A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays by Walter R. Cassels
page 74 of 216 (34%)
page 74 of 216 (34%)
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la plus raisonnable, est que les plus pures ont été interpolées."
_Schroeckh_ says that along with the favourable considerations for the shorter (Vossian) Epistles, "many doubts arise which make them suspicious." He proceeds to point out many grave difficulties, and anachronisms which cast doubt both on individual epistles and upon the whole, and he remarks that a very common way of evading these and other difficulties is to affirm that all the passages which cannot be reconciled with the mode of thought of Ignatius are interpolations of a later time. He concludes with the pertinent observation: "However probable this is, it nevertheless remains as difficult to prove which are the interpolated passages." In fact it would be difficult to point out any writer who more thoroughly doubts, without definitely rejecting, all the Epistles. _Griesbach_ and _Kestner_ both express "doubts more or less definite," but to make sufficient extracts to illustrate this would occupy too much space. _Neander._--Dr. Lightfoot has been misled by the short extract from the English translation of the first edition of Neander's History given by Cureton in his Appendix, has not attended to the brief German quotation from the second edition, and has not examined the original at all, or he would have seen that, so far from pronouncing "in favour of a genuine nucleus," Neander might well have been classed by me amongst those who distinctly reject the Ignatian Epistles, instead of being moderately quoted amongst those who merely express doubt. Neander says: "As the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius is very suspicious, so also the Epistles which suppose the correctness of this suspicious legend do not bear throughout the |
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