The term “Armageddon,” familiar in English literature, primarily designates the scene of the last great battle at the end of the present age, in which the powers of evil, represented by hostile nations warring against the Kingdom of God, are to be overthrown and destroyed. The name is derived from a passage in the Book of Revelation, 16:16, in which a standing feature of Hebrew eschatology is given a setting characteristic of the apocalypse.

Professor C. H. Dodd in The Apostolic Preaching and its Development has drawn attention to the importance of the “Kerygma” as a more or less formal statement of the Christian Gospel, lying behind the earliest Christian documents; it determines the structure of Mark, the speeches in Acts and the form of the Creeds. This conventional form seems to be derived from Judaism. A statement of the mighty works of God in creation and the history of mankind, more especially in the deliverance of his people from Egypt, is a recurring feature of Jewish literature in the post-exilic era; perhaps the most notable example is Ps. 136; cf. Nehemiah 9. 6 ff., Is. 63. 7 ff. Such a recital of the mighty works of God in delivering His people was obviously necessary if the religion of Israel was to be changed from a primitive Semitic tribal cult into a system of monotheism, centred on the national deity, identified with the one God of Heaven; it was specially necessary to find an aetiological myth for the principal festival of the Passover. The emphasis on this deliverance reflects the process by which vague legends of a migration from Egypt have been conflated with the return from Babylon to form the biblical picture of the Exodus.

Even at the cost of a slight delay to the publication of the Homily on the Passion, it has seemed prudent to submit to the readers of this Review two problems arising out of Melito's language, which are not without their difficulties. If the view here taken about the first of these is open to other objections than those which the writer has anticipated, he will be grateful to any reader who will call them to his attention. As to the second, it is likely that Hebrew and patristic scholars may be able to add further illustrations. Such contributions will be most welcome.

In a recent article, F. Pfister has put forth a theory which appears to me so interesting a mixture of fruitful suggestion and of error as to repay a detailed and critical examination. It is briefly that ‘der Verfasser des Urevangeliums, das in verschiedenen Fassungen den drei Synoptikern bekannt war, eine kynisch-stoische Heraklesbiographie vor Augen hatte, und in enger Abhängigkeit von dieser das Leben Jesu geetaltete.’ This proposition he endeavors to support by a series of comparisons between details of the life of Jesus as given in the Synoptic Gospels and descriptions of the corresponding events in the life of Herakles, especially as told by our later authorities, such as Diodorus Siculus and the so-called Apollodoros.

In Arabic philosophic texts, and following them also in Hebrew philosophic texts, restatements of Aristotle's distinction between ‘equivocal’ (ὁμώνυμα, mushtarakah) and ‘univocal’ (συνώνυμα, mutawāṭi'ah), terms usually contain another type of term which stands midway between these two. It is called ‘ambiguous’ or ‘amphibolous’ (mushakkikah) terms. So far no adequate explanation as to the origin of this type of term has been advanced. In the latest and most important study of the subject, the problem of its origin has been left unsolved. To solve this problem as well as to account for the various treatments of ambiguous terms in Arabic philosophy, including Alfarabi, Avicenna, Algazali, Averroes and Maimonides, is the purpose of this paper.

The writer's interest has been much aroused by two important monographs appearing in this Review: (I) ‘A Vision of Mandulis Aion,’ by A. D. Nock (vol. xxviii, 53–104); and (II) ‘The Gild of Zeus Hypsistos,’ by C. Roberts, T. C. Skeat, A. D. Nock (xxix, 39–88). The evidence is of necessity predominantly drawn from Graeco-Roman sources, while the Oriental background or parallels figure less because of the lack of material.

The word religion, as commonly used, refers to complex institutions which are made up of many different elements. I am not so much interested in the complex institutions which we call religions as I am in isolating from them the element which causes us to call them religions. I am interested in the religious attitude of mind rather than in religion as an institution. Similarly, in regard to science, I am interested in the scientific attitude of mind rather than in applied science. To most people the word science means applied science rather than the scientific attitude of mind.

‘(3) Pourquoi donc, ô père, Dieu n'a-t-il pas donné l'intellect à tous? — C'est qu'il a voulu, mon enfant, que l'intellect fût placé entre les âmes comme un prix qu'elles eussent à gagner. — (4) Et où l'a-t-il donc placé?—Il en a rempli un grand cratère qu'il a envoyé sur terre, et il a appointé un héraut avec ordre de proclamer aux coeurs des hommes ces paroles: “Plonge-toi, toi qui le peux, dans ce cratère que voici, toi qui crois que tu remonteras vers Celui qui a envoyé sur terre le cratère, toi qui sais pour quelle fin tu es venue à l'être.” Tous ceux donc qui ont prêté attention à la proclamation et qui ont été baptisés (de ce baptême) de l'intellect, ceux-là ont eu part à la connaissance et ils sont devenus hommes parfaits, parce qu'ils ont reçu l'intellect. Ceux au contraire qui ont failli à écouter la proclamation, ceux-ci sont demeurés les logiques, parce qu'ils n'ont pas acquis en surplus l'intellect et qu'ils ignorent en vue de quoi ils sont venus à l'être et qui sont les auteurs de leur création.’

Καὶ οὕτως, ὦ Γλαύκων, μῦθος ἐσώθη καὶ οὔκ ἀπώλετο, καὶ ἡμᾶς ἂν σώσειεν ἂν πειθὠμεθα αὐτῷ.

With these words Plato ends the myth of Er. The modern commentators, Adam and the rest, give parallels from elsewhere in his works for the phrase and cite the explanation of Proclus and the scholiast, that it was customary in antiquity to end a story with μῦθος ἀπώλɛτο, “as they wished to show that fables tell what is not so, and as soon as they are spoken they are not.”

As the second canto of the Purgatorio opens, Dante's attention is attracted by a light which, swiftly approaching, discloses the form of wings.

‘Fa, fa che le ginnochia cali:

ecco l' angel di Dio: piega le mani:

omai vedrai di si fatti officiali.

Vedi che sdegna li argomenti umani,

sì che remo non vuol nè altro velo

che l' ali sue tra liti sì lontani.

Vedi come l' ha dritte verso il cielo,

trattando l' aere con l' etterne penne,

che non si mutan come mortal pelo.’

For many years it has been the accepted belief that ‘from the fourth century of our era’ the Book of I Enoch ‘gradually passed out of circulation, and became lost to the knowledge of Western Christendom’ until 1773, ‘when an Ethiopic version of the work was found in Abyssinia by Bruce.’ It is doubtless true that I Enoch was not in any exact sense known to Europe until the return of Bruce, but the belief that he was the first to ‘discover’ the book or its Ethiopic translation appears erroneous. This discovery had been made approximately two centuries before 1773. In his widely read Relation of a Journey George Sandys informs the reader that in a mountain fastness the

Abissens or A Ethiopians…have…the goodliest Librarie of the world: where many bookes that are lost with vs, or but meerely mentioned, are kept entire: as hath bin lately reported by a Spanish Frier that hath seene them, if we may beleeue him: amongst which, they say, are the oracles of Enoch (with other mysteries that escaped the Flood, ingrauen by him vpon pillars) and written in their vulgar language.

This paper is not, as the title would seem to imply, a discussion of Butler's famous novel, nor does it attempt to answer the question where Butler found the phrase. It may well be doubted indeed whether the novelist himself could have given us an exact reference to his source, since the phrase, as a euphemism for the dread word “death,” is one of those winged utterances which come into one's mind without a definite perception whence or how or when. English literature at least seems to furnish comparatively few examples of its use and the writers who do employ it, if we except Dickens who, in one of the stories in Sketches by Boz, makes Mr. Parsons remark that his wife's father “allowed us something to live on till he went the way of all flesh,” are not such as are commonly read. Moreover it is clear that the phrase was generally familiar before the date of its earliest appearance in our literature. This was in the year 1607, in the play Westward Ho, by Dekker and Webster, II, 2, where one of the characters remarks, “I saw him even now going the way of all flesh, that's to say, towards the kitchen.” This remark would have been without point, had the phrase not been in common use with a more serious connotation.

Three dates have been suggested for the celebration of the festival of Adonis at Athens, all of which have found adherents in recent years. Deubner, relying solely on the apparent evidence of vase-paintings, as interpreted by Hauser, placed the Adonia at the beginning of autumn. The only argument in favor of so late a date, that bunches of fresh grapes appeared in representations of the κῆποι 'Aδώνιδος' was disposed of by Nock, who pointed out that grapes were also kept until the feast of Choes, Anthesterion 12.

The fragment, P. Mich. 1317, is a damaged scrap of papyrus 19.8 by 6.3 cm. (7¾ by 2½ inches). It is much darkened with age and otherwise damaged by dirt, water, and wear. It is a portion of a leaf of a book written on both sides, which came into our collection classified as a bit of a lost Gospel, though it did not seem to me to conform to that designation. My first transcript of the text was shown to my colleague Professor Bonner, and by him to Dr. H. I. Bell of the British Museum and to Sir Frederic Kenyon. All agreed that these fragmentary remnants seem to have belonged to a homily. A transcript of the text was also sent to Professor Kirsopp Lake for suggestions on the probable authorship. Upon the publication of the Acta Pauli by Schmidt and Schubart he at once notified me of the identity in text and we both immediately thereafter established that the Michigan and Berlin fragments were parts of a single leaf. A page number, πc (= 86), is found just above the beginning of the first line on the side, where the outer margin is preserved. A similar page number on the opposite side of the leaf must have perished, as there only the ends of the lines are preserved. It is the part of the leaf next to the binding that is lost.