Of the general character of the Epistle, as affecting the question of its genuineness, the author of Supernatural Religion has said nothing. But he has reproduced special objections which have been urged by previous writers; and to these I wish to call attention, because they are very good, and not unfavourable, illustrations of the style of criticism which is in vogue with the negative school.

1. Our author writes in the first place:—

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. The Epistle of Polycarp, however, not only refers to the martyr-journey (c. ix), but to the Ignatian Epistles which are inauthentic (c. xiii), and the manifest inference is that it also is spurious.

Of the fabulous character of the martyr-journey I have already disposed in my previous article on the Ignatian letters [111:1]. For the present I reserve what I have to say concerning the assumed reference to the 'inauthentic' Epistles, as this objection will reappear again.

2. Our author on a later page urges that—

In the Epistle itself, there are many anachronisms. In ch. ix the 'blessed Ignatius' is referred to as already a considerable time dead, and he is held up with Zosimus and Rufus, and also with Paul and the rest of the Apostles, as examples of patience: men who have not run in vain, but are with the Lord; but in ch. xiii he is spoken of as living, and information is requested regarding him, 'and those who are with him.'

To this objection I had already supplied the answer [111:2] which has been given many times before, and which, as it seemed to me, the author ought in fairness to have noticed. I had pointed out that we have only the Latin version here, and that the present tense is obviously due to the translator. The original would naturally be [Greek: tôn sun autô], which the translator, being obliged to supply a substantive verb, has carelessly rendered 'his qui cum eo sunt.' If any one will consider what has been just said about the general character of the Epistle, he will see that this is the only reasonable explanation of the fact, whether we regard the work as genuine or not. If it is not genuine, the forger has executed his task with consummate skill and appreciation; and yet here he is charged with a piece of bungling which a schoolboy would have avoided. It is not merely an anachronism, but a self-contradiction of the most patent kind. The writer, on this hypothesis, has not made up his mind whether Ignatius is or is not supposed to be dead at the time, and he represents the fact differently in two different parts [112:1].

But our author apparently is quite unaware that [Greek: hoi sun autô] might mean equally well, 'those who were with him,' and those who are with him.' At least I cannot attach any other meaning to his reply, in which he retorts upon me my own words used elsewhere, and speaks of my argument as being wrecked upon this rock of grammar.' [112:2] If so, I can only refer him to Thucydides or any Greek historian, where he will find scores of similar instances. I need hardly say that the expression itself is quite neutral as regards time, meaning nothing more than 'his companions,' and that the tense must be supplied according to the context or the known circumstances of the case. But I am not sorry that our author has fallen into this error, for it has led me to investigate the usage of Polycarp and his translator, and has thus elicited the following facts:—(1) Unless he departed from his ordinary usage, Polycarp would have employed the short expression [Greek: hoi sun autô] or [Greek: hoi met' autou] in such a case. Thus he has [Greek: ou sun autô] in the opening paragraph, and [Greek: tois ex humôn] in c. 9, with other similar distances. (2) The translator, if he had the words [Greek: tois sun autô] before him, would almost certainly supply the substantive verb, as he has done in the opening, 'qui cum eo sunt presbyteri;' in c. 3, 'illis qui tunc erant hominibus,' and 'quae est in Deo;' in c. 9, 'qui ex vobis sunt;' and probably also in c. 12, 'qui sunt sub coelo' (the Greek is wanting in this last passage). (3) The translator, in supplying the verb, was as likely as not to give the wrong tense. In fact, in the only other passage in the Epistle where it was possible to make a mistake, he has gone wrong on this very point; he has translated [Greek: hên kai eidete … en allois tois ex humôn] mechanically by a present tense, 'quam et vidistis … in aliis qui ex vobis sunt,' though the persons are mentioned in connection with St Ignatius and St Paul, and though it is distinctly stated immediately afterwards that they all were dead, having, as we may infer from the context, ended their life by martyrdom. In fact, he has made the very same blunder which I ascribe to him here.

This objection therefore may be set aside for ever. But the notices which I have been considering suggest another reflection. Is the historical position which the writer of this letter takes up at all like the invention of a forger? Would he have thought of placing himself at the moment of time when Ignatius is supposed to have been martyred, but when the report of the circumstances had not yet reached Smyrna? If he had chosen this moment, would he not have made it clear, instead of leaving his readers to infer it by piecing together notices which are scattered through the Epistle—notices moreover, which, though entirely consistent with each other, are so far from obvious that his translator has been led astray by them, and that modern critics have woven out of them these entanglements which it has taken me so much time to unravel?

3. But our author proceeds:—