This paper is a study of the second volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man with a view to deriving Niebuhr's philosophy of history. It may be said that the one thing which Niebuhr has uppermost in mind is to set forth such a philosophy of history; we shall attempt to catch it within the scope of this paper, and having delineated the structure in its main elements, we shall criticize it from the point of view of Christian Naturalism and attempt a constructive interpretation of our own.

There is a persistent tradition in the Eastern Christian Churches, often referred to by Oriental Christians even at the present day, to the effect that early in the VIIIth century there was an exchange of letters on the question of the respective merits of Christianity and Islam, between the Umayyad Caliph ʻUmar II (717–720) and the Byzantine Emperor Leo III, the Isaurian (717–741), in which the Emperor gloriously refuted the claims of Islam. If this is so, it will represent one of the earliest documents in the Muslim-Christian Controversy known to us. Carl Güterbock rightly states that the beginnings of literary discussions concerning Islam among the Greeks can be traced back to the middle of the VIIIth century, when Leo III was succeeded by his son Constantine V (741–775), but he begins his account of the Byzantine polemists with John of Damascus (†754) and his pupil Theodore Abū Qurra (c. 825). A polemical epistle of Leo III to ʻUmar must have been written before 720, and would thus be earlier than any known Byzantine tractate on this controversy.

By the editor's kindness I am permitted to present here some corrections and supplements to papers and notes previously published in this Review. I had hesitated to claim the attention of readers again for matters of minor importance; but justice to other scholars seemed to demand an additional word about some of the following topics, and the interest of the supplementary matter must be my excuse for reverting to the others.

“But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law highly regarded by all the people, got up in the council and ordered the men to be removed for a while, and then said, ‘Men of Israel, take care what you propose to do with these men. For some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be a person of importance, and a group of men numbering some four hundred joined him. But he was killed and all his followers were dispersed and disappeared. After him, at the time of the census, Judas of Galilee appeared, and raised a great following, but he too perished and all his followers were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this idea or movement is of human origin, it will come to naught, but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop it. You may actually find yourselves fighting against God!’” — Acts V, 34–39 (tr. Goodspeed).

L. Ziehen has already observed that we have no certain evidence handed down to us concerning the exact name of the god to whom the festival of the Thessalian Peloria was dedicated and who was most probably a personification of Zeus. Most MSS of Athenaeus have Πελωρíῳ, and Πελώριος is therefore accepted as the likely version by most scholars; but the Codex Marcianus of Athenaeus has the dative Πέλωρι, and Eustath, Il. 1101, 12 f. has Πελωρóς, the same name as that of the human messenger whose good news was said to have initiated the festival. Leake published a unique bronze coin of Phalanna in Northern Thessaly which is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and probably solves this question. The obverse of this much discussed coin, which was issued in the late fourth or the third century B.C. when the native dialects were used everywhere in Thessaly, shows the head of a bearded Zeus laureate or of a similar god, and has as his name ]λορις. There is only room ‘off flan’ for two or three missing letters at the beginning of this word in the original die. Under these circumstances the restoration [Πέ] λορις or, more exactly, [Πέ] λο(υ)ρις is, in my opinion, very probable, if not certain, ου instead of ω being a peculiarity of the Thessalian dialect.