This Epistle stands in the second line of the evidence, and as a witness is rather confirmatory than principal.
3.
After Dr.Lightfoot's masterly exposition there is probably nothing more to be said about the genuineness, date, and origin of the Ignatian Epistles.

Dr.Lightfoot has done in the most lucid and admirable manner just that which is so difficult to do, and which 'Supernatural Religion' has so signally failed in doing; he has succeeded in conveying to the reader a true and just sense of the exact weight and proportion of the different parts of the evidence.

He has avoided such phrases as 'absurd,' 'impossible,' 'preposterous,' that his opponent has dealt in so freely, but he has weighed and balanced the evidence piece by piece; he has carefully guarded his language so as never to let the positiveness of his conclusion exceed what the premises will warrant; he has dealt with the subject judicially and with a full consciousness of the responsibility of his position [Endnote 77:1].
We cannot therefore, I think, do better than adopt Dr.Lightfoot's conclusion as the basis of our investigation, and treat the Curetonian (i.e.the three short Syriac) letters as (probably) 'the work of the genuine Ignatius, while the Vossian letters (i.e.the shorter Greek recension of seven Epistles) are accepted as valid testimony at all events for the middle of the second century--the question of the genuineness of the letters being waived.' The Curetonian Epistles will then be dated either in 107 or in 115 A.D., the two alternative years assigned to the martyrdom of Ignatius.

In the Epistle to Polycarp which is given in this version there is a parallel to Matt.x.16, 'Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.' The two passages may be compared thus:-- _Ign.

ad Pol._ ii.
[Greek: Psronimos ginou hos ophis en apasin kai akeaios osei perisetera.] _Matt._ x.