Observe those who hold erroneous opinions concerning the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how they run counter to the mind of God! They concern themselves with neither works of charity, nor widows, nor orphans, nor the distressed, nor those in prison or out of it, nor the hungry or thirsty. From Eucharist and prayer they hold aloof, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His loving-kindness raised from the dead. And so, those who question the gift of God perish in their contentiousness. It would be better for them to have love, so as to share in the resurrection. It is proper, therefore, to avoid associating with such people and not to speak about them either in private or in public, but to study the Prophets attentively and, especially, the Gospel, in which the Passion is revealed to us and the Resurrection shown in its fulfillment.
I have two concerns:
1] I don't have much confidence in the authenticity of the document, based on what I read in the Catholic Encyclopedia about conflicting manuscripts and authorship.
2] If authentic, it was written about 70 years after the death of Christ...about 3 generations had passed. If he was a disciple of John, that says a lot for him; but did he not learn at the knee of anyone else? Did all his learning come from John? How long did John disciple him? I mean, was he a disciple in the true sense of the word, or did he just audit a couple of weekend classes? 8^ D Keep me posted if you find anything else, especially from that first century. Thanks, dadwags.
Have you ever read a NT studies textbook on how we (Protestants too) work our textural criticism? We've got lots of conflicting manuscripts and doubts about authorship (not that a letter from an early church father that in non-canonical is inspired or that we would have as many copies to work from). The miracle is how God held the scriptures so perfectly together with all of the potential pitfalls.
Think of all the letters of Paul (many of which claim no Pauline authorship - it is merely "tradition" that they are attributed to Paul). Many Protestant Scripture scholars believe that many of them were not his. Does that mean they are not inspired by God? Absolutely NOT. But even with all of the evidence we have one way or the other, the "authorship" is still disputed.
While the Catholic Enyclopedia is an outstanding reference, it was written in the first decade of the 1900's. Textual criticism and modern Patristic scholarship has has matured a lot in the past 100 years.
Also, the translations and editorial notes of the Early Church Fathers at CCEL are about 120 years old. Once again, scholarship has increased by leaps and bounds since then.
I could be wrong, but I don't think that (what seems like) the most prolific Protestant apologists on the Internet, James White and William Webster(men who make a living into trying to find Protestantism in the Fathers), dispute the authenticity of the shorter version of Ignatius' 7 epistles.
Just some food for thought.
I just ordered a four book set on the Early Church Fathers. When I get them, I see what info the author has on this subject.
Pray