Current Literature
CHRISTIANITY By Dr. Edwyn Bevan
The Home University Library has produced several minia- ture masterpieces in the course of its career, but few which are better than Dr. Edwyn Bevan's short history of Christianity (Thornton Butterworth, 2s. 6d.). In 250 small pages he traces that complex story front its origins to the present situation. The distribution of space reflects the dominant interests of the writer. Four chapters are given to the history of the first three centuries, two more to the later Patristic period. The whole of the Middle Ages goes into one chapter, the Reformation into another, three take us from the Reformation to the present day. Though it is not dillicult to detect the colour of Dr. Bevan's own sympathies, he writes with extreme objectivity and scrupulous fairness. If his somewhat bleak account of the origin of the sacraments will give little pleasure to the Catholic-minded, still less pleasure will be given to their opponents by his expert denial of the supposed connexion between pagan Mysteries and the Eucha- rist, his warm appreciation of all that is most beautiful in the devotional temper of the Middle Ages, and his insistence on the size and importance of the religious territory where Catholic and Protestant are at one. This little book, in which an immense but unobtrusive scholarship and a deep under- standing of the nature of religion collaborate, has an im- portance out of all proportion to its size. It deserves most careful study alike from those who accept and admire Christianity and from those who reject it. Much will be learned from it by readers of both types.
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