" [78:1]
There are further misstatements made by Dr. Lightfoot to which I must
briefly refer before turning to other matters. He says, with
unhesitating boldness:
"One highly important omission is significant. There is no mention,
from first to last, of the Armenian version. Now it happens that
this version (so far as regards the documentary evidence) _has been
felt to be the key to the position, and around it the battle has
raged fiercely since its publication_. One who (like our author)
maintains the priority of the Curetonian letters, was especially
bound to give it some consideration, for it furnishes the most
formidable argument to his opponents. This version was given to the
world by Petermann in 1849, the same year in which Cureton's later
work, the _Corpus Ignatianum_, appeared, and therefore was unknown
to him. Its _bearing occupies a more or less prominent place in all,
or nearly all, the writers who have specially discussed the Ignatian
question during the last quarter of a century. This is true of
Lipsius and Weiss and Hilgenfeld and Uhlhorn, whom he cites, not
less than of Merx and Denzinger and Zahn, whom he neglects to cite_."
[78:2]
Now first as regards the facts. I do not maintain the priority of the
Curetonian Epistles in this book myself; indeed I express no personal
opinion whatever regarding them which is not contained in that general
declaration of belief, the decision of which excites the wrath of my
diffident critic, that the Epistles in no form have "any value as
evidence for an earlier period than the end of the second or beginning
of the third century, even if they have any value at all.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117