Recently it has been pointed out afresh that in any investigation into Paul's life the Pauline letters must be taken as the primary source while Acts must be treated as of secondary rank. For although Luke may have been an eyewitness to some of the events which he narrates, his knowledge of most of the happenings in his book was derived either from the recollections of others or from written sources, and when historical information is transmitted in this way through several hands the possibility of misunderstanding and inaccuracy is greatly enlarged.

The principal authorities for the story of the Disputation of Barcelona are the Latin protocol published by Jaime Villanueva, Viaje literario a las iglesias de España, xiii. (Madrid, 1850) pp. 332–5: C. Girbal, Los judios en Gerona (Gerona, 1870) pp. 66–8; and, from a better MS., F. Baer in the Hebrew periodical Tarbitz ii. (Jerusalem, 1931) 185–7. The Hebrew account by Nahmanides was first published from an exceptionally poor Germanized recension (which confuses the names of the interlocutors, and frequently interposes abusive expressions) by J. C. Wagenseil in his Tela Ignea Satanae (Altdorf, 1681) ii. 24–60, with Latin translation: it was reprinted in Milhemet Hovah (Constantinople, 1710).

It might be thought that in five recent articles the productive ore in the mine of Theophilus of Antioch had been exhausted. On the contrary, these articles have been concerned primarily with the question of what Theophilus said. The basic problem “Why did he say it?” remains unsolved. The purpose of this article is to endeavor to analyze his thought more closely and to determine his place in the religious and philosophical movements of his time.

The title of this paper calls for qualification and explanation. A distinguished Swedish theologian once remarked that the rise of a school in any department of theological study can be inimical to the best interests of scholarship, since the members of a school tend to be concerned rather with the defence of positions already assumed than with impartial inquiry into truth. Diversity of opinion on certain problems among the Uppsala group of Old Testament scholars would in itself acquit them of this charge; and it may therefore be questioned whether the term ‘school’ can be accurately applied to them. If we do so use it, we must take it to indicate a common approach to Old Testament problems rather than detailed agreement in the solution of these problems. Again, the use of the term ‘Uppsala’ is open to criticism. The common approach just mentioned confessedly owes much to work done outside Scandinavia and in other parts of Scandinavia. Neither form criticism nor tradition history originated in Sweden; and the importance of the cult in Old Testament religion and of the place of the king in the cult was first maintained elsewhere than in Uppsala.

Writing in 1937, D. W. Riddle was able to assert that dialectical theology had exerted little or no influence on biblical studies in America in spite of its importance in Europe. This statement would not be as true today as it was then. Yet it remains sufficiently valid to underline an interesting situation. While Neo-orthodoxy has become increasingly prominent in many areas of American thought, it has made very little progress among biblical critics. Is this an indication of an intellectual vested interest automatically resistant to change, or is it, instead, the reflection of the impact of certain phases of Neo-orthodoxy upon historical study as such? It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to analyze this problem.

Few eras are more interesting and profitable to study than those in which the basic ideas of mankind change under the impact of new discoveries and ideas. Our own appears to be such a period; of previous ages perhaps only the ebullient Renaissance can equal it. At its English beginnings in the sixteenth century men reached avidly for new experiences; in the course of time they tried to codify them into theories which would do justice to the observed facts and at the same time harmonize as far as possible with the dicta transmitted from the past. These early efforts resulted in the foundation of the modern methods of science, not to mention permanent and still unchallenged achievements like Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood or Boyle's theory of gases. Such is the seventeenth century: the first great age of scientific generalization in English history.

The Object of this brief survey is to discover, if we can, from the surviving plays of Aeschylus how, in the opinion of enlightened and pious men of his age, the spirits of the dead were to be approached when it was thought desirable to do so, and to compare the methods which were then in use with those of other, especially of later, epochs. I speak of enlightened and pious men, for surely Aeschylus was both. Had he been born a generation later, he would probably have been something of a philosopher, influenced, as Euripides was, by the critical opinions of the contemporary sophists and investigating the fundamental assumptions upon which the traditional beliefs of his country rested. As it was, he, like his contemporary and acquaintance Pindar, came sufficiently early to take the form of their beliefs from tradition, with no more than revisal of details here and there (Pindar will not believe impious myths and does not know what to make of tales which represent the gods as fighting one another, Aeschylus is not sure that a god will really feel human passion for a mortal woman), ennobling the whole with their own lofty thoughts and feelings, in which the Athenian goes further than the Theban, for he was the deeper of soul and even the Apolline religion of Pindar, lofty though it is, the fruit apparently of a genuinely religious mind which had something mystical in it, lacks the sublimity of Aeschylus' attitude toward Zeus.

The story of Paul, the first man to be consecrated as bishop of Constantinople, has come down to us only in fragments. Le Nain de Tillemont made the first modern attempt to fit the fragments together into a biography. His work is characterized by a sagacity not always exhibited by more recent writers. An addition was made to the fragments previously known by the discovery of passages referring to Paul in the ‘codex Theodosianus’ belonging to the Chapter Library of Verona. This material was brought into use by E. Schwartz in the ninth of his now-famous articles “Zur Geschichte des Athanasius,” where he touches on Paul as an associate of Athanasius. The passages in the ‘codex Theodosianus’ are in Latin, but they derive ultimately from an Alexandrine work of ecclesiastical history otherwise almost wholly lost. This work, to judge from internal evidences, was composed in 368 to celebrate the forty-years' episcopate of Athanasius, and its theme might be called “The contendings for the faith of the bishops of Alexandria.” It is not obvious why such a work should contain anything about either Paul or Constantinople. And a comparison of the Paul passages with those that concern themselves with Alexandrine history is much to the disadvantage of the former.

Denial of the competence of the human mind for exploration of the ultimate meaning of the Universe may be associated with a serene confidence that the secret is otherwise accessible. Athenians of the fifth century, B.C., had a mystical element of which Plato speaks at times with contempt but at other times with profound respect. Careless alike of the Protagorean skepticism and of its Socratic refutation, they would withdraw periodically to Eleusis for devotional rites, from which they came back radiant about the manner in which they had been “helped.” Plotinus and his Neo-Platonists found in distrust of reasoning the basis for a surer trust. St. Augustine's Neo-Platonist youth was, as he said, a fitting preliminary for the mood of his mature Christian assurance: Non in dialectica cotnplacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum. More than seven centuries later, St. Bernard was not only distressed but alarmed as he overheard discussions at a Paris street corner among students coming from Abelard's lecture-room, where they had been actually encouraged to subject the Faith to intellectual analysis. The fourteenth century mystics of the Rhineland showed reaction on a great scale from the cut-and-dried “Natural Theology” of Aquinas. It had been too much for even Bonaventura and Duns Scotus.

On May 25th, 1831, an aged Presbyterian clergyman rose to his feet in the supreme ecclesiastical court of Scotland, the General Assembly, to utter a final plea for his eldest son, who stood accused of a charge of the utmost gravity before the venerable tribunal which was about to determine his fate. An interrupter protested that intervention at that stage was out of order; nevertheless the court allowed him to continue, and at length he ended with these words:

“I bow to any decision to which you may think it right to come. Moderator, I am not afraid for my son; though his brethren cast him out the Master whom he serves will not forsake him; and while I live I will never be ashamed to be the father of so holy and blameless a son.”

Nearly all scholars who have studied the career of Robert Grosseteste are in agreement that he was a dominant figure in the intellectual life of thirteenth century England. Some of the ways in which this dominance was exercised are also clear: as bishop of Lincoln (1235–53) he was influential through his sermons, translations and other writings; as director of the Franciscan School at Oxford (ca. 1231–5) he set a standard of erudition which appears in such students as Thomas of York and the well known Roger Bacon. Even before this he must have had some influence upon the University of Oxford but the evidence is capable of different interpretations. This is unfortunate because he was a master as early as 1189 and thus the greater part of his early and middle life is involved in mystery. Outside of scattered items there is for this period a curious biography by a later medieval monk, Richard of Bardney, probably based in part upon an earlier biography. Then there is the very large number of writings which have been located and catalogued.

The story of the washing of the disciples' feet and the Last Supper in John 13 presents at first sight a completely chaotic appearance. We have no fewer than three anticipations of the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, (2,11 and 18) before we come to the full story of Jesus' prophecy of it and the final departure of the traitor.

According to Pausanias II 14 one of the two main differences between the cult at Phlius and that at Eleusis lay in the circumstance that at Phlius the hierophant was not appointed for life (οὐκ ἐς τὸν βίον πάντα ἀποδέδικται). The implication that at Eleusis the hierophant was appointed for life is borne out by inscriptions such as the one concerning the old man Glaucus who died as hierophant after many years in office. On the other hand, the inscriptions never mention living men as exhierophants, ex-daduchi, ex-sacred-heralds or ex-altar-priests, except such altar priests as resigned to take the higher post of daduchus. Therefore, students have long been agreed that the hierophant, daduchus, sacred herald and altar priest, i.e. the incumbents of the four great Eleusinian priesthoods, held their office for life. (See, for example, P. Foucart, Les mystères d'Éleusis [Paris, 1914], 168–206, especially 171 for the hierophant and 203 for the sacred herald.) As far as I know, this interpretation of the evidence has never been refuted. Recently, however, this interpretation of the evidence has been repudiated without argument by J. A. Notopoulos (“Studies in the Chronology of Athens under the Empire,” Hesperia XVIII [1949], 1–57, especially 1 and 23), who, asserting, in what he describes as a “systematic study,” that the hierophant and sacred herald “occupy their office for an interval of one or more years, then vacate it only to be re-elected to it later,” dresses a table of the catalogues of aiseitoi (the four great Eleusinian priests and various clerks and other functionaries entitled to public maintenance) in what purports to be a chronological order.

Mr. Henri Seyrig, Director of the French Archaeological Institute at Beyrouth, a friend to whom my studies of magical amulets owe as steadily increasing debt, has added another to his many contributions by sending me a careful copy of the inscription here discussed (letter of March II, 1949). It was incised upon a Roman silver denarius (diameter 15 mm.), both sides of which had been smoothed off in order to receive it. Of the obverse design Mr. Seyrig reports that nothing can be seen; of the reverse type there remains the outline of a galley with oars, which moves to the right.