In the University of Michigan collection of papyri is a fragmentary codex (No. 917) of the Shepherd of Hermas, much damaged, yet with many pages almost intact. The portion preserved is confined to the Similitudes. Its range is from Sim. II. 9 (χορηγοῦντες τοῖς πένησιν) to Sim. IX. 5, 1, ending with ἐδόκει, so that it covers a little more than one fourth of the whole work. The book is undoubtedly older than most of the fragments of the Shepherd previously published. So far as I can judge from the available facsimiles, it is the oldest of all texts except the Berlin fragment (P. Berlin 5513) and, possibly, P. Oxyrh. 404, which would probably now be given an earlier date than that assigned to it in 1903 (late third or early fourth century). As far as the new MS. goes, it has preserved most of the sentences missing from the Athos manuscript and heretofore supplied from the Latin versions, and it has a large number of variant readings, of which many are of interest and value. Thus for extent, age, and textual importance, the Michigan codex seems likely to assume a position of great significance in the study of the Shepherd, and especially in the preparation of the much-desired new critical edition.

The so-called Roman question — that is, the question whether the situation caused by the Italian occupation of Rome in 1870, whereby the Pope was deprived of his territorial possessions, is compatible with the freedom required for the exercise of his high office by the head of the Catholic Church — was a matter of deep concern, in particular to German Catholics, during the World War. It was hoped in all seriousness that the victory of the Central Powers would bring about a positive solution to this question and restore the political independence of the Pope. Such works, among others, as those of Hoeber and Sägmüller, and especially Bastgen's three thick volumes, bear witness to this feeling. But the last-named work is a disappointment. The author has, to be sure, assembled a vast amount of material in contemporary documents, covering the whole period from the rise of the Papal temporal power until to-day. He is also to be commended for devoting but few pages to the period before the French Revolution and laying his main stress on the restoration of the Papal State in the nineteenth century and its development down to the present, so that the second half of the second volume is entirely devoted to the years of the World War. But he has been criticized on all hands for giving his documents and extracts from periodicals and newspapers with no such fullness as the size of his work and his own announcements gave reason to expect. He has also taken his task too easily — for instance, merely copying out the articles of the “Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung” (important as that organ is for ecclesiastical questions), instead of going to original sources or citing other journals, as he ought to have done. And his reproduction of the material does not conform to the standards of scholarship. Taking the work, however, for what it is, it is not to be denied that, especially in the last parts, it brings together a great deal that cannot be so conveniently found elsewhere; and in spite of the defects named the book is well worth buying and deserves a place in every considerable library. — That the problem of the status of the Pope in international law has also been under consideration by the Catholics of Holland, is shown by Schneider's discussion. He views the temporal sovereignty of the Pope as inseparable from his spiritual authority; and consequently sees in the Italian law of guaranty a mere act of violence, and in the exclusion of the Pope from the Peace Conference and the League of Nations not only a gross injustice but a bad blunder.

The “Oratio ad Graecos” is to be found in the third volume of Otto's “Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum,” and in Harnack's “Die pseudo-justinische Rede an die Griechen.” It represents itself as a defence for turning from the religion of the Greeks to the religion of the Logos, and presents its case most vigorously. The document opens with the traditional denunciation of the immoralities of the Greek gods and heroes, a purely Greek polemic which was begun at least as far back as Xenophanes. To this subject the author adds nothing, but presents an excellent epitome of the usual arguments. He then discusses the current way of living among the Greeks, and says that he rejected it with loathing; he justifies his opinion with a half-dozen vivid statements about Greek practices. From commenting upon the Greek religion and morality he turns in contrast to describe with equal pithiness the high moral and spiritual character of his new faith, exhorting his former associates to find the same peace and exaltation which the change has meant to him. The writer has remarkable power of going to the heart of what he discusses.