Part 22

Mr. Romilly, in the course of his wanderings, made a journey to New Guinea, a portion of which has now been placed under British protection. Little is known of the resources of this country, trading operations having hitherto been almost entirely confined to the south coast. Mr. Romilly's visit was brief, and he was not enabled to add much to our previous stock of information. He does not seem to be aware of the progress which the Germans are making in this island, or of the results of the energetic support which Prince Bismarck invariably extends to his adventurous countrymen.

Here, then, are three works which ought to have the effect of reviving the interest of the English people in their possessions abroad, if they have not sunk into a hopeless state of indifference and apathy on the subject. We do not for a moment believe that the working men are indifferent to the present and future welfare of our Colonies, but they need to be instructed as to the true value of their great inheritance, and therefore it is that we earnestly wish such books as these could be made readily accessible to them. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of convincing them that it is our duty as a nation to hold fast to all that we have added, from time to time, to the dominions of the Crown. The foreign policy of the country, no less than the domestic policy, must henceforth be directed mainly in accordance with their opinions; and if those opinions are left to be influenced and guided by the hereditary dislike of the Colonies which infects all Radicalism, our position in the world will soon be reduced to one of comparative insignificance. Baron Huebner concludes his volumes with these words: 'Had I to sum up the impressions derived from my travels, I should say, "British rule is firmly seated in India; England has only one enemy to fear--herself."' That is the whole truth of the matter. We have to fear our own party divisions, the want of true public spirit among too many of our 'politicians,' the tendency of Radical leaders to teach the doctrine that England ought to shut herself within her own island boundaries, and cast off all outside responsibilities. Sentiments of this kind may be, and are, loudly cheered in the House of Commons, but very few Liberals are daring enough to advocate them in the country. Lancashire knows how valuable India is to her, and the manufacturing districts generally see the growing importance to them, merely from a commercial point of view, of the Australian Colonies. The anti-Colonial policy is growing less and less popular among the people. To discredit it altogether, it is only necessary to distribute, far and wide among the working men, facts and considerations of the kind furnished in the works to which we have endeavoured to call attention.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See Mr. Lecky's 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century,' vol. ii, p. 443, &c.

ART. VII.--_The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp._ Revised Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2 vols.

This a great book, dealing principally with a great subject--the 'Ignatian Epistles.' The two volumes contain altogether 1849 Pages, 1311 being devoted to St. Ignatius, the remainder to St. Polycarp. It is no exaggeration to say that they are full of the most valuable information, dealing with matters of vital ecclesiastical importance, the whole presented in the most lucid style, and marked by broad, strong, scholarship. They are the result of 'a keen interest in the Ignatian controversy conceived long ago' by the Bishop of Durham. 'The subject has been before me,' he writes in his Preface, 'for nearly thirty years, and during this period it has engaged my attention off and on in the intervals of other literary pursuits and official duties.' The conception, execution, and production of the work had therefore been protracted. The volumes as they are issued to-day are not in the form they were originally written. Thus, the 'Appendix Ignatiana' was in type several years before the commentary on the genuine Epistles of Ignatius, and the Introduction and texts of the 'Ignatian Acts of Martyrdom' passed through the press in 1878. In 1879 Cambridge and London surrendered their great teacher to Durham; and there in the intervals, few enough, snatched from official duties, the first volume has been written, and from thence sent forth. It is necessary to bear this in mind; because it will, on the one hand, explain absence of reference to some works published since 1878; and on the other hand it increases the value of the Bishop's results, when reached in entire independence of, and yet in entire accordance with, those of other scholars in the same field.

This work testifies to the truth, that it is a mark of true greatness to be modest. The most superficial examination of these volumes exhibits a _Corpus Ignatianum_ superior to anything yet published. It is, says Dr. Harnack,[64] 'without exaggeration the most learned and careful Patristic monograph which has appeared in the nineteenth century.' It exhibits 'a diligence and knowledge of the subject which show that Dr. Lightfoot has made himself master of this department, and placed himself beyond the reach of any rival.... There is nothing in it that is not up to date, and the whole treatise forms a well-knit unity.' This is the willing testimony of one of the ablest of the scholars of Germany who have handled the great questions connected with Ignatius; the testimony, moreover, of one who, as we shall see presently, finds himself at variance with the Bishop upon two points, especially which, more than any other, materially affect the genuineness of the Epistles and their date. Such, however, is not the Bishop of Durham's thought. As he looks back upon the work to which he has consecrated the prime of his life, he speaks of it in language touching in its modesty--

'I have striven to make the materials for the text as complete as I could.... Of the use which I have made of the critical materials I must leave others to judge. Of the introductions, exegetical notes, and dissertations, I need say nothing, except that I have spared no pains to make them adequate, so far as my knowledge and ability permitted. The translations are intended not only to convey to English readers the sense of the original, but also (where there was any difficulty of construction) to serve as commentaries on the Greek. My anxiety not to evade these difficulties forbad me in many cases to indulge in a freedom which I should have claimed, if a literary standard alone had been kept in view.'

He follows up such words by others, conveying his thanks to those who have helped him in his work, and the generosity of his recognition of their services does but enhance the reserveful simplicity with which he comments upon his own. The 'English reader' and the 'others' whose judgment he desires, will, at least in England, unite in rendering to him a respectful and grateful homage. The subject treated by the Bishop is in a very real sense an Englishman's subject. For three centuries English critics have not only entered the literary arena, in which the great historic and ecclesiastical questions connected with his subject have been discussed, but they have contributed largely to the materials, offensive and defensive, which the combatants have employed. Ussher, Pearson, Churton, and Cureton, have been English champions whose merits all have acknowledged. The Bishop of Durham has now entered the lists to support what has been proved sound in their conclusions, to remove what was weak, and do battle for the truth. An impartial English public will appreciate the gravity of this challenge, and may be trusted to grant or withhold the victory he puts forth his best powers to win.

The volumes lend themselves by their construction to an easy statement of their contents, if those contents by their fulness must be of necessity the despair of critic and reviewer. First there is the life of the Saint, then the discussion of the manuscripts and versions which delineate the Saint and his literary remains. These are followed by exhaustive discussions upon all that tells for or against their genuineness, the whole being treated both historically and critically. Such will be found, briefly stated, the mode of discussing the life and works both of St. Ignatius of Antioch and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna; and two results will reward a patient persual of these volumes. The Bishop has indeed limited these results to the study of the Ignatian Epistles, but--under his guidance--the reader will find what is affirmed of one to be true of both:--

'The Ignatian Epistles are an exceptionally good training-ground for the student of early Christian literature and history. They present in typical and instructive forms the most varied problems, textual, exegetical, doctrinal, and historical. One who has thoroughly grasped these problems will be placed in possession of a master key which will open to him vast storehouses of knowledge.

'But' (continues the Bishop) 'I need not say that their educational value was not the motive which led me to spend so much time over them. The destructive criticism of the last half century is, I think, fast spending its force. In its excessive ambition it has "o'erleapt itself." It has not indeed been without its use. It has led to a thorough examination and sifting of ancient documents. It has exploded not a few errors, and discovered or established not a few truths. For the rest, it has by its directness and persistency stimulated investigation and thought on these subjects to an extent which a less aggressive criticism would have failed to secure. The immediate effect of the attack has been to strew the vicinity of the fortress with heaps of ruins. Some of these were best cleared away without hesitation or regret; but in other cases the rebuilding is a measure demanded by truth and prudence alike. I have been reproached by my friends for allowing myself to be diverted from the more congenial task of commenting on St. Paul's Epistles; but the importance of the position seemed to me to justify the expenditure of much time and labour in "repairing a breach" not indeed in the "House of the Lord" itself, but in the immediately outlying buildings.'

St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp (together with St. Clement of Rome) are the links which connect the Apostolic age proper with the Fathers of the second and third centuries; and this fact has made them and their scanty literature the hope and despair, the pride and the scorn, of opposing factions. In the whirl and confusion of discordant criticisms it is everything to study and to build up by the help of one who has caught the spirit of the master-lives he expounds. There breathes throughout the volumes of the Bishop of Durham the spirit of St. Ignatius's counsel--

'Speak to each man severally after the manner of God. Bear the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is much toil, there is much gain. If thou lovest good scholars, this is not thankworthy in thee. Rather bring the more pestilent to submission by gentleness.... The season requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a storm-tossed mariner a haven, that it may attain unto God. Be sober, as God's athlete. The prize is incorruption and life eternal, concerning which thou also art persuaded.'--(Ep. of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, I, 2.)

Ignatius of Antioch: Men of old loved to find in his name (or its Syriace quivalent, Nurono, [Greek: youra = phyr], _fire_) a prescience of the torch of divine love which blazed in him. The fancy may pass, if etymologically unsound; for Ignatius, 'the Inflamed,' was a true child of the fiery East. Contrast him and his letters with St. Clement of Rome and his Epistle to the Corinthians. Nothing is more notable in the Roman 'than the calm equable temper,' the 'sweet reasonableness.' He is essentially a _moderator_. On the other hand, impetuosity, fire, strong-headedness, are impressed on every sentence in the Epistles of Ignatius. He is by his very nature an _impeller_ of men. Both are intense, though in different ways. In Clement, the intensity of moderation dominates and guides his conduct. In Ignatius it is the intensity of passion--passion for doing and suffering--which drives him onward. In Clement we listen to the voice of a judge delivering calmly his sentence from his throne; in Ignatius we

'are startled by the ringing cry of the trumpet-call--sharp, stirring, penetrating--sounding for the battle. The fire of the hot East bursts in, like a sun, strong and impassioned; a vivid personality, in flame with love, flashes in upon the world, quivering as a sword of the cherubim; a rhetoric in which the rapid, electric thought breaks out of the strained and formless chaos of the _imagination_, as lightning out of the rolling and dark thunder-cloud; a theology, which, by the intense passion of metaphor, forces an almost violent entrance into the secrets of the Most High; a morality which can carry forward into the heights of holiness the madness of faith, the extravagance of zeal, the recklessness of enthusiasm, the audacity of love, dragging them into the service of Christ at the chariot-wheels of God's triumph--such are the characteristics of Ignatius of Antioch.'[65]

The Roman name of Ignatius (or Egnatius) tells nothing as to his birth or origin. It was not unknown in Syria and Palestine, and was sometimes borne by Jews. But another and a second name--Theophorus--of regular recurrence in the seven genuine Epistles records at least his spiritual birth. Ignatius probably assumed the name of 'the God-bearer' at the time of his conversion or his baptism; the precedent lay before him of a Saul commemorating a critical incident in his career (Acts xiii. 9) by a similar adoption of a name; and that assumed by Ignatius became in its turn an epithet freely applied to the Fathers at the Oecumenical councils. The name gave birth to more than one beautiful legend. Was not Ignatius, according to the Eastern belief, the 'God-borne' [Greek: theophoros], the very child whom the Lord took into His arms (St. Mark ix. 36, 37)? Was he not the 'God-bearer' [Greek: theophoros] on the fragments of whose heart according to Western tradition, was found stamped in golden letters the name of Jesus Christ? Whether he were a slave or not must remain uncertain. It is a more probable deduction from his own language that he--the 'untimely birth,'[66]--the 'one born out of due time' and 'the last' of the faithful, had been rescued from a pagan life, such as Antioch on the Orontes, the home of panders and dancing girls, and 'Daphnici mores' would have applauded.

'His,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'was one of those "broken"