Polycarpi et Ignatii epistolae: una cum vetere vulgata interpretatione Latina, ex trium manuscriptorum codicum collatione, integritati suae restituta. Accessit & Ignatianarum epistolarum versio antiqua alia, ex duobus manuscriptis in Anglia repertis, nunc primum in lucem edita. Quibus praefixa est, non de Ignatii solum & Polycarpi scriptis, sed etiam de apostolicis constitutionibus & canonibus Clementi Romano tributis. by Polycarp, Saint, Bp. of Smyrna; & Ignatius, Saint, Bp. of Antioch - 1644

Oxoniae: Excudebat Leonardus Lichfield Academiae Typographus, 1644. 4to (21.5 cm; 8.5"). cxlvi, [1], 243, [2], 53 pp.

Controversies have stages and the Ignatian Controversy had three. In the period from the first printing of the Ignatian letters (1495) till 1644, the Longer Greek recension was all that was known and it was accepted despite early awareness of some spurious aspects. => The second stage began with the publication of the present work in which Bishop Ussher printed the letters based on the Shorter Greek recension as found in Latin manuscripts in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and in the private collection of Robert Montagu — the Greek text for which was soon found and published two years later. The final stage came in 1845 with the discovery of the Syrian “extract.”
    The texts of the Epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius are here presented in parallel columns, in the Greek of the Longer recension and in Robert Grosseteste's mid-13th-century Latin translation. Ignatius' Greek text is printed in red and black; red for words and passages not appearing in the Latin version reproduced on pp. 195–238, and, in the "Emendanda," for words and passages not appearing in the Greek text on pp. 239–41.
    Besides editing and translating the letters, Irish-born Ussher provides notes and an essay, “De Ignatii Martyris Epistolis, indeque . . . de Polycarpi quoque scriptis, atque Apostolicis Constitutionibus et Canonibus Clementi Romano tributis,” at the end of the volume.
    The ESTC record indicates that a portion of this work was salvaged from an edition of Ignatii, Polycarpi, et Barnabæ, epistolae atq[ue], martyria quibus praefixa est de Polycarpi & Ignatii scriptis Jacobi Usserii archiepiscopi armachani dissertatio: quae in hoc volumine continentur alia, operi praefixa synopsis indicabit that was accidentally burnt while being printed by Lichfield in 1642.
    Provenance: 17th- or 18th-century ownership signatures of "Will. Young" and of "John Dearle." In early 19th century given to Kenyon College by John Foster of Hertfordshire; in the 20th century in the library of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (properly deaccessioned).
    
    Wing (2nd ed.) P2789; Wing (rev. ed.) U185; Madan, II, 1739–1744; ESTC R203207. Contemporary sprinkled calf, modestly tooled in blind with a double rule on covers; rebacked, original spine label reattached, new front free endpaper. Library bookplates and one-line rubber-stamps on pastedowns but not title-page; one leaf with small loss of paper in lower margin, not affecting text. Edges of title-leaf and leaf following darkened from offset of the turn-ins. => Solid, handsomely printed, interesting.