on the other side, the idea that the consecration of the bishops was a purely ecclesiastical matter, and the control of the pope over all the bishops of the Church. No medieval controversy had such deep roots in the past; none had such direct and indirect consequences in the future. To take single instances-the consistorial system of the German Lutheran Church represents the modern triumph of Anti-Gregorian principles; and the patronage struggle in Scotland, with its ending, involved ideas contended for, to some extent, by Gregory and his followers.

Professor Mirbt shows in his analysis of the writing of Cardinal Humbert that partizans who, before Gregory's pontificate, advocated his ideas, based their objections to Lay-Investiture on the two ideas that to give a bishop investiture of his office is a purely spiritual act, and that princes who are laymen have nothing to do with purely ecclesiastical or spiritual functions. The diocesan lands which became the legal possession of the bishop, the judicial functions which he was authorised to perform, are not practically taken into consideration. They regard the investiture with ring and staff as the assignment of a spiritual office, the bestowal of the cura pastoralis, and the warrant for the stewardship of the sacraments. The baculus camyrus or Episcopal staff signifies the cura pastoralis, and the annulus or Episcopal ring is the signaculum secretorum cœlestium. These are spiritual gifts, and cannot be conferred by lay hands. On the other hand, it is evident from the writings of partizans on the other side, that while in some obscure way it is seen that the laity have some right to say whom they wish to be their bishops, the writers have before them much more distinctly the feudal possessions and feudal jurisdictions which bishops came to enjoy when they were infeft in their benefices.

However strongly Gregory and his partizans felt about the spiritual rights of the Church to set apart its own office-bearers, it is evident that the great practical interest involved was whether bishops were to be practically more dependent on the local temporal powers than on the pope. Gregory did not require to establish the spiritual or ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope over the whole episcopate, that had been done thoroughly by his predecessor; what he wanted was to gather under his rule all the temporal power which bishops had as feudal lords; and this meant, had he been thoroughly successful, that the papacy would have become a great temporal monarchy, with its lands scattered over Europe in the shape of diocesan domains, parish glebes, and convent lands, its taxes, the tithes, annates, &c., and its law the Canon Law of the Church, as opposed to the civil law of the empire.

The motives and cross-purposes inspiring the beginnings of this great conflict, which in the end shattered the medieval ideal of

Christendom, will be found at length in Professor Mirbt's most interesting work.

The book deals with so large a subject, and discusses it in such an exhaustive way, that I feel it somewhat presumptuous to offer any word of criticism. Still I cannot help saying, that however partizans of Gregory may have accepted Augustine's idea that the State has its roots in human sin, and is therefore at best an unholy institution, I cannot help thinking that Gregory himself did not go quite so far, and that his own ideas were in greater harmony with those of Bernard of Clairvaux than with those of his strongest partizans. The memory and life-work of Henry III. never quite left him. T. M. LINDSAY.

Grundriss der Theologischen Wissenschaften: Praktische

Theologie.

Von D. E. Chr. Achelis, Professor der Theologie an der Universität Marburg. Freiburg i. B.: J. C. B. Mohr. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate. Pp. xiv. 284. Price, M. 5.

It is hardly necessary to do more than note the publication of this Outline of Practical Theology. The book is a mere abridgment of the author's two-volume work which has already been noticed at some length in the Critical Review (Vol. i., p. 300; Vol. ii., p. 401). The principles and the general plan adopted by Dr Achelis remain unchanged; but partly by condensation, partly by omission, the exposition of the subject has been reduced to less than a fourth of its original bulk. At the same time, a careful comparison of the two works has satisfied me that nothing of essential importance has been omitted. The Outline will probably be found more serviceable than the larger work, with all its good qualities. The shorter statement finds room for a considerable amount of detail. Dr Achelis, for instance, gives his views with regard to clerical beards and clerical coats, as well as with regard to the aims and methods of pastoral work. He has, nevertheless, attained a clearness, crispness and conciseness that call for special commendation. is easy to see that the author has Germany and German students mainly in view, but the discussion is by no means parochial or provincial. Dr Achelis might, however, with considerable advantage revise some of his statements with regard to things outside Germany. The Church of Scotland does not carry on Mission work in Kaffraria (p. 251). He still persists in saying that "the Mission of the Scottish State Church flourishes because of the rivalry of the Free Church." JAMES ROBERTSON.

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Koptische Grammatik, mit Chrestomathie, Wörterverzeichnis und Litteratur.

(Porta Linguarum, Pars xiv.) Von Georg Steindorff. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1894; Edinburgh and London: Williams & Norgate. Cr. 8vo, pp. xviii. 314.

13. 20.

Price M.

ALTHOUGH there had existed in Europe an unbroken tradition of Coptic studies since the days of Athanasius Kircher, and accessible material sufficient for the formation of such scholars as Woide and Zoega, it must be owned that the earlier generation of Egyptologists -forgetful here of the example of Champollion-worked on, content with but a meagre acquaintance with this final phase of the ancient language. Not, indeed, that there was a dearth of labourers in the field. The Coptic scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were succeeded by others; to Uhlemann and Schwartze, and, still more, to Peyron, Revillout, and Lagarde, students must always be grateful. But most of these worked without regard to the influence they might have upon the progress of hieroglyphic studies, towards which, indeed, the last-named great scholar maintained at any rate, till quite the end of his career—an attitude of mistrust, if not of actual incredulity.

In fact, it is scarcely more than fifteen years since the mutual indispensability of the hieroglyphic and Coptic phases of the Egyptian language-never, as a theoretical truth, contested-has been insisted on, and made to yield practical results.

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And the demonstration of this truth, which to-day seems obvious enough, has been almost entirely the work of the Berlin Egyptologists. The first to give proof of its influence was Ludwig Stern, who, in his Coptic grammar (1880), made no small use of the facts then acquired from the older language. The present work of Professor Steindorff may be taken as an exposition of the progress achieved since that date. From it and from its companion volume, Professor Erman's Egyptische Grammatik, we judge how great that progress has been,--greater, of course, at first sight upon the hieroglyphic than upon the Coptic side; for many of the principal problems of Coptic grammar had been solved, some even by Peyron, many more by Stern, from the last of whom, indeed, Professor Steindorff might seem to differ, mainly upon secondary points; such, e.g., as the grouping of the tenses according to their formative auxiliaries, or the designation of the Qualitative as Participle.

Yet, in fact, when closely examined, it is clear that the systematic studies of the author, of Professor Erman, and Dr Sethe, in the

more ancient idioms, have greatly modified the views of Coptic grammar, which even they themselves but lately defended. If we look, for example, at the sections dealing with the Verb, we see much that is unknown to Stern's grammar,- -new explanations of certain usages, as of the participial force of the second Present; new etymologies for whole groups of forms-e.g. Stern's "Nominal Verbs," the younger form of Causatives, or the later secondary verbal class which Professor Steindorff terms "Neubildungen (§ 245).

But the two features which most prominently call for note in a general estimate of this work show a divergence in degree rather than in kind from Stern's methods. First, there is the much more frequent, indeed, the now perpetual reference, for comparative purposes, to the older, "Egyptian" forms of the language. This is remarkable, especially in the chapter on phonetics, perhaps the most valuable portion of the book. Professor Steindorff has here ventured further than his predecessors by frequently filling out with hypothetical vowels the consonantal skeletons which alone the hieroglyphic texts offer. Far the greater part of the hieroglyphic vocabulary it is, of course, still impossible thus to reanimate; yet there are now sufficient data collected to allow of an approximate vocalization of many forms.

The second novel feature, characteristic of the new grammar as a whole, is the preference given to the Upper over the Lower Egyptian dialect as a medium for describing the language. The earlier scholars, following the example of the native grammarians, for most of whom the Saidic dialect was already an extinct or dying idiom, took the Bohairic as the basis of their teaching; and Stern, though he admitted the higher antiquity of the Saidic, adopted their system. To those particularly whose interest in Coptic literature is chiefly theological, the pre-eminence given by all to-day to the Southern dialect, this furor saidicus, as some have lately termed it,should be especially welcome. For this was the dialect of the districts most remote from foreign influences, and in it have been preserved to us the most notable documents of the language-the Pistis Sophia is notorious among them. And, indeed, evidence is from time to time coming to light that much of the better preserved Bohairic literature is merely an adaptation of older Saidic originals. As to the value of the version of the New Testament in this dialect, theologians will recall the opinion of Bishop Lightfoot, that " complete collection of all the fragments of the Saidic New Testament is now the most pressing want in the province of textual criticism."

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From the selection of reading - lessons which concludes this, as all other volumes of the series, a very fair idea can be had Vol. V.-No. 1.

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of the characteristics of the literature. The inevitable Biblical passages are preceded by three good specimens from the patristic works. Whether translated from Greek originals or no, they respectively allow us to judge of the taste of the Copts in "philosophy," for the Apophthegmata, the "wit and wisdom" of the Fathers,. is the nearest approach to philosophy which, at that period, appears to have been appreciated in Egypt,-in eloquence (the "Eulogy of S. Victor") and in inventive narrative (the Acts of SS. Andrew and Paul). Had the compass of the book allowed it, we might have been given an example of the only surviving civil documents which are, at the same time, the sole texts of any length in which we can follow the workings of the Egyptian Syntax in its youngest developments, -the legal papyri of Jêmé.

W. E. CRUM.

St Paul's Conception of Christianity.

By Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D.

1894. Pp. 404.

Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Price, 78. 6d.

THE peculiar merits and characteristics of this book, its power, its fulness of meaning, and its reverent seriousness, as well as what may appear its drawbacks to some, such as its freedom in criticising both the Apostle and his writings, are largely due to the fact that the author of it is Professor of Apologetics as well as of New Testament Exegesis. Those who do not bear in mind the apologetic purpose and spirit of the author may neither understand his determination to use only those epistles which cannot be gainsaid as sources of Paulinism, nor appreciate the readiness with which he gives up everything which cannot be vindicated, no matter how venerable it may be. But those who understand his attitude and aim will recognise his wisdom in all this, and will rejoice in the special value which this method of treatment gives the book for all who are really beset with difficulties and are laboriously building up the structure of their faith. For this volume ought to be of great service to inquirers after the truth, and especially to those who come to it ready to listen, because of the author's well-known fearlessness and resolute honesty.

Dr Bruce here fully maintains his reputation of being among the foremost living apologists and exegetes. In this volume we have the ripe fruits of years of study and of a perfect mastery of every aspect of the subject under discussion, a subject on which comparatively little has as yet been written in English. With all the courage and caution, the freedom from traditional modes of treat