[vladimir998]

“Obviously, this does not change the collections of the fathers, nor the issues I delineated above.”

You really don’t understand how this works do you? Schaff worked in a time when, for instance, many scholars denied the Hittites ever existed - because there was no record of them outside of scripture. Then evidence was found around the turn of the 20th century. Now no one can deny the one-time existence of the Hittites. Schaff was a man of his time and only could work with what he had. He was wrong.

“If you have anything from later works to throw in the pot to clarify any of those issues and make a case for them, please feel free.”

Already done. The vast majority of experts and scholars believe the letters of Ignatius to Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Smyrna, Philadelphia, and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna are genuine. As Patrick J. Hamell mentions in his Handbook of Patrology (Alba House, 1968), the authenticity of those letters is verified by Polycarp and Eusebius who give the contents and order of the letters.

[Elsie]

You really don’t understand how this works do you? Schaff worked in a time when, for instance, many scholars denied the Hittites ever existed - because there was no record of them outside of scripture.

So?

[Elsie]

The vast majority of experts and scholars believe the letters of Ignatius to Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Smyrna, Philadelphia, and to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna are genuine.

Move along sharply now; that sound is NOT that of axes being ground.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“authenticity of those letters is verified by Polycarp and Eusebius who give the contents and order of the letters.”

No, there remain deep problems with the books, the different versions of the books, the dates, and the historicity of Ignatius.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Just to make a record of issues related to the questionable books of Ignatius for the sake of a record and resource link on FR.

At the following link, anyone interested will see an analysis of more than any human might want to know about the issues surrounding the supposed letters of ignatius:

http://vridar.org/other-authors/roger-parvus-letters-supposedly-written-by-ignatius/

As a [very, very] short summary, here are just a few issues that remain unresolved about these writings...

Existence of a number of false letters
Existence of multiple versions of most letters
The original date before alteration is uncertain
Clearly the letters were modified, but we do not know by who or when or how many times
Lack of a Second Century witness to an Ignatius of Antioch
The historical likelihood that there was no actual Ignatius.

I will stop there. As I mentioned, the link has a twelve part series exploring deeply the problems, the author, the unusual beliefs, etc.

cc: daniel1212 - this link seems up your alley...