demned the tendency to make the Faith increasingly Hellenistic; and, as Origen says, showed that the prophecies concerning the Christ are applicable to Jesus.

An Apocalypse of Peter shared for a time a popularity equal to that enjoyed by the canonical Apocalypse and kept its place in the popular mind until the vaster vision of DANTE displaced it. It contained a prophecy given by Jesus to His disciples concerning the coming of false prophets; a vision of Paradise seen by Peter; and an account of the Inferno, in which the lost souls were tormented by punishments suggested by their sins. It can scarcely be later than 150, and may be even earlier.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW UNIVERSALISM

The Hebrew renaissance, inspired by PHILO, met with strong and ultimately successful opposition from the frankly Hellenistic spirit which sympathised with Western culture and welcomed the best influences of Orientalism. This new universalism is first represented in Christian literature by the quite simply Hellenic Epistle of Clement of Rome, fl. 75-96, sent to the Church of Corinth.

The writer desired to restore harmony to the divided Church. His letter is therefore, in the main, an appeal for submission to authority in the spirit of meekness. It is now a most valuable picture of Church conditions at the end of the first century.

Two noble treatises by LUKE, the beloved physician, belong to this time, and breathe the same spirit of freedom from Jewish traditions. Both the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles were written for one Theophilus of whom nothing is known.

The Gospel, 80-90, is historical in method but religious in purpose; the carefully collected and arranged material is consistently interpreted in the interests of universalism.

LUKE is the historical Evangelist; his purpose is to write the Life of Jesus, not merely to give an account of His public ministry, and he seeks to give a more comprehensive, more complete, and more strictly chronological story than either Mark or Matthew had done. He is deeply indebted to the Book of Sayings and to the Gospel of Mark; more than three-fourths of his work is derived from them. But he uses other sources, which neither of these possessed (e.g. v.1

11; vii.11-17, 36-50; viii. 1-4; most of the Greater interpolation (ix. 51-xviii. 1-14), xxiii. 39-43; xxiv. 13-35. His universalism appears in many passages (e.g. iv.25-27; vi.24-26; vii.4-5; xix.1-9) and in such incomparable parables as those of the "Two Debtors," the "Good Samaritan," the "Lost Piece of Silver," the "Lost Sheep," the "Prodigal Son," "Dives and Lazarus," the "Phrarisee and the Publican," etc.

Many of the characteristic notes of the Third Gospel reappear in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, a remarkable record of the growth of Christianity from Jerusalem, through Syria, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, to Rome. This history is made up from hearsay traditions, from earlier Acts written by JOHN MARK, from LUKE'S Own Journal (cf. xvi, 10-17; xx.5-15; xxi.1-18; xxvii.1: xxviii.1-6) and from information supplied by persons and churches concerned.

LUKE was a gifted historian whose work is a "wellordered and artistically arranged composition," which falls into four nearly equal parts (i-vii; viii-xiv; xv-xxi.26; xxi. 27-xxviii.). He probably wrote to prove the innocent character of Christianity and thus save the faithful from persecution during the dark years of the reign of Domitian, 81-96.

These first literary ventures of the new universalism were soon surpassed by the writings of a Christian group in Asia Minor. The seven Churches, to which a quasi-Hebraic idealist addressed the Letters that now form a secondary Introduction to the Apocalypse (ii. 1-iii. 21), were for a time the intellectual headquarters of Christendom. A brilliant company gathered there. Among others were JOHN THE SON OF ZEBEDEE, ANDREW and PHILIP of the apostolic college, ARISTION, JOHN THE ELDER, POLYCARP, PAPIAS of Hierapolis, and MELITO of Sardis. Several members of the group were accomplished literary men, and never perhaps

has Christianity been more prolific of literature than during the second century, in Asia.

The Fourth Gospel, the work of an unknown author or authors, was the supreme achievement of this school. It is the result of a definite attempt to reconcile Christian belief with the current culture of Asia Minor, during the lifetime of the third generation of believers. At the moment of its composition it was the most philosophic interpretation of the person and ministry of Jesus hitherto attempted. It presupposes the writings of PAUL; it carries PAUL'S teaching to its logical conclusions. It is the Gospel of the Incarnation.

There are many differences between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics; differences of standpoint, of material and of the order of events; but the Fourth Gospel is unique in its use of great allegories of Christian experience (iii.1-13; iv.7-26; ix.1-34; xi.1-44) and in the speeches that it puts into the mouth of Jesus (e.g. v.19-47; vi.32-57; viii.3440; x.1-18; xiv.12-31; xv. 1-27; xvi.1-16).

The First Epistle of John, a letter similar in style and spirit to the Gospel, unites a strong appeal for fellowship in the Church, with an equally strong denunciation of Docetism, the earliest known Christian heresy concerning which JEROME, in after years, said: "The blood of Christ was still fresh in Judaea when His body was said to be a phantom."

The defence of orthodoxy and the growth of ecclesiasticism go together, and in the Catholic or Pastoral Epistles there are valuable reflections of the ecclesiastical situation as it was at the beginning of the second century. Although these Letters contain passages from the hand of PAUL (cf. 2 Tim. i.15-18; iv.9-22; Titus i. 1-6,10-13; ii-iii.7), they cannot be ascribed to him as a whole. They are the work of writers who used extracts from his writings in order to

continue his service among Churches.

the developing Western

The "faithful sayings" referred to in these Epistles, probably were parts of a creed which was used in the catechism. The chronological order of the letters is 2 Timothy; Titus; 1 Timothy.

All the writings of the New Testament were at first without any divisions of chapters, verses, or words. The troubles arising from such a lack were probably less when books were few and precious than they would be now, when books are numberless, and readers are accustomed to indexes and concordances. But the need of making references led AMMONIUS of Alexandria, in the third century, to divide the Gospels into sections, "regulated by the substance of the narratives contained in them."

Then EUTHALIUS, f1. 450, also of Alexandria, devised a system of divisions for all the books of the New Testament, except the Apocalypse. He next led the Greek Church to adopt a uniform plan for the public Lessons. This did not include the Gospels or the Apocalypse; but it arranged fiftyseven Lessons from the other books, thus making special provision for Christmas, Epiphany, Good Friday and Easter. He also perfected the prevailing systems of dividing the text into lines or verses.

EUTHALIUS therefore deserves mention as one of the pioneers in that formal and scientific study of the New Testament, of which perhaps REV. CANON SIR J. C. HAWKINS is the best modern exponent.