next generation judged more wisely and more justly. Socrates was in the age of Plato and Aristotle more fully appreciated, and the gross mistake which Tacitus had made with regard to Christianity in the reign of Nero we learn from the milder tone of the younger Pliny to have passed away in the reign of Trajan. But the warnings are not less instructive for every age; and it is because the two cases, amidst infinite diversity, tend to explain each other, that we have thus ventured to bring them together.

Thus much has been suggested by those pregnant expressions of Mr. Grote which connect the individual history of Socrates with those passages in the history of the world, which all acknowledge to possess a universal interest and significance. But there are some direct lessons from this remarkable life which Mr. Grote has pointed out, of still more general application, and capable of being described apart from the more philosophical inquiries with which they are connected.

We are told that we are living in an age of scepticism; that religious belief is becoming more and more widely separated from common sense and vigorous inquiry; that one or the other must be given up as useless or as dangerous. If this be so, it is a satisfaction to find any great example to the contrary, even though at the distance of more than two thousand years, and in the streets of Pagan Athens:

'Sokrates,' so speaks the impartial voice of the modern historian, 'was the reverse of a sceptic: no man ever looked upon life with a more positive and practical eye: no man ever pursued his mark with a clearer perception of the road which he was travelling: no man over combined, in like manner, the absorbing enthusiasm of a missionary, with the acuteness, the originality, the inventive resource, and the generalising comprehension of a philosopher.'— viii. p. 669.

Such a union of genuine religious feeling with genuine common sense and profound philosophy may be rare; but amidst the controversies of modern times it is an inexpressible satisfaction to feel that the union is not impossible-to know at the same time that the boldest philosophical enterprise ever undertaken was conceived, executed, and completed, in and through a spirit of intense and sincere devotion. The clash between religion and science was discerned by him, no less clearly than by us-his course was far more difficult than ours, in proportion as Paganism is more difficult than Christianity-yet to the end he retained his hold equally on both; and no faithful history can claim his witness to the one, without acknowledging his witness to the other also. Once more. We all acknowledge Socrates to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of merely human teachers. Yet

Yet he founded no school-he left no disciples-he refused the title of master. No definite system of opinions or of doctrines can be traced to his instructions. Some of his chief admirers fell into courses of life or adopted theories of philosophy which he would have highly disapproved. Yet his influence over the whole subsequent history of European speculation is not disputed: he stands at the very fountain-head of philosophical thought. The evil tendencies, whatever they might be, of the Sophist schools were withered by him, never in full force to revive. The greatest men of later times owed their intellectual birth to his genius, if not to his direct instruction. It is needless to draw the moral of this example. There is no age of the world in which it would not have been useful. Most of all, perhaps, may it be contemplated with advantage in an age like our own, where, to found a party or to join a party in theology or in philosophy, is the virtue which covers a multitude of sins-where, to do neither is to be exposed to attacks as mistaken and as eager in kind, though happily not in degree, as those which were levelled against the character and ultimately against the life of Socrates.

Lastly, there is the especial, the singular prerogative of Socrates -his faculty, his mission, his life, of cross-examination. The points which we have just enumerated have been shared with him by others; but in this his own favourite, life-long method of pursuing or suggesting truth

'Where are we to look for a parallel to Sokratês, either in or out of the Grecian world? The cross-examining Elenchus, which he not only first struck out, but wielded with such matchless effect and to such noble purposes, has been mute ever since his last conversation in the prison; for even his great successor Plato was a writer and lecturer, not a colloquial dialectician. No man has ever been found strong enough to bend his bow; much less, sure enough to use it as he did. His life remains as the only evidence, but a very satisfactory evidence, how much can be done by this sort of intelligent interrogation; how powerful is the interest which it can be made to inspire; how energetic the stimulus which it can apply in awakening dormant reason and generating new mental power.'-viii. p. 664.

True it is that the re-appearance of such a man is, in the present state of society, impossible. Our privacy of domestic life, our established order of social intercourse, our mode of communication through books rather than through speech, render that perpetual dialogue wholly impracticable, which in the open, outof-door life of Greece needed only courage and resolution to be adequately sustained. But though the remedy is impossible, the need for it cannot be said to have diminished :—

'However little that instrument may have been applied since the death of its inventor, the necessity and use of it neither have disappeared,

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peared, nor ever can disappear. There are few men whose minds are not more or less in that state of sham knowledge against which Sokratês made war: there is no man whose notions have not been first got together by spontaneous, unexamined, unconscious, uncertified association, resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparates or inconsistencies, and leaving in his mind old and familiar phrases, and oracular propositions, of which he has never rendered to himself account: there is no man, who, if he be destined for vigorous and profitable scientific effort, has not found it a necessary branch of selfeducation, to break up, disentangle, analyse, and reconstruct, these ancient mental compounds-and who has not been driven to do it by his own lame and solitary efforts, since the giant of the colloquial Elenchus no longer stands in the market-place to lend him help and stimulus.'-p. 670.

He no longer stands amongst us. Yet we can fancy what would result were he now to visit us-were he once more to appear with that Silenic physiognomy, with that eccentric manner, with that indomitable resolution, with that captivating voice, with that homely humour, with that solemn earnestness, with that siege of questions-among the crowded parties of our metropolis, under the groves and cloisters of our universities, in the midst of our political, our ecclesiastical, our religious meetings, on the floor of our legislative assemblies, at the foot of the pulpits of our well-filled churches. How often, in a conversation, in a book, in a debate, in a speech, in a sermon, have we longed for the doors to open, and for the son of Sophroniscus to enter-how often, in the tempest of pamphlets, in the heat of angry accusations, in the discourses that have darkened counsel by words without knowledge, during the theological controversies of the past year, have we been tempted to exclaim, O for one hour of Socrates! O for one hour of that voice which should by its searching cross-examination make men see what they knew, and what they did not know-what they meant, and what they only thought they meant-what they believed in truth, and what they only believed in name-wherein they agreed, and wherein they differed. Differences, doubtless, would still remain, but they would be the differences of serious and thinking men, not the watchwords of angry disputants. The voice of the great Crossexaminer himself is indeed silent, but there is a voice in each man's heart and conscience which, if we will, Socrates has taught us to use rightly. That voice, more sacred than the divine monitor of Socrates himself, can still make itself heard; that voice still enjoins us to give to ourselves a reason for the hope that is in us both hearing and asking questions.' It tells us that with all those imaginary troubles wherewith we vex ourselves without inquiry, it shall be like as a dream when one awaketh,

so shall their image be made to vanish out of the city.' It tells us also that for that fancied repose, which self-inquiry disturbs, we shall be more than compensated by the real repose which it gives instead. A wise questioning' is indeed the half of knowledge.' 'A life without cross-examination is no life at all.'

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ART. III.-1. Corpus Ignatianum: a complete Collection of the Ignatian Epistles, genuine, interpolated, and spurious; together with numerous Extracts from them, as quoted by Ecclesiastical Writers down to the Tenth Century; in Syriac, Greek, and Latin: an English Translation of the Syriac Text, copious Notes and Introduction. By William Cureton, M.A., F.R.S., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. 1849.

2.-S. Ignatii Patris Apostolici quæ feruntur Epistolæ una cum ejusdem Martyrio: Collatis Edd. Græcis Versionibusque Syriaca, Armeniaca, Latinis: denuo recensuit Notasque criticas adjecit Jul. Henr. Petermann. Lipsia. 1849.

THE

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HE first twenty years of the 2nd century had not passed away, when Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, the angel of the Church of Smyrna,' addressed an epistle to the Church at Philippi. His fellow disciple Ignatius, condemned by Trajan at Antioch, had been transported (as we learn from the most ancient acts of his martyrdom) to Seleucia, where he had embarked for Smyrna, and having there been met by the bishops and deacons of the neighbouring churches with such greeting as a hearer of St. John hastening to his martyrdom might expect, had been hurried once more by sea through Troas to Neapolis. From thence he had travelled by land to Philippi, had crossed Macedonia, and again embarking at Epidamnus had sailed round the promontory of Italy and arrived at Rome just before the conclusion of the Games-where, with admirable constancy, he underwent the execution of his sentence, being exposed to wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The epistle of Polycarp-described by Irenæus as setting forth the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth,' and publicly read, as St. Jerome tells us, even in his time, in conventu Asia-contains a request to the Philippians that they would communicate to him what they knew of Ignatius and of those who were with him:'-some of their own clergy, as may be inferred from the beginning of Polycarp's epistle, having attended him from Philippi to Rome. It also supplies the following sentence:- The Epistles of Ignatius which he wrote unto us, together with his other letters which

have come to our hands, we have sent to you according to your order, subjoined to this epistle: and ye may be greatly profited by them, for they treat of faith and patience, and of all things that pertain to edification in the Lord Jesus.'

The letters thus collected by Polycarp were quoted by his disciple Irenæus, as we learn from the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, who relates that Irenæus makes mention of Justin Martyr and Ignatius, and cites testimonies taken from their writings; and in another place affirms that the martyrdom of Ignatius was known to Irenæus, who refers to his letters in the following passage: A certain Christian, being condemned to the beasts for his confession of faith, said, I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.' The passage is still extant in the old Latin version of Irenæus, which alone has come down to us.

Origen, in the third century, twice quotes Ignatius by name: he tells us that it was written in an epistle of Ignatius that 'the virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world;' and that one of the saints, Ignatius by name, had said of Christ, My love is crucified.' The latter of these two sentences is also quoted as from an epistle of Ignatius (γράφει δὲ καὶ ὁ θεῖος ΙγνάTIOs) by the author of the writings which bear the name of Dionysius the Areopagite-and which are ascribed by Bishop Pearson to the beginning of the fourth century. But the testimony of Eusebius, who had seen many of the disciples of Origen, is, as might be expected from the plan of his work, far fuller and more important than that of any of those yet mentioned. He relates, that while Polycarp flourished at Smyrna, and Papias at Hierapolis,―

'Ignatius, who is celebrated among many (ñaρà πλelotois diaßóntos) even to the present time, had obtained the episcopate, being second in the succession from Peter at Antioch. Of whom it is related that being sent from Syria to the city of Rome, he was devoured by wild beasts on account of his confession of Christ. And passing through Asia under the vigilant guard of his keepers, confirming the dioceses, as he stayed at each city, by verbal discourses and exhortations, he charged them most especially to beware of the heresies then first springing up and beginning to abound, and exhorted them to maintain resolutely the tradition of the apostles, which for the more security he thought it necessary to set forth in writing also, thus confirming it by his own testimony. Having therefore arrived at Smyrna where Polycarp was, he writes one epistle to the Church at Ephesus mentioning its pastor Onesimus; another to that at Magnesia on the Mæander, in which again he makes mention of their bishop, Damas; and another to that in Tralles, mentioning Polybius as then being its ruler. Besides these, he writes to the Church of the Romans; to whom he addresses an entreaty