Last year there was published in New York a Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. This version, in the words of the title-page, is “translated from the Greek being the version set forth in 1611, revised 1881 and 1901, and compared with the most ancient authorities and revised 1946.” In effect this Revised Standard Version is a revision in the light of the Greek text of the English and American Revised Versions. It is not my business in this lecture to discuss the merits and demerits of this new Version as a translation. What I wish to point out, however, is that such a new version has been rendered necessary not only for linguistic but for textual reasons. The discovery of additional MSS and the very considerable achievements of textual critics since the publication of Hort's theory of the text in 1881, a theory which exercised considerable influence upon the framers of the English Revised Version, have, quite apart from any other considerations, made a fresh revision desirable.

Έπερωτηθεὶς δὲ ὑπὸ τῶν Φαρισαίων πότε ἔρχεται ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς καὶ εἶπεν Οὐκ ἔρχεται ἡ βασιλεία μετὰ παρατηρήσεως, οὐδὲ ἐροῦσιν Ίδοὺ ὡδε ἤ Έκεῖ ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστίν

It is well-nigh an article of faith, repeated from one manual to another, that at the end of the third day of the Anthesteria at Athens, the Chytroi, the Athenians used to say θύραζε κῆρες, οὐκέτ᾽ ᾿Ανθεστήρια and that this meant “go away, ghosts, the Anthesteria are over.” It is the more interesting because, if κῆρες means “ghosts” here, it is the only passage in all literature where it does so; and also because this is far from being the only account of the saying, be it an old liturgical formula or not, that has come down to us. In what seems the better tradition of Zenobios the paroemiographer we have Kᾶρες, which probably goes back to Didymos and through him to some older author still, it may be Demon, i.e., to early Hellenistic times. It is accompanied by a silly, pseudohistorical explanation, clearly coined to suit the occasion, that in old days a part of Attica was held by Karians, who were allowed to come into Athens for the festival and then told to go away when it was over. A later MS. tradition, still in Zenobios, says that “some” said κῆρες, but offers no explanation. Photios in his lexicon and Suidas copying him quote the saying in both forms, but this time with a different explanation of Kᾶρες it means “Karian slaves” and bids them go about their work (presumably in the fields) now that the festival, in which they were allowed to share, is at an end.

The site of ancient Thessalonica has been continuously inhabited as an important city ever since its foundation by the forceful Macedonian king, Cassander, in the last years of the fourth century before Christ. Yet few ancient cities of equal importance have been the subject of so little investigation in modern times. Up to now, the inscriptions found in Salonica have all been chance discoveries, almost invariably due to such causes as the demolition of the old city walls during the last decades of the nineteenth and the early years of this century, the remodelling or removal of older buildings and other construction inevitable in the life of a large port and center of population. For these reasons it must be emphasized that the several hundred pagan Greek inscriptions of Thessalonica whose texts are now known (many of the stones once seen have been lost or destroyed) are in fact a quite fortuitous body of evidence. The following pages, therefore, cannot pretend to be a balanced and complete study of the religious cults of pagan Thessalonica. That is a task for the future when circumstances will, we must hope, permit a continuous and accurate study of the existing ancient remains, as well as of those new discoveries which may confidently be anticipated. Here I have only attempted to put together what can now be said about the cults of the Roman city.

Among the Graeco-Oriental cults that shared the loyalties of the Mediterranean peoples during the first four centuries of our era, the religion of Sarapis occupied a commanding position. Throughout his career Sarapis was a worker of miracles, but no miracle of his doing ever equalled in historical significance the political thaumaturgy by which he was brought to life. A composite figure created in the last years of the fourth century B.C. by the first Ptolemy, for the purpose of binding together the divergent ethnic elements of Egypt, he was the Greek Pluto imposed on Apis, the Egyptian bull-god of Memphis, who became at death another Osiris, and specifically Osiris-Apis. The identification was of the usual syncretistic type, since Pluto and Osiris were both gods of the dead. As a newcomer Sarapis underwent a long probation at the side of Osiris and Isis, and although with characteristic inconsequence Sarapis never wholly supplanted Osiris, by the second century A.D. he had become, together with Isis, the most beloved figure of the native pantheon, while outside Egypt he was receiving the reverent attention of Greeks of the rank of Plutarch and Aristides. In great measure, the prestige of his magnificent temple at Alexandria and the unceasing flow of propaganda literature account for his eminence at this time. His greatest glory, however, was still to come. In the fourth century, when the approaching victory of the Christian cult threatened all pagan beliefs with extermination, Sarapis took on the rôle of a universal solar deity.

[I am deeply indebted to Professor A. D. Nock for his kindness in reading this paper in its first draft and for his invaluable criticisms and suggestions.]

In the Christology of the New Testament we are faced with two distinct methods of expressing the belief of the Church as to the person of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Of the belief that He was merely a great human teacher we find no trace; the Church would never have come into being, if it had not believed that He had risen from the dead. As we all know, the Christology that prevailed was that which saw in Him the Incarnation of the divine Word or Wisdom, which was at once the divine and living pattern of the cosmos, the agent by which the cosmos was created, and the divine mind immanent in the cosmos and more particularly in the mind of man. It was inevitable that this cosmogony should triumph in the end, since it was the only one which could, with whatever difficulty, be formally reconciled with Jewish monotheism; moreover it transferred the Lord from the realm of eschatology, which meant nothing to the Greek convert, into the sphere of cosmogony which was one of the central problems of the semi-Gnostic philosophy and theology of the hellenistic age, as we meet it in the Corpus Hermeticum.

Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin in a recent address told of a student at Union Theological Seminary who persistently refused to come to chapel. Queried on his absence by Dr. Coffin, the student replied that he could not approve the hymns which were sung in James Chapel because many of them did not teach sound doctrine. In order to satisfy the student's conscience, Dr. Coffin suggested he come on a day when only the hymns of Watts would be used. The student's devastating remark finished any attempt to bring him to chapel: “I don't consider Watts really ‘safe,’” he blandly asserted.

There were indeed many respects in which Christianity was objectionable to Celsus. But perhaps no doctrine was so peculiarly nauseating to him as the Jewish-Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. At the beginning of the fifth book of the contra Celsum Origen is dealing with Celsus' attacks on the pride shown by the Jews in supposing that they were the chosen people of God. Celsus is contending that the Jewish belief in angels is merely a manifestation of this (5.6). They believe they have a particularly privileged position in God's sight on the ground of the angelic messengers sent to them by God (cf. 5.41), and this fantastic conceit is equally manifested in their selfcentered conception of the resurrection which is nothing more than the outcome of their delusion that they are the center of the universe and that the world was made entirely for their benefit (4.74–99). It is in this context that he continues:

It is foolish also of them to suppose that, when God applies the fire (like a cook!), all the rest of mankind will be thoroughly burnt up, and that they alone will survive, not merely those who are alive at the time, but also those long dead who will rise up from the earth possessing the same bodies as before. This is simply the hope of worms.

Many of the basic issues underlying the complex social, political, and religious problems which stirred France during the lifetime of Lamennais can be found in duplicate in this country. Moreover, it is evident that there is a resurgence of an extremely provincial form of nationalism in the United States together with mounting onslaughts against freedom. This makes increasingly relevant to the concrete lives of all of us an examination of the fundamental ideas of a thinker whose discernment of the disjunctions of his culture is formulated in published writings. Because of this as well as his contribution to the development of democracy in France, it is difficult to understand why the writings of Lamennais have been so singularly neglected in this country. Perhaps a contributing factor is that some of his works have been placed upon the Index Prohibitorum Librorum.

Considerable interest attaches, or should attach, to Martin Luther's tract entitled “Die Sieben puszpsalm mit deutscher auszlegung nach dem schrifftlichen synne tzu Christi vnd gottis gnaden, neben seyns selben ware erkentniss grundlich gerichtet.” Appearing in the early spring of 1517, approximately half a year before the posting of the Ninety-five Theses, it is the first original publication that Luther himself saw through the press. Its success was instantaneous and widespread. As prominent a man as Johann von Staupitz lost no time in recommending it warmly. Luther's searching analysis of the human situation made a deep impression upon the many readers who, like the author's superior in the Augustinian order, gave the slender volume an enthusiastic reception. It is important to bear in mind that the book, besides stirring Luther's scholarly friends as well as the learned in general rather more than he himself had anticipated, found immediate favor also with the “common man” for whom it had primarily been written. There is no exaggeration in the claim that Luther's earliest publication straightway established him as one of the most widely read writers in the German tongue: his unparalleled success as an author can safely be said to have begun with the very first book he ever put out. The popular demand for “Die sieben Busspsalmen” reached such proportions that the second printing was already underway before the first had been completely finished. The book then went through a number of editions both regular and pirated: Wittenberg, Leipzig, Strassburg, and Erfurt printers published it between 1517 and 1525.

The words of Jesus in Matt. 12.39–41 gave the story of Jonah an important place among Christian symbols, establishing it as a type of the resurrection of the Christ, and, through him, of all mankind. Its influence upon Christian thought is attested by the church writers from Justin on (Dial. 107–8). Tertullian supports the doctrine of resurrection in the flesh by various scriptural texts, among them the deliverance of Jonah, saying: “… quod Ionas devoratus a belua maris, in cuius alvo naufragia digerebantur, triduo post incolomis expuitur … cuinam fidei testimonium signant, nisi qua credi oportet haec futurae integritatis esse documenta?” Similarly Augustine, “Ut quid enim exceptus est ventre beluino et die tertio redditus nisi ut significaret Christum de profundo inferni die tertio rediturum?”

A small gem in the possession of Mr. Henri Seyrig, Director of the French Archaeological Institute in Beyrouth, may be briefly described as follows:

Obverse. Inscription in five lines, μέγα τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου Σάραπις. Crescent moon under the last line.

Reverse. Inscription in six and a half lines,μεγάλη τύχη τῆς ἀνικήτον νεωτέρας. Star after the last letter.

Brown and dark green jasper. Upright oval, 18 × 13 mm.

The obverse inscription, without κυρίου, encircles a bust a Sarapis engraved on a jasper in the British Museum; see British Museum Quarterly, 11, 33-34. Several more examples, all omitting κυρίου, are cited by Peterson (Heis Theos, 208 f.). Almost all of them treat the name Σάραπις as indeclinable. Evidently the sentence is a common acclamation, which requires no further comment.

The inscription on the reverse, which has not been found elsewhere in just this form, needs closer examination.

Many inferences have been drawn by liturgical scholars from the letter of Pliny to Trajan, Epist. x. 96, in the year 112. The purpose of this note is to suggest that such inferences are at least partly invalid.

The reputation of Jonathan Edwards, impressive though it is, rests upon only a fragmentary representation of the range or profundity of his thinking. Harassed by events and controversies, he was forced repeatedly to put aside his real work and to expend his energies in turning out sermons, defenses of the Great Awakening, or theological polemics. Only two of his published books (and those the shortest), The Nature of True Virtue and The End for which God Created the World, were not ad hoc productions. Even The Freedom of the Will is primarily a dispute, aimed at silencing the enemy rather than expounding a philosophy. He died with his Summa still a mass of notes in a bundle of home-made folios, the handwriting barely legible. The conventional estimate that Edwards was America's greatest metaphysical genius is a tribute to his youthful Notes on the Mind — which were a crude forecast of the system at which he labored for the rest of his days — and to a few incidental flashes that illumine his forensic argumentations. The American mind is immeasurably the poorer that he was not permitted to bring into order his accumulated meditations.

The progress of modern studies toward an exact edition of St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, is notably advanced in this double volume, by Professor Ryan of the College of William and Mary, and by Professor Casey of Brown University. We shall turn to their work with readier appreciation if we first recall several previous contributions. One of these was the edition by Archibald Robertson, published more than fifty years ago (London, 1893), based on the Codex Seguerianus (S), a twelfth century parchment in the Bibliothèque Nationale, first collated for the Benedictine edition of Athanasius in 1698. Casey and Ryan were well advised in adopting Robertson's text as the constant norm of their collations. A great boon is conferred on their readers by Casey's reprint of Robertson, page by page and line by line, as an appendix of Part II.

That there is something strange and unusual about the ‘consecration’ coinage of Faustina the Elder, and, to a less degree, of her daughter too, has always been apparent to the student: it was forced on my own attention while I was writing the Introduction to B. M. C. Empire, IV. If I return to the subject, it is because it seems that there is still something to be added to the results already obtained.

Most students of history or literature have had at some time the experience of encountering statements or generalizations made by a writer of an earlier generation and then finding them repeated without question by his successors working in the same field of inquiry. What is more, if dissentient voices have been raised, they have often been overlooked or disregarded. The prevailing estimate of Cassiodorus' Ecclesiastical History affords an excellent example of the manner in which erroneous opinions have been repeated ad nauseam from one generation to the next, although more than thirty years have passed since two scholars of the first rank, Bidez and Parmentier, provided at least some of the evidence needed for a more just evaluation of Cassiodorus' book. There are two essential questions which seem to call for fresh investigation. The first is concerned with the value and accuracy of the compilation, the second with its diffusion during the Middle Ages and its popularity as a work of reference.