The controversy as to the historical existence of Jesus, after abating in Germany, England, and America, has recently been revived in France, where it had not before been acute, and has there appeared under a new form, entirely distinct from the theories of Drews, J. M. Robertson, and W. B. Smith. It is of some interest to describe this new aspect of the thesis that the history of Jesus is a myth, and to try to explain the genesis of the contention.

Twenty years ago it was possible to regard the Synoptic Problem as virtually solved. There might still be difference of opinion on a number of details, but the main conclusions seemed to be unassailable. The sources of the three gospels, like those of the Nile, had been hidden in mystery, and the discovery of them was justly hailed as the chief triumph of nineteenth-century scholarship.

For some time it has been apparent that the rejoicings were premature. Those matters of detail which had yet to be settled have turned out to be serious, and we are now realizing, with something of a shock, that the Synoptic Problem is still with us. Instead of reaching a solution we have only come in sight of the real difficulties. If the confidence of twenty years ago is ever regained it will only be after another long spell of patient labor.

We certainly owe much to the great scholars of the last century, though their claim to discovery has been found wanting. They gave us the clues which we have still to follow. The materials they collected and the observations they made will always be valuable. Their theory itself, although it calls for drastic revision, will continue, in some essential points, to stand. It will remain certain that Mark is the earliest of our gospels and has been used by the other evangelists. It seems equally impossible to doubt that along with Mark there was another source, now lost, on which Matthew and Luke must have drawn for their record of Jesus' teaching. These results, however they may be qualified, must always form the starting-point for critical investigation. But we now recognize that the older scholars conceived of their task too narrowly. The problem before them was far more intricate than they supposed, and has to be solved not merely by comparing the editorial methods of the several evangelists but by a deeper analysis, affecting the substance as well as the formal structure of the gospels.

One of the great glories of the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington is the MS. of the Four Gospels, commonly cited as W, which was bought in Egypt in 1906, and may have been found in the ruins of an Egyptian monastery. With regard to it Professor A. S. Hunt, after again looking at photographs of the MS., writes me: “A date within the fourth century seems to me quite possible, but the early fifth century is not to be excluded. Personally I should incline to put it towards the end of the fourth century…. But… the first quire of John is obviously considerably later.” Thus W is probably the third oldest MS. of the gospels in Greek. Yet on account of the extraordinary variety in the types of early text contained in it, W is of all MSS. the most enigmatic. I hope in this article to contribute something towards the solution of the enigma.

The edition of the “De Virginitate” of Athanasius by Eduard von der Goltz (Texte und Untersuchungen xxix, 1905) is one of the most important contributions made in modern times to the knowledge of the text of Athanasius, because of its full discussion of the variant readings of the manuscripts. The work, however, was handicapped by incomplete knowledge of the Patmos MS. (P), which von der Goltz regarded as the best, and by almost complete ignorance of the two Vatopedi MSS. quoted by him under the symbols W1 and W2, but in the present article designated A and K, since that nomenclature was adopted in the first article on their contents in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. v, 1903, pp. 108 ff.

A visit to Athos and Patmos in 1925 has made it possible to build a little further on von der Goltz's foundation, and to correct some of the errors inevitable to the conditions under which he worked. We shall here give:

(I) A fuller account of P.

(II) A list of corrections to be made in von der Goltz's collation of P.

(III) A collation, with von der Goltz's edition, of the text of the two Vatopedi MSS. A and K, and of a third MS. in the same library, which we call Q.

(IV) Some discussion of the general problem of the text of the “De Virginitate.”

The publication in the “Harvard Theological Studies” in 1918 of Macarii Anecdota, consisting of seven new homilies attributed to St. Macarius of Egypt, has revived interest in the mystery surrounding the authorship of the Macarian writings, and this renewed interest has given birth to a discovery. The controversy over the authorship of these writings is—at least in main outline—at an end. We now know in what age, in what region, and in what school of thought they were produced. The actual individual who penned them remains unknown. Hopes of completing the discovery by tracking him down have led the present writer to defer the composition of this article until now. These hopes however will probably not be realized until a good many years of research have been expended. It seems therefore fitting to publish the discovery in its general form. In brief, the Homilies attributed to St. Macarius are really the work of an heretical sect of mendicant monks and mystics called Messalians, or Euchites.

No city has had so many desolations as Jerusalem, no land has experienced so many devastations. They are so many that it is not easy to register them all, nor to say which is exactly the fluctus decumanus that submerged most completely the national life and prosperity. We can, however, see that all the series of disasters have a similarity; each of them is written in terms of wholesale slaughter, deportation, and slavery; if at any time a decree of restoration is issued, the document is a palimpsest with the under-writing betraying a decree of exile.

Julien d'Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Sévère d'Antioche sur l'incorruptibilité du corps du Christ. Étude d'histoire littéraire et doctrinale suivie des fragments dogmatiques de Julien (texte syriaque et traduction grecque). (Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis; Dissertationes ad gradum magistri in Facultate Theologica consequendum conscriptae; Series II, tomus 12.) Louvain, 1924.

Not mentioned by Scrivener (Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, p. xii), and hitherto unnoticed, is the collation of Codex Bezae with the text of Stephanus made by Richard Bentley († 1742) and numbered Adv. e. 2. 1 in the collection of his books preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge.