THE IGNATIAN EPISTLES ENTIRELY SPURIOUS.




CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.


The question of the genuineness of the Epistles attributed to
Ignatius of Antioch has continued to awaken interest ever since
the period of the Reformation. That great religious revolution
gave an immense impetus to the critical spirit; and when brought
under the light of its examination, not a few documents, the
claims of which had long passed unchallenged, were summarily
pronounced spurious. Eusebius, writing in the fourth century,
names only seven letters as attributed to Ignatius; but long
before the days of Luther, more than double that number were in
circulation. Many of these were speedily condemned by the critics
of the sixteenth century. Even the seven recognised by Eusebius
were regarded with grave suspicion; and Calvin--who then stood at
the head of Protestant theologians--did not hesitate to denounce
the whole of them as forgeries. The work, long employed as a text-book
in Cambridge and Oxford, was the _Institutes_ of the Reformer
of Geneva; [Endnote 2:1] and as his views on this subject are
there proclaimed very emphatically, [2:2] we may presume that