In a major study, “The Roman Army and the Roman Religious Year,” recently published in this journal (XLV [1952] 187–252), Professor Nock has presented a new interpretation of the character and purpose of the Feriale Duranum. It is hardly necessary at this short interval to repeat his conclusions, which seem to me quite convincing, but as a postscript to Nock's study, I should like to do three things. The first is to discuss the purpose of the military Feriale when it was established, as it probably was, by Augustus. The second is to consider the distribution of the occasions in the Feriale and hence to some extent their value as breaks in the soldier's routine. Finally, I shall examine three sections of the text which for one reason or another deserve close study.

William Robertson Smith wrote in 1885 that the biblical convention whereby aman is said to “go in” to his bride represents a linguistic trace ofonce widespread “beena marriage,” in which men joined the natal households of the women who took them as husbands. It was an error of literalist reductionism, but one that lent support to an imposing infrastructure of systematic kinship theory and evolutionism that continues to excercise an influenceon some contemporary scholars. Another way of saying this is that Robertson Smith failed to recognize a significant biblical metaphor—that of men enteringwomen's tents—when he saw one. This misapprehension of biblical poetics has had important consequences for the way in which he and his successors have interpreted the Hebrew Bible.

The case of Richard Simon and the suppression of his book, Histoire critique du Vieux Testament in 1678 stands at a point where the interests of both Church and State in maintaining control of the book trade intersected. As such, the case is of interest in two important areas: first, from the point of view of the social and political history of the ancien régime in France, this case exhibits the intense concern for maintenance or extension of the powers of jurisdiction of the authorities which is so characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. In some instances this preoccupation with autorité and droit led to an unseemly public jockeying for power, and it is interesting to see how the book trade is seen as a vital element in this struggle.

Although Pontius Pilate is known primarily because of one episode —his sentencing Jesus of Nazareth to the cross —and from one source — the New Testament, there are five discrete incidents involving him which are reported in extra-Biblical sources. They are: the so-called “affair of the standards” at Jerusalem, his construction of an aqueduct in the same city, the episode of the golden shields in Jerusalem, his repression of armed Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim, and, finally, his citation to Rome by the proconsul of Syria, Vitellius, and his arrival there after the emperor Tiberius died in 37 A.D. Josephus is our source for all these incidents except for the golden shields affair, which is reported only by Philo in his Embassy to Gaius.

To deal with the problem of the “historical” Jesus is to deal with the synoptic Gospels (with occasional appropriations of Johan-nine material).

To use the apocryphal Gospels does not seem to be advisable, since their inclusion is beset with a number of notorious difficulties. First of all, any attempt to recover historical material from the vast sea of noncanonical tradition has proved to be an arduous labor yielding only negligible results.

Some years ago mysteries were a favorite subject of research in the religion of the Hellenistic and Roman age. Scholars were almost exclusively concerned with the mysteries originating in the Near East and Egypt and the mysteries of Dionysos were mentioned only in passing. This is understandable, for the literary sources are scarce and widely scattered, the monuments are, though numerous, dispersed and very often difficult to interpret. Father Festugière included in his paper on the Dionysiac mysteries a lengthy treatment of the later ones, especially their organization, and Cumont appended to the last edition of his book on the Oriental religions in Roman paganism a discussion of the Bacchic mysteries, in which his chief purpose was to show that they were influenced by the Orient.

These opening years of the twentieth century have been marked by a profound revival of interest in Mysticism, though we are perhaps not yet justified in speaking of a distinct revival of Mysticism itself. This revival of interest in Mysticism can be traced to no one explanatory cause, but is due to a confluence of many contributory streams of influence. Our expanding historical knowledge has very freshly brought to light the important part which Mysticism has played in the religious life of the world, and especially in the nineteen centuries of Christian development. A group of psychological researches has aroused an immense interest in the inner life, and particularly in the deep-lying regions of the subconscious, where vast sources of hidden spiritual energy appear to lie. The prevailing tendencies in philosophy—common to many schools—to attack “intellectualism,” to humble the claims and pretensions of “knowledge,” and to exalt, on the other hand, intuition, first-hand experience, knowledge of acquaintance, appreciation, and valuation, have given aid and comfort to those who prefer the “heart” to the “head.”

The Armenian Vita here translated, of Marutha, a Syrian bishop of the fifth century, has an interest because of Marutha's activity as mediator between the Byzantine emperors, Arcadius and Theodosius II, and the Sassanian king Yezdegerd I.

The ancient sources for the life of Marutha are scanty nor does the biography here translated add greatly to our knowledge of him. From the Greek and Nestorian sources it is known that he was present at the important councils of the church in the last decades of the fourth century; was sent to the court of Persia, probably at least twice, once on the accession of Yezdegerd in 399 A.D. and again about 408 A.D., when Theodosius II became emperor of the eastern Romans; and that he was present at the Council of Seleucia in 410 A.D.

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is the earliest and, for us, the single most important literary record of the Eleusinian Mysteries. These Mysteries were for a thousand years one of the crowning glories of Athens, the pride of her statesmen, poets, and orators, a focal point of piety which though intimately civic was at the same time panhellenic. The constant references to the cult in both prose and poetry attest its popularity and singular importance. Yet it remains a curious fact that in all Athenian literature, at least until Hellenistic times, there is no direct mention of the Homeric Hymn and scarcely anything which can reasonably be identified even as a reminiscence or echo of it. Apparently the Hymn was allowed to fall into almost total oblivion. Why this should have happened is a question that seems to merit some consideration. By the very nature of the problem the evidence is inadequate to assure definite conclusions, but it is hoped that the solution proposed, though necessarily tentative, may add somewhat to our understanding of an obscure but interesting period in the religious history of Athens.

The historical reconstruction of biblical events represents a difficult and often speculative task, which is well demonstrated by the various scholarly attempts to understand the reform of Hezekiah and to establish defensible conclusions concerning its historicity. A wide range of scholarly opinion has grown out of fundamental disagreements concerning the accuracy and intent of the two biblical sources which describe Hezekiah's reform. The Deuteronomistic book of 2 Kings and the priestly-oriented later work of 2 Chronicles diverge mightily in their handling of Hezekiah's whole reign and especially the reform. In the early years of critical inquiry, the historicity of pre-Exilic events exclusively reported by the Chronicler was entirely dismissed in most circles. The description of Hezekiah's reform in the Book of Kings was dubbed “a mixture of the general and specific that does not inspire much confidence.” Consequently, it became fashionable to dismiss Hezekiah's religious changes as anachronisms inserted by later writers to parallel the reform of Josiah.

A few years ago Arnold Ehrhardt wrote an erudite and stimulating article as a criticism and development of Eduard Lohse's Die Ordination. A few observations in regard both to the laying on of hands in the Jewish background and to the seating of a candidate in the chair of office will serve to carry the discussion a step further.

The problem of the two Messiahs in Apocryphal literature, especially in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in the Damascus Covenant, occupied scholars at the beginning of the present century and has revealed new facets with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Especially pertinent to this problem are some of the texts from Qumran Cave 1, and some fragments from Qumran Cave 4, recently published. We shall here endeavor to make clear the distinctive features of these Messiahs, their status and their tasks at the end of days, and to elucidate the historical setting from which the doctrine of the two Messiahs sprang.

For the beat generation of the 1940s and 1950s, dissertation time is here. Magazine and newspaper critics have gotten in their jabs. Now scholars are starting to analyze the literature and legacy of the beat writers. In the last few years biographers have lined up to interpret the lives of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, and publishers have rushed into print a host of beat journals, letters, memoirs, and anthologies. The most recent Dictionary of Literary Biography devotes two large volumes to sixty-seven beat writers, including Neal Cassady, Herbert Huncke, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Peter Orlovsky, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen.

Professor C. H. Dodd in The Apostolic Preaching and its Development has drawn attention to the importance of the “Kerygma” as a more or less formal statement of the Christian Gospel, lying behind the earliest Christian documents; it determines the structure of Mark, the speeches in Acts and the form of the Creeds. This conventional form seems to be derived from Judaism. A statement of the mighty works of God in creation and the history of mankind, more especially in the deliverance of his people from Egypt, is a recurring feature of Jewish literature in the post-exilic era; perhaps the most notable example is Ps. 136; cf. Nehemiah 9. 6 ff., Is. 63. 7 ff. Such a recital of the mighty works of God in delivering His people was obviously necessary if the religion of Israel was to be changed from a primitive Semitic tribal cult into a system of monotheism, centred on the national deity, identified with the one God of Heaven; it was specially necessary to find an aetiological myth for the principal festival of the Passover. The emphasis on this deliverance reflects the process by which vague legends of a migration from Egypt have been conflated with the return from Babylon to form the biblical picture of the Exodus.

In Romans 4 Paul appealed to the precedent of the patriarch Abraham to argue three points on the basis of the Jewish scriptures. First, righteousness was reckoned to Abraham because of his faith and not because of his observance of the law (Rom 4:1–8); second, righteousness was reckoned to Abraham before Abraham's circumcision (4:9–12); and third, God's promise to Abraham and his “seed” came through faith, not through the Mosaic Law (4:13–17a). All three points are based on Paul's interpretation of Gen 15:6 and closely related texts. Paul appealed to Abraham in order to show that Abraham was meant to be the father not only of the circumcised but also of the uncircumcised (Rom 4:11–12,16–17). Paul also insisted that what was written about Abraham was meant not only for Abraham but also for those who believe that God raised Jesus from the dead (4:23–25).

This inscription of Edessa is of some importance for the problem of sacral manumission, since Latte (Heiliges Recht, pp. 103 ff.) has made it the basis of far-reaching conclusions with regard to the social and economic position of persons ‘dedicated’ to the goddess Μᾶ ἀνίκητος. Latte's results have in turn been adopted by Oppermann in his article on Apollo Lairbenos (R.-E. Suppl. V, col. 521 ff.) and used to interpret the important series of texts from the sanctuary of that god, to which corrections and additions have been made in M.A.M.A. IV, pp. 95 ff. The documents from Edessa to which reference will be made are dated from 214 A.D. to 265 A.D. and those of the Lairbenos sanctuary are roughly contemporary.

How do we learn from religious traditions other than our own? How are we to assess what happens when that learning leads to affirmation and empathy, and thereafter affects how one lives one's life? We can wonder whether there is coherence in what we learn, what we think, how we feel, and how we choose to act. Optimism is not necessarily justified since it may be that due to the strictures of logic and religious commitment, religious reasoning and affective religious engagement diverge and even work at cross purposes. What is obviously and powerfully felt may not translate into explanations that observers, including theologians and scholars of religion, can understand or affirm. Conversely, the emotionally engaged practitioner who learns, feels, and acts in accord with what is learned across religious boundaries may not know what to say about this engagement, and often may not have mastered the appropriate technical language by which to explain and justify complex and extraordinary emotional engagements.

Shortly after his death, the influential fourth century bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, was recognized for introducing the contemplative traditions of the Egyptian monks to the urban Christians of Alexandria and for bringing the desert monks into communion with the Alexandrian episcopacy. Athanasius accomplished this by quite intentionally bridging the distance—physical and spiritual—between desert and city. Over time, with his tireless effort, the daily spiritual practices of the monks became those of the urban Christian and the monks came increasingly under the sway of the Alexandrian episcopacy. As a consequence of his commitment to bringing the desert closer to the city, Athanasius thoroughly integrated ascetic practice into his theology and it proved to be a decisive component of his ecclesiastical politics.2 A letter Athanasius wrote to a certain Marcellinus provides valuable insight into the shape of Athanasius's spiritual program, its relationship to previous Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and, especially, the crucial function of the psalms in the reformation of the self.