'The external testimony to the Ignatian Epistles being so strong, only the most decisive marks of spuriousness in the Epistles themselves, as, for instance, proved anachronism, would justify us in suspecting them as interpolated, or rejecting them as spurious.--But so far is this from being the case, that one after another the anachronisms urged against these letters have vanished in the light of further knowledge.--As regards the argument which Daille calls "palmary"--the prevalence of episcopacy as a recognized institution--we may say boldly that all the facts point the other way. If the writer of these letters had represented the churches of Asia Minor as under presbyterial government, he would have contradicted all the evidence which, without one dissentient voice, points to episcopacy as the established form of Church government in these districts from the close of the first century.--The circumstances of the condemnation, captivity, and journey of Ignatius, which have been a stumbling-block to some modern critics, did not present any difficulty to those who lived near the time, and therefore knew best what might be expected under the circumstances; and they are sufficiently borne out by example, more or less analogous, to establish their credibility.--The objections to the style and language are beside the purpose.--A like answer holds with regard to any extravagances in sentiment, or opinion, or character.--While the investigation of the contents of these Epistles has yielded this negative result in dissipating the objections, it has at the same time had a high positive value, as revealing indications of a very early date, and therefore presumably of genuineness, in the surrounding circumstances, more especially in the types of false doctrine which it combats, in the ecclesiastical status which it presents, and in the manner in which it deals with the evangelical and apostolic documents.--Moreover, we discover in the personal environments of the assumed writer, and more especially in the notices of his route, many subtle coincidences which we are constrained to regard as undesigned, and which seem altogether beyond the reach of a forger.--So likewise the peculiarities in style and diction of the Epistles, as also in the representation of the writer's character, are much more capable of explanation in a genuine writing than in a forgery.--While external and internal evidence thus combine to assert the genuineness of these writings, no satisfactory account has been or apparently can be given of them as a forgery of a later date than Ignatius. They would be quite purposeless as such; for they entirely omit all topics which would especially interest any subsequent age.'