History of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, from the
Death of St. John to the Middle of the Second Century. By Thomas W. Moss- man, B.A. (Longmans.)—Mr. Mossman's book is rather an essay on the Church of the Apostolic Fathers than a history, properly so called. It seems to him that Primitive Christianity has been much miscon- ceived. Every man thinks that he sees in it the ideal of his own form of faith or Church government. He himself, the author tells us, once saw Anglicanism in it. "A student of the Fathers," ho writes, "I had been almost all my life, but had always read them with a ready-made apparatus of Anglican views and theories at hand to interpret them until, a few years ago, I resolved to review the whole of the ante- Nicene literature, divesting myself, as far as I could, of all preconceived Opinions." He is certainly far from being an Anglican now. On Episcopacy, for instance, which is one of the chief subjects which he proposes to himself for treatment, he uses language which would rejoice the heart of any anti-Episcopal controversialist. " The plain and simple truth is," as he puts it, "that the essence, as it were, of the Episcopate is a distinction of office—t0 11114) the very word employed by St. Paul himself—not of order." He argues ably in sup- port of this view in dealing with the Ignatian Epistles. To speak generally, he does not take the commonly accepted view of early eccle- siastical controversies. Complaint has sometimes been made that Church history has never been written from the point of view of the heretics. In a way, Mr. Mossman attempts to supply the defect for the period which his volume covers. He devotes a considerable portion of his work to a discussion of the writings and theological attitude of Tertullian. He cannot be said to sympathise with Montanist views, the bitter fanaticism of which is wholly at variance with the liberal spirit in which he writes, but he maintains the cause of Tertullian as against the so-called "Catholics," whom he opposed with great vigour. This part of the History is remarkably interesting. In connection with it should be studied the ingenious theory which Mr. Mossman has elaborated as to the origin and practice of that very puzzling production, the Pastor of the so-called Herman. He supposes it, to put the matter briefly, to have been a very early forgery in the name of the Hernias mentioned by St. Paul, written for the purpose of supporting the milder views about post-baptismal sin which the Church was finding herself com- pelled to take. We cannot, in the space at our disposal, attempt to discuss Mr. Mossman's views, but we heartily recommend his book to students of Church history as an able and courageous attempt to throw light on many dark and difficult questions.
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