Let the reader, however, look up the references under the head of "Apostolical Constitutions" in the Index to vol. i. of the Bishop's work, and we shall be very much surprised if he agree with Dr. Harnack's first conclusion. Will there not be even a lurking apprehension that Dr. Harnack, in arguing from the 'original conception of the author of the Apostolic Constitutions,' is confounding the 'long' and the 'middle' Recensions of the letters? Possibly the anxiety of determination to fix upon the third century rather than the close of the first as the date of the establishment of Episcopacy may have been tolerable in the time of Daille, but is it tolerable or should it be repeated now when the means of a far more critical study of the question is open to all? In fact, Dr. Harnack is evidently disturbed by the _parti pris_ of his position; and he may be said to abandon it immediately for a more negative one: but even so, how can a critic with the authorities placed before him come even to his second and modified conclusion:--'The statements of Ignatius regarding the rank to which the Episcopate has attained, occupy, so far as our knowledge goes, an altogether isolated position in the second century.' Isolated! This can be examined upon evidence. The point is this: Are there, or are there not, witnesses to show that monarchical Episcopacy had been developed in the later years of the Apostolic Age? Irenaeus (born c. 130, according to Lipsius) was a scholar of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a scholar of St. John. He delighted to recal the reminiscences of his teacher, as did Polycarp those of St. John. He was a travelled scholar; if born in Asia Minor, he lived at Rome during middle life, and was Bishop of Lyons in Gaul in his later years. He was probably the most learned Christian of his time. 'The appreciation of the position of the man,' urges Bishop Lightfoot, 'is a first requisite to an estimate of his evidence.' And what is his evidence? Just that which is marked by such development as the man, his time, and circumstances, would lead us to expect, when compared with the Ignatius, from whom he is separated by about two generations. To Ignatius, the bishop is the centre of ecclesiastical unity; so Irenaeus, the depositary of Apostolic tradition. Irenaeus overlooks the identity of 'bishop' and 'presbyter' in the New Testament, and speaks of 'bishops _and_ presbyters from Ephesus and the other cities adjoining' coming to St. Paul at Miletus. It is to him an undisputed fact, that the bishops of his own age traced their succession back in an unbroken line to men appointed to the episcopate by the Apostles themselves. Thus he points out the sequence of the bishops of the Church of Rome 'founded by the blessed Apostles,' St. Peter and St. Paul, up to his own day; and in the case of the Church in Smyrna, he finds in Polycarp not only one 'instructed by Apostles and who had conversed with many who had seen