If he does not deliberately and directly do so, he indicates what that opinion is with sufficient clearness. The Long Recension, he says, bears the marks of later manipulation, and excites suspicion of an invention in favour of Episcopacy, and the shorter text is not fully attested either. The Curetonian Epistles with the shortest and least hierarchical text give the impression of an epitome. "But even if no authentic kernel lay at the basis of these Epistles, yet they would be a significant document at latest out of the middle of the second century." These last words are a clear admission of his opinion that the authenticity cannot be established.
Lechler candidly confesses that he commenced with a prejudice in favour of the authenticity of the Epistles in the Shorter Recension, but on reading them through, he says that an impression unfavourable to their authenticity was produced upon him which he had not been able to shake off. He proceeds to point out their internal improbability, and other difficulties connected with the supposed journey, which make it "still more improbable that Ignatius himself can really have written these Epistles in this situation." Lechler does not consider that the Curetonian Epistles strengthen the case; and although he admits that he cannot congratulate himself on the possession of "certainty and cheerfulness of conviction" of the inauthenticity of the Ignatian Epistles, he at least very clearly justifies the affirmation that the authenticity cannot be established.
Now what has been the result of this minute and prejudiced attack upon my notes? Out of nearly seventy critics and writers in connection with what is admitted to be one of the most intricate questions of Christian literature, it appears that—much to my regret—I have inserted one name totally by accident, overlooked that the doubts of another had been removed by the subsequent publication of the Short Recension and consequently erroneously classed him, and I withdraw a third whose doubts I consider that I have overrated. Mistakes to this extent in dealing with such a mass of references, or a difference of a shade more or less in the representation of critical opinions, not always clearly expressed, may, I hope, be excusable, and I can truly say that I am only too glad to correct such errors. On the other hand, a critic who attacks such references, in such a tone, and with such wholesale accusations of "misstatement" and "misrepresentation," was bound to be accurate, and I have shown that Dr. Lightfoot is not only inaccurate in matters of fact, but unfair in his statements of my purpose. I am happy, however, to be able to make use of his own words and say: "I may perhaps have fallen into some errors of detail, though I have endeavoured to avoid them, but the main conclusions are, I believe, irrefragable." [78:1]
There are further misstatements made by Dr. Lightfoot to which I must briefly refer before turning to other matters. He says, with unhesitating boldness:
"One highly important omission is significant. There is no mention, from first to last, of the Armenian version. Now it happens that this version (so far as regards the documentary evidence) has been felt to be the key to the position, and around it the battle has raged fiercely since its publication. One who (like our author) maintains the priority of the Curetonian letters, was especially bound to give it some consideration, for it furnishes the most formidable argument to his opponents. This version was given to the world by Petermann in 1849, the same year in which Cureton's later work, the Corpus Ignatianum, appeared, and therefore was unknown to him. Its bearing occupies a more or less prominent place in all, or nearly all, the writers who have specially discussed the Ignatian question during the last quarter of a century. This is true of Lipsius and Weiss and Hilgenfeld and Uhlhorn, whom he cites, not less than of Merx and Denzinger and Zahn, whom he neglects to cite." [78:2]
Now first as regards the facts. I do not maintain the priority of the Curetonian Epistles in this book myself; indeed I express no personal opinion whatever regarding them which is not contained in that general declaration of belief, the decision of which excites the wrath of my diffident critic, that the Epistles in no form have "any value as evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning of the third century, even if they have any value at all." I merely represent the opinion of others regarding those Epistles. Dr. Lightfoot very greatly exaggerates the importance attached to the Armenian version, and I call special attention to the passages in the above quotation which I have taken the liberty of italicising. I venture to say emphatically that, so far from being considered the "key of the position," this version has, with some exceptions, played a most subordinate and insignificant part in the controversy, and as Dr. Lightfoot has expressly mentioned certain writers, I will state how the case stands with regard to them. Weiss, Lipsius, Uhlhorn, Merx, and Zahn certainly "more or less prominently" deal with them. Denzinger, however, only refers to Petermann's publication, which appeared while his own brochure was passing through the press, in a short note at the end, and in again writing on the Ignatian question, two years after, [79:1] he does not even allude to the Armenian version. Beyond the barest historical reference to Petermann's work, Hilgenfeld does not discuss the Armenian version at all. So much for the writers actually mentioned by Dr. Lightfoot.
As for "the writers who have specially discussed the Ignatian question during the last quarter of a century:" Cureton apparently did not think it worth while to add anything regarding the Armenian version of Petermann after its appearance; Bunsen refutes Petermann's arguments in a few pages of his "Hippolytus;" [79:2] Baur, who wrote against Bunsen and the Curetonian letters, and, according to Dr. Lightfoot's representation, should have found this "the most formidable argument" against them, does not anywhere, subsequent to their publication, even allude to the Armenian Epistles; Ewald, in a note of a couple of lines, [79:3] refers to Petermann's Epistles as identical with a post-Eusebian manipulated form of the Epistles which he mentions in a sentence in his text; Dressel devotes a few unfavourable lines to them; [80:1] Hefele [80:2] supports them at somewhat greater length; but Bleek, Volkmar, Tischendorf, Böhringer, Scholten, and others have not thought them worthy of special notice; at any rate none of these nor any other writers of any weight have, so far as I am aware, introduced them into the controversy at all.
The argument itself did not seem to me of sufficient importance to drag into a discussion already too long and complicated, and I refer the reader to Bunsen's reply to it, from which, however, I may quote the following lines:
"But it appears to me scarcely serious to say: there are the Seven Letters in Armenian, and I maintain, they prove that Cureton's text is an incomplete extract, because, I think, I have found some Syriac idioms in the Armenian text! Well, if that is not a joke, it simply proves, according to ordinary logic, that the Seven Letters must have once been translated into Syriac. But how can it prove that the Greek original of this supposed Syriac version is the genuine text, and not an interpolated and partially forged one?" [80:3]
Dr. Lightfoot blames me for omitting to mention this argument, on the ground that "a discussion which, while assuming the priority of the Curetonian letters, ignores this version altogether, has omitted a vital problem of which it was bound to give an account." Now all this is sheer misrepresentation. I do not assume the priority of the Curetonian Epistles, and I examine all the passages contained in the seven Greek Epistles which have any bearing upon our Gospels.