The simple story of the book of Ruth abounds in problems for which no final solution can ever be found, since the materials for their solution are denied us. On this village scene, so different in character from most of the scenes of those ungentle times, the curtain is half lifted. But only half. Naomi returns from her sojourn abroad, bringing her daughter-in-law with her, and Ruth goes out to glean in the harvest-field. Then unexpectedly we find Naomi possessed of land, and we are left to guess how it came into her possession, and what had happened to it during the years of her sojourn in Moab. We are not told the relationship of Boaz to Elimelech, or the relationship of the nearer kinsman; nor are we told why the hand of Ruth went with the property. That the story of Ruth's marriage must be linked with the question of levirate marriage is generally agreed, though this is clearly not strictly a case of levirate marriage, since Boaz is not a brother-in-law or levir. There are not wanting, indeed, those who draw a much sharper distinction between Ruth's marriage and levirate marriage, but to this we must return. Of levirate marriage in ancient Israel we know very little, and while the later scholasticism of the Talmud may preserve, some ancient traditions, it cannot be implicitly trusted to throw light on customs which were already obsolete when the book of Ruth was written, needing to be explained to the reader as customs that formerly held in Israel.

I should like to suggest that the rather innocent petition, “ut mittas spiritum tuum sanctum in oblationem,” in the Anaphora of Hippolytus, is not a later interpolation.

In his valuable edition of the Apostolic Tradition, Dom Gregory Dix has argued that the difficulties of the Latin text are satisfactorily solved by deleting this petition. Much of his case rests on the fact that the Testamentum Domini omits the crucial clause; and it is in the light of this document that he attempts to reconstruct what Hippolytus wrote.

It seems agreed that κερδαίνω in the sense of ‘to win over an unbeliever to one's faith’ (I Cor. 9.19–22, I Pet. 3.1) or ‘to win back a sinner to the way of life required by his and your faith’ (Matt. 18.15) is an echter terminus technicus der Missions-sprache; by which is meant, apparently, that there is no precedent for this sense of the word in either Hellenistic or Rabbinic language. I wish to suggest that this view is not correct; and that the use of κερδαίνω in the passages in question, while conceivably reflecting a specifically Christian trend, is in the main determined by the Rabbinic vocabulary.

“To enter upon a Controversy in Things of Religion, without due Consideration and weighty Cause for it, is doubtless sinful. … How much Cause there is at this Time to attempt a Vindication of the Doctrines and Practices of our holy Religion, and oppose Error and Disorder, may be manifest by duly attending to the following Treatise: and as to my entering upon this Attempt, I think I may say, it was not hasty and without Consideration. I had early Knowledge of the rising of the Cloud which has covered our Heavens and darkened our Air.” So, in the year 1784, the Reverend Jonathan Scott of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, stated the motives which led him to write, A Brief View of the Religious Tenets and Sentiments Lately Published and Spread in the Province of Nova Scotia, which are contained in a Book, entitled, “Two Mites on Some of the most important and much disputed Points of Divinity, etc.,” and in a “Sermon Preached at Liverpool, Nov. 19, 1782,” and in a Pamphlet, entitled, “The Antitraditionist,” All being Publications of Mr. Henry Alline, with some Brief Reflections and Observations, also a View of the Ordination of the Author of these Books, together with a Discourse on External Order. Such a formidable title in itself offers an outline of an almost forgotten chapter in the history of Canadian thought and literature.