(p. ix): and, so far as the East is concerned, of partial re-consolidation. From the point of view of the history of the Christian religion, they were the centuries of maturity that followed the ages of planting. The Church in the heathen Empire then became, with Constantine, the Church of the Christian Empire. And there was no ruin of the Empire till, by the time of Theodosius, the Church was well enough rooted to cope with the barbarians who overran it. The editors could scarcely have better chosen the limits of their first volume.

And they could hardly have got it handled by more representative authorities. Chapters i-iv cover the main course from Constantine to Julian. There is some overlapping: but we may pardon it in the case of an Emperor so entitled to our consideration as Julian. The authors give us two views of him. Mr Norman Baynes-who, by the way, should not call the sacraments 'magical' (p. 236) without explaining that this is an outsider's, and not a Christian's, view of them-brings out Julian's impatience: he was 'a young man in a hurry' (p. 79). And this is a true view of him, but not so sympathetic as Dr Lindsay's picture. Julian was a 'puritan pagan' (p. 98): 'puritan', he ought to have added, in morals, but not in his attitude towards art and ceremonial. Indeed it was the Church that, up till that date, had been puritan in all that appeals to the eye and the ear. She could not help it, so long as ceremonial and art were unredeemed. But had she developed by Julian's time a worship which could have enlisted the senses on its side, such as in the fifth century made its appearance, if we may generalize from 'the crowd of richly dressed ministers, the lights, the incense, the waving fans, the genuflexions and the bowings' described in the Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, then possibly the Church might have kept Julian-save for the bad Christians by whom he had been drilled into Christianity when a boy, and, best or worst of them, Constantius.

Two doctrinal chapters, v and xvii, may next be taken together; the one on Arianism' by Prof. Gwatkin, and the other on 'Religious disunion in the fifth century' by Miss Alice Gardner. Prof. Gwatkin begins by rightly pointing out that Arianism was an attempt to find ‘a via media between a Christian and a Unitarian interpretation of the Gospel' (p. 119). One wonders how, after this warning, men have ever defended that most infelicitous way of missing the truth on either hand as the surest road to it. Is Prof. Gwatkin so right in ranking Athanasius-only a deacon at the Council-among the protagonists of Nicaea (pp. 120 sq.)? And would he not have done better to discard, at length, the epithet 'conservative' as a misleading description of the centre party' (p. 121), certainly when contrasted, as on p. 124, with the Nicenes? The centre was indeed conservative of the language of

3

Scripture. But 'the sense of Scripture is Scripture',' and the Nicenes would have claimed to be the real conservatives of that. We owe much to Prof. Gwatkin for bringing to light the existence of a mass of central opinion in favour of a Bible-and-a-Bible-only religion. That was his great contribution, thirty years ago, to the elucidation of the history of Arianism, specially when he went on to shew what skilful use the intriguers made of this central churchmanship. But it was not conservative of more than phrase. Miss Alice Gardner's chapter is somewhat marred by want of precise familiarity with the terms of theology and liturgy. All the personal and political side is excellent, the course of intrigue and the guiding lines of policy. These are the professional historian's playthings. But they do not touch the heart of what was in dispute between Cyril and Nestorius, or between Leo and Eutyches. The question to be fought out was a simple and a practical one. As with Arius it was 'May we Christians worship Jesus?' so with Nestorianism it was 'Is the body that we receive in the Eucharist God's body and therefore life-giving?' and with the Eutychians, 'Is it permanently body and so still available for our spiritual sustenance who are in the body now?' With an eye on the religious interests of the soul at stake, Miss Gardner could have dealt more successfully with the theological question. She would not have lost patience with it. She would have found her way to the accurate use of terms. She would scarcely have written that the Alexandrines stood for 'an entire union of divine and human in the nature of Christ' (p. 496); nor would she have translated ěvwσis ovσiký by 'physical union' (p. 499); nor would she have allowed herself to say that peace was made between John of Antioch by an acknowledgment of two natures united into one' (p. 502). This does not really represent the original. So it would be difficult, after a course of the Tome of St Leo, to describe him as a great diplomatic theologian who could mark out a permanent via media between opposite dogmatic tendencies' (p. 503). It is a small thing, in comparison, to find liturgical inaccuracies. Thus to describe the diptychs as 'tablets on which the names of lawful bishops were inscribed ' (p. 494) might lead one to think that they were something like the lists of their predecessors which incumbents sometimes hang up in the church porch. And the Trisagion is confused with the Tersanctus. 'Peter the Fuller', we are told, 'introduced into the Trisagion "Holy,

1 Waterland Works iii 652.

2 Cyril Al. adv. Nest. iv 6, Migne P.G. lxxvi 201 C.

3 For this argument against Eutyches, from the Eucharist to the permanence of our Lord's Human Nature, see Leo Sermo xcvi § 1 (Op. i 373: Migne P. L. liv 466 B); Sermo xci § 2 (Op. i 356 : Migne P. L. 451 B), and Ep. lix § 2 (Op. i 977 ; Migne P. L. liv 868).

Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts", the phrase "who was crucified for us (p. 514). The hymn in question, as Peter altered it, runs :— 'Holy art thou, O God: Holy, O mighty: Holy, O immortal Who wast crucified for us: have mercy upon us.'

There is some allowance to be made : but what were the editors doing? The ordinary student can but take much of chapters ix-xiii on trust. They deal with by-ways of barbarian migrations and with Roman Britain. In chapters xiv-xvi we follow, once more, the main track: but no chapter in the book which deals with it strikes the reader as so lucid and thorough as that of Mr Ernest Barker on 'Italy and the West, 410-476'. It is an equal pleasure to read yet another account of Monasticism in chapter xviii by the Abbot of Downside, in addition to that in his preface to the Lausiac History of Palladius. He knows it from the inside. It is life, and therefore the better history, to him. And he is detached enough, too: witness some excellent advice about being sensible in the practice of fasting (p. 538). Chapters on the economics, the thought, and the art of the later Empire come at the end of the volume (chapters xix-xxi). They are technical in places: but ably and clearly set out, and quite interesting.

Most interesting of all-at any rate, to readers of this JOURNAL-is Mr C. H. Turner's chapter (No. vi) on 'The organization of the Church'. It is indeed already a classic. There are, perhaps, one or two places where the balance of statement might be slightly redressed. Are 'the proto-types of the diaconate', for instance, who 'are to be found in the Seven of the Acts', to be described without qualification as concerned with 'relief and charity' (p. 148) when 'Philip who was one of the seven' is called 'Philip the evangelist' (Acts xxi 8)? And why must we assume that 'the absent' to whom the deacons, according to Justin, were 'deputed to take the Eucharist' were 'the absent sick' (p. 149)? Mr Turner seems to think that 'only at the end of the fourth century' was 'a definite place accorded to the clergy in the theory of episcopal appointments' (p. 153). This is a characteristically careful statement; and any correction of it can only be a question of emphasis. But Cyprian, in accepting Cornelius as bishop of Rome, seems to class the approval of the clergy as one among the recognized factors. And if the presbyterate had not already acquired elsewhere this definite status in episcopal appointments, is it so likely that the college of presbyters in Alexandria could have successfully asserted for themselves such rights, peculiar in some sense for all that, as Jerome attributes to them? Of course, there is the noted 'turbulence' of Alexandrine mobs to

1 Ep. lv 8: Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et Christi eius iudicio, de clericorum paene omnium testimonio, de plebis quae tunc adfuit suffragio, de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum uirorum collegio.

account for the transmutation there of popular into presbyteral powers (p. 161). But, as Mr Turner observes, election by the laity was pretty generally 'tumultuous' (p. 154). One can readily believe, therefore, that in episcopal appointments comprovincials, presbyters and people each had their part, and that this may well represent the practice of ante-Nicene times. But to return, in conclusion, to the already high reputation of the chapter- When we have explained how the supreme powers of the general ministry were made to devolve on an individual who belonged to the local ministry, we have explained the origin of episcopacy' (p. 145). True: and if we compare the absence of the bishop and the prominence of the prophet in the Apocalypse with the prominence of the bishop or the local ministry and the absence of the Christian prophet or the general ministry, ten or fifteen years later, in Ignatius, the contrast is striking and it looks as if the nexus is to be sought there. We do not refuse to accept a succession in the evolutionary series because of a link missing, even at a vital point. Why then in the ministerial series?

B. J. KIDD.

THE GOSPELS AND ESCHATOLOGY.

The Kingdom and the Messiah. By E. F. SCOTT, D.D. (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1911.)

THIS, whatever else may be said of it, is a stimulating piece of work. In respect of grasp, penetration, candour, freshness and lucidity of style, it equals its immediate predecessor, while it testifies by its very felicity of reproduction to width and depth of research. The author, saturated with, yet master of, his authorities, makes them speak in his own words and sometimes disclose their identity without formal introduction.

'Criticism is gradually settling towards the conviction that the apocalyptic element is not merely accidental to our Lord's teaching, but is all-pervading and determinative.' Thus Dr Scott in his preface; to add that he himself, refusing to go the lengths of 'thorough-going' Eschatologists, writes from the point of view of one of the convinced is at once to indicate the nature, scope, and drift of his welcome contribution, and absolves me from the necessity of detailing its contents. As might be expected, well-worn ground is traversed in many of its pages; but racy in delineation, Dr Scott has a keen eye for outstanding features and compels our attention to important points. He is throughout alive to vital issues; the real problems, succinctly stated, are resolutely faced; the discussion of them, as a rule exhaustive, is none the less 1 So Dr Bright thought: see Some aspects of primitive Church Life p. 77 n. 2.

fearless because tempered with restraint. It will be felt, no doubt, by some readers that he moves somewhat freely in the region of speculation, and that his conjectures, however tempting, are occasionally strained; the impression is, I think, hard to avoid that, his ingenious handling of the difficult saying Mt. x 23 notwithstanding, the crux remains. But he rarely fails to be suggestive, not to say illuminating; and I at once fasten on an instance of that genuine insight which is conspicuous in his book. He pertinently asks: 'What efficacy did Jesus ascribe to His suffering that He should see in it the very goal and purpose of His Messianic vocation?'; in his threefold answer he dwells on the recorded saying Lk. xii 50 and finds it impressively significant of conscious limitation. Jesus, 'straitened' precisely because 'subject as yet to conditions that fetter and imprison Him', looks forward 'with passionate eagerness to His Baptism (of Death) as to the great event which will mark the beginning of His true activity and finally invest Him with the Messianic attributes'. Here Dr Scott is nothing short of admirable, and, perhaps, original; he is, I think, less persuasive when, with shrewd analysis, he works up to the perplexing passage Mt. xi 12, 13, and extracts from a conjectured original utterance an emphatic statement on the part of Jesus that the divine purposes, not wholly fixed and unalterable, yield to an insistent faith. If, on the one hand, Jesus adhered to the prevailing conception of a future Kingdom to be brought in by the will of God, so, on the other hand, He repudiated the idea that 'nothing remained for men but to stand by and wait'. The days might, after all, be shortened by the wrestling of human effort in united fervent prayer:-'God Himself was willing to be thus entreated. He desired as His servants "men of violence "—so earnest in their passion for His Kingdom that they sought to compel its coming, before the appointed time.'

It may be so. Much that is advanced by Dr Scott in preliminary appeal to pregnant narratives goes far to establish the belief that it is so. Doubt nevertheless arises whether this particular passage actually lends itself to the interpretation contended for; and there is the further objection-it has equal cogency in respect of the other saying so luminously explained that we are without certainty as to the ipsissima verba of Jesus. And here I must animadvert on the astounding assertion met with on p. 103: The characteristic word employed by Jesus for the advent of the Kingdom is avapaíveobai-a word expressly chosen in order to fix attention on the startling nature of the manifestation.' Did, then, Jesus really speak in Greek? But further, the 'characteristic word '-scarcely susceptible, indeed, of the meaning read into it-occurs once and once only in the Gospel narrative. Nor is this all; when it does so occur (Lk. xix 11) it is not 'employed by Jesus' at all.