SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subsequent review.]
The Alexandrine Gospel. By the Rev. A. Nairne, D.D. (Longmans and Co. Is. 6d. net.)—Canon Nairne has many of the qualities of the ideal lecturer. He enjoys his subject, and makes his hearers enjoy it. It would be going too far to say that he holds a brief for the man he is discussing, but he sees his good points and puts them clearly and forcibly, and is ready to give him the benefit of any doubt. The lectures here printed, which formed a course in the excellent series given under the auspices of the Liverpool Diocesan Board of Divinity, deal with the fascinating Wisdom books of the Apocrypha and their successors in Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Thrown thus into a perspective, each gains in interest. The general reader who knows a few of the more familiar chapters in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon, and may not remember which is found in which, will be surprised to learn how very different were the outlooks of the two writers—the one old- fashioned and orthodox and antagonistic to the rising school of the Pharisees ; the other acquainted with Greek philosophy, and resolute to solve the problems of his time. The concluding'chapter on the Epistle to the Hebrews puts in succinct form the view of this Platonic treatise which Canon Nairne has already elaborated in his Epistle of Priesthood.
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