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Purvcs : Christianity in the Apostolic Age 539 tion of Agabus about a famine over the 7uhole world, though he is calm over the general early predictions of a speedy end of all things. The concern shown is like that of the German rationalists who amended the hymn, " cs schliift die gauze Welt," by the more accurate substitution of " itie /uitt'e." In the second part of the work we have a careful and interesting ex- l)Osition which depends for its truth upon the author's more than doubt- ful critical views. The Epistle of James is from 44-49 A. D. and there- fore one of the earliest of Christian compositions. Its silence about Jesus is due to the fact that it is addressed in part to non-believing Jews. This quiet moralistic discourse surprisingly suggests to Mr. Bartlet the tone of Francis of Assisi and Savonarola. The Epistle to the Hebrews, probably written by ApoUos in 62 A. D., is addressed to Christian Jews in Caesarea, and we are furnished with an imaginative description of the reading of the Epistle to the church meeting in Caesarea and of the effect produced. This reads somewhat strangely after Zahn's powerful argu- ment — reinforced by Harnack — that the Epistle was written to a Haus- gemeinde in Rome. II. Peter, genuine in part, is prior to I. Peter, and the latter, written 62-63, after Paul's death, uses Paul's phraseology in order to show how thoroughly Peter was one with Paul in thought. The Apocalypse is by the Apostle John, 75-80 A. D., and a period of fifteen more years is thought to have intellectually and theologically transformed the Apostle so that he could write the Fourth Gospel and completely abandon his eschatology. The Didache is brought into the account as a growth in three stages between 50 and 80 A. D. Use also is made of the Epistle of Barnabas (70-75 A. D. ) as well as of Jude (70-80 A. D.) who writes not against Gnostics but Nicolaitan antinomians. These opinions will indicate sufficiently the resultant construction of the Apostolic Age, a construction which does not by consistency and plausibility lend aid to the judgments on which it is based. Francis A. Christie. CJiristiauitv in the Apostolic Age. By George T. Purves, D.D., LL.D., recently Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis in Princeton Theological Seminary. [Historical Series for Bible Students, Vol. VIII.] (New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1900. Pp. XX, 343.) While it is true that critical scholarship has outgrown most of those extravagances that marked its first stages, and has become, relatively speaking, conservative, all recent volumes of any importance upon the Apostolic Age, — unless we may accept the work of Zahn, — have shown great caution and discrimination in the use of the book of Acts as an historical source, and have shown a tendency to recognize several of the epistles of the New Testament as either reworkings of apostolic materials or as pseudonymous. It would seem, therefore, impossible for an histo- rian of the period to avoid the serious discussion, or at least to escape