearing martyrs, seeking after the greater charisms..." This meaning the proper name *Christophoros*, or even *Christophóros* with a changed accent, has retained; whence also a new fable has arisen.

But Dallaeus asks why others called *Theophoros* are not called *Theophori*, just as so many have been called *Christophori* after *Christophoros*, seeing that our people gladly bestow the names of martyrs upon their own? I confess indeed that the ancient Christians gladly bestowed the names of martyrs upon their own children. The blessed Theodoret observes in Sermon 8: "Τὰς δὲ τῶν μαρτύρων προσηγορίας μᾶλλον ἴσασιν ἅπαντας ἢ τὰ τῶν φιλτάτων ὀνόματα· καὶ τοῖς παισὶ δὲ τὰς τούτων προσηγορίας ἐπιτιθέναι σπουδάζουσιν, ἀσφάλειαν αὐτοῖς καὶ φυλακὴν ἐντεῦθεν μηχανώμενοι." That is: "The names of the martyrs are better known to everyone than those of their own relatives. And they strive to impose their names upon their children, contriving for them thereby security and protection." However, the reason for this ^B difference is manifest. *Christophoros* was the proper name of a martyr, but *Theophoros* was by no means such. He who was often called *Theophoros* had as his proper name *Ignatius*. And this name of his many others have received. Not long after his death, a certain Ignatius was named, the uncle of Celerini, who was a confessor in the age of Cyprian, and himself a martyr. Later there was Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople; Ignatius the deacon, who wrote the Lives of Tarasius and Nicephorus; Ignatius Xanthopulus, along with Callistus, who are called "θεηγόροι καὶ Θεοφόροι καὶ Χριστοφόροι καὶ ἔνθεοι" by Symeon of Thessalonica. There is another Ignatius, to whom the work *On the Figures of Language* is dedicated, among the Barocian manuscripts in the Oxford library; then the modern Ignatius, Patriarch of Antioch; and, if I am not mistaken, in the *Chronicon Cassinense* there is an Ignatius, bishop of Monorbinum. Just therefore as so many *Christophori* are derived from *Christophoros*, so many have been called *Ignatii* from *Ignatius*, as the proper name of the martyr. But to demand that two names should be derived from one martyr among the Greeks is most unreasonable. St. Cyril, placing a certain monk named Ammonius, who had been slaughtered under torture by Orestes the prefect of Alexandria, in a certain church, "ὄνομα ἕτερον αὐτῷ ἐπιθεὶς, θαυμάσιον ἐπεκάλεσε, καὶ μάρτυρα χρηματίζειν ἐκέλευσε," that is, "imposing another name on him, called him Thaumasius, and ordered him to be called a martyr," as Socrates reports (book vii, ch. 14). But even if he had been considered a true martyr ^C afterwards, he who was worthy of that name was not held to be such by anyone; it was not, I think, the name of Thaumasius, but that of Ammonius that Christian parents had imposed upon their children. Hence, therefore, it is by no means concluded that either the writer of the epistles or the author of the Ignatian Acts lived long after Ignatius's own time.

Now, to continue the discussion begun concerning the word, he observes that those whom the ancients call either bishops or presbyters, he calls *hiereis* or "priests." Among some of the spurious works, he brings forward one passage from our own, namely these words from the epistle to the Philadelphians: "Καλοὶ καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς." I deny that in this place *hiereis* signifies either bishops or presbyters; Hammond denied it before me. Walo Messalinus used the same objection, but before he had seen the Medicean codex. Blondel, having inspected that codex, refrained entirely from this objection, as did Salmasius. I am therefore surprised that Dallaeus still clings to it, bringing forward nothing for his opinion but a bare assertion. "It appears," he says, "that in the passage cited, those who are presbyters are called *hiereis*." But on the contrary, it appears that in that place they are not called presbyters: for it is most certain that the writer of the epistle is not in that passage speaking of the ministers of the Gospel at all. He is arguing against the Ebionites, who were recalling Christians to Mosaic ceremonies and appealing to the Law rather than the Gospel, and were saying: "If I do not find it in the ancients, I do not believe it in the Gospel." He uses this argument against them: "Good are the priests; but better is the high priest to whom the Holy of Holies has been entrusted." Thus he argues from the Law. By the high priest, he intimates that Christ is to be understood, not only adding these words, "to whom alone the hidden things of God have been entrusted," but also those as well, "who is himself the gate of the Father, through whom enter Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets and the apostles, and the Church." The sum of the argument is this: that one must not turn back from the Gospel to the Law, but from the Law one must arrive at the Gospel. For although the ministry of the priests under the Law was excellent, yet the high priest was always greater than they, who alone entered into the Holy of Holies: now he was that type of Christ, who truly is the high priest, through whom both those who lived before the Law, and those under the Law, and those under the Gospel, have attained salvation. It appears ^D therefore that the author of the epistle, under the name of *hiereis*, understood the priests under the Law, and that in this discussion he did not even think about presbyters or any ministers of the Gospel. I think Dallaeus saw that all these things were true; for when, a little later, he adduces passages from the spurious works, in which he alleges the bishop is called *archiereus*, he brings forward these words—"κρείσσον ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς"—with hesitation; adding this reason: that "even if these things seem to be said of the bishop, others interpret them not absurdly of Christ the Lord." But indeed, others interpret them most correctly of Christ the Lord and supreme High Priest; nor can anyone interpret them of an evangelical bishop without being most absurd. For who has ever so exalted any bishop among the evangelical ministers as to say that he "is the gate..."

of the Father, through whom enter Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church?" Especially since Christ Himself said: *'Eγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα*, and that voice concerning Christ was most widely used in apostolic times; whence that saying of the Jews to James the Just: *Ἀπάγγειλον ἡμῖν τίς ἡ θύρα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ σταυρωθέντος* ("Tell us what is the gate of Jesus the crucified"); as Hegesippus reports in Eusebius, book II, ch. 23. If the *ἀρχιερεύς* (high priest) appearing there is not a bishop, nor are the *ἱερεῖς* (priests) presbyters—then the most learned man would have sent those *ἱερεῖς* not less prudently than the high priest; both because the matter itself demanded this from him, and lest he should appear to seize an opportunity to rail against Hammond, where no appearance of reason presented itself.

CHAPTER XIII

The chief argument is discussed. Its foundation is shown to be laid in the ruins of the presbyterian party. Four assertions are established concerning the distinct names and offices of the three sacred orders. Assertion I. Very many other writers of the second century observed the same distinction between the terms episcopate and presbyterate that our Ignatius observes. This is proven by the testimonies of the Acts of Ignatius and Polycarp, of the Emperor Hadrian, of Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, of the martyrs of Lyons (whose testimony is vindicated from the chronological objections of Blondel), of Hegesippus, of Polycrates, of Serapius, of the Anonymous writer in Eusebius, and of the Apostolic Canons. Assertion II. No writer of the second century attributed the name of ^B bishop to a simple presbyter constituted in the second order of the ministry. The reason is manifest why Ignatius observed that distinction strictly. Assertion III. No writer of the second century at all, when he enumerates the grades or speaks of the individual ministers of his own time, attributed the name of presbyter to one who was a bishop. The passages of Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Polycarp, Pius, and Hermas are examined. Assertion IV. In that age in which St. Ignatius is said to have written, three sacred orders existed distinctly in the Church. This is proven as much by the testimonies of others as by those of all them who observed the communion of names in apostolic writings. The diffuse oration of Daillé is checked.

The author proceeds from light equipment to the chief argument, which he thinks is of by far the greatest moment, and for that reason pursues it at length through the entire 26th chapter, which is long and labored indeed. Since he seems almost to triumph in this objection, it must be pondered by us more accurately; not because there is greater force in it than in the others (for to me it seems the lightest of all), but because it is brought forward with such pomp and no less cunning. For the force of the argument, if there be any, can be expressed briefly in this way: The author of the Epistles uses the names of presbyter and bishop differently than the apostles and apostolic men and their disciples; indeed, he uses them in the same way as the Christians of the third and following centuries—for he strictly observes the distinction of the names, and never speaks otherwise. But first, the apostles hold these two names to be promiscuous and confused, calling the same men sometimes bishops and sometimes presbyters; and all the apostolic men followed the apostolic discourse, ^A and all the writers of the second century; the Christians of the third and following centuries observed that distinction. The author of the Epistles, therefore, wrote in the third or following century. Ignatius, therefore, who suffered almost at the very beginning of the second century, could not have been the martyr.

However, it must first be observed, if any force appears to be in this argument, that it is placed by him in the ruins of his own party. For while he wishes it to be believed that the author of the Epistles did not write in the second century because all Christians throughout that whole time spoke otherwise, he tears down the opinion of Salmasius and Albertin, who taught that he published the Epistles in the middle of the second century. He even grants to Hammond that there existed in the Church under the time of the apostles—who are said to have used the names of bishop and presbyter promiscuously—three orders or grades; which Salmasius, Blondel, and others deny with such industry, and defend their own opinion precisely from that very confusion of names. But Daillé knew that, unless he granted this, no argument could be formed against the Ignatian Epistles from the imitation of apostolic speech. For if only two orders or grades existed in the ecclesiastical ministry in the time of the apostles, how could they who wrote at that time have imitated them in the confusion of names, when there were at last three? If only one order or grade above the diaconate was instituted by the apostles, which the apostles themselves who instituted it called sometimes the episcopate and sometimes the presbyterate; ought they who wrote in the second century, when that order is said to have been already divided into two, and when the Church is thought to have changed the thing itself, to have imitated the apostles in the confusion of names, when there was a proper order corresponding to each at that time? The apostolic confusion of names, according to their supposition, consisted in this: that two names were attributed indifferently and promiscuously to a single order in the New Testament, so that the same man, on account of one and the same office, on account of one and the same order and dignity, was called now bishop, now presbyter. That some might perhaps doubt whether the Church could licitly change the thing itself instituted by the apostles, as is said, by common decree, is one thing; that they could not have used the words differently when the thing was changed, cannot be doubted. Indeed, Petau wishes the mutation of the thing itself to have been made first, and the mutation of the names to have been necessarily made as well; but although Salmasius might summon all the arms and arts of his sophistry, he will never effect that, after the episcopate was fully and plainly distinct from the presbyterate, bishops should have endured being called by the name of presbyters.

But that the argument—such as it is—may be answered both solidly and clearly, we shall explain and confirm the whole matter by setting forth certain assertions. For first, if we grant that the author of the Epistles always observed that distinction which Daillé points out in the terms episcopate and presbyterate, and never spoke otherwise; we nevertheless assert ^C that ^D

^A many other writers of the second century observed the same distinction, which our Ignatius observes; and thus that it is false what Daillé asserts, and lays down as the foundation of his argument, that all writers of the second century used those terms interchangeably. The second assertion is: that no writer of the second century used the titles of bishop and presbyter so interchangeably that he would ever attribute the title of bishop to a simple presbyter established in the second grade of the ministry. The third: that no writer of the second century at all, when enumerating the grades or speaking of the individual ministers of his own time, attributed the name of presbyter to one who was a bishop. The fourth assertion is: that in that age, in which St. Ignatius is said to have written his epistles, there were three sacred orders or distinct grades in the Church. Now, all these things having been posited and proven, it will seem a wonder to no one if our Ignatius distinguishes so frequently, so strictly, the names and offices of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. For if many other writers of the same century observed the same distinction, why should not Ignatius do so as well? If no writer of the second century at all ever attributed the name of bishop to a presbyter, Ignatius rightly addressed only bishops by that name. If those few who sometimes gave the name of presbyter to a bishop always spoke otherwise when the subject matter of the Ignatian writing required it, the antiquity of the epistles cannot be called into question because of that fact; for that manner of speaking which he followed was most suited to the time, the occasion, and his own purpose.

The first assertion, therefore, is this: That many other writers of the second century observed the same distinction between the terms episcopate and presbyterate that our Ignatius observes; and it can be discovered that they never spoke otherwise. The most ancient Acts of St. Ignatius: "With much joy, descending from the ship, he hastened to see St. Polycarp the bishop, his fellow hearer." And a little later: "For the cities and Churches of Asia honored the saint through bishops, presbyters, and deacons." That offices, and likewise the terms for bishop and presbyter, were distinct in the age of Hadrian is shown by the words of the emperor written in a letter to the consul Servianus: "Those who worship Serapis are Christians; and they are devoted to Serapis who call themselves bishops of Christ. There is no ruler of the synagogue of the Jews, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the Christians, no mathematician, no soothsayer, no anointer among them." Whence later the Roman proconsuls and governors used these distinct titles in their proscriptions, according to the custom of the Church. Whence St. Cyprian teaches that he had been proscribed, with the name of his episcopate added and attached, in epistle 55. He recites the words of the proscription in epistle 69: "If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the Christians." Whence that excellent prelate concludes: "So that even those who did not believe in God appointing a bishop, or the devil proscribing a bishop, might believe." Likewise the most ancient Acts of St. Polycarp, or the epistle of the Church of Smyrna: ^B "The most admirable martyr Polycarp in our own times, having become an apostolic and prophetic teacher, and bishop of the catholic Church in Smyrna." As, therefore, Ignatius calls Polycarp *bishop of the Church of the Smyrnaeans*, so also do the Smyrnaeans; nor do they ever call him a presbyter. Under the pontificate of Soter, bishop of Rome, Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, commemorated Publius and Quadratus as bishops of the Athenians; he shows how Dionysius the Areopagite was entrusted with the episcopate as the first of the Athenian parish, "he took up the first episcopate of the Athenian Church." Writing to the Church of the Gortynians, he acknowledges Philip as their bishop, "and he welcomes Philip their bishop," and the Church which was under him; to the Amastrians, he points out their bishop by name, Palma, "he calls their bishop Palma by name"; to the Gnossians, he exhorts Pinytus, bishop of the parish, "he admonishes Pinytus, bishop of the Church"; to whom Pinytus writes back, exhorting that he should wish to feed the people subject to himself with more solid food. Finally, there is the epistle given by the same to the Romans, addressed to the bishop at that time, Soter, for which he uses these words: "Which your blessed bishop Soter has not only maintained, but also increased." Which custom blessed Soter, your bishop, not only maintained but even increased, as Eusebius reports, book IV, c. 23. Such was the usage of Dionysius at that time, nor is he discovered to have spoken otherwise at any time. The brethren of Lyons also strictly observe this distinction, while they call Pothinus their bishop, but Irenaeus a presbyter, who, as all acknowledge, while Pothinus held the episcopate at Lyons, was a presbyter in that same place. Concerning the former, they speak thus in the epistle to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia: "But the blessed Pothinus, who had been entrusted with the ministration of the episcopate in Lyons." Concerning the latter, in the other letter given to Eleutherus, bishop of the Roman Church: "For if we knew that righteousness could secure a place for any person, as a presbyter of the Church, which rank he holds, we would have commended him to you in the first place." They therefore clearly distinguish Pothinus, bishop of the Church of Lyons, and Irenaeus, at that time a presbyter of the same Church; they also call the bishop Eleutherus father, but Irenaeus only a brother, and companion, or colleague, or partner. And indeed Eusebius, who of both...

^A excerpts of the epistle transcribed into his History, and inserted both entire into his work *On the Martyrs*, openly testifies that Irenaeus was a presbyter when these things were written to Eleutherus, lib. v, c. 4: "The same martyrs also recommended Irenaeus, who was at that time a presbyter of the parish in Lyons, to the aforementioned bishop at Rome." Jerome attests to the same in his *Catalogue*: "Irenaeus, a presbyter of Bishop Pothinus, who ruled the Church of Lyons in Gaul, being sent to Rome as a legate on account of certain ecclesiastical questions, carries honorable letters to Bishop Eleutherus concerning his name. Afterwards, when Pothinus had been crowned with martyrdom for Christ at the age of nearly ninety, he is substituted in his place." Clearly, the martyrs of Lyons recommend Irenaeus, while still a presbyter, through whom they sent the epistle, to Eleutherus, just as a little later Bishop Alexander, writing in chains to the Antiochenes, recommended the presbyter Clement to them: "These letters, my lords and brethren, I have sent to you by the hand of the blessed presbyter Clement, a man endowed with virtue and proved." Eusebius, lib. vi, c. 11.

Against these most clear testimonies of Eusebius and Jerome, Blondel maintains that Irenaeus had already occupied the chair at Lyons in place of Pothinus, constituted by the brethren and clothed in the episcopal robe, when he was called "presbyter" by those who sent him. And so that he and Salmasius might draw these things to their own side, they have invented much about this matter, and observed very many things in Eusebius and Jerome which, as they say, "deserve correction." First, Eusebius narrates that the martyrs themselves wrote the epistle to Eleutherus, in which they recommend Irenaeus the presbyter. Now, Eusebius saw the epistle itself, and even inserted it complete into the work *On the Passions of the Martyrs* composed by himself, and therefore he could not have been ignorant by whom and when it was written. Jerome, who saw the booklets of Eusebius *On the Martyrs*, testifies to the same. They deny that it was written by the martyrs; Salmasius conjectures it was given by bishops, Blondel by the brethren. For his opinion, Blondel calls upon Rufinus, an interpreter of Eusebius not sufficiently accurate. He wishes for him to have rendered the Eusebian Greek in such a way that the epistle was written by the Churches of Gaul, not by the martyrs. But these things have proceeded either from negligence or manifest fraud. Rufinus reports that the Churches of Gaul wrote, offering the epistles of the martyrs who had been perfected among them, which they had written while in chains to the brethren residing throughout Asia and Phrygia; and reminding Eleutherus, bishop of the city of Rome, concerning the peace of the Church; and who also recommended Irenaeus, then still a presbyter of the Church of Lyons, to the aforementioned bishop of the city of Rome. Where [the word] "who" ^B is not to be referred to "the Churches," but to "the martyrs, who were perfected among them;" for he wished to express what Eusebius had written, "the same martyrs."

Secondly, he hopes he can refute the opinion of Eusebius and Jerome, clearly described in the *History* and deduced from the very monuments of the events, from those things which were written by Eusebius and Jerome elsewhere, namely, in the *Chronicles*. To accomplish this, he brings forth from Scaliger the Greek words of Eusebius, where the passions of Polycarp and the Gallic martyrs are mentioned together at the seventh year of Marcus Antoninus. But in the Latin of Jerome, the words stand thus: "Persecution having arisen in Asia, Polycarp and Pionius endured martyrdom, whose written passions are also circulated."

FOURTH PERSECUTION

"Very many in Gaul were gloriously put to death for the name of Christ; whose contests, recorded in books, persevere even to this present day."

It is clear from these words that Eusebius had gathered the most celebrated martyrdoms that took place under Marcus Antoninus into this one place; for he mentions no other martyrdom throughout the entire empire of Antoninus. Where, therefore, he makes mention of the fourth persecution, he commemorates in the same place two distinguished martyrdoms, one that occurred in Asia and another in Gaul: not that they happened in the same year, but under the same persecution, that is, under the reign of the same Antoninus. That this was the intention of Eusebius is plain; for in the *History* written after the *Chronicle canon*, where these matters are treated more fully, he refers the Gallic persecution to the seventeenth year of the same Antoninus. Blondel maintains not only that this was the sole persecution, but also that it began in Asia and ended in Gaul in the same year—a grave and manifest error. Eusebius himself warns that the Gauls underwent martyrdom, "when the persecution against us had been more violently rekindled and reignited, and in certain parts of the earth." The persecution under Marcus lasted for many years, roaming now in this province, now in that, according to the fury of the populace or the cruelty of the governors. Under the proconsul of Asia, Quadratus, Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, suffered; under the proconsul Servilius, Sagaris, bishop of Laodicea. ^C During this persecution, "Melito, bishop of Sardis in Asia, presented to the Emperor Antoninus an Apology for the Christians," as Eusebius says in the *Chronicle* at his tenth year. "Rightly," says Valesius ad Euseb. lib. iv, c. 26, "is that referred to the 10th year of Marcus Antoninus, that is to say, the year after the death of L. Verus." But he notes at the same Preface of the fifth book that this was done badly by Eusebius; and he observes that Melito gave the Apology to Marcus towards the end of his reign. Certainly, that fourth persecution in Asia lasted until the time when Melito wrote, whether he offered the Apology in the 10th year of Marcus, or towards the end of his reign, or, which I think to be true, in the middle between these. ^D

^A Since it is evident that Melito wrote after the death of L. Aurelius—because he does not mention him in his Apology, even though he had been a partner in the empire with Marcus, but rather makes mention of the sons of Marcus—this could have happened when Commodus was already sole Caesar, after the death of his brother, who had been made Caesar together with him in the consulship of Pudens and Pollio. While, therefore, Commodus was Caesar, at least before the fifteenth year of Marcus had ended, Melito offered his Apology to Marcus Aurelius. Moved by this Apology, along with others, as the author of the *Alexandrine Chronicle* reports, Marcus Aurelius wrote to the Commune of Asia concerning the settling of the persecution; he did this in the 15th year of his reign, as is evident from the inscription itself: ^B "Imperator Caesar M. Antoninus Aug. Armenicus, Pontifex Maximus, in the fifteenth year of his tribunician power, consul for the third time." I am indeed surprised that Valesius said this letter was written by Marcus in the first year of his reign, when he himself was consul for the third time. For although he was consul for the third time in that year, he could not yet have been in his fifteenth year of tribunician power. But he was called consul for the third time not only in the year in which he held the consulship, but in all subsequent years, unless he entered upon another consulship. Marcus, however, was not consul afterwards; therefore, he was called consul for the third time throughout his years of rule, as in the Gruterian inscription:

IMP. CÆS. M. AVREL. ANTONINVS AVG. GERM. TR. P. XVII. COS. III.

The persecution, therefore, which began in Asia in the 7th year of Marcus, was settled in the 15th of the same. Yet in Gaul it immediately flared up again, and toward the end of the 17th year, the bishop of Lugdunum, Pothinus, suffered, in the consulship of Rufus and Orphitus, as the *Alexandrine Chronicle* reports. ^C Thirdly, Blondellus objects that Eusebius reports the Gallican persecution raged before the victory gained by Marcus through the Thundering Legion, which occurred in the 13th year of his reign. And indeed, Eusebius puts that story forward after the narration of the persecution; yet he does not say it happened after the persecution, but rather reports those things which prove the contrary. For he concludes the history of the persecution with these words: Ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν ἐπ' Ἀντωνίνου τοιαῦτα· "And such are the things that happened under Antoninus" (book v, ch. 4). For he was referring to the things he had just narrated as belonging to the final times of that emperor. Then he indeed immediately inserts a certain narration about the Thundering Legion, which he leaves as if it were uncertain: ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ὅπη τις ἐθέλῃ τιθέσθω, "but as to these things, let each one determine according to his own judgment;" μετίωμεν δὲ ἡμεῖς ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν ἑξῆς ἀκολουθίαν, "but let us return to the order of history." He confesses, therefore, that he inserted the narration about the Thundering Legion outside of the sequence of the history—that is, outside the order of events—according to the succession of the occurrences. He returns, therefore, to the end of the persecution, to the death of Pothinus, and the succession of Irenaeus in the bishopric of Lugdunum. ^D Blondellus claims, fourthly, that the Gallican persecution was excited not under the episcopate of Eleutherus, but of Soter, who sat until the tenth year of Marcus, as he observes from the records of the Roman Church, which arrange the years of the pontiffs differently than Eusebius. But this discrepancy creates no difficulty in this matter. For whether Eleutherus first occupied the Roman see in the 10th year of Marcus, as pseudo-Damasus maintains, or in the 16th, as Eusebius, he was bishop of Rome in the 17th year of Marcus, when Irenaeus was commended to him by the martyrs under the title of presbyter. This objection, therefore, provides nothing at all, unless it is first proven that the Gallican persecution was both excited and finished in the 7th year of Marcus, and that Pothinus was crowned with martyrdom at that time, and that Irenaeus immediately succeeded him—which we have already shown above cannot be proven in any way. For we have proven with most certain arguments that the *Chronicon* of Eusebius, which Orosius, Paul the Deacon, Freculphus, and others have followed, must be understood differently. And that these things are true is gathered openly from this. In the *Chronicon* of Eusebius, at the 11th year of Marcus, these things are noted: "The pseudo-prophecy, which is called after the Cataphrygians, received its beginning with Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla as its insane prophets." But before the rise of this heresy, martyrdoms in Gaul—at least those of which we speak—did not appear. For the Gallican martyrs themselves expressed their opinion concerning the controversy that arose from the heresy of Montanus, as Eusebius reports from their most ancient monuments (Hist., lib. v, c. 3). For the Gallican brethren, this dissension having arisen, gave their judgment: ἐκθέμενοι καὶ τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς τελειωθέντων μαρτύρων διαφόρους ἐπιστολάς, ἃς ἐν δεσμοῖς ἔτι ὑπάρχοντες τοῖς ἐπ' Ἀσίας καὶ Φρυγίας ἀδελφοῖς διεχάραξαν· "having published various letters of the martyrs who had been perfected among them, which they wrote to the brethren dwelling in Asia and Phrygia while they were still in bonds." From the most ancient monuments of the Gallican Church, therefore, Eusebius reports that Pothinus was called bishop by the people of Lugdunum properly according to that order which he held in the Church, and that Irenaeus was mentioned as a presbyter while he was still only a presbyter, and had not yet succeeded Pothinus in the episcopate. Dallaeus saw, I believe, that these things were true, and therefore desisted entirely from the Blondellian argument. Having thus placed this beyond controversy, let us pursue the rest.

Hegesippus, under the same Eleutherus, carefully observed the same designation as Ignatius. He says he visited many "bishops" when he was traveling to Rome, under Anicetus, whose deacon then was Eleutherus. His words are: Ἐπέμενεν ἡ Ἐκκλησία ἡ Κορινθίων ἐν τῷ ὀρθῷ λόγῳ μέχρι Πρίμου ἐπισκοπεύοντος ἐν Κορίνθῳ. "The Church of the Corinthians remained in the true faith until Primum, who was bishop in Corinth." The same concerning the Hierosolymitans: Μετὰ τὸ μαρτυρῆσαι Ἰάκωβον τὸν δίκαιον πάλιν ὁ ἐκ θείου αὐτοῦ Συμεὼν ὁ τοῦ Κλεωπᾶ καθίσταται ἐπίσκοπος. "After the martyrdom of James the Just, again Symeon, son of his uncle Cleopas, is established as bishop."

And immediately: "Thebuthis began to corrupt the Church secretly because he was not made bishop." Thus he always denotes bishops by their own name, and never calls them presbyters, as does Hegesippus, who was close to the times of the apostles. Thus Polycrates, bishop of the Ephesians, in his letter to Pope Victor, speaks of bishops always in the Ignatian manner: "And further, Polycarp, who was in Smyrna and was both bishop and martyr, and Thraseas, who was bishop and martyr from Eumenia. And why need I speak of Sagaris, who was both bishop and martyr?" Polycarp also, who was bishop and martyr at Smyrna, and likewise Thraseas, bishop and martyr of Eumenia. What need to speak of Sagaris, the bishop and same martyr? He also calls himself a bishop no less than Ignatius: "There were seven bishops of my kin, and I was the eighth." He shows that the number of those who stood with him when he was writing to Victor was great: he calls them all bishops, because they were bishops, and never uses the title of presbyter. Serapion, a writer of the second century, ordained bishop of Antioch in the year of the Emperor Commodus, wrote in a letter to Caricus and Ponticus in these words concerning Apollinaris: "I have sent to you also the letters of the most blessed Claudius Apollinaris, who was bishop of Hierapolis in Asia." In this letter, moreover, were read the subscriptions of various bishops, who did not fear to write their names along with their titles: such as Aelius Publius Julius, bishop of Develtum, a colony of Thrace, and many others: nor is any bishop found to be branded with the title of presbyter.

Moreover, the Anonymous author in Eusebius (Book V, ch. 16), in the excerpts of the three books which he wrote against the Cataphrygians, constantly and carefully uses the names of "bishop" and "presbyter" distinctly; he indicates that he himself was a presbyter, calls Zoticus of Otrous a fellow-presbyter, and calls the presbyters of the Ancyran Church "the local presbyters," but others "approved men and bishops," namely Zoticus of Comana and Julian of Apamea. Dallaeus strangely draws these things, omitted by Blondel, to his own cause. That Anonymous author, he says, "calls himself a presbyter, and a certain Zoticus of Otrous his fellow-presbyter, although from the things which he narrates were done by him at Ancyra in Galatia, it sufficiently appears that he, and likewise his colleague Zoticus, were both in the first order of priests." ^A That anyone who was a bishop, in recounting the history of his own time and the deeds performed by himself, would call himself a presbyter and also strip another, a fellow-bishop, of his title—especially in an age when bishops were without controversy obtaining the highest rank in the Church—is strange, even to one looking closely. ^B He makes mention of the Anonymous, and also of Zoticus of Otrous and the presbyters of Ancyra; but the extremely learned man thought that he could gather from the very narration of the deeds that all these were bishops or priests of the first order, although he brings forward nothing from history to prove the episcopate of either the Anonymous himself or his fellow-presbyter Zoticus. And indeed, I do not see what can be brought forward in support of that Anonymous author's episcopate if you look at the words in Eusebius. But if you consult the interpreter Rufinus, or the author of the Roman Martyrology for March 10, who followed him, it would be Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis. But it is certain that Rufinus erred; for Eusebius does not affirm that Apollinaris wrote these things, but a certain other of the eloquent men whom he joins to Apollinaris, as has long ago been observed and abundantly proven by learned men, Halloix and Valesius. As to what he says about Zoticus, it is a most manifest fallacy. He calls Zoticus his fellow-presbyter, one standing by him in a dispute with the Montanists; he also calls Zoticus a bishop; but he whom he calls fellow-presbyter was from Otrous; he whom he calls bishop was from Comana. Otrous was in Phrygia Salutaris; Comana was in Armenia Secunda. Otrous is said to be standing by him when thirteen years had already flowed by since the death of Maximilla; the one from Comana examined the spirit of Maximilla while she was still alive and raving. There were therefore two Zoticuses in the Anonymous account: the presbyter of Otrous and the bishop of Comana. The most perspicacious H. Valesius saw these things and admonished that one must distinguish here between Zoticus of Otrous and Zoticus of Comana; for that one from Comana was more ancient. ^C But why he makes those who are called presbyters of the Church of Ancyra into bishops, Dallaeus brings an odd reason: namely, because they "requested the Anonymous to commit to writing what he had argued in their presence." For that care, he says, pertains properly to those in charge of the first order. Good heavens! The Anonymous was at Ancyra: and "the local presbyters" (as just before, "the local Church"), that is, the presbyters of that place, or of the Church of Ancyra, request this of him. Were there more bishops at Ancyra at that time? Certainly not. Is asking someone to write an office of a bishop, which is least appropriate for presbyters? I do not think so. If that were true, no one, I suppose, asked Dallaeus to commit this disputation to writing. The presbyters were asking him to write against the Montanists; the bishop Avircius Marcellus had long before enjoined the same thing; asked by the former, and commanded by the latter, he wrote three books, whether the author was the Anonymous or Asterius Urbanus, in which he names both himself and Zoticus of Otrous and the presbyters of the Church of Ancyra, but honors Zoticus of Comana and Julian of Apamea with the title of bishop. ^D Finally, although the apostolic canons were not written by the apostles themselves, it is nonetheless certain that very many of them were established in the second century. But that they observed this distinction between bishops and presbyters...

perpetually, differing among themselves in name, in right, in status, and in authority,” (De pseudepigraphis apost., lib. III, cap. 18). From all these things, however, the truth of the first assertion is abundantly revealed, that many other writers of the second century observed the same distinction between the terms episcopate and presbyterate which our Ignatius observes. Wherefore, regarding the manner of speaking in this matter, the epistolary Ignatius could have been of the same age as all these, which is what we, with Salmasius and Albertinus, believe.

The second assertion is: No writer of the second century used the terms bishop and presbyter so promiscuously that he would ever attribute the name of bishop to a simple presbyter established in the second degree of ministry. This is so openly true that even those themselves who adhere so strongly to the confusion of names, and contend most of all that the apostles did so, have not yet been able to bring forward a single passage out of all the monuments of that century in which anyone who was only a presbyter, and did not preside over presbyters with authority, was called a bishop. I am amazed, therefore, that Dallæus ^A should object this to the epistolary Ignatius, in order to cast him out of the second century and relegate him to the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth, when all the writers of that same century always attribute the name of bishop to the highest order with equal distinction and reverence, and never to the second. “The apostles,” he says, “sometimes call him who is of the second order a bishop; the writer of the letters never does: everywhere using this name most consistently for the prelate of the highest degree.” What he says concerning the apostles, how much it militates against his own cause, I do not now discuss; what he says concerning Ignatius strikes him no more than it does all the writers of that same age, even those highly praised by him, who as often as they name a bishop, everywhere use that name for the prelate of the highest degree. The only crime of our Ignatius that remains, therefore, is that he never called those who were truly bishops, presbyters, when all the writers of that age, as they claim (though, as we have shown, very few did), referred to them by that name. But even here an excellent reason can be given why Ignatius would rather speak with those who used the name of presbyter as distinctly and properly as that of bishop, than with those who sometimes attributed the name of presbyter to a bishop; because the distinct usage of this term by the former was much more appropriate to the matter he was treating than the confused usage by the latter. Bishops, presbyters, and deacons—very many of them, distinct in order, function, name, and dignity—flocked to him on his journey from the churches of Asia; they informed him of the state of their churches; to their churches he wrote epistles and, under the authority of a martyr and the highest bishop in Syria, gave them counsels. That which he especially ^B considered necessary, he particularly inculcated, that they should be on their guard against heretics and schismatics, lest they should creep further. He indicated that the most opportune remedy for this great evil was for all to adhere to their own clergy, and to cultivate Christian unity; and that all orders of the clergy should maintain the dignity of their own place. Therefore, he frequently distinguishes and enumerates the sacred orders, and names some of the individuals of each order already performing their duty; but these things could not be rightly done unless he also distinctly enunciated the names of the orders. For he could not well distinguish the three orders, nor rightly assign to each its own offices and dignities, unless he also attached some proper name to each; nor could he commend individual men of that time, distinct in certain orders and performing diverse offices in the same church, unless under the name and character of a certain degree. For who, in enumerating three degrees, would say presbyters, and presbyters, and deacons? Who would teach that presbyters ought to be subject to presbyters? Who would indiscriminately call two ministers who, at the same time, were allotted different and distinct offices, duties, status, and dignity, "presbyters"? It is certain that the name of bishop, so often mentioned in the Scriptures, had not disappeared at that time; it appears from the silence of all writers that it was attributed to no simple presbyter of that age; it was therefore reserved and appropriated to the first order at that time; and Ignatius himself, even though a bishop, would have spoken absurdly if he had attributed a name granted to the first order to an inferior one; and when he admonished presbyters to obey their own bishop, he would have called the ones from whom he demanded obedience "bishops," or the one to whom he taught that obedience should be rendered, a "presbyter." For it seems equally absurd that anyone should teach that bishops ought to be subject to a bishop, or presbyters to a presbyter, and base an argument on that, especially when he was treating of schism, in which matter it is most well-known that the health of the Church depends upon the dignity of the high priest, that is, the bishop; to whom, if a certain power, eminent and set apart from men, is not given, there will be created in the Church as many schisms as there are priests, that is, presbyters.

Let the third assertion, therefore, be this: That no writer of the second century at all, when he enumerates the degrees or speaks of the individual ministers of his own time, attributed the name of presbyter to one who was a bishop. Dallæus does indeed bring forward some, both Greek and Latin, by whom the priests of the first degree were called “presbyters”; but if we examine them one by one, they either do not say what he wishes, or they use the name of presbyter in such a way that they are not enumerating the degrees, or they are not speaking of the bishops of their own age. Papias, in the fragments that survive, now uses πρεσβυτέρους (presbyters) in the plural number, and now πρεσβύτερον (presbyter) in the singular regarding the unique John. When he uses the plural number, it is not clear that he is to be understood as speaking specifically of this or that degree or order; rather, that word is to be taken in a general sense, by which those who were elders in age

^A or more ancient are simply signified. Since Papias thought that more utility could be gained from the living voice of men than from the reading of books, he used to inquire from those who were older than himself what they had heard from those who were even older than themselves; and thus he arrived at the testimonies of the apostles handed down by living voice. He inquired from the disciples of the apostles, for he himself was never a disciple of any apostle. He calls all the apostles, and all the disciples of Christ the Lord, presbyters, and he does not deal at all with this or that order of evangelical ministry instituted by the apostles. He frequently called a certain John, whom he distinguished from the apostle, τὸν πρεσβύτερον; but it may be that he was a priest of the second order; certainly, no one of the ancients ever said he was of the first. However, the things reported in the Constitutions of Clement concerning John being made a bishop by John are too uncertain. Those who wish it to be said of him also that he was a πρεσβύτερος, interpreting the words in Eusebius thus: "This senior Mark said, the interpreter of Peter," are mistaken. The words mean something else. Καὶ τοῦτο ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἔλεγεν· Μάρκος μὲν ἑρμηνευτής Πέτρου γενόμενος ὅσα ἐμνημόνευσεν, ἀκριβῶς ἔγραψεν. Which have been translated quite well enough by Rufinus: "This also (he says) the presbyter used to relate, that Mark was the interpreter of Peter, and that he wrote down whatever he remembered him to have said." However that may be, Papias never enumerates ecclesiastical grades, never distinguishes offices; he nowhere makes mention of bishops or deacons; he never speaks of any individual bishop or presbyter who was alive when he himself was writing. The same must also be said of Irenaeus; ^B he calls presbyters bishops in a general sense, but never, when enumerating grades, does he call individual men who had been bishops, presbyters; but he always speaks of the ancients, such as those who were οἱ πρὸ Σωτῆρος πρεσβύτεροι, those who were οἱ πρὸ σοῦ πρεσβύτεροι, those who were οἱ πρὸ αὐτοῦ πρεσβύτεροι, or those who were οἱ πρὸ ἡμῶν πρεσβύτεροι. When, however, he speaks of a present bishop, under whom he himself wrote, he speaks properly and in the manner of Ignatius, lib. 3, c. 3: "The blessed apostles, therefore, founding and instituting the Church, entrusted the episcopacy to Linus for the administration of the Church. Anacletus succeeds him; after him, the third from the apostles, Clement obtains the episcopacy"; and the others having been enumerated: "But when Soter had succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius now holds the episcopacy from the apostles in the twelfth place." Dallaeus, therefore, wrongly demands, by some law of apostolic speech I know not what, that St. Ignatius call Dama, Onesimus, and Polybius presbyters, no less than Irenaeus calls Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, and Telesphorus, when these were more ancient than Irenaeus, while those were contemporary with Ignatius, whom it was necessary for him to distinguish from presbyters. But Salmasius is much worse in his *Apparatus*, thinking that it could be proved from this, "that a division of neither duty nor dignity existed between a bishop and a presbyter at the time of Victor," because it is consistent that not only he, but also earlier Roman bishops were called by the name πρεσβύτεροι by Irenaeus and others. ^C For Irenaeus never called Victor his contemporary a presbyter, nor does he show, while calling the earlier ones presbyters, that the presbyters who were governing churches in the time of Victor were accustomed to be called presbyters. Let us see what Clement of Alexandria wrote about this matter. Having spoken of his perfect Christian, or Gnostic, he adds: "This is truly a presbyter of the Church, and a true deacon of the divine will." But he would not say these things "if there were any dignity among our people superior to the presbyterate." But why would he not call him a presbyter, even if the episcopate is superior to the presbyterate, whom he called a deacon, even if the presbyterate is superior to the diaconate? Assuredly, Clement called him so as he himself knew and taught that there was a dignity superior to the presbyterate among our people; for immediately after he had written these things, he says: Ἐπεὶ καὶ αἱ ἐνταῦθα προκοπαὶ ἐπισκόπων, πρεσβυτέρων, διακόνων μιμήματα, οἶμαι, ἀγγελικῆς δόξης τυγχάνουσιν. According to Clement, therefore, just as there is a προκοπὴ or advancement from the diaconate to the presbyterate, so also there is a προκοπὴ or advancement from the presbyterate to the episcopate: and he believes these three orders are not only certain imitations of the angelic orders, but also that they were instituted in the Church by the apostles themselves, and are fortified by diverse and distinct precepts, as we showed from the third book of the *Paedagogus*. Where, therefore, he enumerates the orders or grades, he acknowledges bishops, presbyters, and deacons properly and distinctly, just as our Ignatius does everywhere. But "in a certain fragment of his Works which exists in Eusebius, he calls the same man whom he had first called a bishop, a presbyter a little later." He indeed did this in a homily now at last published under the name of Origen, which I am surprised escaped both Blondell and Dallaeus; but let us see how he did it. He hands down that that man, whoever he was, was made a bishop (καθεστῶτα ἐπίσκοπον) under the apostle John, when the apostle himself was traveling through those regions, ^D and he introduces the apostle himself thus addressing him: "Ἄγε δή, ὦ ἐπίσκοπε," that is, he addresses the bishop of his time by that name, as if it were a title most fitting to the office. But Clement himself, after a hundred years, calls this man, whom both he and the apostle called a bishop, once a πρεσβύτερος, once a πρεσβύτης, just as he calls the apostle himself τὸν γέροντα. Therefore he did nothing against the custom of Ignatius. Furthermore, I do not doubt that Polycarp wrote to the Philippians according to the state of the Church at that time. He indeed commands them to be subject "to the presbyters and deacons as to God and Christ." But who will grant that the bishop of the Philippians was alive at that time? Who will vouch that the Philippians did not seek advice from Polycarp for the reason that they were not enjoying a bishop of their own at that time? For he addresses them thus: Ταῦτα, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἐμαυτῷ ἐπιτρέψας γράφω ὑμῖν περὶ τῆς δικαιοσύνης· ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ ὑμεῖς προεκαλέσασθέ με. "These things, however, brothers, I do not write to you about justice on my own authority, but because you provoked me to do so." In the case, as I suppose, of Valens the presbyter, which they were permitting to the judgment of Polycarp.

Since these things are uncertain, nothing definite can be adduced from the discourse of Polycarp. But, says Dallaeus, Polycarp calls himself, and those on whose behalf he writes to the Philippians, bishops and presbyters: "Polycarp, and the presbyters who are with him." ^A This indeed is the inscription of his epistle, *Πολύκαρπος καὶ οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ πρεσβύτεροι*. But does he who refers only to his own name call himself a presbyter? Could they have been presbyters with no one unless with a presbyter? Were they not accustomed to be presbyters with a bishop? From these [words] it can in no way be scraped out that Polycarp called himself a presbyter; just as it cannot be [concluded] that those whom he calls presbyters and joins to himself were bishops. For no one doubts that in the Church of Smyrna, presbyters were attached to Polycarp the bishop; when, therefore, the Philippians had appealed to him, why he should call other bishops from Asia, and not be content with his own presbytery, I for one do not see. And these, indeed, are the four Greek writers of the second century whom the most learned man adduces; for the fifth, the anonymous writer, we have already ^B disposed of.

But he weaves a marvelous catalog of the Latins of that memory. First, he cites the interpreter of Irenaeus, whom he says "spoke thus," and admits "that he confesses he transcribed the majority of the things that were Irenaean." For why should the interpreter of Irenaeus speak differently than Irenaeus spoke? Or what does the authority of the interpreter contribute to this matter, except that we have a persuasion that Irenaeus wrote in such a way, which no one denies? Whether that interpreter was of the second century or of some later one, it is the same; he adds no weight to the argument. Those who think he was of the same age as Irenaeus are divining that he *was* Irenaeus himself; thus, only one witness is formed from the author and the interpreter. Those who think he is of the same age as Tertullian bring forward nothing else than that he appears to have written before St. Augustine; against which many things could be objected, if the matter itself needed such a defense. To the interpreter of Irenaeus he appends Pius, bishop of Rome, whose epistle directed to Justus, bishop of Vienne, he objects to us; which, however, the late Blondel judged was ^C "not free from every suspicion of imposture." He indeed, whoever he is, speaks of the presbyters who were educated by the apostles, but who were, by the time he wrote, dead: which is nothing to the point. But in the same epistle, he speaks of the clergy of his own time in the Ignatian manner, explicitly calling the clergy of the second order presbyters: "Soter and Eleutherius, worthy presbyters, salute you." For at that time he himself was bishop of Rome; and Soter and Eleutherius were there, if by chance, presbyters properly so called. If by chance, I say; for Hegesippus testifies that after the death of Pius, Eleutherius was a deacon to Anicetus. He uses the same stuff in the other epistle, where he names his colleague, recognizes Justus of Vienne as constituted in his place and dressed in the robe of bishops: to whom he writes thus: "Let the presbyters and deacons observe you not as a superior, but as a minister of Christ." And again: ^D "He established the title of presbyter pastor." Therefore, that Pius observed the distinction of orders and names accurately when he spoke of the clergy of his own time. Nor did Dallaeus adduce him any less unhappily for the communion of names than Blondel did for the parity of orders, whom our Hammond refuted so clearly. These are two celebrated witnesses of the second century produced against Ignatius; and I wonder that he, being pressed by such want, did not add the testimony of Pope Victor produced by Blondel and Salmasius, which is clearly of the same stuff as that of Pius. For from that, Blondel concludes that the successors of the apostles and the companions of the Churches were presbyters who ruled until the times of Victor. But he saw, I suppose, that this is an open lie; for no one who had been a companion of the apostles was ruling the Church at the time of Victor. That fellow Planus represents Pope Pius speaking differently: "Those presbyters who were educated by the apostles and have not come down to us, with whom we shared the word of faith, are held closed in the eternal chambers, having been called by the Lord." Therefore, under Pius holding the episcopate, all the presbyters who were companions of the apostles were dead and, as he wished, "closed in the eternal chambers." After Pius, Anicetus sat, after Anicetus Soter, after Soter Eleutherus, after Eleutherus Victor. Did those presbyters, therefore, break through the eternal chambers and rise again in order to rule the churches until the times of Victor and I know not what Desiderius, bishop of Vienne? These are the words of Blondel himself, in the fifth section of the Apology: "Let the reader observe therefore, that in the time of Pius (between the year 146 and 150) all of the disciples of the apostles who survived in Rome had fulfilled their mortality." But he adds to Pius, as a brother writer, the Greek Hermas the Shepherd. But who would believe that he was the brother of Pius? The authority of the supposititious Tertullian or the *Liber Pontificalis* is not so great that we should believe that to be true which Irenaeus who lived under Pius, which Tertullian himself, which Jerome are known to have been utterly ignorant of. "Therefore it does not seem to have happened that Hermas, while noting in some passing place the ministries of the Church given by Christ, listed no others than apostles and bishops and teachers and ministers, that is, deacons." Or because Pius called those presbyters who were bishops educated by the apostles, did Hermas therefore omit the name of presbyter and include the presbyters themselves under the bishops? What kind of reasoning is this? But it is not true, much less certain, that Hermas included presbyters under bishops; whom he included rather under teachers. As we read in the passion of St. Perpetua: "And we went out and saw before the doors Optatus the bishop on the right, and Aspasius the presbyter teacher on the left." As Tertullian says: "What then if a bishop, if a deacon, if a widow, if a virgin, if a teacher, if even a martyr has fallen from the rule." Where he undoubtedly substituted teacher for presbyter. St. Cyprian, epistle 24: "When we were diligently testing lectors together with the presbyters and teachers." Blond-

Blondel indeed affirms that it is evident in Hermas that doctors are referred chiefly to bishops, when they are said to have held the episcopate; he does so deceitfully, as is his wont. The words of Hermas are in vision 3: "These are the apostles, and bishops, and doctors, and ministers, who have entered into the clemency of God, and have held the episcopate, and have taught, and have ministered holily and modestly to the elect of God." He does not, however, teach that the doctors held the episcopate in the least, and ought for that reason to be referred to the bishops, but the acts of their offices are distinctly attributed to three distinct grades: for bishops held the episcopate, doctors taught, ministers ministered; as he speaks in similitude 9: "As certain doctors who have preached and taught chastely and sincerely." Since these are all writers of the second century whom ^A Blondel brings forward for the sake of the confusion of names, it is clear that not even one, when he enumerates the grades, or when he speaks of the individual ministers of the Gospel of his own time, attributed the name of presbyter to him who was bishop. And both from this and from the former assertion, it is evident how false is that which Blondel wished to teach us: "This was the common usage of this term among our people, this was the institution and custom of the men of that Christian memory, that they would call the presbyter, whether he were primary or secondary, both themselves and understood him to be called so by others." The Acts of Ignatius do not speak thus, nor does Adrian, the diligent observer of Christian discourse, nor the Church of Smyrna, nor the martyrs of Lyons, nor Hegesippus, nor Polycrates, nor Serapio, nor the anonymous writer who wrote against the Montanists, nor the author of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua, nor the canons which are called apostolic, nor even Hermas. No writer of that age delivered that one was a primary and another a secondary presbyter; no one so enumerated the orders as to place a presbyter in the first, and again a presbyter in the second; no one then, while he himself was writing, called a survivor and one performing the office of the first order a presbyter.

Now indeed, although the most learned man does not conclude from the confusion of names, which he observed in the writers of the second century, together with Salmasius that there were only two holy orders in the Church in the Ignatian age; and although he further grants to Hammond that even under the apostles there were three orders; nevertheless, since he himself seems to interpret the apostolic places otherwise, and the force of the argument were much greater if the adversaries could prove that there were in truth no three distinct orders in the age of Ignatius, which the writer of the epistles distinguishes so chastely and perpetually; I thought that it should be further discussed ^D concerning this matter, lest I appear to leave the opinion of Salmasius untouched, or to trust too much to the concession of Blondel. Let the fourth assertion therefore be: That in the age in which St. Ignatius is said to have written his epistles, there were three holy orders or distinct grades in the Church. This I have always learned from the Anglican Church, which speaks as follows in the preface of its Ordinal: "It is evident to all men diligently reading the holy Scripture and ancient writers, that from the apostles' time there have been these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church: bishops, presbyters, and deacons." We have shown in the first chapter of this part that bishops already existed in the Churches of Asia even then, when St. Ignatius was hastening to martyrdom. We have said that no Christian and catholic writer has ever said that there were fewer than three orders in the second century, or in any part of it, even all those who thought that the names of bishops and presbyters were confused in the scriptures of the apostles, whether when the apostles themselves were writing, or at least before the second century, had handed down three orders or grades; which I have undertaken to demonstrate as quite opportune in this place. Now these are, as I believe, all the ancient writers, or certainly the principal ones: St. ^B Chrysostom, Jerome, Theodoret, Ambrosiaster, Pelagius, Sedulius, Primasius, Theophylact, Œcumenius. St. Chrysostom, who first of all among the Greeks handed down this confusion of names to us, everywhere shows that even at that time the episcopate was an order distinct from and superior to the presbyterate. To those words of Phil. 1, 1: "σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις," he notes these things: "Τί τοῦτο; Μιᾶς πόλεως πολλοὶ ἐπίσκοποι ἦσαν ; Οὐδαμῶς· ἀλλὰ τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους οὕτως ἐκάλεσε· τότε γὰρ τέως ἐκοινώνουν τοῖς ὀνόμασι, καὶ διάκονος ὁ ἐπίσκοπος ἐλέγετο." "What is this? Were there many bishops of one city? By no means; but he so called the presbyters: for then they still shared the names, and the bishop was called deacon." He acknowledged, therefore, unique bishops established in individual cities, who were called now bishops, now presbyters, now deacons. He asserted that Timothy was such a bishop: "For that he was a bishop, he says to him, 'Lay hands suddenly on no man'." Again, recollecting the things he had said before, he openly declares his opinion: "Ὅπερ οὖν ἔφην, καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τὸ παλαιὸν ἐκαλοῦντο ἐπίσκοποι, καὶ οἱ ἐπίσκοποι πρεσβύτεροι καὶ διάκονοι τοῦ Χριστοῦ (so these things which are confused in the published editions, it is evident from the earlier ones ought to be read), ὅθεν καὶ νῦν πολλοὶ συμπρεσβυτέρῳ ἐπίσκοποι γράφουσι καὶ συνδιακόνῳ, λοιπὸν δὲ τὸ ἰδιάζον ἑκάστῳ ἀπονενέμηται ὄνομα, ὁ ἐπίσκοπος καὶ ὁ πρεσβύτερος." "What I was saying, therefore, is that both presbyters were called bishops of old, and bishops presbyters and deacons of Christ (whence even now many bishops write to a fellow-presbyter, and a fellow-deacon); but later a peculiar name was assigned to each one, bishop and presbyter." Again, in the eleventh homily on the first Epistle to Timothy: "Discursive concerning bishops, and having characterized them, and having said what things he ought to have, and from what he ought to abstain, leaving the order of presbyters, he leaped to the deacons. Why so? Because there is not much difference between them and the bishops, for they also have received teaching and the governance of the Church; and what he said concerning bishops, these things also to presbyters

for in the power of ordination ^A alone do they excel, and in this one thing only do they appear to be superior to the presbyters.» Whence it is evident that Saint Chrysostom thought that when Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, besides deacons and presbyters, there were also bishops in the Church; that by bishops in that place, the ministers of the first order alone were understood, and the whole order of presbyters had been omitted; and that the difference between the two orders was sufficiently manifest, because the power of conferring holy orders belonged to bishops, and had always been denied to presbyters. It is therefore most false that which Blondell in his *Apology*, after his usual manner, wished to fish out from this one place, alleging that Chrysostom had before his eyes the *diastema* (distance) among the priests of his own age, whom, however, he knew to be equal from the beginning. For he took away all other *diastemata* (distances) that were acknowledged in his own age, but observed this difference from the very origin, and always interpreted Saint Paul in such a way that the laying on of hands belonged at that time to no one but a priest of the first order, or a bishop properly so called. In this regard he said ^B that they excel and in this they are superior to the presbyters: and he himself judged this difference to be ample enough. For in his fifth homily on the first Epistle to Timothy, he declared the power of ordaining to be the supreme power of all, and that which most especially holds the Church together; therefore he never acknowledged them as equals. This is certain in explaining the opinion of St. Chrysostom, that in some places where the name of presbyters is used, he has excluded all presbyters, and taught that bishops alone are to be understood, as in 1 Tim. iv, 14: «He is not speaking here of presbyters, but of bishops. For certainly presbyters did not ordain a bishop.» And Tit. i, 5: «He understands bishops here, as has been said by us elsewhere, namely at Philip. i, 1;» in the fifth homily on Timothy: «Having discoursed concerning bishops, concerning deacons, both men and women, concerning widows, concerning presbyters, concerning all other things, and having shown of how many things the bishop is lord, when he had spoken concerning judgment, he added.» He also thought that James the brother of the Lord was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem from the beginning. Homily 11 on the *First Epistle to the Corinthians*: «Then he was seen by James, to me it seems, by his own brother, for he himself is said to have been ordained by him, and to have been made the first bishop of Jerusalem.» The same man acknowledged our holy Ignatius, the Bishop of the Church of Antioch, as ordained by Saint Peter, and praised the prerogative of that ordination in marvelous ways.

^B Theodoret recognizes this confusion of names, and explains it at length, on Philip. i, 1. But he asserts at the same time that bishops existed even in that time and were superior to presbyters. He teaches that by bishops in that passage, the presbyters ought to be understood; but he shows that Epaphroditus, who was with Saint Paul at that time, and by whom he sent the epistle, was the bishop of the Philippians. «In the epistle itself he called the blessed Epaphroditus their apostle. He taught clearly, therefore, that the episcopal administration was entrusted to him, having the title of apostle: But he called him their apostle, as having been entrusted with the care of them, so that it is evident that those who were called bishops in the proemium were subject to him, ^C clearly fulfilling the rank of the presbyter.» «They formerly called the same men presbyters and bishops; but those who are now called bishops they named apostles: but as time went on, they left the name of apostle to those who were truly apostles, and they bestowed the title of bishop upon those who were formerly called apostles: thus Epaphroditus was the apostle of the Philippians; thus Titus of the Cretans, and Timothy of the Asians were apostles; thus from Jerusalem they wrote to those in Antioch, the apostles and the presbyters.» «As them they formerly called presbyters and bishops: but those who are now called bishops they named apostles.»

As the time of the apostles passed, those who were truly apostles were sought; and they bestowed the appellation of bishop upon those who were formerly called apostles. Thus Epaphroditus was the apostle of the Philippians: thus Titus was the apostle of the Cretans, and Timothy of the Asians. Thus from Jerusalem they who were at Antioch wrote: the apostles and the presbyters. Whence it appears from the opinion of the Blessed Theodoret, that in the time of the apostles there were three grades in the Church: bishops, who were then called apostles; presbyters, who were sometimes called bishops, sometimes presbyters, and deacons: but afterwards, the priests of the first order, with the name of apostle reserved for those who were truly apostles, were called properly and distinctly bishops, and the rest of the second order of priests were called presbyters.

The name of apostle ceased to be given to priests of the first order before the martyrdom of Ignatius. Therefore, according to the opinion of Theodoret, under Ignatius, bishops and presbyters were distinguished both in office and in name.

Theophylact certainly did not think that the presbyters to the Philippians were called bishops, but fellow-bishops; however, he thought that they were also called bishops in apostolic times, ὡς ἐπισκοποῦντας δηλαδὴ καὶ αὐτοὺς τὸν λαόν, “because they themselves also oversaw the people,” but in their own measure, ὥστε καθαίρειν καὶ φωτίζειν τοὺς δεομένους, “so that they might purge and illuminate,” or baptize those for whom it was necessary. For he reserved other sacred offices even then to the bishops. Οὐ γὰρ πρεσβύτεροι ἐπίσκοπον ἐχειροτόνουν. “For not, he says, did presbyters ordain a bishop.” Whence in the Prooemium to Titus: Τῶν Παύλῳ συνόντων δοκιμώτατος ὁ Τίτος ὢν, ἐπίσκοπός τε τῆς Κρήτης μεγάλης οὔσης δι' αὐτὸ τοῦτο κεχειροτόνητο, καὶ τοσούτων ἐπισκόπων κρίσιν καὶ χειροτονίαν ἐπετράπη. “Among all who were with Paul, Titus being the most approved, he was for this very reason ordained bishop of Crete, which is a great island, and the judgment, as well as the ordination, of so many bishops was entrusted to him.” And indeed, concerning the opinion of Theophylact, after what we have said about Chrysostom, there is no need to doubt.

^B Among the Latins, the author of the Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul published under the name of St. Ambrose is believed to have been the first, because he professes that he wrote them under Damasus, the Roman bishop, that is, before the year A.D. 384, who handed down the names of bishop and presbyter as synonyms in Scripture. Yet he often teaches that singular bishops presided over the Churches in the age of the apostles. There is a clearly remarkable passage where he explains that passage to the Philippians, *with the bishops and deacons*. “That is,” he says, “with Paul and Timothy, who were certainly bishops, he signified the deacons also who ministered to him. For he writes to the people. For if he were writing to the bishops and deacons, he would be writing to their persons, and it would have been necessary to write to the bishop of that place himself, not to two or three, just as he did to Titus and Timothy.” Nor is that passage less illustrious where he explains these words: *Therefore the woman ought to have power over her head, also because of the angels*, 1 Cor. ch. xi, verse 10. By “power” he indicated a veil; he calls the bishops angels, as is taught in the Apocalypse of John. “And because they are indeed men, they are rebuked for not correcting the people; and what is right in them is praised. The woman, therefore, must veil her head for this reason, not because she is not the image of God, but so that it may be shown that she is subject. And because prevarication was initiated through her, she must have a sign of this, so that in the Church, because of episcopal reverence, she may not have her head bare, but covered with a veil, nor have the power of speaking, because the bishop has the person of Christ. As if, therefore, before a judge, so she should be seen subject before the bishop, because he is the vicar of the Lord, on account of the origin of the guilt.” And a little later: “Because all things are from one Father, he decreed that individual bishops should preside over individual Churches.” And again: “What, are all apostles? It is true, because in the Church there is one bishop.” The same to 1 Tim. ch. iv: “Now, however, it is necessary that there should be seven deacons and some presbyters, so that there may be two in each church, and one bishop in the city.” Touching Timothy, he speaks thus in the Prooemium: “He instructs him, already created bishop, by letter, as to how he ought to order the Church.” Likewise also concerning Titus: “The Apostle consecrated Titus bishop, and therefore warns him to be solicitous in ecclesiastical ordination.” From all which it appears that this ancient author, who seems to have written about the confusion of names before Chrysostom and Jerome, acknowledged that singular bishops were established in cities in the age of the apostles. Pelagius, as it seems, the author of the Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul ascribed to Jerome, on 1 Ep. to Tim. ch. i: “It is asked why he makes no mention of presbyters, but included them under the name of bishops, because it is the second, or rather almost the one degree.” Therefore, he acknowledged two degrees, although not greatly distant, included under one title. Which Primasius transcribed, who noted to the Philippians: “By bishops here we understand not only pontiffs, but also presbyters.”

^C Finally, Jerome, who after the Ambrosiaster censured the pride of the Roman deacons no less sharply, and who clung so much to the confusion of names that he seemed to have believed that the office and the same order of bishop and presbyter were one while holy Peter and Paul were living; nevertheless, without controversy, he often taught that three degrees and three offices, distinct both in name and in power, existed before St. Ignatius was led to martyrdom. For these are his words in the Epistle to Evagrius: “So that we might know the apostolic traditions taken from the Old Testament, for what Aaron and his sons and the levites were in the temple, let the bishops, presbyters, and deacons claim this for themselves in the Church.” But how could this be an apostolic tradition, how could it be taken from the Old Testament, if bishops superior to presbyters did not exist in the age of the apostles, just as Aaron was superior in office and dignity to his sons? Or by what reasoning could anyone deny that this was the thought of Jerome, who knew that he had written these things expressly in his commentary on Matthew ch. xxiii: “Which the apostles also did, ordaining presbyters and bishops through individual provinces.” The same in his Commentary on Titus: “Before, by the instinct of the devil, factions in religion arose, and it was said among the people: ‘I am of Paul, I am of Apollo, but I of Cephas,’ the churches were governed by the common counsel of the presbyters: but after each one thought that those whom he had baptized were his own, and not Christ’s, it was decreed in the whole world that one chosen from the presbyters should be set over the others, to whom the whole care of the Church should pertain, and the seeds of schisms might be removed.” And again: “But that one was chosen afterwards, was done as a remedy for schism.”

^A This, therefore, was without any controversy the opinion of St. Jerome, that although in the apostolic writings, especially while Peter and Paul were living, no distinction appeared between those who were called bishops and presbyters, nevertheless in the later times of the apostles, or a little before the death of Peter and Paul, or certainly before the death of St. John, it had been decreed in the whole world that one should be set over the rest, to whom all care of the Church should pertain, and who should properly be named bishop. This proceeds from apostolic tradition; he taught that this was introduced on account of the schisms which had certainly arisen in the time of the apostles; he produced most clear testimony of this thing at Alexandria from St. Mark himself, whom he considered the first example of a singular episcopate, and that indeed a singular one at that time. For according to his opinion, Mark “died in the eighth year of Nero, and was buried at Alexandria, with Anianus succeeding him,” as he relates in the Catalogue. Hence he always calls all singular men who presided over the churches in those times bishops properly. Concerning the Romans in the Catalogue: “Clement fourth bishop of Rome after Peter: since Linus was the second and Cletus the third.” Whose exceptional power he indicates, at chapter 53 of Isaiah: “Clement, an apostolic man, who ruled the Roman Church after Peter, writes to the Corinthians.” And in book 1 against Jovinian: “To these also Clement, successor of the apostle Peter, of whom the apostle Paul makes mention, writes epistles.” Concerning the Jerusalemites at Galatians chapter 1: “But this James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, surnamed the Just; a man of such sanctity and rumor among the people, that they vied with each other to touch the hem of his garment. Who himself also was afterwards cast down from the temple by the Jews, had as his successor Simeon, whom they also report was crucified for the Lord.” Concerning the Antiochenes, in the Catalogue: “Ignatius, third bishop of the Church of Antioch after the apostle Peter.” Concerning the Asians: “The apostle John, the last of all, wrote the Gospel at the request of the bishops of Asia.” And in the same Catalogue: “Polycarp, disciple of the apostle John, and ordained by him bishop of Smyrna, was the prince of all Asia.” And: “When Ignatius had come to Smyrna where Polycarp, hearer of John, was bishop.” ^B All those, therefore, who handed down the confused names of bishop and presbyter in the apostolic writings, also taught at the same time that from the origin, or while Peter and Paul were still alive, or before the beginning of the second century, while St. John was still surviving, there were three sacred orders, or degrees, in the Church. And if this is posited by them, no one will doubt that the same was recognized by the rest, who saw mention made of bishops so often in the Holy Scripture, and never thought of a confusion of names. Wherefore Walo Messalinus, who says that they followed their opinion, asserts that they never denied that even ^C at that time the distinction between bishops and presbyters was recognized, by those who know the matter to be most ancient, that these two orders were distinct in the Church, if apostolic times be excepted.

Wherefore, since it is established by the highest consensus of the ancients that three sacred orders or degrees existed then, when St. Ignatius is said to have written his epistles, in Christian cities, and especially in those of Asia; since very many of the same century have spoken of no other than just so many degrees distinct in office and name; since no one of that same age has ever called anyone who was of the second order a bishop; since finally those few who, after their death and as if they were more ancient, called those who had been bishops only presbyters, spoke otherwise as often as the occasion presented itself of enumerating the orders or speaking of the evangelical ministers of their own time; no reason appears why he, who in his own epistles kept the distinction of orders chastely and perpetually in that manner, should not be held to be the true Ignatius, that Antiochene and martyr. It is not this, it is not this, “to exalt himself above his own century, above his venerable brothers.” Neither do I doubt that I can most truly assert that our Ignatius used the term bishop for the first and the term presbyter for the second priests of each Church, according to the use and custom of his own century, and that he observed this custom and usage not only in speech but in ecclesiastical precepts and institutions. And since there are certain laws laid down and proposed to men, and it is fitting that they be conceived and written in speech that is above all clear and easy and obvious and familiar to each of the hearers, it is fitting that no doubtful and obscure words be mixed into them, or finally, of such a kind that readers might not immediately understand that it is the very same meaning that the author intended; our Ignatius most especially observed this; for all then knew that a priest of the second order was accustomed to be called by no one a bishop, but by all a presbyter; but that a priest of the first order was called by all a bishop. Since therefore the author of the epistles used these names to indicate the distinction of orders, the readers immediately understood that it was the very same meaning that he intended; and it was not necessary for him to warn and teach them sedulously in what sense he wished the word for either bishop or presbyter to be understood. Let this Dallæus therefore depart with the commotions and tumults which he tries to stir up. He thinks that all must have been greatly moved and troubled who heard him dictating: “Presbyters, be subject to the bishop.” I confess indeed, if it were permitted to demand the customs of the Christians of that second century by the norm of ours, that very many would want to be moved even then, when they heard anyone dictating: “Presbyters, be subject to the bishop.” For nothing is that which moves some men (what kind they are I shall not say) more, nay, incites and impels them to arms and the internecine slaughter of brothers, than that utterance, as we learn by too certain experience. And when we have seen these things, we could not but call to mind those things of St. Cyprian which he wrote to the presbyters and deacons, brothers, in ep. 10:

^A "For what hazard of the Lord's displeasure ought we not to fear, when some of the presbyters, mindful neither of the Gospel nor of their own position, and thinking neither of the Lord's future judgment nor of the bishop now set over them—a thing which never at all happened under our predecessors—claim everything for themselves?"

But we know that they are no less moved when they hear that saying of St. Paul: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers" (Rom. xiii, 1), or that of St. Peter: "Submit yourselves to the king as supreme" (1 Pet. ii, 13); not that they are ignorant of what the higher powers are, or who the king is, but that they are unwilling to understand what Christian subjection is, and what obedience is due by the laws of the Gospel. Other was the mind of the Christians of the second century, other their spirit; they were most ready to render subjection and obedience, and they were not ignorant to whom it should be rendered. Dallæus therefore substitutes for them a strange speech, and represents them as murmuring thus by prosopopoeia: "And who (they might say) are these presbyters to us, and whom does he call bishop?" Yet how could those say such things who were daily gathering together with their presbyters and their bishop? Who knew best that their presbyters were accustomed to be styled by that name at that time, but that no one was called a bishop by any man? How could they, the presbyters, who did not misjudge their own standing, and who acknowledged one set over them whom they also called bishop, say these things, ^B by no means claiming that name for themselves? Blondel himself confesses that there was at that time one who "in each assembly held the primacy," to whom "the right of the first see and of presidential power was reserved," who was "the first member and honorary head of the college," who was "the president of the presbytery and the chief, and the head of the whole clergy," who "was called the angel by the Lord Himself in the Asiatic Churches." Could the presbyters, who lived under him as under a head, fail to recognize this when they heard him called bishop? Certainly Ambrosiaster, upon whose testimony the opinion of Blondel and Salmasius rests regarding the first presbyter, testifies that the names of bishop and presbyter were divided and distinct before the tenth year of Trajan: "But as the blessed apostles departed, those who were ordained after them to preside over the Churches could not be equal to those first ones, nor have the testimony of miracles, but in many other things seemed inferior to them: they thought it a serious matter to claim for themselves the appellation of the apostles. Therefore they divided the names themselves, and left the name of presbyter to them, that is, the presbyters; but others were named bishops, and these were endowed with the power of ordination, so that they might most fully know them same. And yet the bishop is a presbyter, and the presbyter is a bishop. Does he want one and the same man here to be both subject to himself and to preside over himself?" What a kind of speech this is which their Tertullus here produces in the name of the primitive brethren or presbyters! These things are not of those times or of those men, but are the utterances of the heretic Aerius, ^C stating that he is equal to the bishop and presbyter, and: "What is a bishop toward a presbyter? This one differs nothing from that one." These are the pronouncements of the Arian heresy, unheard of in the Church before the fourth century. We have not been instructed otherwise in this matter, nor are we imbued with any other sense of these words than were the believers of the second century. We know that in their age, he who was highest in the clergy of each church was called a bishop, and the rest, holding the rank next to him, were called presbyters, and not bishops, as we have already shown above; therefore, the believers and presbyters of those times understood this precept of St. Ignatius quite well, and had no need of a monitor to avoid offense. But since he urges not only the usage of that age, but also the imitation of the apostles in the confusion of names, and calls the writer of the epistles a man of a speech different from the apostles, nay, "a corrector and emender of apostolic speech," and therefore denies that he is Ignatius, the most beloved and most observant disciple of the apostles; I thought I would do a work worth doing if I showed that these things add no weight to the argument, nor could they move, even slightly, anyone who is acquainted with the customs and mode of speaking of the second century.

For it must be observed first that no writer of the second or even of the third century has observed that the names of bishop and presbyter are confused in the apostolic writings. But if this be true, it must be confessed that this is a matter which they themselves did not see. But many things persuade me to believe that it is true. And it is especially worthy of note that among the Greek Fathers, St. Chrysostom first, and among the Latins either Ambrosiaster or Jerome, expressly handed down that the names of bishop and presbyter were confused in the apostolic writings. For we neither know anyone, nor have the learned men who disagree with us named anyone, who affirmed the same before them. But these wrote when the fourth century was already drawing to its end; and before them wrote Epiphanius, who taught everything to the contrary. For when Aerius, from the apostolic discourse, had taught that "the bishop is the same as the presbyter," ^D he asserts that this proceeded from the ignorance of the heretic, who had not observed from ancient history that in some churches there were presbyters from the beginning, while bishops were not yet established, and in others there were bishops, while presbyters were not yet added: by which single observation he thought that this promiscuous usurpation of names was refuted. Yet these things Epiphanius brought forth against the heretic, as one foully deceived in explaining the apostles, and ignorant of ancient monuments. Epiphanius therefore believed that the ancient Christians had understood the apostle differently. Therefore, that apostolic confusion of names was not yet acknowledged in the Church, as Epiphanius witnesses. And indeed I do not think that any traces of that opinion exist among ecclesiastical writers significantly older than Epiphanius. Nay

^A Dallæus claims that at Ephesus, those who were of the second rank—not those of the first rank, the bishops—are signified by the name of presbyters, Acts xx, 28. He asserts that the ancients interpreted the passage in this way: he names Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, and others, but he names no one more ancient than these. These arguments, therefore, have no bearing on the opinion of the second or third century. But Irenæus did not think that the same men were called both bishops and presbyters in that passage, nor that they belonged to the church of one city. For he says thus, lib. III, cap. 14: ‹ For in Miletus, when the bishops and presbyters, who were from Ephesus and the other neighboring cities, had been called together. › St. Paul called together both the bishops and the presbyters, according to the opinion of Irenæus, from both Ephesus and other cities of Asia; he did not, therefore, call together [people] of one city alone, or only those of the second rank, nor did he call them bishops. To be sure, Chrysostom, Jerome, and others, arguing especially about one city, praise this passage of the Acts in the fourth century and those following, and make it the foundation of their own opinion. Irenæus, a writer of the second century, much closer to the apostles and apostolic men, did not even dream of any such thing. That apostolic confusion of the names of bishop and presbyter, which they desire, was therefore unknown to Irenæus. ^B Writers of the second and third centuries are rather to be thought to have established the contrary. I presume through the Church, which was about to place every rank of its order concerning monogamy upon him who was built up. › And again, cap. 11: ‹ What sort of person are you, to be seeking that marriage which it is not permitted for them, from whom you seek it, to have: from a monogamous bishop, from presbyters and deacons of the same sacrament, from widows whose rule you have rejected? › Likewise, Origen also observed that second marriages were denied to all ecclesiastical orders, step by step, [Greek: κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ᾿Αποστόλου περὶ τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν πραγμάτων νομοθεσίαν], «according to the laws laid down by the Apostle concerning ecclesiastical matters»; that there is no order in the Church to which this law has not been specifically prescribed: Greek: Οὐδένα γὰρ τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ὑπεροχήν τινα παρὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς ὡς ἐν συμβόλοις ἀνειληφότα βούλεται Παῦλος δευτέρου πεπειρᾶσθαι γάμου. «For Paul does not wish anyone of those who have received any pre-eminence in the Church over the many, as if in tokens, to have attempted a second marriage.» For of those who gave their name to the Church, Paul wishes that no one who had attained any dignity above the many, as if in tokens, should have experienced a second marriage. To show that this is strictly true of each individual order, he cites 1 Tim. iii, 2 for bishops, verse 12 for deacons, 1 Tim. v, 9 for widows, and finally Tit. i, 5 for presbyters. But if bishops were contained under presbyters, it would have been enough to have praised the Epistle to Titus; if presbyters under bishops, he could have been content with the passage to Timothy. These words of St. Paul to Titus, therefore, by praising them so diligently after the rest, he implies that a precept was given by the Apostle distinctly to each order, following his teacher Clement, where he speaks fully of the precepts in the *Paedagogue*; and supplementing [them], where he does so less fully, in *Strom.* III: Greek: Ναὶ μὲν καὶ τὸν τῆς μιας γυναικὸς ἄνδρα πάνυ διαδέχεται κἂν πρεσβύτερος ᾖ, κἂν διάκονος, κἂν λαϊκὸς, ἀνεπιλήπτως γάμω χρώμενος, and representing the opinion of the third century. He assigns the words of St. Paul to Titus to the presbyters, [and] reserves those to Timothy for the bishop, clearly as Gregory Nazianzen did after him in his oration on the praises of St. Athanasius: Greek: Τοῦτο δὲ, ἐν οἷς Τιμοθέῳ πρὸς αὐτὸν γράφων νομοθετεῖ, τυπῶν τῷ λόγῳ τὸν ἐπισκοπῆς προσηκόμενον. «But this, in those things where, writing to Timothy, he lays down the law, fashioning by his word him who should preside over the episcopate.» ^C They trust much in the distinct words of the Apostle to Titus, as if the same precepts had been given entirely to a bishop and a presbyter, and therefore the two were the same. But Clement of Alexandria clearly felt otherwise, and observed many precepts in Scripture given distinctly to the bishop and [distinctly] to the presbyter, no less than to deacons and widows. For thus he says in *Paedagogue*, lib. III, cap. 12: Greek: Μυρίαι δὲ ὅσαι ὑποθῆκαι εἰς πρόσωπα ἐκλεκτὰ διατείνουσαι, ἐγγεγράφαται ταῖς βίβλοις ταῖς ἁγίαις· αἱ μὲν, πρεσβυτέροις, αἱ δὲ, ἐπισκόποις· αἱ δὲ, διακόνοις· ἄλλαι, χήραις. «Plurima præcepta quæ ad electas personas pertinent, in sanctis libris scripta sunt; hæc quidem presbyteris, alia vero episcopis, alia diaconis, alia viduis.» He enumerates four different kinds of elect persons; he ascribes proper precepts to each kind; he distinguishes bishops no less from presbyters than presbyters from deacons, or deacons from widows. Clement, therefore, does not know that confusion of names in the precepts given by the Apostle, which Jerome seemed to himself to observe, and who elicited this conclusion from it: ‹ The presbyter is therefore the same as the bishop. › It is said, strictly and distinctly by the apostle concerning bishops, presbyters, and deacons, that they ought to be men of one wife. Tertullian, who acknowledged three orders, understands this saying for each: «It was a matter of ecclesiastical orders, of the sort that ought to be ordained. It was necessary, therefore, that every form of common discipline should be proposed on its own behalf; an edict as it were to be for all in its preface,» *De monogamia*, cap. 12. And again, cap. 8: ‹ I find Peter alone married through his mother-in-law; a monogamist ^D It does not appear, therefore, that any Christian of the second or third century observed a confusion of the names of bishop and presbyter in the apostolic writings. For Justin Martyr makes mention of [Greek: τοῦ προεστῶτος τῆς Ἐκκλησίας], as the singular and pre-eminent ruler of the Church, and of deacons; but the name of bishop or presbyter he has nowhere used in the writings that survive. But it is too forced, what is asserted by Blondell in his *Apology* without any foundation, that only two orders of the Christian clergy are acknowledged by Justin. For he does not enumerate the orders of the Church there, nor does he treat of the government of the people; he only explains the solemn celebration of the eucharist, and sets forth what were the parts of the bishop and what were the parts of the deacons in administering it. But that the parts of the bishop sometimes

were performed by him, and sometimes were delegated by him ^A to that presbyter, for this reason he used the general word *proestotos* [presiding]; however, he spoke of deacons specifically, because their roles were always performed by them. Irenaeus understood and explained this primary passage in an entirely different way, and he did not even touch upon the other passages of Holy Scripture which are brought forward in support of the adversaries' opinion. Clement of Alexandria understood the passages regarding the offices of bishop and presbyter as distinguished by their names in the Scriptures in such a way that he pronounced those many precepts no less differently regarding bishops and presbyters than regarding deacons and widows. Tertullian and Origen observed the distinction of terms in the Apostle [Paul] so accurately that they directed all their own understanding toward it. It does not appear, therefore, that anyone within 100 or far more years after the martyrdom of St. Ignatius observed this community of names in the apostolic writings. Moreover, it is most unfair to demand that the speech of the second century conform to the standard of an opinion that only arose in the fourth century.

Secuti sunt igitur (They therefore followed) the mode of speaking used by the Christian people, according to the opinion of Jerome; so that for them to imitate the apostles in this matter is nothing other than to write according to the mode of speaking vulgar—that is, common—in the Church. Therefore, those have most imitated the apostles who wrote according to the speech of their own age, not [that] of the apostolic age. Those who now set forth the Hieronymian opinion ^B and object it against us wish, according to his mind, that no one had been established in the time of the apostles besides or above presbyters, as bishops of a legitimate and distinct order or grade; therefore, afterwards, "when it was decreed throughout the whole world that one elected from the presbyters should be placed over the rest, to whom the whole care of the Church might pertain," they cannot demand that ecclesiastical writers, such a change having been made in the matter itself, should retain the community of names. Salmasius himself says in his *Apparatus*: "From the time when from one presbyteral and episcopal order two were made, the name of presbyter ceased to be given to the bishop." If a distinction of names and at the same time of duties, and consequently also of orders, was made between presbyter and bishop, as Salmasius teaches, one must search not for an imitation of apostolic speech, but for a change in the state of things; once it was changed, according to his opinion, an imitation of the apostles could not be.

Secondly. None of all those who thought the names of bishop and presbyter were common in the Holy Scriptures followed the apostles in that kind of speech, or said that anyone else had followed them. Here we have an adversary who clearly agrees with us. "The writer of the Epistles," he says, "receives those two names in the very same sense in which we know and willingly concede they have been accepted by the Christians of the third and subsequent centuries unto these times." But those who thought they had found a community of these names in the apostolic books did not exist before the fourth century: they spoke, therefore, according to the custom of Ignatius; and neither did they themselves imitate the apostles in this mode of speaking, nor did they observe that any one of all those who wrote before them had imitated the apostles in the sense accepted, nor did they accuse anyone of neglected imitation. Blessed Theodoret, who thought that the apostles themselves sometimes called those who were of the second order presbyters, sometimes bishops, but called those who were of the first order apostles—neither did he imitate the apostles, nor did he judge that any ecclesiastical writer had followed apostolic speech; but he asserted that the apostles reserved the name of apostle for those properly called apostles, and assigned the name of bishop to the priests ^C of the first order. St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Oecumenius thought that those who were bishops were called by the apostles not only presbyters, but even deacons; yet they did not think that anyone had followed this apostolic speech. For who has ever called a leader of the first order a deacon? Jerome himself did not think that anyone after the apostles had imitated apostolic speech, but that each had looked to the manner of speaking of his own time; he did not think that even the apostles themselves had spoken otherwise. For thus he speaks in his Commentary on the Epistle to Titus: "Because they called the same ministers bishops at that time whom they also called presbyters, therefore they spoke indifferently of bishops as if of presbyters."

Furthermore, a third thing to be observed is that it is not yet certain that the names of bishop and presbyter in the apostolic writings, where there is concern with ecclesiastical offices, are synonymous. Certainly, the arguments which have been adduced up to now do not necessarily force us to believe this; and it is rather probable that such a community of these terms is by no means to be admitted in the apostolic writings. First, because if we seek the origin of this interpretation, we shall find that Aris, the heretic, was the very first of all to bring it forward to confirm his own opinion—whose opinion, as soon as it was published, was immediately exploded by St. Epiphanius. Secondly, those Catholics who afterward embraced the same interpretation, but for a different end, whether you consider the ancients or the moderns, could never agree in explaining it. If all the methods which can be devised or imagined for explaining the community of the two names ^D are examined, you will find scarcely one or another that no one has embraced, and certainly none on which three, or perhaps two, have agreed, if you except those who have purposely transcribed everything from others. Whoever conceives in their mind a community of these two names, it is necessary that they suppose either that only one order existed in the churches established in the time of the apostles with primary care and authority, or that two existed. And indeed, those who maintain this community of names have been divided into varying opinions concerning the number of orders existing at that time. All acknowledge that after the books of the New Testament were written, after an interval of time, two ecclesiastical orders or grades—distinct in both office and dignity, whether by law

or injury, prevailed—the name of bishop attached to the superior, and that of presbyter to the inferior. Those who think that only one of these existed when the sacred books were written, and that the other was added later, either recognize an inferior order upon which a superior was later superimposed, or a superior to which an inferior was subsequently added. From this arise two ways of explaining the communion of names: one, that the names of bishop and presbyter were indiscriminately attributed to the priests of one order, who were called priests of the inferior order, or presbyters, after the superior order had been introduced and superimposed; this is the view of St. Jerome, to which I do not object. The other is that the same names were indiscriminately attributed to the priests of one order, who were called priests of the superior order, or bishops, after the inferior order was introduced and joined to the superior; which view our Hammond, than whom no one has treated these matters more accurately, defends as the most probable. Those who did not doubt that two orders, distinct in both office and dignity, existed under the apostles and were instituted by them, were divided into several opinions regarding the communion of names. The first of these was that both names belonged to both orders at that time, so that those promoted to the superior order were called now bishops, now presbyters, and similarly those established in the inferior grade were called now presbyters, now bishops; this was the opinion of Chrysostom and his followers. The second opinion, however, was that the name of bishop and presbyter was attributed indifferently and indiscriminately to the priests of the inferior order, but neither was attributed to those of the first order, i.e., the bishops; because at that time the priests of the first order were called apostles: this was the opinion of the Blessed Theodoret. Besides these, two others can be imagined: that priests of the superior order were called now bishops, now presbyters, but those of the inferior only presbyters, which Hammond admits as probable; or that priests of the inferior order were called now presbyters, now bishops, while those of the superior were called only bishops, a view which no one has embraced. Since there is such disagreement among all who thought they discovered a communion of these names in the Scriptures, and their various opinions are almost as numerous as the men themselves and can in no way be reconciled, it becomes even more probable that such a communion of names is not in reality found in the Scriptures.

Third. The very reasons for this opinion which the assertors of the communion of these names bring forward are either false, or uncertain, or do not effect what they intend. In Phil. 1:1, we read: “Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, with the bishops and deacons.” “Many interpreters, not to be despised, of both ancient and recent memory, receive this place as referring to secondary priests,” says Daillé. But the ancients bring forward this reason only: that in one city there was only one bishop. Thus St. Chrysostom, Jerome, and others. But whether this is true or certain is not established. For that in some cities in the times of the apostles there were two churches and two bishops, until the Gentiles and Jews coalesced into one body, our Hammond makes most probable from the apostolic writings themselves. Epiphanius, in heresy 68: Οὐ γάρ ποτε ἡ Ἀλεξάνδρεια δύο ἐπισκόπους εἶχεν, ὡς αἱ ἄλλαι ἐκκλησίαι. “For Alexandria never had two bishops, as other Churches did.” This observation must without doubt be extended even to apostolic times: because Mark, since he preached there alone, left a single bishop as his successor, whereas in other cities the apostles sometimes gathered churches and left a bishop in their place, each one of them. Which Epiphanius himself observes regarding the Roman Church, in heresy 27: Ἐν Ῥώμῃ γὰρ γεγόνασι πρῶτοι Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος οἱ ἀπόστολοι αὐτοὶ καὶ ἐπίσκοποι. “For at Rome the first were Peter and Paul, the same being both apostles and bishops.” Hence he doubts whether even then there were other two bishops with them, who would supply their places when they were absent. Jerome himself foresaw this solution, and therefore in his letter to Evagrius, when he had cited Phil. 1:1 and Acts 20:28, he says: “And lest anyone, he says, should contend contentiously that there were many bishops in one Church, hear another testimony in which it is most manifestly proved that the bishop and presbyter are the same.” He had based his exposition of these two places in his Commentary on Titus on that single assertion; but when he saw that this was either not true or not certain, or was admonished by others, he used another place here, by which he thought the same thing was more manifestly proved. Moreover, even if it were true that there was only one bishop of one city at that time, it would not, however, follow from that immediately that the word ἐπισκόποις does not pertain to bishops properly so called; for he does not call them bishops of the Philippian church or city, but only implies that they were at Philippi at that time; but he could write to those whom he knew to be at Philippi at that time, even if they were bishops of other cities. Theodoret therefore adds another reason: that in that place no presbyters are named between the bishops and deacons; since therefore presbyters are next to deacons, it is necessary that the bishops be taken for presbyters. But it could not yet be proven that any priests of the second order or presbyters existed at Philippi at that time; for no memory of them exists. Epiphanius, however, teaches from the most ancient monuments of the Church that the apostles ordained bishops in some cities with their deacons, with no presbyters at all established there. Finally, it is not certain that these were written to the Philippian bishops or presbyters; for the Apostle never conjoined bishops or presbyters or deacons to the faithful in his epistles, and never wrote to the presbyters of any Church, a fact which has been noted by the ancients. But the reason they bring forward, why he writes here to the presbyters and deacons

^A is most uncertain and invalid. St. Chrysostom says: "Here one might justly ask, why, when he writes to the clergy nowhere else—not to the Roman, not to the Corinthian, not to the Ephesian [Church], but commonly to all the saints, or the faithful, or the beloved—he writes here to the clergy?" This difficulty, which he attempts to resolve thus: "Because they themselves both sent, and bore fruit, and they themselves sent Epaphroditus to him." That they made collections and sent them to Epaphroditus himself. But this is uncertain; nay, rather the contrary is certain, since the Apostle often acknowledges in this matter the charity of all to whom he writes, and observes no difference between the brothers—that is, the Philippians—and their clergy in the necessary ministering or the sending of Epaphroditus. Indeed, there is no sufficiently just reason why we should necessarily determine that the Apostle wrote here to the clergy, since this was never done by him elsewhere; for those words "with the bishops and deacons" are not necessarily joined with the saints who were at Philippi, but can be joined with Paul and Timothy. And in that manner these words are understood by Ambrosiaster, a writer sufficiently acute: "By those who are at Philippi, he signifies those to whom he writes, with the bishops and deacons; that is, he signified at the same time both Paul and Timothy, who were indeed bishops, and the deacons who ministered to him. For he is writing to the people. For if he were writing to bishops, he would have had to write to the bishop of that very place, not to two or three, just as [he wrote] to Titus and Timothy." ^B Since these are the foundations of the ancients upon which they build up the Apostolic communion of names, which bear forth no certainty at all, and since they are derived from the practice and custom of a later age and do not reach the first times of the Church; who does not see that the necessity of apostolic imitation in the use of these words vanishes entirely? And that the primary argument at length is openly reduced to nothing, which, even in that apostolic communion, truly possesses no force?

CHAPTER XIV

No words show that this writer lived long after Ignatius. Compound words do not smell of imposture. Examples from the New Testament, Clement of Rome, and Cicero. They are not poetic. If any are rare or new, they suit Ignatius perfectly. The number of terms from *axios*, after the example of Xenophon, and from *phero* is defended by the common usage of all. The excess of words is refuted. A conjecture about a forger is rejected. The usage of the words *physis* and *adein* is defended. Some phrases are explained and defended.

In Chapter 27, he thinks that many other words could show that this writer lived long after Ignatius; but I, for my part, do not doubt that it must be asserted that there is nothing at all contained in the writer's language that would be less congruent with the Ignatian age than with the Eusebian. Two hundred years have passed from St. Ignatius to that writer, whom the most learned man has fashioned and was the first of all to form; ^C there is no word in the epistles which is said to have been born during that interval of time, no sense of a word which is said to have first broken forth during that period, no formula of speech which does not bear the age of St. Ignatius. He poorly attacks the name *heresiotes*, which, however, does not belong to our Ignatius; he does not press the Latin, acquiescing in Hammond's answer; and indeed wisely. For also St. Chrysostom in one epistle 45, in which, like another Ignatius, he describes the "circuits of the courses" (*makroterous ton dromon tous diaulous*), has words of this kind: *droungos*, *milia*, *lektikion*, *bourdon*, *kastellon*, *bikaria*, *tribounos*, *rex*, which Meursius did not seek out in a most elegant and refined writer. But he is moved by "names variously compounded; and wonderful ones, with which, as he says, the epistles teem to the point of disgust." Therefore he brings forth very many, and collects them as if they were a "swarm of absurd and distorted names," or having "gathered together such a dung-heap," as Lucian says. But in order to show that the epistles teem with these, he mixes in many words of an interpolator or forger with those which were used by our author; such as: *pneumatophoros*, *axiomnemoneutos*, *axiepainetos*, *christoleptos*, *anthropomimos*, *chrematolailapes*, and later *kakentrephes*, *megalorrhemosynai*. What does it matter that *anusteretos* is numbered among the wonderfully compounded words, and *akaunchesia* among the substantive nouns, which have nothing else than a prefixed *a* privative? When in the New Testament the same particle is most often added to words already and previously compounded from elsewhere, such as *agenealogetos*, *adiaphthoria*, *akatastasia*, *akatagnostos*, *ametanoetos*, *anekdiegetos*, *anexichniastos*, *anexereunetos*, *aprosopoleptes*, and very many others? Nay, and among these he brought forward *bebaiosunen* as if it were a great word, which is of the same form as the most common word *dikaiosyne*, and no more grand than that not once used by St. Paul, *agathosyne*. Therefore, these being struck out, the number decreases; and the rest, although they may be variously compounded, are not, however, so wonderful. For who has ever wondered at compounds in the Greek language, which everyone knows to abound most of all in compound words? And no one is ignorant that that language is praised especially for its grace, elegance, and most happy wealth of words. Cicero himself, the best judge of elegances, and easily the first in every kind of speaking, when writing to Atticus, who was greatly delighted by Greek learning, selected from that language these words with which to adorn his epistles and make them most pleasing to that great man: *oxypeinos*, *kachektes*, *adikaiarchoi*, *hemerolegdon*, *nomandria*, *hypomempsimoirous*, *neoktista*, *pseudhesiodeion*, *phainoprosopein*, *peithanagken*, *anethopoieton*, *koiliolysia*, *aperantologia*, *anemophorēta*, *anantiphonesia*, *photographia*, *peplographia*, and to Quintus his brother, *mousopataktos*, *antiekton*. ^D The most excellent Hammond had brought forward from the Holy Scriptures of Luke, Paul, Peter, and John words no less variously and wonderfully compounded; but Dallæus replies that they are very few. Certainly Blondellus had brought forward 27, Ham-

^Amondus but 10, but he added, etc., that many more of the same class were to be found in the New Testament. But since he complains of their paucity; let these words also be added to the pile: ἀγαθοποιία, αἱματεκχυσία, ἀλεκτοροφωνία, ἀλλοτριοεπί-σκοπος, ἀνθρωποκτόνος, ἀποκαραδοκία, ἀποσυνάγω-γος, ἀργυροκόπος, ἀρσενοκοίτης, δεξιολάδος, δευτερο-πρωτος, δικαιοκρισία, ἐθελοθρησκεία, εὐπερίστατος, καλλιέλαιος, κωμόπολις, μογιλάλος, οἰνοφλυγία, ὁλό-κληρία, σητόβρωτος, σκωληκόβρωτος, τροποφορέω, φρεναπάτης, ὑπερεκπερισσῶς, ψευδάδελφος, καρπο-φόρος, καρποφορούμενον, θανατηφόρος, Jac. iii, 8, (which word Blondellus bears with difficulty in our Ignatius) παραδιατριβαί, or διαπαρατριβαί, for it is read in both ways in 1 Tim. vi, 5, since διατριβή or παρα-τριβή are sufficiently known to the Greeks, but παραδιατριβή or δια-παρατριβή not so. That it was written διαπαρατριβαί in antiquity is evidenced not only by the most ancient Alexandrian codex, and all the Stephanic editions, and the editions of Chrysostom and Theodoret, but also by the expositions of this word which now exist in Hesychius, and Suidas. Hesychius: « Διαπεριτριβαί », read from the series of letters, « Διαπαρατριβαὶ, ἐνδελεχισμοί, ἐν-δελέχειαι ». Suidas: « Διαπαρατριβαὶ, ἐνδελέχειαι ». And they had no source for this other than this passage of S. Paul. What of the fact that he calls Andronicus and Junius his « συναιχμαλώτους », when he himself, as Chrysostom observes, was not « αἰχμάλωτος »? If these variously compounded words are added to those which Hammond, or we before, have numbered, they will not be few; nay, they would be very many, if all were culled from the apostolic writings. It ought not, therefore, to seem wonderful if the apostolic men used either the same or similar compositions; especially since those same or similar compositions were so familiar to the Greek language. That unique epistle of Clement of Rome, as it now exists, if you set aside the places culled from the Scriptures, is much shorter than the epistolary work of Ignatius, yet it teems more with such compositions. Such are: « Ἀγα-θοποιία, ἁγιοπρεπεῖς, ἀδελφοκτονία, ἀμβλυωπῆσαι, ἀναζωπυρησάτω, ἀξιαγαπητός » (which word they find fault with in Ignatius), « ἀντοφθαλμεῖ, ἀπροσκόπως, ἀπροσωπο-λήπτως, αὐτεπαίνετος, αὐτομολοῦντες, δικαιοπραγία, δωδεκάσκηπτρον, ἐργο-παρέκτης, ἑτεροκλινεῖς, ἑτε-ρογνώμων, εὐπρόσδεκτα, θεοστυγία, κοινωφελές, κυοφοροῦσα, λειποτακτεῖν, ματαιοπονία, μεγαλοῤῥη-μονεῖν, μωμοσκοπηθέν, οἰκουργεῖν, πτεροφυεῖ, προοδοιπορήσαντες, ῥιψοκινδύνως, χρησμοδοτεῖσθαι, φυλλοῤῥοεῖ, φιλαδελφία », and very many compounded from « πᾶν », of which we must treat later. The exception taken concerning the multitude of variously compounded words is clearly frivolous and unworthy of our critics, and the exception concerning their quality is so much the more so.

Dallæus objects, secondly, that these wonderfully compounded words are poetic, which is openly false. Indeed, the opinion of the ancient grammarians is: « Ξέναι συνθέσεις ποιητῶν τολμήματα » (Strange compositions are the daring deeds of poets), and the ancient critics noted that poetic words are sometimes used for the elevation of discourse; but that the Ignatian ones are such is on no ^Bration asserted. Not even one word brought forward by Dallæus from our Ignatius exists, I think, in any ancient poet; nay, most of them are so compounded that they are plainly abhorrent to poetry. Where would one find « ἀξιονό-μαστος, ἀξιόθεος, ἀξιομακάριστος, θεομακάριος, θεομακαριστότατος, ἁγιοφόρος, ἀξιεπίτευκτος, πολυ-ἀγάπητος » and the like among poets? For poets in their compositions avoid the collision of short syllables, and so change shorts into longs. Moreover, in the New Testament there are not wanting words of poetic origin. S. Peter, speaking of a dog returning to its vomit, might have used « ἔμετον » from the LXX, but said « ἐξέραμα », which he seems to have drawn from some paroemiac verse, as also that « κύλισμα βορβόρου ». He also said « ἐγκομβώσασθαι »; a verb which Photius could only find among poets, namely Epicharmus and Apollodorus of Carystus. But what he may have judged concerning S. Peter, I would have those understand who treat our Ignatius so severely: « Ὁ μὲν γὰρ μακάριος καὶ κορυφαῖος Πέτρος, οὐδὲν περὶ τὴν ἐκλογὴν τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν ὀνομάτων σπουδάζων, ταύτην τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ παρείληφε γράμμα-σιν· οὐ γὰρ ἡχώ τινα καὶ τέχνην ῥημάτων, οὐδὲ λε-ξιδίων ψόφον καὶ κτύπον... ἀλλὰ ψυχῶν σωτηρίας τοῖς ἀκροαταῖς ἐνθεῖναι φροντίδα ἐτίθετο. » « For the blessed and chief Peter, laying no stress on the election of Greek names, has admitted this word ‘ἐγκομβώσασθαι’ into his own writings. For it was not an echo or artifice of words, nor the sound of vocabulary, but the salvation of souls that he had concern to instil into his hearers. »

^C But if they are not poetic, they are nonetheless rare and unusual. Perhaps. Indeed, many words of this kind are such that, at the beginning of Christianity, they could not but be unusual, since they took their origin from the Christian religion, such as « σαρκοφόρος, θεοφόρος, χριστο-φόρος, ναοφόρος, χριστώνυμος ». Very many such exist in the New Testament, which were born with the first preaching of the apostles, such as « ψευδόχριστος, ἀντίχριστος, ψευδάδελφος, κατανάθεμα ». This has also always been observed in the sects of philosophers. Zeno used very many new words; for he spoke of them as new. You will find words wonderfully compounded in a sufficiently chaste Arian writer, which were devised from the Stoics by their own doctrine, such as « μικρόδουλον, καὶ μεγαλόδουλον, θεοχόλωτοι, ὑποληψείδιον, ἀναπο-τευκτότερον, ἀπεκλεγόμενον, ἀπεριπτωτότερον », and ^D the like. Ignatius speaks as a Christian; he has words proper to his own religion, and not at all usurped by the Gentiles; which ought not to be put to his vice. Demodicus, in Plato, speaks as a farmer: « Ἐμοὶ μὲν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἢ τούτου τοῦ παιδὸς εἴτε φυτείαν, εἴτε παιδοποιίαν χρὴ φάναι. » To which words Dionysius of Halicarnassus critically observes: « Τοῦτο δὲ οὐ χρὴ νομίζειν, ὅτι μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ χρῆται ὁ Πλάτων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὰν ὁ Δημόδικος ἐργατικὸς καὶ γεωργὸς φαλ-νὰς ἀφίησι τῆς τέχνης. » « One should not think that Plato uses a grand voice, but Demodicus, as a farmer, utters words of his own art. » Nay, even the New

Covenant writers' use of words that are new, even if occasionally so, has often been observed by the ancients. Gregory of Nyssa notes ^A that S. Matthew, when he says, "do not use many words [battologēsēte]," had invented this strange and new innovation of terms, "epiousios." Origen likewise observes concerning the word "epiousios" in his as yet unpublished book *On Prayer*: "First, then, it must be known that the word 'epiousios' has not been named by any of the Greeks or the wise, nor has it been worn down in the usage of the common people, but it seems to have been fabricated by the evangelists." The same view the ancients held concerning the word "perisseuētai." And as to what is objected against our Ignatius, we read that it was objected against the most famous men and the best writers. Thus Marcellinus in his *Life of Thucydides*: "Altogether he is an inventor of new words." Of Xenophon, Suidas says, [v. Agyian]: "Altogether there are many glossematic terms in him." Galen, book 1, *On Hippocrates' De Articulis*, [says] of the same: "Glossematic [terms], however, are rare, unusual, and foreign." ^A ... ^B. Ignatius devised and used [the words] for true holiness and clearly internal [reasons]. How many are the words that Clemens Romanus brings forth [derived] from the single word "pas" in a single epistle: *pammegethēs* (all-great), *pammegethestatos* (all-greatest), *pammplēthēs* (all-numerous), *panagios* (all-holy), *panaretos* (all-virtuous), *pantokrator* (almighty), *pantokratorikos* (almighty-like), *pantopoiētēs* (all-maker), *pantepoptēs* (all-seeing).

More things of this sort, therefore, than one or two, had to be conceded by Dalleus to have been used by the best writers and in commendable works; but they are much more modest, as he himself judges, than those in the epistles. For those words which others have used are modest, while those which the epistolary writer [used] are immodest. But many, as we have shown, are the same: therefore there is equal modesty in them. Things which do not appear to have been written by others before him are certainly not immodest. For that immodesty must be said to consist either in composition or in signification. An author of epistles cannot be called immodest in [his] composition, since the same or a clearly similar composition is observed in others, and indeed in the best writers. Moreover, the signification of words, if any by chance are thought to have been invented by him, ought not to be judged immodest if the thing itself denoted by these names has been handed down by the sacred writers. S. Paul teaches that Christ dwells in the saints 51: Ignatius therefore called them *christophoroi* (Christ-bearers) and in the same sense. The same apostle hands down that the bodies of the saints are temples of the Holy Spirit 52: wherefore our [Ignatius] called them *naophoroi* (temple-bearers). The Apostle shows that the impious, while they live, are dead 53: he [Ignatius] names them *nekrophoroi* (death-bearers) in the Christian sense, whereas the Greeks understood "libitinarii" (undertakers) by that word. S. Paul warned Christians to live worthily of God 54, and those who have so lived Ignatius calls *axiotheous* (worthy of God). What, I pray, is the immodesty in these words, if you look at the thing itself and the signification? Absolutely none. It appears, finally, from these words, so greatly maligned, that there is nothing poetic, nothing immodest; and that such an accusation falls not upon the author, but upon the Christian, who was new, and, as Tertullian speaks, "of yesterday," compared to Ignatius, and brought forth new words.

It is asked why he has so many [compounds] from one word, as from "pherō" and "axios," when no composition is more frequent and worn out among the best and common writers of Greece. *Axiagapētos* (worthy of love) [appears] in Ignatius, but also in Clemens Romanus; *axiothaumastos* (worthy of wonder), *axiomnēmoneutos* (worthy of mention), *axioprepestatos* (most worthy of respect), *axiomakaristotatos* (most worthy of blessing), *axiēpainetos* (worthy of praise), *axiērastos* (worthy of love) [are found] in our [Ignatius], but [also] in Xenophon; in whom we find these things besides: *axiagaptos*, *axiakoustos* (worthy of hearing), *axiakroatos* (worthy of listening to), *axiēpaineos*, *axiērastos*, *axiobiōtos* (worthy of life), *axioergos* (worthy of work), *axiotheatos* (worthy of sight), *axioktētos* (worthy of possession), *axiologōteros* (more worthy of mention), *axionikos* (worthy of victory), *axiopistos* (worthy of faith), *axioskeptos* (worthy of consideration), *axiospoudastos* (worthy of study), *axiotekmartos* (worthy of proof), *axiofilētos* (worthy of love), *axiochreōtatos* (most worthy of obligation). [He is] pure in names, and clear, and manifest, "bearing..." ^B. [Since they] are everywhere [as] *anthesphoroi* (flower-bearers), *arrhēphoroi* (secret-bearers), *daphnēphoroi* (laurel-bearers), *deipnophoroi* (feast-bearers), *dionysiophoroi* (Dionysus-bearers), *diphrophoroi* (chair-bearers), *errhēphoroi*, *ersiphoroi* (dew-bearers), *oschophoroi* (branch-bearers), *thallophoroi* (bough-bearers), *thesmophoroi* (law-bearers), *ierophoroi* (holy-bearers), *kanēphoroi* (basket-bearers), *kistophoroi* (chest-bearers), *liknophoroi* (winnowing-fan-bearers), *loutrophoroi* (bath-bearers), *narthēkophoroi* (wand-bearers), *peplophoroi* (robe-bearers), *pyrophoroi* (fire-bearers), *skaphēphoroi* (trough-bearers), *skirophoroi* (umbrella-bearers), *stephanēphoroi* (crown-bearers), *udriaphoroi* (water-jar-bearers), *udrophoroi* (water-bearers), *phosphoroi* (light-bearers). ^C *Theophoroi* (God-bearers), and *naophoroi*, *christophoroi*, *hagnophoroi* (purity-bearers), *holoteleis* (wholly complete), and *holoklēron* (whole), *philanthrōpotatos* (most philanthropic), and *philomathestatos* (most fond of learning), and *philotimotatos* (most ambitious). But [he says] *under Criseus the philosopher and boaster...* for it is not worthy to call the man a philosopher. And as I said before, not a philosopher, but a man fond of glory is shown, who [is] not even [that which] the Socratic, being worthy of love, [is]. ^D When he has argued so poorly about the individual words, let us see if he has argued better about the compounds. He has observed four of his compound words in one sentence, and thought they would cause nausea, being a man of "cleansed nose" [discerning], as it seems, [at] how many words of the same composition are uttered at once. But the Apostle put two together [1 Thess. v. 23]; three Xenophon [and] Justin Martyr, *Apologia* I: *Kan hupo Krisentos tou philosopou kai filokompou*... [and] straightway: "As I said before, not a philosopher but a man fond of glory is shown, who is not even that Socratic [trait] which is worthy of love..."

^A Gregory Nazianzen: "The equal in honor, and the equal in mind, and the equal in soul." Elsewhere: "And the poor are lovers of the poor, and the strangers are lovers of the stranger, and brothers are lovers of the brother." Again: "Both are lovers of youths and lovers of Christ, or rather, most paradoxically, lovers of Christ and lovers of youths." Simplicius has four together in his commentary on Epictetus: "This one will be a lover of pleasure, and this one a lover of money, and another a lover of music and a lover of wisdom." Clement of Rome: "Not all are governors, nor chiliarchs, nor centurions, nor pentacontarchs." Epictetus himself, in Stobaeus, lists five: "No one is a lover of money and a lover of pleasure, and a lover of glory, and a lover of mankind, but only the lover of the beautiful."

Thus far the most learned man has advanced nothing with his arguments; let us see what he can achieve by conjectures. "The reason," he says, "why he has sought these [terms] so greedily and so studiously is not obscure. Doubtless he who feigned the great man (if we are to believe the one who invented the feigner himself) thought that speech constructed of such words—whether ancient, or rare, or grand, or daring—would provide some semblance of Ignatian magnitude." A truly excellent fabrication, and worthy of a diviner! For why? Could the Ignatian magnitude, formed from grand speech, and the fortitude of the most holy martyr, composed of daring words, seem [to be such] to anyone? Or did anyone think that he rushed with a brave and eager spirit to the mouths of the fiercest beasts because he called Christians "Theophori," or "Christophori," or "Naophori," or because he wrote "praupatheia" [gentleness of suffering], or "bebaiosyne" [steadfastness], or "akauchēsia" [absence of boasting] in his letters with incredible audacity? Most of these things, indeed, have been noted by Blondell; but he [did so] to purge them as rotten leaven from Ignatius; for he was not so insane as to say that these were devised to provide a semblance of Ignatian magnitude. We have proven above that these are not grand words; and the frequent use of them by the most polished writers testifies to the same thing. But that some feigner used them—which he thought were ancient, and rare in his own time—exceeds all amazement. Could a feigner, or a mushroom, have been able to devise these, so that Ignatius, whom he wished to feign, would seem to be one of the ancients? When I hear "ancient," Ulysses and Nestor roam before my eyes, whose age preceded the Ignatian century by almost 1,200 years, "as he once said." Or does he speak "a thousand years ago," as Lucian says? Or does he speak of the "Twelve Tables," as Seneca says? "The sordidness of the words, and the gaping composition, and the disjointed senses, smack of antiquity;" but what kind? Not the age of Trajan. But those [terms] could not have seemed ancient to the feigner. Some of them, perhaps, could have been called new then, as having arisen after Christianity, but clearly none were ancient. He accused these same [terms] earlier as being new, now he rails against them as ancient; and he does not show from those which are new, or which seem ancient. Truly, a feigner could not attribute "Theophoron," "Christophoron," and the like to Ignatius as ancient and unusual, since writers after Ignatius, but before Eusebius, used them.

^B But could Ignatius not have been? Do only impostors and feigners use words newly and beyond the custom of others? He was a traveling sophist, then, not Thucydides, who used words passim usurped by others in a new way, and beyond the custom of others. How many Greek writers are there who have received some words otherwise than they are received by others? You will scarcely name any ancient, even the most renowned authors, whom grammarians have not observed to have used some words in a particular sense. But what, and how many are those words used passim, which our author has used newly? Only two: *physis* and *adō*; for the third, *archein*, belongs to the feigner. But *physis*, as it is a most trite word, is always taken in a varied meaning among the best writers, even Christian and sacred ones. Whence a commentary by some anonymous person has been compiled, which exists in manuscript in the Vienna Library, according to Lambecius, with this title: "In how many ways *physis* is used in Holy Scripture." How, I ask, does *physis* signify in Epiphanius, heresy 31, where he says: "Having arrived at Cyprus, having suffered a shipwreck in body, he swerved from the faith"? Certainly Petavius did not see it, when he translated it thus: "But being brought to Cyprus, having suffered a shipwreck of faith, as it were of the body, he suffered there." What a little later? "I, however, have written down those things which I thought were necessary by nature to bring to light." Petavius, for his part, again omitted: "I, however, have proposed only those things which I thought ought to be brought into the medium." ^C What, finally, in heresy 51? "Since they do not receive by nature the books handed down from the holy John." "But since they reject absolutely all John's books." Thus, finally, Petavius; but is it correct? But our Ignatius, he says, has abused the name of "nature"; attaching to it some meaning I know not what, abstruse and removed from common usage. He brings forward a place from the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which, indeed, the interpreters toil to extricate. I could likewise bring forward a place from St. Paul, 1 Cor. xi, 14, concerning which most learned men not only toil but struggle. But there is no need: for Dallaeus here uses the most open fallacy. "You possess the dearly beloved name by nature..."—the words which he recites are indeed ours, but ^D the interpreters do not toil to extricate them. The interpolator substituted *polyapotheton* for *polyagapēton* at his own discretion; whence Usserius and Junius, not having seen the true reading, argued too subtly about the etymology of the Ephesians; which, indeed, rightly pleased Isaac Vossius less. That there was no doubt on either side as to what *physei dikaig* was; each Latin translator rendered it "natural justice"; thus all sweat is wiped away from the word *physis*. To the Trallians he uses the word again, "not by custom, but by nature," that is, "according to habit"; for by habit the habit is naturalized, as Clement of Alexandria says. These things are stated quite openly and elegantly; which, however, the censor wants to be considered archaic and wondrous, although they are clearly vulgar.

And they are of common usage. In the most ancient epistle of Barnabas: ^A “I am exceedingly gladdened by your blessed and glorious spirits, because you have thus received the natural gift;” and yet he immediately adds, “because I truly see the spirit poured into you from the noble fountain of God.” Gregory Nazianzen, in Oration 13: “Every good thing, confirmed by time and reason, passes into nature, just as the love which is in us.” He also used the word ᾄδειν (to sing) not in its common and legitimate sense, but in a poetic one, to mean “to celebrate.” Grammarians, such as Ammonius, recognize this double sense: “ᾄδειν sometimes signifies to chant, at other times to proclaim.” But that one meaning belongs to poetry and the other to prose, no one, I believe, has yet remarked. ^B And so common is the use of ᾄδειν for “to celebrate” among writers of every sort, that it is shameful to bring forward examples in so well-known a matter. Dallæus objects to our Ignatius that he uses rare and obscure words so frequently that you would believe he did not write his epistles any differently than Alexarchus, the brother of Cassander, once wrote; whose epistle exists in Athenæus, book III, which critics thought not even the Pythian could understand, just as Dallæus calls the Ignatian epistles the ancient oracles of the Loxian Apollo. The inscription of that epistle is thus conceived in Athenæus: Ἀλέξαρχος ὁ μάρμων προμοις γαθεῖν. Casaubon observes that in the manuscript, instead of μάρμων, one should read μάρχων, and he thinks μάρχων signifies emperor, or king; he confirms this conjecture with the words of Hesychius: “Mápxos, a mandate.” All of this is most unfortunate. For Alexarchus was neither an emperor nor a king; nor does μάρχος signify a mandate in Greek. Those words of Hesychius, like many others, were transcribed from an old lexicon in which proper names from the New Testament were quite ineptly related to Hebrew origins. Among others, in Jerome, which are gathered from the Acts, ^C “Marcus, a mandate.” Such things are found in Hesychius: “Petrus, loosening, recognizing;” in Jerome, “Petrus, recognizing,” and again: “Petrus, recognizing or dissolving.” In whom also, “Priscilla, recognizing; Pyrrhus, dissolving.” Whence, after much, he rightly concludes: “I think it is clear to the reader how violently all these Greek or Latin names have been interpreted according to the Hebrew language.” Therefore, I do not believe that ὁ μάρμων, nor ὁ μάρχων, pertains to Alexarchus. But it seems it should be read as one word, ὁμαίμων. The epistle is addressed, as Athenæus observes, to the Κασσανδρέων ἄρχοντας, the “magistrates of the Cassandrenses,” and he calls them ὁμαίμων πρόμους, “the magistrates or leaders of one's kin,” for πρόμοι are those who stand at the front; but he calls the Cassandrenses his kin, because he himself was the brother of King Cassander, who founded Cassandria. Therefore, this inscription sounds thus: “Alexarchus to the magistrates of his kin to rejoice,” for γαθεῖν is the same as χαίρειν. Which in the common Greek language is expressed thus: Ἀλέξαρχος Κασσανδρέων ἄρχουσι χαίρειν. ^D Concerning the “wondrous manner of the nexus of words,” the most learned man has argued at length, and he thinks that he contributes much to that which the writer “aspires to in his pomp.” But let us see what it is that our Ignatius speaks of so pompously. “He called the Gospel the flesh of Christ.” How pompously! “Taking refuge in the Gospel as the flesh of Christ.” He did not use these words to say explicitly that the Gospel is the flesh of Christ, but he warns us to flee to the Gospel as if to the flesh of Christ. Did Christ call himself a thief when he spoke these things: “I come to you as a thief,” meaning, “I come to you in the way that a thief is accustomed to come”? Did St. John call the moon blood when he wrote, “The moon was made as blood”? Or when Polycarp orders the Philippians to be subject to the presbyters and deacons, as to God and Christ, ^D did he call the presbyter God, or the deacon Christ? By no means. He denotes some likeness. He flees to the Gospel, just as if he were fleeing to the incarnate Christ; for in it are depicted the incarnation, the life, and the passion of Christ. He does indeed call the flesh of Christ the faith, and the blood of Christ the charity—not singularly, not miraculously, not prodigiously; for this is nothing other than to place the entire power and efficacy of the Christian religion in faith and charity. He exhorts them to obey the bishop, so that their union may be carnal and spiritual; that is, that they may not only come together in the same Church in body, but also cultivate unity in their souls and sentiments. He monitors Polycarp to defend his place, that is, to maintain the authority he held in the Church, with every carnal and spiritual care; which ought to seem strange to no one who reads these things of St. Paul: “I buffet my body.” He wishes Christian women to be admonished so that they are content with their husbands in flesh and spirit; that is, that they may not desire other men not only carnally, but also in their mind, as Isaac Vossius rightly observes. Our Ignatius spoke to the same effect in his epistle to the Ephesians; but Dallæus cut off the words so that they might appear more obscure: “remain in Christ carnally and spiritually.” He quotes the passage just as he found it lauded by the most deceitful Blondell. But the whole sentence is: “In all chastity and temperance remain in Jesus Christ carnally and spiritually.” The ancient interpreter: “In all chastity and temperance remain in Jesus Christ, carnally and spiritually.” But what else did he say by these words than what St. Paul says in 2 Cor. vii, 1: “Let us cleanse ourselves from all pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God”? Therefore, these things are not obscure, but sufficiently clear, nor are examples of the locution to be sought from elsewhere, where the words so well agree with the diction and sentiment of St. Paul. Although, what is there in these locutions of Ignatius that is more wondrous or obscure than those words of Tertullian, De cultu feminarum II, cap. 9: “We are the circumcision of all, spiritual and carnal; for we are circumcised in spirit and in flesh from the world”? I do not say that Dallæus... episcopacy and...

has blinded the hatred of the hierarchy, lest it see these things; I say this: that a preconceived opinion concerning some inept author has hindered him from investigating the mind of the author, or from noticing that there was in his words the best meaning, and one worthy of such a man. ^A Moreover, he calls his chains spiritual pearls; this relates to the

glory

But he calls the Ephesians the stones of the temple, borne to the heights, he says, through the cross of Christ, as if by some machine, using the Holy Spirit as if it were a rope, with faith as the transporter. These things, of course, are new and absurd. Perhaps these seemed new when Ignatius was writing them, when the Christian religion was considered recent; how they can now be called new, how they can be called absurd, I do not see. Who has not said that the saints are stones of the temple of God after St. Peter, I Ep. 2, 5: “And you yourselves, as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house”? Nor does Dallæus deny this; but it is new and absurd that these should be carried to the heights by a machine. Certainly, to be carried to the heights by a machine is not new, but customary in all places and at all times. But that such stones as the Ephesians were—that is, the saints—should be carried to the heights was perhaps seen as new and absurd.

^A Certainly, it did not seem so to Chrysostom, who judged that the very chains of the saints belonged to such machines. Concerning the chain of St. Paul, he writes in Homily 8 on the Ephesians: «Αὕτη τοὺς δεδεμένους, καθάπερ διά τινος μηχανῆς ἕλκει πρὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν, καὶ ὥσπερ χρυσή σειρά ἐξαρτηθεῖσα ἀνέλκει πρὸς αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανόν. This draws those who are bound as if by a machine toward heaven, and, as a golden cord suspended, draws them up to heaven itself.» But cannot the cross be called such a machine? Tertullian, *Ad nationes*, bk. 1, ch. 18: «If Regulus had not yet bargained with any of you for a machine to fasten the body to the cross.» Was this not obvious to anyone who had read what Christ said: *If I be lifted up from the earth*, that is, if I ascend the machine of the cross, *I will draw all things to myself* (John XII, 32). But how does God draw, if not by the cords of Adam, and the bonds of charity? But who are these cords? Certainly, God draws men to Himself by the Spirit. What, therefore, is absurd or new in this? Is it not better said that God draws us through the Spirit, than that we draw through the Spirit of God? And yet Gregory Nazianzen did not fear to say: «Πνεύματι στοιχούντες, τούτῳ τὴν γνῶσιν ἕλκοντες. Walking in the Spirit, and drawing knowledge through Him.» The gifts of grace, or the Spirit of the Holy Spirit, are often spoken of: these ought to be counted among the benefits and at the same time likened to cords, by which we are most effectively drawn to God. Regarding the wonderful salutation, there is no need for me to respond. For it is not established that the latter part of the sentence refers to the salutation, since it can also be referred to what follows. But if anyone wishes to refer it rather to the former, the salutation will not appear absurd even then. For the Apostle salutes not only in the name of Christ, but also in Christ, or in the Lord; and Christ is most excellently explained by His nature and by those things which He did and suffered in the flesh. To which he adds *in unity*. For, as it is most excellently observed concerning St. Paul by Chrysostom: «Ἀεὶ συνάγει καὶ συγκολλᾷ τὰ μέλη διὰ τοῦ ἀσπασμοῦ. He always joins and glues together the members through the salutation.» Nor should the salutation made in the resurrection seem strange, since the most ancient Christians were accustomed to salute one another with these words, «Christ is risen».

CHAPTER XV.

In chapter 28, he tries to prove that the author of the epistles was an impostor, from the imitation of St. Paul, which he calls a "bad ambition"; but why a man who is apostolic and a martyr should imitate St. Paul, and why he who followed him in life and death could not also follow him in speech, I do not see. I confess, indeed, that the writer of the epistles ^B adhered closely to the footsteps of St. Paul, which he even wished might happen to him in heaven, in the epistle to the Ephesians: «Ὅς γένοιτό μοι ὑπὸ τὰ ἴχνη εὑρεθῆναι ὅτ' ἂν Θεοῦ ἐπιτύχω. Whose lot it may be for me to be found under his footsteps, when I shall attain to God.» Which words of our Ignatius the Smyrneans imitated without bad ambition in the *Martyrdom of St. Polycarp*: «Οὗ γένοιτο ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ πρὸς τὰ ἴχνη εὑρεθῆναι ἡμᾶς. Whose lot it may be for us to be found at his footsteps in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.» I acknowledge that our Ignatius had converted the sense and mind of St. Paul into juice and blood, that he had him counted even in imprisonment, and that he expressed him everywhere in speech and mind; but I judge that this much more befits a holy man and martyr, such as the apostle himself was, than any forger or impostor. The whole dispute is about the manner of imitation, whether the writer so imitated the Apostle that he could not be that Ignatius, but rather betrayed himself as guilty of imposture by a desire for bad imitation. I contend that he imitated the apostolic epistles so well that we may deservedly judge him an apostolic man, to whom the writings of the Apostles were so deeply and marrow-deeply impressed; but that he did so poorly, so absurdly, that it appears from that he was an impostor, as the adversaries wish, I absolutely deny. The truth of our assertion will be shown by a commentary in which all things of St. Ignatius are referred to their origins, and particularly conferred with the words and sentences of St. Paul; if ever an opportunity for completing and editing it should offer itself. In the meantime, I will examine the Dalmatian conjectures as they present themselves, and expose their weakness.

First, *onaimeen* used so often by him smells of an impostor. But St. Paul uses this word once, and indeed in the Epistle to Philemon, where it treats of Onesimus. Wherefore, since Theodore Beza so much recommended the "learned conjecture of Perrott, his colleague," who thought that Paul was alluding by this word to the very name of Onesimus: it is a wonder that our Ignatius uses that word not only in the epistle to the Ephesians, where he makes mention of Onesimus their bishop, but also more often elsewhere. But that word *onaimeen* was always sufficiently worn among the Greeks. In Hesychius it is read: *Onemonos*, worthy of use. Sophenius thinks *Onesimos* should be read, and cites the Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy. But the ancients are not to be understood in this way. For who does not see that instead of *Onemonos* one should read *oneemenos*, Odyssey B, 33: «Ἐσθλός μοι δοκεῖ ἔμμεν' ὀνήμενος, He seems to me to be a noble man who is benefited,» when the explanation of Hesychius, *that he might receive benefit*, exists in the old Scholiast in that place? Certainly, one should not always look to Onesimus or to the place of St. Paul as often as that word is treated. Long before, Euripides in *Orestes*: «Ὄναιο καὶ σὺ, καὶ ὁ διδοὺς ἐγώ. May you also be benefited, as well as he who gives.» Whence Aulus Gellius, bk. XIV, ch. 6: «*Onaio sy*, I say, most learned of men, this much...»

^A *Onaio* is not *Onaisou*, as it is written incorrectly now. Euripides, in *Hippolytus*:

*Ona-sthai*, do not wish to learn.

Whence Hesychius: *Ona-sthai*, to be benefited.

Suidas, under the word *Onaimen*, cites this verse: "For I myself also, may I thus enjoy my children."

But in Aristophanes, whence it was transcribed, it reads *Onoimen*, in the *Thesmophoriazusae*:

"For I myself also, may I thus enjoy my children, I hate that man, unless I am mad."

Whence it can be understood that the entry in Hesychius is mutilated, where he has *Ona-sthai* [and] *homoios*. For the word *Onoimen* is missing along with its explanation.

Thus Admestus addresses Alcestis in Euripides: "Children are enough; but their enjoyment I pray May be from the gods; for we do not enjoy you anymore."

Satis liberorum; horum fruitionem precor Deos mihi contingere; te enim non amplius fruimur.

This is truly an old and commonly worn-out form of expression, "may I enjoy someone." Synesius, a most accurate imitator of the ancient Attic writers, Epistle 44: "May I thus enjoy sacred philosophy, and furthermore my children, in such a way that I would not have advised anything of this kind to you, who are not my dearest friend, which I would pray against for my enemies." Thus may I enjoy sacred philosophy and my children, so that I would not have consulted anything of this kind for you, unless you were my greatest friend, which I pray against my enemies. Regarding children especially, and most cherished things or persons, the ancient Greeks used this form of speech, as is evident from Euripides, Aristophanes, ^B Synesius, and also from Lucian, who has these things in his *Philopseudes*: "And Eucrates, as if reminded at the sight of his sons, 'May I thus enjoy these,' he said, placing his hand upon them, 'O Tychiades, that I speak the truth to you.'" And Eucrates, as if he had called these things into memory from the sight of his sons: "May I thus enjoy these," he said, laying his hand upon them, "that I speak the truth to you, O Tychiades." Saint Paul used this most accepted form of speaking to Philemon, and, as it were, donated it to Christianity: "May I enjoy you in the Lord." In which locution "something much different is understood than is thought," as Jerome observes. Therefore, Ignatius used it as something sufficiently familiar, and moreover, used by Saint Paul. But why did he use it so often, when Saint Paul used it only once? The same apostle uses the word *agathopoiein* once; Clement of Rome, four times in one epistle; Saint Peter uses the word *megaloprepes* once, and Clement used it six times in the same epistle; namely, as often, just as our Ignatius... ^A ...*Onaimen*, which Dallaeus, with remarkable license, said was «used six hundred times» by him.

Nor does the censure of Arruntius in Seneca take anything away from the dignity of our writer. He imitated Sallust, and did so badly. But first, Sallust had written badly before him according to the opinion of Seneca, and therefore Arruntius did not act well, who so studiously followed those things that were said badly by Sallust. The words of Seneca are: "You see, however, what follows, where a vice serves as an example for someone." Thus Helladius among Photius notes the *kakozelous* (badly affected) expressions of Euphorion, not indeed "not to be imitated," as the interpreter says, but "proceeding from bad affectation"; for he imitated (parazelosen) the first Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, "who imitated Dionysius the first, tyrant of Sicily," who devised many *katagelasta* (laughable) words. But Saint Paul used the word *Onaimen* excellently; he adapted the common and familiar speech of the Greeks to the Christian religion in an excellent manner, and excellently showed how one ought to enjoy those who are most dear to us, namely, in the Lord, or as our Ignatius says, "in God." Neither, therefore, should Saint Paul be held in the place of Sallust here, ^B nor the writer of the epistles [be held] in the place of Arruntius. Secondly, if the writer had badly imitated Saint Paul, it in no way follows that he was not a man both pious and grave, and entirely such as everyone believes Saint Ignatius to have been. For thus Seneca says of his Arruntius: "These vices, therefore, and similar ones which imitation has impressed upon someone, are not indications of luxury, nor of a corrupt mind. For they ought to be proper and born from the person himself, from which you might estimate the affections of someone." For he took careful precaution that no one should judge badly of the virtues or morals of Arruntius; whom he himself calls a man of rare frugality, who was the true author of the History of the Punic War, from which Plinius admits to have profited, whom Piso sought in danger as the best orator, whom Tacitus named before Asinius Gallus and Marcellus Aserninus, whom Augustus, solicitous about his successor, judged not unworthy of the empire; which man was held as such among the Romans, not like the impostor Dallaeus, but rather like Saint Ignatius among our own. Thirdly, we do not know of anyone who afterwards imitated either Sallust or Arruntius in this way: but very great men have imitated our writer as the [standard of] best, even in this very thing. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, in an epistle to Alexander of Constantinople: "May I enjoy your God-loving soul." Saint Chrysostom, in his Panegyrical Oration, praises these words of Ignatius most highly, as if they were illustrious: "May I enjoy those wild beasts," and since he himself was by no means ^C an imitator of bad affectation (*kakozelos*), he attempted to imitate those things [of Ignatius], with the words which we produced a little earlier, "May I enjoy those bonds."

To produce another example of *kakozelia*, he fabricates many things. The Apostle had said that he had his Timothy as *isopsychon* (like-minded). This is not even true. "No one," says Saint Paul, "[is] *isopsychon*." But does he who says he has no one as *isop*...

isopsychon* have to be thought to have said he had his Timothy as *isopsychon*? But whether Saint Paul had an *isopsychon*, or did not have one, what has this to do with the Ignatius letters? Indeed, the latter, taken by the form of the composition, formed ^A *antipsychon* after the same model, i.e., *antipsychon*. Or did he form this word, which was most ancient? Or is the word formed after the same model, which has a preposition in place of a noun? Or has he simply emulated that *isopsychon* of Paul, since the word *antipsychon* is of an entirely different meaning? That he wishes to show these two words signify [the same thing], he intends, with respect to Saint Paul, *isopsychon* to be "unanimous," and he notes that the ancient interpreter of Ignatius renders *antipsychon* in that way. Both are in vain. For neither does *isopsychon* signify "unanimous" in his [Paul's] usage, nor does *antipsychon* in the other's. The ancient interpreter of Saint Paul translated it as "unanimous," which is one thing, and Beza much better [as] "with equal spirit affected," ^B who thinks others are compared with Timothy, which Heinsius undeservedly mocks. For whether Saint Paul wishes *isopsychon* to refer to Timothy, or to himself, or to both (as Clement of Alexandria seems to have understood, *Strom.*, lib. IV: "Similarly also writing concerning Timothy and himself: 'For I have no one,' he says, *isopsychon*," [he means] a man similarly affected toward the Philippians, and pursuing their condition with equal care, as the following things demonstrate. The excellent interpreter Chrysostom rightly: "For I have no one *isopsychon*," that is, of those who care for me in the same way, and again: "Instead of one who cares for you and is concerned for you in the same way as I." Therefore, although it may be thought that Saint Paul looked to Psalm 54:14, where the ancient interpreter rendered it *anthrope isopsyche*, "man of one soul," whom the author of the Glossaries followed. However, the Apostle, who knew Hebrew no less than Greek, approved of that use of the Greek word which was most conformable to the Hebrew, namely, [according to the sense] "according to my proportion, according to my comparison, according to my estimation," to which notion this *isopsychon* answers best: "endowed with equal spirit or affection." But if *isopsychon* is taken for "unanimous," certainly *antipsychon* in our Ignatius ought not to be taken in that way. He speaks as a martyr, and says he will place his life in their stead, whence he also adds "bonds." To the Smyrnaeans: "My spirit is an *antipsychon* for you, and my bonds." To Polycarp: "I am an *antipsychon* for you in all things, and the bonds which you have loved." In the former place ^C the Usserian interpreter poorly rendered it "conformable," in the latter "refreshment." To the Ephesians: "I am an *antipsychon* for you," again the interpreter poorly: "I am unanimous with you." Since it is put in the neuter gender, it plainly sounds something else, namely, that it is the same as *antilytron* (ransom). Thus to Polycarp: "I am an *antipsychon* of those who are subject to the bishop, the presbyters, the deacons." Our author always uses the neuter gender, the interpolator or forger sometimes the masculine. What is understood by this word is best expressed by the words of Saint John in Clement of Alexandria: "I will willingly endure your death, as the Lord [did] for us; I will give my soul instead of your soul." "I will willingly sustain your death, as the Lord sustained death for us: I will give my soul as a substitute for you." Certainly, *antididonai* (to give in return) *ten psychen* (the soul) is the same as *einai* (to be) *antipsychon*. Which is described as having been done by the rhetorician Lycurgus, to have exchanged his own soul instead of the common salvation. Such an *antipsychon* is described to have been Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, among Euripides, who underwent death in the place of her husband. Which is expressed by the poet in two ways.

For first Alcestis thus addresses Admetus: *Having honored you, and having placed this light to be seen instead of my soul, I die.* I, making you honored, and causing you to enjoy this light instead of my life, I die. Then Admetus thus addresses Alcestis: *But you, having given [those things] dearest instead of my soul, have saved me.* But you, having given those things which you held dearest for my life, have saved me.

In both ways, however, *antipsychon* is openly described. Concerning Christ Himself, Saint Athanasius in the book *On the Incarnation of the Word*: "For since the Word of God was above all, He rightly, bringing His own temple and bodily instrument [as] an *antipsychon* for all, fulfilled what was owed in death." ^D "When the Word of God was above all, righteously setting His own temple and corporeal instrument as an *antipsychon* for all, He fulfilled the debt in death." Which he said later in other words: "Giving His own temple to death instead of all," meaning "giving His own temple to death for all," and before: "Giving Him to death instead of all." The same again on page 91: "This is the life of all, and who as a sheep instead of the salvation of all [gave] his own body as an *antipsychon* to death." "This is the life of all, who as a sheep for the salvation of all delivered his body as an *antipsychon* unto death." This, therefore, is what Christ said, that He would lay down His soul for the sheep; He gave as *antilytron*, so also *antipsychon*. But as this was said properly and significantly concerning Christ, so also it was accustomed to be used in its own way for others, and especially for martyrs. Certainly Origen, in the ninth volume on John, considering the excellence of the sacrifice of Christ, says: "But the remaining offerings of blood of the noble martyrs appear to me to be related to this sacrifice." "But other effusions of the blood of noble martyrs appear to me to be related to this sacrifice." Where he compares them to those who, among the Gentiles, delivered themselves to death for the common salvation of men, when pestilential diseases had invaded their country. "And the faithful Clement, testified to by Paul, admits that these things happened in this way, not irrationally believing the histories." "And the faithful Clement admits that these things happened not without cause, believing the histories (not the Scriptures, as the interpreter poorly [has it])." The passage of Clement which Origen looked to is this: "That we may also bring forward examples of the Gentiles..."

many kings and governors, warned by an oracle when a pestilence was raging, have delivered themselves to death that they might deliver their citizens by their own blood." I have brought these forward incidentally, because I have not seen them observed by the editors of Clement or Origen. ^A Origen proceeds: "For if these things are not vainly recorded by the Greeks, and those things are well said concerning the martyrs, who became the purgaments of the world and were called [peripsema] (offscouring) of all because of these things, what must be thought and how great is that which must be thought concerning the Lamb of God who was on this account sacrificed, that He might take away the sin of not a few, but of the whole world, for which He also suffered?" Where he takes [peripsema] in the same way as others, as Hesychius, or as [antipsuchon] (a soul in place of a soul). Likewise Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, concerning a grievous pestilence: "And many who had cared for others as they were sick and had restored them to health, themselves perished, transferring the death of those others upon themselves, and so fulfilling that popular saying, which had hitherto seemed to be only an expression of kindness, really at that time fulfilling it, departing this life as their [peripsema]." Not that Christians were commonly called by this name by the Gentiles, as Valesius pleases: for that would have been a term of reproach, whereas this is said to be a word of benevolence or courtesy: not that it was used commonly only by the Alexandrians, but that it was a vulgar and popular proverb, as is evident from Suidas and Michael the Apostle. ^B No more, therefore, did Ignatius call himself [unanimous], when..., than when he called himself [peripsema]. This word sounds altogether different to the Greeks. Certainly, they were not unanimous, the birds of Memnon, of which Hesychius speaks: those, namely, of which Ovid says (*Metam.*, lib. xiii): "Two different peoples rise with hostile rage, And join in battle on the dusty stage; With beak and talons their own blood they shed, And offer up their lives to appease the dead; They fall, and on the tomb the bodies lie, The funeral rites of kin who bleed and die." So in Lucian, money is given as an [antipsuchon], that is, for the ransoming of a soul, or life. There was also a custom among the Romans that some would devote themselves to death for the safety of the emperor. Suetonius on Caligula: "But when he had fallen into a bad state of health, there were not wanting those who pledged themselves in arms for the safety of the sick man, and who devoted their own heads by a published notice." These were called by the Greeks, Dio lib. lix: P. Afranius Potitus, a plebeian, who, led by foolish adulation, had bound himself not only willingly, but also by oath, that if Gaius recovered he would die; and one Atanius Secundus, a knight, who had promised that he would fight in the gladiatorial games, so that (because they wanted to give up their life for his soul) they were compelled to fulfill their promise, lest they be guilty of perjury. ^C Thus S. Chrysostom, homily on the Colossians, contrasting the man renewed by baptism with the first created: "He is formed in the water, but receives for his soul the spirit." The same in his oration against the Jews: "One soul, once gained, can take away the burden of thousands of sins, and be an [antipsuchon] for us on that day for our expiation." Another [antipsuchon], therefore, which S. Paul took from the Septuagint interpreters: another which the Apostle never used, but which was commonly used by the Greeks; therefore, there is no imitation here in any way. The remaining things that are brought forward from the Apostle toward the same meaning, are of no value to confirm the Ignatian phraseology.

Chapter 29, he pursues the argument, and if it could be, more unhappily. "He had said," he says, "S. Paul that he was the least of the apostles, and the least of all the saints, once, namely, and again." Our author has filled almost all his epistles with these and similar expressions. But this is openly false. For he neither filled his epistles with these or similar expressions. ^D Ignatius did not use these expressions; he does not speak so even once. With a similar word, if indeed it be similar, he uses it only once, in the epistle to the Magnesians, and that word he could have drawn not from S. Paul, but from S. Matthew or S. Luke. All the remaining things which he cites from Ignatius pertain either to other words of the Apostle, or to other places entirely, and cannot in any way be referred to an imitation of Pauline modesty. "I am not worthy to be called an Apostle," he said; the Apostle said, "I am not worthy to be called an Apostle." But here Daillé is much more sagacious than the interpolator, who noticed no danger here for Ignatius, and therefore for "worthy," he substituted "if I am worthy to be called bishop," as if Ignatius...

to be called bishop, so that Ignatian words might appear to answer more to Pauline ones. ^A His “I am,” with which some one is (once used by our [author], and indeed in the Epistle to the Ephesians—for those passages brought forth from the Epistle to the Tarsians and Philippians pertain to a forger), contains no imitation of the Apostle; but rather, it strikes at the disciples of Simon, who said “he himself was some great one” (Acts viii, 9), just as Theudas before him had said “he himself was some one” (Acts v, 35). But that expression in the Epistle to the Romans, “I am,” pertains to something else, namely, to the future glory from martyrdom, as is evident from the words joined to it: “If I should attain to God.” In that passage, he indeed openly imitates the Apostle, “For I am not worthy, being the least of them and an untimely birth,” but he merely uses his words, accepting them for himself in a different sense, which was most appropriate to his own condition. The Apostle speaks of the time of his calling, that Christ appeared to him as to one who was “the last,” or in the last place after all the apostles and even the brethren, for he was born out of due time, and therefore scarcely worthy of the name of Apostle, because he had persecuted the Church. Our [author] speaks not of his calling, but of his condemnation, by which he was cut off from the Antiochian people, and, having become the lowest of them, was extracted from the Church and led to punishment, nor did he obtain any mercy other than that he might enjoy God through martyrdom. ^B Regarding secret matters and children, we have already spoken before. But that he should object to our [author] that statement of the Apostle, “Grant me this injury,” and [claim] that it is affected and for the sake of oratorical display, I am surprised. Gregory Nazianzen, a very pure writer, has used the same form quite often. In Oration 25: “But if, being pressed by tyranny, I endure, do I therefore do wrong? Grant me this injury.” And in Oration 32: “If these things have been grievous, they have passed away; grant me this injury.” But our [author] has not even used this form, nor said anything like it. There is irony in the Apostle, and indeed manifest (as also in Nazianzen), with which he harshly rebukes the Corinthians; “with great gravity he placed the rebuke, and the more burdensome part,” says Chrysostom. There is at Ignatius’s hands no commemoration of a benefit, no mention of injury, and perhaps not even of pardon. ^C *Suggnomoneite* (“be indulgent”) both to the Trallians and to the Romans, but rather “acquiesce, give way to my opinion,” *suggnomones moi este* (“be of the same mind with me”), to the Romans especially, *suggnomoneite moi, me empodistete moi zein* (“be of one mind with me, do not hinder me from living”). If we translate *suggnomoneite* as “pardon,” not even then does it answer to the Pauline “grant me,” nor does it express the elegance of his irony, nor does it have anything in common with that passage to the Corinthians, much less oratorical display.

CHAPTER XVI.

^A says: "Since we also write at times to cities and to kings, let such letters be slightly elevated." "But when we write to cities and kings, let such letters be in some measure more elevated." Since, therefore, this letter was written to the Romans, and by an Asiatic man, it is not strange if the inscription is both redundant and elevated. The points we made earlier regarding the number of epithets must also be recalled. Nor do I linger over Halloix's opinion on these, in which man judgment is sought not only by our own side, but also by his, and especially by Dallæus. He rejects the epithets as poorly heaped together, though when he admits them elsewhere, he had no sufficiently grave reason for rejecting them. However, in that Halloix preferred that Metaphrastes' inscription to the vulgate one, he was certainly not to be so agitated in that matter, if we consider the thing itself, not his reasoning. The inscription which he alone saw was both changed and augmented by the hand of an interpolator, and should not have been held as genuine. Yet that which Metaphrastes exhibits, if it were to be held as genuine, could be refuted by no one. And therefore, here Ussher has agreed with Halloix; nor do Dallæus's arguments in any way undermine their opinion. "In the first place," he says, "it repels the trustworthiness of all books, both Greek and Latin, which exhibit that inscription which we have recited." But all these Greek books are only two, the Nydpruccianus and the Augustanus; and both are from the wretched hand of an interpolator. For the Medicean codex forsakes us here, which the most learned Vossius teaches and laments was missing from this letter. What of the fact that neither these two Greek codices, nor the vulgate Latin interpreter, exhibit that which Dallæus recited? For he has published here in this place that which Isaac Vossius fashioned from the Usserian version, and after his notes on the Epistle to the Romans, saw fit to have published; not because it was read thus in any codex, but because he himself conjectured that it ought to be read so from the ancient interpreter. ^B However, these do not agree well with the Greek codices of the Usserian interpreter. He reads some things differently in his codex: as *agapemenē* (beloved) for *hēgiasmenē* (sanctified); *thelēsantos* (of Him who willed) for *poiēsantos* (of Him who made); *hētis kai* for *hētis*; regarding the *chōriou* (region), (*as it seems*) *chorou* (of the choir); for *axioepitheuktos*, *axioepitaktos*; for *agapēs* (of love), *en agapēi* (in love); for *autou* (His), *Patros* (of the Father); for *en Theōi kai Kyriōi hēmōn* (in God and our Lord), *en Kyriōi Theōi hēmōn* (in our Lord God); and finally, as pleases Dallæus, for *christōnymos* (Christ-named), *christonomos* (Christ-lawed). He did not see many things in it, such as *Theou* (of God) and again *Theou*, *pistin kai* (faith and), *kai sōtēros* (and savior), *pneumatophoros* (spirit-bearing), *Theou pantokratoros kai* (God almighty and), *pasēs* (all), *kai Patri kai* (and to the Father and). Therefore, the inscription which Halloix saw is one thing, and that which Vossius fashioned from the Latin interpreter and Dallæus recited is another. Therefore, the Usserian interpreter alone remains, who might give credence to the inscription recited by Dallæus; which I indeed allow. For I find nothing in it that could not deservedly be attributed to St. Ignatius. Yet, to say what I see to be true: the Usserian interpreter, in the Epistle to the Romans, may perhaps not seem to deserve the same credit as he attains in others. For he did not translate it from a simple edition of the genuine epistles, but from that which contained the Acts of St. Ignatius with this epistle; whence this title appears prefaced in the Caius MS: *The Martyrdom of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, or the XIIth Epistle*. But the Acts themselves are interpolated, and indeed in that place where this letter is inserted; as has been observed by the most clear-sighted Armachanus. And these are the things regarding the Greek and Latin codices. ^C Secondly, if we consider these things, I do not know how we will deny all place to Metaphrastes' inscription. He himself professed that he had transcribed this letter to the Romans word for word, and inserted it into his own writings. Are we to say that this is a lie, especially when we can in no way prove the contrary to be true? Let us grant that that Simeon wrote many false things; but it must be believed entirely that he received them from others. We know that many things which he wrote, alien to the truth of history, had been handed down by others before him, and either recounted by the mouth of all, or even committed to writing, so that he contributed nothing to them except method and embellishment. Therefore, he had the Epistle to the Romans described in the Acts of Ignatius; he interpolated the Acts, reduced all that he had either read or heard about the martyr into a lucid order; he transcribed the epistle, just as he had found it, in the same number of words. Thus, finally, the matter returns to this, that we may deservedly ask: whether that inscription which the Usserian interpreter found in the Acts of Ignatius, or that which Simeon Metaphrastes found in the same Acts. Let the learned judge; meanwhile, neither seems to me unworthy of us. This, therefore, will be the legitimate inscription, if we follow Metaphrastes' codex, and from a comparison with the rest, remove one or the other manifest interpolation. Ignatius, who is also Theophorus, to the church which has obtained mercy in the majesty of the most high Father and of Jesus Christ His only Son, the Church beloved and illuminated by the will of Him who willed all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans (which I also greet in the name of Jesus Christ, [as one] united in flesh and spirit to every commandment of His, full of the grace of God), in Christ Jesus our God, wishing much joy. ^D But, he says, the inscription of the epistle to the Philadelphians is even longer than this; which is detected as false at first glance by anyone looking at both at the same time, unless the interpolator's inscription is compared with the genuine one. He culls some things from it, as also from that to the Smyrnæans (for that to the Tarsians and Hero do not pertain to us), appearing to him putrid, but to me, brilliant and apostolic; let the learned judge. "In other inscriptions," he says, "some things are gaping"; he mentions only the one to the Magnesians; which, since it is short enough...

and most foreign to pageantry, and free from all the vices with which it otherwise burdens itself, is condemned as gaping. Yet it is a wonder that the interpolator did not perceive this, whom Dallaeus introduces as always correcting the errors of his creator and especially the evils of his style. Nor is it a wonder, when a similar enallage in construction is often observed among the best writers. When after the word "blessed" the Church follows, although in a different case, no one could doubt that it was to be referred to it. If he had said "I salute the Church," he would have said what almost everyone before him had said. Now, the name of Christ having intervened, "in," instead of "by him," he said briefly, which is the same thing. ^B

But no one from all the memory of Christendom after the apostles is found who prefixed to his epistles such inscriptions as those of this man are. Perhaps. But what if no one after the apostles did so? Is it not enough that the Apostle himself did the same? St. Ignatius had St. Paul whom he might follow; he could not have followed a better. Since he always does this in the body of his epistles, why should he not do it also in his inscriptions? Why should he not greet the Churches with apostolic character, since he himself claims this in his letter to the Trallians? Only one epistle besides the apostolic ones is found written at that time to any individual Church, namely, that of Clement to the Corinthians. Will you force Ignatius to imitate Clement, to desert St. Paul? Or is he to be thought to have had Clement rather than St. Paul as his companion on his journey, or if he had neither in his writings, would he not have had this one rather than that one as his intimate and in the recesses of his heart? What of the fact that Clement himself did not write in his own name to the Corinthians, but the Roman Church through Clement to the Corinthian Church, which was then afflicted with the worst plague of schism? Would anyone expect that the Roman Church, lately adorned with so many commendations by the Apostle, just now crowned by the martyrdom of the highest apostles, about to rebuke the Corinthians most severely, would employ an inscription full of praises for the Corinthians? All other things were becoming to Ignatius. He alone greets the most flourishing Churches; bound in chains, condemned to the beasts, sustained by the daily administration of the Churches, and bound to them by many titles, what less could he have written than what he wrote by the example of St. Paul? The inscriptions of Polycarp, the Smyrneans, the people of Lyons, and even of Cyprian and Firmilian are brought forward in vain, whom Ignatius could not imitate, as he could never have seen their epistles written much later. But they, you will say, could have imitated Ignatius; indeed they could, and if the same occasion had offered itself, perhaps they would have done the same under the same circumstances. But St. Polycarp, neither alone, as Ignatius, nor placed in that condition, nor so bound to the Philippians, but with his presbyters and as it were in the name of his own Church, wrote to the Philippians in almost the same way as Clement did to the Corinthians, and therefore he imitated him rather. The epistles of the Smyrneans and the people of Lyons were also sent by Churches, and that indeed to the Church ^C of the Philomelians, not so illustrious, but furthermore to all Catholics; these were sent to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia everywhere established, to whom such encomia were not suitable, especially in epistles which contained nothing more than certain narratives about their own affairs. The epistles of St. Cyprian and Firmilian are, for the most part, written to individual persons or about some peculiar business: and the subscription of Ignatius himself to the lone Polycarp is quite brief and concise. Furthermore, the epistles of a later age should by no means have had inscriptions similar to those of Ignatius. He praises the Smyrneans as being "endowed with every gift," and "lacking no gift," which charisms were then at that time manifest in the Churches, but gradually disappeared. Certainly, it is far more likely that St. Ignatius, an apostolic man, should truly imitate St. Paul in his inscriptions, than that an impostor, around the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, should invent a man writing contrary to the common custom of the whole Church since the time of the apostles.

Under the title of this argument taken from the inscriptions, he strangely introduces a dissertation on the writings and sayings of St. Ignatius; but I think he wanted to show that his inventor was not only a bad imitator of St. Paul, but also of Ignatius, or a mere monkey. First, he puts forward a conjecture, which whether it be true, he says, not even he could see. "If Ignatius wrote anything, he wanted to express his character to the life. But we cannot explore and perceive whether this is true." As if one ought to doubt now whether Ignatius wrote anything, a matter about which we know no one ever doubted before this unhappy age, whose writings we know many did cite in every age, from the very year he wrote. But perhaps he desired other things, since he does not admit these. But who will ever bear an inventor, who is said to have had Eusebius serve as a midwife, to have seen those writings of Ignatius which Eusebius himself did not see, which no one before, no one after him ever saw with his own eyes? Why then does he write these things? Namely, to show that we hold some things of Ignatius which betray the base imitation of an impostor; but he wants those sayings to be from the holy martyr, but never written. O excellent fabrication! We read in Origen that Ignatius said: "My love is crucified." Did Ignatius ever say these words elsewhere than in his epistle? And is not Origen, whom we have proven for certain to have seen these epistles, to be thought to have transcribed this from his letter to the Romans, when he joins this sentiment to another writing? ^D In the same Origen we read again: "I found it written elegantly in the epistle of a certain martyr (I mean Ignatius, bishop of Antioch after Peter the second), who fought against beasts in the persecution: The virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world." Is this sentiment not said to be written, and indeed in an epistle, and even one of a martyr? Is not that martyr explicitly called Ignatius, yes, even bishop of Antioch, is he not the same one who fought against the beasts? Is not this excellent sentiment, so many

times sung by the Fathers from the epistle of our Ignatius, recorded by Origen, and also by him who is called the ancient man by St. Basil, long before an impostor is fashioned by Daillé to have been born?

I admit indeed that Jerome wrote that Ignatius spoke the words which exist in Irenæus at the time when he heard lions roaring; but that this was said by him without any authority, even the adversaries must admit. Everything he has about Ignatius in the *Catalogus*, he took from Eusebius's *History*; from it Jerome transcribed this sentiment praised by Irenæus; Eusebius has nothing of the sort, nor does Irenæus, in whose text the martyr is said to have spoken those words, ^A "when he had already been condemned to the beasts." Jerome added the rest of the words on his own, incautiously, as most other things in that *Catalogus* are less accurately transcribed from Eusebius. For Ignatius was not condemned to the beasts in Rome, but in Antioch; and after that condemnation, when he wrote those words at Smyrna, he wrote "condemned to the beasts." It is most certain that Jerome remembered the epistles of Ignatius, and especially that epistle which he wrote to the Romans, in which these very words are now read—and they were read before his age. For as to what the *molor* (grinder) ^B of the present (the *allomai* of the Greeks) argues, it has no force. For whether he said it or wrote it, it was not done when he was already being mangled, but when he was still to be mangled. And it is a custom for everyone to use the present tense for a matter that is certainly future. Nor does this objection touch Jerome, who translated *molar* (to be ground), not *molor* (I am being ground); whence Sophronius translates it thus: *et opto ut dentibus bestiarum molar* ("and I desire to be ground by the teeth of the beasts"). But that other saying, "I wish I might enjoy the beasts prepared for me," he says, confirms we are certain from Chrysostom that Ignatius spoke to the Romans when present; ^C although Chrysostom does not in the least narrate that he spoke those words to the Romans when present, or at Rome. He affirms that Ignatius gladly saw the beasts. "Whence does this appear?" he says, "from the words which, being about to die, he uttered." From those words which he spoke when he was about to die. But he was "about to die" from the time he was condemned to death: for "to be about to" does not signify a present matter, or one immediately future. He proves this again: "For having heard that this manner of punishment awaited him, he said, 'Would that I might enjoy those beasts.'" For St. Ignatius had heard, long before he arrived in Rome, that this mode of death had been prepared for him, to which he had been condemned at Antioch. ^D And indeed Chrysostom refers to the sentence rendered by the emperor. Therefore he said, "I wish I might enjoy the beasts," and "he deemed the mouths of these to be much tamer than the tongue of the tyrant." Furthermore, St. Chrysostom clearly enough shows that he took this from the epistle of Ignatius to the Romans from the following words: "For such are they who love, that whatever they may suffer from those they love, they receive it with pleasure." For [Chrysostom] explicitly alludes to that excellent and universally sung utterance of Ignatius: "My Love has been crucified," which is contained in the same epistle. The conjecture is very slight, therefore, that an impostor, because he had heard these things said but not written by Ignatius, inserted them into his epistles, when Origen not only remembered the saying, but also the epistle, Jerome explicitly named the epistle, and Chrysostom openly alluded to it.

Chapter 31: The final argument is led forward both in weight and in order: “It does not seem decent,” namely for Ignatius, “that he repeats the same things so often.”

^A to the Magnesians, "as if they had not sufficiently understood," he said twice. Nor is this surprising: when Cicero himself, in a letter to Marius, having once beautifully said: "I came home; if there were any form of republic, I would be as if in my fatherland: if none, as if in exile;" he could not restrain himself from saying a little later: "But now, if this is a state, I am a citizen; if not, I am an exile." Repetitions are never more frequent than in epistles—if not the same ones, then certainly in different ones. And indeed, the critics of old used to object to Cicero himself, the greatest of orators, the very same things that Dallæus now objects to our Ignatius. Thus, surely, Quintilian and the men of his own time dared to attack Cicero as being too bombastic, and "Asiatic," and redundant, and excessive in his repetitions.

Interspersed among all those sentences which he enumerates as being used twice or thrice in the epistles, he observes one that is absurd and discordant, supposedly indicated by the interpolator, who could not bear it, and therefore, as often as he encountered it, he either expunged it or changed it. Are all the things that the interpolator changed truly absurd and discordant? How truly miserable among mortals, then, are St. Athanasius, St. Theodoret, and other ancients, who produced so many passages from Ignatius to adorn their own writings and to confirm the dogmas of the Church, most of which the interpolator—much more prudent and sagacious—changed, obscured, or obliterated as being, forsooth, absurd and discordant! He mixed everything according to his own whim, as we have shown before; he changed greatest and smallest matters at will: these trifles and errors of his are what Dallæus kisses like oracles. Ignatius did not say those things which no one ever spoke, when he applied the ^B *nomos Christou* (law of Christ) to a bishop or deacons or presbytery: but he imitated St. Paul, who used the term *diatagē* in the same way, in Rom. XIII, 2: "He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance (*diatagē*) of God." For if he who resists a magistrate resists the *diatagē* of God, then he also who submits to a bishop submits to the *entolē* (commandment) of God, according to the sentiment of St. Ignatius; that is, he is subjected to the bishop who was established by the mandate of God.

Finally, he observes that our author discourses at length on preserving unity, on offering obedience to the Gospel requirements, and on fleeing from heretics and schismatics, and that he inculcates these same things in almost all his epistles. Which, indeed, is true. For as St. Athanasius correctly says in his book *De Incarnatione Verbi*: "Καὶ γὰρ βέλτιον ταυτολογίας μέμψιν ὑποστῆναι, ἢ παραλεῖψαί τι τῶν ὀφειλόντων γρaφῆναι. ^C For it is better to incur the reproach of tautology than to omit anything that ought to have been written." But as heresies were sprouting up, and after the death of all the apostles were breaking forth freely and openly, with schism also spreading widely through the Churches, what more opportune advice could the most holy martyr give the Churches than that they should beware, above all, of this pestilence? And what more suitable remedy for avoiding heresies and extirpating schisms could he have applied, than that they should unanimously adhere to the pastors whom he himself knew to stand in the true faith? I, for my part, certainly think nothing else is to be gathered from this than that