Theories about the authenticity of the middle recension of
Ignatius 7 letters have recently focused on questions of pseudepigraphy
relating to alleged anacronisms of theology , gaps in the sources, or
problems with the manuscript tradition. With internal and external
historical evidence failing to offer definitive persuasions to either
side of the debate, a look at the internal narrative construction of
the letters may shed further light on the question of the authenticity
of the corpus. An evaluation of the internally coherency of the
letters and their inter-textual relation to each other may reveal
aspects that would have been difficult for a forger to construct. In
particular, the 20 names that are named by Ignatius will be evaluated
and compared to see if any of these help us with the corpus’
inter-textual setting. This short paper will seek to introduce questions
as to why Ignatius might have been motivated to list the names of so
many degrees of persons- bishops, presbyters, deacons, messengers,
widows, hosts, friends? It will also seek to make some connection
between the letter (letters?) of Polycarp and the names that it also
bears witness to with the Ignatian corpus and context The role of
regional memories surrounding the martyr shrines of Polycarp in Smyrna
and of Ignatius in Rome will be briefly brought into purview in order to
demonstrate the role of witnesses as an early Christian ‘signature’ on
the traumatic events its collective memory.
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