CHAPTER IV. —THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS
Section 6.—Ignatius.

certainly lived in the time of the apostles, and occu­pied a position which led the writers of a subsequent age, when Prelacy had been established, to call him Bishop of Antioch. We know little of his history, except that he was condemned to death by the emperor Trajan for his adherence to Christ; that he was in consequence carried to Rome, where he was exposed to wild beasts, and gained the crown of martyrdom in the year, as some think, 107, but more probably in the year 116. We have several epistles which profess to have been written by Ignatius during his journey from Antioch to Rome to endure the sentence of death which had been pronounced upon him.

The genuineness and integrity of these epistles have given rise to a controversy which is so voluminous, and involves so many points of detail connected with the early history of the church, that it would be no easy matter to give an abstract of it. This would be of no great importance; but what increases the difficulty of saying anything about them is, that it is no easy matter to make up one’s mind as to what is really true, or even most pro­bable, in regard to them.

I have no doubt, indeed, that the epistles of Ignatius, as we now have them, even in the purest and most uncorrupted form, did not proceed from his hand; but whether they ought to be regarded as wholly fabricated, or merely as interpolated by some over‑zealous defender of the threefold order of bishop, priests, and deacons, it is not easy to decide. Upon the revival of letters, fifteen epistles were published, purporting to be written by Igna­tius; but it was soon seen and generally admitted that eight of these, including one addressed by him to the apostle John, and another addressed to the virgin Mary, were the forgeries of a much later age. A considerable diversity of opinion prevailed as to the genuineness and integrity of the other seven. The Reformers, being Presbyterians, were not likely to think favor­ably of the genuineness and integrity of these epistles; and their impressions upon this point were confirmed by finding that the Socinians produced from them passages which could not easily be reconciled with orthodox views upon the subject of the Trinity. Calvin, accordingly, did not hesitate to say,[1] that there is nothing more senseless than the stuff that has been collected under the name of this martyr. All the earliest defenders of the Church of England—Whitgift, Bancroft, Bilson, Downson[2] —appealed to them with confidence in favor of Prelacy. At length Arch­bishop Usher discovered in a MS., and published at Oxford in 1644, a Latin translation of the seven epistles of Ignatius, differing considerably from any edition that was previously known. The epistles in this translation were considerably shorter; they were free from Arianism, and did not by any means exhibit such clear and palpable proofs of fabrication. About the same time, by a remarkable coincidence, the celebrated scholar, Isaac Vossius, discovered and published a Greek MS. of the epistles of Ignatius, which had been preserved at Florence, corresponding fully with Usher’s Latin version, so far as it went, but containing only six epistles instead of seven. This greatly encouraged the defenders of Prelacy and Ignatius. They immediately abandoned the old edition, which formerly they had defended as well as they could, admitting now that it had been corrupted and interpolated by a later hand; while they maintained the genuineness of the shorter and more modern edition.

In consequence of this discovery, all the discussions about the epistles of Ignatius, which are more than 200 years old, are de­prived of their relevancy and value, since they bear reference to an edition which was then abandoned by Romanists and Prelatists, and has not since been formally defended, so far as I know, except by Whiston, who was an Arian, and by one or two German neologians. It was at once conceded by anti‑Prelatic writers, that many of the objections which had been adduced against the older edition of Ignatius did not apply to this shorter and more modern one; but it was not universally admitted that even this more pure edition exhibited the genuine letters of Ignatius, or at least exhi­bited them without considerable interpolations. Salmasius and Blondell, who leave written in opposition to Prelacy with an ex­tent of erudition that has never been surpassed, declared that, after examining the edition of Vossius and Usher, they were still satisfied drat we had no genuine epistles of Ignatius; or, at least, that even err their purest form they were grossly corrupted. Hammond defended Ignatius against their attacks; and this pro­duced a controversy on the subject between him and Dr Owen. Daille, or Dallaeus, a very learned divine of the French Protes­tant Church, soon after wrote a book to prove drat the epistles ascribed to Ignatius were forged by some friend of the hierarchy about the end of the third century. Bishop Pearson’s celebrated work, “Vindiciae Epistolarum S. Ignatii,” of which the Episco­palians have ever since continued to boast as unanswerable, was an answer to this book of Daille’s, and professed to prove that the epistles of Ignatius, as published by Usher and Vossius, are genuine and uncorrupted. An answer was written to Pearson by another French divine, Larroque, entitled “Observationes in Ignatianas Pearsonii Vindicias;” and then the controversy terminated.

Since that time Prelatists have generally continued, upon the ground of what was proved by Hammond and Pearson, to main­tain, and Presbyterians, upon the ground of what was proved by Daille and Larroque, to deny, their genuineness, or at least their integrity. Perhaps it may be said to be the most prevalent opinion among anti‑Prelatic writers, that the epistles of Ignatius, in their shorter and purer form, or at least six out of the seven, —for not only Mosheim, but Archbishop Usher, rejected the epistle to Poly­carp, —are genuine, i.e., were in substance written by Ignatius, while they have been generally of opinion that some parts of them, especially those on which Prelatists found, were interpolated by a later hand. Meander expresses his opinion of them in the follow­ing terms: — “Certainly, these epistles contain passages which at least bear completely upon them the character of antiquity. This is particularly the case with the passages directed against Judaism and Docetism; but even the shorter and more trustworthy edition is very much interpolated.”[3] A Presbyterian, i.e., one who is con­vinced that the canonical Scriptures give no countenance to the threefold order in the ministry, —bishops, priests, and deacons, —and that the Scriptures uniformly use the words bishops and presbyters synonymously or indiscriminately, as descriptive of one and the same class of functionaries, can scarcely read the epistles of Ignatius, and Daille’s treatise upon the subject, without being strongly disposed to adopt his theory, viz., that they were forged in the end of the third century by some ardent and unscrupulous supporter of the hierarchy. And yet, I think, it must in fairness be admitted, that Daille has not thoroughly proved this; and that so much that is plausible has been adduced by Pearson in answer to many of his arguments that the proof of an entire fabrication of the whole is not brought home very forcibly to one’s under­standing. After wading through a great deal of very intricate and confused discussion, especially in regard to alleged anachronisms in reference to heresies which Daille contends were not heard of till after Ignatius’ martyrdom, one does feel somewhat at a loss to lay his hand definitely upon anything, except the distinction be­tween bishops, presbyters, and deacons, in regard to which he would undertake to affirm that Ignatius could not have written it. The external evidence in favor of their genuineness in the gross —i.e., in favor of the position that Ignatius did write some epistles, such as those we now have under his name—must be ad­mitted to be strong. Polycarp, in the conclusion of his epistle, speaks of his having made a collection of the epistles of Ignatius, and sent them to the church of Philippi for their edification. And Daillé’s notion, that this was an interpolated addition to Polycarp’s letter, has no solid foundation to rest upon. He founds much upon the allegation, that these epistles are not alluded to by any other writer from Polycarp to Eusebius, who wrote in the early part of the fourth century. This would not be quite conclusive, even if true. But it has been alleged, on the other side, that they are re­ferred to and quoted by Irenaeus in the second, and Origen in the third century. Daily maintains that the works ascribed to Origen, in which these references occur, are not his; and it is really not easy to decide whether they are or not. But he certainly is not successful in getting over the testimony of Irenaeus. That father made a statement, which is not only found in his own writings, but is also expressly quoted from him by Eusebius, to this effect, that one of our martyrs who was condemned to the wild beasts said—and then he gives a quotation, which we still find in Ignatius’ epistle to the Romans. And Daille’s only answer to this is, that there is no express mention of an epistle, and that it is not said that he wrote, but that he said this; as if this saying of Ignatius might have been handed down by, tradition, without having been com­mitted to writing. But this is forced and strained, as it is evident that Irenaeus most probably would have used the word said, and not wrote, as is common in such cases, even if he had been quoting from a writing. Daille admits that the epistles, as we have them, were extant in the time of Eusebius, and were regarded by him, as well as by Athanasius and Jerome, who flourished in the same century, as genuine; and this must in fairness be admitted to be a pretty strong evidence that they are so.

The ground on which Neander was convinced that the epistles of Ignatius, even in their purest form, were very much inter­polated, is the same principle in virtue of which he was convinced that there was an interpolation in the epistle of Clement, —a principle just and weighty in itself, though as we think mis­applied by Neander in the case of Clement. It is in substance this, —that there are statements in Ignatius which plainly assert the existence of a Prelatic hierarchic government in the church, in contradiction at once to the sacred Scriptures, and to every other uninspired document of the apostolic, and even of a later age. We cannot defend Ignatius, as we endeavored to defend Clement, from the application of this sound and important prin­ciple of judging. There can be no doubt that Ignatius’ epistles are crammed, usque ad nauseam, with bishops, presbyters, and deacons, evidently spoken of as three distinct orders or classes of functionaries, and that obedience and submission to them are exacted in a very absolute and imperious style, nay, that they exhibit something of the Popish principle of vicarious priestly responsibility; for he pledges his soul for theirs who are subject to the bishops, presbyters, and deacons; and yet these epistles have been constantly held up by the most learned Episcopalians as the very sheet anchor of their cause.[4] They seem now at last to be getting half ashamed of the strength of his statements; and one of the latest Prelatic writers I have seen upon this sub­ject, Conybeare, in his Bampton Lectures for 1839, makes the following candid, and yet very cautious, admission upon this point. After giving some extracts from the epistles of Ignatius, embodying very excellent practical exhortations, he continues in the following words: —“All Christians, of every sect, will agree in admiring these sentiments; but the great point on which in every epistle Ignatius most strenuously and repeatedly insists, is the necessity of a strict conformity to the discipline of the Church, and a devoted submission to Episcopal authority, which he makes to rest on the same principles with our obedience to our Lord Himself. It is needless to remark that such passages have afforded the great reason why so many writers of the Presbyterian party have been so reluctant to admit the authenticity of these remains; and we, while it is most satisfactory to our minds to find so early a testimony in confirmation of the primitive and apostolical origin of the constitution faithfully preserved by our own church, yet even we ourselves shall probably shrink from some of the language employed in these epistles, as seeming excessive and overstrained. We do trust indeed that our Episcopal authority is in and through the Lord, and most suitable for the edification of His body the Church; and we may hope that this was all that Ignatius meant to imply; but we must regret, that in the some­what overcharged and inflated style of his rhetoric; he has too often been betrayed into expressions which seem almost to imply a parity of authority over the Church, between its earthly super­intendent, arid its heavenly Head.”[5]

At present, however, we have to do, not with the general sub­ject of the government of the early church, but merely with the integrity of Ignatius’ epistles; and it is certainly not easy to believe that a pious and devoted minister who was a companion of the apostles could have written as he is represented to have done on this subject. Daille’s leading argument upon this point is this: no other writer of the apostolic age, and indeed no writer during the whole of the second century, has spoken upon this subject in a style similar to that which Ignatius has employed; and, more particularly, no other writer of this period has uniformly employed the terms bishop and presbyter, as descriptive of two distinct and separate classes of functionaries, —the bishop being of a higher, and the presbyter of a lower, order; and if so, it follows, that these portions of the epistles ascribed to him did not proceed from his pen, but owed their origin to a later age. Now, this position, we think, Daillé has incontrovertibly established. Pearson has not answered his argument, but, as Larroque has conclusively proved, is charge­able in the whole discussion with practicing the sophism called ignoratio elenchi, by running off into a general investigation of the whole subject of the government of the church during the second century, instead of meeting fairly the critical and philological argu­ment on which Daillé based his conclusion that these parts of the epistles at least were not written by Ignatius. The argument is a very simple one: No other writer of the first and second centuries, inspired or uninspired, has uniformly used the words bishop and presbyter as descriptive of two distinct classes of functionaries, the one higher and the other lower; this distinction is uniformly and systematically made in the epistles of Ignatius; and therefore these epistles, or at least these parts of them, were not written by one who lived in the beginning of the second century. The conclusion is inevitable upon all the recognized principles of fair literary criticism, if the premises be established.

It is to be remarked that the main position is this: no other writer of the first two centuries has uniformly observed the dis­tinction between the words bishop and presbyter as Ignatius has done, and as was done generally in the latter part of the third century, and universally afterwards. It is no disproof of this position to show that there are writers of the second century who give some indications of the existence de facto of some distinction between bishops and presbyters before the end of that century, for this is not denied by Presbyterians; nor even to show that this distinction was then generally recognized and established, —­and yet this is all that Pearson has attempted to prove. All this might be true, and yet the striking and marked peculiarity in the use of the words might still afford a satisfactory proof that the epistles ascribed to Ignatius were defective, either in genuineness, or at least in integrity. The common or indiscriminate use of the names bishop and presbyter in the New Testament is now universally conceded by Episcopalians, though many of the older Prelatists denied it, or at least refused to admit it. There is no distinction in the use of them to be traced in the apostolical fathers Clement and Polycarp, but the reverse. They were sometimes, if not always, used indiscriminately by all the other writers of the second century (who used them at all, for Justin Martyr does not use them), —by Papias, Irenaeus, and Pius, Bishop of Rome. There are plain traces of the same indiscrimi­nate use of the words in Clemens Alexandrinus, and Tertullian, who lived partly in the third century, and it has not. wholly dis­appeared even in Origen and Cyprian. But it appears no more thereafter in the ordinary unintentional usage of language during the subsequent history of the church. Now here is the remarkable peculiarity, that while all the inspired writers before him use the words bishop and presbyter synonymously and indiscriminately, ­—while his only contemporaries whose writings have come down to us, Clement and Polycarp, follow faithfully in their footsteps, —while the same indiscriminate use of the words is exhibited more or less fully, though not uniformly, by all the subsequent writers of the second century, —Ignatius, who died at the latest in 116, alone adheres rigidly, uniformly, and without a single exception, to a distinction in the use and application of these words which grew up in the course of the third century, was not fully estab­lished till the fourth, and has continued ever since.

Now, this argument against the integrity at least of the epistles of Ignatius, so obvious and so conclusive, and bearing so directly and influentially upon the precise point which has given to the controversy about the genuineness and integrity of these epistles its chief value and interest, Pearson has not answered, nay, he can scarcely with propriety be said to have attempted to answer it; for he has not professed to produce what alone could constitute an answer, —any one author of the first two centuries, inspired or uninspired, of whom he affirms that he uniformly observes this distinction in the use of the words; and yet there is perhaps no one book of which Episcopalian controversialists are more in the habit of boasting as conclusive and unanswerable than Pearson’s “Vindiciæ,” while they constantly allege that Presbyterians have no reason for rejecting Ignatius’ epistles, or any part of them, except that they are decisive against their views. As Ignatius not only observes this distinction uniformly, wherever he has occasion to use the words, but as he is constantly ringing changes upon the bishops, presbyters, and deacons, and the necessity and advantages of honoring and obeying them, —this may be fairly regarded as a conclusive proof that, as Neander says, « even the shorter and more trustworthy edition is very much interpolated.”

Ignatius, in his epistle to the Trallians, boasts—though Arch­bishop Wake, in his translation, endeavors to conceal this—that he was able to write to them about things so exalted that it would choke them if he spoke about them, and that he could describe to them the places of the angels, and the several companies of them under their respective princes. In his letter to the Christians at Rome, while on his way to that city, condemned to be exposed to the wild beasts, he besought them to address no prayers to God, and to use no influence with men, in order to procure a removal of the sentence: he declared that he would coax, and even compel, the wild beasts to devour him; and that he hoped that they would devour him wholly, so that none of his body should be left. When we read such things as these in the epistles ascribed to Ignatius, we are tempted to wish that their spuriousness could be established; or, at least, that the interpolations could be proved to extend beyond his frequent references to bishops, presbyters, and deacons. But perhaps we are not warranted in saying that it was not possible, though it is certainly very improbable, that an emi­nently holy and devoted minister, who had conversed with the apostles—and such Ignatius was—when soon to be offered up as a martyr for Christ’s sake, could have manifested such palpable proofs of the infirmities of humanity; though, if he did write in this strain, we can attach little weight to his authority, and must rank him, in point of good sense and correct Christian feeling, greatly below his contemporaries, Clement and Polycarp. We are, however, warranted in saying, that no man paced in the cir­cumstances of Ignatius could have constantly and uniformly used the words bishop and presbyter as descriptive of two different and separate classes of functionaries, and that this uniform use of them unequivocally indicates a later age.

It is also a very strong confirmation of the position that the epistles of Ignatius are corrupted, if not entirely spurious, that we have some works bearing the name of Dionysius the Areopa­gite, a convert of Paul’s, mentioned in the book of the Acts, which are .now universally, by Protestants at least, regarded as having been forged, and not earlier than the fourth century, and which in several points bear a resemblance to the epistles of Ignatius. The pretended Dionysius brings out fully and in detail that minute knowledge of the angels and their ranks which Ignatius possessed, but which in mercy to the Trallians he con­cealed; and the main scope and objects of his works are to invest with apostolic sanction the threefold order of bishops, priests, and deacons, and the whole mass of rites and ceremonies which dis­figured and polluted the church, even in the fourth century. The book of Daillé, to which I have so often referred, is directed equally against the genuineness of the writings ascribed to Diony­sius and of those ascribed to Ignatius, and is entitled “De Scriptis, quae sub Dionysii Areopagitae et Ignatii Antiocheni nominibus circumferuntur.”[6]

This is, I think, a fair view of the controversy, as it has been generally conducted until recent times. But Mr. Curetop’s publi­cation of the Syriac version of these epistles, recently discovered in .a monastery in Egypt, and now in the British Museum, materially changes the whole aspect of the controversy, and warrants and requires a decision in regard to most of the topics that used to be discussed in it, in opposition to that which the Episco­palians have so long and so strenuously contended for. This MS. of a Syriac version seems to have been written about the sixth century. It contains only the three epistles above mentioned, and exhibits them in a briefer and more compendious form than even the shorter edition of Usher and Vossius, except that some things found in the older editions in the fourth and fifth chapters of the epistle to the Trallians, about his knowledge of the angels, are found in the Syriac, in the tenth chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Mr. Cureton, who seems to have discharged his duties with great diligence and learning, judgment and candor, has proved beyond all reasonable doubt, that there is no ground for regarding as genuine anything ascribed to Ignatius, except these three epistles in this Syriac version; that, of course, a large portion of the objections of Daillé and other Presbyterians, at least to the integrity of the epistles, were well founded; that the ground taken by Pearson and other Episcopalians is wholly untenable; and that, therefore, writings were forged in early times in the name of Ignatius, as well as of Clement and Dionysius the Areopagite, to serve the cause of Prelacy. The Episcopalians seem very unwilling to admit these positions. They seem unable to imitate the candor of Mr. Cureton; and both the English and the Quarterly Reviews have endeavored to answer his arguments, and to maintain the ground occupied by Pearson. But this will not do. The case is clear and hollow, and cannot stand investi­gation. It has long been a sort of article of faith in the Church of England, handed down by tradition, that Pearson’s Vindiciæ is unanswerable. Cureton, in the preface to his Corpus Ignati­anum (p. 14, Note), says: “In the whole course of my inquiry respecting the Ignatian epistles I have never met with one person who professes to have read Bishop Pearson’s celebrated book; but I was informed by one of the most learned and eminent of the present Bench of Bishops, that Person, after having perused the Vindiciæ, had expressed to him his opinion that it was a very unsatisfactory work.”

But while it may now be considered settled that there is nothing else of what has been ascribed to Ignatius genuine except these three epistles, according to the Syriac version, the question remains, Are we bound now to receive these as genuine and uninterpolated? The existence of this Syriac version, omitting, as it does, most of the things in the older editions which were founded upon by Daillé and other Presbyterians, as militating against their genuineness, or at least their integrity, must in fairness be admitted to give some confirmation to the genuineness of the epistles which it contains. But it does not establish their integrity or entire freedom from interpolations. They still contain the boasting about knowing celestial and angelic matters—the eager­ness for martyrdom—the desire that the wild beasts should devour him wholly. This is in the epistle to the Romans; and in the epistle to the Ephesians, there is the statement about Satan being ignorant of the virginity of Mary and the birth of Christ, though they omit here the mention of his death, and the surpassing bright­ness of the star of Bethlehem, which the former editions had. Of the mass of stuff about bishops, presbyters, and deacons, with which the former editions were crammed, there is only one passage left. It is in the epistle to Polycarp, c. vi., but it is a strong and offensive one. It is this. After having exhorted them not to marry without the counsel of the bishop, he adds this general exhortation, as translated from the Syriac by Mr. Cureton: “Look to the bishop, that God may also look upon you. I will be instead of the souls of those who are subject to the Bishop, and the Pres­byter, and the Deacons; with them may I have a portion near God.” This is quite the same in the longer and shorter of the old editions as in the Syriac, except that the longer has “presby­tery” instead of “presbyters.” There is certainly nothing in the least resembling this, either in language or in spirit, in the New Testament, or in Clement and Polycarp, and it may be fairly regarded as an interpolation. Ignatius, in the Syriac version, occupies a place very similar to Clement’s, in whose epistle Neander pronounced one passage to be a clear interpolation, because of its anti‑apostolic, hierarchic tendency. We think the application of the principle wrong as concerns the passage in Clement; but the principle is a sound one, and it seems fairly to apply to this only remaining prelatic passage in Ignatius.[7]

Such are the apostolical fathers, and such their writings, in so far as God has been pleased to preserve them, and to afford us the means of distinguishing them. And I think this brief survey of them must be quite sufficient to show the truth of the two posi­tions which I laid down in introducing this topic—viz., first, that we have no certain information, nothing on which we can rely with confidence as a mere question of evidence, as to what the inspired apostles taught and ordained, except what is contained in the canonical Scriptures; and, secondly, that there are no men, except the authors of the inspired books of Scripture, to whom there is any plausible pretence for calling upon us to look up as guides or oracles. It was manifestly, as the result proves, not the purpose of God to convey to us, through the instrumentality of the immediate successors of the apostles, any important information as to the substance of the revelation which He made to man, in addition to what, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been embodied in the sacred Scriptures, and has in His good providence been preserved pure and uncorrupted. The apostolical fathers hold an important place as witnesses to the genuineness, authenticity, and integrity of the Scriptures; but this is their principal value. There is much about them, both in their character and in their writings, which is fitted to confirm our faith in the divine origin of Christianity, and the divine authority of the Scriptures; but there is nothing about them that should tempt us to take them instead of, or even in addition to, the evangelists and apostles as our guides. They exhibit a beautiful manifestation of the prac­tical operation of Christian principle, and especially of ardent love to the Saviour, and entire devotedness to His service, which is well fitted to impress our minds, and to constrain us to imitation; but there is also not a little about them fitted to remind us that we must be followers of them only as they were of Christ, and that it is only the word of God that is fitted to make us perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

ENDNOTES:

[1] Instit., B. I., c. 13, sec. 29.

[2] Pearson’s Introd. To Vindiciae.

[3] Neander, vol. 2, p. 334.

[4] Even Milner is able to swallow it all, pp. 55‑58. Edit. 1842.

[5] Conybeare, Bampton Lectures, Lect. 2, pp. 83‑84.

[6] Geneva, 1666.

[7] The last three chapters of the epistle to Polycarp which contains are alleged to be interpolated by Cooper in his Free Church of Ancient Christendom, Appen. K., p. 388. Bunsen’s Ignatian Epistles this passage, and his Hippolytus.