Among the many religions of oriental origin Christianity was the only one which really became a Roman religion, and any attempt to explain the complex history of the institutional development of the Church of Rome during the early centuries of the empire must start from the analysis of this distinguishing fact, the ‘romanization’ of the Christian Church. A survey of the Roman environment in which Christianity made its first conquests and secured its success is the indispensable preliminary to the study of the process that gradually transformed Christianity in Rome from a religion of foreign groups into the legally established religion of the Roman Empire.

Papyrus 1571 of the Michigan Collection was bought in Cairo in 1924 in a large purchase, which was allotted to the contributing institutions by Mr. H. I. Bell of the British Museum. Many documents in the Michigan part of the purchase came from the Fayûm, but no further evidence is obtainable regarding the place of origin of this fragment. It came to us in three pieces, of which one was only partly unfolded and all were so dirty as to be rather illegible, but the papyrus was already designated as a portion of Acts and dated in the fourth century.

Two years ago I presented in this Review (vol. XVIII, 1925, pp. 115–127) a preliminary account of the papyrus codex, containing a large part of the Similitudes of Hennas, which belongs to the University of Michigan collection (P Mich 917). The complete publication of that text has been greatly delayed by the demands of other duties; and now the importance of a more recent discovery obliges me to turn aside from the larger task in order to bring to the attention of scholars a new fragment, which may be the oldest extant portion of Hennas’ work.

The gospels are alike evidences for our faith and documents of a crisis in human history. They claim not only the interest of believers but also the most serious attention of the historical inquirer. No wonder, then, that the methods employed to throw light upon them show an ever increasing refinement, and that in the course of time every canon of criticism which can be utilized in the interpretation of ancient texts has come to be applied to the gospels. In dealing with the problem of the gospels we have to do something more than explain them bit by bit; we have also to answer the question how they came to exist at all.

It has long been known that familiar features of the ordinary wonder-worker's manner of operation can be detected here and there in the stories of the miracles of Jesus. Nothing is more natural. Miracle stories had been current in the ancient world for centuries before the Christian era, and their number did not lessen thereafter. A type of popular story was developed, varying as to time and scene and as to the persons concerned in the action, but in spite of those variations carrying certain marks which, through their frequent recurrence, came to be expected as a matter of course. For example, the narrator makes much of the difficulty of the miracle and of the thoroughness of its success; and he shows a vivid interest in the behavior of the miracle-worker, carefully noting the various acts and gestures by which the wonder is brought to pass.

In my essay, “The Genesis of St. Augustine's Idea of Original Sin,” published in this Review (1917, pp. 159–175), I advanced the theory that Augustine's doctrine of original sin and its transmission was not derived from the teaching of Ambrose, as Harnack holds, but rather from the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans by the unknown writer commonly referred to as Ambrosiaster. From this fourth-century writer Augustine borrowed his final formulation of the doctrine of the universal participation of mankind in the sin of Adam and his interpretation of the most discussed passages of the Epistle to the Romans, as well as the notions of man “servus culpae” and “servus gratiae.”

Toward the end of the first century the Christian church at Rome seems to have made a convert of whom it was never very proud. He was not a great man. His writings were not included in the New Testament, though they were seriously considered for it. But his book throws a flood of light on the life, the labors, the trials, the hopes, the fears of Christians at about the time when the canonical books were being selected and put together into a collection.

The subject of this paper, Christian of Stavelot, though he is one of the less familiar figures of the Carolingian revival of learning, whose only substantial work is a commentary on the First Gospel, should be of interest to any student of monastic education. Yet, apart from an admirable essay by Ernst Dummler and a shorter, but very useful, article by Manitius, recent research has not paid much attention to this writer.

The general public in France is singularly uninformed on questions of religion. Persons in other respects very well educated are frequently lacking in the most elementary notions of the doctrines and history of Christianity. Men who would be ashamed if they were caught taking Virgil for a Greek poet or Demosthenes for a Roman orator, unblushingly display an astonishing ignorance about the books of the Bible, and will suppose, for example, that the New Testament was written in Hebrew, or in Syriac, or even in Arabic, and the Old Testament in Latin. On the part of the small group of scholars who occupy themselves with the history of Christianity, efforts have been made to combat this ignorance and to awaken some interest in questions which the university programs systematically ignore. Plans have been sketched, but difficulties of every kind have prevented putting them into effect. Some steps have been taken, but as yet only too few; some books of an untechnical character, capable of being understood by anyone of moderate education, have been published, but so far they have not succeeded in shaking the general indifference.