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The council of bishops that met at Nicaea, in what is now northwest Turkey, in the spring of the year 325 provides wonderful opportunities for any historian concerned with the human situation. Later generations referred to it as the first ecumenical council of the Christian church. They revered its decisions and regarded them as permanently valid. Many churches still say or sing the Nicene Creed. More historically, it marks the end of early church history and the dawning of the Middle Ages. There was a fundamental change in church-state relations. For centuries Roman emperors had intermittently persecuted Christians; now the Roman emperor took his seat among the bishops and discussed theology with them. As we begin to investigate the historical situation, however, we immediately encounter problems like those faced by all who try to check up on the activities of kings and other rulers. The official mythology, so to speak, does not always correspond to the facts. The Council of Nicaea was ecumenical only in the sense that the participants came from the Roman world and, indeed, only from the eastern half of it. Much of the council's work came unglued within a year or two after it ended. The so-called Nicene Creed was actually set forth not at Nicaea but at Constantinople in 381. The emperor's activities at the council were not an unmixed blessing. Beyond these points, with which we shall deal somewhat more fully, lies the remarkable fact that the official irecord of the council disappeared almost at once. Within twenty-five years a leading participant in the council wrote a book about it and had to rely on his memory for an account of what went on. To put it another way, the tapes of the council's proceedings were definitely not available.

In the Old Testament one of the most striking analogies provided to the relation of God with Israel is derived from human marriage. This analogy does not come as a complete surprise when one recalls the importance of marriage in the patriarchal narratives and in the story of creation. The prophet Hosea did not entirely lack precedents when he acted out a parable of the relation of God to Israel in his marriage to the faithless Gomer. God loves Israel as a husband loves his wife; and in Hosea's parabolic action this love was revealed as established in grace rather than based on works. Among some of the rabbis the covenant at Sinai was treated as God's wedding with Israel 1. It is significant, however, that in Judaism only God was the husband. Neither Moses nor any messianic figure ever took his place 2. The Philonic allegories of the union of the soul with the Logos, or even with Wisdom, the "daughter of God," seem to be the product of an individual's exegesis and they refer to individuals, not to a community 3. In two Matthaean parables, those of the Wedding Banquet (22:2-14) and the Wise and Foolish Virgins (25:1-13), the coming reign of God is portrayed as a wedding, but is by no means clear that Jesus is the bridegroom. On the other hand, according to Mark 2:19 (and parallels) Jesus referred to himself as a bridegroom and stated that the "sons of the bridechamber" could not fast

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 three books to Autolycus of Theophilus of Antioch enjoyed a considerable measure of popularity among later Christian writers. His work was used not only by Greek but also by Latin writers. Eusebius found it in one of the libraries he used, probably at Caesarea; it was also employed by Methodius, Epiphanius, Procopius of Gaza, and John of Damascus. Novatian, Lactantius and Jerome certainly knew his writings; probably Minucius Felix should be added to the list. Three manuscripts of the Ad Autolycum survive; two are copies (one incomplete) of a third, an eleventh or twelfth-century manuscript now in Venice.

Three recent discussions of Irenaeus by Reynders, Audet, and Enslin have examined the thought of Irenaeus almost exclusively in relation to the Christian tradition. This attitude toward his writings is natural, since Irenaeus lives so largely within the tradition; but he lived in the philosophical-rhetorical world of his day as well as in the church. It is the purpose of this paper to examine some of the ideas which he shares with non-Christians of the second century. First we shall consider his use of doxographical materials for the opinions of philosophers, and then we shall turn to his knowledge of other authors and of rhetoric.

The theology of Tatian is difficult to classify. Should one regard its author as a philosopher, as Professor Wolfson does? or as a student of “the homilies of Philo”? or as a writer who made use, even indirectly, of the Parmenides of Plato? In order to answer this question we must inquire first what he knows of Greek philosophy and second what else he knows in regard to Graeco-Roman literary culture.

Chronology is no more than the skeleton of history, but without properly placed bones the body is shapeless. This obvious point is especially important in dealing with the Greek Christian apologists of the second century. Presumably they often addressed themselves to particular historical circumstances, and the relevance of their works should become clearer if we can determine what these circume.ances were.

There are two important chronological questions in the history of the Fourth Gospel: the date of its composition and the date of its acceptance by the church. The solution of the first depends in large measure on the question of John's use of the synoptic gospels. Did he use them at all? And, if he did, in what way? There can be no doubt that if he knew them he had little interest in their historical value. But does this mean that he had more authentic historical data? Or that he was interested not in history but in theology?

In recent years new methods of approaching the study of gnosticism have arisen. The older synthesis of Bousset, with its somewhat over-schematized picture of gnostic thought, and the severely critical analysis of de Faye, with its emphasis on our ignorance of gnostic beginnings, have failed to retain general approval. The newer methods have stressed an existentialist or psychological understanding of the gnostics, and questions of source-analysis and chronology have faded into the background. Often the problem of development within gnostic thought is not seriously considered.

The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers (a term used by the Monophysite Severus of Antioch in the sixth century) present us not only with a fascinating theological literature but also with some difficult problems in regard to its nature. Thomas Elborowe translated Ignatius, Polycarp, and Barnabas and entitled his published work (London, 1668) “a prospect of the primitive Christianity, as it was left by Christ to his apostles, by the apostles to their disciples Saint Polycarp and Holy Ignatius, both contemporaries with and disciples to the Holy Evangelist and Apostle Saint John.” The neatness of this part of the prospect was somewhat marred by the inclusion of Barnabas. “His following epistle indeed,” Elborowe wrote, “may not prove so very acceptable to some, in regard of his strange explications of scripture, which are not after the modern and more refined mode. But it is to be noted that, when he wrote, Christianity was but in the cradle, and scarce advanced into her morning dress.” Nearly three hundred years later Mgr. G. Jouassard, writing in the Mélanges de science religieuse (1957), was facing problems not unlike those stated or implied by Elborowe. What is the value of the Apostolic Fathers? What kind of authority do they have? Are they any more valuable than such a document as the Epistle of the Apostles? They are hard to classify as literature and they come from a long period of time. Both “apostolic” and “fathers” are words which ascribe more importance to them than they really deserve.

and industrious scholars, chiefly in Germany, undertook to show just how human the Bible was. They looked at statements which had previously been treated as items of historical fact and proceeded to prove that the biblical writers were not usually historians and that what they wrote was not usually history; they looked at various moral ideas, especially in the Old Testament, and showed that these ideas were not in harmony with the Sermon on the Mount or, for that matter, with the views of the Enlightenment or of the nineteenth century itself. In other words, the Bible was not an infallible guide either in matters of faith, where faith was related to history, or in matters of morals. The negative effect of this kind of criticism was so great that its positive results are often overlooked. On the

theological rather than philosophical. For this reason the fundamental problems of theological method concerned the nature of exegesis and the interpretation of scripture. God's revelation recorded in scripture was both final and complete. Nevertheless, the foolishness of God was constantly being assailed by the wisdom of men in its pretense of being wiser than he. Under this attack, and under the influence of their own philosophical training, some Christians rationalized the difficulties of scripture through allegorical interpretation. Others in simpler faith insisted on the literal meaning of the word. It might be said that the allegorists took history as mythology and that the literalists took mythology (in the theological sense of the word) as history. There was a third group, however, consisting of theologians of the church who revered tradition, which produced a

IT IS often assumed by defenders as well as by opponents of historical and literary criticism of the Bible that the method came into existence at the time of the Renaissance and reached its height in the nineteenth century. Such is not the case. Among the primary interests of the great schools of the Hellenistic age was criticism. Like other sciences, it tended to lose its importance after the triumph of Christianity and the barbarian invasions; in the collapse of the ancient world it almost disappeared. Only with the rediscovery of Greek manuscripts after the fall of Constantinople, and with the revival of the techniques of investigation, could the way be prepared for modern criticism. These techniques are not essentially different from those employed in the ancient schools. Another mistake sometimes made is the assumption that such men as Origen created the methods of criticism and that such a work as his Hexapla marks the beginning of textual research. On the contrary, for five hundred years the editing of manuscripts had been carried on at Alexandria. Just as today methods

Our text is taken from one of the valuable and important articles by Hans van Campenhausen now presented in English under the title Tradition and Life in the Church. These essays deal with aspects of church life from Easter to the early middle ages and reflect their author's learning and sober judgment on such diverse topics as early Christian aceticism, church order, military service, images, and priesthood (the problem of the character indelebilis). At the beginning of an interesting study of “Augustine and the Fall of Rome.”

Various views have been held in the past concerning the purpose of the sixfold chronology in Luke. “The breaking of this oppressive silence [since the time of Malachi] by the voice of the Baptist caused a thrill through the whole Jewish population throughout the world. Lk. shows his appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis by the sixfold attempt to give it an exact date.” From this we may pass to a somewhat calmer later view. “The evangelist is using here a form which he has taken over from an alien sphere. … It is derived from secular historiography, which has the habit of making prominent important events, especially those with which the principal narrative begins, by means of circumstantial datings and synchronisms.”

philosophical language. He wrote On the Subjection of the Senses to Faith, On the Unity of Soul and Body, 1 On Truth, On Faith, On Hospitality, and On the Corporeal God (Eusebius, I. E. iv. 26. 2). Some of these topics may take their texts from the epistle to the Hebrews (5.14 on the exercise of the senses, 13. 2 on hospitality, 12.29 God a fire). The first and the last, however, reflect contemporary Stoic thought, according to which the senses served the principal part of the soul, where tad-rtg, a "firm comprehension", took place (SVF III 548; cf. II 823-62), and according to which God was corporeal (SVF II 1028-48). In the StoicJewish IV Maccabees 2.22, it is the mind which controls the senses. 2

THE oldest Christian quotation from a Greek poet occurs in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where we find a line from Menander which had probably become proverbial. Another quotation is to be found in an address he is said to have delivered at Athens, but it may come from Luke rather than from his mentor; we cannot be sure. A third quotation appears in the letter to Titus. Such quotations, not very frequent, show us that the earliest Christians, or at any rate some of them, shared in the common culture of their day and regarded Greek poets as having a considerable measure of insight into the human situation. The quotation from Menander is introduced with the words, "Make no mistake," a phrase which elsewhere precedes a statement based on the Christian view of the kingdom of God (I Cor. 6:9). That in Titus is followed by the comment, "This evidence is true." In dealing with the relation between early Christianity and Greek paideia we must therefore begin with Christian quotations from the poets, and especially the comic poets. These poets were congenial to Christians because of their many common concerns. They avoided mythological themes except in order to ridicule them; they used everyday speech; they were concerned with human problems and moral questions, and some of their moral aphorisms had become proverbial. Occasionally they ventured into what Christians regarded as theology, and at such points their views were not unlike those held by Christians. Though Christians bitterly attacked the teaching of Epicurus, they were glad enough to use the plays of Menander, Epicurus' fellow student at Athens; and an acute critic like Lucian could recognize resemblances between Christian and Epicurean attitudes toward the gods and toward "superstition."1

Two problems are involved in the analysis of gnosticism. First comes the criticism of the sources. Since most of our information about gnosis still comes from the church fathers, we must try to determine how reliably such writers as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius have reproduced their sources. In this connection Sagnard'sLa gnose valentinienne et le témoignage de saint Irénée(Paris, 1947), is especially useful since it establishes Irenaeus' essential trustworthiness. Second comes the interpretation of the gnostic text once it has been established. At this point there is much disagreement among modern scholars. In general the older way of looking at gnosticism, set forth by such scholars as De Faye, Leisegang, Casey, Nock, and most recently Sagnard, is based on description and historical investigation, with emphasis laid on the search for sources and interrelations. Ideally, proof of the existence of these sources and interrelations is offered, and the proof is based on historical probabilities.

P I_HE doctrine of the resurrection of the body is perhaps the most controversial question in Christian belief. The claim has been made that here we find Greek philosophy and HebrewChristian faith most clearly and diametrically opposed. Here, it is said, is an either/or where one chooses Christianity with the resurrection of the flesh or Hellenistic philosophy with its "spiritual" outlook. The conflict is modern as well as ancient. As recently as I92I H. D. A. Major was accused of heresy because he proved that the doctrine of most ancient Christians was not identical with that prevalent in Anglicanism today.' The bishop of Oxford, Dr. Gore, argued that Major's emphasis on this difference was "due to the limited view he takes of Catholic tradition."2 Gore presumably meant that in interpreting the tradition we are not bound by majority decisions in the past. But it cannot be denied that what may be called the main stream of ancient Christian thought runs counter to Scripture at this point, and if Scripture is the ultimate authority for the church's teaching, this difference should not be obscured. The report on Doctrine

In 1936 Henry Lucks could write of Athenagoras' treatise On the Resurrection of the Dead that “it is rather singular that there is no questioning of the authorship of this work, and no hesitancy evident in attributing it to Athenagoras.” On the other hand, in 1950 P. Keseling made the following statement after speaking of Athenagoras' Legatio:Demselben Verfasser weist eine von der Hand des Erzbischof Arethas selbst herrühende (so Stählin bei Harnack, Lit. 2 1, 317, 4) Eintragung in dem massgebenden Codex Paris, graecus 451 v J. 914 einen Λόγος περὶ ἀναστάεως τῶν νεκρῶν (Oratio de resurrectione mortuorum), also eine Schrift über die Auferstehung der Toten zu, die jedoch, sonst nirgends bezeugt und aus inneren Gründen nicht unverdächtig, hier ausser Betracht geblieben ist.The purpose of this paper is to develop the reasons for believing that Athenagoras could not have written the treatise De resurrectione.

In Vigiliae Christianae 11 (1957), 212-25, Pierre Nautin published some admirable criticisms of the text of the second book of Theophilus. The purpose of the present article is to suggest emendations which may serve to bring some order out the chaos now present in the third book, especially in regard to chronological matters. First comes a minor matter of consistency. In I 13 (38, 9 Otto) Th. begins a sentence with ri be xNa ov3X (with no verb); elsewhere he uses the expression rt 6' ovXz xNa, sometimes with a verb (III 3, p. 192, 16; III 5, p. 198, 5; III 17, p. 228, 13-230, 1), sometimes without (II 23, p. 120, 17; II 37, p. 180, 1; III 7, p. 204, 1). Where a verb follows, Otto emends to zi 6; probably it should be so emended in every case (cf. Aeschylus, frag. 310 Nauck, p. 96). Next we turn to the manifold aberrations in Theophilus' chronological materials. There are two quotations from Plato in III 16, the first from Leg. 677 c-d (though ascribed to the Republic), in which faulty wordseparation has led V to read tot' 'Xezv adeq%ovs for -rOe xiAZa (' da' o5 (p. 228, 1, corrected by all the editors). The second quotation, from Leg. 683b, ends in the middle of a sentence which could be completed by the addition of 55 letters from Plato. Professor Benedict Einarson has noted that this addition would