Text comparison of Letters of Ignatius of Antioch

Christian Alexander
Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I want to do a text comparison much like the text comparison biblical tool does of Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. First I want to know if there are different manuscripts. Bard said there is but I cannot find out what the different manuscripts are. Bard said there were short, medium, and long manuscripts of Ignatius' letters. Looking on the forums I found this https://community.logos.com/forums/p/73562/512848.aspx#512848  I am studying The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians and The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians. I am trying to discover Ignatius and his relationship to the Gospel of John. I believe with research on the topic that Ignatius came into contact with the oral tradition of the Fourth Gospel.  I also suspect that the reception of Ignatius can be compared with that of the tradition of the Gospel of John as they are both emerging from the Hellenistic shadows of the late first to early second century. This is where I started. I have not seen any further hits. I did a lot of research into his origins and theological basis. Am I missing anything in my analysis? 

Brent, Allen. "The enigma of Ignatius of Antioch." The journal of ecclesiastical history 57, no. 3 (2006): 429-456.

Brent, Allen. Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the Origin of Episcopacy. London: T&T Clark, 2009

Burghardt, Walter J. "Did Saint Ignatius of Antioch Know the Fourth Gospel?." Theological studies 1, no. 2 (1940): 130-156.

Byers, Andrew J. "Johannine Bishops?: The Fourth Evangelist, John the Elder, and the Episcopal Ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch." Novum Testamentum 60, no. 2 (2018): 121-139.

Cosgrove, Charles H. "The place where Jesus is: allusions to baptism and the Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel." New Testament Studies 35, no. 4 (1989): 522-539.

Foster, Paul. "Ignatius and the Gospels." In Gospels and Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Experiments in Reception, pp. 81-106. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018.

Goulder, Michael D. "Ignatius'" Docetists"." Vigiliae christianae 53, no. 1 (1999): 16-30.

Grant, Robert M. "Scripture and tradition in St. Ignatius of Antioch." The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (1963): 322-335.

Löhr, Hermut. The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch. Pages 91–115 in The Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction. Edited by Wilhelm Pratscher. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010

Musurillo, Herbert. "Ignatius of Antioch: Gnostic or Essene? A Note on Recent Work." Theological Studies 22, no. 1 (1961): 103-110.

Pagels, Elaine H. "The Social History of Satan, Part Three: John of Patmos and Ignatius of Antioch: Contrasting Visions of “God's People”." Harvard Theological Review 99, no. 4 (2006): 487-505.

Weinandy, Thomas G., and O. F. M. Cap. "The Apostolic Christology of Ignatius of Antioch: The Road to Chalcedon." Trajectories through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (2005): 71-84.

Wesche, Kenneth Paul. “St. Ignatius of Antioch: The Criterion of Orthodoxy and the Marks of Catholicity.” Pro Ecclesia 3, no. 1 (1994): 89–109

I am trying to get this article and this book.

Trebilco, Paul. The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius. WUNT 2/ 166. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004

Lookadoo, Jonathon. "The Reception of the Gospel of John in the Long Recension of Ignatius’s Letters." Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42, no. 4 (2020): 496-520.

This search got two hits

https://app.logos.com/search?kind=all&q=%22Ignatius+of+Antioch%22+NEAR+%22Gospel+of+John%22&resources=allResources&source=searchPanel&syntax=v2 

This search got 8 hits

https://app.logos.com/search?kind=all&q=%22Ignatius+of+Antioch%22+NEAR+%22John%27s+Gospel%22&resources=allResources&source=searchPanel&syntax=v2

Removing the "of Antioch" got me 14 hits. 

https://app.logos.com/search?kind=all&q=%22Ignatius%22+NEAR+%22John%27s+Gospel%22&resources=allResources&source=searchPanel&syntax=v2

https://app.logos.com/search?kind=all&q=%22Ignatius%22+NEAR+%22Gospel+of+John%22&resources=allResources&source=searchPanel&syntax=v2 

This excerpt comes from the Martyrdom of Iganatius or Martyrium Ignatii:

And after a great deal of suffering he came to Smyrna, where he disembarked with great joy, and hastened to see the holy Polycarp, [formerly] his fellow-disciple, and [now] bishop of Smyrna. For they had both, in old times, been disciples of St. John the Apostle.

Comments

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 14,629 ✭✭✭✭✭

    https://www.logos.com/product/46715/the-apostolic-fathers-part-2-vol-1-st-ignatius-st-polycarp 

    has Lightfoot's analysis of Ignatius' 'genuine' letters and greek similarities. Also include the Martyrdom account. It's definitely not light reading, bouncing from the greek to the syriac, and Paul, Ignatius and John. 1889.

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,493

    Ignatius of Antioch. The Letters: English Translation. Edited by John Behr. Translated by Alistair Stewart. Vol. 49. Popular Patristics Series. Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013. has a decent discussion of the recensions. It is available in Logos. Not the most recent critical texts but Ignatius of Antioch. Corpus Ignatianum: A Complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles, Genuine, Interpolated, and Spurious. Translated by William Cureton. Berlin: Asher and Co., 1849. should give you a decent base for comparison. Also in Logos.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Rick Brannan
    Rick Brannan MVP Posts: 258

    Just piggy-backing on DMB & MJ.

    Lightfoot is the source for understanding how the current consensus around the so-called "middle" recension developed. Not an easy read, but if you're interested it is worth the work. Basically, IIRC, folks were all about the long recension, the Cureton shows up with this crazy short Syriac stuff and people go "oooh, shiny!" and love it, and then Lightfoot rolls in with guns blazing saying, "um, not so fast, folks; the middle is where it's at."

    Have you tried using Factbook yet? That would index to dictionary articles about Ignatius of Antioch, some of which will go into the issues with recensions.

    Other works that would get into intertextuality between the Apostolic Fathers and the NT:

    Oxford Society of Historical Theology. 2009. The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. // I'd guess you've got this in a logos package somewhere. It was originally published in the early 1900s, edited by Kirsopp Lake.

    One other volume that you'd likely need to find in a library is the 2006 update of the above volume, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers edited by Gregory and Tuckett. Here's the blurb from Amazon:

    [quote]The first volume, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, presents a comprehensive and rigorous discussion of the extent to which the writings later included in the New Testament were known to and used by each of the Apostolic Fathers. Contemporary research on the textual traditions of both collections is used to address the questions of textual transmission and reception.

    Rick Brannan | Bluesky: rickbrannan.com

  • Rick Brannan
    Rick Brannan MVP Posts: 258

    Also, RE:

    [quote]Trebilco, Paul. The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius. WUNT 2/ 166. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004

    This book was republished in paperback by Eerdmans and might be easier to find in that format than the Mohr Siebeck printing.

    Rick Brannan | Bluesky: rickbrannan.com

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭

    Have you tried using Factbook yet? That would index to dictionary articles about Ignatius of Antioch, some of which will go into the issues with recensions.

    Not yet. I did pull Encyclopaedia Britannica,  Encyclopedia of religion by Lindsay Jones and Eerdmans Bible Dictionary in my print library. 

    Other works that would get into intertextuality between the Apostolic Fathers and the NT:

    What sources are you looking at here? 

    Oxford Society of Historical Theology. 2009. The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. // I'd guess you've got this in a logos package somewhere. It was originally published in the early 1900s, edited by Kirsopp Lake.

    One other volume that you'd likely need to find in a library is the 2006 update of the above volume, The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers edited by Gregory and Tuckett. 

    I do own The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. I will try to get the 2006 update.  Lightfoot's source looks good. I have  read it before but could not remember. Thanks for prodding me everyone.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,493

    What sources are you looking at here? 

    He answered in what you quote below. Your question made no sense.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."