under proper control and regulation. This was done in the case of the Humiliati; and the Lateran Council of 1215, as we have seen, placed restrictions upon the formation of unlicensed orders. Presently other orders arose, and especially the Mendicants, who in turn were moulded after the pattern of the Humiliati. But as societies of penitence continued to make their appearance, the authorities resolved to suppress them; and this was done by the Council of Lyons in 1274. Only one further step was necessary; and the Bull Supra Montem was intended to supply it. The members of the various lay orders which had been abolished were henceforward to live by one Rule, the new Rule of the Order of Penitence: they were, in a word, to be made Franciscan Tertiaries. But the new Rule had not a few features which marked its new ecclesiastical character. Let one serve as an example. The Memorial had directed that the brethren were not to take up deadly weapons against any, or even to bear them and in this most significant direction, if at all, we must discern the hand of St. Francis himself. In the Rule of 1289 it is turned into a provision that they are not to bear arms, excepting in the cause of the Church! What change could be more complete ?

The Franciscan institutions did not preserve the Saint's ideal in every detail; and that this should be so was inevitable. Nor would the world have been any better off had it been otherwise, and had the fraternity originally founded by him remained stereotyped until the twentieth century. For, after all, the Franciscan spirit is larger than any single Franciscan type. That spirit has proved itself full of vitality, and it never showed more abundant signs of promise than it does to-day. And St. Francis was more than the most complete exemplification of his work. As we look back, after the lapse of nearly seven centuries, we find in him a man who is very near akin to ourselves, but who is in some ways even more like his Master and ours. A Jewish writer has said,

1 Conc. Lugd., can. 23; Mansi, Concilia, xxiv. 96.

2 The Humiliati were exempted from military service, but that is a very different thing.

VOL. LV.-NO. CIX.

L

disparagingly, that, after all, our Latin Nazarite was but a pale reflection of the Semitic. The words may be accepted as true, though in a rather different sense from that in which they were intended. St. Francis was a living Imitatio Christi. A Franciscan friar of early days, one who lived near enough to his time to have known Bernard of Quintavalle, the first of the Saint's companions, and also the last brother whom he had received,' but who had already caught the worldly spirit which was to prevail, tells us in striking words what Francis was to the thirteenth century.

'I believe most certainly,' says Salimbene, 'that . . . the Son of God willed to have one special friend whom He might make like to Himself; namely, the blessed Francis. . . . Of him it is written that to one is given five talents. Never in this age was there anybody but one, namely, the blessed Francis, upon whom Christ imprinted the five wounds after the likeness of Himself. For, as brother Leo, his companion, told me, who was present when he was washed for the burying, in death it was seen that he was as one who had been crucified and taken down from the cross. Therefore that which is said in the Apocalypse befits him more than any other, "I saw one like unto the Son of Man."'3

He is not less to-day; our age knows of no man who more truly may be said to have borne in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

1 Salimbene, Chronica, ed. Parma, p. 11.

2 He laments, for example, that the Franciscans have no burying places, and thus lose many 'clients' (ib. p. 215).

3 lb. p. 75.

ART. VII.-CRITICISM, RATIONAL AND

IRRATIONAL.

1. A Dictionary of the Bible, dealing with its Language, Literature, and Contents, including the Biblical Theology. Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, M.A., D.D., and JOHN A. SELBIE, M.A., D.D. Vol. IV. PLEROMAZUZIM. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902.)

2. Encyclopaedia Biblica. A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political, and Religious History, the Archaeology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible. Edited by the Rev. T. K. CHEYNE, D.Litt., D.D., and J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., LL.D. Vol. III. L to P. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902.)

3. The New Volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, constituting in combination with the existing volumes of the Ninth Edition the Tenth Edition of that work, and also supplying a New, Distinctive, and Independent Library of Reference dealing with recent events and developments. The first of the new volumes, being Vol. XXV. of the complete work, A-AUS; the second, Vol. XXVI. AUS-CHIC. (Edinburgh and London: Adam and Charles Black; The Times, Printing House Square, 1902.)

SINCE the beginnings of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1768, a change has come over the science of theology which might almost be compared with the passage from the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages to the audacious freedom of the Renaissance. At the end of the eighteenth century an inflexible, but already aging, tradition of classical scholarship ruled. 'Pandite Castaliae, nam panditis omnia, Musae,' might have been the motto of those days. Now, progress in Oriental studies, in archaeology, in comparative history of religions, the deciphering of inscriptions, discovering of MSS. and of lost writings, the enlargement of philological interests by the discovery of papyri-all this has opened a field so wide

that no diligent labourer need want for work, and has filled the minds of men with new hope and vigour. If anyone would realize what the romance of modern scholarship is, let him read the articles in any of these four volumes on geographical subjects, or that in Encyclopaedia Britannica in which Dr. Armitage Robinson tells how he discovered the lost Apology of Aristides while reading in his own study, or in Hastings, how on May 13, 1896, Dr. Schechter found that he had before him 'a piece of the original Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus,' or in Encyclopaedia Biblica the delightful article by Dr. Deissmann, on Papyri. If he would realize what impetuous confidence the results of the last few years have raised up in the hearts of some scholars, let him glance through Encyclopaedia Biblica. If, on the other hand, he would understand how the influence of a soberer spirit is already making itself felt, how tradition, which seemed but yesterday a superstition pedibus subjecta vicissim, is again being recognised as a friendly guide in a new and purified form, how the great need to-day is of firm rather than swift motion, let him peruse the pages of Hastings. These dictionaries are honourable works, though their honour is in proportion to their self-effacement. They are instruments of communion in a very living age. They are the links which bind together the individual labours of specialists, and so make for progress in the Republic of Letters.

The new edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica reawakens the sense of a great loss. In the ninth edition the theological articles owed their general excellence to the care of Robertson Smith. He has finished his course in this world, and must be named here with the reverence which is due to a fine scholar and a great-hearted leader of scholars. Professor Collins, who succeeds to the important task of editing the theological articles, has the goodwill and confidence of everyone, and is to be congratulated on the way he has done his work in these two volumes.

It will not, indeed, be possible to devote much space to their consideration, because that which is sound, normal, and sane does not need nor attract the reviewer. We have examined the Theological articles with great care, and con

sider them for the most part models of what is required. It would be interesting, too, if we had time, to discuss the change of tone and attitude marked by the contrast with the older volumes. What was then novel is now accepted, and although in many ways there is a similarity of opinion there seems to us greater sobriety and firmness of tone. The writers are somewhat more critical, more Christian, and remarkable for a quiet confidence which to the perplexed will often be reassuring. For it is startling to find what rapid progress has been made in the criticism of the Old Testament by a certain school since Robertson Smith died. Among the articles from his pen in Encyclopaedia Biblica is one on the Psalms, in which his conclusions, already widely known through 'The Old Testament in the Jewish Church,' are presented with such masterly clearness and charming gracefulness of style, that it is not without some inevitable regret that we learn from Dr. Cheyne how far from the truth these conclusions are. Everything, it seems, must now be changed by the application of a new kind of textual criticism, under which all earlier analysis of the Psalter, construction of historical background, and ideas about its connexion with the kingdom and the Messianic hope, have been superseded. The key to this new criticism is in Dr. Cheyne's hand, but, though he opens almost innumerable doors with it, he does not show us the whole process of opening. It is, in fact, rather difficult to find out what his principles are, and approximate accuracy is all that can be promised in endeavouring to describe them. It would seem, however, that the text of the Old Testament fell into a corrupt state at a very early time, before the Septuagint translation was made, before indeed the Hebrew books themselves were brought together out of their various sources and arranged in their final form. The editors who performed this task did their best, but could not help making things even worse, for they knew too little about the history of Israel to understand the geographical and historical allusions. Again and again they have emended corrupt names of places and tribes, sometimes they have even altered names which were not corrupted, in accordance with their own mistaken ideas. The true history