circumstance, combined with the | is confessedly spurious;--a fact
facts already mentioned, plainly | which some who imagine a
shows that they were a later | diplomatic transmission of
addition, borrowed from the Long | _seven_ have overlooked." [83:2]
Recension to complete the body |
of Ignatian letters." [83:1] |


I will further quote the words of Cureton, for, as Dr. Lightfoot
advances nothing but assertions, it is well to meet him with the
testimony of others rather than the mere reiteration of my own
statement. Cureton says:

"Again, there is another circumstance which will naturally lead us
to look with some suspicion upon the recension of the Epistles of
St. Ignatius, as exhibited in the Medicean MS., and in the ancient
Latin version corresponding with it, which is, that the Epistles
presumed to be the genuine production of that holy Martyr are mixed
up with others, which are almost universally allowed to be spurious.
Both in the Greek and Latin MSS. all these are placed upon the same
footing, and no distinction is drawn between them; and the only
ground which has hitherto been assumed for their separation has been
the specification of some of them by Eusebius and his omission of
any mention of the others." [83:3]

"The external evidence from the testimony of manuscripts in favour
of the rejected Greek Epistles, with the exception of that to the
Philippians, is certainly greater than that in favour of those which
have been received. They are found in all the manuscripts, both
Greek and Latin, in the same form; while the others exhibit two