A CRITICAL DISQUISITION ON THE INTEGRITY OF THE RECEIVED TEXT OF THE EPISTLES OF ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH
Rendered into Latin with revised efforts BY HENRICUS DENZINGER PROFESSOR OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG
I. The cause of the controversy and the state of the question.
Until now, a twofold text of the epistles of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr of Antioch, has been present. One, which all arguments commended as genuine, and which harmonizes plainly with the testimony of ancient writers, especially Eusebius, comprises seven epistles; the other, much more prolix, exhibits those same epistles interpolated with many additions, and besides them five others, of which Eusebius made no mention.
But recently, from certain Syriac codices of collected works that the English discovered in the monastery of St. Mary of the Nitrian Desert and, having purchased, brought to the British Museum, that man most deserving well of Oriental letters, William Cureton, has published a certain Syriac text, which three codices furnish in agreement, and which exhibits only three epistles—to Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans—and these much shorter than they are held to be in the received text. Many things are missing, especially those which are held concerning the divinity of our Lord Christ and the hierarchical power of bishops in that text which, until now, we had received as genuine. A question has arisen from this, which is certainly not trivial, since it concerns a monument of the apostolic age that is most ancient and of the greatest weight, and the most illustrious and holy testimonies of our religion: namely, whether this new text is the genuine one, and consequently whether the one hitherto received was interpolated, or whether the Syriac text is truncated, and the one we held to be genuine is to be retained henceforth.
II. What the learned have determined so far regarding this question.
The illustrious Cureton, who discovered the Syriac text and first published it, and was the first to institute a critical disquisition concerning it—which is certainly not surprising—maintains that his text is the genuine Ignatius. In the first two works which he published on this subject, he supposes that the received text was fashioned by an interpolator in the first part of the fourth century to defend Catholic doctrine against Aerius and the Arians; he contends that the four epistles which are missing in the Syriac version are not entirely spurious, but nonetheless are themselves interpolated.
A Christian Karl Josias Bunsen (79) also entered the field, a man most well-known, who was at that time the Prussian king’s ambassador in England and formerly in Rome, and who took upon himself the task of spreading the "new Ignatius" in Germany. To Bunsen, the *textus receptus* seems to have been composed as early as the time of Tertullian, in order to introduce, as he says, the episcopal system.
Afterwards, however, Cureton returned to the fray and, having published a greater work (80), he gathered with immense labor not only the Syriac text of the three epistles, but also everything that is said or alleged about Ignatius by Greek, Latin, or Syriac writers, adding besides critical disquisitions on the prevailing controversy. For this reason, he distinguished that work with the title *Corpus Ignatianum*. He judges, however, that Ignatius was interpolated for the purpose of defending the doctrines concerning the divinity of Christ and episcopal power—not, indeed, that these dogmas were primarily introduced (which he himself, as an adherent of the Anglican confession, admits), but that they might be promoted by the authority of Ignatius against those who denied them. He has spoken less distinctly in this work regarding the epoch of the adulterated Ignatius, yet he seems to assign it to an even later age.
That nothing could have been more acceptable to Protestants and other adversaries of the faith, anyone can understand for himself. From many, we name one: Alb. Ritschl of Bonn, who, in his work inscribed *De ortu primaevae Ecclesia catholicae* (81), joins the side of Bunsen.
Opposed, however, to the *textus receptus*, the first to defend it was Rudolph Christopher Wordsworth, when he subjected Cureton’s first edition to criticism in a folio which is called the *English Review* (81*). Attempting to do this, he rather unhappily established a hypothesis: that a certain Monophysite Syrian had truncated Ignatius.
Indeed, Julius Heinrich Petermann, a professor at Berlin (82), provided the best service to our cause. In order to show that Cureton’s Ignatius was truncated, he employed an Armenian version to supply the defect of the complete Syriac. This version, to be sure, is not immediate, but is translated from the Syriac, and indeed from the very same Syriac, of which we have remnants in Cureton’s Syriac. And yet, this very Armenian translation contains the complete Ignatius.
After these, our Ignatius was defended by Ferd. Christ. Baur, a professor at Tübingen (82), that most noted man—not a critic of the Holy Scriptures and the apostolic age, but a destroyer, not in the sense that he holds the epistles of Ignatius to be authentic (which he proclaims to be forged, as he does almost all the monuments of primeval Christianity), but because he wishes that text of ours which is the *textus receptus* to be the one which was first brought to light under the name of Ignatius, and that therefore nothing of Ignatius can be preserved. It cannot be denied, however, that Baur proved with the utmost sharpness of keenness that the chain of thought is perfect in our Ignatius, but entirely wanting in the Syriac.
Among Catholics, the first to rise up to defend Ignatius was Karl Jos. Hefele, a professor at Tübingen and a most deserving editor of the Apostolic Fathers (83), and he seems to us to have hit the mark precisely. For he proved that the Syriac text presents certain excerpts prepared for ascetic use.
But since he had treated the question only briefly, we, thinking it consistent with the gravity of the matter that it should be expounded more fully, and since many things occurred that could have been brought forward for the same hypothesis, wrote a more extensive book to defend and clarify it (84); afterwards we appended a double appendix, one against Ritschl (85) and the other against a certain statement of Uhlhorn on the Gnostic *Sige* (86).
To this same opinion thereafter acceded from among the Catholics the most learned men Haneberg, O. S. B., professor at Munich (87); Adalbert Maier, professor at Freiburg (88); Ritter, professor at Breslau (86); and from among the Protestants Neander, although earlier
he opposed it, and Uhlhorn (90); from among the Anglicans, Routh (91), Jacobson (92); and most recently Edward Churton, in his new edition of the *Vindiciae* of the Epistles of St. Ignatius, authored by John Pearson, with annotations and a preface adapted to the present state of the controversy (93); a truly useful work, which attacks our adversaries not less soundly than wittily. We, for our part, having contracted this little work somewhat with regard to its form, while augmenting it with regard to its material with those things that have occurred to be added since the time it was produced, now publish it again here with repeated efforts.
III
Points taken from the doctrine concerning Christ the Lord.
A Let us suppose, in truth, that the genuine text of Ignatius was interpolated by some falsifier: he certainly proposed to himself some end to be attained, and to reach it he must have said certain things, from which that same aim of the fraud will become evident to one inquiring into it. Come now, they say that this aim was to either introduce or promote the doctrine concerning the divinity of Christ; and in truth the received text twice (94) attributes the name *Theos* (God) to Christ, where the Syriac reads otherwise. But the same thing occurs in reverse in the Syriac (95), nor does it any the less call Christ God (96).
Furthermore, if that interpolator, whom the adversaries suppose, proposed to himself to commend the divinity of Christ, he surely was wielding weapons against certain heretics, and from the errors which he disputes, it will be possible to see who those men were and that they were later than Ignatius. But if you search the epistles of the received text most accurately, you will find none except such as were contemporary with Ignatius: Ebionites, Judaizers, Docetists. B There is one thing which has already given cause for sharp controversies, when Pearson joined hands with Blondell and Daillé in defending Ignatius: that most celebrated passage from the Epistle to the Magnesians (97), in which Christ is called *Logos aidios ouk apo sigēs proelthōn* (the eternal Word, not coming forth from Silence). In that place, they claim that manifest mention is made of the Valentinian *Sige*, and that Valentinus arose after Ignatius was dead. This same objection is now twisted against the authority of our text, since those words are absent from the Syriac.
In this matter we concede more readily than Pearson (98) and Massuet (99) that Valentinus did not teach until after the death of Ignatius. Nor will we use the arguments which are set forth at length not without some probability by Pearson in his *Vindiciae Ignatianae* (1), that the name *Sige* should not be taken as an appellative, and that the whole passage looks to the Ebionites. Rather, we shall insist upon that type of argument which, pre-libated by Pearson, settles the matter plainly, namely, that that doctrine concerning *Sige* and the whole first ogdoad of aeons traces its origin to Simon, and that the entire genealogy of the aeons was evolved little by little by the Gnostics from that root, concerning which you may see Pearson himself (2). C One thing alone the most excellent man could not accomplish perfectly because of a lack of sources. For since he had demonstrated that the matter traced its origin to Simon, it had to be shown further that the word *Sige* had also been used by him. In order to show this, he had only the testimonies of certain later writers, Eusebius and Gregory of Nazianzus and his commentators, at hand. Although these are quite sufficient, yet the cavil was not taken away from the adversaries, that the heresiological authors who were nearly contemporary with Ignatius were deeply silent, and indeed that they attributed the name *Sige* rather to the author Valentinus. But even that escape is closed to them, since the discovery of the work of Hippolytus of Portus, *De haeresibus* (3), once partly edited under the name of Origen, but now vindicated for its genuine author*. For here not only is Valentinus'—
tenets to have arisen from the Simonians (4), but he also alleges these words from the book of Simon, which is named *Apophasis*: "There are two offshoots of all the eons, having neither beginning nor end, from one root, which is the Power, the Silence, invisible, incomprehensible." We concede also that this book is not Simon’s, even though Epiphanius, Jerome (6), and Dionysius the Areopagite (7) attribute such works to him; yet it must have proceeded from his sect, which still existed in Origen’s time, though meager in number, and must be most ancient, since by the time of Hippolytus it was undoubtedly attributed to Simon. If you add to these that *Ennoia* was called "Mother" by the Valentinians (8), that *Ennoia* and "Mother" are attributed to Simon by Irenaeus (9) and Epiphanius (10); that the same *Pronoia* was called so by certain Gnostics, disciples of Nicolaus, and by the Valentinians (11), but that the same *Pronoia* is attributed by Epiphanius to Simon (12); that the Barbeliotes, sprung from the Simonians, called *Ennoia* "Barbelo" (13), and that Epiphanius expressly affirms this Barbelo to be the same as Simon’s *Pronoia*: if, I say, you compare these things, there cannot be any doubt that both the matter and the name took their origin from Simon, unless you wish to tear up all principles of criticism.
IV Arguments taken from the doctrine of episcopal power.
Neither has the matter proceeded any better for our adversaries in the other purpose which they deem the interpolator to have proposed to himself, namely, by uncovering [an intention] of commending episcopal authority. Bunsen, Cureton, and Ritschl have said many words on this matter, without, however, proving that there is a genuine diversity in this dogma between the Syriac and the received text. For the Syriac text itself admits both the prerogative of the bishops and the three grades of the hierarchy, as it presents the bishops Ignatius, Polycarp, and Onesimus, and has not omitted mention of presbyters or deacons (14). It allows that nothing is to be done against the bishop’s opinion (15), nor marriages contracted, nor virginity dedicated to God (16). It confirms that it is his role to preserve unity (17), to guard sound doctrine (18), to convene assemblies (19), and to have care for all. And it admits that he exercises such power by the law of God, for it exhorts all to be subject to the bishop, so that God may also be propitious to them (20).
V Arguments from the diversity of style.
The argument from the diversity of style, already brought forward by older adversaries of the Ignatian epistles and most thoroughly refuted by Pearson, has been revived by the patrons of the Syriac text in such a way that they posit a marvelous discrepancy of style between the genuine Ignatius and the interpolator. Bunsen complains that in those parts which he deems interpolated, all manner of oratorical phrases, excessive redundancy of words, false *pathos*, and words compounded to an immense degree are accumulated. Cureton, more moderate in all things, contends at least that the interpolator used certain things which he had found in Ignatius so immoderately that he betrays himself as an imitator. But here, too, the same place will supply us with a response a third time, for the very things they reprehend in the interpolator—whom they posit—occur no less in the Syrian: namely, the accumulation of predicates and similar words (21), the immoderate repetition of particles, A B C D
words prolixly compounded, and complex and anacoluthic periods similar to those of Paul. Cureton objects that this discrepancy of style exists, especially between the end of the Epistle to Polycarp, such as we have it, and the former part of the same epistle, which the Syrian also retained. But it must be answered that the same dissonance exists no less between the Syriac Epistle to Polycarp and the other epistles retained by the Syrian. For Ignatius, writing to a colleague, imitates the Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus, just as he otherwise follows the other Epistles of Paul in his style of speaking. But both Paul and Ignatius, according to the nature of the persons, use a different style. Indeed, it is fitting for one writing to a fellow-bishop and associate to use a simple and familiar style of speech, not that solemn and oratorical one which it befits one who publicly teaches and exhorts the Churches to follow. This is what was done here, when at the end of the epistle to Polycarp he turned his discourse to the Smyrneans. Nor should it be overlooked that an argument taken from style must always be used with some moderation, since there is no one who consistently renders his thoughts in the same style of speaking, nor who, according to the nature of the subject matter and the varying disposition of the mind, does not also employ a varying mode of writing. Proceeding with caution is necessary in judging this matter, where one is dealing with very subtle differences and where, consequently, the widest field stands open to prejudices.
VI. Momenta taken from the connection of sentiments.
To no sensible man will it seem strange that a man pressed by persecutions, tossed by the care of the Churches, vexed by guards raging like wild beasts, and having his mind distracted hither and thither amidst the turmoils of a very long and weary journey performed by land and sea, should not produce that connection of sentiments nor that calm and ordered discourse which one is able to use who disposes his thoughts quietly at home. Indeed, in such a case, excerpts which only pick out the principal sentiments ought to exhibit better connection and more logical order than an autograph. Therefore, there is nothing that should seem to us unusual and strange if the epistles of S. Ignatius appear to us as they do; nay, it seems more consistent with the circumstances and, therefore, more faithful and likely to be true. Nevertheless, there is no reason why we should resort to this when our adversaries object to us that our text is so abrupt in the series of its sentiments, since even the Syrian text itself, as Bunsen admits, shows itself to be no less obscure and abrupt. So that we may not seem to yield in the struggle—to which, surely, no lack of arguments drives us—let us briefly run through the passages in which the texts differ from each other.
The Epistle to Polycarp is the one in which the Syrian omitted very few things. Nevertheless, at the end he removed some things, which, once cut away, reveal the truncator. For what is more abrupt than those three clauses with which he concludes the epistle: *May I have joy in you at all times. The Christian has no power over himself, but is prepared for God, that he may be subject. I pray for the peace of him who has been judged worthy to go to Antioch for me, as I commanded you?* What do those words mean here: *Χριστιανὸς ἑαυτοῦ ἐξουσίαν οὐκ ἔχει, ἀλλὰ Θεῷ σχολάζει?* Bunsen refers this to Ignatius and expresses his soul, which is most prepared to suffer. But who will say this of *σχολάζει*, which means "to be at leisure," especially when, tossed hither and thither by soldiers—whom he likens to leopards—he is being led to the wild beasts? The Syrian himself sensed this, and therefore added those words of his own, *ut subjiciatur* (that he may be subject), rendering *σχολάζει* by the word "prepared." But everyone sees that these things are better held in our text, in which this sentiment about Christians is applied to the Smyrneans, to whom Ignatius had commanded that they send a certain messenger to Antioch, who would congratulate that Church on the lulled persecution. He says this work of charity would be to the glory of God, and that to promote this, Christians should tend in every way, since they do not live for themselves, but, in a way, being at leisure for themselves, they do all things for God.
A The Syrian translator curtailed the Epistle to the Ephesians as much as possible, because he found fewer things in it toward his own end. The result of this is that there are many things that lack any connection. Such are those words (25): "but for the reason that love did not allow me to stay silent from you," since previously no reason had been given why he should be silent. Indeed, the praise which Ignatius formerly bestowed upon the Ephesians from the Syrian could be opposed to the warnings which follow thereafter; but we are not dealing here with that topic, but with what ought to be opposed to the silence. However, the same thing is beautifully held in the received text, in which Ignatius had said that he was only beginning in the school of Christ, and that he needed to be stirred up by them toward faith and patience. Bunsen, in order to escape from this difficulty, translated the word ἀλλά as "therefore," which is not an evasion, but a confession.
After these things, the Syrian skipped nearly five paragraphs; indeed, the next clause (26) contains a variant reading, which Cureton (27) says was introduced deliberately by an interpolator, so that he might restore some connection between the additions and what follows. Certainly, where the Syrian reads ἐπιθυμία, ours has the word ἐλπίς. But since that fuller Greek text—which all, including us, consider to be interpolated—reads ἐπιθυμία, and since the interpolator himself substituted that for the received text with his own inventions, it is clear that the other reading was not purposefully replaced into the text, but slipped in by chance, and that it is merely such a variant as is wont to be found in all texts.
In what follows (28), Ignatius urges the Ephesians to pray for other men, who are not like themselves, the temples of God. Here the Syrian, who had omitted the preceding context, changed that word to ἀλλήλους, so that the speech would not be so abrupt, since those to whom others were to be compared were previously absent. However, from this a less convenient result emerged; for certainly not all men are of such a kind that they need conversion to the Christian religion, since Christians themselves are not of that kind.
A similar thing happened later (29), where the Syrian joined two clauses: "It is better for this, that a man be silent when he is something, than that he be speaking when he is not, so that he may work by that which he speaks, and be known by that which he keeps silent." These things proceed excellently in the Syriac text, because the Syrian added "man," that is, ἄνθρωπος; but if you compose the Greek according to the norm of the Syriac text, you will have a proposition in the infinitive without a subject, joined most tightly to another, which assumes a subject: *Αμεινόν ἐστιν σιωπᾶν καὶ εἶναι, ἢ λαλοῦντα μὴ εἶναι, ἵν᾽ ἃ λαλεῖ πράσσῃ, καὶ δι᾽ ὧν σιγῇ γινώσκηται*. B Thus even Bunsen himself restored the Greek text from the Syriac. In order to excuse this, he alleges another passage from the Epistle to the Romans (30), where the same less regular construction is held: *Καλὸν τὸ δῦναι ἀπὸ κόσμου πρὸς Θεόν, ἵνα εἰς αὐτὸν ἀνατείλω*. But the reasoning for both places is not the same, since in this one it is certain that Ignatius wrote it so, whereas in that one, of which we are currently speaking, a controversy rages over the double text; and therefore, when there is a choice to be made, the right to argue from such unusual modes of construction is granted to us.
After these things, suddenly, with no opportunity given and no other thought introducing it, the Syriac text leads Ignatius to exclaim: "My spirit worships the cross, which is a stumbling-block to those who are not persuaded, but to us it is for salvation and life, which is eternal." Then, not less abruptly, it subjoins: "It was hidden from the prince of this world," etc., all of which will be clear to the reader as to how well they are connected in the received text. Nor was Bunsen able to find any escape with his usual arts.
However, if there is any place apt from which it might be proven that the Syriac text offers us only certain abrupt excerpts—that is, which follows immediately—it is this, which the Syrian rendered thus: "The virginity of Mary and the birth of our Lord were hidden from the prince of this world, and the three mysteries of the shout, which were done in the quietness of God from the star," or, as another codex reads: "and his death and the three mysteries," etc., or, as a third reads: "and the birth of our Lord, the three mysteries, with the death and the particle 'and' (31) omitted." C Now indeed, whatever you read, something absurd emerges, and it is permitted to see the spurious epistle to the Philippians, no. 8, where the fabricator of the pseudepigraphical epistles of Ignatius imitates this place of ours. We shall see below that in that codex, from which the Syrian made his excerpts, the spurious epistles had been placed after the genuine ones. Hence it seems that the Syrian did indeed omit the death along with that falsifier, because he did not see clearly enough how those things could have remained unknown to the devil, and it seemed absurd to him that the star, as he thought, should also refer to the death, whereas in our genuine text [the star] is not connected with the three mysteries, but only with the manifestation of the Lord.
It is no less absurd to say that those mysteries, whether two or three, were brought about by the star. Bunsen, sensing this, converted the word A *ἐπράχθη* into *ἐκηρύχθη*, though no authority provides support for the force of such a conjecture; and this change in reading does not even sufficiently remove the inconvenience, since the star announced neither the virginity of Mary nor the death of the Lord, nor is it any clearer what the three mysteries might mean. How unjustly, indeed, in order to defend this conjecture of his, over which he greatly congratulates himself, Bunsen contends that the phrase *μυστήρια πράσσειν* is less Greek, the learned Edv. Churton B has shown at length. For the sense of this phrase is none other than: "to perform secret matters, full of mystery." Cureton here remains openly doubtful, and does not discuss this passage with sufficient distinctness; he says that the three mysteries, whatever they may be, pertain to the virginity of the Mother of God, the nativity of the Lord, and the apparition of the star. Nor did Ritschl fare more successfully, when, coming to Bunsen's aid, he asserts that the genuine text is that which speaks only of virginity and birth, and that it should be read: *τὰ μυστήρια*, not: *καὶ τὰ τρία μυστήρια*. But neither does this solve the difficulty—what that word *ἐπράχθη* is supposed to mean. And the alteration of the reading is no less violent; so that, by that very fact, they betray how poorly connected and obstructed the passage is in the Syriac, since they can restore some kind of sense only by correcting it, and even this is not sufficiently apt. Ritschl himself, however, put forward another point, which you could conveniently turn against him. For whereas the Greek reads: *ὁ τοκετὸς αὐτῆς*, the Syrian put: *ὁ τοκετὸς τοῦ Κυρίου*, which is truly dissonant C from usage in speech, since that word *τοκετός* is usually put in the active sense, and therefore, with that genitive of the object *τοῦ Κυρίου*, it can only be joined uncomfortably.
Finally, the Epistle to the Romans, although less mutilated, offers nonetheless no less manifest indications of the nexus of thought being interrupted by the Syrian. I would have you read those words: *Ignis, et crux, et bestiæ, quæ paratæ, amputatio membrorum, et sparsio ossium et molitiones totius corporis, tormenta dura diaboli super me veniant, et solum Jesu Christo dignificer. Dolores partus stant super me et amor meus crucifixus, et non est in me ignis in amore alio.* How these latter things harmonize among themselves and with the former, I do not see, nor what is intended by that "and" which the Syrian, after the manner of one excerpting hastily, placed before the words: *Amor meus crucifixus est.*
VII. Considerations drawn from other internal reasons.
Many things which Blondel, Daillé, and other older adversaries of Ignatius brought forward to attack the integrity of Ignatius, Cureton and Bunsen have adapted to their own cause. Since these were excellently and amply refuted by Pearson, it will not be worth the effort to repeat what has already been well said. It shall suffice, therefore, to refer the benevolent reader to Pearson, and to add a few things that have occurred as opportune, and to solve some that have been brought forward by [the others] on their own account. D In our epistle to Polycarp, it seems to Cureton to be contradictory that Ignatius, then residing in Troas, should be supposed to have received the news that the Antiochene persecution had already been lulled; and no less so, that in the epistle to the Romans, when he was writing it from Smyrna, he is supposed to have already heard that the Romans had proposed to procure his liberation for him. To these points it must be answered that Ignatius made his journey very slowly: since, according to the Acts of his martyrdom, the persecution began in the ninth year of Trajan, and soon after, on January 7th, (by the testimony of John Malalas), he was led to the emperor's tribunal; and according to the Acts, he did not finish his martyrdom until the beginning of the tenth year, on December 20, 107. Thus, for almost an entire year, he was dragged to and fro by the guards, so that they might extract money from the Christians of various cities for speaking with and escorting Ignatius. The Acts also relate that he arrived in Smyrna *μετὰ πολὺν κάματον*, nor is the route brief which they describe further from the most holy martyr...
A (36), with which Chrysostom agrees in his homily on St. Ignatius, stating that the enemy wished to crush his spirit *καὶ τῷ μήκει τῆς ὁδοῦ, καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν ἡμερῶν*. From this, there was more than enough time for him to have received messengers from both Rome and Antioch. Add to this that, in the former case, he appeals to a revelation granted to him: *ὡς ἐδηλώθη μοι*.
After this, Cureton objects regarding the Epistle to the Romans, that it was written from the Greek text at Smyrna (37). Yet, according to the Acts of the martyrdom, he arrived at Smyrna first. How then, in this very epistle, as it is held in the Greek, could he write that the Christians of all the cities he had touched upon his journey had received him with the utmost charity, and indeed that even those who were distant from the road had sent delegates to him? But the Acts do not say that he arrived at Smyrna first and nowhere before. It is one thing for them to say he arrived at this city first, and quite another for them to be silent about others. For since the ancients made maritime journeys by following the coasts, there can be no doubt that he reached many other cities by ship before coming to Smyrna.
From the same epistle, it is objected that Ignatius, if our text is to be believed, says that he will shortly come to Rome, when it is certain from the Acts that he arrived there in the month of December; yet this epistle confirms that it was written in the month of August. But if the text is read more accurately, you will see that Ignatius does not speak in this manner, but rather commits it to the Romans, so that they might announce to the Syrians who had preceded him to Rome—certainly after they had received these letters of his—that he would soon come, that is, that his epistle would soon follow. It can also be answered that he may have hoped at that time to be led by the shorter maritime route; but afterwards, he was led by his guards on the longer journey by land through Macedonia. Finally, by this and the previous objection, they have no right to oppose the Acts of the martyrdom to us, since these very Acts contain the Epistle to the Romans in its entirety according to our form, and so, unless you wish to contradict yourself, they can in no way be contrary to our text.
Regarding the magnitude of the star that appeared to the Magi, celebrated in the Epistle to the Ephesians; regarding the length of the same epistle and the promise of another book, none the less made at its end; regarding the great retinue of brethren and other matters of that kind which are not sufficiently in harmony with the circumstances; regarding the title *θεοφόρος* (which, however, the Syrian text itself has); and regarding that phrase where Paul is said to mention the Ephesians B, one may consult Pearson, who discourses on these quite sufficiently (38).
VIII. Arguments derived from the authorities.
The adversaries insist much on this point, that there is no trace of our text before the times of Eusebius, since no passages of Ignatius are cited by Irenaeus and Origen other than those which are contained in the Syriac text. Indeed, Cureton attempts to prove that Origen is directly opposed to us, because in the book *Περὶ ἀρχῶν* he says that the word *ἀσώματον* does not occur in the sacred books of the Christians. The appellation *ἀσώματον*—these are Origen’s words—is unusual and unknown not only among many others, but even in our own scriptures. But if any one wishes to produce for us from that book which is called the Doctrine of Peter, where the Savior is seen to say to the disciples: *I am not an incorporeal demon*; first it must be answered to him that that book is not held among the ecclesiastical books; and it must be shown that the writing itself is neither Peter's, nor that of anyone else who was inspired by the Spirit of God.
Yet, says Cureton, Ignatius the recipient uses this very word (39) and acts as if he were inspired (40). Therefore, Origen did not acknowledge him as an authentic writer, or was entirely unaware of him. But who does not know that it is one thing to be inspired, and another to enjoy some divine revelation here and there? Origen judged that Ignatius had taken those words of Christ from the Doctrine of Peter: to this, Ignatius should not have been cited, but rather the book which Origen held to be their original author.
Nor can the argument from silence be sustained; for it is sufficient that the arguments drawn by Pearson—which he develops in an outstanding manner—from Polycarp and Lucian’s *Peregrinus* be applied here. For in his Epistle to the Philippians, Polycarp assumes there are more than three epistles of Ignatius. "The epistles of Ignatius," he says, "which were sent to us by him, and others, as many as we had with us, we have sent to you." These words assume a double epistle sent to Polycarp and his own, and further, at least two others. Indeed, they openly imply the epistle to the Smyrnaeans, which our adversaries decry as spurious. Furthermore, what is said regarding the subject matter of the epistles by Polycarp—"they contain faith and endurance and all building up that pertains to our Lord"—these, I say, ill accord with the Syriac text, which contains almost nothing about the faith. The epistles which Lucian transferred from Ignatius into his *Peregrinus* also assume more epistles than are found in the Syriac: "They say," he says, "that he sent epistles to all the illustrious cities, as well as certain testaments and exhortations and laws."
Let the parallel passages further be compared which Pearson brings forward from Polycarp, *Peregrinus*, Chrysostom, and Athanasius; let the passage of Clement of Alexandria—or rather, Theodotus the Valentinian—in the *Eclogae*, where he imitates Ignatius, be compared. Finally, let the passages that Ritschl himself brought forward from the pseudo-Apostolic *Constitutions*, which were taken from Ignatius, be compared; very many will be found which could not have been taken from anywhere but our own text.
But since there are so many and such great authorities that defend our text, there is absolutely none that positively favors Cureton’s Syriac or follows its reading. Nor is this argument from silence entirely negative. For it is utterly incredible that, over so many centuries and among so many citations of Ignatius, there should be found absolutely none that brings forward a text of the kind present in those Syriac collections; so much so that the entire case of the adversary, apart from certain internal reasons that falter in every way and are uncertain, rests entirely upon the authority of a completely unknown man, regarding whom it cannot even be proven that he wishes his own text to be that of the genuine Ignatius, nor does he attest to it.
What is of the greatest importance is that the Syrians themselves—for whom the existence of a double Ignatius could not have escaped notice—nay, even the Monophysites themselves, whom our Ignatius slays no less than he did the Docetists of his own age, acknowledge him, and they do not reject him, even though he was so often set against them; indeed, they use him as an authority, when it would have been easy to appeal to the shorter text, which contains very few things contrary to them. From the Syriac codices, Cureton himself extracted passages of Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch of the fifth century, who even proceeds critically in citing Ignatius, as well as Timothy, the Patriarch of Alexandria of the sixth century, a certain John the monk, and others. There are also passages by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus; Ephraem of Antioch; John of Damascus and his disciple Anthony; Anastasius of Antioch; Ibn Zobra the Jacobite; Anastasius the Sinaite; and others, who also set Ignatius against the Monophysites: all of them represent our text, and no one has contradicted it. The Syrians possess a collection of canons which must have been completed before the departure of the Nestorians from the Church, since it is found among all the sects of the Orientals. Renaudot saw and described a Medicean codex of this collection from the tenth or eleventh century; Cureton made use of another codex of the same, formerly belonging to Renaudot, but later to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Indeed, this collection of canons presents the pronouncements of Ignatius from the epistles to the Magnesians, Trallians, Philadelphians, and Smyrnaeans, and therefore presents our text. Finally, Ebed-Jesu, a Nestorian and Metropolitan of Soba, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century, in compiling a catalog of the writers of his nation, says this regarding Ignatius: "Damasus, Bishop of Rome, wrote on the matter of the faith and canons, and Ignatius likewise." That this concerns the epistles of Ignatius, as Asseman and Fabricius admit, cannot be doubted, since the works of Damasus, which are here combined with the Ignatian ones, were also epistles. Yet these things which Ebed-Jesu says do not in the least accord with the text of Cureton.
[IX.] That the Syrian who transcribed the Curetonian Ignatius excerpted the text, because it differed from ours.
If we possessed the complete Syriac version, which in those parts that the Curetonian Syrian retained echoed the text itself in its choice of words and order, but also exhibited those parts which are missing from it, no one would doubt that the Curetonian text must be considered as nothing more than excerpts, since it is morally impossible for two translators to concur in such a way that they do not differ at all. But such a version has not yet been detected (53).
Nevertheless, we shall achieve the same result if we make opportune use of the fragments which Cureton himself provides to us. For there are many which correspond word for word with his Syrian, such that they even retain the order of the words, if you except a few minor ones which do not induce a diversity of versions, but only of the manuscripts of the same version. Yet these very passages add some things which the Curetonian does not possess. Therefore, there must have existed a certain ancient version of Ignatius, in very common use, from which the Curetonian Syrian made his excerpts. These fragments are from the Syriac collection of canons, and from the epistle to the Ephesians, no. 15 (in *Corpore Ignatiano*, p. 197; cf. p. 32); from the epistle to the Trallians, no. 5 (ibid., p. 198; cf. p. 56); from the epistle to Polycarp, no. 3 (ibid., p. 198; cf. p. 6); from the same epistle, no. 6 (ibid., p. 198; cf. p. 12); furthermore from the same, no. 7 (ibid., p. 201; cf. p. 14); and fragments of the epistle to the Romans from the Brit. Mus. cod. Add. ms. 17,134 and 14,577 and in the epistle of John the Monk to Eutropius and Eusebius (ibid., p. 296, 201, 207; cf. p. 4, 6, 50).
The same thing clearly emerges if we compare the ancient Armenian version, printed at Constantinople in 1783 and used by the distinguished Petermann for the solution of our question, with the Syrian. We would exceed the bounds set for us if we were to relate all the individual things that this man, most skilled in Oriental languages, has contributed on this matter. It shall suffice, therefore, to refer the reader to him for details and to indicate with a more general survey what results from his labors. This he proves in six hundred places: that the Armenian translator, departing from the genius and rules of his own language, imitated the Syriac idiom—of which Syriacisms he enumerates no fewer than six classes. Furthermore, he finds many blunders which can only be explained by a Syriac text poorly read or understood; that the Armenian most often follows the readings or orthography of the Syrian, and therefore it must be admitted without doubt that the Syriac version was intermediate and that its proximate source was a certain Syriac translation. Moreover, he shows that the Armenian in very many places departs from other Syriac versions—which are held to be most diverse among the fragments collected by Cureton—and follows that which he [Cureton] published as the true version of Ignatius, indeed agreeing in a wondrous way with it in the rendering of individual words, which must be absolutely denied to have happened by chance. But if there are some things, few though they may be, in which the Armenian appears to depart from the Syrian toward the Greek, the most learned man judges this to have arisen from the fact that certain Armenians, who possessed the Greek text as well, corrected some things in their copy from the Greek or noted them in the margin, which later crept into the text. I would also add that the distinguished Petermann did not have before his eyes the *Corpus Ignatianum* of Cureton, in which many variants are added from codex γ; nor did he see—what we have shown—that certain Syriac fragments are identical with the Curetonian Syrian, from which he could have not only happily conjectured but even proven that certain divergences of his Armenian from the former are easily explained and arose from nothing but the exchange of certain letters (54). After the text had been amended from many manuscripts,
(53) It is truly regrettable that the Syriac version, which Ignatius, called Mehemet-Allah, Patriarch of Antioch, who remained during the time of Gregory XIII and participated in the reform of the Calendar, left behind when he died along with his other books, is lost. Usher had already heard of this same thing (*Diss. de epist. Ignatii*, c. 4), and Assemani makes mention of it, yet in such a way that he does not appear to have seen it with his own eyes (*Bibl. Orient.*, tom. III, pars I, p. 17). When we first addressed this question, we applied every diligence that a trace of this treasure might be found. But we were not able to arrive at the desired end, since civil disturbances hindered everything. Nor did the great labor we applied to obtain an entire Syriac Ignatius from elsewhere meet with better success. (54) See, e.g., Rom. 5, *which was commanded to me*; Rom. 5, *pangs of death*; in all of these the fragment follows, p. 201.
common Syriac version, from which the Curetonian and others have taken their excerpts, many points still vanish. Furthermore, does not the Curetonian Syriac itself show most clearly that it had our seven epistles before its eyes? For it inserted into the end of the Epistle to the Romans a passage from our Epistle to the Trallians (55). Cureton and Bunsen certainly strive with all their might to prove that the genuine place of this passage is in the Epistle to the Romans. But the words are attached in a completely abrupt manner, after the salutation at the end, without any connection to what precedes them. In the Epistle to the Trallians, however, whatever Vedelius (56) may have said—whom Cureton (57) boasts that the Syrian, discovered two years before, had seen the same—the words are connected excellently with what precedes. For since Ignatius had previously exhorted the Trallians to obey the bishop, as is his custom after such admonitions, he excuses himself out of humility for teaching others. In this epistle to the Trallians it is also clear why he says he knows the *tonothesias* (arrangements) of the angels, because, he could defend the terrestrial [arrangement], of which he had spoken, by the analogy of the celestial hierarchy, as was often done by the Fathers.
Indeed, it is certain that the author of the Curetonian Syriac knew the spurious epistles and used them, and that his Greek prototype was of the kind that added to the seven genuine, uninterpolated epistles the entirely spurious epistles to the Antiochians, Philippians, and others, a form which is found in the Medicean codex, the Latin version of Ussher, the Armenian translator, John of Damascus, Antonius, the Jacobite Ibn Zobra, and others. For in the Epistle to Polycarp, those words, *in my stead*, which the Syrian adds, and which make the messenger sent to Antioch a successor to Ignatius, are taken from the supposititious Epistle to Hero (58), who was afterwards Ignatius’s successor, and whom the fabricator of that epistle pretends was a deacon at that time; furthermore, they are taken from the Epistle to the Antiochians (59), which is itself also spurious. Nor can any reason be devised why our compiler would have omitted these, or rather why he would not have developed them, if in fact—as they suppose—he was an interpolator, since they would have been very opportune for the end of inculcating his pretended episcopal authority. Finally, it must be noted that the Syrian, in that he removes the death of the Lord from the number of mysteries in the Epistle to the Ephesians (60)—which is his more likely reading—imitated the spurious Epistle to the Philippians (61), which also omits the death of the Lord.
X.
That the Curetonian Syriac truly offers only excerpts prepared for ascetical use.
Let us conclude, therefore, that so far is the Syriac from obstructing the authenticity and integrity of our Ignatius, that on this very occasion a new light is shed upon the authority of this venerable monument of Christian antiquity. It should not be objected by adversaries that many things are found in our text, when compared with the Syriac, to be redundant, which were most ostensibly added for the sake of explanation or for other reasons easily detected (62). For we do not deny that certain glosses have crept into the Greek text, which still truly needs much correction, just as is accustomed to happen in almost all texts. But if you compare other authorities, you will see that many of these additions should be ascribed to the amanuenses, not to our text (63). Finally, the Syrian himself also added very many things for the sake of exposition (64).
Bunsen insists on the epilogue, which is found in codex *beta* at the end of the epistles: "The three epistles of Ignatius, bishop and martyr, are finished," claiming that the word "epistles" is in the emphatic state, which takes the place of the article among the Syrians. But Petermann has noted that the emphatic state sometimes also has an indefinite meaning. Furthermore, it is known that cardinal numbers very often take the place of ordinal ones among the Semitic peoples. It can also be said that the amanuensis was speaking specifically, but wished to signify those three epistles which he had proposed to offer to the reader in excerpted form. Finally, the whole matter rests upon the authority of a single, obscure, and perhaps ignorant amanuensis.
If, finally, anyone finds it difficult to convince himself that the text of Ignatius was truncated, another example of such a kind is at hand, and one which is evidently consistent within the very epistles of Ignatius. For we have an epistle to the Romans inserted by Symeon Metaphrastes into his narrative of the martyrdom, which he promises that he will render *in* (in literal terms), in which, however, even here many things are missing, and indeed different things than those in the Syrian version. Consequently, this method of excerpting was not unusual.
As for the purpose, however, which that Syrian had proposed to himself when he thus excerpted the epistles of Ignatius, it does not seem to have been done for the sake of defending his own dogmas, since, as we have shown, he agrees entirely with our text in doctrine. He was not a Monophysite, as Wordsworth supposed, since he left behind in the epistle to Polycarp (65) a notable statement which destroys the Monophysite dogma. Therefore, above others, that hypothesis is to be admitted which suspects that a certain Syrian transcribed those epistles for ascetic use, which contained more materials of that kind, omitting those which did not serve his purpose. This hypothesis is also commended by the fact that there are other small works of the same kind, which are kept in collections, in which the Syriac Ignatius has been discovered.