Christianity arose in an environment which was, on the one hand, still dependent upon the traditions of the Jewish Church but, on the other, wide open to Hellenistic civilization. There exists today a strong and in many respects very healthy tendency to test the Gospels for Aramaic origin, the results of which are at the same time stimulating and challenging. However, even if the view that major portions of the four canonical Gospels are translations from the Aramaic be accepted, we are still faced with the question where the ideas behind the words came from. For it is not only risky to assume that the translations themselves were uncritical, quasi-mechanical versions, especially in view of the fact that the contemporary Greek translations of the Old Testament as well as the early translations of the Greek New Testament into other languages show a fair amount of skill; but also the Aramaic original itself may have been influenced by Greek ideas and in this way may have determined the translator's method. The original Aramaic language does not also guarantee the Semitic origin of the thought expressed thereby.

The Union of Lyons between the Greek and Latin churches was largely the result of the political aims of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus. It was he who initiated the negotiations and who almost single-handedly attempted to force the union upon his Empire. He was convinced, as both Greek and Western historians repeatedly observe, that union was the one effective means to avert the menace of an expedition against Constantinople by the powerful coalition of Charles of Anjou, then King of Sicily. Recently recovered from the Latins by Palaeologus, Constantinople was still relatively weak, and it was mainly the Emperor's flexible diplomacy that had hitherto been able to maintain it against the Latins. To Palaeologus' mind only the offer of union could induce the Holy See to restrain Charles from his plan of conquest.

In an article published in this Review some years ago, the present writer called attention to a remarkable similarity between a certain clause occurring in some Demotic marriage contracts of the late Ptolemaic period and Mishnah, Ketubot, 9,5. The clause in question reads: “I shall not be able to require an oath from thee in the house of judgment on account of the right of thy woman's property above (named), saying ‘thou didst not bring them to my house in thy hand’” (Adler Dem. 14 and Ryl. 16). The pertinent part of Mishnah, Ketubot, 9,5, reads: “If he declared to her in writing, ‘I will require of thee neither vow nor oath,’ he may not exact of her an oath…” (Danby, The Mishnah, p. 258).

Various dates have been given for Tatian's Oration to the Greeks, ranging from 152 to 172. None of these dates is correct, since the treatise was written after the year 176, perhaps in 177 or 178.

In the spring of 175 the Roman empire was shaken by the almost accidental revolt of Avidius Cassius, governor of Syria. Acting on the rumor that Marcus Aurelius had died, the governor proclaimed himself emperor. Egypt joined Cilicia, Syria, and Judaea; but the revolt was crushed in little more than three months. The emperor promised clemency (coins of the following year mention Clementia Aug.) and kept his promise. He then made a journey to the east with the empress Faustina and their son Commodus, passing through Syria but avoiding Antioch, the center of the revolt. Early in 176, after wintering in Alexandria, they visited Antioch and went on to Cappadocia, where Faustina's sudden death was followed by a magnificent funeral.

The Pro Caelio is certainly, as an editor describes it, one of Cicero's most brilliant and entertaining orations. If separate editions have been few and if the Pro Caelio is less well known than some other speeches, the explanation lies not in the oration's merits but in the fact that the reading of teachers is to some extent determined by what has been thought proper for schoolboys. In antiquity, in any event, the oration seems to have been highly regarded; it is quoted by Petronius, Aulus Gellius, and Fronto, and a number of times by Quintilian. Moreover, writers of the fourth century and later, notably St. Augustine, also show some acquaintance with it.