[422:1] “Epistle to the Ephesians.”

[422:2] Daille has well observed—­“Funi Dei quidem verbum, ministerium, beneficia non inepte comparaveris; Spiritum vero, qui his, ut sic dicam, divinae benignitatis funiculis, ad nos movendos et attrahendos utitur, ipsi illi quo utitur, funi comparare, ab omni ratione alienum est.”—­Lib. ii. c. 27, pp. 409, 410.

[422:3] Col. ii. 18.

[423:1] “Epistle to the Ephesians.”

[423:2] Matt. xxvi. 39.

[423:3] John xxi. 18.

[423:4] 2 Tim. iv. 17.

[424:1] We have here an additional and very clear proof that Polycarp, in his Epistle, is not referring to Ignatius of Antioch.  Instead of pronouncing the letters now current as treating “of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to edification,” he would have condemned them as specimens of folly, impatience, and presumption.  Dr Cureton seems to think that, because Ignatius was an old man, he was at liberty to throw away his life ("Corp.  Ignat.” p. 321); but Polycarp was still older, and he thought differently.

[424:2] Sec. 4.

[424:3] See “Corpus Ignatianum,” p. 253.

[424:4] The reader is to understand that all the extracts given in the text are from the Syriac version of the “Three Epistles.”

[425:1] “Epistle to the Ephesians.”

[425:2] “Epistle to the Romans.”  Pearson can see nothing but the perfection of piety in all this.  “In quibus nihil putidum, nihil odiosum, nihil inscite aut imprudenter scriptum est.” ...  “Omnia cum pia, legitima, praeclara.”—­Vindiciae, pars secunda, c. ix.

[425:3] From A.D. 208 to A.D. 258.

[425:4] Thus in the “Acts of Paul and Thecla,” fabricated about the beginning of the third century, Thecla says—­“Give me the seal of Christ, (i.e. baptism,) and no temptation shall touch me,” (c. 18.) See Jones on the “Canon of the New Testament,” ii. p. 312.

[426:1] “Epistle to Polycarp.”

[426:2] 1 Cor. xiii. 3.

[426:3] See Blunt’s “Early Fathers,” p. 237.  See also Origen’s “Exhortation to Martyrdom,” Sec. 27, 30, 50.

[426:4] According to Dr Lee, a strenuous advocate for the Syriac version of the “Three Epistles,” this translation, as he supposes it to be, was made “not later perhaps than the close of the second, or beginning of the third century.”  “Corpus Ignat.”  Introd. p. 86, note.  Dr Cureton occasionally supplies strong presumptive evidence that the translation has been made, not from Greek into Syriac, but from Syriac into Greek.  “Cor.  Ignat.” p. 278.