It is plain that the mistake or corruption of a word in the postscript of the Epistle of Polycarp has had much to do with this Ignatian imposture.  In some worn or badly written manuscript, Syria was perhaps read instead of Smyrna, and the false reading probably led to the incubation of the whole brood of Ignatian letters.  The error, whether of accident or design, was adopted by Eusebius, [411:1] and from him passed into general currency.  We may thus best account for the strange multiplication of these Ignatian epistles.  It was clear that the Ignatius spoken of by Polycarp had written more letters than what first appeared, [411:2] and thus the epistles to the Smyrnaeans, the Magnesians, the Trallians, and the Philadelphians, in due time emerged into notice.  At a subsequent date the letters to the Philippians, the Antiochians, the Virgin Mary, and others, were forthcoming.

The variety of forms assumed by this Ignatian fraud is not the least remarkable circumstance connected with its mysterious history.  All the seven Epistles mentioned by Eusebius exist in a Longer and a Shorter Recension; whilst the Syriac version exhibits three of them in a reduced size, and a third edition.  It is a curious fact that other spurious productions display similar transformations. “A great number of spurious or interpolated works of the early ages of Christianity,” says Dr Cureton, “are found in two Recensions, a Shorter and a Longer, as in the instance of the Ignatian Epistles.  Thus, we find the two Recensions of the Clementines, the two Recensions of the Acts of St Andrew, ..... the Acts of St Thomas, the Journeying of St John, the Letter of Pilate to Tiberius.” [411:3] It is still more suspicious that some of these spurious writings present a striking similarity in point of style to the Ignatian Epistles. [412:1] The standard coin of the realm is seldom put into the crucible, but articles of pewter or of lead are freely melted down and recast according to the will of the modeller.  We cannot add a single leaf to a genuine flower, but an artificial rose may be exhibited in quite another form by a fresh process of manipulation.  Such, too, has been the history of ancient ecclesiastical records.  The genuine works of the fathers have come down to us in a state of wonderful preservation; and comparatively few attempts have been made, by interpolation or otherwise, to interfere with their integrity; [412:2] but spurious productions seem to have been considered legitimate subjects for the exercise of the art of the fabricator; and hence the strange discrepancies in their text which have so often puzzled their editors.

CHAPTER III.

THE IGNATIAN EPISTLES AND THEIR CLAIMS.
THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE.