PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 9 October 1913, Page 53

PUBLICATIONS

The Interior Life, simplified and reduced to its funda--4 mental principle. Edited by Very Rev. ’ Father jv Joseph Tissob; pp. 396; price 6s. Published by 3 Washbourne, London. On sal© at Louis Gille’s, Sydney. V Law and order reigns in the moral and spiritual world as well as in the physical universe, * The Kingdom is like unto a seed which a man cast into the earth, which of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear', afterwards the full corn in the ear.* Men are often the sport of circumstance and unbridled passions, yet the : resulting character is not the product of their environment; we may not always be able to trace their downward steps, but we know that Law controls them. The lives of the Saints make us familiar with men who apparently take delight in fresh, daring, and reckless deeds: they carry out to the letter the advice of St. Augustine: Love God, and do what you will. Yet if we look beneath the : surface we soon find that - their lives, despite astonishing variety and individuality, were all built upon and developed under well-known laws. The Truth, in the spiritual life as elsewhere, shall make you free. It is not necessary for growth in holiness to have a scientific knowledge of these laws. Many of the Saints were unlettered, and even a St. Thomas of Aquin was happy to confess that he learnt more from his crucifix than from ponderous tomes. Their passionate love of God led them along, but not in any blind fashion : , instinctively, and, if you like, unconsciously, they learnt the laws of the soul, and in following them attained to the heights, of sanctity. . Their characters were fashioned by the action of these laws, and so must ours be if we wish to make any progress. It is well, therefore, to have a systematic treatment of these laws, and we have nothing but the warmest welcome for and commendation of The Interior Life, edited from the papers of some unnamed religious by Father Tissot, Superior-General of the Missionaries of St. Francis of Sales. The aim of the work is c to outline the framework of the Christian life, showing it from foundation to roof, setting forth its structure, the work to be done, and the tools to be used.’ It is divided into three parts. ‘ Part I. is entitled “ The End,’’ and deals with the life, to be lived. It gives the building to be erected, and shows the plan. Part 11. is entitled “ The Way,” and deals with the work to be done. It gives the mod© of erection and shows the rules. Part 111. is entitled The Means,” and deals with the instruments to be used. It gives the materials, and shows their use (p. 365). . The author deals in masterly fashion with almost every, phase of the spiritual life, and everywhere and always gets down to bed-rock principles. The book should prove of great benefit to priests, religious, and lay people who wish their piety to be deep and sincere. The Mother of Jesus in Holy Scripture-. BiblicalTheological Addresses by Aloys Schaefer, Bishop of Dresden, Saxony; translated by Ferdinand Brossart. Frederick Pustet, Rome, 1913 pp. 274 Price 8s fid. The substance of these addresses was delivered by Dr. Schaefer, now Bishop of Saxony, at the University of Muenster, in Westphalia, during the winter of 188586. Their scone was ‘to follow the entire biblical J doctrine concerning the Mother of God in its progres- ( sive development through the entire history of the redemption to its completion in Christ, and to present it as one united and perfect picture, drawn from the entire scripturally recounted revelation * (p. 11). This leads the author, after a brief introduction on the existence of types in the Old Testament, to deal, in the light of Scripture,:; with Mary—the Virgin, the Mother* of God, the Mother of the Redeemer, the Highly-favored, Her Co-operation in the Life-Work of her Son, and her Mediatorship. Scripture is. ransacked from Genesis to Apocalypse, for passages that in any way bear upon the life-story of the Mother of God or her position in

the economy of, salvation, and these passages., are explained with wealth of learning and, on the whole, with true critical sense. ~r T he: . interpretations are, however, occasionally rather forced and fanciful, while the chapters on Isaias vii., 14, the incident of the wedding of Cana, and / the brethren of our Lord ’ need to be revised, and in the last instance, considerably amplified, in the . light of. modern studies by Catholic scholars. Otherwise, the work is the most complete on the Scriptural side that we possess. We could wish that the translator had not stuck so closely to the original ; the book is not easy reading. . The Synoptic Problem. By F. W. Frankland, F.1.A., J.P. -ir'A "4 \.- : > In our present editions of the New Testament St. Matthew’s Gospel comes first, then St. Mark’s, and in the third place St. Luke’s. But as the Church has not yet definitely , decided either the dates or the mutual relations of these three documents we are still free to discuss these matters. The perplexing problem is known to scholars as v ‘ The Synoptic Problem. We know from St. Luke that many attempts, public -and private, were made from earliest times to set down the teaching and chief events of our Lord’s life; .in what relation do our present Gospels stand to these .In what order were our Gospels written? The Apostles' loved to repeat the story of their Divine Master’s life on earth, and to instruct the faithful as far as possible in His words: how again do our Gospels stand in relation to these catechetical instructions? And how are we to account for the likenesses and the differences between our three evangelists? Theories almost without number have been: propounded on the subject ; no single one has yet proved generally acceptable. It is worthy of note, however, that scholars even outside the Church, are coming back to traditional dates. Mr. Frankland, of - Foxton, New Zealand, has recently published a pamphlet of some 20 pages on this question, in which he explains, and, with some slight modifications, defends a theory put forward in the Monthly lie view, 1904, and the Journal of Theological Studies, 1905, by Monsignor A. S. Barnes, a Catholic scholar of note in England. The theory ‘ assumes three successive editions or recensions of our second Gospel, each fuller and more amplified .than its predecessor, all compiled by St. Mark, the first two editions before the martyrdom of St. Peter at Rome in "the Neronian Persecution, and the third and last soon after that event. The first and shortest edition (on which St. Luke bases a large part of his Gospel) Monsignor Barnes supposes to have been issued about A.D. 42 at the time of the dispersion of the Apostles from Palestine, the Gospel being needed owing to that very dispersion. The second and much fuller edition . .. . would be issued shortly Before the martyrdom of St. Peter in A.D. 64; and the.third, the fullest of all . ' . . our extant Gospel according to St. Mark, was compiled about A.D. 65’ (p. 9). St. Matthew would have used the second edition mentioned. Some points of this theory are pure guess-work, while others have much to recommend them by reason of their holding to dates handed down from, the beginning. Mr. Frankland has no new light to throw on the subject, but he explains this theory satisfactorily; and gives, evidence of wide reading and accurate knowledge on the general question.