witted) stands side by side with that there given, ai тpixes τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ ὀξεῖαι ὡς βέλη.

From this brief statement it will be seen that, though the fundamental conception is the same, there is considerable variety in the detailed working out. And this variety makes it exceedingly improbable that Antichrist is Nero alone." That Antichrist in Armenian is Neren is an interesting fact, but it cannot be said to be enough to support an argument in general so one-sided.

The great central conception of Antichrist, which enters so largely into early Christian literature, is in its nature manifold.

Secondly, we have the conception and the description of Christ Himself. Here the chief original is undoubtedly Daniel vii. 9 and 13

'And I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, Whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His Head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. . . . One like the Son of Man [Who] came with the clouds of Heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.' 3

This is reproduced in Revelation i. 13 sqq., and copied, amplified, altered by other writers:

'One like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. And His head and His hair were white as white wool, as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and His voice as the voice of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.'

There is a curious similarity (to quote one instance) in the Book of Enoch-in the description of the birth of Enoch. 'Cui oculi sunt sicut radii solis, capilli autem ejus candidiores in septies nive' is the reading of the Latin version. The English rendering of the Ethiopic runs thus:

'His body was white as snow and red as the bloom of a rose,

1 The writer's attention has been called to this by Professor Armitage Robinson, to whose kindness he is greatly indebted.

2 See Renan, L'Antichrist, p. 476 sqq., where the argument is made little less than ridiculous by the assertion that the book marks a violent opposition to St. Paul, and that the 'disciples of Paul are the disciples of Balaam and Jezabel.' On Nero's relations towards the Christians, see Le Christianisme et l'Empire Romain, by Paul Allard (1897), pp. 14-17. 3 On the title 'the Son of Man' see especially Mr. Charles's acute Appendix B, Book of Enoch, pp. 312-7.

Surely this is to be preferred to R.V. rendering, 'a Son of Man.'

and the hair of His head was white as wool, and His eyes beautiful; and when He opened His eyes they illuminated the whole house like the sun.'

Thus the description of the antitype' is transferred to the type. It is transferred also to the angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Thus in the Apocalypse of Peter (ii. and iii.) the angels, coming from the East, could not be looked upon, 'for there came from their countenance a ray as of the sun . . . and when we saw them we were amazed for their bodies were whiter than any snow, and redder than any rose . . . and their hair was thick and curling and bright.' So in the Vision of Zosimus the brightness of the angel makes the seer fear that he is the Son of God.

It may be taken as a distinguishing characteristic of the Apocalyptic literature that the Lord, and all those who in any way share in the glory reflected from Him, are depicted as full of light, as shining, illuminating, bright. This comes undoubtedly from a fanciful amplification of the titles 'Light of the World,' 'Sun of Righteousness,' and it is at the same time the familiar antithesis between light and darkness, embodied in Christian literature and enforced and developed in almost every conceivable aspect. In this connexion the Apocryphal literature is of the highest importance as the foundation of countless legends and still surviving popular beliefs. Here strong reason has been shown for starting a whole succession of detailed visions from the Apocalypse of Peter through the Apocalypse of Paul. The whole literature may be regarded thus as an offshoot from the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John, and as leading up through centuries of puerile futilities to an Apocalypse which surpasses the whole apocryphal literature of the subject in every possible way, the Divina Commedia of Dante.1

Thus it would seem that the two great ideas which form the great contrast present to the mind of the Apostolic Age -Christ and the Man of Sin'-underwent development on different lines. The thought of Antichrist, when it lost the severe restraint of the Apostolic writers, became more particularized and embodied from time to time in personal description, to suit the exigencies of the moment. Thence it passed into the hands of medieval writers and became a weapon of controversy, which was found at the Reformation, like all such weapons, to be two-edged.

1 Some of the similarities between the Apocalypse of Peter and Dante have been already drawn out in an article published in the Guardian newspaper.

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The conception of the glorified Jesus, on the other hand, was treated with a certain reverence. The sanctified wisdom of the Evangelists preserved Him, to a considerable degree, from the defiling touch of the visionary and the romancer. But the characteristics attributed to His glorified personality were reflected from It to all in any way connected with Him, and from the ideas of St. John were developed the marvellous conceptions of Paradise and Heaven, of which the medieval period was so prolific, and which still so powerfully influence popular conceptions of the future life. It is not asserted, of course, that the contrast of light and darkness, of which the later Christian Apocalyptic literature is full, is derived solely from the New Testament imagery, or that the pictures of Heaven and Hell were always based upon the solemn statements of the Canonical books. There is, for instance, a remarkable similarity between the descriptions in the Apocalypse of Peter-as well as in the vision of Josaphat and Saturus and other apocalyptic writings-and the famous passage in the tenth book of Plato's Republic, the 'vision of Er.' It would rather be said that the severe and awful restraint of the words of the Divine Master and Judge is forgotten by the fanciful writers whose imagination ran riot in the thought of a future life. The reiterated emphasis on the idea of light, on the other hand, is common to almost every religious system. But it receives unquestionably an increased force as it passes through the medium of the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments. Our Lord shall destroy the wicked with the brightness of His coming, says St. Paul; for sinners are, as Job says, 'those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, neither abide in the paths thereof.' The idea, present throughout Biblical literature, receives its consummation in the last book of the Canonical Scriptures. The Apocalypse of St. John marks the highest point of the spiritual treatment of the contrast, which continues, weakened and made fanciful, to be the theme of later writers, no less prominent in the fourteenth than in the second century.

ART. IX.-THE SACRED MANHOOD OF THE SON OF GOD.

1. The Incarnation. A Study of Philippians. ii. 5-11. By E. H. GIFFORD, D.D., formerly Archdeacon of London and Canon of St. Paul's. (London, 1897.)

2. De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, together with three Essays subsidiary to the same. By the Rev. ALAN S. HAWKESWORTH. With a Commendatory Preface by the Very Rev. E. A. HOFFMAN, S.T.D., LL.D., Dean of the Gen. Theo. Sem. (Albany, N.Y., 1897.)

IN the preface to the volume in which he has re-published, with additional matter, two articles which appeared in the Expositor for September and October 1896, Dr. Gifford speaks of the 'tendency in modern thought to give especial prominence to the earthly life and human character of Christ' (p. vi). And no doubt it is the case that the human aspects of the incarnate life of our Lord have of late through a multiplicity of widely differing causes been the object of very special attention from many Christians.

We do not at all agree with those writers who seem to suppose that to minimize the Humanity of Christ has been a failing in historical Christianity. Certainly the great Fathers of the East and the West and the representative scholastic theologians had the very strongest sense of the reality of the human nature and actions of the Divine Saviour. The practical methods of mediæval Western religion were at pains to keep before the minds of the children of the Church the works and sufferings of our Lord in His Manhood. Modern Roman Catholicism, alike in its technical theology and in its popular teaching, is careful to lay stress on His Humanity. If, under the influence of a particular school of thought and through the existence of much general laxity, the hold of English religion on the Gospels was for a time loosened, it was part of the work of the great Tractarian leaders and an outcome of their loyalty to the traditions of the Universal Church that they recalled to men's minds the human example and life of Christ. Under their influence, as has been said by one who had every opportunity of estimating their aims and their success,

'the great Name stood no longer for an abstract symbol of doctrine, but for a living Master, who could teach as well as save.' 1

1 Church, The Oxford Movement, p. 168.

For what the Tractarians thus did we may well be profoundly grateful, while some share in our gratitude is due to those many students, critics, archeologists, whose patient study of the Gospels has enabled us to realize more exactly the detailed words and actions of our Lord's human life.

The reality and completeness of the Sacred Manhood of the Son of God are not only part of the traditional Christian faith; they are necessary to all which He did upon earth or now does in Heaven. The appeals which He makes to human hearts are those of One who is Himself perfectly Man. The authority with which He commands is exercised in complete experiential knowledge of human nature. His sympathy has the power which comes from actual passing through the needs and trials of men. His example is a human example. The value of His Atonement depends in part on his possession of human body and mind and spirit. and of a human experience. His Sacraments would lose much of their meaning if His Nature were not completely the same as ours; while, to pass on in thought to the future, His office as Judge has a special significance because of the perfection of His Manhood. And, in Dr. Gifford's words:

we cannot but sympathize with the effort to pourtray the "Perfect Man" in all the reality of our human nature, as helping to produce a livelier sense of the sympathy, compassion, and self-sacrificing love of Him who could "be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," and "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin "' (Preface, p. vii).

Yet, while we thus are grateful to all which gives prominence to the human aspects of the Incarnate life, there is need of caution lest, in the necessary imperfections of our minds, this prominence may tend to obscure the vital truth upon which the Tractarians had a co-ordinate grasp, the true Godhead of Him Who is Man. And, accordingly, we find Dr. Gifford going on to say:

'there is cause for fear lest humanitarian views of our Saviour's life on earth, if regarded too exclusively and pressed too far, may tend, in minds less learned and less devout, to obscure that glory of the Incarnate Word, which was beheld by the Apostles, "a glory as of the only-begotten of the Father" (Preface, p. vii).

The peculiar significance of our Lord's Manhood depends upon the fact that He is also God. Moreover the value of it is to a large extent connected with His possession of the Divine attributes of His eternal life at the time of the Ministry. And it is in this respect that there is a danger,