In the preparation of the following survey two methods were possible. I might select for fuller notice certain of the most important productions and by means of them illustrate the progress in this branch of historical science during the period of the war, or I might endeavor to give as complete an account of the literature as possible, including notices of less significant but nevertheless useful publications. I decided upon the second course, partly because the mass of production seemed to me too large and varied to be satisfactorily exhibited by the more or less arbitrary selection of a few works, partly because it often happens that a seemingly unimportant note may be of worth to some scholar who happens to be pursuing research in that particular field—something which in the many years during which I edited the Theologische Jahresbericht I have often found true in my own experience and that of others. Unfortunately the Jahresbericht, which seemed to us indispensable, as well as the Theologische Rundschau, edited by Bousset, whose untimely death we mourn, have both succumbed to the unfavorable conditions of the times. All the more necessary does it seem to create at least a partial substitute for them, and I embraced the opportunity offered me by the editors of this Review the more gladly because in my own country it will for the present be quite impossible to publish such a survey.

The very multiplicity of the attempts which have been made to solve the exegetical problem presented by the difficult Logion of St. Matthew 11, 12 is in itself a strong indication that no one of the proffered interpretations can claim for itself a pre-eminent position; and inasmuch as all the thought that has been expended upon the Saying has not succeeded in discovering in it a meaning that by its inherent probability compels us to accept it as the true interpretation, it is inevitable that we should wonder whether some error can have crept into the text.

This verse contains a textual problem which has perplexed editors of the New Testament since the days of Erasmus and the Complutensian edition. The question is, What pronoun should be read after καθαρισμοῦ? — αὐτῶν, or αὐτοῦ, or αὐτῆς?

Αὐτῶν is attested by אABLWΓΔII etc., by nearly all the minuscules, by the Peshitta, the Harclean, and the Palestinian Syriac, and by three minor ancient versions (Ethiopic, Armenian, and Gothic). The Arabic Diatessaron also has the plural pronoun, agreeing with the Peshitta at this point. Origen found αὐτῶν in his text of the Gospel, and, so far as is known, he was acquainted with no other reading in this place. He quotes Luke 2, 22 in his Fourteenth Homily on Luke, which deals with the Circumcision and Purification, and he discusses the difficulty involved in the plural αὐτῶν without mentioning any variant reading. If he had known of such, he would certainly have made some reference to it. The Homiliae in Lucam were written at Caesarea, after Origen's withdrawal to that city from Alexandria in the year 231. We may therefore assume that αὐτῶν formed part of Luke 2, 22 in the text current at Caesarea and Alexandria in the early part of the third century, and that there were no rival claimants for the place. It was also the Antiochian, or ‘Syrian,’ reading, as its predominance in the minuscule manuscripts proves.