well classified.

Professor Curtis adds a concise history of the great creeds and the Te Deum, with important chapters on 'Problems of Retention and Revision', 'Subscription and its Ethics', and 'The Ideal Creed'. Here he challenges criticism. He thinks that the present age is more reverent to the great creeds, and himself does homage to the Apostles' Creed as 'next to Holy Writ, the most venerable bond of unity and symbol of harmonious faith'. But he has doubts about 'its non-contentious character', under the influence of Dr McGiffert, who in this respect is at variance with Dr Kattenbusch, and he does not make plain the difference between the original form, which was certainly drawn up for the use of catechists, and later forms which bear the scars of conflict. Since he attaches so much importance to it, as in a sense the 'Creed of Creeds', it seems a pity that he has not discussed at greater length the problem of the relation of the Roman Creed to the early Eastern Creeds of the same type. His tables and appendices are admirable and illustrate the evolution of the Apostles' Creed in an attractive form. He accepts Professor Hort's theory on the history of the Constantinopolitan Creed as a revision of the Creed of Jerusalem.2

He is prepared to date the Quicunque vult 450 A.D., and allows its 'real merits'. But he does not seem to have examined the evidence that it was written to meet the heresy of Priscillian, and his grudging appreciation is cancelled by the following sentence: 'Like its contemporary, the Creed of Chalcedon, it savours of mysteries profaned, of dogma run riot, of overweening arrogance, and of the pedantic withal.' Apart from the question of the warning clauses, this is hard on a writer, who distinctly begins with an invitation to worship in the presence of mysteries, and is most emphatic on the danger of Tritheism, which is dogma run riot indeed. We may well differ on the question of arrogance in definition, but the accusation of pedantry is absurd if we may trace the Quicunque to the School of Lerins at the period when it was still intellectually alive.

These details of criticism are not so important as the questions raised in the later chapters. I welcome the outspoken declaration that 'If men are to enter pulpits they must know in whom they have believed'. Dr Curtis finds it difficult to lay down lines for revision of creeds. He quotes Dr Rainy to the effect that: Probably it would be better to be without any confession than to be always rebuilding them.'

suggests the argument that we should do better to ascertain the funda

2 I hope he will revise the suggestion (p. 405) that the addition Filioque was sanctioned by the Council of Toledo in 589 in view of the evidence of the Spanish MSS which I published in this JOURNAL, January 1908.

mental facts of Christian experience, analysed in the Apostles' Creed, as a bed-rock of Christian faith upon which the changing structure of theology may be raised.

Finally Dr Curtis discusses the possibility of 'The Ideal Creed', quoting the proposals of Mr J. Watson, Prof. Denny, and Dr Flint, and coming back to the confessions of S. Peter Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God', and 'Thou knowest that I love Thee', as by themselves sufficient. Such a creed sufficed in the first age of the Church, but the fact remains and must always remain that when questions have been asked on wrong lines some enlargement of teaching is necessary. We need the theological teaching of the Nicene Creed, the only Creed in the fullest sense oecumenical, as a statement of corporate belief. But loyalty to it need in no degree detract from admiration of the earnestness and sincerity with which Dr Curtis has expressed another opinion.1

A. E. BURN.

Baptist Confessions of Faith, edited by W. J. MCGLOTHLIN. (American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia.)

It is now over fifty years since Dr Underhill published the Confessions of Faith of Seventeenth Century English Baptists. The book may still be met with in second-hand catalogues, but a modern edition would be welcome. Dr McGlothlin's book supplements the earlier work, but does not altogether provide what is wanted. The range of the American collection is wider. It is not confined either to English Baptists or to the seventeenth century. It opens with Anabaptist and Mennonite confessions, includes a section on American Baptists, and ends with the confessions adopted in the nineteenth century by Baptists in Germany and France. These additional documents are of value, and are given in convenient form.

The book is, however, somewhat disappointing because the editing is at times at fault. Dr McGlothlin does not always give us the best texts. Thus in the Orthodox Confession of 1678 Dr McGlothlin reprints Crosby's text instead of Dr Underhill's. But in the one or two places where the texts differ, generally in punctuation, the latter is clearly preferable. The very first document in the book is the set of seven articles drawn up by some Swiss and Swabian Anabaptists in 1527. Here Dr McGlothlin translates Zwingli's Latin version and

1 There are a few misprints, e.g. p. 40, for Prof. Seeberg of Berlin, read Prof. A. Seeberg of Dorpat.

makes no use of the more trustworthy German text edited by Dr Böhmer for Lietzmann's Kleine Texte series. Dr McGlothlin also runs the titles of the fourth and fifth articles into one, giving us 'avoidance of abominable pastors in the church', instead of (4) 'of avoidance of abominations, (5) of pastors in the church'. In other places the translation is at fault.

The commentary on the documents presented in this book is sometimes slipshod and inadequate. Thus on p. 109 we read 'the standard confession of the English General Baptists was drawn up in March 1660 in the midst of the calumnies and persecutions of the Restoration': on p. 122 we learn that Charles II received this confession very graciously. Dr McGlothlin's second thoughts are best. In 1677 the Calvinist Baptists published a document, which in substance reproduced the Westminster Confession. Dr McGlothlin notes this general connexion, but he does not furnish the detailed comparison between the two confessions, which would have made his edition more serviceable.

The choice of documents might have been improved. Thus, ten pages are devoted to the articles to which the Mennonites asked the Arminian Baptists in Holland to subscribe, though these articles do little more than reproduce a Mennonite document which Dr McGlothlin has previously printed in extenso. On the other hand, John Smith's short draft of twenty articles, and a similar confession drawn up by Thomas Helwys, are mentioned but not printed, though both are more important than this Mennonite document.

The wider range of Dr McGlothlin's book will make it of service to students, and it is well worth while to reprint such an original confession as that of 1651, which is not easily obtainable. The Arminian Confessions are the most distinctive utterances. They reveal an independent outlook. The strength and persistence of Calvinism is well evidenced in the doctrinal position of the Particular Baptists. Perhaps the main general impressions which such a volume leaves are the close connexion between controversy and confessions, and the consequent inadequacy of confessions to express the actual life of the communities adopting them. Valuable though these documents are, they do not form the most interesting line of approach to Baptist history.

H. G. WOOD.

NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS.

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, by the Rev. J. A. MACCULLOCH, D.D. (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1911.)

MANY have essayed to write an account of the religious beliefs of the Ancient Celts, but such an undertaking is attended with manifold difficulties. We possess little definite information concerning the pantheon of the Gauls, and the Insular Celts were officially converted to Christianity several centuries earlier than the Teutonic peoples. The task is rendered still more unsatisfactory by the fact that most of our records of Welsh or Irish heathendom are preserved in MSS not older than the beginning of the twelfth century. The scantiness of the material naturally opens the door to speculation, and the tendency with previous writers on the subject has been to find solar or culture heroes ad nauseam in the surprising wealth of saga literature. Aware of such pitfalls, Dr MacCulloch has presented us with a very valuable handbook which contains much sane criticism of his predecessors, and gives in a convenient compass a variety of information never before collected in a single volume. The latter half of the work dealing with the Cult of the Dead, Nature- and Animal-Worship, and Magic, seems to me to be greatly superior to the earlier portion. However the general attitude towards these questions may change, time is hardly likely to add much to the information. contained in these chapters. In the sections devoted to the Gods of Gaul, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Gods of the Brythons, the writer appears to fall too easily into the error which vitiates so much of the work of his predecessors. Chap. vii contains some drastic criticism of those scholars who regard Cuchulainn as a solar hero, but in the preceding chapter we find it stated that 'Taliesin was probably an old god of poetic inspiration' (p. 117), and again that 'we may postulate a local Arthur saga fusing an old Brythonic god with the historic sixth-century Arthur' (p. 119). Is this necessary? In default of better material than the Mabinogion it is almost vain to speculate on British mythology. In the case of Ireland the situation is somewhat different. But here history, mythology, and the synchronizing mania have produced a curious medley which still awaits a critical investigator. It seems to me unfortunate that Dr MacCulloch inclines to accept most features of Irish story as primitive. This leads him to make such statements as the following: 'They (the Fomorians) were probably beneficent gods of the aborigines, whom the Celtic conquerors regarded as generally evil' (p. 56). I very much doubt if at the time of the introduction of Christianity it would have been possible to distinguish between the gods of the Celts and those of the peoples they subdued. What is

then to be expected of the sources we possess, watered down as they must have been by successive generations of copyists? The author is, moreover, apt to be dogmatic as regards points on which there is as yet no general agreement, as when he states that 'the loss of p in Celtic must have occurred before 1000 B. C.' (p. 14).

...

A few details may be pointed out for correction in future editions. On p. 14 there is a curious contradiction: "The folk of a Celtic type exhibit the same old Celtic characteristics-vanity, loquacity, excitability, fickleness, imagination, love of the romantic, fidelity.' On p. 28 we read: 'Neton, a war-god of the Accetani, has a name connected with Irish nia, warrior.' This is taken from Holder, but is improbable, as nia counts as a disyllable in early Irish poetry. On p. 32 Cernunnos is explained as 'the horned' from cerna. The author's authority, Holder, gives cernu-. The etymology of the name Cassiterides given on p. 39 is extremely doubtful, and should not be quoted as if it were well established. It is surely preposterous to state that 'the numerous Avons are named from Abnoba, goddess of the sources of the Danube' (p. 43), when Welsh afon and Irish abann are the ordinary term for river. In a footnote on p. 50 the euhemerizing process is represented as first appearing in the poems of Eochaidh hua. Floinn (d. 1003), whereas it is found in verses by Maelmura (d. 887), and probably began still earlier. Dea Domnu (p. 59) is styled 'a Fomorian goddess of the deep, i. e. of the underworld and probably also of fertility' on the strength of an uncertain etymology. The equation of Irish Artigan with Gaulish Artigenos (p. 213) is philologically impossible. P. 244: it was hardly to be expected that so learned a writer would be led astray by such absurd popular etymologies as Eilean mo Righ, Eilean a Mhor Righ, to explain Eilean Maree (= Maelrubha).

The author's spelling of Welsh names is often at fault. Kulhwych (pp. 97, 107, 109, &c.) should everywhere be Kulhwch. Similarly on p. 98 Matholwych appears in place of the correct Matholwch. Ysppadden (p. 97) for Yspaddaden. In amæth on p. 107, and in a number of similar words, æ is printed instead of the regular diphthong. The extraordinary form Maeloeohlen on p. 202 should be spelt either Maelsechlainn or Malachy.

However, in spite of all these imperfections, Dr MacCulloch is greatly to be congratulated on producing a valuable work, for which Celtic scholars and students in other fields of learning will be very grateful.

E. C. QUIGGIN.