In Vigiliae Christianae for November 1955 (vol. ix, pp. 212–217) Mr. Robert Leaney contributed some comments upon the interpretation, reconstruction, and authorship of the sadly mutilated fragments from a codex, tentatively described as a ‘Gospel Commentary’ when first published by Sir Harold Idris Bell and Mr. T. C. Skeat in 1935 together with the Fragments of an Unknown Gospel. Following the lead of Professor Robert M. Grant (Vig. Chr. ii, 1948, pp. 243–247) he would ascribe the fragments to Origen, but offers different restorations of two sentences, and thinks that a homily is a more probable origin than an early commentary on the Psalms as proposed by Grant.

The excavations of Thasos conducted with patience and skill by the École Françhise d'Athènes since 1911 brought to light many important documents enriching largely our knowledge of the political, economic and religious history of this island. Many interesting papers and books have been published on different subjects dealing with ancient Thasos; others are in preparation. It is a real pleasure for the historian of Greek religion to find in these publications numerous documents of a religious character. They are of course fragmentary and difficult to interpret, but nevertheless extremely important. And one must be grateful to the editors for their laborious efforts to present them to us in a comprehensible form.

It is a well-known fact that, sometime between the 4th and 7th centuries, a recension of the NT, or at least of the Pauline and Catholic epistles, into thought-lines was made. This recension is attributed variously to Euthalius, to Evagrius, even to Pamphilius. In spite of the fact that its authorship is unclear, this recension into thought-lines, along with certain other matter which is normally found with it, is traditionally called “Euthalian matter” or “Euthalian apparatus.” There are two important problems concerning Euthalian matter which are at present unsolved: (1) the date of Euthalius (or of the author of the recension, whom I shall henceforth call Euthalius for convenience sake); (2) which parts of the Euthalian matter are to be ascribed to the original author?

The problem of the attitude of Judaism towards art and images, at the beginning of the Christian era, has again come to the forefront of scholarly enquiry as a result of the publication of the first volumes of E. R. Goodenough's monumental work, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (vols. 1–3, New York 1953; vol. 4, New York 1954). In these learned pages, every particle of evidence bearing on the subject is carefully considered, and the author emphatically confirms as fundamental to his main thesis the accepted view: that at least up to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, there was a completely effective Rabbinic ban on any sort of iconographic representation for whatever purpose. (His striking conclusions with regard to the later period need not concern us here.) In this article, I would like to reconsider this matter from a slightly different point of view. I propose in it, however, to adopt a criterion which is nowadays becoming somewhat unusual: not only to confine myself to strictly contemporary testimony, but moreover to assume that the contemporaries meant exactly what they said.

Amongst the homilies ascribed to Proclus, one-time bishop designate of Cyzicus and later bishop of Constantinople (434–46), there is included one of which the subject is the Ascension of Christ. The first section of this sermon was transcribed, with the omission of a few sentences, by Photius in his Bibliotheca; he assigned it, however, not to Proclus but to Nilus, an ex-Prefect of Constantinople who had embraced the monastic life and retired to the deserts of Sinai in the first decade of the fourth century. The problem of authorship thus presented can only be determined upon internal evidence, since no other references to this sermon have been preserved.