not proper for the leaven of sin to be at the solemnity of the Lamb, ie. Christ.' One is reminded here of the usage of the Greek Church, in which the principal Host is termed the Holy Lamb. Some comments refer to the marriage of the clergy. Thus on I Timothy iii. 2: 'Husband of one wife'-'that is, before receiving orders but after baptism.' From which it appears that marriage after ordination was not allowed, the same rule applying to bishops and deacons. In verse 13 of the Authorized Version, used the office of a deacon,' is in the margin 'ministered,' which does not necessarily refer to clerical duties. These two renderings are represented in the gloss : '(1) If they fulfil their orders, or (2) if, when among the laity [i.e. before ordination] they have corrected their household.' The 'good degree' referred to by the Apostle may be taken in two ways. (1) It is reward in the kingdom of heaven, or (2) it is proper to confer a bishop's rank on him '—that is, on the deacon. Dr. Todd, in his Life of St. Patrick, discusses the question whether ordination per saltum was practised in the Irish Church, and refers to the legend of Columba and Bishop Etchen. Columba had gone to him 'to have the order of bishop conferred on him.' Etchen was pointed out to him ploughing in a field. After some conversation Columba made known the reason of his coming. 'It shall be done,' said the cleric. 'The order of a priest was then conferred on Columba, although it was the order of a bishop he wished for.' 'I regret,' said Columba, 'that thou hast conferred this order upon me, but I shall never change it while I live.'1 He concludes that this mode of ordination was tolerated. The marriage of the clergy is recognized by the ancient laws of Ireland, but the position of the married and unmarried was looked at from quite a different point of view from ours of the present day. We should say an injury to a married man with a family would be a more serious thing than to an unmarried man. But the Irish law provided the heaviest penalty for 'wounding a virgin bishop.' After all it must be allowed that there is an improvement in Ireland, for they do not nowadays wound or maltreat bishops, virgin or otherwise. The note on I Corinthians vii. 25 is very sensible. He did not say, Let everyone abide in celibacy, whether he is able or not. Question, What did the Lord say? The answer is not difficult. He said, He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' On passages of special difficulty several interpretations are given. 1 Corinthians vi. 3, 'We shall judge angels' :— 'To the faithful [this is addressed]. The angels meant here are devils. For there was more reason that we should sin, from the frail nature of the flesh which we received-if we should sin-than there was for them to have done so, from the finer nature they received. For this reason we shall be their judges. Or (2) it means we shall judge the true angels, and this is the way we shall judge them. As they will be in the encompassment of the judgment, so shall we. As the psalmist says, " He shall call heaven from above, and the earth, to judge His people." Or (3) it is spoken of Christ, who in our human nature shall judge the angels. Or (4) the more exalted saints shall judge the lower.' The meaning of the second view is explained by a passage in the Book of Leinster describing the judgment. 'Christ the Son of God and the angels of heaven and the men of earth and hell listening till the sinner finishes showing his sins. . . . When he has finished, "See, O judges," says Christ," which is heaviest, this man's good or his evil deeds." It is evident that this gloss shows much reading and thought, and a desire to look at the text from every possible point of view, instead of selecting some one authority and following it through thick and thin. A similar remark applies to 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, 'That day shall not come except there come a falling away.' 'Until the fall of the Roman Empirethat is, the departure of the empire from the Romans; or (2) the falling away of believers into unbelief; or (3) until the devil comes, whose names are Discessio and Refuga.' Bishop Lightfoot thinks St. Paul circulated the Epistle to the Romans in one form without the two last chapters, and in one manuscript the word Rome is omitted in chapter i. vv. 7, 15. With these omissions the Epistle became a general one and more acceptable to nations outside the Empire who were generally in hostility to it. The Würzburg glosses give a curious confirmation to this in the comment on Romans vi. 17, the author of which must have had one of these copies before him : 'Whatever nation it was to whom this Epistle was addressed it is shown to have been under a yoke, for he says 'ye were the servants,' &c. The manuscript referred to is the Codex Boernerianus already mentioned, which is one of those of the Irish school, and no doubt was intended for circulation among their missions to the Slav and other races. It is refreshing to find texts worn by the attrition of many controversies looked at from a point of view wholly unconnected with them, such as I Timothy ii. 5, 'For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the 1 Psalm xlix. 4 (Vulgate). man Christ Jesus,' on which the comment is, 'As He is the One God of all, He desires the salvation of all.' Here the writer brings out the meaning of the 'for' and establishes the connexion with the preceding verse. Indeed, it is one of the features of these comments that they show great ingenuity in establishing the connexion between passages where it is not obvious at first. Another fact which strikes the reader is the impartiality of the commentator; he evidently means the student to know all that can be said on any point, and to hear not only both sides but as many sides as there are. On 1 Timothy ii. 4, Who will have all men to be saved,' three interpretations are given, the authors of which are Primasius, Pelagius, and Augustine. Question, Why are not all men saved if He desires it? for the psalmist says, 'He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased' (Ps. cxv. 3). The answer is not difficult: 'Because no one is constrained against his will.' This is Pelagius' view. He held strongly the freedom of the human will. The next reply is that of Primasius: By the figure called synecdoche a part is put for the whole, for there is no race or language in the world of which some one was not saved.' The third is Augustine's, and is in accordance with his well-known views: 'It was those only whom He desired to save that He did save, i.e. who will have all men to be saved; that is as much as to say, no one can be saved except he whom He wills.' One would hardly expect to hear of Plato being studied in Ireland in the ninth century, yet there is good reason to believe that one of the comments refers to a theory of his, and it is expressed with the usual brevity, which in the case of a philosophical theory implies either an advanced class of students or else that it was enlarged on, as already suggested, in oral teaching. The passage is I Cor. xiv. 26, where the words 'hath a revelation' are explained, 'Memory-that is, the revealing of mysteries.' The latter part of this is from Primasius, but the Irish commentator, to explain how the mysteries were revealed, adds, by' memory.' There can be little doubt that this is Plato's theory of ȧváμvnois, which he has described in many passages of his works. One of these is quoted in the appendix of the present work; another in the introduction to the Phædrus is as follows: 'The triple soul has had a previous existence, in which, following in the train of some God from whom she derived her character, she beheld partially and imperfectly the vision of absolute truth. All her after existence, passed in many forms of men and animals, is spent in regaining this.' From this it is evident that the commentator blends together this philo sophic theory and the Christian revelation, and explains one by the other. The Corinthian, who had the revelation, simply had his memory stimulated by supernatural means, and was then able to recall the mysterious sights he beheld in his preexistent state. It was this union of philosophy and religion which, according to Mosheim, the clergy on the Continent so strongly disapproved of. They followed authority, but the Irish gave wings to their imagination and soared into the regions of the transcendental. For it will be observed that this theory implied the pre-existence of souls, and also their transmigration, themes on which Origen delighted to expatiate, and which probably the Irish learned from him. It is evident that the compilers of these glosses were men of extensive reading and considerable metaphysical knowledge. Their names are unknown; they were units in that great host of learned men who came forth from the Irish schools in that age and swarmed over the Continent, preaching, converting, and teaching the rude barbarians of the north. The histories of some of them we know, because they passed the greater part of their lives abroad, and foreign writers celebrated their praises. Such are Columbanus, Dungal, John Scotus, St. Gall, and others, who, if they had spent their lives at home, would be as anonymous as the authors of the glosses. With all the genius, eloquence, and zeal of these missionaries to the Continent how little visible trace they left of their existence! In one respect they resembled the Irishman of the nineteenth century who goes forth from his native country. He digs canals, raises embankments, carries the hod, and does the pioneer work in new lands, and then he goes his way and others succeed and enter into his labours. Without organization, without discipline, disregarding authority, there was no element of permanence in their work, and so they vanished from the scene and Rome entered into their labours. And yet they had grand conceptions. In the Annals of the Four Masters when the death of some native bishop or abbot of local fame is recorded he is sometimes said to be the most eminent in North-West Europe.' Thus at the year 925 the successor of St. Patrick is 'Head of the piety of all Ireland and of the greater part of Europe,' and in a poem quoted in the Annals it is said of him : 1 'Premature the death of the Abbot of Armagh, At 1020 another of the successors of St. Patrick is Head of 1 Annals of the Four Masters, by Dr. O'Donovan, Dublin, 1851. 1 the Clergy of all the North-West of Europe, and Flood of the Dignity of the Western World.' At 1034 the Lector of Clonmacnois is 'Chief Sage of the West of the World.' At 1040 an anchorite is 'Head of the West of Europe for piety and wisdom.' Of Baithin, the successor of St. Columba, it was said by a native author, 'No one on this side the Alps could be compared with him in knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and in the extent of his learning.' And when they spoke of a foreign town in which the Irish had established a native monastery-' monasterium Scottorum,' as it was termedthey called the town by an appellation of their own, disregarding the foreign name; so they termed Péronne, Cathair Fursa (the city of Fursa, the Irish saint who settled there). To them all North-West Europe was their mission field, and the Church founded there was in theory theirs. What might have been we may speculate on, but the disposal of events is not ours, and both in the case of nations and individuals ideals are cherished which are destined never to be fulfilled. ART. VII.-LITURGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA. 1. England's Work in India. By W. W. HUNTER. (London, 1881.) 2. Indian Missions. By the Right Hon. Sir BARTLE FRERE. Third edition. (London, 1874.) WE have selected these two out of a host of books more or less bearing on the subject we have proposed to ourselves, because they are the work of laymen not directly concerned in missions, who may therefore be supposed to be free from the bias, optimistic or pessimistic, which almost necessarily affects men who are in the heat of the conflict. The first period of any mission must always be one of guerilla warfare. Men are raised up here and there by the Spirit of God-great leaders, souls of splendid courage, men who 'know how to take souls by storm and say, Let us love God.' With such men no general organization is possible, nor is the time ripe for it. They must work on their own lines; they are individual, fiery, energetic; they cannot consent 1 Ussher, Works, vi. 245. |