Tu Es Petrus. By the Rev. E. D. Stone. (B.
H. Blackwell, Oxford. 6d.)—Mr. Stone argues that two passages in St. Matthew of which great use has been made in controversy, xvi. 17-19 and xviii. 17-18, are probably interpolations. They have a certain anachronistic look; it seems strange that our Lord should speak of a thing so remote from the understanding of His hearers, and it is a weighty fact that the word "church" occurs nowhere else in the Gospels, and that in both cases we find St. Matthew adding to the report given by the other two Synoptists. But then the best MSS. and all the versions have them. The external authority is without a defect. Are we entitled to set it aside ? It is a dangerous precedent. We are in more sympathy with Mr. Stone when he treats of the Real Presence. It is, indeed, true that " recent developments seem to have tended to a materialisation of great spiritual truths." To think of what the Eucharist is supposed to mean, and then to hear a preacher not only insisting on fasting reception—there are separate reasons for that—but on not eating for so many minutes afterwards !
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