During the latter part of the second century Irenaeus of Lyons, at the beginning of his treatise “Against All Heresies,” did not hesitate to state with great emphasis that Christianity had fully succeeded in keeping intact the original Christian faith, in safeguarding the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, and in maintaining the unity of belief and of sacramental practice throughout all the churches scattered in the Roman Empire. One might easily remark that the very treatise which Irenaeus had set himself to write offered clear evidence that the Christian unity so emphatically affirmed by him did not really exist. Far from being united, Christianity was rent by serious doctrinal and disciplinary conflicts. Evidently Irenaeus was speaking of the oneness of the Christian faith without taking into account the divergent beliefs and practices of those groups which had been cut off from the communion of the Great Church. So understood his assumption was true: by the end of the second century the καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία did possess unity of essential belief and even a certain degree of uniformity in its organization and practice. How such a unity had been achieved is one of the most important problems in the history of early Christianity.

There is no danger that anyone will overlook the importance of Mr. Bonner's article on the Michigan Papyrus of the Shepherd of Hermas in the number of this Review for April, 1925. The publication of a manuscript of the Shepherd of Hermas dating from the third century will be a real event in the history of the interpretation of early Christian literature. But there is one point in his statement which, though it will appeal at once to those who have worked on the Shepherd, is likely to escape the notice of others unless attention be drawn to it.

The note-books of the late Professor Caspar René Gregory were given after his death to the University Library at Leipzig, and are there accessible to scholars; they contain much more information about the manuscripts of the New Testament which he had explored than could be included in the lists of the Prolegomena and the Textkritik, and since the task which I have assumed of completing and continuing the list of New Testament manuscripts has given me occasion to examine the note-books, I hope in the future to be able to publish valuable matter from them.

The papyri edited by Bell and Crum in the volume Jews and Christians in Egypt are among the most important that have been published. Apart from their palaeographic and diplomatic interest they are of immediate concern to historians of the empire and of the early church.