there is very little in it that will not appeal to all branches of the Christian Church. Dr. Capitaine begins with arguments drawn from the non-Christian and the non-biblical sphere; the Messianic expectation among Jews and heathen, and the references to Christ in non-biblical literature. Passing on to the Scripture proofs, our author deals with such points as our Lord's fulfilment of O.T. prophecy [while upon the whole sympathizing with his argument, we feel as if at times he took the word 'fulfil' in a somewhat literal and mechanical sense], His miracles, His resurrection, His predictions, etc. The third branch of evidence is found in such abiding results of Christ's work as are found in the Christian Church. While, as we have already hinted, some of Dr. Capitaine's arguments will have comparatively little weight in some quarters, the book as a whole will be recognized as possessing a distinct apologetic value, and as being the work of one who writes with deep conviction and at the same time with truly Christian courtesy.

Ancient History and History
of Religions.

PROFESSOR MORRIS JASTROW's great work, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen: J. Ricker), continues to make steady progress. As our readers perhaps scarcely need to be reminded, both the author and the publisher have to some extent changed their original plans. The author has gone much more fully into many questions than was done or could have been done in the English edition, so that the work now being issued is not a German edition of the latter, containing merely a few corrections and additions; it is really a new work. In view of the increase of matter, the publisher has resolved to issue the work as a two-volume one. And, as he does not see his way to entertain proposals that have been. made to him to sanction an English or a French translation, this will be the only authoritative form of Professor Jastrow's book. Seven parts have now appeared, running to 552 pages. These will now be published as vol. i. of the book, at a cost of M.10.50 (with obligation to take also vol. ii. when it is published). The first volume closes with the Prayers and Hymns, which have been so exhaustively treated. While fresh discoveries are always throwing new light on ques

tion connected with the Babylonian religion, and leading to a revision of former beliefs, there is a great deal in Professor Jastrow's History which represents work that will never have to be done. again, and embodies results that will not be superseded. It is with no ordinary confidence that we recommend Professor Jastrow as the guide to all that is known of this ancient religion which has of late attracted so much attention.

The issues of 'Der Alte Orient' are always welcome, and this series is now so well known to our readers that it will be enough to chronicle the appearance of the two latest additions that have been made to it. These are the Geschichte der Stadt Babylon, by Dr. Hugo Winckler; and Äthiopien, by Dr. W. Max Müller. Each issue costs 60 pfennigs, and is published by J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig.

Père Lagrange has done well to publish separately (Paris: V. Lecoffre) his interesting contribution to the Revue Biblique on 'La Religion des Perses.' Zoroastrianism is a system to which perhaps too little is sometimes allowed, and from which too much is sometimes claimed; and we feel sure that many of our readers will be glad to have placed before them the views of so competent and at the same time dispassionate a critic as Père Lagrange.

A useful series of popular handbooks under the title, Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart,' is in course of publication in Germany (Halle a. S. GebauerSchwetschke Druckerei und Verlag). One of the latest additions to the series is from the very competent pen of Professor A. Bertholet of Basel. Its subject is Seelenwanderung, and the author traces all the ramifications of this doctrine in ancient and modern times. It is needless to say that the booklet, while written in a simple and popular style, is marked by all the accuracy and thoroughness with which we have learned to associate Professor Bertholet's name.

Professor Carl Clemen has published the Inaugural Lecture he delivered at Bonn in April last, when he took for his subject Die religionsgeschichtliche Methode in der Theologie (Giessen: J. Ricker; price 80 pfennigs). The lecturer has no difficulty in admitting the legitimacy of the method in ques

tion, and he succeeds, we think, in showing that the study of Comparative Religion must always tend to prove the essential originality and uniqueness of the Christian religion. Dr. Clemen has made a timely contribution to the settling of a pressing problem.

We have to note finally that Guthe's well-known Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Tübingen und Leipzig: J. C. B. Mohr; London: Williams & Norgate; price 6s. net) has reached a second edition. The high place which the first edition secured for itself in the estimation of all competent judges will be more than maintained by the book in its new form.

Church History and Early Christian Literature.

THE important series published by V. Lecoffre of Paris under the title, 'Bibliothèque de l'enseignement de l'histoire ecclésiastique,' has received an interesting addition in Dr. J. Labourt's work, Le Christianisme dans l'Empire Perse sous la Dynastie Sassanide (224-632); price 3.50 frs. The series, although intended primarily for Roman Catholic readers, appeals to all students of Church History, and the present issue is particularly welcome, because it deals with a field hitherto practically unknown or at least not explored in a scientific spirit.

To the same author and publisher we are indebted also for an account of the life and work of Timotheus I., the celebrated Nestorian patriarch who influenced the Eastern Church so powerfully and so long in the palmy days of the Abasside dynasty. The book, which will be found full of interest, is written in Latin, and bears the title De Timotheo I., Nestorianorum patriarcha (728823), et Christianorum Orientalium condicione sub Chaliphis Abassidis. Not the least interesting part of the work is the Appendix containing the Timothei Canones under the three headings of 'de Ordinibus Ecclesiasticis,'' de Re Matrimonii,' and 'de Hereditatibus.'

volume, which will at once take rank as one of the most important and necessary to the student in this department, contains a German translation of the Didaskalia, followed by notes critical and exegetical, with a list of various readings, a catalogue of Scripture citations; and four 'Abhandlungen,' which treat, respectively, of the text of the Didaskalia, the character of a Christian congregation in the third century, the New Testament of the Didaskalia, the origin of the Syrian Didaskalia.

The other issue is by N. Bonwetsch, and is entitled Drei Georgisch erhaltene Schriften von Hippolytus (price M.3.50). These three writings, of whose genuineness there appears to be no reasonable doubt, discuss, respectively, the Blessing of Jacob, the Blessing of Moses, the Story of David and Goliath. Hippolytus' exegesis, which is poles asunder from that of modern scholars, is deeply interesting as marking a long obsolete phase.

Dr. E. Preuschen, to whom we are indebted for so much information in the department of Early Christian literature, has published Zwei Gnostische Hymnen, with Text and Translation, followed by an exhaustive discussion of the contents of the two hymns (Giessen: J. Ricker; price M.3). The hymns are entitled, respectively, 'Das Brautlied der Sophia,' and 'Das Lied von der Erlösung,' and the two serve, in the skilful hands of Dr. Preuschen, to throw a welcome and necessary light upon the character and development of primitive Christianity.

The Acta Apollonii have been the subject of discussion on the part of not a few modern scholars, including such illustrious names as those of Harnack and Mommsen. They are subjected to close examination in Heft 3 (1904) of the 'Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Philologisch-historische Klasse),' which is entitled Die Acta Apollonii, von Joh. Geffcken. The result arrived at is that the Acts are a pious fraud, whose motive is also discovered; and the opinion is expressed that the surrender of their genuineness is no loss.

Miscellaneous.

DR. AXEL ANDERSEN of Christiania, who some time ago contributed an article on the Lord's Supper to the Z.N.T. W., has republished it

had in some way or other reached Christianity through Judaism; to each of these, in varying degrees and according to their varying powers of perception, and in their measure also to each of the heathen converts, the mention of the Sabbath in this connexion must have appeared full of significance. Of its early history and of its relation to kindred Semitic institutions, they certainly were ignorant. Had they known from what unpromising beginnings it took its rise, and what different shapes it had assumed in less careful or less worthy hands, they would have gained fresh views of God's manner of dealing with the world; and though they might have felt that Israel could have done better by its trust, they could not have failed also to see how great spiritual oversight on the part of Jehovah, and how great spiritual insight on the part of Israel was implied for the Sabbath to have become in Israel's hands the beneficent institution that it was.

'Six

Yet from the Jewish scriptures, or from the tradition of the nation, or from personal experience, the devout Israelite, the devout proselyte, and the devout Christian could learn all that was essential to enable him to appreciate the part the Sabbath played at this crisis of the Christian Church. From Holy Scripture they could learn -and the teaching lay very much on the surfacethat it was intended to serve two purposes. days shalt thou do thy work,' says apparently the earliest of the laws which bear upon this subject, and on the seventh day thou shalt desist in order that thy ox and thy ass may rest, and that the son of thy maidservant and thy stranger may be refreshed.' The Israelite is 'to keep the Sabbath holy,' says what is perhaps a piece of later legislation, for it is a Sabbath unto Jehovah.'

And

so throughout the course of revelation, with varying promises for obedience and varying penalties for neglect, with varying emphasis and for varying reasons, this religious observance was enjoined in its two aspects on the faithful in Israel almost, we may say, as a test of loyalty to God. They were to rest from ordinary pursuits because God had rested on the seventh day; they were to let others rest because their nation had felt in Egypt the stress of unintermittent toil, and they were to make their rest complete by worship, because our heart is disquieted within us until we find our rest in God.

However much, in some respects, tradition may

have failed to keep itself true to the Sabbath of revelation, it never faltered in its devotion to the institution itself. Its mistakes indeed were due to excess of zeal, to over-anxiety lest the commandment should be of no effect. But though excess of zeal produced formal regulations, which robbed the Sabbath of much of its usefulness to man, and obscured or strangled its spiritual teaching, the tradition never lost sight altogether of man's interest, or of the even higher purpose the Sabbath was meant to serve. On the contrary, it was careful to tell how through the slaughter of their comrades without resistance on the Sabbath day God had taught the Maccabees that the normal observance of the Sabbath must give way to the necessity of self-defence, and had preserved thereby not only the lives of the faithful but their continued witness to Himself. In order to the due worship of God, it not only allowed the priests in the temple to profane the Sabbath and be blameless, but it enjoined on them a double share of work.

But then, as always, it was from his own experience that the devout man learned the value and significance of this institution. The taking of rest is a practical confession of our need of rest, and involves a confession, conscious or unconscious, of our finiteness, which finds its reward in renewed strength and freshness. He who had humbled himself to such confession was exalted to clearer perception, juster criticism, and more effective action. And if the reward was great for him who merely rested, how much greater was it for him who rested knowing what he did, who spent the time, wrung from his finiteness, not merely in leaving things alone, but in throwing himself on the source of strength, the infinite power and love of God. Physically, the effect of the abstinence from work would be as great as ever; morally and spiritually, its effect for such a one would be increased a thousandfold. He had recognized in thought and deed his limitations; he had tried to ascertain what for him was possible and on what conditions; he had examined his conduct by the rule of God's commandments; he had confessed his failures, and had ascribed to its true cause his measure of success. Above all, he had learned to trust God. Time after time, as the period of rest came round, it must have found him engaged with things which touched him nearly, or which he thought imperiously to demand his interference. With rare exceptions he was wrong,

and with rare exceptions he found the world in the end not worse but better for having had to do without him. He could, therefore, henceforth afford to face his limitations, for behind them stood the infinite God.

The lessons of experience being such as these, it is little wonder if-with significant changes of observance and interpretation-a weekly season of rest and devotion was retained in the Christian Church. The wonder is less if we take into account the effect on our Lord's immediate followers of the Sabbath of our text, the last true Sabbath of the Old Dispensation. In a writer of St. Luke's power, the explicit mention of its observance cannot be idle; its occurrence at this crisis was, he saw, of the utmost importance for the twelve: and, while the peculiar form the Sabbath had assumed made it the more effective then for the peculiar purpose it had to serve, its employment at all at such a time must have suggested to him new ideas of the wisdom of God's providence, of the value of routine, and of the value of the existence of a periodic day of

rest.

Nothing can be harder than to estimate at its full the amount of stress which had fallen to the share of His immediate followers during the closing days of our Lord's life. The stress had begun as soon as they had crossed the Jordan and had joined the crowds, roused once more to enthusiasm by the season-it was the Passover; by the locality—it was the scene of Israel's first triumphs and of the activity of its latest prophet; and by the presence in their midst of Him whose mission that prophet had foretold. The beginning of the journey from Jericho to Jerusalem had seen the miracle, itself prophetic, which had restored the blind to sight; the close of it saw the crowds strewing their garments in Christ's way, plucking the branches from the trees, and greeting Him with cries of, 'Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord.' Small wonder if many thought the kingdom of God would immediately appear; small wonder if the apostles themselves desired to think so too.

At the height of their enthusiasm-enthusiasm which our Lord Himself had fostered-the crowds were dismissed. Again they had failed to take Him by force and make Him King. Again the Again the apostles had been led almost to the brink of temptation and again led back. But either on

the morrow, or when the crowds threatened no danger, our Lord again asserted His authority. The temple needed cleansing, and it was cleansed. His action roused the priests, but it did not attract the people. The apostles saw that He had refused the alliance of the crowds, had asserted the moral nature of His kingdom, and had further alienated and emboldened powerful foes. These soon showed their encouragement. Baffled by the sincerity of our Lord's wisdom, they betook themselves to Our Lord was seized, tried, condemned, and put to death; but not until He had once more told His disciples plainly what was about to come to pass, and not until one had betrayed Him, one had denied that he even knew Him, and all had forsaken Him and fled.

It was on men thus circumstanced that in God's providence the Sabbath dawned, men still in danger from those who had slain their Master, men disgraced in their own eyes and in the eyes of others by their desertion, men made desolate by the loss they had sustained. It prescribed for them how far they might go, it limited what they might do; left them in Jerusalem at the mercy of their foes; it condemned them to inactivity, face to face with their danger, their desolation, and their shame.

But inactivity was the very thing they needed. most. The physical strain alone must have been intense. If on the eve of the betrayal the chosen three were heavy with sleep, what must have been the condition of them all when a night and a day of vigil, and danger, and grief, had come and gone? The apostles, moreover, had had their own ideas of what was going to happen, and had clung to those ideas right to the end. They had striven to ignore the plainest language to the contrary, or the most patent facts. They had seized on every symptom in the crisis which favoured their view, and had hoped even while our Lord was hanging on the cross that He would indeed come down and save Himself and them. The days had been for them days of expectation, of hope deferred, of gradual enlightenment as to their Master's purpose, of the obstinate thrusting from them conclusions which somehow they knew would triumph in the end; and our Lord's death left them stunned, as men are stunned who have deliberately hoped against hope, and found their hope deceive them.

Of their sorrow for their Master's loss, of their