As an effective philosophic concept, applicable to all forms of being, Immanence takes its start from Stoicism. It was a growth, rather than a first principle or formula. It did not start as a scientific hypothesis, but rather as an attractive figure or guess, which gradually grew into a theory, and was elaborated into a body of doctrine. The assumption out of which it sprang was that the world was an ordered unity, as Pythagoras had declared—a Kosmos. Whence came the Order of the Unity, and how imposed?

In 1895 there appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Prussian Academy an account of Eine bisher unbekannte altchristliche Schrift in koptischer Sprache, by Carl Schmidt, at that time a scholar of the German Imperial Archaeological Institute in Egypt. Schmidt was helped in further research on this document by Pierre Lacau, the Egyptologist, but a full publication was delayed in the hope of further knowledge. This has come, slowly but satisfactorily from new discoveries and the friendly coöperation of French, English, and German scholars.

The editors of the Harvard Theological Review have asked me for an article on “the state of religion in Germany as affected by the war, and its outlook in the period of reconstruction upon which—we may hope—the world is now entering.” With some hesitation I comply with their request; but I must beg my readers to allow me first a word of very frank introduction.

Recent archaeological discoveries have contributed in many ways to enrich our knowledge of the early periods of Christian history. It cannot be denied that the results of these investigations as a whole have given testimony in favor of the conservative historical tradition, rather than of the aggressive criticism of the last century. In many cases archaeological evidence has verified or confirmed traditions to which historical criticism had denied any positive value, and solved what had been regarded as insoluble problems. Where literary evidence was lacking or inconclusive, archaeology and ancient liturgy have furnished the historians of the early centuries of the Church new sources of knowledge of inestimable value.

It is generally held that these three names apply to one person, who was the chief of the Twelve Apostles and the first witness to the Resurrection. It is, of course, recognized that there was another apostle named Simon, but he plays only a small part in Christian tradition.

“So the whole number of generations from Abraham to David is fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah fourteen generations.” Matt. 1, 17.

Καὶ ἐλθὼν ἐκεῖνος ἐλέγξει τὸν κόσμον περὶ ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ περὶ κρίσεως˙ περὶ ἁμαρτίας μέν, ὅτι οὐ πιστεύουσιν εἰς ἐμέ˙ περὶ δικαιοσύνης δέ, ὅτι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ὑπάγω καὶ οὐκέτι θεωρεῖτέ με˙ περὶ δὲ κρίσεως, ὃτι ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου κέκριται

In my “Style and Literary Method of Luke” I have argued that the attempt to confirm by means of so-called technical medical terms the tradition that Luke and Acts were written by a physician has failed to establish the presence in these writings of words that were not used freely also by non-medical writers. Indeed, the attempt was bound to fail for the reason that unlike the present medical profession the ancient physician scarcely had a technical vocabulary at all. As Professor G. F. Moore there pointed out (pp. 53 f.), while modern medical terminology is largely made up of foreign words, the scientific words of the Greeks were native to the living language and congenial for ordinary use.