24 SEPTEMBER 1927, Page 28

LATER GREEK RELIGION. By Edwyn Bevan, D.Litt. (J. M. Dent

and Sons. 5s.)—Dr. Bevan, in this book on Greek religious thought, adopts the admirable plan of making the philosophers of his period speak for themselves, and his volume, apart from the introduction, consists of extracts from their works. He starts with the early Stoics of the fourth century B.C., and, beginning with Zeno in the Painted Porch of Athens, builds up by means of these quotations, excellently selected and translated, a very complete structure. He " follows the gleam " from Greece to Alexandria and to Rome, ending with the Hermetic writings and the Neo- Platonists. He makes, of course, no new contribution, but has compiled most usefully for reference the main tenets of these exploded philosophies. Their schools, once volcanically active, are extinct, and Dr. Bevan's " Last Word" is his deliberate requiem.