One of the incidental, but, as it proved, important results of the Harvard Expedition to Mount Sinai in 1927 was the rediscovery of the Sinaitic inscriptions on Serabit el-Khadim, a desolate mountain in the interior of the peninsula, rendered famous by the ruins of a temple of the Egyptian goddess Hathor and by many exhausted turquoise mines.

[The following note by Dr. H. St. John Thackeray was found among the papers of Professor George F. Moore. It relates to a sentence from Josephus, Antiq. xviii. 1, 3, discussed by Moore in his Judaism, I, pp. 457 f.; III, pp. 139 f., and in an article in this Review for October 1929, and it is here published by the kind permission of Mrs. Thackeray.

The Armenian Vita here translated, of Marutha, a Syrian bishop of the fifth century, has an interest because of Marutha's activity as mediator between the Byzantine emperors, Arcadius and Theodosius II, and the Sassanian king Yezdegerd I.

The ancient sources for the life of Marutha are scanty nor does the biography here translated add greatly to our knowledge of him. From the Greek and Nestorian sources it is known that he was present at the important councils of the church in the last decades of the fourth century; was sent to the court of Persia, probably at least twice, once on the accession of Yezdegerd in 399 A.D. and again about 408 A.D., when Theodosius II became emperor of the eastern Romans; and that he was present at the Council of Seleucia in 410 A.D.

Do the majority of the Greek lectionaries of the gospels agree with one another so consistently that it is possible to speak of their text as “the lectionary text”? It has generally been assumed that the text of lectionaries does not merit serious attention, and that even if they should agree in text, the quality of that text would not justify its study. But the discussion of the quality and significance of this text may reasonably be postponed until its existence has been established.

These words in criticism of Fra Lippo's vivid and realistic painting of sacred subjects admirably typify the attitude of theology to art. In the ages when the masses were still unable to read, the church took advantage of the work of the painter to impart instruction in the Bible stories. But after all, mere enlightenment is comparatively useless, sometimes even dangerous. It is always inferior to devotion. As long as the masses could be inspired by art to perform more fully their religious duties, so long was art rendering to the church the services that were its due. If the actual facts, even as recorded in the Scriptures, stood in the way of the theological object, they had to be neglected, obscured, or denied. If by a false depiction religious feeling were aroused, there could be no doubt as to the value of such depiction.

In the excursus on the ‘Ecclesiastical Text,’ appended to the study of the Caesarean Text of Mark, it was pointed out that four MSS., 1169, 1173, 1204, and 1385, form a closely related group. A visit to Sinai and Patmos this year has made it possible to collate the gospel of Mark in all four codices and to photograph the three at Patmos. The relation between the three Patmos MSS. now reveals itself as much closer than was supposed, but the Sinai MS. has evidently been copied from two archetypes.

Ferdinand Kattenbusch has said: “I am more convinced than most that in the investigation of the beginnings of Christianity a great many problems are likely to prove insoluble. But we have no right to acquiesce in that conclusion before all means have been exhausted, all possible combinations tried.” Following this suggestion I would here present some observations on Peter's Denial, and would propose an hypothesis.

From the earliest times we hear of doubts and difficulties in the Book of Ezekiel which have beset alike the pious and the inquiring student. In patient love, like that of the talmudic sage of old, generations have poured jars of oil into their lamps hoping to illumine in that prophecy what seems but an impenetrable gloom. Jerome often confesses his inability to grapple with the ‘obscuritates’ of a book known to be difficult in the tradition of the Hebrews. Especially he gives voice to utter consternation when on the threshold of the restored sanctuary envisioned by the prophet in his last chapters; there he is like one knocking at a closed portal. The chapters, tenebrous and trackless, are not unlike the catacombs he used to visit when studying in Rome: a glint from above would cast a swift light and then vanish, leaving him even more hopeless in the dusky cave. In like manner he often thinks he has found the way through a dark and difficult chapter only to discover that he has sunk into even denser darkness. Not in temerity, therefore, but in faith and the fear of God will he venture his guesses about Ezekiel's temple, shrouded in the mystery and silence of the centuries (“quod saecula cuncta tacuerunt”): others may contribute more and, he hopes, will not despise his little portion.

One of the achievements of recent scholarship forever to be identified with Ludwig Traube's name is the combination of history, palaeography, and textual criticism as an indispensable guide to the understanding of early mediaeval culture. The investigator of the course of politics and of letters works at second hand if he knows not the characteristics of those manuscripts in which contemporary events are recorded, or of those in which the treasures of the past were handed down to the Middle Ages. The palaeographer must consider his books not only as specimens of script but as witnesses for the text of the works they contain and as monuments of the culture of the times. The textual critic ploughs an arid field if the codices of an author are to him but A and B and C, to be hung from a stemma according to the value of their readings and their interrelations. These separate studies, which indeed call for diverse methods and diverse trainings, are but parts of a single science—a harmonious and comprehensive view of the life of an epoch. Traube of course had precursors in this complicated art, but his brilliant pursuit of it entitles him to what he himself would disclaim—the rank of a founder.

The perennial debate as to the nature of the church must always seem to those who are more interested in ideas than in institutions one of the irrelevancies with which theology is so often charged. It is not the church that matters, but religion.

Liberal Christians have affirmed their faith in religious certainty on the strength of two basic claims: namely, that Jesus revealed the character of God—a morally good God; and that Jesus revealed God's purpose for the world—a morally perfect humanity in accord with God's own character. The outlook of liberal Christianity, embracing both its theology and its ethical program, centres in its certainty concerning these two doctrines which form its sources.

Among New Testament apocrypha few have been more consistently neglected by modern scholarship than the so-called Apocalypse of Paul. This represents a strange reversal in the fortunes of the book, since at one time it ruled an almost universal favorite. Diverse tokens of this its original popularity still exist. The first will be found in the multiplicity of its ancient versions, manuscripts of which have been coming to light with some regularity since the eighteenth century, when Assemani indicated the existence of Syriac and Arabic codices in the Vatican Library.