ek or Latin?
She had every reason to preserve such a document had it ever come into
her possession; for, even considered as a pious fraud of the third
century, the address "_to her who sitteth at the head_ in the place of
the country of the Romans," [410:1] is one of the most ancient
testimonies to her early pre-eminence to be found in the whole range of
ecclesiastical literature. Why should she have permitted it to be
supplanted by an interpolated document? Can any man, who adopts the
views of Dr Cureton, fairly answer such an inquiry?

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 o