e to the martyrdom of his
eye-witnesses comes 150 years after Christ; and even then all that
Polycarp may have said, if the epistle chance to be authentic, is that
"they suffered," without any word of their martyrdom!

The authenticity of the letters of Ignatius has long been a matter of
dispute. Mosheim, who accepts the seven epistles, says that, "Though I
am willing to adopt this opinion as preferable to any other, yet I
cannot help looking upon the authenticity of the epistle to Polycarp as
extremely dubious, on account of the difference of style; and, indeed,
the whole question relating to the epistles of St. Ignatius in general
seems to me to labour under much obscurity, and to be embarrassed with
many difficulties" ("Eccles. Hist.," p. 22).

"There are in all fifteen epistles which bear the name of Ignatius.
These are the following: One to the Virgin Mary, two to the Apostle
John, one to Mary of Cassobelae, one to the Tarsians, one to the
Antiochians, one to Hero (a deacon of Antioch), one to the Philippians,
one to the Ephesians, one to the Magnesians, one to the Trallians, one
to the Romans, one to the Philadelphians, one to the Smyrnians, and one
to Polycarp. The first three exist only in Latin; all the rest are
extant also in Greek. It is now the universal opinions of critics that
the first eight of these professedly Ignatian letters are spurious. They
bear in themselves indubitable proofs of being the production of a later
age than that in which Ignatius lived. Neither Eusebius nor Jerome makes
the least reference to them; and they are now, by common consent, set
aside as forgeries, which were at various dates, and to serve special
purposes, put forth under the name of the celebrated Bishop of Antioch.
But, after the question has been thus simplified, it still remains
sufficiently complex. Of the seven epistles which are acknowledged by
Eusebius" ("Eccles. Hist," bk. iii., chap. 36), we possess two Greek
recensions, a shorter and a longer. "It is plain that one or other of
these exhibits a corrupt text; and scholars have, for the most part,
agreed to accept the shorter form as representing the genuine letters of
Ignatius.... But although the shorter form of the Ignatian letters had
been generally accepted in preference to the longer, there was still a
pretty prevalent opinion among scholars that even it could not be
regarded as absolutely free from interpolations, or as of undoubted
authenticity.... Upon the