In the Russia of my childhood and youth, at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth, religious attitudes and practices in society as a whole were still those inherited through centuries of tradition in the Russian Orthodox Church. Traditional observances had not yet, as they were soon to be, been widely questioned or neglected. Most orthodox Russians tried to live according to the rules of the Church; but I believe that the merchant class, which included my family, followed established religious practices more strictly than other laymen. Perhaps this was because they were more traditional-minded than the bureaucracy or the aristocracy.

In Vigiliae Christianae for November 1955 (vol. ix, pp. 212–217) Mr. Robert Leaney contributed some comments upon the interpretation, reconstruction, and authorship of the sadly mutilated fragments from a codex, tentatively described as a ‘Gospel Commentary’ when first published by Sir Harold Idris Bell and Mr. T. C. Skeat in 1935 together with the Fragments of an Unknown Gospel. Following the lead of Professor Robert M. Grant (Vig. Chr. ii, 1948, pp. 243–247) he would ascribe the fragments to Origen, but offers different restorations of two sentences, and thinks that a homily is a more probable origin than an early commentary on the Psalms as proposed by Grant.

Through publication in The Interpreter's Bible the theory is being given wide currency that Paul's collected letters were published originally in the form of two papyrus rolls, the first containing Ephesians and I and II Corinthians, the second comprising Romans, I and II Thessalonians, Galatians, Colossians-Philemon, and Philippians.

Already in the first part of the eighth century, as one may judge from the reports of teachings to which Wāṣil (d. 748) was opposed, there arose in Islam the belief that certain terms which are attributed to God in the Koran stand for real incorporeal beings which exist in God from eternity. There is nothing in the Koran to warrant such a belief. Nor is there any warrant that at that early stage in the history of Islam the belief originated spontaneously by that kind of reasoning by which later Muslim theologians tried to defend it against opposition. The appearance of that belief at that time can be explained only on the ground of some external influence. Such an external influence could be either Greek philosophy or Judaism or Christianity. Greek philosophy is to be eliminated, for we have the testimony of Shahrastānī that it was not until later, among the followers of Wāṣil, that the problem of attributes came under the influence of Greek philosophy. And so also must Judaism be eliminated, for the kind of Judaism with which Islam was in direct contact at that time contained nothing in its teachings which could have inspired that new belief. By a process of elimination it is to be assumed that Christianity was that external influence.

In the first book of the Tusculanae, and in the last book of De Republica, Cicero has left us two notable documents in the development towards later views of the soul and the hereafter. Both works are among his best; both are composed with care, neither is a random compilation of doxographical material. In the Somnium Scipionis, the language of the dream reflects with particular persuasiveness the impulse of the soul to take wings and fly away into the ever-calling unknown. But the essential doctrines of both works are the same: the hereafter in its reality, as a return to the beginning of things, as the true life; and the death of kings and philosophers as a robing, a sacred investiture.

The work of Eusebius of Caesarea has come to be regarded as important for the understanding of the local text of Caesarea. The process by which Eusebius has achieved this position has been exhaustively examined by B. M. Metzger. The present study of the Gospel text of Eusebius is based on a collation of his quotations with the textus receptus, the text of Eusebius being that of the G.C.S. editions in all works except the Praeparatio Evangelica, for which Gifford's edition of 1903 has been used.

The Reverend Barzillai Frost, minister of the Unitarian church in Concord from 1837 to 1857, does not loom large in the biographies of Emerson. Cabot does not even mention him; Rusk refers to him but once. His name seldom appears in the Journals, and in the published letters there are only a few unimportant allusions to him.

The excavations of Thasos conducted with patience and skill by the École Françhise d'Athènes since 1911 brought to light many important documents enriching largely our knowledge of the political, economic and religious history of this island. Many interesting papers and books have been published on different subjects dealing with ancient Thasos; others are in preparation. It is a real pleasure for the historian of Greek religion to find in these publications numerous documents of a religious character. They are of course fragmentary and difficult to interpret, but nevertheless extremely important. And one must be grateful to the editors for their laborious efforts to present them to us in a comprehensible form.

The basis of the notion of kingship which underlies the Coronation Liturgies of the West. The nature of this liturgical expression: its universality; its varied and even pre-Christian flowerings.

It is a well-known fact that, sometime between the 4th and 7th centuries, a recension of the NT, or at least of the Pauline and Catholic epistles, into thought-lines was made. This recension is attributed variously to Euthalius, to Evagrius, even to Pamphilius. In spite of the fact that its authorship is unclear, this recension into thought-lines, along with certain other matter which is normally found with it, is traditionally called “Euthalian matter” or “Euthalian apparatus.” There are two important problems concerning Euthalian matter which are at present unsolved: (1) the date of Euthalius (or of the author of the recension, whom I shall henceforth call Euthalius for convenience sake); (2) which parts of the Euthalian matter are to be ascribed to the original author?

Peu D'Articles ont une telle importance, pour la question des rapports entre la pensée grecque et la pensée iranienne, que l'étude publicée en 1923, dans la Zeitschrift für Indologie und Iranistik, par Alb. Götze, sous le titre très significatif de “Persische Weisheit in griechischem Gewande.”

The sumerians failed to develop a systematic philosophy in the accepted sense of the word. In particular it never occurred to them to raise any questions concerning the fundamental nature of reality and knowledge, and therefore they evolved practically nothing corresponding to the philosophical subdivisions commonly known as metaphysics and epistemology. They did, however, speculate on the nature and, more particularly, the origin of the universe, as well as on its method of operation. And there is good reason to infer that in the course of the third millennium B.C. there emerged a group of Sumerian thinkers and teachers who, in the course of their quest for satisfactory answers to some of the problems raised by their cosmic speculations, evolved a systematic cosmology and theology carrying such high intellectual conviction that they became the basic creed and dogma of much of the ancient Near East.

When recently going through the second edition of Nilsson's Geschichte der griechischen Religion, Volume I, I came across a passing remark which seems to me to raise an interesting question not merely of Homeric criticism but concerning the attitude of the Greeks, at the time when their classical tradition regarding the gods was in process of formation, towards the question of the shapes assumed by those gods when they partly reveal themselves to mankind. Nilsson is speaking of Odysseus when disguised as a beggar, and says (ed. 2, p. 370, taken over unaltered from ed. 1, P. 346),

Kirke verwandelt Menschen in Bestien, und Athena den Odysseus in einen alten, armen Mann. Jenes ist echte Volkssage, dieses in Anlehnung daran geschaffen; denn in der älteren Form des Gedichts war Odysseus nicht verwandelt, nur verkleidet. So ist er noch bei der Fusswaschung, und der Freiermord und der Kampf mit Iros (σ 67 ff.) fordern dasselbe.

The problem of the attitude of Judaism towards art and images, at the beginning of the Christian era, has again come to the forefront of scholarly enquiry as a result of the publication of the first volumes of E. R. Goodenough's monumental work, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (vols. 1–3, New York 1953; vol. 4, New York 1954). In these learned pages, every particle of evidence bearing on the subject is carefully considered, and the author emphatically confirms as fundamental to his main thesis the accepted view: that at least up to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, there was a completely effective Rabbinic ban on any sort of iconographic representation for whatever purpose. (His striking conclusions with regard to the later period need not concern us here.) In this article, I would like to reconsider this matter from a slightly different point of view. I propose in it, however, to adopt a criterion which is nowadays becoming somewhat unusual: not only to confine myself to strictly contemporary testimony, but moreover to assume that the contemporaries meant exactly what they said.

A Roman Synod convoked by Charlemagne met on December ist of the year 800 for the purpose of investigating the accusations levelled against Pope Leo III. In the presence of the pope, the Frankish king presided over an assembly composed of ecclesiastics, Frankish and Roman nobles, including members of the Frankish episcopate — to wit, Arno of Salzburg, Theodulph of Orléans, Riculf of Mayence, Aaron of Angorra, the Saxons Witto and Fredugis, Alcuin's confidants — and other persons of consequence. The eldest son of Charlemagne, Charles, who together with his sisters had accompanied his father to Rome, was another participant.

Certain Genera of animals, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only by their fossilized remains, are described by paleontologists. Literary historians recognize also certain genera of literature, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only to a few specialists who care to delve into books which, gathering dust on library shelves, are all but forgotten and virtually fossilized.

VI.4 (p. 74.18 ff.). The discussion of ‘the Good’ completed, theconcept of ‘the Beautiful’ was introduced, of which (so one may, byconjecture, fill in the lacuna) certain reflections, however faint, appearin this bad world, giving a hint of the perfect Beautiful which is withGod. ‘For’ — so the preserved text continues — ‘the summits of thingsbeautiful reach up into the neighbourhood of the essence of God; maybethat they appear purer and more definite (scil. than other, inferiorreflections) (because) they, too, αἱ οὖσαι ἐκείνου. Which sense is hiddenin the corrupt last words? How could anything like to, or at leastreminding of, ideal perfection appear in this evil world? The authorhas given his answer in his previous discussion of the same questionwith reference to the Good: μετουσία πάντων ἐστὶν τῇ ὕλῃ δεδομένη.‘Participation’ is the concept which bridges the gap between the Intelligibleand the Material. We may therefore restore 〈μετ〉ουσ〈ί〉ᾳ ἐκείνου.

Amongst the homilies ascribed to Proclus, one-time bishop designate of Cyzicus and later bishop of Constantinople (434–46), there is included one of which the subject is the Ascension of Christ. The first section of this sermon was transcribed, with the omission of a few sentences, by Photius in his Bibliotheca; he assigned it, however, not to Proclus but to Nilus, an ex-Prefect of Constantinople who had embraced the monastic life and retired to the deserts of Sinai in the first decade of the fourth century. The problem of authorship thus presented can only be determined upon internal evidence, since no other references to this sermon have been preserved.

Historians of Buddhism in China have long ago noted the fact that after the T'ang dynasty Buddhism no longer played a creative rôle in the literature and arts of China, and that the Buddhist church ceased to make any significant contributions toward the religious and social life of the nation. Some people are inclined to attribute this decline of Buddhism to the suppression of 845, when 260,000 monks and nuns were ordered defrocked, and over 40,000 temples and shrines ordered destroyed. It was held that the religion never recovered from this blow. However, this view does not take into account the fact that during certain periods of the Sung dynasty, the number of monks and nuns actually exceeded that under the T'ang; in 1021, monks 397,615, nuns 61,239; in 1034, monks 385,220, nuns 48,742. It would be necessary therefore to look for some other factors to account for the decline in the influence of the sangha, especially during and after the Sung dynasty.