The post-apostolic generation was not interested in the person who, according to all four gospels, betrayed Jesus the day before his death. This whole episode remained a rather dark spot for the young church, which was in constant self-defence against the manifold powers of the pagan world. It is not astonishing, therefore, that the apologetic literature of the second century carefully avoided this subject. The Judas legend, developing more and more the evil character and the horrible end of the betrayer, does not even appear in the second century writings of Justin, Hermas, and Clement, and we would not know anything about it if Irenaeus and the Catenas of the church had not preserved the Papias fragments for us. The apologetic literature had no use for it.

The history of the Estonian nation begins about 2000 B.C. when they settled down in the land which is now known as Estonia. Roman historians called all the peoples of the Baltic area collectively by the name of “Aesti”; later that name came to apply to the Estonians alone. Tacitus thought that the “Aesti” spoke a language “similar to that of the Britons”, whereas in fact the Estonians, Finns and Livs spoke a so-called Finno-Ugri language, utterly distinct from the languages of Slavs, Germanic groups, Latvians and Lithuanians.

It is commonly said that the two live movements in European and American Christianity during the eighteenth century were rationalism and pietism. Both were rooted in the seventeenth century. And commonly their differences, which were real, are stressed to the point of making them appear to have been completely separate and even mutually exclusive developments. This obscures the fact that in origin they were but obverse sides of a single movement which gathered enough power and momentum during the eighteenth century to sweep in religious freedom and separation of church and state over the opposition of the great bulk of traditional orthodoxy in the churches.

Shortly before the opening of the nineteenth century there began what American historians have chosen to call the Home Missionary Movement. This phenomenon in American social and religious history must not be confused with “church extension,” for its purpose was not to extend religious denominations as such. but rather to “save souls.” This missionary enterprise was carried out chiefly by various missionary “societies”—both denominational and interdenominational. Some of these groups were all-inclusive in their missionary interests, but others were limited to specific phases of the work, such as the distributional enterprises. While these organizations flourished along the Atlantic seaboard, their chief concern was the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants of the frontier where the easterners believed that shameful lawlessness and immorality prevailed.

Konstantin Pobedonostsev, over-procurator of the holy synod in the Russian Church from 1880 until 1905, occupies an important place in Russia's history. As adviser and confidant of the last tsars, Alexander III and Nicholas II, he left his firm imprint upon imperial policies during years of crisis. As ruler of the church he also played a significant part in religious affairs—a part which has not yet been accurately evaluated. Too often it has been assumed that ardent religious faith guided his conduct of church affairs, and he has been likened to Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, or called the Russian Torquemada. In truth, however, Pobedonostsev was a man of politics; more particularly, a man of Russian politics. His main objective was always the preservation of a strong and powerful Russian state; and in almost every act which at first glance appears to have been determined by religious motives, a more critical study reveals the primacy of his political aims.