"It is a total mistake to suppose that the seven Epistles mentioned by Eusebius have been transmitted to us in any special way. These Epistles are mixed up in the Medicean and corresponding ancient Latin MSS. with the other eight Epistles, universally pronounced to be spurious, without distinction of any kind, and all have equal honour."(2)
I will at once give Dr. Lightfoot's comment on this, in contrast with the statement of a writer equally distinguished for learning and orthodoxy—Dr. Tregelles:
Dr. Lightfoot. (4). "It is not strictly true that the seven Epistles are mixed up with the confessedly spurious Epistles. In the Greek and Latin MSS., as also in the Armenian version, the spurious Epistles come after the others; and this circumstance, combined with the facts already mentioned, plainly shows that they were a later addition, borrowed from the Long Recension to complete the body of Ignatian letters."(1)
Dr. Tregelles. "It is a mistake to speak of seven Ignatian Epistles in Greek having been transmitted to us, for no such seven exist, except through their having been selected by editors from the Medicean MS. which contains so much that is confessedly spurious;—a fact which some who imagine a diplomatic transmission of seven have overlooked."(2)
I will further quote the words of Cureton, for as Dr. Lightfoot advances nothing but assertions, it is well to meet him with the testimony of others rather than the mere reiteration of my own statement Cureton says:
"Again, there is another circumstance which will naturally lead us to look with some suspicion upon the recension of the Epistles of St. Ignatius, as exhibited in the Medicean MS., and in the ancient Latin version corresponding with it, which is, that the Epistles presumed to be the genuine production of that holy Martyr are mixed up with others, which are almost universally allowed to be spurious. Both in the Greek and Latin MSS. all these are placed upon the same footing, and no distinction is drawn between them; and the only ground which has hitherto been a Note to "Home's Int. to the Holy Scriptures," 12th ed., 1869, iv. p. 332, note 1. The italics are in the original.
1 "Contemporary Beview," February, 1875, p. 347. Dr.
Lightfoot makes the following important admission in a note:
"The Roman Epistle indeed has been separated from its
companions, and is embedded in the Martyrology which stands
at the end of this collection in the Latin Version, where
doubtless it stood also in the Greek, before the MS. of this
latter was mutilated. Otherwise the Vossian Epistles come
together, and are followed by the confessedly spurious
Epistles in the Greek and Latin MSS. In the Armenian all the
Vossian Epistles are together, and the confessedly spurious
Epistles follow. See Zahn, Ignatius von Antiochien, p. 111."
assumed for their separation has been the specification of some of them by Eusebius and his omission of any mention of the others."'