Practically the contest as to the truest form has been reduced to a duel between the 'short' and the 'middle.' The 'long' form can be shown to be the work of an unknown author, probably of the latter half of the fourth century, and constructed from the genuine Ignatian Epistles by interpolation, alteration and omission. But the 'long' form died hard, and mainly through the thrusts of our own Ussher. 'The history of the Ignatian Epistles,' says the Bishop, 'in Western Europe before and after the revival of letters, is full of interest. In the Middle Ages the spurious and interpolated letters alone have any wide circulation. Gradually, as the light advances, the forgeries recede into the background. Each successive stage diminishes the bulk of the Ignatian literature, which the educated mind accepts as genuine; till at length the true Ignatius alone remains, divested of the accretions which perverted ingenuity has gathered about him.' In the 'long' recension there is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery was 'consigned to the limbo of foolish and forgotten things.' This pretender set aside, St. Ignatius was represented in Western Europe by the epistles of the 'Long' recension. The Latin text was printed in 1498, and the Greek in 1557. At first no doubt was felt about their genuineness. Gradually, however, unwelcome critics pointed out gross anachronisms and blunders. Men, with unpleasant habits of comparison, noted that Eusebius, the Church historian (C. A. D. 310-25), quoted from only seven epistles, and that the divergence of the 'long' text from that given by early Christian writers[70] fully warranted the comment of Ussher, that it was difficult to imagine 'eundem legere se Ignatium qui veterum aetate legebatur.' Theological and ecclesiastical prejudice lent bitterness to the rising strife. On the Continent, Reformer and Romanist ranged themselves in opposite camps: the one quoting with delight passages which favoured Roman supremacy, or advocated Episcopacy; the other throwing them over as 'nursery stories' (or 'silly tales,' _naenia_), and denouncing 'the insufferable impudence of those who equipped themselves with ghosts like these for the purpose of deceiving' (Calvin). After the publication of the edition of Vedelius, a Genevan Professor, in 1623, Anglican writers, such as Whitgift, Hooker, and Andrewes, seem to have accepted without hesitation the twelve (the seven named by Eusebius and five others) contained in that edition; but in England as on the Continent, the absence of so much, which could alone lead men to a right