devout manner in which he gives the motive and principle that have guided him in his work. His notes are as his pupils of former years will testify the fruit of much faithful and honest study: we have ourselves been witness of the anxious and unsparing fidelity with which he has given them their final revision in the troublesome and costly correction of his stereotype plates. And it is a service for which the student of the gospel record will especially thank him, that he has endeavored to set forth the cardinal points on which the interpretation of it turns, so as to take just the shape, in the common mind, that it has to the scholar who examines the critical editions for himself. His table of Various Readings, prepared with much care, will give an intelligent reader a better view of the real questions at issue than volumes of dissertation; and this alone will fully justify, to teachers or learners in our numerous Bible classes, the preparation of the volume.

Its reverent and devout tone of commentary give this book a further and special value to most of those likely to use it; while the great beauty of its typography, and its convenient size, make it more than usually pleasant to handle and to read.

No writer of the ancient time has been more underrated and more neglected, than the Alexandrine Philo. His method of allegorizing has fastened upon him a contempt which he does not fairly deserve. He is really a clear, strong, and direct narrator, more intelligible and more trustworthy than most of those who have undertaken to tell the events in which their passions were enlisted, and in which they bore active part. Josephus has always been the standard authority in the story of the wars and persecutions of the Jews. But it is now coming to be recognized that Josephus was not only a supple time-server in his management of affairs, but an unscrupulous manipulator of the facts in his history. As between the two, no candid student will hesitate to prefer Philo to Josephus, as more accurate, more impartial, and even more sagacious.

This neglect of Philo, however, has been more marked in France and in England than in Germany. Nearly a hundred years ago, Gottleber published his ingenious "Animadversions" on the "Legation" of Philo. In the year 1800 appeared the "Philonian Chrestomathy" of Dahl. It is fifty years since Denziger's "Dissertation on Philo's Philosophy and the Jewish School in Alexandria" threw new light on the origin of Christian orthodoxy. Scheffler's "Philonian Questions" treat of Jewish life and customs under the reign of the

later Ptolemies. Gfrörer discusses, in his two volumes upon Philo, the whole subject of the Alexandrine theology, and Daehne follows up this discussion more fully. In the last twenty years, there have been numerous articles in the German theological journals on this prolific theme.

M. Ferdinand Delaunay,* whose works upon the "Acts of the Apostles" we have already noticed in this Review, has attempted to restore the honor of Philo in the land where the rights of Jews have been so fully recognized. His solid volume is one of the most interesting and welcome of the recent contributions to theological literature. His admirable translation of the two most valuable historical works of Philo, the book "Against Flaccus," and the "Legation to Caius," quite vindicates his praise of the Alexandrine scholar. He proposes in subsequent volumes to continue these translations, and add to the historical works the treatises of doctrine and exposition. It was a happy idea to begin with the works which every one can understand, and in which there is so little of fanciful speculation. Hardly any thing is here to show in Philo a mystic or a dreamer. It is a shrewd man of the world, a practical philosopher, as well as an ardent patriot, who discourses of men and things he knows.

A well-written life of Philo, and a comprehensive and graphic "Introduction" prepare the reader for the narrative of the translation. But Philo's style is so easy, and his material so well arranged, that the introduction, interesting as it is, was, after all, not necessary. Both together give us a picture under lights a little varied, of the Jews in the reign of the first Roman emperors, their numbers, their influence, their business, their relations to the aristocracy and the people, their way of life, their religious and political place, their patience, their hope and their bigotry. This picture is not that which has been usually given in the histories. It is quite time that the old idea of the insignificance of the Jewish people to Pagan nations and rulers in the age of the Herods should be greatly modified, if not wholly reversed. The most recent researches of scholars seem to show that no foreign people had more influence upon Roman opinion and manners in the time of the first Cæsars, than this widely scattered race of Abraham. The dispersion of the Jews, which was finished when Titus destroyed the Temple, had been virtually accomplished some centuries earlier;

* Philon D'Alexandrie, Écrits Historiques, Influence, Luttes, et Persécutions des Juifs dans le Monde Romain. Par FERDINAND DRLAUNAY, de Fontenay. Paris: Didier et Cie., 1867. 8vo. pp. xvi. 389.

and when Philo wrote, there were far more of his people speaking Greek than speaking the Syrian tongue, far more in the lands of Europe and Africa than in the small country of Palestine.

There are two interesting questions concerning Philo on which M. Delaunay gives a decided opinion, though he does not argue them at length. One is of Philo's conversion to Christianity, of which Eusebius has the legend. In the works of Philo we certainly find no evidence that he had any faith in Jesus, or, indeed, that he knew any thing about Jesus. He had a doctrine of the Logos, very distinct and positive; but he does not, like the author of the fourth Gospel, identify the Logos with the Man of Nazareth. In the preface to his translation of Philo's work on the "Contemplative Life," this question will be thoroughly treated; and it will be shown that Philo was in no sense a Christian or an apologist for Christianity. He knew less about it than Josephus knew, or at any rate he said less about it.

The other question, if Philo was acquainted with Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, M. Delaunay decides affirmatively. When the father of Seneca was prefect of Egypt, the young student lived for some time in Alexandria; and from the letters that he wrote, it is evident that he had been drawn to some of the ascetic practices of the Jewish people. Philo was as well known in Alexandria as Sotion was. That Seneca says nothing of the one, while he praises the other, does not prove that he had no intercourse with Philo. Seneca was a prudent man; and it would not be prudent to confess acquaintance with the teacher of a false religion.

C. H. B.

THAT Seneca was an acquaintance of the Jew Philo, seems to M. Delaunay a reasonable conjecture. That the more famous Stoic Marcus Aurelius was the friend of the more famous Rabbi Jehuda, compiler of the Talmud of Jerusalem, seems to Herr Bodek a fact capable of absolute demonstration.* The Talmud speaks of the intercourse of this great doctor of the synagogue, with an emperor, Antoninus by name. Now there were seven of that name: which of these is meant? On this question the authorities widely differ. The mediæval writers are undecided between Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Jost argues for Caracalla; Cassel for Heliogabalus ; Grætz for Alexander Severus; Frankel for Lucius Verus; Sachs for

* Marcus Aurelius Antoninus als Freund und Zeitgenosse des Rabbi Jehuda ha Nasi. Ein Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte von Dr. ARNOLD BODEK. Leipzig, 1868. 8vo. pp. x. 158.

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some later emperor; Rapoport for Marcus Aurelius. Rapoport is the grandfather of Herr Bodek, and filial piety predisposes this Rabbi to accept a theory which careful criticism fully confirms. In the first place, he proves a negative for all the other theories, and shows that Antoninus cannot be meant. Then he establishes the possibility, on chronological grounds, that Marcus Aurelius could have had intercourse with the learned Jew; then the probability, and finally reduces it to moral certainty. The whole argument is a very nice piece of special pleading, so nice that the reader almost doubts of the con

clusion.

was an ex

Herr Bodek attaches no value to the fanciful Rabbinical story, that the mother of Rabbi Judah came to Rome with her infant son, where she found refuge and protection in the house of the mother of Aurelius, exchanging with this noble matron the office of nurse, so that the two infants were foster-brethren, and friends from the cradle. He is contented to believe that the acquaintance began in the late visit of the Emperor to Syria, and that he sought out the famous scholar whose name of "Rabbi" was more than a formal title, pression of the deepest love and reverence of his people. So much of the volume is taken up with proving the identity of the emperor and the fact that he and the Rabbi were contemporaries, that the more important matter of their intercourse is condensed into a short chapter. Indeed, the traditions of this intercourse are not very full. The conversations reported about prayer and the times for prayer, about the relations of soul and body, about the responsibility of men for their deeds, about the origin of life, and about the spiritual life, do not illustrate very well the difference between the Stoic and the Rabbinic theories. The emperor's questions are answered by the Rabbi in the genuine Jewish style of parable; and the analogies of these parables are not more conclusive as argument than most analogies. The whole sketch of their interviews is in outline rather than in relief and color. The Jew did not convert the heathen, in spite of the good-will which he won by his grave wisdom and his broad charity. Herr Bodek does not pretend that the Stoic was induced to modify any of his views about God and duty and destiny, by the communications of the Talmudic doctor. That letters passed between them afterwards, he has no doubt, or that the friendship continued to the death of the emperor.

In the meditations of M. Aurelius, sentences may be found which strongly resemble sentences in the Talmud; but this by no means

proves that the Jewish philosophy suggested them to the Roman Stoic. One of the fruitful discoveries of our time has been the identity of the aphorisms of religion in nations the most widely separated. Confucius in China, the books of the Brahmins, the Greek sages, the Roman moralists, the Hebrew Rabbins, all speak doctrines which Christians have fondly believed were peculiar to their own religion. The golden rule is not merely a rule of the gospel. It is the rule of natural ethics, a law which is taught by the light of every soul. Mr. Farrar, in his beautiful essays on the "Seekers after God," gladly confesses that men have found Christian truth in other ways than through the Christian story, and the saving grace in other ways than through the church confessions. He admits the Stoics into the heaven of the elect, and ranks Aurelius with the chosen saints. It is a little singular that the discussion, how far Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were influenced by or inclined to the Christianity of their time, should find a counterpart in the discussion, how far these same philosophers were influenced by or inclined to the Judaism of their time. Mr. Farrar gives no heed to the intercourse of Seneca with Philo, or of Aurelius with Rabbi Jehuda, while he notices the Christian relations of his heroes only to leave them outside of the Gospel. It is much more probable that the opinions of the synagogue had weight with the Stoics, than the opinions of the Nazarene. Marcus Aurelius persecuted the Christians, as even Mr. Farrar has sadly to confess. He cannot quite explain away this blot upon the fair fame of his hero, which remains as ineffaceable, if not as damning, as the murder of Servetus upon the fair fame of Calvin. But the Jews Marcus Aurelius did not persecute. He gave them privileges and favors, though they helped him by no miracle of a "thundering legion." In his time the race of Israel had peace and quietness; and only a reasonable gratitude refers this to the influence of the great Rabbi.

C. H. B.

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

A TREATISE Upon constitutional law for the use of general students has been very much needed. Story and Duer both wrote especially for law students; and the number of years that have passed, and the important changes made in the Constitution and in its interpretation since their day, render their works hardly fitted to the needs of the present generation. * Mr. Farrar's book, again, is interesting as

* An Introduction to the Constitutional Law of the United States. Especially designed for students, general and professional. By JOHN NORTON Pome