One of the best known facts of ancient history is the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70. Yet another, and related, historical datum, although known, has been greatly slighted: the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in A.D. 135. Between the First Revolt and the Second Revolt there lies a history of the Jewish State of sixty-five years which has come to be treated as something less than an epilogue. This period in the State's continued existence is an important lacuna that requires to be filled in, and to that end we here raise a single question: ‘Did Jews worship on the holy mountain until the final destruction in A.D. 135?’

Schon häufiger ist beobachtet worden, daß ntl. Schriftsteller seltene Vokabeln oder Wendungen manchmal überraschend schon nach kurzem Abstand wiederholen: ‘Mit seinem Meister Paulus (s. Zahn, Einleitung in das N.T.. i, S. 363) und wohl sehr vielen Schriftstellern, — im N.T. geht am weitesten hierin Jakobus, — teilt Lukas die Gewohnheit, einmal ihm in den Griffel gekommene Ausdrücke bald darauf zu wiederholen, dann vielleicht selten oder nie wieder.’

The authorship of the Pastorals must have been among the first instances inviting the application of quantitative methods in literature. Schleiermacher's [1] critical campaign against the authenticity of I Timothy uses a great array of hapax legomena for establishing the linguistic peculiarity of that Epistle. The controversy continued on these lines, subsequent workers using linguistic criteria to a greater or lesser extent according to the value they attributed to them. This continued until 1921 when Harrison's book on The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles [2] appeared, in which he presented such overwhelming linguistic evidence against Paul's authorship that most workers regarded the controversy as closed. However, this was not so, and Harrison's procedure has been subjected from time to time to a certain amount of criticism, for example, by W. Michaelis [3, 4], F. R. M. Hitchcock [5, 6], D. Guthrie [7] and B. M. Metzger [8].

The words ‘Jewish-Christian’ and ‘Jewish Christianity’ are used in several different senses within the field of New Testament research. Some scholars—no doubt oneself included on occasion—use them with varying significance in the same article or book, so that the reader is either led astray, or discovers that the words do not have the same meaning every time they occur. The aim of the following is to draw attention to this fact, of which perhaps not everyone is aware, and to attempt to reach a clearer usage of the term Jewish Christianity; and I shall therefore now try to formulate and answer certain questions that may throw light on the conditions described by the terms in question, and on the use of these terms.

For whom and for what, to what audience and to what purpose, were the four Gospels written? This is one of the most elementary questions of New Testament study, and one might think that by now the answers could be given with some degree of certainty and consent. And of the first three Gospels I think this is broadly true. Naturally there will always be room for fresh lines of development and approach, but they are unlikely to modify very radically the conclusions which can be found set out in any text-book. If one had to reduce these conclusions to their barest summary, one could say, without immediate fear of contradiction, that St Matthew's Gospel was evidently written for a Jewish-Christian community, and that its overall purpose was broadly speaking catechetical; that St Mark's Gospel was composed for a predominantly Gentile community and that its primary purpose was kerygmatic, setting out, for the use of the Church, a summary of its proclamation; and that St Luke's Gospel, as he himself indicates, was again addressed, though more generally, to the Graeco-Roman world, and that its purpose was instructional, with the defence and confirmation of the Gospel as a dominant motif.

Irenaeus hat in den ersten acht Kapiteln des ersten Buches seines Werkes Adversus haereses einen geschlossenen und abgerundeten Bericht von einem Zweige der valentinianischen Gnosis gegeben. Die gleiche Quelle, der er folgt, hat auch Clemens von Alexandrien in seinen Excerpta e Theodoto Kap. 43–65 ausgezogen.1 Das gleiche System — oder ein aufs engste verwandtes —lassen der Brief des Ptolemaeus an Flora,2 eine von Irenaeus zitierte Auslegung des Johannes-Prologs3 und die zahlreichen Fragmente des Herakleon4 erkennen. Der Gegenstand der nachfolgenden Untersuchung bildet das von Irenaeus dargelegte und von Clemens excerpierte System, das ich nach Sagnards Vorgang mit Ptolemaeus verbinde.5 Irenaeus hat in seinem großen Bericht auch Züge aus einer anderen Spielart des Valentinianismus eingearbeitet; die Scheidung dieser beiden ‘Systeme A und B’6 ist aber meist leicht zu vollziehen.7 Auch Anklänge an andere gnostische Systeme fehlen nicht und müssen gleichfalls unberücksichtigt bleiben.8 Ironische Zwischenbemerkungen und Wendungen des Irenaeus, denen Sagnard mit Recht einen besonderen Abschnitt gewidmet hat, spielen in der Darstellung des Kirchenvaters eine geringere Rolle als in der späteren Polemik und sind ebenfalls leicht zu erkennen.9 Der so gereinigte Bericht des Irenaeus, ergänzt durch die Excerpte des Clemens, zu dessen Verdeutlichung wir gelegentlich den Brief an Flora und die Fragmente des Herakleon heranziehen, bietet nun em sehr eigenartiges und eigenständiges Ganzes, dessen Grundz¨ge und besondere Struktur herauszustellen sich lohnt.

In der weiten Landschaft der Textkritik gibt es zweifellos ein hochinteressantes Gebiet, so interessant, daß es gelegentlich sogar die Augen einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit auf sich zieht: die Handschriftenfunde. Dort nämlich warten vielleicht noch die größten Überraschungen; von da aus können seit langem anerkannte Ergebnisse wieder fragwürdig werden. Gerade die letzten Jahrzehnte haben gezeigt, wie wenig Grund zu der Annahme besteht, daß die Erde, daß verstaubte Klosterbibliotheken, oder was es sonst an Schlupfwinkeln geben mag, bereits alle Schätze preisgegeben, alle Geheimnisse verraten hätten. Aber mit so aufregenden Dingen haben es die Erwägungen leider nicht zu tun, die ich hier anstellen möchte. Sie wollen vielmehr einladen zu einem Blick in die staubige Werkstatt, wo das seit Generationen gesammelte Material nun geprüft und verarbeitet wird. Es ist ein ungeheures Material, and man muß sagen, daß die Verarbeitung mit den Funden auch nicht entfernt Schritt halten konnte. Umso dringlicher ist uns diese stets neue Aufgabe der Verarbeitung gestellt.

Since the days of Pfleiderer II Cor. v. 1–10 has been commonly regarded as showing a hellenization of Paul's eschatology, or in today's language, a transition from a futurist to a realized (or inaugurated) eschatology. Paul's earliest view (I Thess. iv. 13 ff.) followed the ancient Jewish idea of physical resurrection at the last day; in I Cor. xv this is qualified by distinguishing between the σω̃μα ψυχıκóν and the σ̃ωμα πνευματıκóν; II Cor. v completes the process, viewing the transition in Greek fashion as occurring at death rather than at the parousia. Although W. D. Davies locates ‘the two diverse strains in Paul's conception of resurrection’ in (a hellenized) Judaism, the end result is the same: in contrast to I Cor. xv ‘resurrection’ in II Cor. v takes place at death. Some writers, following Pfleiderer, have contended that Paul, for a shorter or longer period, held both Jewish and Greek concepts ‘without any thought of their essential inconsistency’. Even scholars normally opposed to a Greek dualism in Pauline anthropology tend toward it when interpreting II Cor. v. 8. Thus, J. A. T. Robinson is content to equate ‘absent from the body’ with the ‘naked’ interim state. Also Cullmann, who has emphasized the temporal character of redemption focused upon the parousia, refers this verse to Paul's confidence concerning the intermediate state.

No one book has figured more prominently in the study of St Mark's Gospel in this century than W. Wrede's Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, published in 1901. But whilst it has been widely agreed that Wrede focused attention upon a significant Marcan motif and one which to some extent shows the influence of a doctrinal interest, most scholars have rejected Wrede's solution of the secrecy problem.

A l'histoire évangélique telle que la concevait l'Eglise primitive et telle que Marc l'avait raise par écrit, saint Luc a jugé néessaire d'ajouter les récits qui font l'objet du second livre de son ouvrage ‘A Théeophile’. La question de savoir quel a été son dessein en faisant cette innovation reste trés débattue. Les commentateurs s'accordent généralement pour penser que cette intention n'était pas uniquement historique: le plaisir désintéressé de retracer objectivement les origines du mouvement chrétien. D'autres motifs ont dû pousser Luc à entreprendre et â publier son travail.

The study of Gnosticism is about to enter upon a new phase. Of this we are confidently assured by those who have had opportunity to examine the documents discovered some thirteen years ago at Nag Hammadi, and to say the least the publication not of one or two only but of no less than forty-three hitherto unknown texts cannot but bring a considerable accession to our knowledge.1 As yet only one has been made available in an edited form,2 although preliminary studies of some others have already appeared in print,3 and from these it is evident that if the new texts provide the answers to some of our problems they will also raise fresh problems for investigation. If we may judge from the example of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is probable that the publication of these documents will be followed by a steady flow of books and articles for some years to come, and in these circumstances it may be that some useful purpose will now be served by a review of recent studies in this field, if only by indicating the current state of research and the literature at present available.

The phrase έν òμοιώματι εỉκòνος in Rom. i. 23 is one which has long puzzled commentators and translators, who are compelled to paraphrase it in order to make sense of the verse. There is no obvious reason why Paul should have employed two words which in this context appear to convey an identical meaning, unless, as C. K. Barrett suggests, ‘the reduplication emphasizes the inferior, shadowy character of that which is substituted for God’.

In the New Testament canon there are two works by the same author, but different in nature; the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. The first of these tells of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles recounts the events which took place after Jesus' death and resurrection. It is concerned with the mission work of the Primitive Church, especially that of the foremost apostles Peter and Paul.

Le texte d'Habacuc (ii. 4.): ó δίκαιος έκ πίστεως ήσεται semble avoir joué un grand role dans la réflexion théologique de saint Paul: it apparaît d'abord en Gal. iii. 11, puis en Rom. i. 17; et les deux fois comme une sorte de résumé de la doctrine paulinienne sur la foi. C'est à déterminer son importance pour l'intelligence de Rom. i-viii qu'est consacrée la présente monographie.