OR, THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME UNDER COMMODUS AND ALEXANDER SEVERUS: AND ANCIENT AND MODERN CHRISTIANITY AND DIVINITY COMPARED. BY CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAS BUNSEN, D.C.L. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. The Apology of Hippolytus, and the Genuine Liturgies of WITH BERNAYSII EPISTOLA CRITICA. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. PREFACE. I CONCLUDE this work about the anniversary of the day on which, last year, I wrote the first of my Letters to Archdeacon Hare. The first two Volumes, together with the Apology of Hippolytus, were written and printed in the last six months of 1851; the third and fourth in the first six months of 1852. The Apology of Hippolytus is designed to complete the picture of a man and of an age representing the beginnings of Christianity, and throwing therefore a new light on its prospects, which are those of the human race. The second part of this Volume presents a succinct account of the gradual formation of the Christian worship and rituals in the ancient Church, and gives the texts of the liturgies for the first time critically and historically arranged. But I cannot take leave of my readers without adding a word on the Ignatian question, upon which the work of Hippolytus bears, directly or indirectly, in so many respects. I believe I have done something in this book to wards bringing it nearer to a complete solution. I have shown the prevalence of an early systematic corruption of the ancient texts in the East by the Byzantines, exactly as such a fraud was practised later by the Romanists in the West. I have in particular shown that the text of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions exhibits corruptions and interpolations perfectly similar to those which even in Eusebius' time had made a sad twaddler out of that most energetic and original martyr and Father, Ignatius, and a legend out of his true history. Curiously enough, the most striking instance is here also found in a Syriac text. That separation of the original contents of the first six books of the Constitutions from the later interpolations, which I had endeavoured to establish by the mere application of sound critical principles, is confirmed by a Syriac manuscript at Paris. Finally, I have restored the historical character of Ignatius of Antioch more completely than before, by showing in the Introduction to the Liturgies, and in the Reliquiæ Liturgica themselves, that the tradition about his influence upon the formation of the worship of the Church over which he presided is borne out by corresponding cotemporary facts and testimonies, and by the documents of the Antiochene liturgy. These circumstances may perhaps induce some German critics to reconsider their doubts as to the genuineness of what we possess of Ignatius, and as to the historical character of the accounts of that remarkable man. It would be useless to expect so much regard for historical criticism from those who, after the Libyan discovery, have endeavoured to maintain the authenticity of that product of impudent forgery called the Seven Epistles of Ignatius. There are undoubtedly good scholars among these men; but they must forgive me if I say that it is, even in England, an anachronism to treat the question of Ignatius and his Epistles apart from collateral facts, and as if the world, since the days of Pearson, had not learned anything as to primitive church history and historical criticism. Their method of conducting controversies would not be tolerated for a moment in the field of classical literature, where men like Porson and Gaisford, Niebuhr and Hermann, Böckh and Ritschl rule, where nothing is at stake except that of which Pilate doubted the existence, and where it is considered as unbecoming to seek truth, not as a judge, in order to find it, but as an advocate, in order to betray it. Until they resolve to test the value of the Greek text by the facts which have come to light through the Libyan discovery, and by the principles of historical criticism, their reasonings must remain barren and fruitless; and, until they cease to make the defence of their opinions a matter of faith, it will be useless to dispute with them. |