Le problème des anges dans le paganisme ancien et dans le christianisme a été discuté plusieurs fois déjà par les théologiens et les historiens sans accord sur la question fondamentale, quels éléments dans ce culte sont païens et quels sont juifs et chrétiens. Ainsi Dibelius, Bousset et Andres ont vu dans les documents relatifs à ce sujet les idées et les formules grecques, le rapport des anges avec le monde souterrain surtout leur parut particulièrement grec. Selon Cumont le culte des anges était un apport oriental dans le monde grec et romain. Dans ses derniers travaux Cumont examine les similitudes entre les croyances eschatologiques païennes et chrétiennes et conclut qu'elles proviennent d'une source commune, notamment du mazdeisme. Les chercheurs modernes ne sont pas d'accord sur la signification du terme angelos qui se rencontre dans les épitaphes de Théra. Selon M. Guarducci les inscriptions sont païennes, selon H. Gregoire, A. Ferrua et L. Robert elles sont chrétiennes. M. P. Nilsson ne se prononce pas sur le fond du problème, mais il remarque que la question reste ouverte, si à côté de l'ange juif et chrétien il y avait dans les croyances anciennes un ange païen.

The title of this paper quite evidently promises more than can be fulfilled in the space of a single lecture. On any reckoning, the Gospel of Thomas contains over 100 logia, and even if some may for present purposes be set aside the discussion and evaluation of the rest would still be enough to fill a quite substantial book. All that is offered here is a preliminary survey, an attempt to indicate some of the possible lines of approach, some of the conclusions which may be drawn, to present a few examples, chosen among many, which may serve to show the similarities and the variations between Thomas and our Gospels, and thereby to illustrate the ways in which the new document may very well enrich our understanding of the development of the Gospel tradition.

I received a letter from the God-beloved Bishop Eusebius enjoining me to write again to the bishops of the West concerning certain ecclesiastical affairs. He wanted me to write the letter, which is to be signed by all who are in (our) communion; but, since I do not see how I could write about the matters which he mentioned, I have sent the memorandum to Your Reverence, so that you yourself, after reading it and hearing the reports of the most beloved brother Sanctissimus, our fellow-priest, may deign to write about these matters as will seem best to yourself. I am ready to subscribe my signature to this letter and to have it carried quickly to those who are in (our) communion, so that the one who is to go to the bishops of the West may have all the signatures when he sets out. Give orders that I be informed immediately of what Your Holiness has in mind, so that I may not be ignorant of your decisions.

A very powerful case has been made out for the influence of the Platonism of Plotinus upon Saint Augustine. From the Manichaean simple solution of the problem of evil Augustine was delivered by reading the Neo-Platonists and especially Plotinus. It was Plotinus who convinced him that God was a spirit, not a luminous body, and he always remained grateful for this deliverance from the crude fantasies of the Manichaeans. In the two years before his conversion when he was receiving a deeper penetration into Christianity through the sermons of St. Ambrose, he came to know of Plotinus in a very few treatises of the Enneads (certainly 1/6 “On the Beautiful” and quite probably V/1 “On the Three Chief Hypostases”) in the Latin translation of Marius Victorinus. St. Ambrose made a determined effort to apply the principles of Plotinus’ philosophy to the clarification of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as against the Arians. The results of such an attempt might not be theologically satisfying but they are interesting. This impact of the mind of Plotinus upon the mind of Augustine was a decisive one because Augustine found a very great area of agreement between the teaching of Plotinus and that of the Scriptures as expounded by St. Ambrose, above all the Gospel of St. John.

Since Maurice Kelley's unequivocal statement in This Great Argument that “Paradise Lost is an Arian document,” scholars have generally consented to call Milton an Arian. Professor William B. Hunter's recent article has effectively shifted the burden of proof. I should like to provide some supporting evidence for Mr. Hunter's thesis, and one qualification.

The modern Catholic problem in Russia, like the Jewish problem, begins with the Polish Partitions; and its history ends with its violent solution in 1923 by the Bolsheviks, who completed the task at which the tsars had so long and persistently worked. The human material of this story consisted of 1,693,549 Roman Catholics and 3,033,968 Greek Catholics in 1804, if we excluded those who had not received the sacraments. By the same year the Latin Catholics had been organized into the vast Archdiocese of Mohylew and seven suffragan sees of Wilno, Samogitia, Luck-Zytomir, Kamieniec, and Minsk. Except for the establishment of Tiraspol-Saratov and the government suppression of Minsk and Kamieniec, this remained the hierarchical organization of the Latin Catholic Church in Russia. The Greek Catholic Church consisted of the Archdiocese of Polock and the dioceses of Luck and Brest, all of which disappeared in the union of Polock (1839) that forcibly annexed the Uniate Church to the Russian Orthodox.