The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious | Page 9

Ignatius and the Philippians wished their letters to be carried to Antioch, why did they not say so? Syria was an extensive province,--much larger than all Ireland,--and many a traveller might have been going there who would have found it quite impracticable to deliver letters in its metropolis. When there was no penny postage, and when letters of friendship were often carried by private hands, if an individual residing in the north or south of the Emerald Isle had requested a correspondent in Bristol to send his letters by "any one" going over to Ireland, it would not have been extraordinary if the Englishman had received the message with amazement. Could "any one" passing over to Ireland be expected to deliver letters in Cork or Londonderry? There were many places of note in Syria far distant from Antioch; and it was preposterous to propose that "any one" travelling to that province should carry letters to its capital city. No one can pretend to say that the whole, or even any considerable part of Syria, was under the ecclesiastical supervision of Ignatius; for, long after this period, the jurisdiction of a bishop did not extend beyond the walls of the town in which he dwelt. If Ignatius meant to have his letters taken to Antioch, why vaguely say that they were to be carried to Syria? [24:1] Why not distinctly name the place of their destination? It had long been the scene of his pastoral labours; and it might have been expected that its very designation would have been repeated by him with peculiar interest. No good reason can be given why he should speak of Syria, and not of Antioch, as the place to which his letters were to be transmitted. Nor is this the only perplexing circumstance associated with the request mentioned in the postscript to this letter. If the Philippians, or Ignatius, had sent letters to Polycarp addressed to the Church of Antioch, was it necessary for them to say to him that they should be forwarded? Would not his own common sense have directed him what to do? He was not surely such a dotard that he required to be told how to dispose of these Epistles.
If we are to be guided by the statements in the Ignatian Epistles, we must infer that the letters to be sent to Antioch were to be forwarded with the utmost expedition. A council was to be called forthwith, and by it a messenger "fit to bear the name of God's courier" [25:1] was to be chosen to carry them to the Syrian metropolis. There are no such signs of haste or urgency indicated in the postscript to Polycarp's Epistle. The letters of which he speaks could afford to wait until some one happened to be travelling to Syria; and then, it is suggested, he might take them along with him. If we adopt the reading to be found in the Latin version, and which, from internal evidence, we may judge to be a true rendering of the original, we are, according to the interpretation which must be given to it by the advocates of the Ignatian Epistles, involved in hopeless bewilderment. If by Syria we understand the eastern province, what possibly can be the meaning of the words addressed by Polycarp to the Philippians, "If any one is going to Syria, he might _carry thither my letters to you_"? [26:1] Any one passing from Smyrna to Philippi turns his face to the north-west, but a traveller from Smyrna to Syria proceeds south-east, or in the exactly opposite direction. How could Polycarp hope to keep up a correspondence with his brethren of Philippi, if he sent his letters to the distant East by any one who might be going there?
It is pretty evident that the Latin version has preserved the true original of this postscript, and that the current reading, adopted by Dr. Lightfoot and others, must be traced to the misapprehensions of transcribers. Puzzled by the statement that letters from Polycarp to the Philippians were to be sent to Syria, they have tried to correct the text by changing [Greek: par haemon] into [Greek: par humon]-- implying that the letters were to be transmitted, not from Polycarp to the Philippians, but from the Philippians to Antioch. A very simple explanation may, however, remove this whole difficulty. If by Syria we understand, not the great eastern province so called, but a little island of similar name in the Aegaean Sea, the real bearing of the request is at once apparent. Psyria [27:1]--in the course of time contracted into Psyra--lies a few miles west of Chios, [27:2] and is almost directly on the way between Smyrna and Neapolis, the port-town of Philippi. A letter from Smyrna left there would be carried a