raged fiercely since its publication_. One who (like our author)
maintains the priority of the Curetonian letters, was especially
bound to give it some consideration, for it furnishes the most
formidable argument to his opponents. This version was given to the
world by Petermann in 1849, the same year in which Cureton's later
work, the _Corpus Ignatianum_, appeared, and therefore was unknown
to him. Its _bearing occupies a more or less prominent place in all,
or nearly all, the writers who have specially discussed the Ignatian
question during the last quarter of a century. This is true of
Lipsius and Weiss and Hilgenfeld and Uhlhorn, whom he cites, not
less than of Merx and Denzinger and Zahn, whom he neglects to cite_."
[78:2]

Now first as regards the facts. I do not maintain the priority of the
Curetonian Epistles in this book myself; indeed I express no personal
opinion whatever regarding them which is not contained in that general
declaration of belief, the decision of which excites the wrath of my
diffident critic, that the Epistles in no form have "any value as
evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning
of the third century, even if they have any value at all." I merely
represent the opinion of others regarding those Epistles. Dr. Lightfoot
very greatly exaggerates the importance attached to the Armenian
version, and I call special attention to the passages in the above
quotation which I have taken the liberty of italicising. I venture
to say emphatically that, so far from being considered the "key
of the position," this version has, with some exceptions, played
a most subordinate and insignificant part in the controversy, and
as Dr. Lightfoot has expressly mentioned certain writers, I will
state how the case stands with regard to them. Weiss, Lipsius, Uhlhorn,
Merx, and Zahn certainly "more or less prominently" deal with them.