By means of his definitive edition of the Collectio Palatina the late Eduard Schwartz made possible the revision of several long accepted theories concerning its source, date, and purpose. That collection of writings almost exclusively devoted to the Pelagian and Nestorian heresies, which had been generally regarded, since its edition in the seventeenth century, as the work of Marius Mercator, Schwartz believed to be a product of the sixth century. He also believed that the collection was prepared in the course of the violent theological struggles of Justinian's time and he ventured to conclude that the Palatine collector was chiefly interested in the anti-Origenistic and anti-Nestorian struggle centering about the Three Chapters. These surmises as to the date and purpose of the collection led Schwartz to make still another assumption concerning a certain John of Tomi who is mentioned in the collection. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the identity of John of Tomi more fully and to give some indication of his importance in connection with the Palatine Collection.

“The most ancient of the philosophers,” wrote Clement of Alexandria, “were not carried away to disputing and doubting, and much less are we who are attached to the really true philosophy, and on whom the Scripture enjoins examination and investigation…. The point proposed for inquiry and answer knocks at the door of truth…. To those who thus ask questions in the Scriptures is granted that at which they aim, the gift of God-given knowledge, by way of comprehension, through the true illumination of their intellectual search…. It becomes him who is at once a lover and a disciple of truth to be pacific even in investigation, advancing by intellectual demonstration, without love of self but with love of truth, to the knowledge of comprehension.”

In his most recent book, the great Semitist, Professor Charles Cutler Torrey, presents a new theory to explain the phenomena of the Old Testament quotations in the Gospel of Matthew, and thus adds one more element to the recurrent debate on Aramaic origins of the gospels. Hitherto most critics have held that the vast majority of citations in the first gospel were taken over from the Septuagint (or, more properly, the Old Greek) version, the chief exceptions being the Reflexionszitate or “formula citations,” a group of passages introduced by some such formula as “in order that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying” (1:22). The latter were thought to have been made on the basis of the Hebrew text, either directly by the evangelist, or borrowed from an old book of Christian testimonies or proof-texts, or, as Bacon believed, taken over from the Aramaic “targumic material” which had grown up in Syria around Mark's gospel. Torrey completely rejects this usual view, which assumes that our Mt. was originally written in Greek. The original Mt., he says, was in Aramaic, and its principal source was the originally Aramaic Mk.; its biblical quotations were, however, in the Hebrew of the Bible. If, at many points, quotations in the Greek Mt. agree with Greek Mk., it is only because the translator of Mt. made use of the latter.

Professor Scholem, who is professor of Jewish Mysticism in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has produced a very important book, which will at once take its place in the list of the most significant books that have appeared on Mystical Religion. Baron von Hügel's The Mystical Element in Religion came at the end of 1908. My Studies in Mystical Religion came out in 1909, and Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism appeared in 1911. We all three were working independently of one another and, without knowing that anyone else was engaged in the undertaking, we produced our results almost simultaneously, and though representing three different types of religious thought, we became intimate friends through our work, and all three books went through various editions. Dean Inge had already, in 1899, published his important book on Christian Mysticism, and in 1902 William James had published his work of genius, Varieties of Religious Experience. Between 1911 and the present date there has been a remarkable output of books on Mysticism, many of them valuable contributions to the subject, and Mysticism has become an important feature of the interpretation of religion in our time. But meantime there had been no adequate interpretation of the great stream of Jewish Mysticism. In 1913 J. Abelson published a valuable little book on Jewish Mysticism, and in 1935 Jacob Minkin wrote a popular book on The Romance of Hasidism.

In the Michigan Collection there are three fragmentary papyri, which have these points in common: they are definitely Christian in character and though fairly legible have not thus far been identified. All seem to be of an homiletic or interpretive character but the extent of each is too small to admit of a more definite classification. All of the other Christian fragments in the Michigan Collection have already been published and the fact that these have thus far proved uninterpretable is a sufficient reason why they should no longer be kept in concealment. I am accordingly taking advantage of the kindness of the Editor to print them in the Harvard Theological Review. I hope that another may succeed, where I have failed, and in case such an interpretation or identification calls for changes in the readings here published, I shall be glad to reëxamine the papyri or even to send photographs.