Mr. Laurie Magnus has written a very able and impressive
book on The Jews in the Christian Era (Benn,'.15s.), tracing the successive movements of thought in Jewry and its influence upon Christendom rather than emphasizing, as so many Jewish historians do, the details of the persecutions that the Jews have undergone at various periods. The story is dis- continuous, because " from Ezra downwards those reponsible for Jewish policy left temporal things out of account." But always the Jews held fast to their religious code and found in it consolation for all their sufferings. Mr. Magnus stresses the importance of the mediaeval Jewish philosophers in bringing to the West the treasures of Greek thought that had been preserved in the East. He closes on a hopeful note, with a reference to the Zionist movement that has given reality to the vision of a national home for the Jews.
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