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 historic Ingersoll lectureship on the Immortality of Man requires of the lecturer both some legitimate extension of its terms and some necessary limitation of his field. One is justified in supposing that the pious layman who planned the foundation was not thinking in highly technical terms, but like laymen of our day was thinking of a widely shared belief in the post mortem survival or revival of those who die. If he had wished to specify the indiscriminate persistence of the individual as a philosophical tenet of the nature of man, he could well have used the more familiar term — the immortality of the soul. On the other hand, if he had wished to be faithful to the wording of much of the Bible and to the Church's creeds, he would have spoken of the Resurrection of the Dead.

In return for contributions to aid in excavations at Oxyrhynchus in the 1920's Sir Flinders Petrie sent to Washington University, St. Louis, several hundred papyri, very fragmentary for the most part, and ranging in date from the second century B.C. to the fifth or sixth century A.D. Following the death of Professor Frank Debatin of that university who had done some preliminary work on the collection, permission was given me to publish it. Many of the pieces had never been cleaned and remained creased and covered with dirt, evidently in the condition in which they had been found. After the collection had been cleaned, photographed and examined the five fragments that make up the present text seemed to be by far the most interesting and the most important of the lot. Though no continuous text was provided, their religious content was apparent from such words as προϕήτης, ἱερόν, ἱερεύς and μυστηριασθῆναι.

Philo, professionally, was not a teacher of philosophy. He was a preacher, a preacher on biblical topics, who dispensed his philosophic thoughts in the form of sermons. And because he was not professionally a teacher of philosophy, some modern students of his works say that he was not a philosopher. For nowadays, as we all know, to be called philosopher one must be ordained and one must be hired to teach philosophy and one must also learn to discuss certain hoary problems as if they were plucked yesterday out of the air. Some say that Philo was an eclectic. But there is one eminent authority who would begrudge him even the title of eclectic without further qualification, for, after all, eclecticism is the name of a reputable system in ancient Greek philosophy. The eclecticism of Philo, our eminent authority says, “is that of the jackdaw rather than the philosopher.” But, while we may deny Philo the honorific title of philosopher, with the privilege of wearing ostentatiously a special garb like that affected by ancient Greek philosophers, we cannot deny him the humbler and more modest title of religious philosopher. As such, Philo was the first who tried to reduce the narratives and laws and exhortations of Scripture to a coherent and closely knit system of thought and thereby produced what may be called scriptural philosophy in contradistinction to pagan Greek philosophy.

This paper consists of a re-assessment of the composition of the Lukan writings in the light of the hypothesis put forward in recent years by Professor S. G. F. Brandon, Maurice Goguel and H. J. Schoeps. Briefly they claim that the church of Jewish Christians at Jerusalem actively opposed with temporary success Paul's mission proclaiming Jesus as the universal savior, that following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Pauline version of Christianity emerged with new prestige while the primitive Jewish version which survived in Alexandria and, possibly to some extent in Rome, had to adjust itself to this new situation. Mark's gospel in Rome and Matthew's in Alexandria, Professor Brandon argues, are significant witnesses to this adjustment; the Lukan writings, the formation of the Corpus Paulinum, are later witnesses from the Pauline side foreshadowing early Catholicism.

At the Council of Nicaea all the bishops but two signed the creed and canons. This virtual unanimity must have been very gratifying to Constantine, and it represents no mean achievement in reconciliation on the emperor's part — for it is not what anyone would have expected after the dramatic events leading up to the calling of the Council. The creed appears to have been on every ground acceptable to Alexander of Alexandria and to Ossius of Cordova. If it was not, they had only themselves to blame, since they had been chiefly responsible for its form and had previously agreed, at a meeting of the Council's steering committee at Nicomedia, on the crucial word homoousios. It is not so certain that the creed was equally acceptable to the extreme anti-Arians, Marcellus of Ancyra or Eustathius of Antioch. Eustathius seems to have been ill content that the Nicene fathers had not had the courage of their convictions and had failed to confirm the decisions of the Council of Antioch held shortly before it; in his view they should have roundly condemned the rank Arianism of Eusebius of Caesarea and his two friends, Theodotus of Laodicea and Narcissus of Neronias. We may reasonably doubt whether any document that Eusebius was conscientiously able to sign would have been regarded as satisfactory by Eustathius. But neither Eustathius nor Marcellus would themselves have found difficulty with the content of the creed. And there is no reason to suppose that the nineteenth canon, regulating the terms for the admission of members of the congregation loyal to Paul of Samosata, represented any policy other than that which Eustathius would have been happy to implement. So far as his own position was concerned, he could sign both creed and canons with an untroubled conscience.

The חבורה (fellowship) was a religious society founded in the villages and towns of Jewish Palestine during the Second Commonwealth in order to foster observance of the laws of tithing and ritual purity. The sources on the fellowship are preserved in rabbinic literature, and the חבורה has therefore been associated with the Pharisees; one must, nonetheless, retain the distinction between the חבורה and the whole Pharisaic sect, since there is no evidence that all Pharisees were members of a fellowship. Membership represented a status recognized by other members and not a formal affiliation with an organized society. The חבר (member) of such a fellowship undertook to carry out even in the company of non-observant men those ritual laws which were generally neglected. Thus they taught their observance by example and precept. At the same time, the members distinguished themselves from the common society by their strict adherence to ritual laws which separated them in crucial relationships of daily life.

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.

To understand the essence of an historical movement, be it primarily philosophical, theological or cultural, the inquirer should abstain from generalizations and obediently analyze the relevant sources.

To understand its significance, however, he has, consciously or unconsciously, to take the dangerous step of comparing movement with movement in order to find a frame of reference which can bring out, by antithesis or analogy, the typical characteristics.

Eusebius answers the question in the affirmative, but gives this answer as an inference from facts which he shares with his readers. This is in H. E. iv. 22, when he is in fact taking leave of him. He has made important use of Hegesippus in Books ii, iii, and iv of his Historia Ecclesiastica.

In Anglo-Saxon as in Christian history, many roads lead to Rome. This has been correctly and at times overemphasized in matters ranging from Augustine to Whitby, from numismatics to law, from banners to Bede. Indeed the Roman road has been so broad and so well marked with recorded miliaria that we may have missed the growth-ridden Germanic by-paths which were actually trod by the tribes in England. But surely the impact of culture on cult is as important in history as the reverse, and the terms in which the newly converted Anglo-Saxons interpreted the Christian religion were shaped by the tribal culture, impregnated, as it was, by the heathenism of the old religion. Gregory the Great's famous letter to the Abbot Mellitus, advising that pagan temples in England be used for the worship of the Christian God that the people “ad loca quae consuevit, familiarius concurrat,” and that the sacrificial animals of heathenism be now devoted to Christian festivals, agrees with the responsa of the same pope to Augustine concerning the choosing of local customs best suited to the conditions of the converted. In a way, this study is a scandalous footnote to that wise anthropological advice, with the intention of setting forth some of the similarities of the old and new religion which allowed a syncretic merging. Thus many features of the Conversion period which have been interpreted post eventum as Christian were undoubtedly seen with other—and familiar—overtones by the Woden-sprung rulers and their people.

That a new richesse of comparative material is offered by Walter Bauer's fifth edition of his celebrated Wörterbuch (Berlin, 1958) is exemplified by his article on αὔριον. He notes that Epictetus too rejects care περὶ τῆς αὔριον. Indeed a sentence in Epictetus I.9.8 (καὶ πόθεν ϕάγω, ϕησίν, μηδὲν ἔχων) is in one respect an obvious parallel to Matthew vi.25 (μὴ μεριμνᾶτε τῇ ψυχῇ ὑμῶν, τί ϕάγητε ἢ τί πίητε.). Bauer cites an interesting instance of a Pythagorean exhortation which, in a manner exactly opposite to the injunction of Matthew vi.34, advises one to be constantly thinking of the morrow: διδάσκει ἀεί τι τοῦ παρόντος εἰς τὸ μέλλον καταλιπεῖν, καὶ τῆς αὔριον ἐν τῇ σήμερον μνημονεύειν.

The Short-Title Catalogue includes in its list of Tyndale's works a pamphlet called ‘The Supper of the Lord,’ which was originally published anonymously on the continent in 1533, under the fictitious imprint of Nicholas Twonson of Nuremberg. But there are serious objections against accepting Tyndale's authorship. Although the pamphlet was reprinted several times during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, it did not finally appear under Tyndale's name until 1573, when John Foxe included it in his edition of the works of Tyndale, Frith and Barnes. During the sixteenth century it was widely believed that ‘The Supper of the Lord’ was the work of George Joye, one of the lesser figures of the English reformation who is now largely forgotten. But although the weight of the evidence seems to support this belief, the glamor of Tyndale's name has prevented the question from being investigated properly.

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.

Although the influence of Wolleb's Compendium Theologiae Christianae on Milton's De Doctrina has long been recognized, scholarship has discovered few traces of its impact on Milton's poetry. Particularly interesting, therefore, are two passages in Book I of Paradise Lost which show a close resemblance to two of the “Rules” or “Canones” in Wolleb's chapter “De Gubernatione Angelorum.”

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.

A turning-point in the history of Judaea in the first century was the rejection, some time in the summer of 66, of the daily sacrifice that had been offered for many years past in honor of the Emperor; this was tantamount to the repudiation of allegiance to Rome, and thus marked the beginning of the Great Revolt. The Talmud (T. B. Giṭṭin 56a) has a legendary account of this episode, which it associates with a quarrel between two citizens of Jerusalem bearing the improbable names of Kamṣa and Bar Kamṣa, the latter ultimately figuring in the rôle of agent provocateur and informer. Possibly, the name conceals in garbled form some personality of the period known to us from other sources, but thus far it has been impossible to identify him.