In dealing with Ignatius it is always important to remember that we have to do with a Syrian and not a Greek. Certainly the language that he wrote was not in his hand a pliant instrument. It always cost him a struggle to express his thought; and the expression is very often far from perfect. The figure of the writer that one pictures to oneself is rugged, shaggy (if one may use the word), uncouth; and yet there is a virile, nervous strength about his language which is at times very impressive. And even his extravagances differ in this from many like extravagances, that they are not in the least insincere. For instance, if we read through the letter to Polycarp, we shall see in it a really great personality. And Ignatius had a very considerable power of thought as well as of character. Outside the New Testament, he is the first great Christian thinker; and he is one who left a deep mark on all subsequent thinking. I have little doubt that the strong expressions of humility that are found from time to time in Ignatius are wrung from him by the recollection of the life that he led before he became a Christian. They are doubtless suggested by St. Paul, and they spring from a feeling not less intense than his. The humility of St. John is a different matter. But as very shallow and obtuse criticisms are sometimes passed upon it, the Ignatian parallel may serve as a wholesome warning. I shall have occasion to return to this point later. The main arguments against the Ignatian authorship of the letters were drawn from the seemingly advanced condition of things which they implied in the way of heretical teaching on the one hand, and church organization on the other. The objections on these grounds have been quite cleared up; and now the letters supply some of the most important data that the historian has to go upon. It will be remembered that Bishop Lightfoot began by converting himself before he converted others. He had been inclined to think at one time that the shorter Syriac version represented the true Ignatius. He tells us himself how he came to give up this opinion. He says: ‘I found that to maintain the priority of the Curetonian letters I was obliged from time to time to ascribe to the supposed Ignatian forger feats of ingenuity, knowledge, intuition, skill, and self-restraint, which transcended all bounds of probability’ (Preface to the First Edition). This is another bit of experience that it may be worth while to bear in mind. * * * * * My second example is perhaps in this sense not quite so clear a case, that there is not as yet as complete a _consensus_ in regard to it as there is in regard to the Ignatian Letters. It is taken from the discussions which have been going on at various times in the last twenty-five years as to the genuineness of the treatise _De Vita Contemplativa_ which has come down to us among the works of Philo.