to those that are born;] the Shepherd of the saved, and the Spouse of the Church; and the Leader of the Cherubim, the Prince of the hosts of Angels; God of God, the Son of the Father; Jesus Christ, King for ever and ever. Amen.'-Pp. 3—6.

Now it is plain that we cannot rely with any great certainty on this fragment or that which follows being genuine fragments of Irenæus, from the mere circumstance of their bearing his name. They may be his, or they may not. Further, we cannot gain any great addition to our knowledge of his doctrinal teaching from such short fragments; for, in reality, we mustat least, to a great extent-judge the doctrine of the newdiscovered portions by what we already know of the teaching of Irenæus. If the passage were by any evidence ascertained to have been written by him, then we could infer his views of doctrine from it. If, again, it contained indications of doctrine of a later age, or varying from his tone and his way of viewing doctrine, we should hold this to be a strong argument against its genuineness; but as, from the shortness of the passages, the means of deciding their genuineness from internal evidence is very slight, we can look on them as confirmatory only, in a doctrinal point of view, of what we find in other parts of the writer; e. g. the expressionDeus ex Deo' does not occur in Irenæus, but it might have occurred. We see no reason, on doctrinal grounds, why they should not be genuine.

The publication, however, of these fragments suggests some further observations. It may be said that these fragments of translations of early Fathers, particularly in cases in which we possess the originals, or other early versions, are of little value, and scarcely worth the printing. But we conceive this is far from being a just view at least, as respects writers of early date and of high authority. For these reasons:

1. It is very interesting, at least, to know that in the early Church, as in all ages of the Church, the productions of one portion of Christendom have been communicated to another by means of translation. There has thus ever been a mutual interchange of benefits. The writings of Greek Fathers spread their enlightening and sanctifying influence where the Greek language itself was almost unknown. In the Syriac, the Coptic, the Ethiopic, the Armenian languages, these great teachers being dead, were heard yet speaking. Fragments of early versions show that the Latins had enjoyed the like advantages in primitive times as they afterwards did from the labours of S. Hilary, S. Jerome, and Ruffinus, as translators: and our own AngloSaxon ancestors were not an exception. From these facts we obtain a vivid idea of the wide extent of intercommunion among the different branches of the Catholic Church, and of the fact that

works on Christian doctrine were thus read in the vernacular tongues. Further than this, we see the universality of agreement in doctrine and spirit of the whole Church. And the high esteem in which those writers, whom we honour as the witnesses to Catholic truth, were held throughout Christendom, is a notable illustration of the principle, ubique, semper, et ab omnibus,' showing that Christian truth is one, independent of the varying tempers and minds of men and nations otherwise differing most widely.

2. The version may often suggest or confirm a correction of the text, which otherwise would not be thought of, or would remain a mere conjecture. Thus, in the passage cited from Papias, the words in the old Latin of Irenæus ran thus: in una palmite dena millia brachiorum, et in uno vero palmite dena millia 'flagellorum.' Grabe naturally saw that the second 'palmite' was a mistake, running through all the MSS., for brachio,' and suggested et in uno brachio.' This is confirmed by the Armenian version, et in quovis brachio.' We should think it probable that the Latin may originally have been, in uno verò brachio,' and that the 'et' was put in by mistaking the conjunction 'verò' for an adjective. Again, as this clause of the Armenian determines the soundness of Grabe's conjecture, so another clause suggests a different reading of the original Greek, which is not improbable; where the old Latin is, Et cum eorum apprehenderit aliquis sanctorum botrum,' the Armenian runs, Si quis autem apprehenderit racemum sanctum:' the Greek in the one case would be, ẞóтρvv åyiov; in the other, Bórpuv ȧyiwv. And a little before, 'cups' is a much more probable reading than 'measures.'

3. It can only be by an extensive induction that we can learn the character and value of these Oriental translations; e. g. to what extent they were literal, correct, complete. This must be done not by publishing versions of which we have not the originals, but those of which we have them, in order that by comparison we may know whether these translators abridged, or enlarged, or paraphrased, or misunderstood, or mistranslated their originals. Much useful material in this kind will be found in Dr. Lee's publication of the Syriac of the Theophania of Eusebius and his translation of it, as they may be compared both with fragments of the Greek of the Theophania, and with portions of other works of Eusebius which seem to have been repeated by. him in this book. We apprehend that there never was a time when this was more important than it is now; for it is plain that as great stores of Oriental versions of the Fathers have now been imported amongst us, which will, we may trust, be gradually published and translated, we ought to learn how to apply to them

the principles of true criticism. It is not improbable that use will be made of them to open many questions which had been before settled; and that translations of lost treatises, e.g. of those of S. Athanasius, or of works still extant in the Greek, will be alleged to overbear the conclusions which we had considered fixed, and that the very freshness of the new-broken ground will interest men, and tend greatly to lead them to overrate the value of that which being new is untested, and its defects unknown. In Greek and Latin we can determine not only the age of the MS., but of the work-the language and style of each age being ascertained. All this must be done for the old Oriental languages before we can step surely in our deductions from them. But not only the age or the translation; the very meaning of the theological terms used in them has to be determined; many cases which illustrate the difficulty of this subject, are noticed by Mr. Morris in his notes on the Translation of the Rhythms, or metrical Homilies of S. Ephrem Syrus. For this purpose copious materials are required.

1

We shall have occasion to notice some inaccuracies on the most important questions, as exhibited by the Coptic versions of documents bearing on the Council of Nice, contained in the second part of the Spicilegium; at present we will only notice one illustration of the principles laid down, as it appears in the extract from S. Irenæus, of which we have both a Syriac and an Armenian version, but have not the original. The Syriac does not contain a long passage which is found in the Armenian. The Chevalier Bunsen determines unhesitatingly that the Armenian text is interpolated and the Syriac genuine. Dom Pitra, on the other hand, alleges this very discrepancy between the two texts as an evidence that the Syriac translators were given to abridge the works they translated (of course the value of the Syriac of the letters of S. Ignatius is very much affected by evidence to this effect). We can ourselves have no hesitation in agreeing with the view that the Syriac is mutilated, from the abrupt transition from Jacob to the Church, and the recurrence of 'King for ever and ever,' in the space of a few lines; but whether the Armenian also may not be interpolated, is not so easy to determine.

We allege the instance as showing either way the advantage there is in obtaining as ample materials as possible for applying the principles of sound criticism to these Oriental translations.

The variations between the two passages, not only in the insertions, but in the different impression of the author's views given in several places in the respective versions, which it would be tedious to transcribe, show that such translations cannot be depended on in any nice points of doctrine.

Age of Hippolytus, vol. iv. Pref. pp. viii. ix.

III. ANONYMUS, de Solennitatibus.-On the next article we must speak most decidedly in condemnation of the view which the Editor has adopted. Dom Pitra found, in the Sorbonne and in the Cottonian Collections, MS. copies of a short Latin treatise on the Feasts of the Jews, and their spiritual meaning to Christians, and particularly on the wrongness of observing Easter on the same day as the Jews, and against Judaizing in general. This treatise breathes, he thinks, the air of the Apostolic age, and has the character of an early writing; he conceives it was directed against the views of Blastus, a person who is mentioned in the list of heretics appended to Tertullian De Præscriptionibus, who endeavoured stealthily to introduce 'Judaism, saying that the Pasch ought to be observed no other'wise than according to the law of Moses, on the fourteenth day of the month." This took place in the time of Pope Victor, before the end of the second century. Dom Pitra thinks that an anathema of the universal Church, mentioned in the treatise which he prints, is Pope Victor's excommunication of the Churches of Asia Minor. These views, we are bound to say, are put out with modesty, and almost with diffidence; but the treatise is placed as if it were written at that time, and the Editor infers from it the authority of the Bishop of Rome before the end of the second century, and of the influence of the Apostolic see' over the whole Church. Quo sane exemplo 'videre est, ait Baronius, quanta auctoritate polleret Romanus Episcopus! Quam nimirum Noster haud leviter uno extollit ' verbo, tum quia inter primos Veterum quos noverim insigni SEDIS APOSTOLICE titulo KaT' çoxnv utitur, tum quia ejusdem 'Sedis in totam Ecclesiam auctoritatem vindicet, dicens: "Quod nunc maxime Ecclesia auctoritatem Sedis Apostolicæ sequens 'observat."' Other doctrines and practices of the Church would also receive a remarkably early confirmation, were this date of the treatise established. But it deserves no better designation than that of a monstrous supposition.

6

i. The very fact of this use of the words Apostolica Sedes of the Church of Rome, κar' èçoxnv, at this early period, would of itself, as a mere matter of criticism, be almost decisive. ii. The fact that such a treatise is written in Latin at all, when Irenæus and the Roman divines wrote in Greek, would create a doubt; as it could only have been circulated among Latin-speaking Christians. It would, indeed, be the earliest Christian Latin we have; and in style and expression it is unlike any Christian Latin approaching the alleged period. iii. So far from having the air of the Apostolic age, it is in its general tone and character, we conceive, post-Augustinian. iv. The citations from Scripture are not from versions like those used by the earliest Latin Fathers;

they most of all resemble those of Vigilius of Tapsus in the fifth century, and they may easily belong to a later period, for it was some time before the Vulgate came to be uniformly or even generally adopted. Each one of these points would bear much amplification and illustration; but we have not room for this, nor is there any cause why we should dwell on them. The passages on which Dom Pitra grounds his view, will, of themselves, we conceive, establish an opposite conclusion.

In the opening of the tract, the anonymous author argues against those who favoured the literal observance of the Jewish festivals, and of the law, a class of persons who-if he means that they really existed, and is not writing against a theoretical error-must be such as the Nazarenes, who continued to exist in the days of Jerome. We are, however, inclined rather to think that the writer is only attacking a possible misconceptionoverthrowing a view not actually held, but which was conceivable, and which involved the principle that it is his object to contravene. The observing of Easter on the same day as the Jews, on the ground of legal obligation, was Judaizing, and probably it was no other than this which Blastus himself was guilty of: and the argument alleged against those who did so was, that if any part of the Law be of obligation as such, this involves the obligation of the whole.

The author then dwells on the abolition of the Law: on the fact that our Lord did not offer up Himself, the true Paschal Lamb, on the Passover. Then follows the passage in question, p. 11:—

'Unde electa et amica sponsa Christi, universalis Ecclesia anathematizet eos qui cum Judæis in festivitate Paschali xiv. lunam expectari (1) definiunt, et Sabbata, et cætera hujusmodi umbratilis observantiæ. Et hoc tantum observare dignata est (2) quod et Dominus. Ut in primo mense, post xiv. diem, paschalem festivitatem præcedentem una Sabbatorum celebrari sine ulla ambiguitate censuerint. (3) Licet in hoc varietas Ecclesiæ (') orta est, alii sufficere credentibus ut non in xiv. cum Judæis pascha celebrarent; alii autem hoc fortiter cauteque custodiunt, ut immolationem veri Agni, qui tollit (5) peccatum, ante xiv. celebrare non audeant, secundum illud legale (6) præceptum, quod Dominus (7) ad passionem veniens minime contempsit, sed ait; (*) observabitis eum usque ad xiv. lunam.(°) Quod nunc maxime (1o) Ecclesia, (1) auctoritatem Sedis Apostolicæ sequens, observat.'

The important bearing of the first and last sentences of this extract on the question of the Roman supremacy, if the treatise was written before the year 200, is very obvious.

The following are the various readings and notes on the above. C. or Cotton. represents the Cottonian MS. of the treatise, of the eighth century. Cal. A. xv. fol. 83. S. or Sorb., the MS. formerly of the Sorbonne Library, Sorbon. 183. fol. 212, of the twefth century

1 xiv. celebrari, C. 2 observare dignatus est Dominus, Sorb. 3 Censuerit, Cotton. cætera legit ut ibi; codex vero Sorbonicus aliter habet hunc locum, paulo minus