nace_. Si elles ne sont pas veritables, elles
ne laissent pas d'etre fort anciennes; et l'opinion, qui me paroit
la plus raisonnable, est que les plus pures ont ete interpolees."

_Schroeckh_ says that along with the favourable considerations for
the shorter (Vossian) Epistles, "many doubts arise which make them
suspicious." He proceeds to point out many grave difficulties, and
anachronisms which cast doubt both on individual epistles and upon
the whole, and he remarks that a very common way of evading these
and other difficulties is to affirm that all the passages which
cannot be reconciled with the mode of thought of Ignatius are
interpolations of a later time. He concludes with the pertinent
observation: "However probable this is, it nevertheless remains as
difficult to prove which are the interpolated passages." In fact it
would be difficult to point out any writer who more thoroughly
doubts, without definitely rejecting, all the Epistles.

_Griesbach_ and _Kestner_ both express "doubts more or less definite,"
but to make sufficient extracts to illustrate this would occupy
too much space.

_Neander._--Dr. Lightfoot has been misled by the short extract from
the English translation of the first edition of Neander's History
given by Cureton in his Appendix, has not attended to the brief
German quotation from the second edition, and has not examined the
original at all, or he would have seen that, so far from pronouncing
"in favour of a genuine nucleus," Neander might well have been
classed by me amongst those who distinctly reject the Ignatian
Epistles, instead of being moderately quoted amongst those who
merely express doubt. Neander says: "As the account of the martyrdom
of Ignatius is very suspicious, so also the Epistles which suppose
the correctness of this suspicious legend do not bear throughout the
impress of a distinct individuality, and of a man of that time who
is addressing his last words to the communities. A hierarchical
purpose is not to be mistaken." In an earlier part of the work he
still more emphatically says that, "in the so-called Ignatian
Epistles," he recognises a decided "design" (_Absichtlichkeit_), and
then he continues: "As the tradition regarding the journey of
Ignatius to Rome, there to be cast to the wild beasts, seems to me
for the above-mentioned reasons v