It would be hopeless to attempt to settle a disputed question of criticism by enumerating authorities on different sides, as, after all, the value of these authorities would be variously discounted. We must seek to arrive at truth, not by quoting names, but by weighing arguments. Not a few, however, whose opinion may be entitled to some respect, will not be prepared to agree with Bishop Lightfoot when he affirms that those who reject these Ignatian letters are, with few exceptions, only to be found in the "list of second and third rate names" in literature. [8:1] We have seen that Bentley and Porson disagree with him--and he can point to no more eminent critics in the whole range of modern scholarship. If Daillé must be placed in the second rank, surely Pearson may well be relegated to the same position; for there is most respectable proof that his _Vindiciae_, in reply to the treatise of the French divine, was pronounced by Porson to be a "very unsatisfactory" performance. [8:2] "The most elaborate and ingenious portion of the work" is, as Bishop Lightfoot himself confesses, "the least satisfactory." [8:3] Dr. Lightfoot, we believe, will hardly pretend to say that Vossius, Bull, and Waterland stand higher in the literary world than Salmasius, John Milton, and Augustus Neander; and he will greatly astonish those who are acquainted with the history and writings of one of the fathers of the Reformation, if he will contend that John Calvin must be placed only in the second or third class of Protestant theologians. In the presence of the great doctor of Geneva, Hammond, Grotius, Zahn, and others whom Dr. Lightfoot has named as his supporters, may well hide their diminished heads.