The second and third centuries teem with pseudonymic literature, but I
venture to say that pious fraud has never been more busy and conspicuous
than in dealing with the Martyr of Antioch. The mere statement of the
simple and acknowledged facts regarding the Ignatian Epistles is ample
justification of the assertion, which so mightily offends Dr. Lightfoot,
that "the whole of the Ignatian literature is a mass of falsification
and fraud." Even my indignant critic himself has not ventured to use as
genuine more than the three short Syriac letters [114:1] out of this
mass of forgery, which he rebukes me for holding so cheap. Documents
which lie under such grave and permanent suspicion cannot prove
anything. As I have shown, however, the Vossian Epistles, whatever the
value of their testimony, so far from supporting the claims advanced in
favour of our Gospels, rather discredit them.

I have now minutely followed Dr. Lightfoot and Dr. Westcott in their
attacks upon me in connection with Eusebius and the Ignatian Epistles,
and I trust that I have shown once for all that the charges of
"misrepresentation" and "misstatement," so lightly and liberally
advanced, far from being well-founded, recoil upon themselves. It is
impossible in a work like this, dealing with such voluminous materials,
to escape errors of detail, as both of these gentlemen bear witness, but
I have at least conscientiously endeavoured to be fair, and I venture to
think that few writers have ever more fully laid before readers the
actual means of judging of the accuracy of every statement which has
been made.