[425:3] From A.D. 208 to A.D. 258.
[425:4] Thus in the "Acts of Paul and Thecla," fabricated about the beginning of the third century, Thecla says—"Give me the seal of Christ, (i.e. baptism,) and no temptation shall touch me," (c. 18.) See Jones on the "Canon of the New Testament," ii. p. 312.
[426:1] "Epistle to Polycarp."
[426:2] 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
[426:3] See Blunt's "Early Fathers," p. 237. See also Origen's "Exhortation to Martyrdom," § 27, 30, 50.
[426:4] According to Dr Lee, a strenuous advocate for the Syriac version of the "Three Epistles," this translation, as he supposes it to be, was made "not later perhaps than the close of the second, or beginning of the third century." "Corpus Ignat." Introd. p. 86, note. Dr Cureton occasionally supplies strong presumptive evidence that the translation has been made, not from Greek into Syriac, but from Syriac into Greek. "Cor. Ignat." p. 278.
[426:5] Though Milner, in his "History of the Church of Christ," quotes these letters so freely, he seems to have scarcely turned his attention to the controversy respecting them. Hence he intimates that Ussher reckoned seven of them genuine, though it is notorious that the Primate of Armagh rejected the Epistle to Polycarp. (See Milner, cent. ii. chap, i.) Others, as well as Milner, who have written respecting these Epistles, have committed similar mistakes. Thus, Dr Elrington, Regius Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin, the recent editor of "Ussher's Works," when referring to the Primate's share in this controversy, speaks of "the recent discovery of a Syriac version of four Epistles by Mr Cureton!" "Life of Ussher," p. 235, note.
[428:1] "Instit." lib. i. c. xiii. § 29.
[429:1] See Bunsen's "Hippolytus," i. p. 27.
[430:1] Period I. sec. ii. chap, iii. pp. 202, 203.