his
opinion that the authenticity cannot be established.

_Lechler_ candidly confesses that he commenced with a prejudice in
favour of the authenticity of the Epistles in the Shorter Recension,
but on reading them through, he says that an impression unfavourable
to their authenticity was produced upon him which he had not been
able to shake off. He proceeds to point out their internal
improbability, and other difficulties connected with the supposed
journey, which make it "still more improbable that Ignatius himself
can really have written these Epistles in this situation." Lechler
does not consider that the Curetonian Epistles strengthen the case;
and although he admits that he cannot congratulate himself on the
possession of "certainty and cheerfulness of conviction" of the
inauthenticity of the Ignatian Epistles, he at least very clearly
justifies the affirmation that the authenticity cannot be
established.

Now what has been the result of this minute and prejudiced attack upon
my notes? Out of nearly seventy critics and writers in connection with
what is admitted to be one of the most intricate questions of Christian
literature, it appears that--much to my regret--I have inserted one name
totally by accident, overlooked that the doubts of another had been
removed by the subsequent publication of the Short Recension and
consequently erroneously classed him, and I withdraw a third whose
doubts I consider that I have overrated. Mistakes to this extent in
dealing with such a mass of references, or a difference of a shade more
or less in the representation of critical opinions, not always clearly
expressed, may, I hope, be excusable, and I can truly say that I am only
too glad to correct such errors. On the other hand, a critic who attacks
such references, in such a tone, and with such wholesale accusations of
"misstatement" and "misrepresentation," was bound to be accurate, and I
have shown that Dr. Lightfoot is not only inaccurate in matters of fact,
but unfair in his statements of my purpose. I am happy, however, to be
able to make use of his own words and say: "I may perhaps have fallen
into some errors of detail, though I have endeavoured to avoid them, but
the main conclusions are, I believe, irrefragable." [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