Dissertation

in the Church should be especially shunned, and that this end is altogether necessary; which all have professed from the beginning of the Christian religion. Or if one may be permitted to indulge in conjectures, and indeed most reasonable ones, from this frequent admonition concerning obedience to bishops, priests, and deacons at the same time, I think it may be gathered with the best right that these scripts were not written at the beginning of the fourth century or the end of the third, but rather at the beginning of the second. For no one in such late times of the Church would have adorned the office of the deacons with so many praises, which at that time had everywhere, except for one church in the city of Rome, so greatly deteriorated; no one would have heaped the presbyterate with such praises, with such authority ^A armed, whose power at that time had also been so greatly diminished in Alexandria, where it had flourished the most. Salmasius saw this, and for that reason judged that this writing, whoever its author may be, should be assigned to the second century. And if I understand anything in this matter, those who are most eager for the dignity and authority of the presbyterate have no firmer or more solid foundation for their estimation than the epistles of our St. Ignatius: for neither in any truly ancient writer outside these epistles will they find so many and such great commendations of the presbyterate, nor will they find the honor of that order established anywhere without the prerogative of the episcopate. The end of the Pearsonian Vindications of Ignatius.

DISSERTATION ON THE EPISTLES OF SAINT IGNATIUS, GENUINE, INTERPOLATED, AND SUPPOSITITIOUS.

PART ONE. Concerning the genuine epistles of Saint Ignatius.

CHAPTER ONE. THE STATUS OF THE QUESTION AND THE ANALYSIS OF THE GENUINE EPISTLES IS PROPOSED.

^B We begin the examination of all these epistles with those which are of the first class, and concerning which the principal and almost entire controversy among the learned now exists. Furthermore, there are seven epistles of this kind, and in order that a greater knowledge of them may be had, and a more certain judgment may be passed upon them by all, we will prefix a brief, but clear and accurate analysis of them according to our ability.

§ II. Analysis of the seven epistles of Ignatius. When Ignatius had been condemned at Antioch to the beasts, and was being led in bonds to Rome so that he might be exposed to them, and had landed at Smyrna; from there he sent the four first epistles, which are now in question. The first of these is destined for the Church of Ephesus, which, to refresh and restore him from the fatigue of a most difficult journey, had previously sent its bishop Onesimus, together with Byrrus, Euplus, and Fronto. ^C He first praises this Church for the outstanding charity in it, and returns the greatest thanks to it. Then, although he gladly confesses himself to be a disciple of all Christians, nevertheless overcome by his highest love and zeal for them, he warns them that in the same

^A way they should persevere with Onesimus in intimacy and obedience; and he reveals to them how great the goods and advantages are that arise therefrom for each and every one. Moreover, in that they would not listen to certain heretics who stated that the death and resurrection of Christ were feigned and simulated, but rather poured out continuous prayers to God for their conversion, he commends their faith. Following this, he hands down to them a few precepts of life and conduct, and therein he feels himself more humble the more highly he extols their virtues. In the first place, he urges them to keep the faith whole and entire, and to believe forever that Christ was truly born of the Virgin Mary, but that the virginity of the mother and the death of the Son, whose divinity was manifested by that star that shone more brightly than all the stars, were completely unknown to the devil. He promises then that he will give another epistle to them, if it should be allowed by God; and finally, after he has commended the Church of Antioch in their prayers, he puts an end to this first epistle.

The second was written to the Church of the Magnesians, which had sent to him Dama their bishop, and Bassus and Apollonius, presbyters, and Zotion, ^B a deacon. After they had made Ignatius better informed of the happy state of that same Church, he drew up this epistle to them immediately, in which, having spoken of himself with the greatest humility, he highly commends the charity, concord, and other Christian virtues of the Magnesians. For this reason also he testifies that he had made the epistle shorter; because for men endowed with so many and such great virtues and sanctity, there was no need to write a longer one. Therefore, he only urges them to persevere always in the duty of obedience to their bishop, even if he were younger, in the reverence to be shown toward the presbyters and deacons, and in the mutual peace and concord to be kept among themselves. He teaches then that all are freed from the law of Moses, and are held only by the law of Christ the Savior; whom he demonstrates to have been truly dead, and raised from the dead. Which, indeed, he says he did not undertake to prove by arguments because any of them did not believe it; but so that he might forearm and protect them all against the errors of certain ones who impiously denied it. For that reason he beseeches and entreats them that they may be most firmly established in ^C the doctrine of the Lord and the apostles, and that they may always act according to their bishop. Finally, he closes the epistle with a brief commendation of himself and his Church of Antioch.

The third was given by him to the Church of the Trallians, after he had learned for certain through Polybius, the bishop of the same Church, who had been sent to him by it, that the Trallian Christians possessed an unblamable mind and were insuperable in patience, and that they were truly imitators of God. For he, filled with joy at these reports, wrote this epistle, in which, having congratulated them greatly on so many excellent virtues, he amicably advises them that they should follow their bishop with obedience, their presbyters with veneration, and their deacons with observance. He adds that although he has never suffered anything more annoying than the excessive praises of some, yet he cannot deny that the knowledge and no vulgar science of divinity, of angels, and of celestial things, which he would have freely shared with them, had he not yet been too weak, had been granted to him divinely. Nevertheless, he freely admits that beyond these knowledges, however sublime, others much greater were lacking to him, and that he is not to be counted as next to the first disciples. After these things, he warns the Trallians that they should, in the first place, beware of those who audaciously asserted that Christ was an ^D invented man, and that he died and was raised in simulation; and that their snares cannot be avoided more easily than by obedience to the bishop and the holy ministers. Then he greets them, both in his own name and in that of the Smyrneans and the Ephesian and other Churches, and again stirs them to mutual peace among themselves, and observance toward their bishop and his presbyters. Finally, he asks that through prayers poured out to God, they may obtain the grace whereby he might consummate his martyrdom.

The fourth and last epistle, given at Smyrna, is directed to the Christians living in Rome, and by it Ignatius makes them more certain about his martyrdom, which was to be fulfilled in their city. He urges them with all the arguments that the most ardent and almost incredible desire to undergo martyrdom could suggest, lest they should attempt to stop his death, which was the only thing he feared. He adds that he is being prepared for obtaining the palm of martyrdom by the most cruel vexations of the soldiers by whom he was being led, and therefore that he does not indeed command the Romans, but entreats them that they might obtain from God that his body, like the wheat of Christ, might be ground by the teeth of the beasts so that nothing at all might remain; and finally that he desires to be devoured by the same beasts as soon as possible; and that if they should delay even in the least, he would suddenly attack them, so that he might sooner enjoy Christ, than whom nothing was dearer to him. He sets before their eyes then with what great effort the prince of this world was struggling to resist his martyrdom. Hence he is the author and persuader to them that they should not conspire with that most fierce enemy of mortals, but rather bring help to him so that he might meet the desired death more quickly. Afterward, he commends to them highly his own Church, in which he was unworthy to be even the last to be recorded; and to them, and to all who had either received him or sent some to visit him, he sends abundant greetings in the name of the Churches. Finally, he announces that his most dear Crocus had reached him, and he prays again and again that they indicate to those who had come from Syria to Rome the coming of the same Crocus, and that he himself would soon meet them.

Ignatius, having sealed these four letters at Smyrna, set sail from there and arrived at Troas, where he wrote three others, of which the first was written to the Philadelphians. He begins this one with praises of their holy bishop, whose divine vocation to the episcopate, modesty, and other virtues he testifies to have moved him to admiration, and he entreats them that, as sheep to their shepherd, they might avoid the deadly herbs of erroneous doctrine,

and he diligently exhorts them. Then he immediately adds that he knows they have always been in this obedience; yet, lest they be corrupted by those who taught that the Law of Moses—and not that of Christ—was to be observed, he requests their perseverance. Moreover, he records that when he had stayed with them, and had learned that there were some among them who argued that one should believe in the Gospel only in so far as it was in agreement with their ancient authors, he had then urged upon them that same obedience. But now he professes that he would never place his faith in such men, but rather in the cross, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and in the Gospel foretold by the prophets, as in an altogether uncorrupted truth. He then warns them to send a deacon to the Church of Antioch, as is done by the neighboring churches, along with a bishop and presbyters who might congratulate it on the restoration of peace. Regarding this, he gives thanks that he had been so kindly received by them on account of Philo the deacon, Reus, and Agathopus. Finally, he salutes them in the name of the Troadenses, and prays that Burrhus, the Ephesians, and the Smyrnæans may be accorded the honors they deserve by Christ, in whom they had placed all their hope.

The sixth epistle, sent by Ignatius to the Smyrnæan Church, was conveyed by Burrhus, whom he had had as a companion on his journey. The principal argument treated in it is that Ignatius fortifies and defends the Christians against certain heretics who claimed that Christ had only assumed a fictitious human body, through which he had simulated death and resurrection. Therefore, he demonstrates the truth of the body, the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Christ with invincible arguments, and commands the Smyrnæans to avoid the converse of heretics and to seek their conversion to God through their own prayers. He then carefully admonishes them to follow their bishop, presbyters, and deacons, and above all, to listen to the bishop with the utmost obedience and veneration in all things. Thence he pays them the greatest thanks, because they had received him and his companions with incredible benevolence, and promises that they would therefore receive a worthy reward from God. Afterwards, he announces that peace has been restored to the Church of Antioch, and prays that they might hasten to send someone to congratulate him on this matter, and at the same time to offer praise and thanks to God together with it. Finally, having saluted everyone both in the name of the Troadenses and in his own, he puts a seal upon his epistle.

The seventh epistle Ignatius sent to Polycarp, his most beloved disciple and the bishop of Smyrna, while he was traveling from Troas to Neapolis and was just about to board a ship. There he commends his wondrous constancy in the faith and testifies to his own joy that he had been able to enjoy his company at Smyrna. After this, he instructs him with various precepts, so that he might himself advance in virtue and rule the Church committed to him in a Christian manner. Subsequently, however, he prays and conjures him to write letters, to be delivered by someone, to the Church of Antioch to congratulate it on the restored peace; and [he asks] that he also write to other Churches as well for that same reason, because of which he entreats him to write, and [which he does] with the same love. Finally, he seals the epistle after having saluted all the Christians, some in general and others by name.

CHAPTER II. VARIOUS OPINIONS OF WRITERS CONCERNING THESE EPISTLES; CERTAIN THINGS TO BE OBSERVED ARE PREMISED, AND BY WHAT METHOD THE TRUE OPINION WILL BE DEFENDED.

§ 1. Various opinions of writers concerning these epistles.

Of these seven epistles, there are three diverse opinions held by writers of this age. The first is that of Blondel, Daillé, and many other men of the Presbyterian and Calvinist sects, who repudiate them as altogether adulterine, fictitious, and foisted upon Ignatius. But as to the age in which they think they were brought to light, there are as many views as there are heads among them. For Albertinus declares they were written about the middle of the second century, Salmasius under the reign of Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius, Blondel after the death of Clement of Alexandria, and Daillé at the end of the third century; indeed, Bochart even judges that the epistle to the Romans was not written before the empire of Constantine the Great.

The second opinion is that of Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, who asserts that the six prior epistles are Ignatius's, but rejects the seventh, which was given to Polycarp, and affirms it to be fictitious.

The third opinion of all others maintains that these seven epistles are the true and genuine work of Ignatius; and it is defended not only by orthodox writers but by the most learned followers of Calvin and the Protestants—namely, Vossius, Hammond, Rivet, Scultetus, Pearson, Bull, Maynius, and others. We willingly subscribe to this opinion, and we shall endeavor to demonstrate that it is the most true by, as we think, invincible moments of argument.

But before we proceed to prove this opinion, it is helpful to observe certain things which contribute not a little to the explanation of our question. First, it is agreed among all authors of whatever opinion that certain epistles were written by our Ignatius: "For who," says Daillé, "is so foolish as to deny that he wrote some?" It is also agreed among them that those epistles which are praised under the name of Ignatius by Athanasius, Eusebius, and other writers to be cited below, are no other than those which Ussher and Vossius published as sincere and without interpolations, and which we have said constitute the first class of the epistles of Ignatius. The patrons of the first opinion, however, contend that these were written by some rogue and were substituted for the true epistles of Ignatius.

It is also to be observed that the same epistles of Ignatius were edited not by Catholics, but by Ussher and Vossius, men most celebrated among Protestants of the best note...

and of the Calvinist sect. Indeed, Vedelius, the Calvinist and minister of Geneva, as well as Ussher and Vossius, each attached their own apology to their editions of these epistles. And when Salmasius and especially Blondel attempted to impugn Ussher and Vossius, both of them—Ussher, indeed, in his *Ignatian Appendix*, and Vossius in his own letters—vigorously refuted them. These were succeeded by Henry Hammond, the Anglican presbyter, who prepared a lengthy disputation against Blondel, in which he not only replied to all of Blondel’s arguments but asserted these epistles for Ignatius with new and firm weight of reasoning. Against him, the Charenton minister Daillé fought with a far longer dissertation; but with a fidelity that is, whatever he himself may claim, not entirely unimpeachable. For he attacks all the epistles ascribed to Ignatius—whether those that Hammond and others attribute to Ignatius, or those that they themselves reject—confusedly, generally, and in a lump; and to create a facade with this confusion and a huge cohort of arguments, he brings forth the foundations of his reasoning against all those letters—sixty-five in total, which he accurately numbers. But Pearson, the Anglican presbyter, with his learned *Vindiciae* of the same epistles, rendered all his attempts vain and void. For he established the truth of them with as much clarity and sincerity as Daillé had attempted to throw everything into confusion with bewilderment. Another anonymous Calvinist minister did indeed attempt to aid the desperate cause of Daillé with a new disputation; but how poorly the matter turned out for his wishes, we shall now demonstrate.

^B We urge what all concede, nor could any ever deny it to them, namely, that these epistles—after those letters of Ignatius, which they pretend are genuine, had perished—came into the public light between the year 106, in which that martyr fell, and the year 326, or at the latest 330, when Eusebius published his *History*. For it is proven that this is false and fiction gratuitously invented, since by their own admission, Ignatius wrote certain epistles, concerning which, according to Daillé: "After the books of the divine covenant, there should have been nothing in the whole Church more noble and celebrated, unless perhaps you except the epistle of Clement."

Hence it is clearly concluded, which surely neither Daillé nor anyone of sound mind could deny, that these sincere epistles of our writer were accepted by those churches at least to which they were directed, with the reverence that was owed to such a martyr; that they were communicated to other churches as well; that they were preserved in their archives; and that they were read publicly in Christian assemblies, just like the epistle of Clement and other monuments of such worth. But who could persuade himself that many years before the edition of Eusebius’s *History*, all copies of these most precious epistles had perished in such a way that not even a trace could be found in the Church of Antioch, or in Smyrna, or in Rome, or anywhere else? Did all the churches and even the Christians of Antioch conspire with such spirit and such skill for their ruin and extinction, so that although those which they call supposititious saw the light in the century after the death of Ignatius, yet no investigator of the ancient writers, however diligent, even one close to the times of Ignatius and the Church of Antioch, ever suspected anything at all regarding those which they contend were the true and genuine ones? For if some copy of these epistles of such a martyr had survived anywhere at that time; if anyone older than Eusebius, or equal to Ignatius in time, or contemporary, had heard anything of the same epistles, immediately, either by the simple exhibition of one of their copies, or by the contradiction of some ancient writer, those fictitious letters would have been exploded by him and by all others.

§ III. By what method the true opinion will be defended.

Therefore, we will show that the seven epistles of Ignatius, which constitute the first class as mentioned, proceeded from Ignatius by such a method that all the arguments by which others previously asserted them for him are recalled to the anvil and confirmed by other new weight of reasons conceived by us. Then, we will attempt to destroy the objections of the adversaries, having weighed the responses of others, or by having added our own to the best of our ability; and finally, we will approach more closely to refute, clearly and lucidly and, as we hope, thoroughly, all those things which, taken from the anonymous author against Pearson, no one has yet reached.

^C

CHAPTER III.

The first point, although it could be derived from the fact that the opinions of the adversaries are so varied regarding the assigning of the age of these counterfeit epistles that there can be no consensus at all among them on a matter not so difficult; yet that which is most important—

^D Nor should it be omitted that the adversaries think they have noticed in these epistles, which they say were supposed to be Ignatius’s, a doctrine opposed to the decrees of this same Ignatius and the Churches of his time; and they declare the author of the same to be ingenious, industrious, cunning, versatile; or, as it suits their interest, slow, leaden, sluggish, and unlearned everywhere. Why, therefore, did all these things escape the most learned writers of the third and fourth centuries, and Eusebius himself, who had expended such great effort in searching out and bringing to light the monuments of the ancient Fathers? Truly, as we believe, there will be no sincere lover of equity and truth who does not understand how unlikely these opinions appear, and how contrary and adverse they are to one another.

Chapter IV. The second argument, derived from the testimony of Polycarp, is vindicated against the exceptions of adversaries.

§ I. The testimony of Polycarp is set forth, and the first exception of Dallæus is refuted.

We must now hasten to other arguments by which the opinion that is so little consistent with itself is impugned. These are of a twofold kind: some can indeed be called external, which are sought from other irreproachable and most certain witnesses of the faith; others are truly internal, by which it is demonstrated that the works of the author fitly correspond to his genius, his time, and the other circumstances that one might desire. But by the invincible force of both kinds, we contend that the seven epistles of the first class can clearly be asserted for Ignatius.

And that we may begin from the first kind of argument, a large host of writers of every age, who vindicate these epistles for our martyr, will be led by Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, who was not only contemporary with Ignatius but most closely bound to him by friendship and familiarity. For he, who could neither be deceived nor deceive in recognizing or pointing out the writings of a man most dear to him, writes thus to the Philippians: "You have written to me, both you and Ignatius... all the epistles of Ignatius, which he wrote to me, and whatever others we could find among us, we have sent to you, just as you instructed us." What is more effective than the authority of such a man? What is more clear and evident than his testimony?

Yet Dallæus opposes to him two things, which he affirms should by no means be condemned. The first is the judgment of Nicephorus of Constantinople, by which this epistle of Polycarp is banished to the category of the worst kind of apocrypha—that is to say, to the itineraries of Peter and Thomas. Whence Dallæus says: "It is no envy to prefer the judgment of Nicephorus, a principal patriarch and a writer eight hundred years or so older than us and our own times, concerning these books, to the opinion of Hamond, though he is a most learned man, and others of our age." But if it be no envy to prefer the judgment of Nicephorus to the opinion of Hamond and other recent writers, then it will likewise be no envy to prefer the judgment of Irenæus, Eusebius, and other Fathers—who are older than Nicephorus by so many centuries and who assign this epistle to Polycarp—to the opinion of Nicephorus: indeed, it is to be preferred with so much the better right, by how much they were more eminent in learning and closer to the age of Polycarp. Furthermore, the words objected to by Dallæus are not those of the patriarch Nicephorus, but of a certain obscure and anonymous writer, who appended a fragment, which he calls a *Stichometria*, to the end of his *Chronography*, as will be most clearly demonstrated by us below. And surely who could persuade himself that the epistle of Polycarp, the utility of which Dallæus is forced to acknowledge, was relegated by Nicephorus, whom the same Dallæus adorns with praises, among the apocrypha of the worst kind? ^A

§ II. The second and third exceptions of Dallæus are exploded.

Wherefore Dallæus, fearing that what he had first proposed was not firm enough, proceeds to the second, which he thinks is of greater moment. He says, therefore, that these words of Polycarp’s epistle: "You have written to me, etc.," which follow to the very end, "seem entirely to have been stuck on rashly and against the mind of the author by a foreign hand." This he again attempts to prove by a twofold reason. First, because they are "inserted and bolstered in absurdly and against the manifest sequence of the discourse." For the epistle was indeed closed with the preceding words: "that you may be perfect," etc., or, as he puts it: "The epistle ended in this most becoming conclusion, as all can see." ^B

Secondly, because these last words mention Ignatius as still living, whereas the preceding words, "All these have not run in vain," etc., declare him dead. Whence the same Dallæus says: "From these, it is clearer than the midday sun that they are different men, who speak such dissonant, and such contrary and repugnant things about the same matter; and therefore, that that particle was falsely and craftily added to the epistle by some impostor." But he immediately adds: "These excepted, nothing appears in that epistle that ought to offend anyone, or be deemed unworthy of Polycarp."

But let us pause here for a little while and attend to whether Dallæus, in wishing to reveal a contradiction and repugnance which no one before him had detected, is not himself struggling with himself. For if in the whole epistle nothing occurs besides that particle "that ought to offend anyone, or be deemed unworthy of Polycarp," why, I ask, does Dallæus prefer to Hamond and other most learned men of our age, and even to the most ancient Fathers, Eusebius and others, Nicephorus, who rejects the whole epistle among those things which are "of the worst kind of apocrypha"; or, as he himself says elsewhere, "among books full of fables and fictions; from which, if anyone were to bring forward [evidence] to establish belief about anything done in those first times, he would effect nothing"? ^C Would it effect nothing if someone were to bring forward for the purpose of establishing belief all those things which precede in this epistle that which Dallæus calls an addition, and which he himself deems worthy of Polycarp? Must those things which are worthy of Polycarp be forthwith banished to the apocrypha of the worst kind and to books full of fables and fictions because of a particle added at the end of the epistle?

What, moreover, of the fact that Dallæus adds that in this epistle "such dissonant, and such contrary and repugnant" things occur; so that "it is clearer than the midday sun that they were written by different men"? Why, therefore, did Eusebius, a most clear-sighted and perceptive man—why did others, writers before and after Nicephorus, not see that which "was clearer than the midday sun"? ^D

But be it so: if Eusebius and all others, dazzled by the brilliance of the midday sun, did not see that which was clearer than the midday sun, why at least did they not see this most becoming clause in which the epistle ended, which, according to Dallaeus, everyone sees? Will Dallaeus say that Eusebius and other most perceptive men, who attribute this entire epistle to Polycarp, were so blind and bereft of all light that they could not see the one thing which was clearer than the midday sun, nor the other thing which everyone sees?

But let us come now to the matter itself. Dallaeus contends that the epistle of Polycarp concludes with the words which precede the final passage, because they have a "most becoming clause." Are the epistles, therefore, to be considered ended every time a "most becoming clause" occurs in them? The epistles of Paul alone prove this to be very false. For in the fifteenth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, this most ^A becoming clause is read: "The God of peace be with you all. Amen." In the third chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, we have this: "To him be glory in the ages of ages. Amen." And yet neither ends there; in the former, one chapter follows, and in the latter, three whole chapters follow. It would be long and useless to proffer the countless examples of epistles that do not end at such clauses, which Dallaeus calls "most becoming." For all know that it depends on the writer's intent where and when he wishes to place clauses in his epistle, especially when he treats of many subjects, as Polycarp does, or when something new occurs to the writer's mind while writing.

Furthermore, false is that which Dallaeus says, that the last ^B part of this epistle is interspersed with a falsehood, which is contrary and repugnant to that which was said above. "But," he says, "these words: 'And of Ignatius himself, and of those who are with him, make known what you have more certainly learned,' signify," he says, "that Ignatius, who was previously declared dead, is in the land of the living." But if these words are carefully weighed, they indicate or testify nothing concerning Ignatius’s death or life. For by these, Polycarp merely requests that the Philippians, who could more easily receive some news regarding Ignatius, should report something certain about him, in whatever state he might be. Wherefore, if he suspected that he was already crowned by martyrdom, he asks them to relate when, where, and by what varied kind of torments and tortures he met his death, and who had been his companions in martyrdom. There is, therefore, no repugnance there, nor does any discrepancy occur with those things which were written earlier concerning his death.

However, Dallaeus persists, and brings forward the testimony of Hamond himself, who said that the life of Ignatius was signified by these last words of Polycarp’s epistle. ^C But certainly, if Hamond suffered something human there, if he did not sufficiently attend to the words of Polycarp, what will Dallaeus gain from that against the truth of our opinion? We, for our part, have no doubt that Hamond would have explained himself correctly had he not been opposed by that difficulty which alone fights against him. But we are not arguing about Hamond’s opinion, but about the epistle of Polycarp, in which, since there is no falsehood, no contradiction, and no repugnance, it is proven more certainly than certain that it was written in its entirety, and in all its parts, by Polycarp.

§ III. The remaining objections of Dallaeus are refuted.

Dallaeus persists, and uses a new and strange kind of argumentation. For he, no longer disputing about the truth and integrity of Polycarp’s epistle, concedes that Polycarp attests that some epistles were written by Ignatius. But since Polycarp himself did not say that they were the very ones we defend, Dallaeus boldly affirms that others were intended by him. Yet we ask of Dallaeus what Polycarp had to do in order to attest that those were the epistles ^D of Ignatius. Was he to transcribe those epistles in their entirety, or sign them with his own hand? Was he to support them by the public testimony of notaries and witnesses, or by other public instruments? If things were so, we would undoubtedly have no epistles of the apostolic men and other most ancient Fathers now, and those which are carried in everyone’s hands would be entirely different from those which writers record as having been given by them. We must say, therefore, according to the rules of stricter criticism, that in order for the epistles of any author, whose writer is contemporary with him, to be designated specifically, nothing else is required than that they be indicated by name by writers of intact and certain faith, and those not so far removed from his own age. And yet, those epistles which Polycarp designates generally as Ignatius’s are designated specifically and by name, as the adversaries admit, by Eusebius and other writers of intact and certain faith. Finally, now it has been clearly demonstrated by us, as we think, that Ignatius did not write other epistles than those which are now being discussed. Those, therefore, are the same as those which Polycarp designates.

Dallaeus, however, insists that in these epistles are found the *g* of the Valentinians, and many other things which are less orthodox, which could never have been written by Ignatius. But that Eusebius and other most learned writers, who—by the witness of Dallaeus himself—adjudicate these epistles to Ignatius, read nothing in them that is either less orthodox or less worthy of Ignatius, is most certain. But certainly no one—not even Dallaeus—would dare to say that they were ignorant of what the doctrine of Ignatius ought to have been. Furthermore, that nothing contrary to the doctrine of Ignatius occurs in these epistles, we are about to show most clearly in its proper place, so that we may not confuse everything with Dallaeus.

Finally, Dallaeus insists and argues thus: "This testimony of Polycarp is certainly used by the Latins for those six Ignatian epistles, which they assert beyond the Usserian collection, no less speciously than the most reverend Usserius and the most learned Hamond use it for their first six." From which he concludes thus: "The authority of the cause of this testimony regarding the Ignatian epistles must therefore be set aside alike."

^A Indeed, when Daille cannot elevate the authority of Polycarp, by which he is pressed, he at least wishes it to be set aside. But the testimony of so great a man will always remain entire and invincible, and must never be cast aside. Moreover, if any should use it to assert the spurious epistles of Ignatius, we shall demonstrate that they are without doubt abusing even that, and erring far. However, we shall show that this error in those to whom neither the manuscript codices nor the editions of Usher and Vossius were available, ought to be pardoned in some measure.

CHAPTER V.

THE THIRD ARGUMENT TAKEN FROM THE AUTHORITY OF IRENAEUS, WHICH IS VINDICATED FROM THE EXCEPTIONS OF THE ADVERSARIES.

^B § I. The testimony of Irenaeus is proposed. The final objection of Daille against the testimony of Polycarp, which he himself calls most valid, is the supreme authority of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of this same Polycarp. Daille presents it thus: "We have most validly proven, by many other things and especially this, that the epistles which we now have were never with Polycarp, nor collected by him and sent to the Philippians, because they were plainly and utterly unknown to Irenaeus, the disciple and singular admirer of Polycarp." To examining the testimony of Irenaeus, therefore, since Daille challenges us with it, we gladly come. And ^C first, indeed, we marvel with what confidence Daille has dared to affirm that the epistles of Ignatius, which we now have, were plainly and utterly unknown to Irenaeus. For are these not the very words of Irenaeus: "As a certain one of ours said, having been sentenced to the beasts for the sake of his martyrdom into God: For I am the wheat of Christ, and I am ground by the teeth of the beasts, that I may be found the pure bread"? But, Daille himself admitting it, it is certain that our Ignatius is here being praised by Irenaeus: "I myself, says Daille 61, confess that the man whose words he recites is Ignatius, and I concede that these words are truly Ignatius's." Whence, therefore, did Irenaeus take these words of Ignatius? Let us hear Eusebius 62: "Furthermore, Irenaeus mentions this Ignatius, both his martyrdom and his epistles, in these words: 'As a certain one,' etc." But from which epistle did he transcribe these, if not from the epistle of our Ignatius to the Romans, where these same things are found word for word?

§ II. Daille's first and second exception is refuted. What does Daille say to this? He asserts that Eusebius is false. "Eusebius," he says 63, "falsely thought." But by what reasoning, pray, does he accuse Eusebius, that most diligent writer, of error? Because Irenaeus, as he says, did not use the word *wrote*, but *said*. ^D With the word *said*, Daille adds, Irenaeus himself intentionally used it, so that he might indicate that those words of Ignatius were taken not from his writings, but from the mouth of the speaker himself. True indeed is the wonder of how great the carelessness must have been of Eusebius, who falsely thought that the word *said* signified the same thing as *wrote*. But we fear that Daille, who urges these things after Parker against Eusebius, should himself rather be accused of ignorance or malice. Which, indeed, even though it could be easily confirmed by the testimonies of innumerable writers, one that ought to be as good as all to Daille, namely the authority of Irenaeus himself, will suffice alone to prove it. For he is read to have praised those things which were not pronounced by Justin, but were written, with these words: "And well does Justin, in that book which is to the Marcionites, say: For he had not believed in the Lord Himself," etc. And in another place 64: "Well did Justin say, since before the Lord's coming," etc. But by the authority of Irenaeus himself, if anything stronger is desired in his cause, we shall produce Daille himself as a witness against himself. Nor certainly is he to be sought or summoned for long or far, who, in that very place where he disputes about this matter, thus refers to the things which were not said but written by Hamond: "What does the most learned Hamond bring against this clear and invincible demonstration: Irenaeus, he says, uses Ignatius's words from the epistle to the Romans," etc. And still more closely, where he has cited the very place of Irenaeus, he speaks thus: "For what, I ask, has Irenaeus in that place: 'A certain one,' he says, etc. What of ours did he say: 'The wheat of God,' therefore? Does not the word *said* mean the same as *spoke*?" Yet Daille himself, where he brought forward that which had been handed down in writings by Hamond and Irenaeus, did not use the word *wrote*, but *said*, which is the same as *spoke*. The defender of Daille runs to bring help to him who has killed himself with his own sword, but too late. Thus, however, he says 65: "Let us grant that the word *said*, which Irenaeus uses, denotes indifferently both what is uttered by voice and what is published in writing; the narration of Irenaeus will no more aid the cause of Pearson than it will ours; and therefore the testimony for the Ignatian epistles, taken from this narrative, must be omitted." How weak this defense of Daille is, is clear from the fact that it condemns Daille, who thought that the great force of his argument lay in the word *said*, of either imprudence or malice. Furthermore, that the word *said* in Irenaeus is used to signify words of Ignatius that were not uttered, but written, is proven both by the aforementioned authority of Eusebius and also because these same words of Ignatius are written in the epistle to the Romans, nor is he ever recorded to have said them anywhere else. But Irenaeus, they say, could have transcribed that sentence of Ignatius from his Acts of Martyrdom, which were circulated in his time. We indeed confess that this sentence of Ignatius occurs in his Acts of Martyrdom,

but in the corrupt and interpolated Acts, not however in the true and sincere ones, which Ussher published in Latin, and our own Theodore Ruinart published in Greek. But if some Acts of the martyrdom of Ignatius existed in the time of Irenaeus, no man of sound mind would doubt that these were only the later ones.

Hither to the aid of Daillé flies his defender once again, observing that the same sentence of Ignatius is cited by Jerome. But it is better, he says, to say that Jerome read in the most ancient Acts of the martyrdom what is reported about Ignatius, and although those Acts might perhaps have undergone some change by his own time, it is fair to believe that he perceived no change regarding this specific circumstance which is under discussion; for it is more than probable that Jerome drew what he narrates about Ignatius from those Acts, or from some other equally ancient writing. But Daillé, on the contrary, asserted that Jerome drew his information not from these Acts, nor from any other writing, but only from Eusebius. For, he says, everyone follows the judgment of Eusebius, and Jerome even followed his words; so that this ought to be considered the testimony not so much of them as of Eusebius alone. ^B Is Daillé thus defended, when he is openly contradicted? What indeed of the fact that it seems certain that no other Acts of the martyrdom of Ignatius existed in the time of Jerome than those which were edited by Ussher, and most recently by our own Ruinart. But assuredly, Ignatius's sentence cited by Jerome and Irenaeus occurs not in these, but only in the corrupt Acts. Finally, what that noble defender of Daillé adds, that if Jerome did not draw it from the Acts, he drew it from some other equally ancient writing, this is opposed to Daillé, as we said a little earlier, and it is a fiction gratuitously invented by him. For no writing can be assigned by him or by anyone else at any time in which this sentence of Ignatius is read: yet we produce the Epistle to the Romans, inscribed in his name, where it is found word for word. ^C

Dallaeus nevertheless insists: "From the Epistle to the Romans, Ignatius wrote these words not in Rome, but in Smyrna, long before his struggle, absurdly and ineptly." But whoever reads this same epistle without a mind deeply blinded by false prejudices will easily discover that it was written by Ignatius to the Romans at Smyrna, not long before the struggle, but when he had been condemned to the beasts and was traveling to Rome to be consumed by them at any moment. Therefore, Irenaeus was neither absurd nor inept, but correct and altogether apposite, when, citing this Epistle of Ignatius, he said: "One of our people said, having been sentenced to the beasts for his martyrdom to God," etc.

Daillé urges still further, and insists more sharply, that Irenaeus not only did not take this sentence of Ignatius from the Epistle to the Romans, but that he could not have taken it. Nor does he deem that he proves this by any argument, but by a clear and invincible demonstration. This invincible demonstration, however, so that it may lose none of its force, must be proposed in his own words. He says, therefore, that all the epistles which we have said are Ignatius's were entirely unknown to Irenaeus. "Whose testimonies, to be sure, against the heretics whom he refutes, he is nowhere found to have used in the whole work *Against Heresies*; although there occur throughout it very many places in which they ought very usefully and almost necessarily to have been employed by the author, if he had known of them." And this is that argument which Daillé calls a clear and invincible demonstration. But we marvel that this same Daillé, most skilled in logic and dialectics, did not remember here that in a clear and invincible demonstration everything must be certain, invincible, and entirely necessary. ^D To construct his clear and invincible demonstration, therefore, it was incumbent upon him to demonstrate that the testimonies of Ignatius ought to have been employed not only "very usefully and almost necessarily," but "plainly and thoroughly necessarily." But whatever may be the case regarding the name of a certain and invincible demonstration, let us attend to the force of the argument. That, however, militates no less against Daillé himself than against us. For if he freely concedes that some epistles were written by our Ignatius? For who, he says, is so obtuse as to deny that he wrote some? He even confesses that they were very useful for the Christian cause, and therefore that there existed in them many places against the various heretics of the Ignatian age, whom Irenaeus later refuted. Furthermore, by the very same demonstration which Daillé calls clear and invincible, it is evinced that this is false. For Ignatius did not write the epistles whose testimonies Irenaeus did not use in his work *Against Heresies* against those heretics whom he refutes. But Irenaeus used no testimonies from those epistles which Daillé affirms Ignatius wrote, in his work *Against Heresies*.

§ III. The remaining exceptions of Daillé are refuted.

By the same reasoning, therefore, is refuted what Daillé says: "All see it could easily have happened that if Ignatius had published any writing of that kind, in which he inscribed his opinion, it might have come into the hands of Irenaeus, and perished long before our times." For Daillé cannot assign any writing of Ignatius which has perished, in which that sentence was written; but we assign the Epistle to the Romans, where it has always existed. Furthermore, if there were any strength in this argument, surely countless lucubrations of the ancient Fathers must have perished with it. For if you say that those were cited by most celebrated writers, it will immediately be replied that it was not those which have come down to our hands, but others which perished long before our times, that were cited by them, or at least could have been cited. But who does not see how [188?]

^A this testimony of Origen, because it handed down in writing the things about 140 years after the death of Ignatius, will be useless? What then will become of all the testimonies and lucubrations of the most ancient Fathers, of whom scarcely any mention is made anywhere for two centuries after their deaths? Furthermore, the epistles of Ignatius, as we have said, were kept in the archives of the churches, where Origen could read them, transcribe them, and be instructed most certainly as to whose they were. Why then, if he certifies that he did so 140 years after the death of Ignatius, will his testimony be too late and empty? How false this rule of Dallaeus’s criticism is, you may certainly gather from this: that a son could receive the testament of his great-grandfather from his father, which his father had likewise received from his own father. Is it therefore the case that, if that son asserts that he presents the testament of his great-grandfather, which his father asserted most certainly that he had received from his grandfather, his testimony is too late and empty? Surely no one would say so, even though more than 140 years could have elapsed in this interval of time. Who, moreover, would deny that the epistles of Ignatius, which were the sacred testament of such a great martyr, could have been handed down from hand to hand to one man of proven faith and another, and thus transmitted by that later person to someone else, so that he could affirm with every assurance that they had been truly written by Ignatius? Therefore, his testimony will be neither too late nor empty.

But let us press Dallaeus more closely, and let us show that he not only contradicts himself, but that, even by his own witness, the true epistles of Ignatius were cited by Origen. He concedes that Origen does indeed praise the epistle of Ignatius, but [claims it was] too late. Either, then, he cited the true and genuine epistle of Ignatius, or he cited an adulterated one. Yet according to Dallaeus himself, those which he calls the adulterated epistles of Ignatius were published long after the death of Origen. Therefore, Origen did not cite these, but the true and genuine epistle of Ignatius. Therefore, the defenses for them are not too late, which must have stood from the very beginning.

CHAPTER VI. THE FOURTH ARGUMENT, TAKEN FROM THE TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN, IS VINDICATED AGAINST THE OBJECTIONS OF ADVERSARIES.

§ I. Origen's testimony is proposed and defended against the first objection.

The invincible testimony of Irenaeus is followed by the authority of Origen, who attributes the epistles which we defend to Ignatius without any, even the slightest, doubt. For he praises the words of Ignatius, excerpted from the Epistle to the Ephesians, thus: “I found it written elegantly in the epistle of a certain martyr, I mean Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch after Peter, the second, who fought against beasts in the persecution at Rome: the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world, and it was hidden because of Joseph,” etc.

But Dallaeus opposes two things to this most clear testimony of Origen, namely, that it is empty and that it did not proceed from Origen himself. Why then is the testimony of a man who was by far the most learned of all, in matters that he could know for certain, empty? Dallaeus responds: “It is in vain that they cite the homilies of Origen written about one hundred and forty years after the last struggle of the martyr Ignatius... the defenses of the Ignatian letters are too late and empty, which must have stood from the very beginning if they are to stand now. For the most learned men deny that those things which did not have force from the beginning can gather strength over a lapse of time.” ^{B C D}

§ II. The second objection is refuted, demonstrating that Origen's homilies on Luke were written by him, and the opponents' objections are answered.

It is clear, therefore, how vain and false is the first response of Dallaeus to the authority of Origen; let us see if the second is of greater weight and solidity. He denies that this [homily], which we praise, and the other remaining homilies of the same Origen on Luke, proceeded from him. But they are ascribed to Origen by all Catholics and even by the heterodox, both Protestants and Calvinists, with the single exception of this same defender of Dallaeus. These things, however, do not stop Dallaeus and his defender, and, contrary to all, even the most learned writers, they deny entirely that the same homilies are the offspring of Origen. Let us hear by what arguments they disprove this. “Indeed,” says Dallaeus,

^A “this entire work of the homilies on Luke is teeming with indications of Latin birth.” Do you think that he has compiled a catalog of these indications, as he is accustomed to do in other matters? Not at all: he exhibits only six examples of them, which, since they are certainly neither many nor long, let us pause to examine for a little while. The first is taken from homily 5: “I, however, ^B am ‘alogos’ (without logos).” Although the Latin rendered this differently, it can nevertheless be properly translated as “without discourse” or “without reason.” The second is from homily 6: “Hail, full of grace,” which is said in Greek *kecharitomene*, where I do not recall reading it elsewhere in the Scriptures. The third is from homily 16: “For a corpse (cadaver) received its name from a fall (casu).” The fourth is from homily 22, where Origen discusses these words, “let them be turned into stones”: “He is asked,” he says, “that they might for a little while be turned into stones; for this, the Greek language sounds more significantly.” The fifth is from homily 35: “He placed the prince without the article, so that it might not seem to designate a certain one; but without the article, so that he might show it was one out of many: which is better understood among the Greeks.” The sixth is from the same homily: “A farthing or the last minute; which can be called ‘tenue’ (slight/thin) in Greek.”

But as regards this number, the third example ought to be removed; for the Latin interpreter rendered the Greek words *fà gàr apò ptṓseōs légetai* (for it is named from a fall) into these Latin words very aptly: “For a corpse received its name from a fall.” In the fourth example, too, nothing occurs that does not pertain to Origen’s interpretation. For what prevents there being certain observations made by Origen concerning the Greek word for Exodus, by which the Hebrew was rendered, which the Latin interpreter performed in the course of his duty? Moreover, let us grant to Dallaeus that those words which are shut up there in parentheses are additions made by the interpreter. Furthermore, let us grant to him that in the four other examples there are other similar words. But since the interpreter judged that these words should be added to Origen’s text in order to render a reason for his version, or to open up the mind of his author more clearly, or to make all things plainer and more evident to those who did not know Greek, they cannot effect anything against the Greek origins of this work. And, in very truth, in those same places all things are Origenian, and they smack of a Latin interpreter. ^C But this can be confirmed from the fact that the additions are very few; and also from the fact that the fifth and sixth homilies—from which two examples are objected to us—are concluded to be the genuine work of Origen because Ambrose, as I have said elsewhere, transfused several things from them into his own exposition of the Gospel according to Luke.

Nevertheless, the defender of Dallaeus urges that if these additions do not argue for a Latin birth, then no true and genuine writings can any longer be distinguished from the spurious in the works of the Greeks, of which we have only Latin versions. But this defense of Dallaeus is altogether light and weak. For what is easier for men, even the slower ones, than to distinguish ^D additions of this kind from the text of the Greek author himself? Many additions of this same kind certainly occur in the Latin version of the works of Irenaeus, which we possess only in that form; yet no one has ever hesitated to distinguish them from the Greek text of Irenaeus, nor has anyone been deceived by them. Nor should you say that if we admit that some additions were made by the interpreter, those things which we have cited for the epistles of Ignatius could also have been added to the text of Origen by him. For it is certain that the interpreter of these homilies is not Rufinus, as Blondellus guessed, but Jerome, just as Jerome himself and that same Rufinus, his most bitter enemy, testify. But it is established that Jerome added few things in his translations of the works of the Origenists, which were noted by Rufinus. Wherefore, since the testimony which we brought forward is by no means counted among those, who would ever dare, unless rashly and falsely, to deny that it truly proceeded from Origen?

The second point of Dallaeus, by which he denies that these Homilies on Luke are by Origen, is conceived in these words: “But also, by the very genius, character, and sense of Origen, certain things in the same work are alien.” This, indeed, he attempts to show by a triple reason. The first of these is that the Holy Spirit is called the third person from the Father and the Son: “Who,” he says, “so uses the distinction of person in divine matters, is, if I remember correctly, alien to Origen.” But he does not remember well, or he had not read well these words of Origen: “We, however, who believe that there are three persons, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Nor does he remember well that Christ is elsewhere called by the same Origen *deúteron theón*, “a second God.” Nor, finally, does he remember well that Jerome wrote to Avitus that Origen erred in this, that: “He asserts the Holy Spirit to be third in dignity and honor after the Father and the Son... The Son also as lesser than the Father, in that He is second from Him, and the Holy Spirit as inferior to the Son, etc.” For he who asserts that the Holy Spirit is third in dignity and honor, and the Son indeed as second and inferior to the Father, from him the usage of “distinction of person” in divine matters is certainly not alien.

The second reason of Dallaeus is of no greater weight: “Nor is it his habit here, as I opine, to introduce long discourses exchanged between themselves or before God, which this one does not do just once.” But just as he did not remember well before, so neither does he opine well here. For although he has boldly said “not once,” he brings forward only two examples of these discourses; and since these are not long, as he himself more confidently asserts, but are altogether brief, we will represent them whole in Origen’s own words—which perhaps Dallaeus did not dare to do. The first, therefore, is as follows: “I answer you,” says Origen, “O deceitful and wicked man, who do not merit to test me.”

Another is: “The word of God is bread, which gives life to the man.” The second is: “And each of us has an adversary clinging to him, whose task it is to lead us to the prince, and to say: O prince, for example, of the kingdom of the Persians, this one who was under you, I guarded him, as was required.” What could be desired from these sermons that is either less prolix or more Origenian?

Finally, the third argument of Dallaeus is proposed thus: The author of the homilies rebukes the Sadducees because they explained certain words of Isaiah and the Psalms “literally,” whereas he himself believes they should be interpreted in a spiritual sense: “To the Sadducees,” he says 87, “who were a portion of the Jews and understood these things literally, the Savior says: ‘You do not know the Scriptures’ 88.” But, says Dallaeus, this conflicts with Origen, who in his genuine works denies that the Sadducees accepted any books of the Old Testament into the canon of the Scriptures besides the books of Moses. But it is one thing for a book to be enrolled in the canon of the Scriptures, and another for its words to be understood literally. Our author censures the Sadducees for the one, but not for the other; and therefore, he in no way opposes the opinion of Origen.

In truth, Origen, as Jerome testifies, composed these homilies when he was younger. “I confess,” he says 89, “there are other, more virile works of his, and the serious pursuits of his old age... ^A then he will be able to see, or rather, through you, the Roman tongue will recognize how much good it did not know before, and has now begun to know.” But the defender of Dallaeus boldly replies that Jerome was mistaken, and affirms that Origen was older than sixty when he allowed his homilies to be written down. He boasts that he discovered this through his own sagacity in these words 90: “That this was noticed by learned men, but not accurately weighed or precisely pondered, I cannot wonder enough; when, however, Eusebius testifies to it clearly.” Let us hear, then, those clear words of Eusebius: “Origen,” says Eusebius 91, “now being older than sixty, inasmuch as he had acquired the greatest practice in speaking through long exercise, permitted the public discourses which he ^B gave to the people to be taken down by shorthand writers, although he had never before allowed this to be done.” But that most perspicacious defender, who condemns learned men for negligence, ought to have weighed more accurately these words of Eusebius which he himself cites: “he permitted the discourses... to be taken down by shorthand writers.” For although Eusebius says there that Origen did not allow his discourses to be taken down by shorthand writers, he does not deny that Origen himself wrote them with his own hand before the sixtieth year of his age. Nor does he deny that they were transcribed by others, even against Origen’s will. Furthermore, it is certain that Origen, when he was young, gave discourses to the people; for our adversaries do not deny this, which is clearly gathered from the cited words of Eusebius. And among these discourses, those homilies ^C in question must undoubtedly be numbered; for not only Jerome, but also Rufinus—a man most hostile to the same Jerome—constantly assert that they were pronounced by Origen when he was young, and Eusebius in no way contradicts their opinion.

It is therefore certain that these homilies are the genuine work of Origen; and consequently, his testimony for the epistles of Ignatius stands unassailable. Yet the final arrow of Dallaeus, which he twists elsewhere against Eusebius and here against the authority of Origen, is as follows: “One thing,” he says 92, “I will add, which in my judgment is most worthy of note: that Eusebius would not have omitted the testimony of Origen for the Ignatian epistles, if he had made mention of them anywhere.” But there is no argument ^D more light or infirm than that which he deems most worthy of note. For did Eusebius collect into his History every single testimony of Origen and of apostolic men, and of other Fathers, regarding the epistles of Ignatius? No one, surely, will deny that many were passed over by him; yet for this reason, one would not judge that those same works of the Fathers should be stripped of their authors. Finally, Eusebius, content to have cited the authority of Polycarp and Irenæus for the epistles of Ignatius, did not think it right to accumulate more testimonies from later Fathers.

CHAPTER VII. ARGUMENTUM SEXTUM EX ALIIS INNUMERIS SCRIPTORIBUS, QUOS ADVERSARII EPISTOLAS IGNATIO ADJUDICASSE FATENTUR, DESUMPTUM.

§ I. Argument taken from the authority of Eusebius.

We have argued thus far concerning the testimonies of the most ancient Fathers, by which Daillé and his defender contend, with wonderful and singular obstinacy, that the epistles of Ignatius were unrecognized. Now we must deal with those writers by whom, as they themselves freely admit, the same epistles were both recognized and attributed to Ignatius. The leader of these is Eusebius of Caesarea, of whom Daillé writes: "We admit that Eusebius recognizes those epistles, whether six or seven, which he enumerates, and holds them to be truly Ignatian. Nor do we conceal that the ones he speaks of appear to be those very epistles that are circulated today under these names, such as those that the most reverend Ussher published in Latin and the most learned Vossius in Greek, from the English and Medicean manuscripts, respectively." ^A Thus he finally concedes what he could never deny in any way. But what, do you think, does he conclude regarding the opinion of the most famous father of Church History? In a few words he finishes the matter, stating clearly that he [Eusebius] was deceived in his judgment of these epistles. Nor is it enough for Daillé to condemn Eusebius of error; he even makes him guilty of all the errors into which others later fell. "Eusebius," he says, "is the source of all the Ignatian error, which, having first arisen here, later spilled out most widely and permeated almost all the learned men of the Christian name." Why, then, was Eusebius so basely deluded? Was that man of excellent genius and immense learning sluggish and inert in examining the epistles of Ignatius—he who diligently observes not only their date and those who are named in them, but also testifies that he had most accurately examined those things which the author had cited? For he writes: "In the epistle to the Smyrneans, speaking of our Savior, he recites certain of His words, which I know not from where he received them." Daillé scorns neither the genius nor the diligence of Eusebius, but says: "A twofold perception of his soul concerning Irenæus and Polycarp led the man astray, and compelled him to admit as truly Ignatian those things which were spurious and counterfeit." ^B How Daillé declares the error he perceived in Eusebius regarding Irenæus is as follows: "That he [Eusebius] read in the epistles the same things that Irenæus reports Ignatius to have said—deceived by a false and empty appearance—he imagined that Irenæus had also seen the epistles, and, what is more crass and inexcusable, that he had remembered them." Regarding Polycarp, he says: "Similar to this is his [Polycarp's] case—these are Daillé’s words—even if it is more worthy of pardon, the negligence of Polycarp, who did not attend to the two places he cited, which are openly in conflict with one another." But surely, as we think, we have demonstrated with such evidence that in Irenæus the word *said* has the same meaning as *written*, and that there is no conflict in the words of Ignatius, that Daillé and his defender should be ashamed and embarrassed to have accused Eusebius of a double error. Let us add, if you like, that those two places which Daillé asserts are in conflict with one another were not cited by Eusebius. But even if one or both had been transcribed by him, it is still improbable that a man of such great perspicacity, who had examined the epistles of Ignatius with such diligence, would not have noticed this open contradiction—if any existed—in the very words of Ignatius which he himself had, as it is said, transcribed. Indeed, it ought to appear certain to everyone that those words of Ignatius hang together perfectly, which Eusebius did not perceive to be in conflict with one another. ^{C D} Furthermore, it is established that Eusebius, from some long, hand-written codex he had in his possession, transferred the passages which he transcribed from the Ignatian epistles into the history he published in the year 326, or according to Daillé, 330. And yet from that same Daillé...

Daillé those epistles of Ignatius are said to have come to light toward the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth, that is, around the year 300. That codex, therefore, which Eusebius used, had been written, according to Daillé's opinion, barely thirty years earlier. How, then, could that most sagacious man, who had leafed through so many manuscript codices and had scoured so many libraries, not have held the authenticity of such a recent manuscript in suspicion? Why did he not, following his usual care, seek out older ones? Why, finally, did all those more recent dogmas, which Daillé detects in these epistles—heresies, indeed, later than Ignatius, and many other things born after him—not inject into him even the slightest suspicion regarding the supposition of these same epistles? Certainly no sincere lover of truth will ever persuade himself that all these things are credible; but he will acknowledge no error received by Eusebius from Irenaeus and Polycarp, and will willingly confess that these epistles are the true and genuine work of Ignatius.

§ II. The second argument, deduced from the testimony of Athanasius of Alexandria.

Since the followers of Daillé contend with such great stubbornness that Eusebius is the fountain of every error regarding the Ignatian writings, an error which has pervaded almost all the learned of the Christian name, it is certainly no wonder if they falsely assert that almost all writers after Eusebius drew their opinion about the Ignatian epistles from this fountain, which they call corrupt. Therefore, forced to abandon those most outstanding defenders of our opinion and men of all age and erudition, they struggle to minimize certain errors of two or three, as they say, or to erode their authority. First among them in doctrine and merit stands Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who praises the epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians in this manner: ^B "Ignatius, after the apostles, ruler of Antioch and martyr of Christ, spoke thus in his epistles concerning the Lord: 'There is one physician, carnal and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in man, true life in death, from Mary and from God.'" When Daillé examines this testimony of Athanasius, he confesses that he did not err in this, in that he praised an excellent passage, most useful to his cause, which he found in the Ignatian epistles, under his name. Truly, Athanasius owes great thanks to Daillé for having excused him, with such singular courtesy, from a sin that could not have existed, provided that he did not immediately accuse him because he was occupied with a most grave disputation and was deluded by the false authority of Ignatius shown to him by Eusebius. But by what argument will he demonstrate that Athanasius was deluded by Eusebius? For after the history of Eusebius was published, Athanasius immediately left Alexandria and was almost always far removed from Eusebius, and it is indeed very likely that the history of this same Eusebius never even came into his hands. ^C But let it be that it did come into his hands. Surely Daillé will conclude nothing from that. For the testimony of Ignatius, transcribed by Athanasius, is not found in that History of Eusebius. Therefore, Athanasius borrowed it from another writer, or from some manuscript codex of the letters of Ignatius. But from whosoever that most learned prelate received that testimony of Ignatius, he deemed it, whichever it might be, of such antiquity and authority that he remained persuaded that the Catholic faith could be safely fortified and defended from it against the arguments and subtleties of the Arians. It is clear, therefore, and established, that Athanasius cited the testimony, which he attributes to Ignatius, not from the History of Eusebius, but from some monument of venerable antiquity. ^D Finally, we have shown that Eusebius was in no way mistaken in citing the epistles of Ignatius. It is therefore said in vain that Athanasius was deluded by him.

§ III. The third argument, extracted from the authority of John Chrysostom.

Closely following Athanasius is Chrysostom, who, in the oration which he delivered at Antioch concerning the martyrdom of Ignatius, speaks thus: "Whence does this become clear? From the words which he spoke when he was about to die. For when he had understood that he had to undergo that kind of punishment: 'I,' he said, 'would cherish those wild beasts,'—in Greek, *Ἐγὼ τῶν ἐκείνων ὀναίμην*, he said. Which Greek words, indeed, no one can fail to see are taken from the epistle of Ignatius to the Romans. Nevertheless, Daillé contends that Chrysostom says nothing peculiar to Ignatius except for the passion, from which he relates and amplifies those words of his; that is, according to Daillé's opinion, that Chrysostom relates these words not from the epistles of Ignatius, but from the Acts of his martyrdom itself. But that this is wholly false we have already demonstrated thence, that those words are found not in the true and sincere Acts of Ignatian martyrdom, but only in those that are interpolated and corrupted, and totally unknown to Chrysostom.

Instat nevertheless Daillé: "Why does he not recite some from those epistles, the most praiseworthy sentiments, just as he recites that one brought forth by the mouth of the martyr, adorned with the sweetest and most beautiful flowers of his divine eloquence?" But these were not things to be objected to by Daillé, a man of such great erudition, for he could not have been ignorant that it was not the custom among the ancient Fathers—who had panegyrical orations concerning martyrs and other most holy men—to recite from their epistles or writings the praiseworthy sentiments, adorned with the sweetest and most beautiful flowers of their divine eloquence. Let the panegyrical oration of Augustine on Cyprian be read; let others delivered by other Fathers be read, and one will find in them no recitation of their praiseworthy sentiments, which Daillé misses in Chrysostom concerning our Ignatius. Furthermore, Chrysostom deemed this one most beautiful sentiment alone, out of the epistles of Ignatius, worthy of being culled, not

solely because it showed most clearly his supreme ardor for suffering for Christ, but because he judged it to lead more toward celebrating the praises of such a martyr. Finally, from the single analysis of the Ignatian letters which we presented above, it is gathered no less clearly that Chrysostom drew from these same letters what he says in the same place, that the cities which Ignatius visited on his journey ^A “sent him forth with great provisions, aiding him with prayers and embassies.”

We can subjoin to these other words of Ignatius from the same Chrysostom, which he had borrowed from his epistle to Polycarp, which he set forth after this fashion: “Wherefore a certain noble man among the ancients, whose name was Ignatius, and who was adorned with both priesthood and martyrdom, writing to a certain priest, said: ‘Let nothing be done without your will, nor do you yourself do anything without the will of God.’” We do not deny that some have negated that this oration proceeded from Chrysostom. But it is attributed to him by Photius, by Pope Adrian I, by Epiphanius the deacon, and by the Second Council of Nicaea; and besides this, the style of Chrysostom shines in it and is recognized. Finally, it can be asserted more certainly, since this oration has come to light whole and entire, without lacunae or gaps, in the Savile edition.

§ IV. The fourth argument drawn from the testimony of Jerome.

We cannot sufficiently marvel at why Daillé stirs up a dispute concerning Jerome's opinion regarding these same epistles of our Ignatius. For what that most learned man thought about them is declared so openly that Daillé himself admits that nothing clearer could be desired: “Jerome,” he says, “who followed the erring Eusebius not once, said the same things about Ignatius and his epistles.” And a little later: “Jerome followed the judgment of all of Eusebius, and indeed his words.” Now, it is not necessary to describe here the places in Jerome's writings where, according to Daillé, he followed the judgment and words of Eusebius, both because they are quite lengthy and because we have Daillé himself admitting this. It will suffice, therefore, to note that these are found first in his book against Helvidius, which he composed in the year 383 or 384; ^B then in the *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, which he published in the year 392; and finally in his *Commentary on Matthew*, which he himself brought to light not before the year 398. From which we understand openly and clearly how consistently Jerome remained in his opinion regarding the attribution of the epistles to our Ignatius.

But Daillé, who concedes these things to be true, does not hesitate to assert in the same book nevertheless: “That these things which exist today as Ignatian were either unknown to or spurned by Jerome himself.” Yet it is most certain that the epistles of Ignatius, if he truly recognized them as being Ignatius', were not spurned by Jerome. For in what way could it enter the mind of that holy doctor that he would himself spurn writings which he knew to have proceeded from Ignatius, so great a martyr, whom he pursued with the highest honor? It remains, therefore, that the epistles of Ignatius, if Jerome did not spurn them, were unknown to him. But how could those epistles, which he held for certain had been written by Ignatius for so long, have later become unknown to him?

Let us, however, follow Daillé as he defends these paradoxes. Ignatius, he says, in these epistles condemns the equality of bishops with presbyters, which Jerome dogmatically defends everywhere. From the discrepancy between the two, he immediately infers that Jerome did not possess these epistles, as the true offspring of an apostolic man, or that as yet there were not in them those many things which we read today concerning the necessity of the episcopate and its excellence over the presbyterate. But both parts of this argumentation are false and completely inept for proving Daillé's paradoxes. And first, the falsity of the consequence is demonstrated by the fact that it could be proved by the same argument that all those writings of the ancient Fathers were unknown to or spurned by the same Jerome in which some opinion, which he ^C dogmatically defends everywhere, is read as being condemned. That this is most false, no one—not even Daillé himself—would deny. For how many opinions, for example, does Origen condemn in his works which Jerome “dogmatically defends everywhere”? Will Daillé rightly conclude from this that those works of Origen were “unknown to or spurned by” Jerome, or that those many things which we read today were not yet in them?

But, you will say, at least Jerome spurned those opinions in the Ignatian epistles concerning the necessity of the episcopate and its excellence over the presbyterate, or they were not yet read there. Granted, he spurned them. What will Daillé conclude from that? Are we to say on that account that all other things which Jerome never disputes in the Ignatian epistles, just as in the works of Origen, never existed there, or that they were sometimes rejected by Jerome as being in no way Ignatian or Origenian? Certainly no one except the Dailleans will ever argue in this way.

Then it is false that that opinion concerning the necessity of the episcopate and its excellence over the presbyterate, which is the first part of the Daillean argumentation, is treated differently by Jerome than by our Ignatius. Most learned writers, both Catholic and Protestant, have most invincibly demonstrated this in various dissertations published against the Calvinist Blondel. But those who do not have the leisure to pore through those studies may approach Jerome himself: Epist. 4, to Heliodorus; Epist. 3, to Nepotianus; Epist. 27, to Eustochium; Epist. 62, to Theophilus; the *Commentary on the sixth chapter of Micah* and *chapter LX of Isaiah*; the *Dialogue against the Luciferians*; and Book I *against Jovinian*; and in those places the most holy doctor ^D follows the judgment of all, as Daillé also says.

^A regarding the necessity of the episcopate and the preeminence over the presbyterate, they will most clearly perceive that they wrote exactly as did our Ignatius.

Wherefore, Daillé is no longer to be listened to, as he attempts once more to prove from this that these epistles of Ignatius were unknown to Jerome, because Ignatius says that Christ rose from the dead at daybreak, whereas Jerome says: "The Lord rose at the hour He Himself willed, which is known to none of mortals." But, says Daillé, it is not likely that Jerome would have written things so repugnant to the doctrine of Ignatius. But this argument rests upon the same ruinous and most false foundation as the preceding one. Furthermore, those words which Daillé objects are not found in the true and genuine epistles of Ignatius, but only in their interpolations.

By this same answer, another point of Daillé’s is exploded, by which he again presses that Jerome is mistaken in his judgment concerning these Ignatian epistles. For he opposes those words of the holy doctor: "Can we not call to mind for you the whole series of ancient writers, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin the Martyr, and many other apostolic and eloquent men who, against Ebion, and Theodotus of Byzantium, and Valentinus, wrote volumes full of wisdom, holding these same views?" But yet, says Daillé, the name of Theodotus is to be found in the works of none of all the writers whom that excellent doctor commemorates, except in the epistles of Ignatius alone. Therefore, Jerome is speaking of Ignatius; and since he died before Theodotus, Daillé concludes from this that the same Jerome erred. But the name of Theodotus has been inserted only into the interpolations of the letters of Ignatius. Therefore, Jerome is not aiming there at Ignatius, but at someone else, such as Irenaeus or one of those whom he calls apostolic men, and whom no one ignores to have reached the times of Theodotus.

Daillé’s defender, however, insists that until the one whom Jerome noted is designated, Daillé will be able to affirm with the same right that he was Ignatius, with which others wish it to be indicated that it was another. A truly excellent defense by Daillé! Which contends that the same Daillé used that argument for the confirmation of his own opinion, which he admits is no more apt for establishing his own view than it is for that of his adversaries. Moreover, since the name of Theodotus is not found, as we have said, in the genuine epistles of Ignatius, it is necessary that he who was designated by Jerome be absolutely someone else.

Nor should you say: "At least our author argues against and impugns the error of Theodotus, who is more recent than Ignatius." For how many errors of heretics, before those same heretics were brought to light, are refuted in the books of the holy Fathers, while their names are left unmentioned? For a custom arose from thence of refuting, by the tradition handed down from the first ^B Fathers, those emerging in later centuries, and of completely overturning them. In this sense, therefore, Jerome could not unjustifiably assert and commit to writing that volumes full of wisdom had been written by Ignatius, and Polycarp, or others against Theodotus.

§ V. The final argument elicited from other writers.

As it concerns all the other writers after Jerome down to our own times, Daillé and his defender admit that, with the exception of one or two, they have all subscribed to our opinion concerning the epistles of Ignatius: "Athanasius," says Daillé, "Jerome, and Theodoret, and much less even others more recent than these who adhere to the false suspicion of Eusebius regarding the Ignatian [epistles] out of a certain simplicity of mind, without malice, but without any certain reason," etc. It is not, therefore, necessary to recount here the testimonies of each one: but it is worth the effort to construct a brief catalog of them; so that once the name of each one has been heard, how great their authority was, and how invincible an argument may be drawn from their perpetual tradition for the defense of our Ignatius’s epistles, they might be able to know for certain.

In the fifth century of the Church, therefore, mention is made of Theodoret, *Epist. ad Monach. Constantin.*, *Dial. Inconfus.*, *Dial. Impat.*, *Dial. Immutab.*, where he transcribed many testimonies from these epistles against the heretics of his time. Also Gelasius at the end of his book *On the two natures in Christ*.

In the sixth century, the blessed Ephrem, Patriarch of Antioch, in his book *On the sacred laws of Antioch*, where he opposes the authority of our Ignatius to the Severians. Gildas, *Epist. De excidio Britanniæ*. Jobius the monk, *De Incarnat.* Leontius of Byzantium, in his book *De sect.* Act. III, where he testifies that the heretics received the authority of Ignatius, no less than that of Irenaeus, Justin, and other Fathers.

In the seventh century, Anastasius the monk in the book *Odegos (Ὁδηγός)*, where he mentions that same consensus of the heretics. Antiochus the monk of Palestine, *homil. 124*. Also Maximus the Abbot, and Theodotus the presbyter, where they dispute concerning the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, [and] admit the testimony of our Ignatius as certain and beyond all doubt, even if it is repugnant to their opinion.

In the eighth century, John Damascene in his book *Parallel.*, and Antonius, a disciple of the same Damascene, as it is believed, in *Melissa*.

In the ninth century, Andrew of Jerusalem, Archbishop of Crete, *homil. 2 in Nativitate beatæ Mariæ*. Freculphus of Lisieux in *Histor.*, Michael Syncellus in *Encomio Dionys. Areop.*

In the tenth century, Metaphrastes in the *Acts* of the martyrdom of our Ignatius.

In the eleventh century, the author of the *Commonplaces* in the Bodleian Library.

In the twelfth century, Honorius of Autun. In the thirteenth century, Nicetas Choniates in the *Thesaurus*, George Pachymeres, and Robert, bishop of Lincoln, both in their commentaries on the works of Dionysius the Areopagite. In the fourteenth century, Nicephorus Callistus in his *Ecclesiastical History*, book III, chapter 19, and very many others, both in this century and in later ones, whom, since they are obvious to everyone, we desist from naming one by one.

Now, from the most learned multitude of so many witnesses of every age and condition, who does not see that there are few works of the ancient Fathers which are vindicated by more witnesses for their own authors than these epistles of Ignatius? Furthermore, no man, unless he be a person of Daille’s way of thinking, will ever believe that all these writers could have fallen into such blindness or negligence as to have adhered to Eusebius’s false suspicion regarding the Ignatian works out of a certain simplicity of mind, without guile, but also without any certain reason. Moreover, why is it that heretics, to whom the testimonies of Ignatius taken from these epistles were produced to refute their own opinions, never suspected any falsity in them, and could never find or invent anything to raise, diminish, or render their authority dubious? Why, in short, did all these writers, both Catholic and heretic, and those whose interests were most at stake, conspire with such consensus to reject these epistles or to vindicate them for Ignatius—unless it be because they were fully persuaded by most certain reasons that they are the true and genuine work of Ignatius?

CHAPTER VIII. A REPLY TO THE OBJECTION TAKEN FROM THE TESTIMONY OF NICEPHORUS AND ANASTASIUS.

§ I. *That Nicephorus is not the author of the Stichometry.*

From these very writers whom our adversaries later object to us, a new weight and strength is added to our argument. For whom, I ask, do they oppose against the most learned multitude of those many men we have produced? Two, or rather only one author—some anonymous person, namely, whom Daille falsely thinks to have been Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Anastasius, who rendered the Greek work of Nicephorus, or rather of the anonymous author, into Latin, or, if you prefer, as the defender of Daille says, who "adopted" it. The authority and testimony of this writer must therefore be examined. First, Daille adorns Nicephorus with the most generous praises, and this defender of Daille asserts that he has inflicted a "mortal blow" upon us. But where, I ask, has that man—to be adorned with the highest praises—dealt us a mortal blow? In the *Stichometry*, they say, which is indeed nothing other than a fragment, added to the end of the *Chronography* of Nicephorus by some scribe. Daille, however, fights with a strange argument to prove that Nicephorus is its author: "Of this very Nicephorus," he says, "it is not that of some other more recent person, which certain things adduced by the great man Gerard Vossius in his work on Greek writers seemed to suggest; and this the most learned Goar demonstrates solidly and at length, whom one should approach if anyone still doubts." We have approached the most learned Goar, ^A and we read these very words of his, which signify the opposite quite clearly: "The *Canon of the sacred books*, as a list having nothing to do with the *Chronography*, is judged to be a *parergon* [an appendage] of the scribe." He does not, therefore, demonstrate solidly and at length, but rather he denies thoroughly and completely that this *Stichometry* is the work of Nicephorus; and he offers a clear and certain reason for his opinion, namely, that IT pertains in no way to the *Chronography* of Nicephorus. When the defender of Daille understood this well, he tried a new ^B argument, and indeed in a wonderous and singular manner, suspecting that the same *Stichometry* is older than Nicephorus. "I am troubled," he says, "by a vehement suspicion that the *Stichometry* in question is older than Nicephorus himself." For I think it escapes no one who has even lightly tasted these studies that the usage of these indices prevailed long before Nicephorus. It is therefore not inconsistent with the truth that Nicephorus obtained that *Stichometry* from a writer very much older than himself, or rather that he adopted it as having been found at the end of a very ancient manuscript of the sacred books and appended it to his own *Chronography*. However, for the defender's vehement suspicion to have any solidity, he himself first had to prove ^C that there was no *Stichometry* more recent than Nicephorus, but that all were not only older than him, but *very much* older. Then, it still had to be demonstrated that this same index was added to his *Chronography* not by a scribe, but by Nicephorus himself. He will, however, never prove either by any reasoning whatsoever. On the contrary, those who are accustomed to browse through manuscript codices with even the slightest study know most certainly that it is the custom of scribes to add these indices and other writings of this kind—whether more recent or older—very frequently to the end of the books they are copying. But furthermore, let us grant to Daille, which is nonetheless false, that this *Stichometry* was published by the Patriarch Nicephorus; let us ^D also grant to his defender, what he will himself never prove, that it is the work of an author very much older than Nicephorus himself: is the judgment of one Nicephorus, or of some anonymous and unknown writer, to be preferred to the clear and evident opinion of all the most learned and most notable men of every age?

§ II. *That this Stichometry does not hinder the epistles of Ignatius.*

But come, let us examine the authority and testimony of this writer, whoever he may be. He compiled various catalogues of the books of Holy Scripture, in which are listed: 1° The books of the Old Testament; 2° The New Testament; 3° The Scriptures of the Old Testament which are not admitted; 4° Those of the Old Te-

Testament apocrypha we judge as such; 5° Those of the New Testament which are apocryphal. And in this later order ^A he placed the Epistles of Ignatius, or rather, as he himself speaks, the doctrine. But these words and inscriptions of the author of the Stichometry signify nothing other than that the Epistles of Ignatius are to be rejected among the apocrypha of the New Testament; that is, that they are not to be numbered among the sacred books of the New Testament. For that reason, without a doubt, he makes mention only of those books which bore the name of the apostles or of these same disciples, and which the imprudent piety of some had wanted to be ascribed to the sacred Scripture of the New Testament.

But, the Dalleans say, that author considers the Epistles of Ignatius to be held in the same number as the Itineraries of Peter, John, and Thomas, which are sung ^B of often as being from the most wretched genre of apocrypha. From whence the same men boldly conclude: "By the same sentence have the Ignatian writings been condemned and marked for eternal disgrace and infamy." But they ought at some point to have been ashamed of an objection so often repeated. For indeed, the sincere Epistles of Ignatius, without interpolations—which alone we defend—embrace nothing but what is sound, orthodox, and most useful and greatly fruitful to Christians and the entire Church. They could not, therefore, be condemned together with those writings which are filled with the dreams and lies of the most wretched genre of apocrypha and sprinkled with certain poisons, to the same sentence of eternal disgrace and infamy. ^C Therefore, the author of the Stichometry, if he had any sanity of mind, by banishing to the apocrypha of the New Testament all the writings which constitute his final class, merely excluded them from the sacred catalogue of divine Scriptures; but regarding their utility, or regarding which genre of apocrypha each is to be judged, he left the freedom of judgment to everyone.

§ III. Nor does Anastasius disagree with them. Regarding Anastasius, moreover, who rendered that Stichometry into Latin, one must feel the same entirely as regarding its author; or rather, it must be said that the same Anastasius, since he performed the office of a non-critical interpreter, rendered into Latin what he had found written in Greek in his manuscript codex: but regarding this Stichometry, ^D which had been added to the works of another author, he passed no judgment.

CHAPTER IX. THE NEGATIVE ARGUMENT, DRAWN FROM THE CUSTOMS OF CERTAIN CHURCHES, IS REFUTED.

§ I. This argument fights against the adversaries. Since our adversaries can produce no writer speaking for their opinion whom they might oppose to the invincible company of so many and such great men fighting for our view; they flee to the silence of others, as if to a sacred anchor, so that at least they might appear to have given some place to the empty skermishes of their authorities. Daillé therefore proposes his negative argument with great pomposity of words, which is reduced entirely into this form: "It is certain," he says, "that these epistles which we read today, if they are truly Ignatius's, could not have been unknown to all the Christians of his own and the immediately following memory, especially those who were literate and learned, if there were any. But it is sufficiently plain and demonstrated by the works of those themselves which survive, as it seems to me, that all these epistles inscribed with the name of Ignatius which we now possess were entirely and altogether unknown to them. Therefore, it must also necessarily be confessed, to which we ourselves contend, that those epistles were never written by Ignatius."

But how weak and trifling this argumentation is, is invincibly proven by the fact that, if it has any strength, Dalle and his supporters are merely struck and overwhelmed by it. For upon those very men who affirm with the firmest assertion that Ignatius wrote some epistles, as we have said, this same argument falls back with all its force and with all its might in this way. It is certain that epistles written by Ignatius could not have been unknown to all the Christians of his own and the immediately following memory, especially those who were literate and learned. But it is certain that the epistles which the Dalleans contend were written by Ignatius were entirely and altogether unknown not only to these, but to everyone before and after Eusebius. For they have never been able to point to any author who cited or acknowledged them. Therefore, it must also necessarily be confessed that the epistles which the Dalleans champion were never written by Ignatius. Moreover, this argument which they themselves provide to us is the more valid in that they can certainly never avoid the lethal blow which they have brought upon themselves with their own hands.

Furthermore, the adversaries confess—which no one could even deny—that an affirmative argument is always to be preferred to a negative one. For neither the silence of any writers, nor indeed even ignorance, can cause the effect that those works which have been seen and read by others truly did not exist and truly did not proceed from their authors. But indeed, by the affirmative argument, it has been demonstrated by us most evidently that these epistles, which we possess without interpolations, were truly written out by our Ignatius, namely by the authority and testimonies of Polycarp, Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, and others, which we have most invincibly vindicated from all the exceptions, quibbles, and cavils of Dalle and his defenders.

These things, therefore, should be enough and more than enough for utterly exploding their vain negative argumentation, which is never going to have any force or strength except against themselves. Yet, so that they may not complain that any of their proofs has been passed over by us, and so that to all how weak—

^A their chief argument is may appear, it is useful to weigh most carefully all the moments of that negative defense.

§ II. That the Epistles of Ignatius were not unknown to the Alexandrian Church.

Dallæus therefore contends that the Epistles of Ignatius were unknown to the Churches of Alexandria and other regions, as well as to Tertullian, Gaius, Julius Africanus, Clement of Alexandria, and others; since all of them never made any mention of them. But he argues thus regarding the Alexandrian Church. The doctrine, he says, which is frequently inculcated in those epistles is this: "That individual Churches of Christ cannot and ought not to be governed otherwise than by one bishop presiding over the presbyters." But a different custom altogether, as attested by Jerome and Eutychius, the patriarch of Alexandria, prevailed in the Church of Alexandria. For Jerome handed down these things concerning it: "At Alexandria, from Mark the Evangelist until the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always nominated as bishop one chosen from among themselves and placed in a higher rank: just as if an army were to make an emperor, or deacons were to choose from among themselves one whom they knew to be industrious and call him archdeacon." Eutychius ^B also writes thus concerning the same custom: "Mark the Evangelist appointed twelve presbyters with Ananias, who were to remain with the patriarch, so that when the patriarchate was vacant, they would choose one from the presbyters, upon whose head the eleven would lay their hands, and would bless him, and would create him patriarch, and then they would choose some other distinguished man and appoint him with themselves in place of him who had thus become patriarch; so that there were always eleven. Nor did this institution regarding the presbyters, namely that they should create patriarchs from the twelve presbyters, cease at Alexandria until the times of Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was of the number of the 318, that is, of the Fathers of the Nicene Council." The Alexandrian Church, therefore, did not know that the contrary custom was truly apostolic. Thus, it did not have the epistles of Ignatius, an apostolic man, as known.

How weak this reasoning is, in order that it might appear more evidently, it must be reduced to the form of a syllogism: "The Churches in which a usage prevailed, entirely contrary to the doctrine frequently handed down by Ignatius in his epistles, did not in any way at all have those epistles as known. But in the Alexandrian Church, from Mark the Evangelist until Heraclas and Dionysius, or Alexander, as Jerome and Eutychius testify, a usage prevailed, entirely contrary to the doctrine frequently handed down by Ignatius in his epistles. To them, therefore, the epistles of Ignatius were completely and utterly unknown." ^C But both premises of this syllogism, both the major and the minor proposition, are entirely false. And indeed the falsity of the major proposition is invincibly demonstrated from the very principles of the adversaries. For according to the opinion of them and of all others, Jerome knew these epistles of which we are speaking very well; indeed, he consistently assigned them to Ignatius. Yet, according to the common, albeit erroneous, opinion of the adversaries, Jerome stubbornly defends the equality of bishops with presbyters, which is condemned everywhere in these Epistles of Ignatius. Therefore, the Alexandrian Church could not only have something in use which is condemned in the Epistles of Ignatius, but could even defend it thoroughly and stubbornly with Jerome; and nevertheless acknowledge the same epistles, and indeed even vindicate them for Ignatius.

But the falsity of that proposition is not elicited only from their discordance in thus fighting among themselves; but it is also openly proved from the fact that the usages of different Churches are various, and those things which pertain to discipline conduct themselves in different ways in different Churches, and are subject to changes. And while this could easily be proved with countless examples, let it suffice to have demonstrated it from the very usage of the Alexandrian Church, which is being objected. For this usage of electing and creating a bishop was truly peculiar to the Alexandrians. For if it had prevailed in other Churches, neither Jerome nor Eutychius would have made mention of it as being something singular. But no man of sound mind would affirm that the epistles and works of those who, writing according to the custom of their own Church, handed down something contrary to the usage of the Alexandrian Church, were completely and utterly unknown to that same Church.

Now, however, that we may come to the minor proposition, its falsity is no less conspicuous and open than that of the major. For Jerome and Eutychius speak about the election, constitution, and creation of one bishop of the Alexandrian Church: in the epistles of Ignatius, however, it is a matter only of the Church being governed by him who is already over it, the bishop. But there is truly no contradiction that a bishop, elected and created by the presbyters, may afterwards be placed in charge of the same, and of all other ministers, and of the whole Church. ^D Who knows not that the cardinals of the Roman Church choose one from among themselves, placed in a higher rank, and nominate, elect, and create him bishop and supreme pontiff: yet, after such an institution, he is set over the universal Church as superior to those by whom the pope was created. And to use Jerome's example, even if the army made the emperor, he himself, once made emperor, is in command of the whole army. Hence, Jerome surely said that the bishop being placed in a higher rank meant to signify that he was superior to the presbyters and the Church, just as a general is set in command of an army.

The defender of Dallæus urges: "If it was permitted to the Alexandrian presbyters to constitute bishops, why not also to perform other functions without a bishop?" But we will say in the same way: If it was permitted to the cardinals or the army to constitute a pope or an emperor...

^A in those times, what would prevent others, too, from performing functions without a pope or an emperor? How false and how alien to the truth these things are, no one, I suppose, fails to see.

§ III. Were the epistles of Ignatius unknown to the churches of Egypt, or Ethiopia, or Germania Bajoariorum, or Scotland, or others?

Daillé, however, persists, and thinks that he can demonstrate from the same Eutychius that the epistles of Ignatius were unknown not only to the Alexandrian Church, but to all the churches of Egypt, as well as those of Ethiopia—using an argument which has been refuted sufficiently and more than sufficiently. "Here," says Daillé, speaking of Eutychius, "he teaches us another thing no less marvelous: From Ananias, whom the evangelist Mark appointed patriarch of Alexandria, down to the times of the patriarch Demetrius, there was no bishop in the provinces of Egypt, nor did they create bishops before him. And this man was the first Alexandrian patriarch who made bishops." And leaping from Egypt into Ethiopia, he says: "In every church of Ethiopia there is—and has been from ancient times—one bishop, the ^B Abuna, as they call him, that is, the patriarch, who even today is consecrated and sent by the Alexandrian patriarch. This one man confers orders in all of Ethiopia, and confers no others than those of deacon and presbyter." He cites as witnesses to this fact Nicolaus Godignus of the Society of Jesus, and Alphonsus Mendes of the same Society, who was later the patriarch of the Ethiopian nation, and Joannes a Sanctis, a Dominican praised by Godignus, and finally Francis Alvarez—all writers of this or the previous century. But now, says Daillé, the doctrine handed down in the epistles of Ignatius, by which it is defined that nothing is to be done without a bishop, is plainly and utterly contrary to this custom of the churches of Egypt and Ethiopia. Therefore, that this is the apostolic doctrine, and thus that the churches of both regions were plainly ignorant of the epistles of Ignatius.

But if Eutychius taught us something marvelous about the Egyptian church, Daillé's repetitive argumentation based on Eutychius is surely more marvelous still—and false. For let it be granted that there was one bishop in all of Egypt, one in Ethiopia, and one also in Scythia, and in other regions ^C cast back at us with such arrogance by Daillé’s defender. Nothing, certainly, is discovered there that is repugnant to the epistles of Ignatius. For although there may have been only one bishop in those regions, as they say, that did not inhibit the fact that there, just as now in all the cities, towns, and villages of a most expansive diocese which are under the dominion of one bishop, everything should be done under his authority, and nothing without his judgment. And, indeed, that was so thoroughly believed by the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea that they decreed that in small villages and rural districts, nothing should be done except with the knowledge of the bishop of the city: "It is not fitting," they say, "for bishops to be appointed in villages or rural districts, but visitors. But those already appointed should do nothing without the knowledge of the bishop of the city."

Furthermore, as to the Church of Ethiopia, who would not marvel at the unheard-of manner of argumentation of Daillé and his defender? For both conclude, from the testimony of three or four quite recent authors of this or the ^D preceding century—who write about the affairs of their own time—that there was but one bishop there from the beginning of the Christian religion. As if no change could have occurred with the passage of so many centuries! That there were formerly many bishops in Ethiopia is demonstrated clearly from the very principles of our adversaries. For Daillé calls the Ethiopian Church a most ancient and noble descendant of the Egyptian Church. And yet, according to Daillé himself, the Alexandrian Church had many bishops at least after the age of Demetrius. Therefore, you may rightly infer thence that this custom of creating many bishops was transmitted from the Alexandrian Church to the Ethiopian, which was subject to it, already from those times. Moreover, adversaries concede that it is uncertain whether the Church of Ethiopia drew its origin from the Alexandrian Church before the times of Demetrius, a matter which others think should be referred to the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians, or to the apostles Thomas or Matthew.

But let these things be said out of an abundance of caution. For whether there were one or many bishops in Egypt and Ethiopia, and even in Scythia, nothing can be concluded thence against the doctrine of our Ignatius; and much less against the truth of his epistles. And indeed, for the longest time after the epistles of Ignatius were most widely known to the whole Christian world, there was only one bishop in Scythia and other provinces, and therefore they were not persuaded that this custom was in conflict with the doctrine handed down in the epistles of such a great martyr.

Hence falls what is similarly asserted about the German Bajoarius—

or, as Dallaeus added, the Scots—namely, that among the Bajoarii, as Pope Gregory III notes, there was no bishop before Virgilius; and among the Scots, as Bede bears witness, the abbot-priest of the island of Iona was in charge of the whole province and even of the bishops themselves, in an unusual order. Beyond the fact that this argument has already been answered, Gregory III and Bede affirm that this was done contrary to "ecclesiastical order" or in an "unusual manner." What, then? Will Dallaeus and his defender say that all things which were taught in the writings of other authors to be done according to ecclesiastical order and in the usual manner were unknown to the Bajoarii and Scots, and therefore those same writings are false and supposititious? If they can persuade themselves of this, they certainly will not persuade any fair-minded assessor of things. But even if the epistles of Ignatius had not reached the Bajoarian and Scottish peoples, nevertheless, just like all the other writings of the Fathers that were not transmitted to them, they would not be subject to charges of falsity and forgery.

CHAPTER X. ANOTHER NEGATIVE ARGUMENT DEDUCED FROM THE SILENCE OF AUTHORS IS REFUTED.

§ I. The first, from the silence of Epiphanius. ^A From the silence of the Churches regarding the Ignatian epistles, Dallaeus moved on to the taciturnity of certain writers. But he struggles in vain, fighting with the same sort of arguments as always, and tries to spread that mist and darkness which Ignatius puts to flight with his own light. For first, Dallaeus thinks he can prove that Epiphanius was either ignorant of these letters—or, as he himself puts it, what seems more likely, that he despised them as fictions—from the fact that nowhere does he ever praise these letters of Ignatius when he disputes against the errors of Aerius regarding the equality of presbyters with bishops. "Than these," says the same Dallaeus, "there is nothing in all antiquity more explicit against that opinion of Aerius." ^B But, on the contrary, it is certain that Epiphanius wrote these things after the history of Eusebius had been published, which he had without a doubt read, and in which there is such an honorable mention of the Ignatian epistles. They could not, therefore, have been unknown to him. Moreover, if he knew them, and believed they were written by Ignatius, just as Eusebius did, there is certainly no room for doubt that the excellent work of such a great martyr was not only not despised by him, but accepted with the veneration owed to such a holy man. But, you will say, why does he not use their authority against Aerius? Why, we ask in return, does he himself make use of so few of the many writings of the Fathers against other heresies, by which they were utterly overturned? Did he consider the things he omitted to be unknown, or did he despise them as fake and fabricated? Not at all. Therefore, neither the ^C letters of Ignatius, nor the writings of very many others, did he despise; for it was not his intention to fight against heretics with the testimonies of the Fathers. And, in fact, he brings forth nothing against Aerius, but is read to have replied only to two of Paul's sentences mentioned by that same Aerius.

Dallaeus persists: "Epiphanius places some things there which are in most open conflict with the Ignatian writings, such as the claim that ecclesiastical business can be carried out or administered by presbyters and deacons. Also, that there were certain Churches established by the apostles which were governed by presbyters and deacons alone, without a bishop. These are so many monsters, clearly conflicting with the hierarchical laws of our Ignatius, who defines that the Church is not called such without bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and that it is necessary that nothing be done without a bishop." But if the matter stands thus, Epiphanius is certainly the most imprudent of all men, since he offered his own throat to Aerius when he disputed against the excellence of bishops over other ministers of the Church. Since that certainly cannot be said, neither can it be said that he wrote anything which does not entirely agree and accord with our Ignatius's epistles. And indeed, in the passage objected against us, Epiphanius replies to the words of Paul brought forward by Aerius, stating that the Apostle is there speaking about matters that were done at the beginning of the nascent Church; at which time, since bishops had not yet been created everywhere, ecclesiastical business had to be fulfilled and administered by presbyters or deacons. But Ignatius desired the same business to be administered by bishops, whose number had grown to a wonderful degree in his own age. This, indeed, Epiphanius never denied anywhere. There is therefore no discord or conflict between them, but the greatest consensus of both.

§ II. Whether the epistles of Ignatius were unknown to Tertullian. ^D

Dallaeus gathers more regarding Tertullian, and attempts to prove by four arguments that the epistles of Ignatius were unknown to him. 1. If Tertullian had known that they were written by Ignatius, he would certainly not have written against the doctrine of the holy martyr—"the Church is not called such without bishops and deacons"—that: "Where there are three, there is a Church, even if they are laymen." 2. Where he enumerates those by whom Valentinus was refuted—namely, Justin the philosopher and martyr, Miltiades, Irenaeus, and Proculus—he makes no mention of Ignatius, who is older than all of them. 3. In the places where he disputes more vehemently against Marcion, and shows him from the apostle John that "the Marcionites were in a way premature and abortions, who claimed Christ was a phantasm along with him," there is the deepest silence regarding Ignatius; even though "no one in that first Christianity raged against those phantasticists more sharply or more often." 4. Tertullian, having become a Montanist, teaches against the opinion of Ignatius.

^A that all those who had lapsed after baptism were to be denied repentance. The Orthodox, who likewise oppose the authority of Holy Scripture and the book of Hermas to him, do not have even a single word to say about Ignatius. From these facts, Daillé infers that the epistles of Ignatius were unknown both to the heretic Tertullian and to all the Catholics.

But this is a series and concatenation of futile and empty arguments. For Salmasius, Blondel, and Aubertin, who are sectaries of the same Calvinist heresy as Daillé, affirm that these letters were written before the age of Tertullian. Therefore, Daillé ought first to have refuted the opinion of his own associates; for if that stands, it is easily proven that these epistles of Ignatius, which were communicated to everyone, could have reached the hands of Tertullian.

To proceed to Daillé’s arguments, who does not see that his first is null and ridiculous? For Tertullian had already embraced the heresy of the Montanists when he wrote: “But where there are three, there is the Church, even if they are laymen.” What wonder, then, if a heretical man, who teaches errors contrary to Holy Scripture, writes and speaks against the orthodox doctrine of Ignatius? Would not one argue with greater right as follows: Tertullian, while a Catholic, wrote the same things about the Church as Ignatius. Therefore, the epistles of Ignatius were not unknown to Tertullian.

But indeed, says Daillé, neither in that other work does Tertullian make any mention of Ignatius. What of it? He does not name any other person either, yet it is not to be believed that Tertullian was ignorant of the works of others who refuted this most ancient error, and that therefore they never existed.

Daillé’s final argument is of no greater weight. For Tertullian, when he was writing the things that are objected against him, was a heretic; and therefore, as we have already warned, he did not consider that he ought to bring forward the Catholic doctrine of Ignatius, which was entirely opposed to his own. As for the Orthodox, they could indeed have fought against the errors of Tertullian by the authority of Ignatius; but since their writings do not exist, nothing can be defined by anyone regarding this matter. For no one could certainly affirm that Tertullian faithfully reported all the things objected to him by the Orthodox and answered them all. And in truth, it seems very probable that he selected only a few things.

To Daillé’s second argument, we reply that it seemed sufficient to Tertullian, among those Fathers he cited, to contend against the Valentinians with their authority, not that of a greater number. Nor does Daillé or anyone else have the right to demand of an author why he does not join battle with his adversaries with more arms or a greater multitude of men, when the ones he uses are sufficient to overcome his enemies. Tertullian signifies not obscurely that those Fathers whom he cited were enough and more than enough for him to defeat the followers of Valentinus, and that he did not intend to cite others, when he speaks of them thus: “Who, contemporaries of these heresiarchs themselves, both exposed and refuted them in most learned volumes.” For when he says that those writers were both contemporaries of the heretics and refuted their errors in most learned volumes, he suggests without doubt two reasons: he declares openly that their testimonies were sufficient for him and that no more were desired.

Daillé’s third argument is exploded at once when the words of Tertullian are placed before everyone’s eyes. For he says: “Let the heretic cease... from borrowing from the Jew the phantom that vindicates Christ; unless it be that this opinion will have other, premature and, as it were, abortive authors, the Marcionites, whom the Apostle John declared to be Antichrists.” For who among these would not easily understand that Tertullian’s intention was to indicate that from the time of John, heretics, precursors of the Marcionites, had existed, and having been condemned by the same apostle, had shown ^B that they had been condemned by the same apostle? What need, then, was there, for the proving of this, that the authority of John should not be sufficient for Tertullian, unless Ignatius were also joined to it?

Daillé urges: why did he cite the book of Hermas and not that of Ignatius? We likewise insist: why did he not cite others? We reply that Hermas was cited by him either because his books were ascribed by some to the canon of Holy Scripture, or because of the reason ^C he himself gave in the same book, because it is Scripture that “alone loves the adulterers.” For the question was being moved by him concerning whether adulterers should be admitted to repentance. This Scripture, therefore, which Tertullian says alone loves adulterers, alone was worthy to be praised by him.

§ III. Whether they were also unknown to Caius and Clement of Alexandria.

To prove that the epistles of our Ignatius were unknown also to Caius, Daillé brought forward ^D a fragment of that same Caius, transcribed by Eusebius, where he argues thus against the heresy of Artemon, who raved that Christ was a mere man: “Perhaps that which they say might seem credible, were it not that they are refuted first of all by the divine Scriptures, and by the writings of certain brothers, older than the age of Victor, which they wrote against the Gentiles, and against the heretics of their own time, for the defense of the truth—I mean Justin, and Miltiades, and Tatian, and Clement, and very many others, in whose books the divinity of Christ is asserted. For as for the writings of Irenæus, and Melito, and the rest, who is it that does not know them, in which they preached Christ as being at once God and man?” But, says Daillé, if Caius had learned that the epistles which we defend, where the heresy of Artemon is splendidly refuted, had been put forth by Ignatius, he would without doubt have placed them first in this

^A fragment. But, to omit Gaius, after these epistles of Ignatius had, according to the opinion of Salmasius, Blondel, and Aubertin—as we have said—come into the public realm, having flourished in the third century; we respond that nothing can be concluded by this line of argument unless it is first demonstrated that Gaius was constrained by some necessity to cite the epistles of our Ignatius. Yet since he, having mentioned a few writers, testifies that he had omitted a great many others, he most clearly signifies that he was not at all compelled by any necessity to praise them.

The Dallæan defender insists: Ignatius was more ancient and more celebrated than all who were recorded by Gaius; therefore he ought to have been cited by him. But the consequence derived from the antecedent is false. For Gaius did not say that he had named the writers who were most ancient and more famous than all others; but precisely "the writings of certain brethren, older than the time of Victor." And yet he certainly added with purpose "of certain ones," so that by this word no one could deny that among those he omitted, there were many older and more famous than those he praised. Therefore, it should not be said that Gaius was ignorant of the epistles of Ignatius any more than of the writings of others which he did not cite.

"The same must be judged concerning Clement of Alexandria," continues Dallæus. If the same must be judged concerning Clement, then Dallæus himself has already lost his case. Let us hear him, however. He says, therefore, that Clement is the most ancient and most learned writer of the second century. We also say that this is most true. He says again that, on account of his immense erudition, he praised very many authors, both Gentiles and Christians alike. Concerning the Gentiles, we will not argue, but we contend that far more Christians were omitted by him than were ^B cited. Yet, whatever the case may be, what follows from this against the epistles of our Ignatius? "Certainly," says Dallæus, "where he indicates that the sects of the heretics began to coalesce in the times of Hadrian Augustus, it was a fitting place to mention the Ignatian writings," of which he does not even make mention there. What then? As often as there was a fitting place for a writer to mention the Ignatian ones, if he does not mention them, must it be pronounced that they were neither known to him nor written by Ignatius? A truly wondrous method of arguing. But it is wondrous indeed what place Dallæus has assigned as fitting for Clement to mention the Ignatian writings. "If he had known the 'Ignatian epistles,'" are the words of Dallæus, "'as being repugnant to his own tradition, he would either have refuted them, or he himself would have corrected his own tradition according to their norm.'" A new and plainly unheard-of kind of negative argument! Is it necessary, in order to refute the opinion of some most holy writer, that he must be called by name? Rather, in order that Ignatius might be refuted more prudently and more securely, his very celebrated name should have been spared.

At the very least, Clement ought to have corrected his tradition, urges Dallæus, according to the norm of Ignatius. Nor is this any more necessary. For Clement could have, somewhere ^C by error, or by thoughtlessness, or by a slip of the memory, departed from the opinion of Ignatius. Furthermore, that man himself, whom Dallæus justly nominates a man of supreme erudition, could not have been unaware that many heresies had arisen from the beginning of the nascent Church. Wherefore, in that fitting place, as Dallæus speaks, Clement intended nothing else in his mind than to show that the heretics about whom he discourses were not of as great an antiquity as they themselves boasted. But to prove that, the authority of our Ignatius was not necessary. And here ends the negative argument of the adversaries, sought from the silence of writers concerning the epistles of Ignatius; which they peddle with a great apparatus of words, indeed, and an amazing pomp of useless quibbles: but they do not maintain or defend it with any weight of reasoning, or by any clearly valid and firm proof. We, on the contrary, by affirmative arguments, taken from the authority of most noble writers, have, as we believe, most invincibly vindicated this first class of epistles for our Ignatius.

CHAPTER XI. IT IS PROVED FROM THE EPISTLES THEMSELVES THAT IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH IS TRULY THE AUTHOR OF THESE.

§ I. Primum argumentum.

These epistles of Ignatius, furthermore, are not vindicated as his most certainly by the testimonies of most excellent authors alone; but the epistles themselves also testify openly and plainly that they were written by the same most holy martyr. For in them, the true and genuine style of the apostolic man, inflamed with divine fire and hastening to martyrdom with incredible ardor, shines forth everywhere, and is easily recognized by all. Even the manner in which the letters were written, the errors and heresies impugned therein, the doctrine—whether of morals or of the Christian faith—delivered therein, and finally all other things, do not point to anyone other than the man who was most holy among the disciples of the apostles, most famous among the most holy martyrs, and most excellent among the first bishops of the Church—in a word, they designate, demonstrate, and proclaim Ignatius himself as the author. We have not indeed undertaken to prove this by a long induction, because by the mere analysis of these epistles, which we have given, it becomes plain and entirely clear to everyone. Nevertheless, Dallæus thinks that he has detected therein an author far later than Ignatius; and he attempts to prove this by no fewer than sixty reasons. But since most of them pertain to the interpolations of the Ignatian epistles, or to epistles falsely ascribed to Ignatius, having omitted these, we have believed that we should respond only to those which pertain to the sole class of his genuine writings.

§ II. Secundum argumentum.

But before all things, it is worth the trouble to observe that all the objections of Dallæus and his defenders, ^D from...

the testimonies of the Fathers which we have recounted above, have been utterly overthrown. For Polycarp, Irenæus, and Origen observed nothing in these letters which did not entirely accord with the character, morals, and age of Ignatius. But if we deal more strictly with the adversaries, we shall most invincibly demonstrate this same point from those things which they themselves concede to be most true. For they confess that these epistles were well known to Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, Theodoret, and countless other writers, and were attributed to Ignatius. But if, in these few and very brief epistles, there were as many things—as the adversaries contend—that conflict with the character, morals, and age of Ignatius, it certainly could not have happened that they escaped the notice of so many most learned, most acute, and most diligent men, and that they did not instill in their minds even the minimum scruple or any suspicion regarding the supposition of these same epistles. And even if they had all been struck with blindness, it at least could not have happened that Eusebius, not being so far removed from the time of Ignatius, in compiling his History from the ancient monuments of the Fathers, did not see those things which were so strongly opposed to the morals and all the circumstances customary in the time of Ignatius. It must be said, therefore, that since Eusebius and all others detected nothing in these epistles that is not Ignatian, there is in truth nothing in them that was not written by Ignatius.

CHAPTER XII. OBJECTIONS OF DALLÆUS, TAKEN FROM HERETICS AND HERESIES MENTIONED BY IGNATIUS, ARE SOLVED.

§ I. The objection taken from the heresy of Saturnilus is solved.

Let us, however, follow Dallæus and his defender, and let us strive, if it be possible, to lead them, erring as they are everywhere, into the way of truth. The first argument of Dallæus, therefore, is derived from those things which are noted in the epistles of Ignatius, whether heresies or heretics, whom, believing them to have arisen after his death, he concludes that these epistles could not possibly have been written by Ignatius. Among these heresies, Dallæus contends sharply that the error of Saturnilus, who boasted that Christ was seen only ostensibly, is impugned. But this conjecture of Dallæus is so weak that his own defender openly and ingenuously says: "The things that are observed in him," namely in Dallæus, "do not touch the author of the *Vindiciae*," namely Pearson, "or they are not of such moment that they ought to detain us." And in truth, it is not Saturnilus, or some heretic later than Ignatius, who is pierced by the Ignatian dart, but the Menandrians, or the Ebionites, or the Cerinthians.

^A eternal, not proceeding from silence." All the difficulty, however, is situated in these words: "not proceeding from silence: οὐκ ἀπὸ σιγῆς προελθών." For these words, as they say, strike at Valentinus, who is later than Ignatius, who taught that the Logos proceeded from Sige. Which, they say, since no one is remembered to have dreamed of it before him, could in no way ever have been argued against by Ignatius. But if you reply that Valentinus drew his errors from the Gnostics, the followers of Dallæus concede indeed that "the very forest and matter of things, from which Valentinus composed his own, already existed among the older Gnostic heretics, partly also among poets or pagan philosophers." But they contend that some new sect among the Gnostics was fabricated by Valentinus, the peculiar opinion of which, by which it was distinguished from the others, was this: "that the Logos proceeded from Sige either immediately, as a son from a mother; or mediately, as a grandson from a grandmother." For which cause, indeed, Irenæus, as they suppose, related that "Valentinus transferred ancient doctrines into his own character." Finally, they boldly affirm that, even if these things were written by some Gnostic, he had been taught in the school of Valentinus.

§ III. The previous objection is solved, and it is first shown to be uncertain whether Valentinus began to disseminate his errors after the time of Ignatius.

And this is the chief argument of the adversaries, which they boast with wonderful ostentation to be invincible. But Moynius, a minister of the same Calvinist sect as Dallæus, judged it to be so light and feeble that he voluntarily confesses that no difficulty can be created from it. And certainly this proof, falsely peddled by them, is refuted by various reasons, each one of which suffices alone to destroy it completely. But yet it is first uncertain whether Valentinus did not live in the time of Ignatius, and then began to disseminate his errors. For Irenæus, who knew Valentinus well, and who had already confuted the heresy of this same Valentinus from the time of Pope Eleutherius—that is, between the years 177 and 192—related these things of him to memory: "Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, grew strong under Pius, and prolonged his time until Anicetus." Hyginus, however, according to the common opinion, held the government of the Roman Church from the year 152 to the year 156, or according to the more corrected catalog of the Roman pontiffs of Henschen and Papebroch, from the year 138 to the year 150. Eusebius, however, who followed Irenæus in his history, has these things in his Chronicle for the year 142: "Under Hyginus, bishop of the city of Rome, Valentinus the heresiarch and Cerdo, the master of Marcion, came to Rome." And for the year 146: "Valentinus the heretic is recognized, and remains until Anicetus." Furthermore, it seems very likely that Valentinus had already begun to spread his errors before he arrived at Rome.

§ II. The objection taken from the Sige of the Valentinians is propounded.

Therefore, the greatest and chief argument of Dallæus on this matter is drawn from this sentiment of our Ignatius: "There is one God, who manifested himself through Jesus Christ his Son, who is his Word ^B proceeding from silence." ^{C D}

For the same Valentinus had already been refuted by those who preceded Irenaeus, as Irenaeus himself testifies in the same place: "Wherefore those who were before us, and who were much better than we are, were nonetheless unable to contradict those who are of Valentinus; because they were ignorant of their rule, which we have set forth for you with all diligence in the first book." And elsewhere he writes concerning Polycarp: "For this is he who, when he had come to the city under Anicetus, converted many of the heretics whom we mentioned above, namely Valentinus and Marcion, to the Church of God." Whether Valentinus began to publish his heresy long before the times of Hyginus, however, can never be established as an indisputable fact by anyone.

Yet people urge from the cited Chronicle of Eusebius that Valentinus was only recognized in the year 146. They infer, therefore, that he was previously neither recognized nor, consequently, had he scattered his errors anywhere. But although these things ought not to be pressed from that Chronicle, in which they state there are flaws, we say, however, that in writings of this kind, the word "recognized" is not to be taken as if that heretic had never been known by anyone before; but it signifies nothing other than that he who had previously given the poisons of his errors to drink privately and gradually without people noticing, was now, by scattering them most openly, acknowledged by everyone. ^B

But, they say, Valentinus, according to Tertullian, was still dwelling at Rome under the supreme pontificate of Eleutherius, that is, as we have said, about the year 180. From this they conclude that in the time of Ignatius he could not have been numbered among the living, or at least not among the wicked doctors of heresies. But there was an error in describing the books of Tertullian, or he himself is to be considered to have erred. For Irenaeus, a most diligent investigator of the errors of Valentinus, in his book which he composed under the same supreme pontiff Eleutherius, asserts that Valentinus had only extended his time at Rome until Anicetus, that is, that he did not live or appear there any longer. Eusebius, a most observant writer, subscribed to this opinion of Irenaeus. From which it is rightly concluded that it is obscure and completely uncertain whether Valentinus had not scattered some errors among the common people in the time of our Ignatius.

§ IV. That the Valentinians drew this error concerning Sige from the Gnostics.

But Dallaeus had certainly not read the words of Irenaeus, which he himself reported a little later, with sufficient attention. For Irenaeus discourses there concerning the poet Antiphanes in this way: "Whence also the Valentinians themselves, taking for themselves the fable, only changing the names of those, while showing the same beginning of the generation of the universe and the emission, naming Bithon and Sige instead of night and silence... and instead of the first and greatest gods they formed the æons, and instead of the second gods, they recount that arrangement which is outside their own pleroma." But what of the fact that the Valentinians had derived these generations, emissions, and origins of the first gods and æons—as Irenaeus himself is the witness—not only from the pagans, but also from the heretics? For he himself had handed down in the writings a little above: "These things, however, which are said concerning the sense of emission, similarly also against those who are from Basilides, and against the remaining Gnostics, from whom they, receiving the beginnings of the emissions, etc." ^C And yet, among these emissions of gods and æons, whether first or second, there must undoubtedly have been the Logos sprung from Sige. Therefore the Valentinians borrowed that sprung Logos, just as they did the rest of the emissions of their gods, from the ethnics and heretics.

Nor indeed does Irenaeus stop there, but he himself adds in the same place: "But concerning that which is the second emission from these, of man and the Church, their fathers themselves, those falsely named Gnostics, combat against each other, claiming their own, and convicting themselves [of being] wicked thieves." But what do these words signify other than that the fathers of the Valentinians were Gnostics, from whom they had received not only the first, but also the second emission of the æons? For this reason the pure and mere Gnostics convicted Valentinus and his followers of being wicked thieves, because they had changed many things in the doctrine and tenets of their fathers. ^D Conversely, however, the Valentinians accused those Gnostics of their own time of the same changes. From which discord and conflict it is certainly gathered openly that both the Valentinians and the later Gnostics drew not only the forest and matter, but also the origins and emissions of the gods and æons, from the more ancient Gnostics.

Suppose, however, that Valentinus was later than Ignatius; what does that gain against the epistles of the most holy martyr, if Valentinus drew this heresy concerning the Logos sprung from Sige from older heretics, than that which Ignatius condemns in them? Dallaeus concedes, as we observed above, "the very forest and matter of things, out of which Valentinus composed his own, already existed among the older ones, partly Gnostic heretics, and partly also poets or ethnic philosophers." What, therefore, did Valentinus bring forward that was new? Dallaeus answers that he gave a new form, disposition, and order to this forest and matter; to which, he says, his sect is rightly distinguished from all others, and he is justly reported by Irenaeus to have transferred ancient things into his own character. But what, I pray you, is that Valentinian form? It does not indeed consist in the words, Nus, Logos, or Sige; since I find, says Dallaeus, "the unbegotten Father, and Nun, and Logon among Basilides, and Sige among the poet Antiphanes." What then is that form? "Logon sprung from Sige," continues Dallaeus, "I do not find in either. That arrangement of things exists among Valentinus alone and his disciples."

^A in their reciprocal reproaches and objections concerning the mutations of their doctrines. But he ought to have been mindful of his own statements, which he made a little earlier with Dallaeus. For he most stubbornly asserts, just as Dallaeus does, that Valentinus stayed in Rome at the time of Pope Eleutherius, when Irenaeus published this book which we cite. Yet if Irenaeus in that book recorded the memory that there were fathers of Valentinus’s disciples who were themselves other disciples of the same Valentinus, so that Valentinus had "grandchildren" at that time, and that they were arguing most fiercely about the various changes in his doctrine that had been made by them; from this it will become plain and clear that Valentinus, as we said above, is far more ancient than the very pontificate of Eleutherius. Since this is obstinately denied by the Dallaeans, they must necessarily admit that it was not written by Irenaeus.

But, you will say, what then was the peculiar and proper form of the Valentinian sect? We answer that it is what is designated by the words of Irenaeus, which we have already cited: "They changed the names, and for the first and greatest gods they formed aeons, and instead of second-order gods, they set out that disposition which they narrate outside of their Pleroma." And to these they perhaps added new names, or altered the orders of their emissions and births. Moreover, no great change of doctrine was required to establish a new sect among the heretics, and especially among the Valentinians, as anyone may easily understand from those things which Augustine relates concerning Ptolemaeus: "Ptolemaeus," he says, "a disciple of Valentinus, wishing to establish a new heresy, preferred to assert four aeons and another four." If this one change created a new sect among the Valentinians, Dallaeus strives in vain while inquiring into a new form of the Valentinian sect, which is easily recognized in the preceding words of Irenaeus.

Nor was there any reason for him to object further that it was written in Tertullian ^B before Marcion and Apelles, and before Valentinus had preached his aeons, that no one taught that there was another creator God. From which the same Dallaeus inferred that Valentinus had borrowed nothing from the ancients. For it is so certain that this impiety had been disseminated before the times of Valentinus by Basilides, Saturnilus, and the older Gnostics, that the defender of Dallaeus is forced eventually to abandon him completely in this matter, and at last to confess his error, which he could no longer hide.

V. That Ignatius looked in no way to the Valentinians, but to the Ebionites.

Furthermore, whatever that form of the Valentinian sect might have been, and whatever its peculiar and proper error, Ignatius did not look to them in any way, and much less does he, as Dallaeus says, "most openly strike them." That this is clearly demonstrated is shown by the fact that, although Dallaeus has spared no labor to show that all the things which he attributes to these words of Ignatius: "The Word proceeding from silence," cohere entirely with the errors, fables, and insanity of the Valentinians; he has nevertheless not uttered even a single word about the main argument which is treated there by Ignatius, namely, that our life is not to be established "according to Judaism." Whence then this profound silence on the part of Dallaeus and his defenders regarding this matter? There is certainly no other cause for it, than that the Valentinians felt the same way on this subject as did Ignatius and all other orthodox believers. Now, since the matter is undoubtedly thus, we demand of the adversaries: will it be probable to any person that Ignatius turned his mind toward refuting the Valentinians, where he was attacking an error entirely alien to the Valentinian heresy, and by means of arguments that in no way concerned it? Moreover, that which they raise as an objection, the statement attributed to Ignatius: "The Word proceeding from silence"—they place this as a part of that one moment and argumentation by which Ignatius proves that the Mosaic Law is no longer to be observed. Since, therefore, that entire argumentation does not concern the Valentinians, it seems certain that not even a single part of it looked toward them.

But come, let us examine the matter itself closely. Dallaeus says that the Valentinians taught in the fictitious genealogy of their aeons "the Logon brought forth from Sige either immediately, as a son from a mother; or mediately, as a grandson from a grandmother." But he uses this disjunctive conjunction, "immediately or mediately," not without deceit, so that by this fraud he might persuade the incautious and simpler folk that the Valentinians were attacked by our author. For the Valentinians are never reported to have taught that the Logon was brought forth immediately from Sige. This part of the Dallaean disjunction, "immediately," must therefore be removed from the middle. For Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others who have discoursed upon the Valentinian heresy, relate that among the fictitious gods of the Valentinians, and the aeons of both sexes, the first were Bythos and Sige, or silence; and from their union proceeded Nous and Truth, and from these, in turn, proceeded the Word, or Logon, and Life. From which it is clearer than the light of day that they said nothing other than that the Logon proceeded only mediately from Sige, just as a son from a grandmother. Who, however, would induce into his own mind that Ignatius, where he refutes errors other than those of the Valentinians, nevertheless looked only toward them, when he wrote there: "The Word proceeding not from silence," and nothing more regarding them? Why did he pass from the son to the grandmother without any middle step? Why did he not have even one word to say about the father, or the mother, or the fictitious unions of other aeons, or parents, or children? The reason is certainly ready at hand, and obvious to any fair estimator of things: namely, that Ignatius, when he gave his epistle, thought nothing of the Valentinians.

^A But if it is clear that Ignatius did not aim at the Valentinians, it is surely manifest that the Ebionites are impugned by him. This was so fully accepted by Moynio, the last who wrote on this matter—though he was a minister of the Calvinian sect—that he openly and deservedly pronounced this objection of Daillé, as we mentioned above, to be of no moment whatsoever. But it is certain that Ignatius contends against those who affirmed that the Mosaic Law must be observed. For he attacks them with these words: “Do not be led astray by strange opinions, nor by old fables, which are useless. For if we still live according to Judaism, we confess that we have not received grace.” Now, it is most certain that this error, concerning a life led according to the norm of Judaism, was asserted by the Ebionites. This we gather clearly from all who have handed down any record of these heretics, especially from Irenaeus, Augustine, and Epiphanius, whose words alone it may suffice to cite here: “Ebion,” he says, “embraced the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, such as the Sabbath and circumcision, and other things of that kind, exactly as they are observed by the Jews and Samaritans.” But let us hear in what way Ignatius refutes them, and uses the words objected to us by the Dailléans in that same place: “For the most divine prophets,” he continues, ^B “lived according to Christ Jesus. For this cause also they suffered persecution, being inspired by his grace to convince the unbelieving that one God there is, who manifested himself through Jesus Christ, his Son, who is his eternal Word, not proceeding from silence, who in all things was well-pleasing to him who sent him. If, therefore, those who walked in old things have attained to the newness of hope,” etc. From this he draws the conclusion that life is to be instituted no longer according to the prescription of the Jewish law, but the Christian. Moreover, by this weapon of Ignatius, two errors of the Ebionites are pierced: by one, they wanted men to be still held by the observance of the old law; by the other, they prattled that Christ was not God, but a mere man. Ignatius refuted this last error from the fact that the prophets, filled with divine grace, had lived according to the precepts of Christ, whom they professed to be the eternal Word. And that he might explain this eternity of the Word more clearly and briefly, he ^D said it was “an eternal Word, not proceeding from silence,” that is to say, that it was not subsequent to silence, but has always been brought forth by the eternal Father; and consequently, it is absolutely necessary that it be of the same eternity with Him. Furthermore, that this is the true meaning of the words of Ignatius can be confirmed by the fact that the author of a sermon formerly attributed to Augustine later used a similar and almost identical mode of speaking to signify the same thing: “The Word,” he says, “which did not keep silence before it was about to speak, by which speaking it did not fall silent. Which is the Word without time.” And Fulgentius: “The Word could never be restrained by silence, because it is the eternal speech of the Father.”

Yet Daillé objects: If these words, “not proceeding from silence,” explain the eternal Word, then, he says, “the utterance of Ignatius would be plainly idle and faulty:” idle, because “if the Word is eternal, it did not on that account begin from silence;” faulty, because “no one but sees that it is more correctly and clearly said that the Word of the Father is eternal than that it began from silence, or after silence.” But these are the vain subtleties of a man litigating in vain. For if such an utterance were idle or faulty, innumerable prayers of the Fathers, by which they attempt to explain obscure expressions with others that are clearer, would have to be branded with the same marks. Moreover, the eternity of something is declared quite aptly and appositely by the fact that nothing ever preceded it. And if this corresponds to anything at all, it surely corresponds most aptly to a word or speech—which by its nature is fluid and passing, and which we judge to begin always after silence. Therefore, Ignatius could neither more briefly nor more conveniently explain the eternity of the Word, or the eternal Word, than by asserting that it was prior to all silence, and did not proceed from silence. And indeed, the authors cited by us above explained the same eternity of the Word in the same mode of speaking: “The Word,” they say, “which was not silent before it was about to speak. The Word which could never be restrained by silence.”

^C To this, Daillé again opposes that Ignatius did not say *meta ten sigēn*, after silence, but *apo tēs sigēs proelthōn*, proceeding from silence. This, says he, denotes “place, cause, or certainly a principle, as the schools speak, of which silence was the constitutive [element], not simply the term from which the generation began.” And yet, the same Daillé continues, this cannot be attributed to silence, but to the Sige of the Valentinians—one of their fictitious gods or aeons, from which they raved that the Logos had been “mediately or immediately produced.” But it shamed the defender of Daillé that he should have referred us so ineptly to the schools, which he himself often mocks and explodes, and which admit three principles of things—matter, form, and privation—and why not silence as well? And certainly, if Daillé had returned to the schools of the grammarians, no less than those of the philosophers, he would indeed have learned there that the meaning and signification of these words, *meta tēn sigēn* and *apo tēs sigēs*, are often the same; and consequently, that Ignatius could have used both modes of speaking indiscriminately. But Ignatius, in these epistles written secretly and hastily, did not use words composed and fitted by the art and method of the schools, but those which a true divine love and the incredible ardor of martyrdom suggested. Finally, the defender of Daillé insists that the heretics whom Ignatius refutes in this epistle are those “who denied the death of Christ, and separated Jesus from Christ, and divided both from the Word, which in

the Ebionites cannot fall.” ^A Indeed, this defense of Dallæus is futile and vain. For it is not read that Ignatius refuted these errors in that epistle. Furthermore, no one will deny that there were several other errors in the same epistle that could have been refuted by Ignatius. The Dallæan defender, therefore, had to prove that the heretics refuted by our Ignatius in the passage that Dallæus objects to were those who championed the errors he himself listed. This, certainly, neither he nor anyone else will ever be able to demonstrate.

Moreover, if anyone were to prove irrefutably that other heretics, apart from the Ebionites, are refuted by the cited words of Ignatius, we would not completely object to this, provided he acknowledges that this most holy martyr did not look toward the Valentinians, who were later than himself.

§ VI. Another explanation of the words of Ignatius is proposed.

To all these responses to the various arguments and sophisms of our adversaries, we can add this further observation concerning this opinion of Ignatius: “The eternal Word not proceeding from silence,” appearing to have been written by him in this epistle for the reason that he was teaching there the two mysteries of Christ—the one, indeed, obscure, performed by Him in darkness and silence; whence he himself said: “The virginity of Mary, and her child-bearing, as well as the death of the Lord, escaped the prince of this world: three mysteries of shouting, which were wrought in silence.” The other mystery, however, was luminous, shining and gleaming with its own light and splendor. Such was the mystery of His eternal generation, recognized and announced by the ancient Fathers and prophets, concerning which the Psalmist sang: “In the splendor of the holy ones, from the womb before the morning star, I have begotten thee.” Ignatius, therefore, while presenting his own epistle, and attending to these words of the Psalmist, could well have written: “The eternal Word not proceeding from silence,” that is, the eternal Word not proceeding from the divine bosom of the eternal Father in silence, or in any darkness and gloom of shadows, but begotten in the splendors of the holy ones from His womb. He preferred to use this very mode of speech because it demonstrated more evidently not only the divine splendor of the Word, but also His eternity, which nothing had in any way preceded. There is nothing, therefore, in this phrasing that is not truly Ignatian, and rightly and aptly written and handed down by such a great martyr in the very epistle that he himself wrote.

CHAPTER XIII.

THAT MANY THINGS IN THESE EPISTLES ARE FALSELY ALLEGED TO BE FICTITIOUS BEYOND THE FAITH OF THE TIMES.

§ I. How inconsiderately Dallæus has multiplied his objections: and an answer to the first is given.

When Dallæus had said these things concerning the heresies and heretics whom he thinks are noted in the epistles of Ignatius, he proceeds to other matters and contends that in the same letters there are many other things falsely invented beyond the faith of the times. Now, he brings forth no fewer than eleven examples of these things thus falsely invented in one and the same chapter. ^B But of these eleven examples, only four pertain to the epistles we are discussing; the rest concern those that are false and supposed, or interpolations of the genuine ones. Now, of these four examples that pertain to the genuine epistles, Dallæus is entirely deserted in three by his own defender, who attempted to defend him in only one article. Nevertheless, so that we may not be accused of leaving anything untouched, let us hear Dallæus arguing about these four.

Therefore, the first argument of Dallæus is drawn from these words: “Both the super-celestial things, and the glory of their angels, and the visible princes,” etc., whence he argues thus: “That the writer perhaps said this here about visible princes because in his age some rumor had already spread concerning Constantius, or Constantine his son, or about Christianity or a propensity toward Christianity.” Regarding this argument of Dallæus, his defender pronounces as follows: “But Dallæus touches on this passage in passing; content to bring it forth, he by no means urges it.” But certainly, he should not only not have urged it, but he should never even have brought it forth. For the word ἄρχοντας (*archontas*), which signifies any magistrates and princes whatsoever, could not there signify Constantius or Constantine any more than it could signify any other princes.

§ II. The second and third objections are answered.

The second argument of Dallæus is taken from these words: “I am bound to ten leopards;” by which name of leopards he thought some military order of the Romans was denoted, which had ceased to be in use in the time of our author: “But at what time,” his defender says, “Dallæus relies on these words alone, and it is supported by no testimony of an ancient writer, it does not seem to me to be altogether solid.” But Bochartus elicits from this an argument ^C precisely opposite to that of Dallæus: “The word leopard,” he says, “began to be used later, in the age of Constantine. From this, therefore, you could infer that the epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, which they circulate, was written in that very century.” But this argumentation of Bochartus is not stronger than that of Dallæus. For Eusebius, from this very same epistle, which he undoubtedly attributes to Ignatius, cited that name of "leopard," and therefore judged it to be more ancient than the age of Constantine. And in fact, that very word is read in the Acts of the holy martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, and also in Spartianus and Festus, and finally in Athanasius, in the Life of Saint Anthony.

The third argument of Dallæus is drawn from the fact that “Ignatius publicly absolves those doing penance, and reconciles them to the Church.” But his defender says: “The most excellent Dallæus is mistaken in his opinion, and on that account he would have corrected it if he had lived, as he wrote to a friend, and provided him with places for the reception of ^D penitents among the most ancient writers of the Church.”

^A indicated. Oh that Daille and his defender had corrected all his other errors as well! Yet note here in passing into what errors the headlong urge for arguing, and for multiplying his arguments against the genuine epistles of Ignatius, has driven Daille. That Bede mentioned it, we do not see; nor did Daille indicate any place in his writings, or even in those of Notker, where you might find these things. We read them indeed in Usuard, but they are not his words, but those of Ado, whom corrupted and depraved Acts of the martyrs led into error. Moreover, whatever those authors may have handed down to memory concerning Onesimus, no man of sound mind would deny that the most certain testimony of Eusebius is to be preferred to them all, who explicitly and unmistakably asserts ^B that our Ignatius wrote an epistle to the Church of the Ephesians, in which he makes mention of Onesimus, their pastor.

CHAPTER XIV.

THAT NOTHING IN THESE EPISTLES IS ALIEN TO THE PERSON, MANNERS, OR PIETY OF IGNATIUS.

§ I. The first and second objection is solved. Daille brings forward fifteen arguments in addition, by which he attempts to prove that there are in the epistles of Ignatius “many other things alien to the person to whom they are attributed, whether in manners, dignity, talent, or piety.” But out of such a great number of arguments, only two pertain to the epistles we are defending. The former of these is drawn from these words: “That the Church is not called without a bishop, presbyters, and deacons.” But we have already demonstrated that all these things are altogether Ignatian.

The latter argument of Daille was prompted by other words from a different epistle: “The Son of God [begotten] according to the will and power of God”; which indeed seem to Daille not sufficiently sound, but harsh, and scarcely endurable. It is certainly to be wondered at that this should seem harsh and not sufficiently sound to the delicate and religious palate of Daille in matters of faith, which Theodoret—a man certainly no less skilled than he in the dogmas of the Christian faith—did not hesitate to bring forward to refute the errors of heretics. Furthermore, Ignatius is not speaking there of the eternal, but of the temporal generation of Christ: “Begotten,” he says, “truly of a Virgin.” Although, moreover, he were speaking of His divinity, that would be sound and orthodox; since you may find many similar modes of speaking in the writings of the ancient Fathers, which not even Daille would dare to say are harsh and scarcely endurable.

§ II. The third objection is responded to. Daille’s defender, therefore, having passed over this argument, proceeds with all his might to fight for another which he deems weightier and more valid. That consists in this, that Ignatius “steals certain things from apocryphal works and sets them forth as true and indubitable.” For where he discourses concerning Christ: “And when,” he says, “He came to those who were round about Peter, He said to them: Handle me, and palpate me, and see, for I am not a bodiless demon.” Which

words our author ^A strongly affirms were transcribed from the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazarenes. But, he says, that man cannot be a martyr of Ignatius who, despising the sources of truth, would rather prefer to draw false words of Christ from the impure reservoirs of the apocrypha than true ones from the certain books of divine Scripture. Nor will you say that apocrypha are not cited more than once by the ancient Fathers; for immediately the Dallæan defender rises higher, and urges that our author is not argued against because he praised the apocrypha, but because he borrowed that history not from the true books of the Gospels, where it exists exposed more gravely and clearly, but from false ones.

But we ask of the Dallæan defender: whence did he learn that Ignatius drew those words, which he objects to, from the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazarenes? Not from Eusebius, indeed, who openly professes that he did not know it 81: “Which,” he says, “whence he received, I do not know.” To Jerome alone, therefore, as he himself confesses, must that credit be referred. For he constantly asserts that Ignatius plucked these things from the Gospel, “which,” as he says, “was recently translated by me.” But if the Dallæans learned that from Jerome, why do they condemn Ignatius so severely for that which that excellent doctor believed was clearly worthy of such a great martyr?

Next, it is uncertain whether in the time of Ignatius the Gospel of the Nazarenes had been relegated among the apocrypha. For since, as Isaac Casaubon testifies, time was needed for books of this kind to be proscribed by the authority of the Church as apocryphal, for the earlier ^B centuries they were considered doubtful, and of at least dubious authority. To this is added that many, as Jerome himself relates, thought that that Gospel was written by Matthew. Finally, the same Casaubon not absurdly added that Ignatius did not allege the words of some Gospel, but an unwritten tradition, which was later committed to letters, and inserted into the Hebrew Gospel which they attributed to Matthew. And not wrongly, indeed. For Ignatius, who wrote his letters in chains, and while on a journey, and in secret, inserted into his epistle those words which are objected to us, from memory, and just as they occurred to his mind, not by reading or perhaps even by thinking about the scriptural Gospels.

Hence, from all of Dallæus’s arguments, none is truly more surprising than the one he draws from these words of our most holy martyr: “Would that I might enjoy the beasts that I will coax with blandishments, so that they might devour me more quickly; but even if they are unwilling when I am willing, I will drive them by force 86.” For these words, which deserved the praises and admiration of all the pious, seem to Dallæus entirely alien to the piety and modesty of the martyr. Whence he breaks forth into this exclamation 85: “O dire and truculent voices, no other soul ^A worthy, than that which the poet sings, hates life and rushes headlong to death!” But this exclamation is more worthy of a pagan poet than a Christian writer. Eusebius and Jerome felt very differently, who deemed the aforementioned words of Ignatius so worthy of his supreme piety and his truly admirable zeal for dying for Christ, that out of all the other sayings of the most holy martyr, they chose them especially to be transcribed in their books and to be brought forward for the religion and admiration of all Christians. What should we say of the fact that not only the Fathers, but even Vedelius himself, addicted to the Calvinian sect as much as Dallæus, voluntarily puts forward the same words of Ignatius to stir up the dormant fires of more tepid Christians: “Who would not restore the holy martyr constricted by the terror of death and punishments, who, heading toward the beasts, about to suffer their teeth and lacerations... I congratulate myself on the beasts which against me...” etc.

Urgeth Dallæus 87: “The martyrs of Christ await death, they do not seek it; composed toward the goal, they are not carried by a headlong step.” What then? Are so many martyrs, who sought occasions for suffering for Christ with such ardor, who ran to death of their own accord, who threw themselves headlong into fires and flames, into waters and rivers, are they to be accused of impiety and immodesty? Why then did the Fathers celebrate them with so many praises 88? Why does the Church honor them with such honors? Furthermore, Ignatius did not anticipate the time of his martyrdom; but condemned to the beasts, and about to be cast to them, he desires to enjoy it sooner. He begs the Romans not to hinder this, and declares that if the beasts spare him, he will use open force to be quickly devoured by them. But to these utterances, born of a most ardent love for dying for Christ, he continuously appends those witnesses of his modesty: “Forgive me. What is useful to me, I myself know.” Which indeed no sincere cultivator of the Christian religion will ever deny is most worthy of the piety, and modesty, and the praises and admiration of all the pious, of the most holy martyr.

CAPUT XV.

NOTHING WAS SAID FALSELY OR RASHLY IN THESE EPISTLES.

§ I. That it is not false which is written concerning the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, and that Ignatius is said to have seen Christ.

Dallæus later objects that it is false what our author wrote to the Ephesians: “Paul... who in every epistle makes mention of you in Jesus Christ 89.” But his defender does not press this, and rightly so. For who knows not that Paul gave one Epistle to the Ephesians, and in that whole Epistle made mention of the Ephesians. And Ignatius observes this because in it Paul everywhere makes glorious mention of them, and while instructing them toward piety, he always extols and preaches their virtues: but nowhere, as in some others... ^{C D}

are they read to have been argued against or censured.

When Dallaeus had lightly touched upon this, he argues much more sharply about the fact that Ignatius claims to have seen Christ: "For I indeed saw Him after the resurrection, and I believe He is." But, says Dallaeus, Chrysostom in his panegyric oration on Ignatius nowhere mentions that he "rejoiced in the sight and intimacy of Christ," which in that speech he would not have omitted. Therefore, the same Dallaeus infers: "The writer of the epistles is convicted of a manifest lie." We respond to these arguments by noting that in the sincere and complete Greek codex of the letters of Ignatius, as well as in the writings of Eusebius and Theodoret, the word *eidon* (I saw) is not read, but *en sarki auton oida, kai pisteuo onta* (in the flesh I know Him, and I believe He is). Furthermore, the word *oida*, as Dallaeus himself admits, signifies "I know, I am acquainted with, I recognize." Whence even Rufinus, in his version of Eusebius’s *History*, rendered it in Latin with the former word, "I know."

Dallaeus persists, claiming that the Greek manuscripts, which are so foully corrupted by interpolations, can have no credit; and also that Rufinus and other scribes of the Eusebian *History*, well-knowing that the word *eidon* could in no way be used of Ignatius, had written instead *oida*; and finally that Jerome and the ancient interpreter of these epistles, who represent the word *eidon*, are to be fully believed. ^A I have seen. But that ancient interpreter, as is easily understood from his version, was not so skilled in Greek that he can be said to have rendered the word *oida* correctly; he ought to have translated it as "I know" or "I am acquainted with," rather than "I saw." Jerome, however, who was accustomed to publishing his versions very rapidly, perhaps suffered some human failing, unless he was deceived by some unskilled Latin interpreter.

But however the matter stands, the authority of the Greek manuscript codices, both of the letters of Ignatius and of the History of Eusebius, ought certainly to be greater, and is to be preferred to all others. And this may indeed be confirmed by the fact that the sense of the Ignatian discourse itself, and its arguments, absolutely demand the word *oida* in that passage. For Ignatius, by two arguments against heretics taken from the Gospel, demonstrates that Christ was not feigned or imaginary, but a true human being. But if he had seen Christ with his own eyes in the flesh, he could have brought forward nothing more effective against them than the fact that he himself, with his own eyes, in such and such places, together with these and those companions and witnesses who are above any exception—namely, the apostles or disciples of Christ—had seen the Lord Himself, and had conversed with Him.

^C But these shafts of Dallaeus are easily blunted. We are debating not concerning interpolated manuscript codices of the letters of Ignatius, but concerning the sincere and complete codex which, as we have said, with no one dissenting, Vossius edited with the best fidelity. As for the History of Eusebius, no one could say it was corrupted there without great rashness. For it was published almost a hundred years before the Latin version of Rufinus, had come into everyone’s hands, and was kept in very many libraries. Therefore, no ancient writers could later change anything either in its Greek text or in his version; for they would have been immediately convicted of adulteration and corruption, the one set by his adversaries and the other by the supporters of Eusebius. Furthermore, who would persuade himself that Rufinus and the scribes of the Eusebian History had so conspired together to corrupt all the codices of that History, that they depraved and adulterated them without anyone uttering a complaint? Finally, how were Rufinus and the copyist scribes so much more sharp-sighted and learned than Eusebius that, what he did not know, they knew most certainly—that the word *eidon* could in no way be written about Ignatius? Add to this that the most learned Theodoret constantly read *oida* in the Greek History of Eusebius, and, having perused our Ignatius’s epistles, found nothing in the text of Eusebius tainted with even the slightest corruption.

As regards Jerome and the ancient interpreter of Ignatius, the word ^D indeed occurs among them.

§ II. Nothing is said rashly concerning the star which appeared at the birth of Christ, or concerning the fact that it is claimed that Christ ate after His death

Dallaeus, so that he may make our author guilty of all crimes, then argues that he was rash in the fact that he wrote concerning the star which appeared at the birth of Christ: "The star shone in the heavens, surpassing all stars in splendor, and its light was ineffable," etc. "Everything," says Dallaeus, "proceeded from this one man’s brain, alien to Scripture, abhorrent to the very use of this star, namely, for indicating the house of Bethlehem." And indeed he proves this with this reasoning: "The absurdity is evident from the fact that no Christian interpreter, as far as I know, has followed him, though so many have written something about that star." Who would not marvel that Dallaeus, a man of, as he thinks, omnigenous reading, did not know that in Clement of Alexandria or the author of the *Excerpts*, in Leo the Great in his 1st Sermon on the Nativity, in Maximus in his 3rd Sermon, and also in Chrysostom in his 6th Homily on Matthew, the same or more similar things are found concerning the appearance of this star, just as they are in Ignatius? And this will certainly become plain to anyone, no matter how stubborn, from a mere comparison of the passages which we indicate.

It is truly tiresome and shameful to refute or even to repeat what Dallaeus adds: "It is a lighter matter, I confess, but not sufficiently worthy of Ignatius, that he himself, with no author to support him, asserts that Christ ate after the resurrection." And he proves this with this most subtle argument: "Luke indeed," as he says, "writes that the apostles ate and drank after He had risen from the dead; and that Christ Himself with them (whom this author says) ate and drank..."

he nowhere says [ate and drank], but only that he ate. O the marvelous subtleties and refinements of Daillé, that most acute man! The apostles, he says, are said to have eaten and drunk with Christ, but Christ himself is said only to have eaten. Therefore, it is unworthy of Ignatius to have said that Christ both ate and drank. As if, indeed, when Christ is described as having eaten in this manner, it could not rightly and legally be understood that he also drank! If Daillé himself is said to have eaten with his friends, who ate and drank with him, would it not be rightly concluded from this that he not only ate, but also drank?

§ III. That nothing false is said regarding the heretics who withdrew from the Eucharist. Daillé subsequently objects that some heretics are castigated by our author: "Who withdraw from the Eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of the Savior." But, says Daillé, those who have published more accurate catalogs of heretics nowhere report that any such heretics existed in the time of Ignatius. Wherefore, ^B the defender of Daillé, about to bring him new aid, says: "Are those ancient writers so negligent of their duty that they would pass over in silence a thing so memorable, and which it was in their interest to know... surely it is hardly credible." But whence did Daillé and his defender receive it that those ancient writers made mention of all the heresies of the heretics in their catalogs? That the matter is otherwise is evidently demonstrated by Daillé himself. For indeed Theodoret, who—as Daillé admits—thought that these epistles were written by our Ignatius, and who transcribed the very words that Daillé objects to as truly Ignatian, is nowhere read in his catalogs of heretics, though published with the greatest care, to have mentioned those whom Ignatius asserts abstained from the Eucharist, as Daillé contends. The same can be concluded concerning Eusebius and others who have written about heresies and adjudged these epistles to our Ignatius, providing an unconquerable argument against the Dalléans. Nor, furthermore, should this be a wonder to anyone, since they were content to record in their writings something about the principal error of the heretics confuted by Ignatius, whereby they denied that Christ had taken on true flesh, and did not think it necessary to write more about another [error] which arose therefrom around the Eucharist as a necessary consequence. For that it has been the care of those men to enumerate all the errors of any and every heretic one by one, no one can doubt.

IV. Neither can that which is written be said to be false, that it was in the power of the Romans to free Ignatius from death. Because Ignatius, begging the Romans not to stand in the way of his death, says: "It is easy for you to do what you wish... I am willing to die for God, if you do not hinder me;" hence Daillé says: "Either I understand nothing, or this man truly understands that it was in the power of those faithful [people] to whom he writes, ^A by hand and by power, to free him from the punishment." If he well understood the sense of the author, he certainly did not argue well from it, when he added: "But if this is so, it must be admitted that those Romans sinned most gravely, and were guilty of a kind of parricide... who did not prohibit him from dying. Yet it is established that they did not sin... therefore that which he so often affirms is false." This kind of argumentation is clearly inept and insipid. For Ignatius could believe that the Romans were more powerful in this matter before God, or before Caesar, or the judges, or the senate, than they in reality were. Furthermore, even if it had been in the power of the Romans, they are not on that account to be accused of the gravest sin and parricide because they did not prohibit that death which they were persuaded would profit the utility of the whole Church, which they could not turn away without certain danger to many Christians, and which, finally, Ignatius was to undergo by the divine will.

CHAPTER XVI

§ I. That Ignatius’s wisdom and modesty were not violated in those things which he wrote about himself. Of no greater moment is that which Daillé subsequently objects, that it seems somewhat to abhor from the judgment and wisdom of Ignatius; that he, already about to be delivered to most certain death, promises according to the epistle to the Ephesians ^C that he would write a second booklet: "If Jesus Christ deems me worthy in your prayer, and it be the will, in the second booklet which I am about to write to you," etc. But this objection abhors from Daillé’s judgment and wisdom most greatly. For in those words, [Greek text omitted], Ignatius does not promise a booklet, but a second epistle, provided these most reasonable conditions are met: "If Jesus Christ deems me worthy in your prayer: if it be the will: especially if the Lord reveals it to me." Who would not see that this is surely most consistent with the judgment and wisdom of Ignatius?

Furthermore, Daillé complains elsewhere that Ignatius’s modesty was violated, where indeed our same author writes of himself to the Trallians: "I know many things in God, but I measure myself, lest I perish in boasting... For I am able to write to you heavenly things. But I fear lest, as there are dangers, I might do you harm... I am powerful to know celestial things, and the positions of angels, etc." What is there against Ignatius’s modesty? "To himself," answers Daillé, "he attributes those things which are conceded to no mortal." What then! Does not Paul also recount that the same, nay, even greater things, were conceded to him, who testifies that he had been gifted with so many visions and revelations, and that he had heard arcane words which it is not lawful for man to speak? ^D Certainly Daillé himself is compelled to admit this, and to fight with himself a little later, when he handed these things down in the same words: "Now, indeed, since Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, had said that he had heard arcane words..."

which it was permitted to no one to speak, our writer thought that this also ought to be imitated by his Ignatius. Therefore he makes him, while writing to the Trallians as well, take upon himself the knowledge of certain arcane matters. "Can I not write to you of super-celestial things," etc.? If our author imitated Paul there, as Dalleus says, the same Dalleus asserts quite falsely that he attributes to himself things which are permitted to no mortal.

Dalleus insists that our author attributes these things to himself in that place and time where, even if he had truly possessed them, there was no need for them to be explained and shown forth. But Ignatius attributes them to himself then, when he wished to secure for himself greater authority among the Trallians, so that he might the more commend to them their bishop, Polybius—whom they seemed to embrace with not quite the veneration that was proper—and render them more cautious and stronger against the heretics. For this reason, certainly, he mingles discourse concerning the cognitions granted to him by God; but he immediately tempers those with truly Ignatian modesty, that is, with the highest humility: "But I do not know," he says, "if I am worthy... Besides this, I am even now a disciple."

^B § II. Nor is Ignatius's modesty harmed in the fact that he calls the Trallians children, or in what he wrote to Polycarp.

Again, Dalleus objects that it seems little consistent for Trallians to be called νήπιοι (children) and infants by our author, whom he himself had just before called worthy of God, and said to have a mind blameless and invincible in patience. Dalleus adds, however, that he does not press this. But he ought not to have mentioned it in any way at all. For who does not know that Paul similarly called the Corinthians νήπιοι, little ones and infants, although he declared them rich in Christ and in all knowledge? Therefore, Ignatius could claim that the Trallians were worthy of God and had a blameless mind, even if he knew them to be little ones and infants regarding the more sublime cognitions of the Deity.

Again, Dalleus complains that Ignatius's modesty is violated in the epistle to Polycarp on a double count: first, because the author arrogates to himself the title of martyr, and second, because he commands his fellow-disciple Polycarp—the admirable bishop of the Smyrnean Church—concerning piety and the duties of his office, in such a way as masters are wont to do to novices. To the first we respond that the title of martyr is by no means found in the sincere, uninterpolated Greek manuscript codex of the Florentine Library, nor in its ancient Latin version. This is so obvious to anyone reading it that it is a wonder by what reason the defender of Dalleus dares to say: "Yet he does so call himself in the Greek inscription of the epistle to Polycarp, which is not interpolated." To the second, however, we say that in that epistle Ignatius handed down very many precepts of conduct and piety which ^C were, Polycarp had undoubtedly begged of him with great entreaties. But Ignatius passes these on in that same epistle, not as masters to novices, but as a friend to a friend, as one who is an elder and near to martyrdom and death, is accustomed to speak and write to another who is far younger. But as for how much older Ignatius was in age than Polycarp, let the followers of Dalleus calculate that from the fact that he is said to have met his martyrdom in the year 108 or 109, and the latter only in the year 166 or 169.

CHAPTER XVII. THAT THE STYLE OF THESE LETTERS IS ENTIRELY IGNATIAN.

§ I. That the style of the epistles is Ignatian.

The other arguments of Dalleus against these epistles are drawn from their speech and words. Now, the first one argues that the very speech itself shows them at once not to be of one and the same author; it is manifold, and not of one kind or color. If Dalleus speaks of those which we defend as having been truly and genuinely given by Ignatius, we declare openly and plainly that this is most false. For it is clear that they were all written in the same style—namely, that of an apostolic man, hastening toward martyrdom and about to be put to death as soon as possible, who, while on the journey and burdened with chains, committed to writing, stealthily and in secret, those things which an most ardent love of the Christian religion suggested and inspired in him.

§ II. That the name Theophorus is Ignatian, but the terms ἱερέων and ἀρχιερέων are not found in the true epistles.

On the contrary, says Dalleus, the author of the epistles everywhere took the surname Theophorus, which Ignatius neither ever arrogated to himself while alive, nor is it heard of among the most ancient writers; it is completely fictitious and born of fables. But Pearson has demonstrated the antiquity and use of the word Theophorus so clearly that the defender of Dalleus was finally forced to admit it: "Pearson has demonstrated," he says, "the use and familiarity of this word by many testimonies of the ancients." Yet, in defense of his Dalleus, he argues against Pearson thus: "He could not, however, bring forward any example of any saint who, like Ignatius, attributed to himself the surname Theophorus." This, truly, is a weaker defense of a weak argument. For it is possible for some writer to be called by a name or surname so unusual and extraordinary that no one thereafter would have wished to be called by it. Furthermore, who can be said to have known all the names of all the saints so accurately, and to have reviewed them, that he would dare to assert that none had been marked by that name Theophorus, either before or after the age of Ignatius? Finally, here the question is being raised not about others, but about Ignatius alone, whether he obtained the surname Theophorus. But that the matter is so, and is praised as such by others, is clear from Photius and Theodore the Presbyter, Stephen Gobarus, and Ephrem, patriarch of Theopolis around the year 526, and also from the true and sincere ^D

Acts of the martyrdom of Ignatius, proved clearly both in Greek and in Latin. To these we may finally subjoin ^A Eusebius, who never suspected anything novel or fabulous concerning this surname of Ignatius.

Nor was there any reason why Daillé should insist further upon the words ἱερέων and ἀρχιερέων. For indeed, those are not found in the true, but in the interpolated text of the epistles. But if they happen to occur at the same time in the epistle to the Philadelphians, Ignatius used them there to signify the presbyters of the Mosaic law, or Christ, the prince of all priests.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TERMS BISHOP AND PRESBYTER WERE USED BY IGNATIUS IN NO OTHER SENSE THAN THAT OF THE APOSTLES AND APOSTOLIC MEN.

§ I. That Ignatius had the right to distinguish those names, and therefore rightly distinguished them.

The greatest argument, and the one which appears invincible to Daillé ^B, is that our author distinguishes the names of presbyter and bishop—which the apostles and apostolic men always received in a confused, promiscuous, and indiscriminate manner—not once or twice, but perpetually, and in all his epistles everywhere; and not only does he distinguish them accurately and religiously, but he uses them in that same sense in which we read them used by the Christians of the third and subsequent centuries. By this argument, indeed, Daillé believes he can demonstrate with certainty that our author did not write his epistles before the third century. Furthermore, he 16 seriously warns us that he is not disputing about the thing itself, but only about the names of bishop and presbyter: "Now I am not," he says, "disputing about the thing itself. Let us grant to the most learned Hammond what he so vehemently desires, namely, that these orders were indeed distinct. And a little later: "I am inquiring only about the names of bishop and presbyter... about which alone I am now disputing."

But if the orders of bishop and presbyter were in truth distinct from each other, and if Daillé concedes that they were distinct, he must also undoubtedly concede that Ignatius had the right to distinguish the names of those same orders always and everywhere in his epistles and writings. For no one can by any right ever suspect, and much less ought to infer, that the writings of any author should be proscribed and denied to him because he distinguished those names in them, when he had the right and power to distinguish them rightly.

But, says Daillé, the apostles and apostolic men did not distinguish those names. Let us grant that they did not distinguish them. What can Daillé infer from that, unless it be that they neither used, nor wished to use, their right in the way that Ignatius certainly wished to use it, and deemed that he ought to use it for just reasons? For in his epistles, which he was directing to the churches, and which he could suspect were to be read publicly, he could recommend and command obedience and reverence ^C to bishops, presbyters, and deacons, each in their own order, which could not be declared without the distinction of the names of each.

Moreover, our response gains much strength and support not only from those things which Daillé imprudently conceded, but from the very opinion of the more rigid Presbyterians. For Blondel, than whom no one among the Presbyterians is more rigid, teaches that in the time of the apostolic men, a presbyter was substituted in the place of a deceased bishop, not indeed by any election or ordination, but by the sole right of antiquity, under that law, so that the right of the first see and of the presiding power, denied to the other presbyters, was bestowed upon him. But those who are of this opinion, however false it may be, can in no way deny that the name of bishop was deservedly denied by Ignatius to the presbyters who were deprived of that right of the first see and presiding power; and consequently, that the names of bishop and presbyter were deservedly neither confused by him, nor held in a promiscuous and indiscriminate manner. For no one, I think, will doubt that to distinguish the names of things is sufficient and more than sufficient for the true distinction of the things themselves.

§ II. That these names were distinct among the apostles and apostolic men.

Although these things are abundantly sufficient to destroy and utterly overthrow Daillé's greatest argument, we nevertheless approach the investigation of the matter itself with the most willing spirit. That Daillé asserts with such confidence that the apostles and apostolic men in the first two centuries of the Church always confused the names of bishop and presbyter and used them indiscriminately and promiscuously, is altogether false and utterly fictitious. And indeed, Daillé is first false in this, that he has included more time than was fitting from the testimony of his very own Presbyterians. For Blondel, the most bitter defender of the Presbyterian error, as we have said, affirms without doubt that a new form of creating a bishop, by which he is constituted superior to the presbyters, was introduced in the year of Christ 130. But the Presbyterians certainly cannot deny that this grade of bishop above the presbyters also brought with it the distinction of the names themselves. For Daillé says that it was done in the third century for no other reason than because a new form of creating a bishop was then introduced. Since, therefore, according to the Presbyterians, that took place in the year 130, seventy years are to be subtracted from Daillé's calculation.

But now, if we ascend to earlier times, the falsity of Daillé's assertion will appear more plainly and clearly. For it is unknown to no one how few writings of apostolic men remain to us, nor can it be in doubt to any that most of their works have perished and have not come into our hands. From whence, therefore, will Daillé prove that all the first

and second century writers established no distinction between the names of bishop and presbyter? Has it been made manifest that they themselves wrote what was in the lost works of the Fathers Daillé replies that he proves this from Chrysostom, Theodoret, and other later writers, who openly deny that these names were distinct and discriminated in apostolic times. It is surely a good thing that he produces as witnesses for us those who say things which are a most grave testimony against his own opinion. For these men, even though they were very well able in these epistles to distinguish the names of bishop and presbyter always, and to never confuse them in any way with each other, nevertheless consistently adjudicated them to our Ignatius. ^B Yet if they had held it for certain that the same names were confused by all other writers of the first and second centuries, and were distinct only in our author, contrary to the constant use and custom of apostolic men, they would not have rendered so certain a judgment concerning the attribution of these epistles to Ignatius.

What, therefore, will the followers of Daillé bring forward against their own witnesses? Will they say that they erred in that they ascribed these epistles to Ignatius? But if they erred in this, why are they not also false in that which they have produced in their writings concerning the confusion of the names of bishop and presbyter? Furthermore, even though they may have been deceived in the former chapter, yet from their error the same conclusion is always elicited: that they held the firm conviction that these names of bishop and presbyter were distinguished not only by Ignatius, beyond the constant custom and usage of all the others, but also by certain other writers of the apostolic age.

And truly, that the matter is so is proved by the fact that it is established that the apostles themselves discourse concerning the ordinations of presbyter and deacon in such a way as to assert that these must always be performed by a bishop, and never by a presbyter. Moreover, against this, Paul, when he forbids an accusation to be received against presbyters—"Against a presbyter do not hastily receive an accusation" (1 Tim. v, 19)—is there speaking of a bishop, who is superior to presbyters. From these things, however, we gather not obscurely that the apostles at that time rightly distinguished the names of bishop and presbyter, when they were speaking of duties proper to each; nor did they confuse them, except when they were discoursing of functions which were common to both.

What of the fact that there also occur many writers of the second century, who, like Ignatius, establish a difference and the same distinction between the names of bishop and presbyter? That indeed, which Daillé seemed to have denied, Pearson has demonstrated with such evidence, that he received this reply from an anonymous defender of Daillé: "He represents the opinion of Daillé in bad faith, as if he denied that that difference between the names of bishop and presbyter was ever observed by the ancients." ^C Yet there was another mind in Daillé, who only asserts that Ignatius always establishes a huge difference between these two names, beyond the custom and practice of second-century writers, who use these ^D words indiscriminately. The work of the Dailléan author truly proves the excellent good faith of Pearson. But whatever may be the case in that, from these words of the defender of Daillé, we hold that as established and certain: that some writers of the second century—with no one, not even Daillé himself, as he wishes, contradicting—distinguished the names of bishop and presbyter in the same way as Ignatius. From these things, moreover, which the adversaries admit either willingly or unwillingly, we argue against them as follows: those epistles in which, beyond the use and custom of that century, a true difference is always established between the names of bishop and presbyter, are no less the offspring of Ignatius than the writings of other authors of the same century, in which the same difference, although more rarely, is placed, are truly those of the men whose names are inscribed upon them. For who can deny that Ignatius could always distinguish those names, which it is truly granted and conceded by all right-thinking men were sometimes distinguished by many others? Yet, with the adversaries themselves admitting it, many second-century authors in their Works and writings, which were truly published by them, did sometimes distinguish the names of bishop and presbyter. Therefore, Ignatius could always distinguish the same names in his epistles, and they ought not for that reason be unjudged by the adversaries.

Let us add, if we please, that in Eusebius, the Church of Lyons (Hist. lib. v, cap. 1), Dionysius of Corinth (lib. iv, cap. 23), and Polycrates (lib. v, cap. 24), in their epistles, never attributed the name of bishop to a presbyter. Therefore, they do not always confuse the names of bishop and presbyter, but, just as our Ignatius, they openly discriminate them from one another.

§ III. Response is made to the objection taken from the authority of Polycarp.

The adversaries nevertheless insist, and, remitting nothing, they urge the case of Polycarp, who was most closely joined to Ignatius by friendship and order, in his epistle to the Philippians, saying that, with the name of bishop kept silent, he always confused it with the name of presbyter; and hence he says: "Wherefore it is necessary... to be subject to the presbyters and deacons, as to Christ and God." We answer first that nothing whatsoever is accomplished against us by this authority of Polycarp. For although Polycarp may have confused these names among themselves, that did not take away from Ignatius the right of distinguishing those things which no one can deny were distinguished by other writers of his own age. We answer second that it is altogether uncertain whether at that time, when Polycarp was writing his epistle, the bishop of the Philippians was still among the living. Then, this epistle has not reached us in a state that is entirely whole and uncorrupted. Again, I say it is uncertain whether Polycarp anywhere in it made special mention of a bishop. Third, finally, it is uncertain whether he subjoined to this another epistle which treated of the bishop by name. The adversaries finally urge Polycarp in the same epistle...

^A to have called himself, not bishop, but presbyter in these words: "Polycarp, and the presbyters who are with him." But this reasoning of the adversaries is so slight and infirm that Moine, a minister of the Calvinists and their companion, constructs a completely contrary argument from the same words: "Polycarp," he says, "does not write to the Philippians as a presbyter of the Church of Smyrna, but Polycarp and the presbyters of the Church of Smyrna write to the Church of the Philippians, in order to hint that some distinction was to be observed between himself and the presbyters, and to defend his dignity and primacy in some way." For those who believe that Polycarp was of equal dignity and authority with his presbyters—truly, they seem to me to act too fervently and too eagerly regarding their thesis, more than is right, and to confuse those offices which in the time of Polycarp were already distinct. Indeed, this truth, which was uncorrupt in him, was elicited from the mouth of a Calvinist and Presbyterian man; had he said these offices and titles were distinct not only in the time of Polycarp but also in the time of the apostles, it would be firmer. From the things, however, that he acknowledges to be true there, the Mallian argument undoubtedly collapses and is utterly overturned. ^B

CHAPTER XIX. THERE ARE NO WORDS IN THE EPISTLES OF OUR AUTHOR WHICH ARE NOT IGNATIAN. § I. Concerning compound words.

Dallaeus thinks he has discovered many other words in these epistles which make it plain to us that our author lived long after Ignatius. He first attacks those items which had been objected to earlier by Blondel—variously compounded names, such as *sarcophoros*, *necrophoros*, and others derived from the verb *pherō*; likewise others derived from the word *axios*, such as *axioplocos*, *axiotheos*; and finally others derived from the verb *Theos*, such as *theomacarios*, *theodromos*, etc. The most learned Hammond had already answered this argument of Blondel, showing that the divine authors of Sacred Scripture also used names compounded in a similar way, of which he reported several examples.

But Dallaeus insists that those items which Hammond brought forward from the sacred writers are very few and used only once by them, and are much more modest than those of Ignatius. If Dallaeus complains about the paucity of words brought forward by Hammond, we complain with better right about the greater number of the Dallaeans. For he, in order to increase the multitude of compound words in Ignatius, unjustly added those which occur in the false epistles of Ignatius or in the interpolations of the genuine ones. Then, Hammond only brought forward ten examples of compound words from the divine Scriptures because he judged that these were more than enough to destroy the empty objection of Blondel. But there are far more that occur commonly in the Old and New Testament, ^C which can most easily be brought forward. But those things are so obvious to all that it would be superfluous and useless to draw up a catalog of the same words. Nor is it only in the Sacred Scriptures that one can find them, but even in the genuine epistle of Clement, which is not more extensive than the Ignatian ones, those same words are neither rarer nor more modest.

§ II. Concerning words newly used, namely *physis* and *adein*.

"Indeed," says Dallaeus, "our author uses certain words newly and beyond the custom of others." Yet he objects to us only two words of this kind taken from the true epistles of Ignatius. The first is the word *physis*; but that is read as being used with various meanings among writers of different literature, and it has no new meaning in Ignatius. The second word is *adein*, which Dallaeus says is poetic. Yet he will never deny that it is used very often by the best authors even in prose oration. Why, therefore, not also by Ignatius?

§ III. Concerning unusual and obscure words.

Dallaeus adds that certain more obscure and unusual words are found in the Ignatian epistles. Although this were most true, what would Dallaeus conclude from it? Could not Ignatius, just like any other author, use obscure and unusual modes of speech? That would certainly be little to wonder at in the beginnings of the Christian religion, which brought with it new and unusual words; but it is much less so in Ignatius, an apostolic man who had written his epistles in haste, in secret, and inflamed with the highest ardor of martyrdom. Nevertheless, he used no other words or modes of speech than those that are accustomed to occur in the Sacred Scriptures and other writers of better note. ^D

CHAPTER XX. THAT THERE ARE NO BASE IMITATIONS OF PAUL IN THESE EPISTLES. § I. How much the adversaries are contrary to themselves.

Among so many and such diverse arguments of Dallaeus against the epistles of Ignatius, it is truly surprising that he seeks to prove from them that our author was not Ignatius but some other, because: "He has studiously imitated Paul the apostle, hoping that with these lineaments of an apostolic disciple he would easily impose upon the men of his own age, especially upon posterities more remote from Ignatius, and thus less knowledgeable of apostolic matters, and would effect that he be held for an apostolic writer." For we have heard this same Dallaeus reasoning thus from the words of bishop and presbyter, which he wrongly blathered were usurped by Ignatius in a sense alien to the apostle Paul: "That he was not a son of the apostles is clearly argued by his diverse speech, which all and the observers of the apostles..."

agree was most intimately joined with the heart and mouth, soul and tongue. Who would not marvel that such sophisticated sophists should dispute against the letters of Ignatius with arguments so vehemently repugnant to one another? For truly, if our writer uses the names of bishop and presbyter in that sense which they do not think to be Paul’s, they cry out at once: "The diverse speech clearly argues that he was not a son of the apostles." Conversely, if he adopts or mimics Paul’s words and phrases, they immediately argue that he used them for the purpose of deceiving those less learned in apostolic matters, and of causing himself to be taken for an apostolic writer. Thus, indeed, a monstrous itch for contradicting these letters in any way whatsoever has blinded learned men and led them astray. And certainly, if it is permissible to argue in this way, there will be no works of apostolic men, and especially of the writers of the first and second centuries, that cannot be shown by these arguments to be false and supposititious.

From this imitation of Pauline words, which shines forth in the letters of Ignatius, the contrary argument is thus entirely elicited. Right reason teaches that those writings which imitate the words, phrases, style, and other modes of speaking of Paul and the other apostles, and which approach them more closely, have proceeded from a truly apostolic man. But as the adversaries admit, and indeed as they object, all these things are found in the letters of our Ignatius. Therefore, they were truly written by him.

§ II. That Ignatius does not imitate Paul in a contemptible way.

But, says Daillé, words that are rare in Paul are in our author, no differently than the Sallustian expressions, as Seneca once said, were in Aruntius, very frequent and almost perpetual. Therefore, this contemptible imitation betrays the letters as being falsely supposititious to Ignatius. But this conclusion is false. For nothing else can be concluded from the antecedent than that Ignatius was not the author of the rhetorical letters of Paul, just as Aruntius was not the author of the Sallustian works. For just as the imitation of Sallust in the works of Aruntius by no means demonstrates that they were not written by Aruntius himself, so the imitation of Paul does not argue that the letters of Ignatius were not written by Ignatius himself.

Furthermore, the antecedent is false, namely, that the words of the Apostle are so frequent and almost continuous in the letters of Ignatius as to become contemptible to everyone. For of those of which Daillé complains, in the first place, the word *onaíμην* is to be found in the genuine letters of Ignatius not six hundred times, as he asserts, but only six times. Moreover, that word is not peculiar to Paul, but has always been common and vulgar among other Greek writers. To these we add the word *ἀγαθοποιία*, which Paul used once in all his Epistles, and which is used four times by Clement in his single epistle, nor in this is an imitation ^A of Paul by anyone ever read to have been cast as contemptible.

What Daillé adds, that the term *ἀντίψυχος*, formed by Ignatius from the Pauline *ἰσόψυχος*, is childish and entirely inept, is incorrect. For those words have different meanings, and the word *ἀντίψυχος* occurs not in Paul, but in other writers.

Nor is what the same Daillé urges of greater weight—that he shamefully imitates these words of Paul, *ἐλαχιστότερον πάντων ἁγίων*, "that he is the least of all the saints," when he says *οὐκ ἄξιός εἰμι*, or *ὡς μικρότερος ὑμῶν*. For in these latter words he seems to have aimed no more at the sentiment of Paul than at that of Matthew or Luke. In the other former instances, or certain similar ones, which he did not—as Daillé says—fill his letters with, but used rarely, even if he did desire to emulate Paul, that humility beautifully befitted the person of Ignatius, who burned with an incredible desire to imitate all ^B the virtues and the martyrdom of Paul.

Chapter XXI. That there is no faulty imitation of Paul in the inscriptions or repetitions of the letters.

§ I. That Daillé errs in the number of inscriptions, and that in them there is no contemptible imitation of Paul.

Daillé attacks this much more vehemently, but not more happily, because our Ignatius prefixed to his letters "wondrous, long-winded, confused, and prodigiously long inscriptions," all of which he complains are contemptible imitations of Paul. He admits, indeed, that the superscription of that same apostle’s Epistle to the Romans, which occupies seven whole verses, is most long; and that something similar is observed in the one given to Titus. But, "Among all of Ignatius’s," he says, "the inscriptions of the letters, if you except the one he wrote to Polycarp, are most long, long-winded, and most encumbered." But first, he errs greatly in counting the inscriptions of both Paul’s and Ignatius’s letters. For the inscription of Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians is quite prolix, and even more prolix is that which was written to the Galatians; for this contains five verses; ^C whereas that which was written to Titus includes only four. Nor does he err less in the inscriptions of the Ignatian letters. For the inscriptions of the letters of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, the Magnesians, and the Trallians do not exceed the length of Paul’s first to the Corinthians. Furthermore, the title and inscription of Ignatius’s letter to the Ephesians is not longer than the Pauline one to the Galatians. Finally, neither of the Ignatian inscriptions to the Philadelphians and Romans is of greater length than the Pauline one to those same Romans.

Secondly, it is false that in these inscriptions of the letters of Ignatius there is a contemptible imitation of Paul. What ^D

^A is yielded from those things which Dallaus himself pronounces concerning the inscriptions of the Pauline letters is most easily proven. "Paul," he says, "sometimes has inscriptions of Epistles that are not short and concise, as the custom generally was, but rather long and somewhat involved, because of the very serious matters with which they are full, as anyone can learn from that which is to the Romans." But the same custom was still flourishing in the time of Ignatius, and very serious matters are treated in his letters; as will be made plain and clear to everyone from the analysis of them that we have provided. Ignatius, therefore, did not wrongly imitate Paul in the inscriptions of his letters, but presented them as such types as the truly most serious arguments handled in them demanded.

§ II. Concerning the inscription of the Epistle to the Romans.

Now let us come closer to the superscription of the very Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, which the followers of Dallaus vehemently attack. Concerning its length, or any base imitation of Paul, they can, as we have shown, argue nothing further with Ignatius. What, then, do they argue in it? They say: "That farrago of so many epithets of praise, poorly gathered into one place." But Paul employed similar epithets of praise when he wrote in the Epistle to the Romans: "To the beloved of God, called saints," and in the first to the Corinthians: "Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." We do not indeed deny that in these Epistles there are far fewer epithets of praise than in the Ignatian ones. But besides the fact that writers in this matter indulge themselves according to their own character, Ignatius thought that for just reasons he should insert more into the inscription of his letter to the Romans. First, the high reputation and esteem of the Roman Church, which he had long ago conceived in his mind—sprinkled with the blood of so many martyrs, and especially of Peter and Paul—extorted this from him. Then, he gathered together all those epithets of praise because each one of them seemed to him to be so many distinct points and reasons by which he might induce the Romans not to hinder his death.

Dallaus insists that apostolic men, such as Polycarp, Clement, and others, did not prefix such long inscriptions to their letters. From this he infers that Ignatius, who was placed among guards of soldiers and was being led toward martyrdom with such speed, is not the author of such prolix inscriptions. But further, since very many letters of apostolic men, and especially of the Asiatics, who, as Cicero testifies, were redundant, have not reached us, who would dare to assert that they were not written in the same style or with similar inscriptions as the Ignatian ones? Be that as it may, Ignatius certainly had, as we have said, excellent models of inscriptions in the Epistles of Paul, nor could he have received better ones from any other source. Although he was hastening toward martyrdom with the utmost speed, that nevertheless did not prevent him from adding two, ^B or more or less, lines to his own letters, or to their inscriptions. Indeed, it is certainly collected from this that he did not write all those things in his letters with any art, but rather that the incredible love of Christ and the immense ardor for undergoing martyrdom instantly inspired him to do so.

§ III. Concerning the repetitions which occur in the letters.

The final argument of Dallaus against the letters of Ignatius is: "Nor does it seem to befit Ignatius, a bishop of advanced age and educated among the apostles, that he so often repeats and inculcates the same things, contrary to the manner of a serious man." Indeed, Dallaus puts the finishing touch on so many vain and futile arguments, wrongly accumulated in such a long disputation. For do bishops of advanced age, and those educated among the apostles, repeat and inculcate the same things less than other writers, as often as it is necessary? Certainly Paul himself, to say nothing of the others, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, when he had said: "Put on the armor of God," ^B writes again two verses later: "Take up the armor of God." If we listen to the interpreters, this is nothing other than a repetition of the earlier exhortation. Even if similar repetitions occurred in Ignatius, he would undoubtedly have still been following in the footsteps of Paul. However, to tell the truth, repetitions of words in one and the same Epistle of Ignatius are rare, and he did not depart there from Pauline examples. Repetitions of sentiments, ^C indeed, are less frequent in others; and if you find any in him no differently than in Paul, they are of the greatest importance, and Ignatius employs them so that those things which he was writing, being more deeply impressed upon the memory of Christians, might never slip from their minds.

CHAPTER XXII.

IGNATIUS IS THE TRUE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO POLYCARP WHICH WE NOW POSSESS.

§ I. This is proven by the authority of Polycarp.

Regarding the first class of the letters of Ignatius, there would be nothing more for us to say, were it not that the most learned Ussher, who consistently adjudicates these letters of the same class to Ignatius, had essentially and thoroughly adjudged the one which was written to Polycarp away from that ^D same Ignatius. Although those things which we have argued so far concerning the letters of Ignatius demonstrate that it, no less than the others, is to be ascribed to him, we have nevertheless judged that it should be discussed privately, because the authority of Ussher has drawn certain most celebrated men to his side. Among these, holding the highest place in rank and learning, is the most eminent Cardinal Bona, who, having followed the judgment of Ussher, pronounces on it thus: "I add that learned men have long observed that this epistle is not a genuine product of Ignatius, but supposititious: and they bring forward many arguments of no small weight to prove this." But if such a learned man had had the leisure to examine it more accurately, he would undoubtedly have arrived at another conclusion.

For by the invincible testimony of Polycarp himself, than which certainly nothing greater could be desired at this time, it is clearly proven that this epistle was written by Ignatius. For he testifies in his own epistle to the Philippians that he received letters from him: "You have written to me, both you and Ignatius," etc. But that epistle, which he indicates by these words, is the very one about which the question is now being raised. For whatever Polycarp mentioned regarding our Ignatius' epistle given to him, all those things are found nowhere else but in the one we possess. We know, indeed, that against this last part of Polycarp’s epistle, which we have cited, some objections have been raised by certain people. But we have clarified all these points so clearly, and it has been demonstrated by us with such evidence, as we believe, that this part of the epistle was written by Polycarp no less than the others, that we trust sincere judges of the facts will be entirely persuaded of it.

§ II. The same is proven by the authority of Eusebius and Jerome.

Furthermore, that Ignatius is the author of the epistle to Polycarp is clearly demonstrated not only by the testimonies of Polycarp, but also by the authority of Eusebius. For when he accurately and diligently reviews the epistles of Ignatius, he relates this in these very words: "When he had come to Troas, from there he sent letters to the Philadelphians, and to the Church of the Smyrnaeans, and privately to Polycarp, their bishop" (ἰδίως τε τῇ ταύτης προηγουμένῳ Πολυκάρπῳ). For Eusebius there clearly distinguishes three epistles of Ignatius; and he discerns and differentiates this one, which was written to Polycarp, both from that which was written to the Smyrnaeans and from that which was written to the Philadelphians. Which distinction is indeed perceived much more clearly and lucidly from what follows: "When," he continues, "he clearly recognized him to be an apostolic man, he commended to him, as a good and faithful pastor, the flock of the Antiochene Church, asking that he be willing to cherish it with all care. The same, speaking of our Savior in the epistle to the Smyrnaeans," etc. And certainly, in the epistle to the Smyrnaeans, he does not make any mention of Polycarp; nor does he commend unto him his own Antiochene Church. Since these things appear in the epistle to Polycarp, Eusebius most clearly distinguishes it from that which was written to the Smyrnaeans.

Nor does Jerome's opinion seem to have been any different; for he says: "Thence departing, he wrote to the Philadelphians, and to the Smyrnaeans, and privately to Polycarp, commending to him the Antiochene Church; in which also [he] sets forth a testimony regarding the Gospel which was recently translated by me, concerning the person of Christ." No one surely fails to see in these words of Jerome the sense of Eusebius, so that almost all his words are expressed, and the Greek term for this, *proprie* [properly/privately], is shown to have been rendered from the Greek word ἰδίως by the Latin. The word there in Jerome, therefore, signifies nothing other than privately, apart, and separately. And in the very same sense, that word is read to have been used by him more than once in the same book. For thus, in that same place, he discusses Clement of Alexandria: "One book of canons, which he properly (*proprie*) dedicated to Alexander, the bishop of Jerusalem," and concerning Apollonius: "He labored on a seventh [book] properly (*proprie*) against Apollonius." Whence Sophronius, in the Greek version of this book, rendered that word *proprie* by the term ἰδιῶς, which sounds the same as the Eusebian ἰδίως.

§ III. The objection of Ussher is refuted.

Ussher, however, objects that these words of Jerome: "in which also [he] sets forth a testimony regarding the Gospel," etc., refer entirely to the epistle given to the Smyrnaeans; and therefore that it is one and the same as that which is said to have been written to Polycarp. Which, indeed, the same Ussher says is so true that Honorius of Autun in the book *De luminaribus Ecclesiae* (in which he inserted a summary of Jerome’s catalogue of writers) judged that the epistle to Polycarp should be entirely omitted from the register of the writings of Ignatius. But the authority of Honorius is not of great weight, who in this epitome of Jerome’s book fell into error so often that he can scarcely be afforded any credence. Of greater importance, however, is the testimony of another, far older author, who clearly distinguished between each epistle in his homily *On the one legislator of both Testaments*, which Photius assigns to Chrysostom, but others to a certain writer of the same age.

Moreover, since Honorius reduced Jerome’s book into an epitome, one must always return to that [original] which is worn by everyone’s hands. But if any obscurity lurks even in Jerome’s words, all must have recourse to Eusebius as the fountain from which Jerome drew his own. But Eusebius, as we have seen, most clearly distinguished the epistle to Polycarp from the epistle to the Smyrnaeans. Jerome, therefore, established the same difference between both. And from this it is liquidly collected that those words of the same Jerome: "In which also [he] sets forth a testimony regarding the Gospel," etc., are not to be referred to the latter [epistle] to Polycarp, but to the former to the Smyrnaeans.

But, you will say, these things do violence to the Hieronymian text. But if that is the true sense of Jerome's words, no force is brought upon his text by a true explanation of them. Nor perhaps will he be far from the truth who says that a transposition was made by the scribes in Jerome's text; unless Jerome, who was accustomed to render Greek authors with such speed, transposed his own words. You will insist, [that] the style of Ignatius in the epistle to Polycarp is not detected, and that it is not considered probable that Ignatius...

when he was giving the epistle to Polycarp privately, he had converted his address in it to the whole Church of Smyrna. But to these things we easily reply that this epistle was written in the same style as other genuine letters of Ignatius. That he did nothing in addressing the Church of Smyrna besides the custom of his own time is certain. For Dionysius of Corinth, writing a private epistle to the supreme pontiff Soter, converted his style in it to the Roman Church thus: "This custom is yours..." And that this custom your blessed bishop Soter ^A did not preserve alone," etc. Furthermore, Eusebius, who reported these words of Dionysius, proceeds as follows: "In this same epistle he also makes mention of the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which he testifies was accustomed to be read in the Church according to ancient custom." It ought therefore to be a surprise to no one if Ignatius, who also not undeservedly suspected that his epistle to Polycarp would be read publicly in the Church of Smyrna, directed his address in it to all Christians universally.

PART TWO. On the interpolations of the genuine epistles of Ignatius, and on other epistles falsely ascribed to him, and their authors.

CHAPTER I. ON THE INTERPOLATIONS OF THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS. § I. That Ignatius is not the author of these interpolations, contrary to the opinion of Morinus.

The second class of the epistles of Ignatius comprises those same letters of his which we have hitherto discussed, but increased by various interpolations and additions, and foully corrupted and adulterated by other depravations. That Ignatius is not the author of these additions and corruptions is so certain that, even before the genuine editions of the epistles of Ignatius were published by Ussher and Vossius, that fact had been observed by certain learned and discerning men. It certainly does not escape us that the most learned Morinus asserted somewhere ^B: "The ancient edition of the Ignatian epistles exhibits to us a genuine text, but the new one is defective and interpolated." And lest anyone should think he said these things rashly, he immediately added: "I could give many arguments for my conjecture." That excellent man would indeed have rendered a service pleasing and useful to all if he had given those arguments by which he thought so singular an opinion, and one so alien to the truth, could be defended. For it is clearly demonstrated by certain and invincible points of reasoning that the sincere and genuine epistles of our Ignatius are exhibited in the editions of Ussher and Vossius.

§ II. This is proven by various arguments. First, for the testimonies which the ancient Fathers, such as Eusebius, Athanasius, Jerome, Theodoret, and many others, cited from the epistles of Ignatius are represented in them—not, however, in the interpolated editions—in a sincere and integral way. Secondly, those additions which Ussher, so that the frauds of those by whom they were interpolated might be more manifest, wished to have written in red in his edition, are nothing other than places of Holy Scripture ^C added to the Ignatian text, or phrases or paraphrases added to it neither openly nor conveniently. Thirdly, in them the heretics, who had not yet come into existence in Ignatius's time, are not only attacked, but are even called by their own names. There, furthermore, a discourse is instituted concerning matters not yet in use in Ignatius's time, and contrary and opposed to the doctrine and discipline of that same age. Such is that which is there undoubtedly affirmed, that Paul and the rest of the apostles were joined in marriage. Such are the things which are handed down concerning the emperors, and many other things, which, as they are obvious to all, we shall not linger by recounting them in detail. From this, therefore, it is clearly understood that the same thing happened to the epistles of Ignatius as Dionysius of Corinth records concerning his own ^D: "I have written epistles," he says, "at the request of the brethren: but certain ministers of the devil have filled them with tares, taking some things out, and adding others." But if you ask who may have adulterated the epistles of Ignatius, and who was the author of these interpolations and depravations, we shall say that it seems entirely probable to us to be the same person who published other epistles in the name of Ignatius, of which it is now time to discourse.

CHAPTER II. ON OTHER EPISTLES ASCRIBED TO IGNATIUS. § I. Analysis of these epistles, and first of the epistle of Maria to Ignatius.

In the third class of the epistles of Ignatius are placed five others, among which is that which Maria of Cassoboli is said to have written to Ignatius, prefixed in the editions of Ussher, Vossius, and Cotelerius. By this epistle, however, Maria makes Ignatius aware that the Christian faith had been adopted in her region; and on that account she entreats and adjures him to send to her Maris, bishop of Neapolis, Eulogius, and Zar-

- ^A bulous presbyter: "That we may not be," he says, "destitute of the guardians and administrators of the divine word." He confesses indeed that they are young, but denies that on that account anything is to be feared; since Samuel, Daniel, Jeremiah, Solomon, Josiah, and David were appointed as judges, kings, and even prophets of the Israelite people in their tender and youthful age. He adds that he had not set these examples before him for the sake of teaching, but for the sake of remembrance. Finally, having briefly greeted Ignatius and his clergy, both in his own words and in the name of other believers, he closes the epistle.

§ II. Analysis of other epistles which are inscribed with the name of Ignatius.

Ignatius, having received the epistle of Mary, responded that it had been most pleasing to him, because he had perceived the great virtues of her soul. How great was the variety of torments by which he was vexed, although he suffered most willingly for Christ, he signifies to Mary, and testifies that he has gladly fulfilled everything she had requested. He says, moreover, that he had also heard with pleasure all the examples that she had brought forward from the sacred Scriptures; nor had he thought that those matters, of which he had certain demonstration from her, needed to be searched out by his own eyes in the same Scriptures. Further, he declares that he certainly recognized as true whatever he had heard concerning her when he was staying at Rome under the pontiff Linus, the predecessor of Clement; and that she had made greater progress than his predecessors in Christian perfection. Hence he reveals with how much desire he was burning to see her, had not "military custody" hindered him. Meanwhile, however, he vehemently urges them to avoid those who denied the birth and passion of Christ in the flesh. Then finally, having greeted those who, just as she herself, were concerned for their own salvation, he imparts a greeting ^B in his own name, and in the name of his presbyters and deacons, and especially that of Hero and Cassianus, and also the name of his wife and children.

The second epistle of Philippus was given to the Tarsians, in which the author announces that he is being tortured with various cruelties by the soldiers by whom he was being led from Antioch to Rome, but that he is prepared to endure all torments for Christ. He then beseeches them to persevere firmly in the Christian faith, and admonishes them to carefully beware of those heresies which he lists and opposes. Furthermore, he exhorts them to flee from certain vices which he notes; and continuously delivers various precepts of life and morals to all men of whatever condition. Finally, he asks them to pray to God for him; and after he had commended to them his own Church of Antioch, he concludes the epistle with various greetings.

The third, directed to the Antiochenes, was also written by Philippus. In it the author, from the time he received the news that peace had been restored to them, professes that his own chains were light and easy to bear. He beseeches them not to allow themselves to be led astray by the errors of the Gentiles, who worshipped many gods; nor of the Jews, who, believing that there is only one, denied the divinity of Christ. Therefore, against four ^C different conclusions regarding the same divinity and Incarnation of Christ, he draws forth as many species of heresies. He does not, however, deny that the Antiochenes were far removed from these errors; nor does he say that he wrote these things to them with any other intention than that he might alert and forearm their minds against such perverse heresies. He adds that he was writing in his absence what he had said in person, and that they had been disciples of Peter and Paul, and had had Evodius as bishop and pastor; and consequently, that they must always lead the life which befitted the children of such great men. For this reason he delivers to them various documents of Christian life, and having greeted everyone both in his own name and in the name of others, he finally bids farewell to him whom he was to have as his successor in the Antiochian episcopate.

The fourth epistle was again written by Philippus, and given to the deacon Hero, whom the author so imbued with very many moral institutions that he mixes in, time and time again, several things against the four species of heretics. He then reminds him of how he had been educated by him, and that it was fitting for him to imitate him; and he predicts that he was to be substituted in his place in the Antiochian episcopate, to which he ought to show himself worthy. After this he greets him in the name of the bishops Vita, Dama, and Polybius, and asks that he, in turn, in his own words, might convey greetings to the presbyters, deacons, and the Antiochian people, and specifically to certain ones by name, but especially to Mary of Cassobelis; and finally he wishes and prays for a long course of life for him for the utility of the Church.

At the beginning of the last epistle, which was directed to the Philippians, the author testifies that he is mindful of all the benefits he had received from them, and that for this reason he had written this epistle to them, so that he might make public what was to be believed by all concerning the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. He proves, therefore, that there are three persons in the Trinity, of one name, ^D indeed, and of the same honor, but distinct from each other; and that Christ truly assumed human flesh, and truly, not feignedly and simulatedly, died, and was raised from the dead. He adds that the devil had moved every stone so that he might impel the Jews to crucify Christ; but when he had perceived that certain ruin and destruction were being brought upon himself by this death of his, then he had resisted this death with all his strength and with every effort, in vain. Wherefore he addresses the devil with a long apostrophe, and shows that various, mutually repugnant errors had been disseminated by him through evil arts regarding the divinity and incarnation of Christ; but he demonstrates that more things, which he recounts, were hidden from him regarding the mystery of the Incarnation itself. After this apostrophe to the devil, he discourses at length about the three temptations of Christ in the desert, and connects thereto some things concerning feast days, Lent, Easter, and the correct manner of living. Thereafter he commends the Church of Antioch to the Philippians, and, after adding various greetings, concludes this epistle around Rhegium, when already, taken aboard a ship,

^A he testifies that he was being conveyed; and when he himself was under "military guard," that is, when he was being led to martyrdom. Yet there is no one who does not know that Ignatius was crowned with martyrdom a long time after the pontificate of Clement.

CHAPTER III. PROOF THAT ALL THESE EPISTLES ARE FALSE AND SPURIOUS.

[§] I. Proof that all these epistles generally are false and adulterated.

That all these epistles are spurious, and wrongly ascribed to our Ignatius, is easily proven by various considerations of reasons that concern them both collectively and individually. For first, Eusebius, Jerome, and other most learned writers judge that only those epistles which are presented in the editions of Ussher and Vossius are to be attributed to Ignatius. But if any others had been written by him, surely the care and diligence of such great men, and their supreme labor in investigating the lucubrations of the earlier Fathers of the Church, would not have overlooked them, nor would they have been omitted by them with such profound silence.

Furthermore, the style of all these epistles, which is entirely foreign to the Ignatian style—which the author has sought in vain to imitate—also proves this.

Finally, the relationship and connection between these epistles is very great. For the second, third, and fourth are read as having been dated from the same city of Philippi, and in the fourth, Mary of Cassobola, to whom the first epistle was written, is greeted by name. If, therefore, one of these epistles, belonging as they do to one another, is adulterated, it follows that all the others must also be adulterated. Now, therefore, it must be proven individually that not only one, but all are adulterated, false, and fictitious.

[§] II. That the epistles of Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius and [the epistle] of Ignatius to Mary are fictitious.

First, that the epistle of Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius and the response of Ignatius to Mary are adulterated is demonstrated by the fact that Mary, who greets Ignatius in the name of all Christians, yet demands of him—as if he were to send Marim and Eulogius, although they were young men, one as bishop of her Neapolis and the other as a presbyter for the administration of her Church—that he do so on her own private authority; and Ignatius yields this to her voluntarily. Anyone can see how contrary this is to the usage and customs of those times.

Second, Mary, in order that Ignatius might accede to her demands, brings forward various examples of sacred Scripture, concerning the truth of which she testifies that he never doubted, solely on the basis of her account, without having read the pages of the Scriptures. But who would believe that Ignatius was ignorant of, or did not retain in his memory, those examples which no one in the Scriptures—unless he be a complete stranger to them—could fail to know, and that he bestowed such simple and complete faith upon a woman asserting them?

Third, the author affirms that he wrote this epistle while Clement held the Roman see of Peter ^B and when he himself was under "military guard," that is, when he was being led to martyrdom. Yet there is no one who does not know that Ignatius was crowned with martyrdom a long time after the pontificate of Clement.

[§] III. That the other epistles are also adulterated.

The second epistle also openly reveals its own falsity; for in it the author clearly attempts to refute the heresy of Sabellius, which had not yet been disseminated in the time of Ignatius. Next, Paul is praised there solely by the name "Apostle." But it does not seem likely that in the time of Ignatius he was called by that name essentially as a title.

The falsity of the third epistle is argued from the fact that the Church of Antioch is called "the new olive of Christ," and a little later the Antiochenes are said to have had Peter and Paul as masters, but Evodius as bishop. But it is handed down in writings that Peter came to Antioch in the year of Christ 39, and there founded the Church, and that Paul arrived there, accompanied by Barnabas. How, therefore, could this same Church, around the year 108, in which Ignatius was hastening toward martyrdom, be called "the new olive of Christ"?

Moreover, the author greets there subdeacons, lectors, cantors, doorkeepers, laborers, exorcists, keepers of the holy gates, etc. Yet according to the opinion of the most learned critics, these orders, and their names, were unknown in the first century of the Church. Although some, with the various testimonies of the synod of Laodicea, Epiphanius, and the Apostolic Constitutions carefully weighed, assert that the origin and beginning of these orders were hitherto unknown to no one; it is nonetheless certain that if at the time of Ignatius some had been initiated into these orders, he would have made some mention of them in his true epistles, just as he did of virgins and widows.

That which is read in the fourth epistle, that Onesimus, Damas, and Polybius betook themselves to the city of Philippi to visit Ignatius, clearly declares its falsity. For we learn from the genuine epistles of Ignatius that those three bishops came to Smyrna to greet Ignatius. But that the same men, at the time of the persecutions, should have come to the city of Philippi again for the same reason is, we think, credible to no one.

Furthermore, some errors of the Manichaeans—namely, that flesh, wine, and women are detestable and execrable; that marriages are to be condemned; that the law and the prophets, that is, the Old Testament, are to be rejected—are therein attacked and refuted. To this is added that the author commands Mary of Cassobola, who is said to have written to Ignatius, and to whom Ignatius is said to have written an epistle, to be greeted in his own words. But we have already demonstrated both of these epistles to be adulterated.

The last epistle also bears upon itself evident and clear marks and characters of falsity. For the verbose address to the demon and the apostrophe are the products of an inept declaimer, who [uses] the words of Ignatius.

Secondly, those things which are contained therein concerning the feasts, the Quadragesima, and the Passover, are taken from the books of the Apostolic Constitutions, which Ignatius had never read. Finally, the author there refutes the error of the Manichaeans and the Patripassians. But Praxeas was later than Ignatius; "He was the first from Asia," says Tertullian, "who introduced this kind of perversity into the Roman soil." Therefore, this epistle, as well as those above, are spurious and counterfeit, and are falsely and most erroneously ascribed to our Ignatius.

CHAPTER IV. OF OTHER LATIN EPISTLES, INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF IGNATIUS.

The fourth class of the epistles of Ignatius contains two of his letters to the apostle and evangelist John, and a third to the Theotokos Virgin, along with her response.

In the first, the author vehemently urges John to hasten to him, and to bring with him Mary the Theotokos and Mary Salome, whom he extols with singular praises. ^A In the second epistle, however, he signifies to John with how great a desire he is held to see the Theotokos Mary, James the brother of the Lord, and the other apostles. In the third, he prays Mary to make him certain of those things which he had heard concerning Jesus, her divine Son. But Mary responds in the fourth epistle, and promises that all those things are true and to be believed by him, and that she herself will come to him.

§ II. It is demonstrated that these are adulterine.

There is almost no one who would not now confess that these epistles are inscribed with the false name of Ignatius. And indeed, who would not immediately detect their falsity from a reading of them, even if only a slightly attentive one? For neither was Ignatius going to write such epistles to Mary the Theotokos, nor was the Theotokos [going to write] to Ignatius, as they are so foreign to the gravity and character of them both. What more? Those epistles have been found hitherto written only in Latin, and they do not appear ever to have existed in Greek. Finally, among all the ancient authors who have written anything concerning the epistles of Ignatius—whether true or false, interpolated or genuine—no word at all, not even the slightest, occurs regarding these epistles. Nor can you say that mention is made of them in the Chronicle of Dexter. For that work is by a very recent author, a person of no name or authority, and is fallaciously attributed to Dexter.

We know indeed that the holy Bernard wrote: "That great Ignatius... greets the Christ-bearer [in the] epistles which he wrote to her." But from that word "a certain" (quamdam), which is read in the manuscript codices, everyone easily understands that the epistles of the Theotokos Mary were not cited by Bernard, a man of such great piety and devotion towards her, by so cold an appellation. It is therefore more probable that the epistle of the pseudo-Ignatius to Mary from Cassobeli, in the subscription of which she is called the Christ-bearer, is what is praised by the honey-sweet doctor. Furthermore, since he had not examined this epistle with the weights of critics, he did not hesitate to attribute it to our Ignatius according to the common custom of his own time.

CHAPTER V. WHO WERE THE INTERPOLATORS OF THE GENUINE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS, AND THE AUTHORS OF THE ADULTERINE ONES.

§ I. Whether they proceeded from the author of the Apostolic Constitutions.

The interpolations of the epistles of Ignatius, and the epistles inscribed with his name falsely, seem to have one and the same author. In all of them, indeed, the same style, the same genius of an impostor and a badly idle man, and finally, all the characteristics of the same writer, are easily detected. Ussher, however, thinks that it is the same man who published the false canons of the apostles and the Apostolic Constitutions. In order to prove this opinion, he has adduced various passages from all these lucubrations, most of which have been cited by Cotelier in the margins of his edition; and he has attempted to demonstrate that they are matchings, and similar to one another. But from this argument, only this much is gathered, that one author of these writings borrowed many things from another; but that one and the same person is the author of them all can never be proven by anyone in any way.

§ II. At what time they appeared in the light.

But truly, Ussher is closer to the truth when he asserts that the interpolations and those epistles were published in the sixth century of the Church. For at the end of the fifth century, the genuine epistles of Ignatius are praised by Gelasius and Theodoret; but we read the false and supposititious ones cited by Stephen Gobarus around the year 580, and by Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, around the year 595, and by others thereafter.

Moreover, if the false canons and the pseudepigraphical Apostolic Constitutions appeared in the light in the fourth century, as some imagine, or at least before the sixth century, then without doubt the pseudo-Ignatius must have transcribed all those things which are referred to by Ussher and Cotelier.

What finally pertains to the four epistles which are placed in the fourth class of the epistles of Ignatius, it seems most probable that they were edited by a Latin writer, as we have observed. But at what time he lived is not easy to define; for it is uncertain whether Bernard praised one of them. They are indeed cited in the pseudo-Dexter.

in his Chronicle; but when that was written, no one has ascertained. If, however, any credit is to be given to conjecture, we believe that it can be said without absurdity ^A that it is the work of a more recent hand, and is far later than the Greek pseudo-Ignatian epistles.

PART THIRD.

On the editions and versions of all the letters of Ignatius, both genuine and spurious, and various notes and observations upon them.

CHAPTER FIRST.

ON THE EDITIONS AND VERSIONS OF THE LETTERS OF IGNATIUS.

§ I. De editionibus Latinis.

The first edition of the Ignatian epistles that came into our hands appeared at Paris in the year 1494; it contained only three epistles, two to the Apostle John, and a third to the Mother of God, Mary. In the year 1498, however, Faber Stapulensis published eleven others, which were subsequently printed at Strasbourg and Basel, and finally in 1575 at the end of the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite. Later, Symphorianus Champerius again submitted them to the press in 1676 at the Ascensian workshop, and appended to them the epistles to John and the Mother of God, Mary, as well as one to Mary of Cassoboli, which had hitherto been unpublished. This edition of Champerius was printed with various type in Antwerp, Basel, Cologne, Paris, and other cities. Furthermore, all these editions appeared only in Latin.

§ II. De editionibus Græcis, et versionibus.

Valentinus Pacæus, in the year 1557, published these epistles in Greek ^B from a very ancient codex of Ferdinand Augustus, or the Augustan Library, with the addition of the version of Perionius. In this edition, which Morellus reprinted twice in 1558 and 1562, there exist only those epistles which Faber, as we have said, had published in Latin. Thereafter, Andreas Gesner published them again in Greek and also in Latin, translated by Joannes Brumerus, from a manuscript of the library of Gaspard von Nydphrych. He indeed believed that he was the first to make them matters of public right; but without a doubt, the edition of Pacæus must have been unknown to him himself. Again, in 1566, Hieronymus Vairnelius Sylvius edited the same epistles, amended from certain manuscript codices, endowed with a new version, and augmented with many observations, using the presses of Plantin. In 1608, however, Martialis Mæstræus brought them forth to the public once more, with certain new notes added. Subsequently, in 1623 at Geneva, Nicolaus Vedelius, professor of the Academy and minister of the Calvinist sect, after correcting the version of Vairnelius Sylvius following Mæstræus, brought them into the light in Greek and Latin character.

§ III. De editione Usserii.

Jacobus Usserius, Archbishop of Armagh, ^C after he had compared the commonly known Ignatian epistles with three handwritten codices which exhibited an ancient Latin version, fortunately found two other manuscript codices equally as well, but of much greater value: one stored in the public library of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge; another in the private library of Richard Montague, the recently deceased Bishop of Norwich. Those two most ancient codices represent a Latin version of the Ignatian epistles in which their genuine text is rendered without any interpolations or additions. From these two books, therefore, and the other three mentioned above, he undertook to prepare a new edition of all the Ignatian epistles, with the epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians prefixed to them. First, he gave place to the genuine Ignatian epistles, printed in Greek and Latin, but using their ancient Latin version amended according to the three aforementioned manuscript codices; and in order that the interpolations might be more easily detected by all, he ordered them to be written in red ink. These are followed by the epistles falsely inscribed with the name of Ignatius, to which he prefixed the epistle of Mary of Cassoboli to Ignatius, and with the help of the three aforementioned codices, he attempted to wipe away the various defects of their Latin version. Finally, in the last place, is set the most ancient, as we have said, version of the genuine Ignatian epistles, from the number of which the epistle to Polycarp is undeservedly excluded.

§ IV. De editione Vossii.

When Vossius was traveling in Italy and surveying the Florentine library of Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, he fell upon a codex written by a ^D Greek hand, which contained the same Ignatian epistles that had been edited in Latin by Ussher, genuine and without interpolations and additions. That codex, as it is believed, had been seen a hundred years earlier by Turrianus; it neither distinguishes the true epistles of Ignatius from the false and supposititious ones, nor is it complete, inasmuch as it no longer exhibits the epistle of the holy martyr to the Romans. Vossius, therefore, having returned home, prepared a new edition of the Ignatian epistles at Amsterdam in the year 1646, in which he published the Greek text from that Florentine codex, and the Latin from the most ancient version published by Ussher. To these epistles, however, he joined other...

adulterine and interpolated ones, ^A along with their old Latin versions.

§ V. On the edition of the appendix by Ussher, Cotelier, and others.

In the following year, Ussher, having seen the edition of Vossius, prepared an Ignatian appendix in London, in which he included only the genuine epistles of Ignatius in Greek and Latin. In it, he first undertook to correct the Greek text of the Vossian edition by means of the most ancient Latin version, and the conjectures of Junius and Vossius; then, from the two Latin versions of these same epistles—the one very ancient, the other edited by Sylvius—he composed a single one. Because, however, the epistle to the Romans had been torn from the Florentine manuscript, he wished for it to be appended to all the others, having been collated with the Greek Acts of the martyrdom of Ignatius, both those edited by the Metaphrast and others discovered by himself and therein published for the first time, and purged of errors.

Cotelier, in his edition of the works of the Holy Fathers who flourished in apostolic times, again sent to the press all the epistles of Ignatius—true, interpolated, spurious, and adulterine—but distinguished from one another, and each placed in its own order. He gave two Latin versions of them there, the first of which he interpreted as genuine, the second as supposititious. But the former is to be called even more an improved interpretation than a new one of the last Usserian version, as the latter is of the versions of Sylvius and Mæstræus.

Finally, the epistles of Ignatius have had a place in all editions of the ^B Libraries of the Fathers; but nowhere have they been printed with Greek types except in Græco-Latin editions. In others, indeed, various Latin versions are exhibited; namely, in the *Orthodoxographia*, an ancient version; in the Parisian and Cologne *Bibliotheca*, the Græco-Latin interpretation of Sylvius is stored. Finally, in the *Bibliotheca Lugdunensis*, there are two interpretations of these same epistles, one of which was indeed taken from the edition of Sylvius, the other from that of Vossius; but those in this latter one are inscribed with the fraudulent and false title of genuine Ignatian epistles.

CAPUT II. ON THE VARIOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS.

§ I. On the notes and observations of Vairnel Sylvius, Martial Mæstræus, Nicolaus Vedelius, and Billius.

Of those who have prepared some edition of the epistles of Ignatius, very many have undertaken to illustrate them with their own notes and observations. And first, indeed, Vairnel Sylvius observes certain things in them conducive to the explanation of the Greek text or his own version; but the things which pertain to the text are fewer and of lesser moment. These, however, have been published in all the *Bibliotheca Patrum*.

Martial Mæstræus also published many animadversions on the same, some of which pertain to the Greek text and his own version; ^C others to the illustration of the same text, as well as to its defense against innovators, and primarily they were edited against Scultetus. But he further prefixed to each epistle its own analysis, and to all of them a synopsis of the Life of Ignatius and an apology for all the epistles. But certainly, if he had been more exercised in critical matters, or had given his apology after the editions of Ussher and Vossius, he would truly never have brought himself to believe that the adulterine and supposititious epistles were to be adjudged to Ignatius equally with the true ones.

Nicolaus Vedelius, after each individual epistle, subjoined a long dissertation, distinguished by various chapters, by which he undertook to defend the errors of his Calvinist sect and certain other heads of doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline against Bellarmine and Baronius. In the margin, however, he added: "Critical notes, and certain philological observations on the seven genuine epistles of Ignatius." In these, he sometimes defends and asserts his own version, sometimes the genuine epistles of Ignatius, sometimes points out their interpolations, and sometimes, finally, explains or corrects their text.

Billius also left to posterity certain, as he himself says, little observations toward the emendation of the Greek Ignatian text, or of its Latin version.

§ II. On the annotations of Ussher, Vossius, and Cotelier.

Ussher, indeed, published more annotations, in which, he says, a comparison of the Greek exemplars is contained, both among themselves and with each of the two old Latin interpretations. But since those concerned only the genuine epistles of Ignatius, he thereafter published the others, as forged and adulterine, in his Appendix. The former, as the title professes, exhibit certain corrections of the Ignatian text, or variant readings of the manuscripts. The latter, however, expose and demonstrate either the falsity of other epistles or the similarity of those with the apostolic Constitutions.

By the annotations of Vossius, only the text of the genuine epistles is chastened or clarified; by some, however, though very few, the truth of certain epistles is asserted. But after Blondel had argued that none of these animadversions were free of error, then Vossius, in a letter given to Rivet and published by Pearson at the end of his *Vindiciae*, undertook to defend them strenuously.

Finally, Cotelier issued notes and observations on all the epistles of our Ignatius. But those which he brought forward for the genuine ones are longer than all the others, and by them not only is the text illustrated, but these epistles in particular are vindicated for Ignatius. Furthermore, in other annotations he explains the author's text chiefly from the various testimonies of other Fathers, and in certain places institutes a discourse and disputation on virginity, on the marriage of the apostles, and on some matters regarding heretics. Moreover, all those observations of that most learned man are of the same kind,

and those which he published on the Epistle to Barnabas. In both, however, so that we may not disguise anything, the learned desire that he had diverged less often from the author's intended text, and had not indulged his own conjectures so easily.

CHAPTER III. CERTAIN NEW OBSERVATIONS ON THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS. § I. On the divinity of Christ.

If it be permitted for us to add anything to these observations of learned men, we shall first note that the supreme divinity of Christ the Lord is clearly and perspicuously asserted and defended by our Ignatius. For it has already been demonstrated by us that the eternity of the divine Word is plainly, entirely, and openly explained by him in these words: ^A *“Who is his eternal Word, not proceeding from silence.”* But if Christ is the Word coeternal with his Father, it is absolutely necessary that he himself is of the same nature as the Father, and is the same God as He.

Nor only there, but in his other epistles he most constantly teaches and preaches the same divinity of Christ: *“I glorify,”* he says, *“Jesus Christ the God.”* And elsewhere: *“There is one physician, carnal and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in flesh.”* These indeed are the last words of Ignatius, cited by Athanasius, Theodoret, and Gelasius against the ancient impugners of the divinity of Christ, which explain it so invincibly that they have been able to be weakened by no one thus far.

^B Wherefore a certain writer of the Socinian sect, a modern, since he could not obscure the clarity of this testimony by any arts of an impious mind, arrived at such impudence that he dared to write: "That in the epistles of Ignatius some inconvenient and foolish propositions are found, and therefore he could have easily been deceived in his opinion on the divinity of Christ 'from the tradition of some pseudo-Christ, and pseudo-apostle.'"

But no one will ever point out any inconvenient or foolish proposition in the Ignatian epistles. Furthermore, although Ignatius anywhere might have suffered something human in matters of small or no import; yet it is certain that that man, truly apostolic, and already about to be crowned by martyrdom, was not deceived by any pseudo-Christ or pseudo-apostle in the highest and principal head of the entire Christian religion. Therefore, those rash responses of impious men must be exploded, and that doctrine must be held to, for which not only Ignatius, but countless martyrs poured out their blood with admirable and clearly divine constancy.

^C Nor is that observation to be passed over perfunctorily which Ignatius writes to the Ephesians concerning the sacred altar of the Christians: *“If anyone be not within the altar (τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου), he is deprived of the bread of God.”* And to the Philadelphians: *“For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup for the union of his blood, one altar (θυσιαστήριον).”* It is most certain that in these places the word *thysiasterion* is used in its proper, true, and genuine signification, namely, for the sacred table, on which the body of Christ is sacrificed. Hence, assuredly, the Calvinists are refuted, who, denying that the true body of Christ is in the eucharist, also deny that the word *thysiasterion*—altar—was accepted by the ancient Fathers through the first three centuries of the Church in its true and proper meaning.

But in vain does Vedelius object that in the time of Ignatius the eucharist was administered at a wooden table, which was not an altar properly so called. For it is uncertain firstly whether at this time of the Church Christians used a wooden or a stone table. Secondly, not the stone or wooden material, but the sacrifice offered to God by men upon the table, of whatever material it may be, constitutes an altar properly so called.

^D Nor is it of greater importance that the same Vedelius contends that since it was forbidden by some canons for women to approach the altar, Ignatius is to be understood as speaking not of any material altar, but of a spiritual one—namely, of prayers and supplications. Indeed, when that same Vedelius cites these canons, which use the word *altar* in its true and genuine sense, he unwittingly destroys himself. Then, Ignatius speaks of the eucharist, and therefore it is necessary that he speaks of a material and true altar, not of a spiritual and metaphorical one. Finally, if the access to the altar was once forbidden to women, it was prohibited to them only during the times of the divine office, but not when the eucharist was to be received.

You will insist that in the first centuries of the Church the word "altar" was rarely used by the Fathers, who, when they debated against the heathens, constantly denied that there were any altars for Christians. But to these you may easily respond: firstly, that said word "altar" was used not rarely, but often, by Ignatius—and why not by others whose writings have perished? Secondly, if the first Fathers of the Church in their writings and disputes against pagans said that Christians had no altars, in other works or sermons delivered to Christians, they asserted that they themselves did have altars. Wherefore, since those most ancient writers cannot be contradictory to themselves, without doubt those same ones are to be understood, where "altars" are denied, as referring to public altars, in which sacrifices were made with the greatest pomp and in the manner of pagans. And certainly, since they themselves affirm with every asseveration that the eucharist is the true sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, among Christians true

^A eucharist and a proper altar to have existed, they could not deny.

§ III. That in the eucharist is the true body of Christ. From these writers, however, our Ignatius, in the first place, most clearly teaches that the true body of Christ is in the eucharist. Indeed, where he discusses the heretics who babbled that Christ had assumed not a true, but a feigned and simulated flesh, he says: "They abstain from the eucharist," he says, "because they do not confess the flesh to be of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, etc." And truly, if the Christians then had held the same opinion as our Calvinists, that the eucharist is but a mere figure of the body of Christ, it should have been rejected by them even more readily than baptism, which is truly said to be a figure of the death of Christ. Nay, rather, from them, the eucharist no less than baptism ought to have been received with both hands; inasmuch as they concluded that Christ existed nowhere except in figure, and not in reality. Since, therefore, they abstained from it, they held it as persuaded that the true body of Christ was in that very thing.

Perhaps some one will object that the eucharist, although a mere figure of the body of Christ, was nevertheless rejected by them; because, as Tertullian says: "A vain thing, which is a phantom, does not admit of a figure." But this authority of Tertullian will be wrongly adduced here. For there that learned man is refuting Marcion, who raved that Christ was a feigned human being and a phantom, by that testimony of Jeremiah saying: "Come, let us cast wood," etc., and he shows that in that place bread is not called a simple and mere figure of Christ, but a prophetic one. But in the eucharist, according to the opinion of the Calvinists, it is not a prophetic figure of a body to come, but a figure of a body truly existing. But who will call into doubt that there can be a figure of a body which exists only ^B simulate and feignedly? Those heretics, therefore, for this reason ought not to have rejected the eucharist, just as they ought not to have rejected baptism, which they conceded to be a figure of the feigned death of Christ.

When Claude, once a minister at Charenton, felt the force of this argument, he went over to another opinion. He replied, therefore, that these heretics had foolishly believed that Christ, who had no true body, had in these words: "This is my body," truly adopted bread so that it might become his body. And to prove this, he produces Tertullian, in the passage cited by us above, as a witness. But Tertullian did not make even the slightest mention there of that foolish opinion of the heretics. He insists, citing Bellarmine, that it was not so much the sacrament of the eucharist that was impugned by those heretics as the mystery of the Incarnation. What then? Can the mystery of the Incarnation be impugned in no other way, unless it is said that Christ adopted bread to be his body? That these things are indeed vain and futile, no one fails to see.

^A § IV. That deacons are the ministers of the eucharist, not of food and drink. It is also to be observed that deacons are counted by Ignatius among the sacred ministers of the eucharistic sacrament: "It is fitting that deacons, being ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, [should be blameless]. For they are not ministers of food and drink." Hence also Stephen, one of the seven first deacons of the Church, is called by Ambrose: “Minister of the altar,” and Laurentius, in the same doctor, addresses Sixtus the supreme pontiff with these words: “Test whether you have chosen a suitable minister, to whom you have entrusted the consecration of the Lord's blood.” But that is especially to be noted in the words of Ignatius, which he himself added concerning these same deacons: "For they are not ministers of food and drink." For these were indeed first ordained by the apostles to take care of widows and the poor. But that secondary role of theirs, although it had provided the occasion for their first election, was nevertheless subject to changes soon after in certain regions. Furthermore, if Justinian and the Trullan Synod defined anything in this matter, they fell away from the ancient tradition of the Fathers, based on a poor understanding of both the council of Neo-Caesarea and the words of Chrysostom.

§ V. That the ecclesiastical hierarchy is composed of only three sacred orders, and that bishops are superior to presbyters. It must be noticed further that Ignatius nowhere mentioned three orders of Church ministers and no more, namely: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Whence you may understand that the ecclesiastical hierarchy was constituted by him in only these three orders. Which indeed the Tridentine Synod clearly confirms and defines in this canon: “If any one shall say that in the Catholic Church there is not a hierarchy, instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters, and ministers, let him be anathema.” Let us add, if you will, that Ignatius everywhere even so clearly taught the excellence of bishops over presbyters, that for this reason the Calvinists, as has been shown by us at length, moved every stone to show that these epistles were not written by Ignatius. But their unjust attempts were in vain, and the truth, victorious everywhere, always triumphs.

§ VI. Concerning the hand-written codices of these epistles. To these observations we shall also add that no hand-written codex of the epistles of Ignatius has been found thus far which is entirely complete and incorrupt. For those which have been in use until now, they almost all confuse and intermingle the true and the false epistles of our Ignatius. In the Latin copies, however, which are in many places corrupt, there is had a version by which the Greek text is so scrupulously rendered according to the letter, that it is altogether inelegant and b

^A barbarous, and very often obscure and difficult. The Greek Florentine codex, moreover, has many blemishes, and is not entire, as we have indicated above, but is mutilated, and does not present the Epistle to the Romans. Our Theodoric Ruinart published this, together with the genuine Acts of the martyrdom of Ignatius, from the Colbertine manuscript in Greek type. Furthermore, we have obtained two manuscript codices of the Epistles of Ignatius from that same most wealthy library of the most illustrious Colbert. The one is Greek, but of papyrus, and not of an ancient hand; the other is parchment, written five hundred years ago. And each contains all the Epistles of Ignatius—the genuine, the supposed, the adulterated, the interpolated—confusedly and mixed together. Finally, Pearson testified that he had seen another Greek codex, exhibiting the seven genuine epistles of Ignatius, and entirely similar to that which Goar, the Patriarch of Antioch, Anastasius, and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle used. ^B

§ VII. The singular opinion of Ernst Tentzel concerning the true epistles of Ignatius is refuted.

After what we have hitherto discussed concerning the true and false epistles of our Ignatius had been printed, there came into our hands the select exercises of Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, in the third of which he has embraced a view regarding those genuine epistles that is altogether singular. For since he had seen that the Florentine or Medicean codex—which we said was the only one to exhibit the Greek letters of Ignatius without interpolations—is not entire, but, as we have remarked, mutilated, truncated, and corrupted by the various faults and errors of scribes; from this he persuaded his mind that neither true nor genuine [epistles] are represented in it, and that they exist nowhere else any longer. But for the confirmation of this opinion, which differs so much from all others, he brings forward various testimonies, culled from these letters by Theodoret and certain other very ancient writers, which are not read in the same way as they are in that Florentine codex. From which that learned man concludes that we have nothing at all that is truly Ignatian, except what is consistent and agreeable with the Church Fathers who flourished in the first four centuries after the death of Ignatius.

But these are mere dreams, let it be said without envy, of a waking man, and vain and altogether frivolous opinions and conjectures. For if, because the exemplar of some old and most ancient Church Father’s work is neither entirely incorrupt nor perfectly whole, it is therefore to be said that it by no means represents his genuine work, then very many—indeed almost infinite—of their commentaries will be branded with the same mark of falsity. For how many, good God, of these same Fathers’ writings, treatises, books, and other such works have come down to light ^C stained and corrupted by errors from only one manuscript codex, mutilated, gaping with lacunae, and [filled] with the various faults of amanuenses and scribes? No one, indeed, who has given even the slightest effort to examining manuscript codices, can deny that he has met with very few books of this kind in which there are no gaps, whether shorter or longer, in which there are no slips of negligent or ignorant scribes, and in which nothing at all is lacking. But let him who has not had the opportunity to read some codices written by hand, whether Greek or Latin, approach, if he wishes, the list alone of the manuscript books in the new editions of Athanasius, Augustine, and other Fathers, and from it he will learn that many of their treatises, epistles, and canons were brought into the public domain from only one handwritten codex. Is it therefore to be denied that these books of the Fathers, their sermons and epistles, present their true and genuine work and commentary? Is it therefore to be said that there is nothing true or sincere in them, except what we read has been cited by other writers within four hundred years of the author's death? What then? If those writers, as happens not so rarely, have commended nothing from these commentaries, are these venerable monuments of antiquity to be rejected and utterly proscribed for that reason?

But come now, what, I ask, will become of the other works of the Fathers, by this way of reasoning, which, although they have been printed and published from several manuscript codices, yet—as happens very often—not one of them is altogether whole and incorrupt from those same codices; but in all of them there occur flaws, slips, errors, gaps, and lacunae, which can neither be healed nor mended from any of them? Are we therefore to say that all such works of the Fathers are to be of doubtful faith for so long as some exemplar of them is not found that is perfect in all its parts and most entire? Certainly, no one fails to see how absurd all these things are and how completely alien to all probability.

It must therefore be held as certain and established that those commentaries of the Fathers are to be considered true and genuine which are derived from one—yet ancient and of the best quality—exemplar, in such a way that it contains not only those things which we read were commended thence by the ancient writers, but also nothing that is not most worthy of its author. And yet, it has been demonstrated above, by arguments which we believe to be invincible, that the epistles of our Ignatius, published from the Florentine codex, are such. ^D Moreover, those epistles of Ignatius were not found in the Florentine codex alone; for Ussher obtained others, which, although they are Latin, yet because they exhibit the same Ignatian text as the Florentine, there is no room at all for doubting that the sincere and genuine epistles of his are represented in them.

Regarding the conjectures of Tentzel, therefore, they without doubt—with no one else striking or impelling them—collapse of their own accord and vanish. And truly, if there are any variant readings in the aforementioned codices, or light