A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from the
Death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council. By James Donaldson, M.A. Vol. I. (Macmillan and Co.)—The author describes his work as an attempt to investigate the authorship of the various works which were written during the era of which he treats, and to ascertain the influences which led to their production and determined their character In this volume are contained a general introduction to the whole work and the Apostolical Fathers. The second and third volumes, which will dis- cuss the series of writers known as the Apologists, are stated to be in the press. The character of this work is rather therefore that of an introduction to the study of the history of the early Church. Ecclesiastical history must rest on the literary remains of the era the life of which it depicts, and the first step towards it is the full comprehension of those remains. We must know what the writers meant, and estimate the value of their testimony, before the construction of history is so much as possible. Mr. Donald- son has devoted himself to this preliminary task, and so far as we can judge from this first volume is well qualified to discharge it. He understands the principles of literary criticism, and applies them with a calm which is in the theological subjects as attractive as it is unusual. He reads Clemens and Barnabas to discover what they believed, not to prove that they believed what he thinks they must and ought to have believed.
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