Apologia for ‘Greek’ Ignatius
Syriac & Middle Greek Variations
Introduction
In this post, I will demonstrate why Nathan’s claims that the “middle recension” aren’t as convincing as he claims. Though I understand I am disagreeing with a perceived scholar, I do not find his rebuttals on the Greek middle transmission compelling. I find his assertion of Ignatius and the Syriac collection to be misleading, if not unpersuasive. Due to time constraints, I will not be highlighting his exact words with a specific time stamp as I did in previous posts. I am here to simply respond to certain points he made throughout the video.
Subject #1 — The Dating Priority
According to Nathan and other sources, the Syriac collection was estimated to be around the fourth and fifth century. And he contends that the Greek collection (including the longer Arian collection) are dated to be older and even interpolated after the death of Ignatius of Antioch. And so, his whole argument is that the Syriac collection must be genuine, because not only does the Greek collection (specifically the longer recension) retain interpolations, but it seems to indicate that the Greek collection should likely contain interpolations even in the middle collection due to a late dating and similar manuscript tradition.
While this theory might seem convincing initially, it doesn’t seem effective at retrospect. The two earliest witnesses of the Greek collection (e.g. Eusebius and Athanasius) are dated around the middle third and late fourth century, which surpasses the Syriac collection by a century or somewhat less. Despite having later transmissions of their writings (due to some concerns), Eusebius and Athanasius do not support the Syriac collection. Nathan and the host speculate that these two early witnesses are too late or distant to be accurate witnesses of the Greek Ignatian collection, but the same objection can be made against the Syriac collection due to being a century older than the two witnesses. Although, their writings are later transmissions, there is no valid reason to speculate that someone interpolated Eusebius and Athanasius to support the Greek collection of Ignatius since not even Origen or Irenaeus (i.e. earlier patristic witnesses) were interpolated to support this cause. The given dating priority by Nathan simply has no effective cause for changing our minds about the Middle collection unless the Syriac collection were as early as the 2nd century. But again, the dating objection isn’t sufficient to refute the Middle collection.
Subject #2 — Theological Contents
Nathan argues that the longer recension was likely interpolated by the Arians to support their cause in the controversy. I am inclined to agree that the Longer collection was interpolated due to noticing deviations from Ignatius’ thought found in the Middle collection. And interpolations are most noticeable in a collection that is part of the longer corpus. He argues that since there was a theological controversy concerning the divinity of Jesus, orthodox Christians likely interpolated Ignatius’ letters while the Arians fabricated the longer corpus; however, this objection as well seems implausible.
The Middle collection of Ignatius represents beliefs prevalent in the early days of the Early Church prior to the theological controversy of the Arians. These beliefs demonstrated in the middle corpus are Docetism (i.e. early gnostic heresy), anti-torah observance (e.g. as evidenced in early writings like the Apology of Aristides XIV, the Epistle to the Hebrews 8–10, Epistle of Barnabas 9–10, Epistle to Diognetus 3–4), the Christocentric exegesis of Scripture (i.e. the Old Testament is read in primacy of Christ instead of in equal terms), mono-episcopacy, and a partial eschatology commonly shared by Polycarp 2 and the Didache 16:7 (i.e. only the justified are resurrected except the wicked due to concealing universalism from the masses). If orthodox Christians wished to fabricate the middle corpus of Ignatius, then why add theologies that are no longer relevant to the late theological controversy like Docetism and anti-torah observance? It seems extremely unlikely for orthodox Christians to interpolate that many theological subjects with most subjects being irrelevant to the Arian controversy. This accusation by Nathan that Ignatius wasn’t theologically oriented seems implausible due to his role as a bishop and his apostolic succession from the apostles.
Citations from Greek Ignatius:
Docetism, Smyrnaeans 5:2–3.
Christo-exegesis, Philadelphians 8:2–9:2.
Anti-Torah, Magnesians 8:1–9:2.
Partial Eschatology (denying their resurrection), Smyrnaeans 2.
Doctrine of Reserve (due to concealing universal resurrection), Traillians 5:1–2.
Subject #3 — Style of Writing/Composition
Nathan seems to think that since the middle corpus doesn’t flow as naturally as the Syriac collection, it is likely that the middle corpus was interpolated due to an unsound structure. While this assertion seems defensible, this claim is somewhat misleading, because authentic Ignatius was plausibly under distress and too constrained by time to compose a sound structure of his thoughts; hence, we find run-on sentences and so forth. Ignatius most likely had no secretary, so this might explain the lack of natural literary flow.
Subject #4 — Quotations Derived From Limited Data
Nathan and the host believe that Origen and Irenaeus did not quote portions only unique to the Greek corpus, but portions that are found in both manuscript traditions, which concludes that the Syriac collection was known by the earliest witnesses instead of the Greek collection. This argument stems from the appeal of probability and improbability due to the unlikely nature of quoting portions not unique to the Greek corpus. But this argument doesn’t seem convincing, because Irenaeus and Origen merely used Ignatius as an example of his love and mental fortitude for Christ. If Irenaeus and Origen gave full commentaries on the epistles of Ignatius, and there happen to be no trace of the middle corpus, this argument would be more compelling than citing small portions of Ignatius. While this appeal against the middle corpus might have some merit, I don’t find it fair to classify this as an effective objection due to limited data on Ignatian quotes during the early centuries of the Church. If Nathan and the host have a full commentary of the Ignatian epistles by Origen or Irenaeus, then the case would be closed, but they certainly don’t possess this kind of evidence or data. In other words, it’s a bit more speculative.
Personal Objection on the Syriac Community (& Closing)
The Syriac collection of Ignatius seems to be a limitation on material resource and transmission, or perhaps the transmitter could not accurately convey Ignatius’ deeper thoughts on theology due to limited Greek education. But despite these speculations posed by me, the Syriac tradition or community had limited resources; for example, no Syriac Christian writer had any knowledge of the Shepherd despite its fame in the Greek and Latin communities (nor was it ever quoted), there’s more patristic writers exemplified by the Greek and Latin communities than the Syriac community, and even the four Gospels in their independent forms weren’t accessible to the Syriac community, which led them to rely on Tatian’s harmonized text of the four Gospels, the Diatessaron, for a few centuries until Theodoret confiscated and replaced them in the fifth century (cf. Jonathan E. Soyars, The Shepherd of Hermas and the Pauline Legacy (Brill, 2019), pp. 9 — 10; Cross, F. L, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, article Diatessaron). Based on these three major premises, there’s no compelling reason to suggest that the Syriac collection is a byproduct of a resourceful transmission, nor is there any reason to conclude that the Syriac community always had complete texts that were faithfully transmitted from the Koine Greek. If the four Gospels and the Shepherd, both of which are famed texts, weren’t known or reliably transmitted until the fifth century, then it is likely that the Greek collection of Ignatius failed to be transmitted in its entirety; hence, why we have abridged epistles and a heavy absence of most Ignatian theological content.
