It has often been noted that St. Stephen stands, at first sight, as an isolated figure in the history of the early Church. His theological thought, as expressed in his speech (Acts vii), is very personal and, if compared with other forms of primitive Christian thought, almost completely aberrant. Its main characteristic is a strongly antiritualistic trend, and a fierce hostility towards the Temple, which he obviously considers almost as a place of idolatry. The building up of the Temple by Solomon seems in his eyes to stand on the same plane as the making of the Golden Calf. It is the last of those many and grievous sins and apostasies which mark the whole course of Israelite history. He thus clearly demonstrates that the accusations produced against him by so-called ‘false witnesses’, and which motivated his trial, were perfectly well founded: lie had indeed spoken ‘blasphemous words against this holy place’ and, ipso facto, against at least part of the Law.

C'est en pleine guerre,—en août 1941—que fut trouvé à Toura, aux environs du Caire, l'intéressant document que j'ai l'honneur de présenter ici. C'est même la guerre qui en a provoqué la découverte. L'armée anglaise faisait aménager d'anciennes carrières de pierre pour y abriter des munitions. En l'une d'elles on découvrit, déposée dans un coin, sans aucune protection, une assez forte liasse de papyrus anciens. Comme il fallait s'y attendre, les ouvriers cherchèrent aussitôt les moyens de vendre à leur profit la trouvaille inespérée, mais le gouvernement égyptien, assez tôt alerté, finit par en récupérer la majeure partie, qui figure maintenant au musée du Caire. M. Octave Guéraud et M. Jean Scherer firent un premier inventaire du trésor. Après la guerre, M. Guéraud en a donné un signalement détaillé.

The career and personality of Peter the Iberian, bishop of Mayuma, near Gaza, present exceptional interest for the history both of the Monophysite movement of the fifth century and of the Georgian Church. At the same time, the hagiographical writings recording his life raise documentary problems of a complex nature.

Nicephorus Gregoras was a fourteenth-century man of letters living in Constantinople who wrote a history of his own times. This work is an example of the traditional school of Byzantine historial writing in that it consists of an introductory summary of earlier history and a much fuller account of events contemporary with the author. But it departs from tradition in that it deals as much, or more, with ecclesiastical as with civil affairs. Gregoras was deeply implicated in the hesychast controversy, which began simply as a dispute among monks, but developed into a crisis of state, and his concern with it, in his life as well as his history, serves to illustrate its scope and importance. He was aware that his history lacked balance and needed some excuse. But the literary deficiencies of the work may be offset by its value as historical evidence. Since it was the hesychast doctrine, opposed by Gregoras, which became officially accepted, it is interesting to read the account of a defeated partisan. One must not, however, expect dispassionate reporting from Gregoras, although his account has sometimes been taken as such by western theologians.

Among those who came into collision with the authorities during the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII was Robert Wisdom. Although one of the lesser figures among the English reformers, he was not without importance. In 1552 he was suggested by Cranmer as a person suitable and willing to fill die then vacant archiepiscopal see of Armagh, but eventually he was passed over. At the time of the Marian reaction he sought refuge on the Continent, and on his return was made archdeacon of Ely, in the enjoyment of which dignity he died nine years later, in 1568.

‘At any period of English history from the thirteenth century until a century ago, the records of the great diocese of Lincoln furnish an admirably full illustration of the working of ecclesiastical institutions and administration in the English Church as a whole.’ Of no epoch is this statement of Professor Hamilton Thompson more true than of that which witnessed the tenure of the see of Lincoln by Thomas Tenison, William Wake, and Edmund Gibson. When, therefore, amongst the Wake MSS. at Christ Church, Oxford, I discovered a volume labelled Arch. W. 297. Actorum Episcopal, Tom. I, it was with the eager anticipation of a rich harvest that I opened its pages. At first anticipation was frilly realised; for the first year of Wake's episcopate fills twenty folio pages of careful and detailed entries. But, alas! those thieves of episcopal leisure, the administrative duties of so large a diocese, made as speedy as sudden an end of his diligent resolve to keep a personal diary of his activities. On page 21 the entry Anno Consecrationis Secundo contains only three items and the rest of the volume consists of blank pages.

No one can read Richard Baxter without perceiving that he was an intensely bookish man, widely read and living close to his books. In most of his writings he turns aside to comment or to animadvert on others' books. His unpublished correspondence shows similar characteristics: one correspondent, writing in 1652, mentions five of the latest books; to another, who writes, ‘Though I have the use of a library at Westminster, yet there is in it neither Du Plessis, Grotius or Camero,’ Baxter replies, ‘I ans:[wer] they are comon bookes as most in ye shops’.