the late Chev. Bunsen ; among the latter, an anonymous writer in the Eiiglish Review, and Dr.
Hefele, in his third edition of the Apostolic Fathers. In reply to those who had controverted his
arguments, Cureton published his VindicicB Ignatiance. in 1846, and his Corpus Jgnatianum in 1849.
He begins his introduction to the last-named work with the following sentences : " Exactly three
centuries and a half intervened between the time when three Epistles in Latin, attributed to St.
Ignatius, first issued from the press, and the publication in 1845 of three letters in Syriac bearing
the name of the same apostolic writer. Very few years passed before the former were almost
universally regarded as false and spurious ; and it seems not improbable that scarcely a longer
period will elapse before the latter be almost as generally acknowledged and received as the only
true and genuine letters of the venerable Bishop of Antioch that have either come down to our
times, or were ever known in the earliest ages of the Christian Church."