The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious | Page 4

very one-sided estimate. He speaks of those who reject the claims of these Epistles as forming "a considerable list of second and third rate names;" [6:1] and he mentions Ussher and Bentley among those who espouse his sentiments. According to our author, there cannot be a "shadow of doubt" that the seven Vossian Epistles "represent the genuine Ignatius." [6:2] "No Christian writings of the second century," says he, "and very few writings of antiquity, whether Christian or pagan, are so well authenticated." [6:3] He surely cannot imagine that Ussher would have endorsed such statements; for he knows well that the Primate of Armagh condemned the Epistle to Polycarp as a forgery. He has still less reason to claim Bentley as on his side. On authority which Bishop Monk, the biographer of Bentley, deemed well worthy of acceptance, it is stated that in 1718, "on occasion of a Divinity Act," the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, "made a speech condemning the Epistles of S. Ignatius." His address created a "great ferment" in the university. [7:1] It is further reported that Bentley "refused to hear the Respondent who attempted to reply." We might have expected such a deliverance from the prince of British critics; for, with the intuition of genius, he saw the absurdity of recognising these productions as proceeding from a Christian minister who had been carefully instructed by the apostles. Bentley's refusal to hear the Respondent who attempted to reply to him, was exactly in keeping with his well-known dictatorial temper. Does Dr. Lightfoot bring forward any evidence to contradict this piece of collegiate history? None whatever. He merely treats us to a few of his own conjectures, which simply prove his anxiety to depreciate its significance. And yet he ventures to parade the name of Bentley among those of the scholars who contend for the genuineness of these letters! He deals after the same fashion with the celebrated Porson. In a letter to the author of this review [7:2], Dr. Cureton states that Porson "rejected" these letters "in the form in which they were put forth by Ussher and Vossius;" and declares that this piece of information was conveyed to himself by no less competent an authority than Bishop Kaye. Dr. Lightfoot meets this evidence by saying that "the obiter dictum even of a Porson," in the circumstances in which it was given, might be "of little value." [7:3] It was given, however, exactly in the circumstances in which the speaker was best prepared to deliver a sound verdict, for it was pronounced after the great critic had read the Vindiciae of Pearson.
It would be hopeless to attempt to settle a disputed question of criticism by enumerating authorities on different sides, as, after all, the value of these authorities would be variously discounted. We must seek to arrive at truth, not by quoting names, but by weighing arguments. Not a few, however, whose opinion may be entitled to some respect, will not be prepared to agree with Bishop Lightfoot when he affirms that those who reject these Ignatian letters are, with few exceptions, only to be found in the "list of second and third rate names" in literature. [8:1] We have seen that Bentley and Porson disagree with him--and he can point to no more eminent critics in the whole range of modern scholarship. If Daill�� must be placed in the second rank, surely Pearson may well be relegated to the same position; for there is most respectable proof that his Vindiciae, in reply to the treatise of the French divine, was pronounced by Porson to be a "very unsatisfactory" performance. [8:2] "The most elaborate and ingenious portion of the work" is, as Bishop Lightfoot himself confesses, "the least satisfactory." [8:3] Dr Lightfoot, we believe, will hardly pretend to say that Vossius, Bull, and Waterland stand higher in the literary world than Salmasius, John Milton, and Augustus Neander; and he will greatly astonish those who are acquainted with the history and writings of one of the fathers of the Reformation, if he will contend that John Calvin must be placed only in the second or third class of Protestant theologians. In the presence of the great doctor of Geneva, Hammond, Grotius, Zahn, and others whom Dr. Lightfoot has named as his supporters, may well hide their diminished heads.
In the work before us the Bishop of Durham has pretty closely followed Pearson, quoting his explanations and repeating his arguments. Some of these are sufficiently nebulous. Professor Harnack--who has already reviewed his pages in the Expositor, and who, to a great extent, adheres to the views which they propound--admits, notwithstanding, that he has "overstrained" his case, and has adduced as witnesses writers of the second and third centuries of whom it is impossible to prove that they knew anything of the