Epistolæ genuinæ S. Ignatii martyris

Full title: Epistolæ genuinæ S. Ignatii martyris: quæ nunc primum lucem vident ex bibliotheca Florentina. Adduntur S. Ignatii epistollæ, quales vulgo circumferuntur. Adhlæc S. Barnablæ Epistola. Accessit universis translatio vetus Edidit, et Notas addidit, Isaacus Vossius.

4to. ff. [2] (blank), pp. [8], 318, ff. [2] (blank). Signatures: *⁴ A-Rr⁴ (last leaf blank) Calf. Gilted spine raised on 4 bars. Loose front board. Title vignette (printer's device). Tailpiece, engraved initial. Text in Latin and Greek in parallel columns; editorial materials in Latin. Bookplate of the Duke of Beaufort, 1705. Manuscript label “Z.6.2.” Stamp A.J.F. Blue marbled edges. Contemporary manuscript annotations on first blank verso and through text.

Includes the spurious epistles of Ignatius, and the apocryphical Epistle of pseudo-Barnabas (see Bib# 417470/Fr# 79). This is the edition of Ignatius of Antioch in which the American biblical scholar Morton Smith claimed to have found transcribed the alleged letter of Clemens Alexandrinus concerning the ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’ (Clement of Alexandria and a secret gospel of Mark. Cambridge, Mass., 1973, Bib# 4103540/Fr# 1549 in this collection), supposedly citing an implicitly homosexual encounter between Jesus and a young acolyte. Clement’s letter, written out on the flyleaf of a copy of the Epistolæ found in a Palestinian monastery at Mar Saba, has subsequently gone missing – although Smith’s fuzzy photograph of it, in a generic or mock-generic eighteenth-century hand, providentially survives.

Contents:

-       Tou Agiou Ignatiou epistolai = Sancti Ignatii epistolae

-       Epistola Mariæ castabalitidis, et aliæ qvædam epistolæ perperam Ignatio attribvtæ

-       S. Ignatii epistolæ interpolatæ

-       E katholike tou Brnaba epistole = Catholica Barnabæ epistola

-       Isaaci Vossii notæ, ad epistolas S. Ignatii martyris

-       Ad Barnabam qvædam notæ.

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