Attempting to account to mýself how I actually came into the field of systematic theology requires reaching back to my sixteenth year, to the confirmation instruction I experienced at that time. It was extraordinary in its own way. I learned then, for example, that very dubious undertakings are involved in the five medieval proofs for the existence of God and in the later orthodox theory of the literal inspiration of the Bible. Much more important, however, I learned that it would be a fine and excellent thing not only to identify and to affirm the great articles of the Christian confession of faith but also to understand them from inside out. On the eve of my confirmaton day I boldly resolved to become a theologian, perhaps not so much with the thought of preaching, cure of souls and the like, but rather in the hope of realising in the course of this study some substantial understanding of a confession of faith of which I had only a vague apprehension. As yet I knew nothing of Anselm and his programme of fides quaerens intellectum and therefore also nothing of what I was undertaking as ‘theology’ in general or even of what ‘systematic’ theology was in particular. Upon entering the University, the theoretical and practical philosophy of Kant together with Schleiermacher's analysis of religion and faith became my guiding stars. To the prevailing tendency of about 1910 among the younger followers of Albrecht Ritschl I attached myself with passable conviction.

No more important question can be asked than the wellknown New Testament inquiry, ‘What think ye of Christ?’—unless it be the question, ‘What thinks Christ of Himself?’ In past decades this question has not, perhaps, been asked as often as it might. Is there a reason for this? Undoubtedly there is. This (it will be claimed) is so controversial a question, with reputable scholars taking widely divergent views, that there seems little point in giving it the importance which many of our forefathers gave to it.

A Very powerful case has been made out for the influence of the Platonism of Plotinus upon Saint Augustine. From the Manichaean simple solution of the problem of evil Augustine was delivered by reading the neo-Platonists and especially Plotinus. It was Plotinus who convinced him that God was a spirit, not a luminous body, and he always remained grateful for this deliverance from the crude fantasies of the Manichaeans. In the two years before his conversion when he was receiving a deeper penetration into Christianity through the sermons of St. Ambrose, he came to know of Plotinus in a very few treatises of the Enneads (certainly I, 6 ‘On the Beautiful’ and quite probably V, 1 ‘On the Three Chief Hypostases’) in the Latin translation of Marius Victorinus. St. Ambrose made a determined effort to apply the principles of Plotinus' philosophy to the clarification of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as against the Arians. The results of such an attempt might not be theologically satisfying but they are interesting. This impact of the mind of Plotinus upon the mind of Augustine was a decisive one because Augustine found a very great area of agreement between the teaching of Plotinus and that of the Scriptures as expounded by St. Ambrose, above all the Gospel of St. John. It was their agreement that God is spirit and altogether immaterial, as Plotinus explains, which liberated him from the Manichaean materialism. Augustine thought that Plotinus' teaching about the Divine Mind was identical with that of St. John about the Divine Logos.

The date, nature and significance of the Last Supper has long been a living issue in biblical scholarship, but the issues have taken on a new importance in recent years, due mainly to some of the writings of Mile A. Jaubert,1 who has been working on the Dead Sea Scrolls and whose discoveries go further towards the solution of this problem than anything previously discovered. It is unfortunate, however, that her writings have not been translated into English and have therefore not been widely noticed in this country.2 What we propose to do in this paper is first, to outline again the problem, drawing attention to the main contributions that have been made in recent years; second, to estimate the significance of the problem; and third, to summarise the contribution made by Mlle Jaubert.

Top-Level conversations between Churches are a requisite of improved relationships. For separated Churches they are a focus of responsible thought, an occasion for humility before God and one another, producing new insight, an opportunity for severe and charitable intellectual honesty. But they do not carry the main colours of the movement towards reunion.

In 1932, Professor Dodd published in the Expository Times an article on ‘The Order of Events in St. Mark's Gospel' which broke fresh ground in the Study of that Gospel. Dr Dodd then stated that in planning the first ten chapters St. Mark had a skeleton outline of our Lord's earthly career which he broke up into what now stand as editorial summaries. This outline he suggested was in the nature of a summary of the kerygma and approximated to the Petrine speech of Acts 10.37–41 or the Pauline speech in Acts 13.23–31. Into this outline were inserted the pericopae Mark collected sometimes on a historical, and at other times on a topical basis. This hypothesis held the field for a considerable time but it has recently been questioned by Professor Nineham in an examination of Dr Dodd's hypothesis in his contribution to Studies in the Gospels published in 1955. Indeed Professor Nineham takes the line that the presupposition of such a skeleton outline of our Lord's ministry which Mark used in the way Dr Dodd suggests is ‘highly improbable’.1 He questions the probability of such an outline having been preserved by the early Church. Referring to the changes in the Marcan pattern which both Matthew and Luke felt free to introduce when using St. Mark's Gospel as a basis, and to the difference in outlook between St. John's Gospel and the Synoptics, he concludes: ‘It does not appear that the precise order in which the saving events occurred seemed to the early Christian mind a very vital element in the saving proclamation or kerygma.'2 Professor Nineham is of course prepared to admit that the Passion narrative is in a class by itself and does not appear to question the accepted opinions of scholars that it was an early compilation of the primitive Church. But he rightly contends that there is no cogent evidence that the Church quite early agreed on ‘a formal outline account of the progress of the Lord's earthly ministry’.3