Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

John Myn

Apostoli tathats

Explish. 1810. Wake

THE GENUINE

EPISTLES

OF THE

APOSTOLICAL FATHERS,

ST. BARNABAS, § ST. CLEMENT,
ST. IGNATIUS, ST. POLYCARP,

THE

SHEPHERD OF HERMAS,

AND THE

MARTYRDOMS

OF

ST. IGNATIUS AND ST. POLYCARP,

WRITTEN BY THOSE WHO WERE PRESENT AT THEIR

SUFFERINGS.

Being, together with the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, a
complete collection of the most primitive antiquity, for
about one hundred and fifty years after Christ.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

RELATING TO THE SEVERAL TREATISES HERE PUT TOGETHER.

By William, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.

i.e. Abp. Wake.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

598 A645.2

Еид

181045

THE

PREFACE.

HAVING, in the second edition of the Apostolical Fathers, so far improved the translation I before pubfished of them, as to render it almost a new work; it will be necessary for me to give some account of the changes that have been made in it, and what advantages I have had for the making of them.

The Epistles of St. Clement had been so correctly set forth from the Alexandrian manuscript, by the learned Mr. Patrick Young, that having no other copy to recur to, there are no considerable alterations to be expected in the present edition of them. And yet even in these, I have not only carefully reviewed my translation, and compared it with the original Greek, and corrected whatsoever I thought to be less exact in it; but by help of a new, and more accurate collation of Mr. Young's copy, with that venerable manuscript from which it was taken, I have amended some places in the text itself, which had hitherto escaped all the editors of these Epistles. For this I was beholden to the friendly assistance of the very iearned, and pious, Dr. Grabe; to whose ready help these Apostolical Fathers owe a great part of that exactness, with which, presume, they will appear in this edition of them.

I

The Epistles of St. Ignatius having been lately published at Oxford, by our Reverend Dr. Smith, not

only with a much greater correctness in the text than ever they were before, but with the advantage of his own, and Bishop Pearson's observations upon the difficult places of them; it cannot be thought, but that I must have very much improved my translation of those Epistles, from the learned labours of two such eminent masters of antiquity; and who had taken such great care, not only to restore those venerable pieces to their primitive purity, but to render them clear, and intelligible, to the meanest capacities. One of those Epistles had never been set forth, from any good manuscript in its original Greek, when I published my first edition of them. This, together with the martyrdom of that blessed Saint, has since been printed by Monsieur Ruinard at Paris, and from thence by . Dr. Grabe at Oxford. I have compared my translation of both with their copy; and not only corrected it where it disagreed with that, but have noted in the margin, the chief variations of this last edition, from those which had been published by Archbishop Usher, and Isaac Vossius before.

Of the epistle and martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and the epistle of Barnabas, I have little to say more than that I have revised the translation of them, with all the care I could, and rendered it much more correct (especially the epistle of Barnabas) than it was before. But as for the books of Hermas, I may without vanity affirm that they are not only more exact in the translation than they were before, but that the very books themselves will be found in greater purity in this, than in any other edition that has ever yet been published of them. The old Latin version has been entirely

collated with an antient manuscript of it in the Lambeth library; and from thence amended in more places than could well have been imagined. And that very version itself has been farther improved from a multitude of new fragments of the original Greek, never before observed; and for the most part taken out of the late magnificent edition of the works of St. Athanasius; though that piece be none of his, but the work of the younger Athanasius, patriarch of the same church, who lived about the 7th century.[See Tom. ii, p. 251. doctrin. ad Antioch Ducem.]— Both these advantages I do likewise owe to the same learned person (Dr. Grabe) I before mentioned, who not only purposely collated the one for me, but readily communicated to me the extracts he had made for his own use out of the other.

Having said thus much concerning the several pieces themselves here set forth, and the translation of them, I shall not trouble the reader with any long account of my own introductory discourse; in which I have added some things and corrected others. I hope as it now stands,it may be of some use to those who have not any better opportunities of being acquainted with these matters, and convince them of the just regard that is due to the discourses which follow it, upon this double account, both that they were (for the most part) truly written by those whose names they bear; and that those writers lived so near the Apostolical times, that it cannot be doubted, but that they do indeed represent to us the doctrine, government and discipline of the church as they received it from the Apostles; the Apostles from Christ, and that blessed Spirit, who

« AnteriorContinuar »