The only father who notices these letters before the fourth century, is Origen. He quotes from them twice; [399:3] the citations which he gives are to be found in the Syriac version of the three epistles; [399:4] and it would appear from his writings that he was not acquainted with the seven letters current in the days of Eusebius. [399:5] Those to which he refers were, perhaps, brought under his notice when he went to Antioch on the invitation of Julia Mammaea, the mother of the Emperor; as, for reasons subsequently to be stated, it is probable that they were manufactured in that neighbourhood not long before his visit. If presented to him at that time by parties interested in the recognition of their claims, they were, under the circumstances, exactly such documents as were likely to impose upon him; for the student of Philo, and the author of the "Exhortation to Martyrdom," could not but admire the spirit of mysticism by which they are pervaded, and the anxiety to die under persecution which they proclaim. Whilst, therefore, his quotation of these letters attests their existence in his time, it is of very little additional value. Again and again in his writings we meet with notices of apocryphal works unaccompanied by any intimations of their spuriousness. [400:1] He asserts that Barnabas, the author of the epistle still extant under his name, [400:2] was the individual mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as the companion of Paul; and he frequently quotes the "Pastor" of Hermas [400:3] as a book given by inspiration of God. [400:4] Such facts abundantly prove that his recognition of the Ignatian epistles is a very equivocal criterion of their genuineness.