you have collected from the so-called epistle to the Laodiceans bear witness against yourself." He then points out that Marcion, in adding these testimonies from the epistle to the Laodiceans, was adding to the Apostolicon: "The wretched Marcion instead of citing this testimony from the epistle to the Ephesians, takes it from that to the Laodiceans, which was never in the Apostolicon."

It is noteworthy that St. Epiphanius never denies the existence of this Laodicean epistle, and he seems to tacitly allow that it was very similar to our epistle to the Ephesians when he thus blames Marcion for preferring to quote a passage from the epistle to the Laodiceans, when he could equally well have taken it from the canonical epistle

It is futile to suggest as has been done that St. Epiphanius was mistaken in supposing that there were two distinct epistles, one to the Ephesians, and one to the Laodiceans. The latter is expressly mentioned by St. Philastrius, Hor. 88, and St. Jerome says: "Legunt quidam et ad Laodicenses, sed ab omnibus exploditur." De Viris Illustr. v. The actual text of such a letter will be found in Lightfoot Colossians, and the Latin text-the only one existing-in Giles Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti, p. 511-512. But it does not contain the passage from Ephesians iv, which, as we have already seen, was quoted by St. Epiphanius as being taken from what Marcion termed the epistle to the Laodiceans, and it consequently cannot be the epistle to the Laodiceans, known to St. Epiphanius and to Marcion.

Here we must leave the question as we have no data at our disposal, which would enable us to decide what Marcion, or even what St. Epiphanius himself, held regarding the epistle to the Laodiceans. We might, however, suggest that since Marcion lived about 150 A. D.," and St. Epiphanius about 380, we may rather trust Tertullian's statements about the heresiarch's tenets than those of St. Epiphanius, for Tertullian died less than one hundred years after Marcion. At the same time it might be retorted that St. Epiphanius has left us a careful treatise on Marcion's doctrines, and must have been well acquainted with Tertullian's work on the same subject. If he contradicted Tertullian he did so with his eyes open.

In January, 1907, Dom de Bruyne contributed to the Revue Benedictine a most interesting paper, entitled "Prologues bibliques

d'origine Marcionite." We wish we could transcribe the whole article, but in justice to the author we can only indicate its main conclusions. In most Mss. of the Vulgate we find prefixed to each epistle "argumenta," similar in character to the brief prefaces often printed in our Douay version. Dom de Bruyne has shown, (a) that in the Old Latin Mss. from which these "augumenta" were derived, the order of the epistles must have been that of Marcion as given above, except that Philemon should come last; (b) that the epistles to which the original "argumenta" were prefixed were the ten which Marcion received and no others; and (c) that Ephesians was known as Laodiceans. Thus in Codex Amiatinus we find that the "argumentum" to Colossians runs as follows: "Colossenses et hi sicut Laodicenses sunt Asiani: et ipsi præventi erant a pseudo apostolis...." As the "argumenta" are closely connected, the phrasing of that to the Colossians seems to indicate that an epistle to the Laodiceans had preceded, else the writer could not say "et hi sicut Laodicenses." If we now turn to the "argumentum," prefixed to the epistle to the Ephesians, we find: "Ephesi sunt Asiani. Hi accepto verbo veritatis persteterunt in fide. Hos conlaudat apostolus, scribens eis a Roma de carcere per Tychicum diaconum." Now not only is this "augumentum" cast in a very different mould from most of the others, but it is a servile copy of that prefixed to the Philippian epistle. Hence Dom de Bruyne argues that this "argumentum" is not one of the original ones, but has been substituted for an older one. Again, that the epistle to which the title "Laodiceans" with corresponding "argumentum" was prefixed was our epistle to the Ephesians, and not the apocryphal and colorless epistle to the Laodiceans we know, is proved (a) by the fact that the original author of these "argumenta" had not the epistle to the Hebrews in his canon, as Dom de Bruyne shows; but the combination involved in the omission of Hebrews and retention of Laodiceans cannnot date later than 350 A. D.; (b) those Mss. which contain the apocryphal "Laodiceans" do not place it before Colossians, as we have seen was the case here, but right at the end of the "corpus Paulinum;" (c) wherever the apocryphal "Laodiceans" is given, it wants the appropriate "argumentum," though Dom de Bruyne did find later such an "argumentum" prefixed to a ninth century Mss. of the apocryphal "Laodiceans," but it was evidently spurious.

As to the real nature of what we may venture to term the lost epistle to the Ephesians, we have a statement of St. Ignatius of Antioch which may possibly enlighten us. St. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians

(ch. xii) and eulogises them as "men initiated with St. Paul into the mysteries." He then adds that he hopes that he himself will follow in the footsteps of the same Paul, ος εν παση επιστολη μνημονεύει ύμων. Many have thought that in the expression Пavlov ovora, there was a reference to the "mysterium," which forms so prominent a feature in the epistle to the Ephesians." And this is of course quite possible. But how are we to explain the last clause, og ev taon επιστολή, etc.? Credner (Einl. i, p. 395), insisted that this clause must be corrected from the larger recension of the Ignatian epistles into ος παντοτε εν τοις δεήσεσιν αυτού μνημονεύει ημων (υμων). He was led to this emendation by his conviction that ev naon encoτody could not be rendered "in tota epistola," viz., "in una tota," not "in onmi epistola." The latter rendering in every epistle"" would, of course, not be true, for the five passages" where St. Paul casually mentions Ephesus, not th Ephesians, can hardly justify this rendering; but the rendering "in tota" or "in una tota epistola," "in one whole epistle," seems to be amply justified by the similar use of nas in the New Testament, cf. St. Math. ii, 3, and Rom. xi, 26. Now can we justify this expression of St. Ignatius by our present epistle to the Ephesians? We think it would be very hard to do so even if the saint read in the opening verse the words: Ev Epsow. May we not justly ask then whether we now possess St. Paul's real epistle to the Ephesians? That our epistle was known to St. Ignatius is practically certain. Note hs use of the characteristic words προορίζω and πλήρωμα in the title of his own epistle to the Ephesians. It was certainly known to St. Polycarp who quotes (Phil. i,) our epistle ii, 8-9, zapete EOTE σεσωσμένοι ουκ εξ εργων and especially in the same epistle (xii) where the Greek is wanting, but the Latin has "irascimini sed nolite peccare et sol non occidat super iracundiam vestram," a combination only found in Ephes. iv, 26. But it does not follow that because the Apostolic Fathers use passages to be found in our epistle, they therefore held it to be the epistle to the Ephesians. Nor would we scout the idea of the real epistle to the Ephesians being lost, for that such losses could occur is clear from I Cor. v, 9-11. But what was the original epistle to the Ephesians like?

εν Εφέσω.

"Throughout his whole epistle he talks of you," says St. Ignatius. If he had said this of the Corinthians we should feel that the second

"It is interesting to note in an inscription from the Killanian plain an enumeration of the religious society of Muetæ of Zeus Sazavos during A. D. 207-8. Cf. Ramsay, Cities, etc., p. 310.

epistle to the Corinthians would fully justify his words, for this epistle is full of affectionate remembrance of the Corinthians. Yet is not this epistle exactly what we should expect St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians to have been? And it is not an epistle like this which St. Ignatius seems to be referring to? Thus, note how often the word "brethren" occurs in the two Corinthian epistles-just three and thirty times, and in our epistle only thrice! And we may repeat what we pointed out above, viz., that Aristarchus while rendering greetings to the Colossians, yet sent no message to the Ephesians amongst whom he had worked and suffered.

To conclude, our Ephesian epistle does not bear upon it those evident marks we should expect to find. The very close similarity to the epistle to the Colossians would afford an a priori argument for assigning it to some neighboring church, and the Colossian epistle itself gives ground for supposing that some such epistle existed. The common view that the epistle to the Ephesians was a circular letter involves serious difficulties, and is perhaps only widely accepted because it seems at first blush so very simple. We have tried to show, moreover, that the Marcionite canon demands the existence of such an epistle to the Laodiceans, and the passage quoted from it by St. Epiphanius proves that the cento of passages from St. Paul, which now passes muster as the epistle to the Laodiceans was not the one referred to by St. Epiphanius, and moreover,, affords us good ground for supposing that the epistle to the Ephesians, known to St. Epiphanius was one and the same with the epistle to the Laodiceans, known to Marcion.

F. HUGH POPE.

421 Cor. xv, 32; xvi, 8; I Tim. i, 3; II Tim. i, 15; iv, 12.

THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF

THE GREEK BIBLE

F. Hugh Pope, O. P.

Of recent years the study of the Greek Bible has made great strides. The publication of Swete's 'Old Testament in Greek” in 3 vols: 1887-1894, may be said to mark the starting point. It put into the hands of all students a full text with copious "apparatus criticus." This edition of the text was followed in 1900 by the publication of the same author's invaluable "Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek," and shortly after by Hatch and Redpath's great Concordance. And while these volumes were appearing a greater work was being done by both English and German scholars, viz., the discovery and decipherment of vast numbers of Papyri many of them written in Greek and dating from the fourth century before Christ. This is not the place in which to give the history of these discoveries, it will suffice to say here that, in addition to the now famous "Logia" of Our Lord, there have been recovered fragments more or less extensive of many important works, some of which we already possessed, but others though known indeed by name had been long since lost. To mention only a few names, during the present century there have been brought to light the lost treatise of Aristotle on the Politics of the Athenians, the lost "Antiope" of Euripides, and fragments of various works by well-known classical authors, such as Sophocles, Sappho, Alcæus, Pindar, Plato, Thucydides, etc. These represent only a small portion of the "finds" among the pagan classics, but the Biblical "finds" have been no less important; we need only mention the Gospel of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Greek Text of the Book of Enoch, the Protovangelium in a markedly different text from the one hitherto known, the hexaplar text of Ezechiel v, 12; vi, 3, portion of the Ascension of Isaias, fragments of the Pastor of Hermas, etc.

The interest of these "finds" is of course immense, but it is not so much these great works which have been of value to the students