which we cannot help suggesting, for the consideration of those who are more competent than ourselves to do it justice.

If any readers are disappointed-we have not heard of any being so-at the complete absence of narrative in this particular volume, we would remind them that the author cannot of course choose his own order of arrangement. If it pleased our Blessed Lord-as indeed was evidently most suitable-to preface the chief part of His active ministry by a detailed exposition of the Evangelical Law, His dutiful disciple must adopt the same order in a systematic comment. But as there are several of F. Coleridge's characteristics which show to especial advantage in his treatment of our Lord's discourses,-so there are others, perhaps, equally important, which will be more prominently exhibited in the future volumes, concerned as these will mainly be with the miracles and other acts of our Lord's public life.

We may mention one feature of this commentary as very characteristically Catholic. The author draws attention to what Protestant expositors of course fail to discern: the constant references to His Church, which underlie our Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. These references sometimes need a little care to be distinctly seen; but (when pointed out) they carry with them their own evidence of having been really intended.

An Agnostic's Apology. By LESLIE STEPHEN. ("Fortnightly Review" for June).

66

E would this press essay on the particular notice of those Catholics who are called to the noble work of opposing, on the field of philosophy, the infidelity now so fearfully prevalent and increasing. It is of the utmost importance, that these Catholics take a correct measure of the enemy whom they are to encounter. And our own strong impression is, that the kind of thoughts now simultaneously fermenting in many minds the thoughts which issue more and more in a repudiation of Theism-are much more truly represented by Mr. Leslie Stephen, than e.g. they are in Mr. Mill's "Essays on Religion." By studying then this Agnostic's Apology," the champions of religion will best understand the kind of difficulty, which pre-eminently and predominantly needs their attention. But we think Mr. Stephen has by no means drawn out his points with the full force and plausibility of which they are susceptible. One misconception especially surprises us, from one who is generally so well up in the history of philosophy. He represents (p. 848) the advocates of free-will as maintaining, that causation is not universal throughout the phenomenal world; or (in other words) as maintaining, that the will's self-determining power is not a power of true causation. Mr. Stephen has evidently not the least inkling what such writers e.g. as Mr. Martineau mean, when they use the word "causation." Still more amazingly he says (p. 849) that, according to their doctrine and Father Newman's doctrine, the whole moral evil of the world "results from accident."

Sancta Sophia, or Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, &c. Extracted out of more than Forty Treatises written by the late Ven. Father AUGUSTINE BAKER, a Monk of the English Congregation of the Holy Order of S. Benedict, and methodically digested by the Rev. Father SERANUS CRESSY, of the same Order and Congregation. Now Edited by the Very Rev. Dom NORBERT SWEENEY, D.D., of the same Order and Congregation. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

S. Gertrudis Magnæ, Virginis Ordinis S. Benedicti, Legatus Divinæ Pietatis. Accedunt ejusdem Exercitia Spiritualia, Opus ad codicum fidem nunc primum integre editum SOLISMENSIUM O. S. B. monachorum curà et operâ. Pictavii et Parisiis. H. Oudin. 1876.

TH

HESE two remarkable books belong to the same grand division of books. They are very unlike each other, inwardly and outwardly; but they both treat of the very highest Contemplative Prayer, and each bears the stamp of the cloister of S. Benedict. The new edition of S. Gertrude by the Monks of Solesme, is a work of original research, and will be the standard for many years to come. The works of the great contemplative virgin had been often printed in one form or another. But the editions were till now difficult to meet, and some of them, to say the truth, were by no means satisfactory. Abbot Guéranger was anxious, therefore, to bring out a careful edition, and, if possible, a new and trustworthy life of the saint herself. His many labours prevented him from personally contributing to the work; but he committed it to one or more of those zealous and capable men who surrounded him at Solesmes. He died before the present volume saw the light; but his faithful children carried on the undertaking which he had charged them with. Their directions and their wishes were to go to the fountain-head, and to take nothing at second-hand. The first library they explored was that of S. Gall, now no longer in the hands of the monks who gathered it together slowly through so many generations. Mabillon has stated that there was a MS. of S. Gertrude's works at S. Gall. The Solesmes fathers, however, could not find one; but, instead, they alighted upon a printed edition of S. Mechtildis, not without value. In the German libraries, as at Magdeburg and Leipsic, they found many interesting details about the monastery of Helfta or Helpede, near Eisleben, in which S. Gertrude and S. Mechtildis lived. But in all their explorations they found no MSS. of the writings of the more celebrated saint, except one in the Imperial Library of Vienna, and an imperfect one in the library at Mainz. The present edition is a reproduction of the Vienna MS., amended, though very rarely, by the light of the Mainz codex. S. Gertrude, according to all appearance, wrote her mystical works in the Latin language. It is curious that the present edition is the only one which has ever been prepared from a complete Latin MS. The standard edition, up to the present time, had been that of the Cologne Carthusian, John Lanspergius. It appeared at Cologne in 1536. But Lanspergius had no complete Latin codex. After the most careful search he could find only one Latin MS., and in that the first book, which con

tains the valuable autobiographical notes, was so mutilated that it could not be used. A German MS. had to be employed instead, and retranslated into Latin. Considering that the text of Lanspergius has been used by nearly every editor of S. Gertrude for more than 300 years, it is easy to see of what value is this Latin MS. which the editors have had the satisfaction of finding at Vienna. It would require a minute comparison of editions to enable the reader to understand how much the Solesmes fathers have done for the genuine text of S. Gertrude. In the first place they have restored the Prologue (often omitted), printing it for the first time from the genuine Latin original. Then they have restored to S. Gertrude's great work its real title. She called it herself "Legatus Divinæ Pietatis ”the Messenger of Divine Love." Why Lanspergius, in his second edition, called it “Insinuationes Divinæ Pietatis," it is difficult to conjecture; but we know that it is the practice of Lanspergius to correct freely, and to substitute what he considers more telling or elegant words and phrases for the original. Succeeding editors and translators have copied him and improved upon him, until we find one or two very recent versions giving such wide and imaginative reproductions of the extremely peculiar phraseology of the saint that many readers have turned away from them with aversion. The new editors have, finally, made a most important correction in the accepted history of S. Gertrude's own life. She never was Abbess, either of Helpede or of any other monastery; and Mechtildis of Hackeborn was not her sister. The present edition is to consist of two volumes, of which one is already out. It contains the "Legatus" and the "Exercitia Spiritualia," together with an editorial preface of some sixty pages, and the prefaces of Lanspergius. In the second volume we are promised the "Liber Specialis Gratia" of S. Mechtildis, and a considerable mass of additional critical matter.

Dr. Sweeney's new edition of "Sancta Sophia" is extremely welcome. The American reprint was unsightly and unsatisfactory; and the old edition of 1657 was scarce, and difficult to read. What was wanted was a carefully printed reproduction of the original issue, sufficiently modernized to make it easily intelligible, and unencumbered by mere literary matter. Dr. Sweeney has given us this. He saw that, however great the temptation might be, it would be a mistake to write historical notes and to load with critical apparatus a book which, if it is to be useful, must lie in the oratory of the devout, and pass from hand to hand among the inmates of the cloister. All he has done, therefore, has been to add an interesting preface and a few notes. The preface contains a short notice of the Ven. Father Augustine Baker, and of Father Serenus Cressy, and a few remarks on the teaching and method of the work itself. Of the notes the longest is that which accompanies chapter vii. section iii., and warns the reader against certain language of the venerable author which is liable to be misunderstood—a warning which is, no doubt, necessary, but on which Dr. Sweeney wastes no more words than are required. As to the rest, the book is almost as it came from the printers' hands at "Douay," two hundred and twenty years ago, when Louis XIV. was young, whilst Mazarin governed France, and when Vincent de Paul was

within a few years of his crown. It contains the complete unabridged text, including even the chapter on the prayer of "Interior Silence," in which the author quotes a mystic whose work has since been condemned; it gives the valuable preface of Father Cressy, and all the original headings and analysis of each chapter. It contains, in addition, an admirable index, for which we have to thank Dr. Sweeney himself.

In our October number we propose to return to these two great books, and to endeavour to give some account of their matter and teaching.

Hodder &

Ignatius-His Testimony to Primitive Conception of the Christian Religion. ("British Quarterly Review," April, 1876.) Stoughton.

THE

HE title of this article is not happily chosen. It contains scarcely anything about any testimony which S. Ignatius gives, for it is occupied almost exclusively in an attempt to prove that he does not testify to the antiquity of the Catholic faith. In fact it is the DUBLIN REVIEW rather than S. Ignatius which is the immediate subject-matter of the article; for by far the greater part of it is in reply to an essay on the Ignatian epistles, which appeared in our own pages so long ago as October, 1873.

66

Our own essay consisted of two parts. In the former, we exhibited the striking agreement of these epistles with Catholic doctrine. In the second, we gave what the writer in the "British Quarterly" is good enough to describe as a very interesting and valuable sketch of the evidence in favour of the genuineness of the Ignatian epistles." What is more important, he appears to be himself fully convinced of their authenticity, and we cannot but welcome this admission, coming as it does from one who belongs to a school of Protestants where the spuriousness of these same epistles was long an accepted tradition. The former part, however, of our essay has not pleased him so well. He speaks of us as "catching at slight hints and fancied rudiments of subsequently developed doctrines"; of putting "a meaning on words which only a wilful perversion, or the tendency to see in the words of another, whose authority cannot be denied, the meaning that only exists in one's own mind, could ever make them seem to bear; and then by paraphrastic representations and an ingenious summing up of such fancied and overstrained testimonies, to produce an impression on the minds of those who have not the documents themselves in their hands" (p. 343).

Now the space at our command will not allow us to follow our critic through the whole of his objections. In any case this would be wearisome to our readers, and, we may add, most wearisome to ourselves; for his objections are either the merest cavils, or else they are founded upon some misapprehension evident to any one tolerably familiar with patristic literature. We will give one instance, and that taken from an attack VOL. XXVII.--NO. LIII. [New Series.]

R

which he makes not upon us, but a person no less illustrious than Father Newman. S. Ignatius says, that our Lord "was born in the womb by Mary, according to the dispensation of God" kar' oikovopaiv Osov (Eph. 18). On this Father Newman (" Theology of the Seven Epistles of S. Ignatius," p. 200) remarks, "Here is an additional word (viz. olkovoμía), which afterwards is known to have a technical meaning." One would have thought the sense of this comment obvious enough. Every tyro in patristic theology is aware that oikovoμía is used by later Fathers for the Incarnation,* and here in S. Ignatius we find the beginning of this technical use. But the writer in the "British Quarterly' "thinks Father Newman is alluding to another sense of oikovoμía, viz. “ secrecy," and having attributed this absurdity to him, he goes on to assure us that the passage in S. Ignatius lends "no countenance to the phenacism or economy afterwards practised by some of the early Christians, and recommended by men of Dr. Newman's school." We need only say Father Newman was speaking of the Incarnation, and not of concealment, and that he was writing for persons sufficiently at home in the Fathers not to misunderstand his meaning.

We might easily multiply instances of a like nature. But instead we prefer to take the arguments which the writer in the "British Quarterly" brings to disprove the belief of S. Ignatius in the blessed sacrament. We could not give a more favourable specimen of his article, for it is almost the only particular to which he addresses himself seriously, without entirely neglecting the main point in dispute. In our own article we considered the Eucharist both as a sacrifice and a sacrament. The former point we may dismiss briefly. We drew attention to the fact that S. Ignatius again and again speaks of the Ovolaorýρiov or altar in the Christian Church. The fact cannot be denied. Nor can it be explained by reminding us, as the reviewer does, that Clement of Alexandria used the word in a mystical or metaphorical sense; because the way in which S. Ignatius connects the word with the holy Eucharist proves that he cannot always have used the word in this sense, while there is no conceivable reason for supposing that he ever did so. It is just as much beside the mark to tell us that the Greek liturgies include under the word "altar" the space round the altar as well as the altar itself. Let us suppose that S. Ignatius believed in a Ovotaorpiov, or altar in the strict sense, and that even in his time the word, already ancient and familiar, had come to be applied loosely to the whole of the sanctuary. There is, indeed, no ground for the hypothesis, but if there was, what has our opponent gained? What have we lost?

But we proceed to the holy Eucharist as a sacrament. Even the writer in the "British Quarterly" admits "the high sense "S. Ignatius "had of the benefits of the holy Communion,"- -a sense, we venture to add, higher than any Zuinglian ever had of it. For what Zuinglian, who

* If the reviewer wishes for references, he will find them to abundance in the Thesaurus of the Protestant Suicer, under the word o ikovoμía.