"The external evidence from the testimony of manuscripts in favour
of the rejected Greek Epistles, with the exception of that to the
Philip-pians, 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 distinct and
very different recensions, if we except the Epistle to Polycarp, in
which the variations are very few. Of these two recensions the shorter
has been most generally received: the circumstance of its being shorter
seems much to have influenced its reception; and the text of the
Medicean Codex and of the two copies of the corresponding Latin version
belonging to Cains College, Cambridge, and Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, has been adopted.... In all these there is no distinction
whatever drawn between the former and latter Epistles: all are placed
upon the same basis; and there is no ground whatever to conclude either
that the arranger of the Greek recension or the translator of the Latin
version esteemed one to be better or more genuine than another. Nor
can any prejudice result to the Epistles to the Tarsians, to the
Antiochians, and to Hero, from the circumstance of their being placed
after the others in the collection; for they are evidently arranged in
chronological order, and rank after the rest as having been written from
Philippi, at which place Ignatius is said to have arrived after he had
despatched the previous Letters. So far, therefore, as the evidence of
all the existing copies, Latin as well as Greek, of both the recensions
is to be considered, it is certainly in favour of the rejected Epistles,
rather than of those which have been retained." (2)
Proceeding from counter-statements to actual facts, I will very briefly
show the order in which these Epistles have been found in some of the
principal MSS. One of the earliest published was the ancient Latin
version of eleven Epistles edited by J. Faber Stapulensis in 1498, which
was at least quoted in the ninth century, and which in the subjoined
table I shall mark A,(3) and which also exhibits the order of Cod. Vat
859, assigned to the eleventh century.(4) The next (B) is a Greek MS.
edited by Valentinus Pacæus in 1557,(5) and the order at
{li}
the same time represents that of the Cod. Pal. 150.(1) The third (C)
is the ancient Latin translation, referred to above, published by
Archbishop Usher.(2) The fourth (D) is the celebrated Medicean MS.
assigned to the eleventh century, and published by Vossiusin 1646.(3)
This also represents the order of the Cod. Casanatensis G. V. 14.(4)
I italicise the rejected Epistles: (See scanned page in the html file,
Ed.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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