Orphism is more famous and more debated than any other phenomenon of Greek religion. A central place in the stream of religious ideas is assigned to it, and it is regarded as the source of conceptions of the greatest importance in later times. A vast Orphic literature has existed since early times. Orphism was the first Greek religion to have sacred books, and this is perhaps the ultimate, if unconscious, reason why the scientific treatment of Orphism tends to disclose a system of Orphic doctrines. This is true of Lobeck's masterly work and of the impressive chapter on Orphism in Rohde's Psyche which more than anything determined the views of recent scholars. It is also true of the very ingeniously written and admirably constructed parts of Miss Harrison's Prolegomena which are devoted to Orphism; her treatment is much more copious than Rohde's and she covers a much wider field.

In Aristotle there is no general term for those faculties of the soul which he treats of in the Third Book of De Anima and in De Memoria et Reminiscentia to differentiate them as a class from the five senses which he treats of in the Second Book of De Anima. In Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophic texts, however, these post-sensationary faculties, or some of them, or sometimes only one of them, are designated by the term “internal senses,” in contradistinction to the five senses which are designated by the term “external senses.” Sometimes instead of “external” the terms “corporeal” and “passive” are used, and instead of “internal” the terms “spiritual,” “separable,” and “cerebral.” Sometimes, too, the term “faculties” or “apprehensions” is used instead of “senses.” The use of the terms “internal,” “spiritual,” and “cerebral” has been explained by the fact that the faculties to which they are applied reside within the brain and operate without bodily organs.

To Ovid, sophisticated as he was, ancient and simple piety made an appeal; not, as in the case of Vergil, because it accorded with deep-seated feelings of his own, but rather in the same way as plain fare will sometimes please an over-indulged palate, by a certain piquancy of contrast. It is therefore not so surprising that in him we find one of the most perfect expressions of the oldest recoverable stratum of Italian, or even ancient Mediterranean, religious sentiment. It occurs in the Fasti, iii, 296–7: Frazer thus renders the couplet: ‘Under the Aventine there lay a grove black with the shade of holm-oaks; at sight of it you could say, “There is a spirit here.’”

Readers of St. Jerome's works are familiar with the fact that he often quotes Greek and Hebrew words in the course of these, sometimes depending on his master Origen, sometimes depending on his personal knowledge of both languages, which was considerable. In the autographs of these works it was his custom to place a line over the top of such words, as a sign that they were foreign. Really old manuscripts of Jerome's works, apart from Vulgate MSS., are now rare. Such as were known to Traube are listed in his Hieronymi Chronicorum codicis Floriacensis fragmenta Leidensia, Parisina, Vaticana phototypice edita (Lugd. Bat.1902). But good early minuscule MSS. of his works in many cases preserve these horizontal lines, and record the Greek and Hebrew words with considerable accuracy. As time goes on, the lines tend to disappear, and Latin transliterations, with or without the Greek, become more and more common. Most of the editions of Jerome are defective in two respects among others: they were not based on the oldest and best manuscripts, and the editors did not know very much Greek. It is hoped that the details furnished below will have some interest for students of Greek writing in the latter part of the fourth century.

Within recent years the subject of Ruler-Worship has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars, and much has been written upon it from various aspects, notably by those who are specialists in ancient religion. If I appear then to be trespassing I can only plead in excuse that the subject is of great, indeed of absorbing, interest for anyone who is a student of ancient civilization, and especially of the Roman Empire. What I offer here are some fruits of my reading in the ancient authors and the modern interpreters of their thought: all that can be done, of course, in short compass is to stress some results already ascertained, and to offer some observations of my own in the hope they may prove useful. But my debt to other scholars is obviously large: let me here mention with gratitude Adcock, Altheim, Bolkestein, Edson, Ferguson, Gow, Immisch, Pfister, Pippidi, K. Scott, Tarn and O. Weinreich, but above all A. D. Nock and Miss L. R. Taylor, who after Beurlier have contributed so much to advance our knowledge of ruler-cult. Sometimes I have ventured to prefer my own opinion, but I can echo the amiable Vitruvius in declaring— “neque alienis indicibus mutatis interposito nomine meo id profero corpus neque ullius cogitata vituperans institui ex eo me adprobare, sed omnibus scriptoribus infinitas ago gratias.”

‘To no student of the Middle Ages,’ says Beeson, ‘can Tours and its scriptoria fail to appeal.’ The historian, for example, desires to know the part Alcuin played in the reform of writing, the relationship between the scriptoria and the Court and Church, the exact dates at which certain monks lived and wrote. The scholar interested in Classical and mediaeval literature turns to manuscripts of Cicero, Virgil, and Livy, or Augustine, Bede, and Isidore. The philologist looks for ‘Irish’ or ‘Spanish’ symptoms in the Latinity of certain codices.

It is known that from a very early period the burial customs of the Egyptians included the making of portrait statues of the dead in stone or other materials. Many of these, such as the ‘Sheikh-el-beled’ in Cairo, the Prince Hem-On in Hildesheim, and the ‘Scribe’ in the Louvre, are among the finest works of Egyptian art. We know also that this ancient custom survived in Egypt until about the beginning of the Christian era, and it has often been asserted that the type of the archaic statues of the Greeks was decisively influenced by the contemporary works of the Egyptians. For these reasons the question of the origin of the Egyptian tomb statue has a general interest, outside the sphere of Egyptology.