The Slavonic version of Josephus’ History of the Jewish War, extant in some fifteen Russian MSS. of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was first brought to light in recent times by A. N. Popov, the discoverer of the Slavonic Book of Enoch, who in 1866 called attention to passages contained in this version, but unattested elsewhere, relating to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Popov published the Slavonic text of parts of these passages. The Preface to Niese and Destinon's edition of the Greek text of the Jewish War (1894) contains a reference (p. xxii) to the existence of the version, but the text was then still inaccessible. For our further acquaintance with the Slavonic version we are chiefly indebted to the Esthonian scholar, Alexander Berendts of Dorpat.

Under the Roman empire cremation went out of fashion and burial gained in popularity as the usual means of disposing of the dead. The cause of this change has been much discussed, and the explanation has often been given that it was due to religious influences and to a shift in ideas of the hereafter. The rising influence of Christianity has sometimes been suggested as a cause, but chronology and the distribution of the phenomena are fatal to that supposition. More recently an alternative has been sought in the growth of the mystery religions. If this could be established, it would form a new and important criterion for the division of the religious history of the empire into periods. Clearly the question deserves full consideration. For that and for many other reasons a full collection and sifting of the evidence for funerary customs throughout the Roman world in the first three centuries of our era is greatly to be desired. This paper does not pretend to fill such a need, and the archaeological data on which it is based are in the main drawn from Rome; the conclusions which can be drawn from these data are limited, but they seem to possess some degree of certainty and they have their bearing on the general nature of the mystery religions.

The death of Dr. Henry St. John Thackeray in June 1929 was a great grief to his many friends on both sides of the Atlantic. As a man and as a scholar he had rare and admirable qualities, and it is typical of him both as a man and as a scholar that when he undertook to make a translation of Josephus, of which four volumes have already appeared in the Loeb Classical Library, he first prepared a special lexicon for his own guidance, with no thought of printing it. The wise liberality of the Alexander Kohut Memorial Publication Fund, to which the work was introduced by Professor Cadbury, has now made possible the present publication, which has a form worthy of its contents. The first fascicule was seen through the press by its author, and arrangements have been made for the completion of the enterprise. It is of uncommon excellence.

For some time past I have been impressed with the importance of the so-called gnostic gems, more accurately called syncretistic amulets, as an aid to the study of Greek magical papyri, and have examined them wherever I could find them. During the summer of 1931 I was permitted to study the large collection in the British Museum, a favor for which I am indebted to the courtesy of Dr. George F. Hill, the Director, and Mr. Sidney Smith, the Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. Mr. Smith and his associates in the Department gave me every facility for a minute examination of the stones and allowed me to have casts made from several of them. I have in preparation a group of studies of some amulets in the British Museum and others in various American collections, which I hope to publish with illustrations and interpretations. A preliminary account of two of the British Museum specimens seems to fall within the province of this Review.