Tischendorf dismisses this important memorial of the early Christian Church with a note of two lines, for it has no quotations either from the Old or New Testament.(1) He does not even suggest that it contains any indications of acquaintance with our Gospels. The only direct quotation in the "Pastor" is from an apocryphal work which is cited as Holy Scripture: "The Lord is nigh unto them who return to him, as it is written in Eldad and Modat, who prophesied to the people in the wilderness."(2) This work, which appears in the Stichometry of Nicephorus amongst the apocrypha of the Old Testament, is no longer extant.(3)
CHAPTER II. THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS—THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP
Although, in reality, appertaining to a very much later period, we shall here refer to the so-called "Epistles of Ignatius," and examine any testimony which they afford regarding the date and authenticity of our Gospels. There are in all fifteen epistles bearing the name of Ignatius. Three of these, addressed to the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John 2, exist only in a Latin version, and these, together with five others directed to Mary of Cassobolita, to the Tarsians, to the Antiochans, to Hero of Antioch, and to the Philippians, of which there are versions both in Greek and Latin, are universally admitted to be spurious, and may, so far as their contents are concerned, be at once dismissed from all consideration.(1) They are not mentioned by Eusebius, nor does any early writer refer to them. Of the remaining seven epistles, addressed to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrnæans, and to Polycarp, there are two distinct versions extant, one long version, of which there are both Greek and Latin texts, and another much shorter, and presenting considerable variations, of which there are also both Greek and Latin texts. After a couple of centuries of discussion, critics
almost without exception have finally agreed that the longer version is nothing more than an interpolated version of the shorter and more ancient form of the Epistles. The question regarding the authenticity of the Ignatian Epistles, however, was re-opened and complicated by the publication, in 1845, by Dr. Cureton, of a Syriac version of three epistles only—to Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans—in a still shorter form, discovered amongst a large number of MSS. purchased by Dr. Tattam from the monks of the Desert of Nitria. These three Syriac epistles have been subjected to the severest scrutiny, and many of the ablest critics have pronounced them to be the only authentic Epistles of Ignatius, whilst others, who do not admit that even these are genuine letters emanating from Ignatius, still prefer them to the version of seven Greek epistles, and consider them the most ancient form of the letters which we possess.(1) As early as the sixteenth century, however, the strongest doubts were expressed regarding the authenticity of any of the epistles ascribed to Ignatius. The Magdeburg
Centuriators first attacked them, and Calvin declared them to be spurious,(1) an opinion fully shared by Dallaeus, and others; Chemnitz regarded them with suspicion; and similar doubts, more or lass definite, were expressed throughout the seventeenth century,(2) and onward to comparatively recent times,(3) although the means of forming a judgment were not then so complete as now. That the epistles were interpolated there was no doubt. Fuller examination and more comprehensive knowledge of the subject have confirmed earlier doubts, and a large mass of critics either recognize that the authenticity of none of these epistles can be established, or that they