Kakuso Okakura died in Japan September 2, 1913. He was an “Admirable Crichton” in his way, a man of vast learning, which covered both sides of the world. He was graduated from the Tokio University in 1880 with honors in philosophy and English literature, to which he might have added honors in Oriental philosophy and literature had not the drift of education in Japan at that time been all in the direction of the Occident. He always kept in close touch with the Occidental world, and was for ten years the head of the Department of Chinese and Japanese Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

In an article entitled “Recent Tendencies in Roman Catholic Theology,” in the number of this Review for July 1922, Dr. George La Piana has criticised my interpretation of the history of mediaeval philosophy.

My fundamental thesis is that in the thirteenth century there is a distinction between philosophy and theology, and that philosophy has an autonomous value. For Dr. La Piana, on the contrary, there is properly speaking no “consistent and independent philosophical system” (p. 251). Philosophy is the handmaiden of theology, and a view such as mine is an artificial construction, abandoned by mediaevalists, and in process of disintegration.

In the number of this Review for January 1921, Dr. George La Piana discussed, in the light of the most recent discoveries at Rome, the several hypotheses which have been put forward in regard to the ancient tradition connected with the church of San Sebastiano at Rome. He there controverts the view proposed in my Petrus und Paulus in Rom (1915) that a translation of the relics of Peter and Paul to the Catacumbae, that is to the site of the later basilica of San Sebastiano, took place on June 29, 258, and defends the opinion, held also by eminent archaeologists in Rome, that what took place ad Catacumbas in the year 258 was only the establishment of a memorial festival in honor of the two apostles. His acute argument skilfully detects the weak points of my position, and at the same time contains so much that is new as to give me a welcome opportunity for a reëxamination of the evidence.

Folio 504 of Codex Bezae, containing part of Acts, chap. 21, has suffered mutilation by an irregular tear, or cut, so that on the Latin side a part of verse 7, the whole of verses 8 and 9, and a part of verse 10 are now lacking; correspondingly, on the Greek side a part of verse 16, the whole of verse 17, and a part of verse 18 have been destroyed. Fortunately, however, the manuscript was examined at dates when the mutilation was less extensive than at present, and from the reports still preserved the contents of the lost portion of the Greek can be recovered with almost complete certainty. In the Latin lacuna the results are less satisfactory.

In 1901–1906 the publishing office of Hubert Welter in Paris issued a new edition of the well-known “Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio,” edited in 1759–1798 by J. D. Mansi. This “new Mansi” is a mere reprint, which allowed no correction or enlargement of Mansi's text, the pages being reproduced almost photographically. Did the publisher of this reprinted Mansi and his advisers give a “testimonium paupertatis” to modern scholars, by thus reproducing a collection which appeared one hundred and fifty years ago? Not in the least. The modern manner of editing ancient texts was rather recognized than disregarded by assuming that a really new edition of Mansi's collection was impossible. It was indeed quite impossible; for while all scholars who have made use of Mansi's collection have perceived its defects, yet at the same time they have seen that to correct them would require more time than can be spent on a new edition.

The interpretation of these verses and the textual problem which they involve has long been disputed among critics. With the ordinary text the difficulty begins with the word ἐμβριμησάμενος in vs. 43. It means ‘scolding,’ or ‘rebuking,’ and no reason can be seen for Jesus' adopting this attitude towards the man whom he had just healed. The matter becomes even more complicated if the variant readings in verse 41 be considered. The ordinary texts read σπλαγχνισθείς, ‘having compassion on him,’ but one of the earliest, Codex Bezae, reads ὀργισθείς, ‘being angry with him,’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘being in a passion,’ although nothing in the story explains why Jesus should have been in a passion with the unfortunate leper. With this agree several old Latin codices. It seems probable that ὀργισθείς is the original reading; it certainly is “hard,” and there was no reason why σπλαγχνισθείς should be changed to it, though the reverse change is not difficult to understand. Perhaps the explanation can be found in the punctuation. I suggest that it should be punctuated and translated as follows: ‘And there came to him a leper beseeching him and kneeling and saying to him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean; and he [the leper] put out his hand in a passion of rage and touched him. And he [Jesus] said, I will, be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was clean. And he rebuked him and immediately drove him out.’

The Acts of Phileas and Philoromus are often cited among the more authentic documents which we possess for the persecution of Diocletian. As such they are included in Ruinart's “Acta martyrum sincera” and Knopf's “Ausgewählte Märtyrerakten.” Delehaye classes them with his third group of hagiographic sources, that is, with those accounts which are drawn either from the procès-verbaux or from the reports of eyewitnesses. Harnack, Tillemont, Allard, Le Blant, and Mason are likewise convinced of their historical credibility.