In the literature of Judaism and Christianity ‘evil eye’ is a term for niggardliness. This probably is a usage independent of the term ‘evil eye’ of magic. It belongs rather to that nomenclature of what I may call physiological psychology that is so conspicuous, especially in the Old Testament. Emotions are located in different parts of the anatomy — pity in the bowels, anger in the nostrils, and so forth. The eye is, among other things, the seat of niggardliness as in the phrase of the book of Tobit: “Let not thine eye be grudging when thou doest alms.”

Professor Goguel in his ‘La Naissance du Christianisme’ and Professor Brandon in his ‘The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church’ have both put forward new hypotheses, which, if accepted, ask for a new orientation on many of the still unsolved questions of Christian origins. Professor Goguel maintains that the direct evidence in our possession for the history of Christian origins is the residue of a process of selection and interpretation of fact performed by early Catholicism in accordance with its own opinions and beliefs as to its origin. Hence, he claims, the most valuable evidence is to be found in what conflicts with its presuppositions. Early Catholicism presumed that it was the product of an original and ideal unity. But it could not be denied, although Acts tries to gloss over the fact, that Paul and the mother church had been divided. Goguel finds evidence that they were so divided that the Christians in Jerusalem tried to suppress Paul and his teaching and at the outset appeared to succeed. The Jerusalem community, he claims, considered Jesus to have become Messiah after his death when God exalted him to the position; their faith lacked all pneumatism; their emphasis was on Jesus as teacher. They regarded themselves as continuing to be members of the Jewish church and salvation as a Jewish prerogative provided those who had consented to Jesus' death repented of their sin.

In my recent monograph entitled Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come, I sought particularly to examine the question whether Judaism anticipated a New Torah in its ideal future, however conceived. One passage in Josephus, Antiquities, 15:136 has been suggested as relevant to this purpose because it contains the idea that “the Law was given through angels, an idea which in Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19, Heb.2:2 is associated with the notion that it was to change?” (See Morton Smith, J. B. L., Vol. LXXII, September 1953, pp. 192) Strack-Billerbeck cite the passage in their comment on Gal. 3:19 and take it to refer to the mediation of angels, as do also Grundmann in the Theologisches Wörterbuch (Ed. Kittel), I, p. 74, and Walter Bauer in his Wörterbuch, 1952, col. 13. It is the first aim of this note to follow up a suggestion made to me by Dr. Ralph Marcus that the passage may not refer to angels but to prophets.

“He, who was like no other man, could not have been given to the world without the special design of Providence.” So wrote Arrian, a Greek historian, in the middle of the second century of our era of the amazing youth, Alexander of Macedon, who five centuries before had so effectually removed the barrier between East and West and written a chapter never to be overlooked by the historian anxious to trace the complicated story of the gradual development of “One World.” Of all Alexander's contributions, and they were many, it would not be difficult to present a strong case for the contention that none surpassed his act at the delta of the Nile in 332. He had come there to complete his preliminary campaign against the Achaemenidae — the sweeping of their fleet from the sea by the methodical and simple method of depriving them of all harbors and contact with the army to the east. This he did, but he did more. He founded a city, named for himself, which was destined to spread and make current coin the magic of Greek learning and with it her civilization to a degree unsurpassed, if indeed even paralleled, by any other centre.

Broadly speaking, there are discernible in the several manifestations of Christianity — one is almost tempted to say, of all religion — two general attitudes. These attitudes of movement or inclination have very well been termed the horizontal and the vertical.

The Arabic summary of Galen's Περὶ ἠθῶν, a work which appears to have been of some importance for moral philosophy in the early centuries of philosophical speculation in Islam, is the only remnant of this rather comprehensive work of the philosophizing doctor of the century of the Antonines. It is, as happens so often in the case of Galen, a work in which traditional doctrine and statements taken from some great predecessor make themselves more strongly felt than the author's own contribution and his particular intention. Posidonius' restoration of Plato's psychology, as far as ethical speculation is concerned, appears to be the basis of Galen's description of moral character. There is no need to refer to Posidonius if we want to explain why Galen thought it right to insert fables and sermon-like exhortations into his theoretical treatment of a subject of moral philosophy. But it may, nonetheless, be appropriate to remember that Posidonius insisted on the importance of exhortation as well as of description and analysis: moral philosophy is in equal need of both. Seneca Epist. 95, 65: “Posidonius non tantum praeceptionem.…sed etiam suasionem et consolationem et exhortationem necessariam iudicat. His adicit causarum inquisitionem.…Ait utilem futuram et descriptionem cuiusque virtutis: hanc Posidonius ethologiam vocat, quidam characterismon appellant, signa cuiusque virtutis ac vitii et notas reddentem quibus inter se similia discriminentur.”

The ‘Great’ Persecution, of the years 303 to 312/3, requires thorough reconsideration. This paper will discuss certain features of the persecution, and, without attempting to present a complete picture, will suggest some modifications in the received view.

Il pourrait sembler superflu de dire que je n'ai pas la prétention d'éliminer par ces lignes les mystères qui enveloppent μυστήριον et sacramentum, deux termes hérissés de difficultés et dont l'évolution sémasiologique est loin d'être claire. Je voudrais présenter seulement quelques remarques qui sont le fruit d'études sur le grec et le latin des chrétiens et qui pourraient contribuer à la solution du problème de l'équivalence de μυστήριον — sacramentum. Or, ces études nous révèlent de plus en plus des tendances générales, voire des règles, d'après lesquelles les deux grandes langues de l'antiquité classique ont évolué sous l'influence exercée par le Christianisme. Sans entrer dans le détail je voudrais donner quelques suggestions d'ordre général, inspirées par l'étude des procédés qui déterminent l'établissement du vocabulaire technique du grec et du latin des chrétiens.

Judged by its survival in manuscripts, the most popular Latin hymn in Middle English translations was “Criste qui lux es et dies.” Challenged only by “Ave Maris stella” in six versions, and trailed by three hymns extant in three MSS. each (“Alma redemptoris mater,” “Hostis Herodes impie,” and “Vexilla regis prodeunt”), this piece is found in eight different versions, all except one of the fifteenth century:

In the Preface to the Retractationes, Augustine suggests: “Perhaps whoever will read my works in the order in which they were written will discover how I made progress while writing them.” The present essay is an attempt to carry out this suggestion of Augustine, with particular attention to his ideas on society, from the earliest Dialogues of 386 up to the time, shortly after 400 A.D., when the Donatist controversy introduces a new period in Augustine's thought.

The cults in ancient Greece, both private and public, had many kinds of income, among which the most primitive were fees and taxes. Fees are remunerations paid for the use of various kinds of cult facilities. Taxes are contributions levied by the cult association or by the state to maintain the cult activities. When the cult becomes self-sufficient by endowments or by subsidies, fees and taxes do not play a great rôle. But in times of financial difficulties the state or the cult authorities levied taxes on all or some persons to meet the emergency. This paper is the result of an effort to collect and study all the information on this subject from our sources both literary and epigraphical.

The main exegetical difficulties of Mk. II, 1–12 are considered to be: (a) the awkwardness of the wording of 10b and 11a. With the statement “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins” Jesus is held to be addressing the scribes, but the text proceeds with an abrupt transition to “he saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee….” (b) The public use of the title “Son of man” so early in the Lord's ministry, (c) The open avowal to the scribes of the Son of man's power on earth to forgive sins, (d) The observation in verse 12 that “they were all amazed and glorified God,” as though even the critical scribes joined with the crowd in the approving acclamation.

In 1936 Henry Lucks could write of Athenagoras' treatise On the Resurrection of the Dead that “it is rather singular that there is no questioning of the authorship of this work, and no hesitancy evident in attributing it to Athenagoras.” On the other hand, in 1950 P. Keseling made the following statement after speaking of Athenagoras' Legatio:

Demselben Verfasser weist eine von der Hand des Erzbischof Arethas selbst herrühende (so Stählin bei Harnack, Lit. 2 1, 317, 4) Eintragung in dem massgebenden Codex Paris, graecus 451 v J. 914 einen Λόγος περὶ ἀναστάεως τῶν νεκρῶν (Oratio de resurrectione mortuorum), also eine Schrift über die Auferstehung der Toten zu, die jedoch, sonst nirgends bezeugt und aus inneren Gründen nicht unverdächtig, hier ausser Betracht geblieben ist.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the reasons for believing that Athenagoras could not have written the treatise De resurrectione.

For more than seventy years these important terms of Greek sacred vocabulary have been discussed back and forth. Recently French scholars have adduced new arguments to make their meaning clearer. Although the textual evidence, both epigraphical and literary, is not yet sufficiently plentiful to eliminate all possible doubts, it is evident that progress in the understanding of ritual terminology has been made. I should like to add some observations on the problem and to discuss some of the texts which, in the opinion of many scholars, need clarification.

In 1900 W. Kroll came to the conclusion that Vettius Valens lived under the Antonines. Indeed one finds, scattered over the whole work, some forty references to specific dates as examples for the astrological methods under discussion, these dates ranging from Nero 1 (A.D. 54) to Antoninus 21 (A.D. 157).

In Origen's discussion of the part played by the Logos in the creation of the world, In Ev. Joannis xix.5 (PG xiv. 568 b–c), there occurs a long sentence which is not altogether clear, chiefly because of the uncertainty of the punctuation. The text, as given by the four modern editors, Lommatzsch, Migne, Preuschen and Brooke, who agree throughout except in the two instances to be noted, is as follows (with punctuation after the biblical quotation omitted):

The problem of the manumission of slaves by sale to a divinity or by consecration has been studied by many scholars. Nevertheless the following questions still arise. What real sense had the sale? What characterizes the sale and the consecration respectively? How do they bring about one's liberty? What is a fictitious or trust sale? Do the several manumission procedures of Delphi, of central Greece, of Macedonia, of Asia Minor and of Syria reflect the same customs and traditions? Cameron, after discussing a number of inscriptions of Imperial times relating to sacral manumission, puts the following question: “It would be interesting to inquire whether this conception is to be regarded as having survived continuously with the institution from an early period in Greece, or as having been revived and strengthened by new social and religious influence after remaining dormant in a period in which sacral manumission was no more than a legal fiction.” I should like to try to answer this question.

In his digression on Egypt, Ammianus Marcellinus tells of the influence which Egyptian learning exerted on Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and Solon. He then continues: Ex his fontibus per sublimia gradiens, sermonum amplitudine Iovis aemulus Platon, visa Aegypto militavit sapientia gloriosa (xxii, 16.22). Such is Clark's standard text (1910): Gardthausen's edition of 1874 printed the non of the codices in place of Valesius' suggested Platon, and Iesus (from an assumed ihs.), a clever emendation of Gutschmid's, after his. At this late day it would be superfluous to observe that the reading non is the more probable point of corruption in the received text; Iesus, I believe, has vanished forever from this passage, leaving us without a single specific allusion to Christ in the surviving portion of the history. Of course Ammianus has much to say about Christianity and its bishops and other devotees, but an expression of warm regard for its founder would have changed our estimate of his attitude, which, as matters now stand, seems one of tolerance at best.