The composition dayyenu as preserved in the extant rituals consists of two parts — the first a poem in fifteen strophes (Da), the second a prose summary (Db). It reads as follows:

D

How many are the calls of the Almighty upon our thankfulness!

In the curious collection of lapidary and magical lore known as the Kyranides directions are given for making a ring with certain special virtues. The stone is to be νεμεσίτης, which is explained as a name given to a stone chipped from an altar of Nemesis made of λίθος κραταιός. We can only translate those words as “hard stone,” but the expression seems to be a technical term for a particular stone which we cannot identify. Upon such a stone a figure of Nemesis is to be carved; she is represented as a maiden resting her foot upon a wheel, holding in her left hand a cubit-rule (πῆχυς), in her right a twig (ῥάβδος). The writer concludes, ἐὰν οὖν τὸν δακτύλιον τοῦτον προσενέγκῃς δαιμονιζομένῳ, παραῦτα ὁ δαίμων ἐξομολογήσας ἑαυτὸν φεύξεται. These words are the occasion for this paper; but before proceeding to discuss them, something should be said about the design prescribed in the passage.

One of the puzzles of the Gospel tradition has been the interpretation of the epithet which distinguishes the betrayer of Jesus from other bearers of the very common name Judas. The attempt to explain it has brought forth perhaps as many impossible theories as any other New Testament riddle of the kind. The most recent authoritative work dealing with Palestinian affairs, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 6 (1942), merely mentions three attempted explanations of the name: 1. “man of Kerioth”; 2. derivation from Hebrew sheker (“falsehood”); 3. from Latin scortea, meaning the “leather bag” which Judas as treasurer carried (John 12: 6, 13: 29). The reader is left to make his own choice, as no preference is expressed.

Theists, I suppose, are persons who believe in “God's” existence. Atheists are persons who deny the same.

Such statements may be suitable, and even adequate, for many proper purposes. In several contexts it is silly or malicious to interrogate them closely. Even in theology, which is, or should be, some kind of science, they may have, and they do have, their use and their propriety. For many theological purposes, however (and also for some others) they are far too vague. It may be wrong, no doubt, to tell a theologian that he must either produce an accurate definition of what he means by “God” or be forever shamed.

Marius Victorinus, fourth-century Rome's most distinguished professor of rhetoric, appears immediately as a definite personality to one who looks into his biography. So vividly has Augustine, in the eighth book of the Confessions, told the story of the old rhetor's conversion that he seems real flesh and blood. Yet a feeling of uneasiness soon takes possession of the investigator. The limits of Victorinus's life have not been established even in terms of broad approximation; and it is perhaps of some importance for understanding the character of the man and the times of which he is so pertinent a representative to know, for example, whether his youth and early manhood were passed in the atmosphere of Diocletian's persecutions or of Constantine's tolerant reign. I have tried, therefore, in this study to discover the means of determining at least approximately the date of his birth and of his death.