Cureton's discovery stirred up the Ignatian dispute anew. It was soon fanned into flames by the controversy between Bunsen and Baur, and is raging still. The two questions are these: (1) Whether the Vossian or the Curetonian Epistles are prior in time; in other words, whether the Vossian Epistles were expanded from the Curetonian by interpolation, or whether the Curetonian were reduced from the Vossian by excision and abridgment; and (2) when this question has been disposed of, whether the prior of these two recensions can be regarded as genuine or not.
The question respecting the Ignatian letters has, from the nature of the case, never been discussed exclusively on its own merits. The pure light of criticism has been crossed by the shadows of controversial prepossession on both sides. From the era of the Reformation onward, the dispute between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism has darkened the investigation; in our own age the controversies respecting the Canon of Scripture and the early history of Christianity have interfered with equally injurious effects. Besides these two main questions which are affected by the Ignatian letters, other subjects indirectly involved have aided the strife and confusion. The antagonism between Papal and Protestant writers materially affected the discussion in the sixteenth century, and the antagonism between Arianism and Catholicity in the eighteenth. But the disturbing influence of these indirect questions, though not inconsiderable at the time, has not been lasting.
In the present paper I shall not attempt to treat of the Ignatian question as a whole. It will simply be my business to analyse the statements and discuss the arguments of the author of Supernatural Religion relating to this subject. I propose, when I resume these papers again, to say something of the Apostolic Fathers in reference to early Christian belief and to the New Testament Canon; and this cannot be done with any effect until the way has been so far cleared as to indicate the extent to which we can employ the Ignatian letters as valid testimony.
The Ignatian question is the most perplexing which confronts the student of earlier Christian history. The literature is voluminous; the considerations involved are very wide, very varied, and very intricate. A writer therefore may well be pardoned if he betrays a want of familiarity with this subject. But in this case the reader naturally expects that the opinions at which he has arrived will be stated with some diffidence.
The author of Supernatural Religion has no hesitation on the subject. 'The whole of the Ignatian literature,' he writes, 'is a mass of falsification and fraud.' [62:1] 'It is not possible,' he says, 'even if the Epistle [to the Smyrnæans] were genuine, which it is not, to base any such conclusion upon these words.' [62:2] And again:—
'We must, however, go much further, and assert that none of the Epistles have any value as evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second, or beginning of the third, century, even if they possess any value at all.' [62:3]
And immediately afterwards:—
'We have just seen that the martyr-journey of Ignatius to Rome is, for cogent reasons, declared to be wholly fabulous, and the Epistles purporting to be written during that journey must be held to be spurious.' [63:1]
The reader is naturally led to think that a writer would not use such very decided language unless he had obtained a thorough mastery of his subject; and when he finds the notes thronged with references to the most recondite sources of information, he at once credits the author with an 'exhaustive' knowledge of the literature bearing upon it. It becomes important therefore to inquire whether the writer shows that accurate acquaintance with the subject, which justifies us in attaching weight to his dicta, as distinguished from his arguments.
I will take first of all a passage which sweeps the field of the Ignatian controversy, and therefore will serve well as a test. The author writes as follows:—