interpolation. The date of the epistle cannot be satisfactorily
determined. It depends on the conclusion we reach as to some points,
very difficult and obscure, connected with that account of the martyrdom
of Polycarp which has come down to us. We shall not, however, be far
wrong if we fix it about the middle of the second century" (Ibid, pp.
67, 68). Poor Paley! this weak evidence to the martyrdom of his
eye-witnesses comes 150 years after Christ; and even then all that
Polycarp may have said, if the epistle chance to be authentic, is that
"they suffered," without any word of their martyrdom!

The authenticity of the letters of Ignatius has long been a matter of
dispute. Mosheim, who accepts the seven epistles, says that, "Though I
am willing to adopt this opinion as preferable to any other, yet I
cannot help looking upon the authenticity of the epistle to Polycarp as
extremely dubious, on account of the difference of style; and, indeed,
the whole question relating to the epistles of St. Ignatius in general
seems to me to labour under much obscurity, and to be embarrassed with
many difficulties" ("Eccles. Hist.," p. 22).

"There are in all fifteen epistles which bear the name of Ignatius.
These are the following: One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle
John, one to Mary of Cassobelæ, one to the Tarsians, one to the
Antiochians, one to Hero (a deacon of Antioch), one to the Philippians,
one to the Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one
to the Romans, one to the Philadelphians, one to the Smyrnians, and one
to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin; all the rest are
extant also in Greek. It is now the universal opinions of critics that
the first eight of these professedly Ignatian letters are spurious. They
bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later
age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes