Editing James Ussher (section)

===Scholarship on Ignatius===
Ussher wrote two treatises on the epistles of [[Ignatius of Antioch]] while doing his work on church hierarchy. They were scholarly achievements that modern experts largely concur with. In Ussher's time, the only collection of Ignatius's writing easily available was the Long Recension, a set of 16 epistles. Ussher closely examined it and found problems that had gone uncommented on for centuries: differences in tone, theology, and apparent anachronistic references to theological disputes and structures that did not exist during Ignatius's time. Additionally, medieval authors commenting on Ignatius did not appear to be reading the same letters of the Long Recension. Ussher researched and found a shorter set, usually called the Middle Recension, and argued that only the letters contained in it were authentically Ignatius's. The unknown compiler of the Long Recension edited Ignatius's work and included some of his own, and seems to have had [[Arian]] tendencies. He published this Latin edition of the genuine Ignatian works in 1644. The only major difference between Ussher's stance and modern scholars is that Ussher thought that the [[Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp]] was also inauthentic; most modern scholars believe it to be a genuine production of Ignatius, however.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lightfoot |first1=Joseph Barber |title=The Apostolic Fathers: Revised Texts with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations and Translations. S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp |date=1889 |publisher=Macmillan |pages=413–414 |edition=Second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Glff5uXQPDMC}}</ref><ref name="ehrman">{{cite book |last=Ehrman |first=Bart |author-link=Bart Ehrman |date=2012 |title=Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics |publisher= Oxford University Press |pages=472–474 |isbn=9780199928033 }}.</ref>