[391:1] Cave reckons that at the time of his martyrdom he was probably “above fourscore years old.”  See his “Life of Ignatius.”

[391:2] See Period II. sec. in. chap. v.  Evodius is commonly represented as the first bishop of Antioch.

[392:1] “Fuerunt alii similis amentiae:  quos, quia cives Romani erant, annotavi in Urbem remittendos.”—­Plinii, Epist. lib. x. epist. 96.

[392:2] The Greek says the ninth, and the Latin the fourth year.  According to both, the condemnation took place early in the reign of Trajan.  See also the first sentence of the “Acts.”  In his translation of these “Acts,” Wake, regardless of this statement, and in opposition to all manuscript authority, represents the sentence as pronounced “in the nineteenth year” of Trajan.

[392:3] See Jacobson’s “Patres Apostolici,” ii. p. 504.  See also Greswell’s “Dissertations,” vol. iv. p. 422.  It is evident that the date in the “Acts” cannot be the mistake of a transcriber, for in the same document the martyrdom is said to have occurred when Sura and Synecius were consuls.  These, as Greswell observes, were actually consuls “in the ninth of Trajan.”  Greswell’s “Dissertations,” iv. p. 416.  Hefele, however, has attempted to show that Trajan was really in Antioch about this time.  See his “Pat.  Apost.  Opera Prolegomena,” p. 35.  Edit.  Tubingen, 1842.

[393:1] “Acts of his Martyrdom,” Sec. 8.

[393:2] He is said, when at Smyrna, to have been visited by a deputation from the Magnesians.  But had notice been sent to them as soon as he arrived at Smyrna, the messenger would have required three days to perform the journey; and had the Magnesians set out instantaneously, they must have occupied three days more in travelling to him.  Thus, notwithstanding all the precipitation with which he was hurried along, he could scarcely have been less than a week in Smyrna.  See “Corpus Ignatianum,” pp. 326, 327.

[394:1] “He was pressed by the soldiers to hasten to the public spectacles at great Rome.”  “And the wind continuing favourable to us, in one day and night we were hurried on.”—­Acts of his Martyrdom, Sec. 10, 11.

[394:2] Philadelphia is distant from Troas about two hundred miles.  “Corpus Ignatianum,” pp. 331, 332.  Here, then, is another difficulty connected with this hasty journey.  How could a deputation from Philadelphia meet Ignatius in Troas, as some allege they did, if he did not stop a considerable time there?  See other difficulties suggested by Dr Cureton.  “Cor.  Ignat.” p. 332.

[395:1] Such is the opinion maintained by the celebrated Whiston in his “Primitive Christianity.”  More recently Meier took up nearly the same position.

[395:2] See Preface to the “Corpus Ignatianum,” p. 4.

[395:3] Published in 1849.  In 1846 he published his “Vindiciae Ignatianae; or the Genuine Writings of St Ignatius, as exhibited in the ancient Syriac version, vindicated from the charge of heresy.”