Why, may we ask, has Judaism been preserved? Why is it that, up to this day, a race with such marked characteristics, such fine physical and mental qualities, such fertility and productiveness, should still co-exist like oil in water, amidst, but not of, the civilized races of Europe and America, to say nothing of other portions of the globe?

First, no doubt, to bear witness to the literal historical truth of the Old Testament. It is possible, perhaps, to 'explain away' a literature, but you cannot explain away' the deep-seated customs of a race. Some prodigious force must have been at work-some great impact must have been given by a hand of supernatural power to have left on one day in seven for countless generations an indelible impression like that of the Jewish Sabbath. We go back without a break, from our own contemporaries, the inhabitants of the dirty purlieus of Whitechapel, to human life at a period long anterior to the Mosaic law.

So with the Passover. We may judge of the momentum of the original force by the permanence of its effects. What has become of the Panathenaic Festival, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Olympic Games, and all the endless sacred days and national festivals of the Roman Fasti? What was there in the hand laid upon the Jews at the Exodus which goes thrilling down the ages with an undying vibration? It is true that there are countries still, like India and China, where ancient rites are preserved and perhaps still vigorous; but the cases are not parallel. In the latter the race has gone on in its old home undisturbed and uninterrupted; in the former it has been preserved intact—as no other race has ever been— amidst surroundings sometimes hostile, usually unfriendly, sometimes perhaps enervating, always unfavourable; and yet Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro.

Again, the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, so often mentioned in these pages, shorn as it is of its old solemnities, bears witness to the deeply rooted sense of sin, the longing for a Mediator, which lies at the very core of the life of the most remarkable nation the world has ever seen. All these things are of enormous value in an age like ours. It is testimony not hidden in a library, but alive and speaking and moving, something to be seen and heard. The very hatred inspired by the Jews in some countries shows that, whatever else they may be, they cannot be ignored or treated as of no account. If ever the Invisible has touched the visible, if ever the

spiritual has allied itself with the material, it has been among the sons of Israel.

us.

But we may not pause here. No one can familiarize himself with modern Jewish life without recalling at every turn the circumstances which the Gospels have made familiar to To Western readers it may perhaps seem strange that so large a portion of documents in every way so precious should be taken up with rebukes to Scribes and Pharisees and Lawyers, indignant protests at the dull, stupid narrowness of view which made the Word of God of none effect'; but if we once recognize the importance of the Old Testament, the part played by it in the history of human thought and conviction, the inestimable treasures which Judaism had in its keeping, the inner meaning which lay beneath those rites so perversely misunderstood, we shall not feel that our Lord's language was too strong, or His warnings too often reiterated. The Jews had a mission such as no other race has ever had; to be faithless to such a mission, to be fools, and slow of heart,' as they were, was not only an intellectual fault, but among the gravest of moral offences; a wilful blindness for which no excuse was sufficient; a rebellion against their Maker for which inevitable retribution must ensue.

In reflecting on the idcal Jewish character, that ideal which, never wholly realized, yet has never quite been lost sight of a character so gifted and so graced, so strong in its appreciation of and mastery over the things of this life, and yet wonderful and unapproachable in its intuitions of anotherwe feel how natural the transition is which Isaiah (for instance) makes between 'Israel My servant' and the Messiah Himself.

Jesus Christ is to Judaism what Judaism is, or ought to be, to humanity-the point of contact, the Mediator between God and men. He is, in a stronger sense even than St. Paul, 'a Hebrew of the Hebrews.' Alas for ourselves if we by a blind, dull literalism misunderstand Him and maim His teaching, as the Jews did that of the Law and the Prophets which testified of Him, or if we despise and rebel against and resist Him as the Jews of Palestine did in His own day! For we may be sure that it is as true now as it ever was 'The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but upon whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.'

ART. VII. THEODULF OF ORLEANS.

Théodulfe Evêque d'Orléans: sa Vie et ses Œuvres.

Avec

une Carte du Pagus Aurelianensis au IX Siècle. Par CH. CUISSARD, Sous-Bibliothécaire de la Ville d'Orléans. (Orléans, 1892.)

THE reputation of Theodulf has been overshadowed by the fame of Alcuin, his great contemporary. We are proud of the latter as a fellow-countryman. Even the small Primer of English Literature will tell how 'Alcuin, a pupil of Egbert, Archbishop of York, carried in 782 to the court of Charles the Great the learning and piety of England.' But though Theodulf is unknown to English readers, except through the Dictionary of Christian Biography, his character deserves a more popular record, and his work as a bishop, earnest and thorough in word and deed, had a lasting influence.

Alcuin had a high opinion of his powers, and classed him among our doctors and masters' in a letter to the King. And the fact that Theodulf's treatises on Adoptianism, Baptism, and the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit were published by request of other bishops to meet special emergencies, is a tribute to his theological learning. His Capitularies, or Episcopal Charges, which took the form of a series of summary instructions to the clergy, were reproduced in the dioceses of Meaux and Bourges, and among the decrees of various synods.'

M. Cuissard's monograph, which throws much fresh light on his life and works, does him no more than justice as a reformer and a theologian, though one cannot help feeling that in certain details M. Cuissard carries hero-worship too far. The book is included among the publications of the Historical and Archæological Society of Orléans, which is to be congratulated on the fruits of the encouragement thus given to historical research. The author, with a touch of humour, referring to the researches, 'parfois indigestes,' of German writers, has been at great pains to make his own work complete, according to the Horatian maxim, in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus.

So he begins with a study of the topography of the diocese, giving an interesting map of the Pagus Aurelianensis. And he includes in his survey of Theodulf's life and times, equally comprehensive chapters on the general state of society (P. 197), the constitution of the churches (p. 221), the cha'M. Cuissard adds: 'also among the decrees of an English Council.'

racter of the instruction given in the schools (p. 246), religious and liturgical usages (p. 263), and even extends his investigations to the dress and trade (p. 311) of the district. The last detail in the table of contents sounds amusingly irrelevant in the life of a bishop, 'the wines of Orléans.' But the insertion of this heading is justified by reference to a playful letter of Alcuin to Theodulf, in which he asks that illustrious pontiff and father of the vines to let the overseer give up the keys of the cellar and send Alcuin's monks of Tours some more of their famous wine. Alcuin compares his friend to Zabdi, 'who was over the increase of the vineyards of David.' This was an allusion to the custom at the court of Charles of calling the members of the King's inner circle by various pseudonyms. The King was David, Alcuin was Flaccus, Angilbert Homer. But we cannot argue from this letter that Zabdi was Theodulf's usual nickname, nor that he was overseer of the royal vineyards. The name seems to have been coined for this occasion only. He was not long at court, nor was he a member of the School of the Palace. It is not necessary,' observes M. Cuissard (p. 325), ' to search so far for an explanation.' It is simply a proof that the wines of Orleans were as famous in the ninth century as in later times, when they were celebrated in prose and poetry.

Much uncertainty has hitherto prevailed on the question of Theodulf's nationality. The epitaphs written for him leave it doubtful whether he was an Ostrogoth from Italy, or a Visigoth from Spain:

And,

'Non noster genitus, noster habeatur alumnus :

Protulit hunc Speria, Gallia sed nutriit.'

Hesperia genitus, hac sum tellure sepultus.'

The name Hesperia, or Speria, was used both for Italy and Spain. But the Chronicle of Fleury, which reproduces the statement of an old catalogue of the abbots, substitutes Italia, showing how the word was understood in later times. Moreover, the fact that he was involved with two Italian bishops in the revolt of Bernard of Italy seemed to make it probable that he was suspected because of his Italian extraction.

1 Herr Rzehulka; Rev. A. H. Wilson; art. 'Theodulf' in Dict. Christ. Biog. Professor West, in his new book on Alcuin (Heinemann, 1893), maintains another view, and without a reference gives Pindar as Theodulf's nickname, and even argues into this letter recondite references to the supposed succession of Theodulf to Alcuin's position as Minister of Education, 'injunctions to Theodulf to promote the study of the old seven liberal arts without any admixture of new notions, in that the old wine is better than the new.'

1

However, M. Cuissard (p. 45) brings forward some new arguments which turn the scale of evidence. He shows that Alcuin and Prudentius used the word Hesperia to mean Spain. The latter even describes his own Spanish birth in the very phrase used of Theodulf, 'Hesperia genitus.' Theodulf, in a birthday poem for the king, names the peoples of Africa, Gaul, Italy, and Hesperia, which is clearly Spain. And he writes with enthusiasm of the beauties of Spain-the garden of the Hesperides, the Asturias, and Galicia and Cordova. Such geographical references are rare in contemporary writings, and show an intimate knowledge of the country. He claims Prudentius as a fellow-countryman, 'noster et ipse parens.'2 This might refer to literary debts, but Virgil and Ovid were his chief models. The wide range of his classical education makes possible the further inference that he was brought up at a Spanish school, possibly at Cordova,3

The schools of Aquitaine were under a cloud. In 782 Adhemar de Chabannes wrote that the whole world was illiterate. The once flourishing school of Toulouse maintained only a shadow of its former greatness. But on the other side of the Pyrenees, under the protection of the Arab Caliph, Abd-el-Rhaman, arts and sciences flourished. Christians who submitted to his rule were allowed full liberty of worship in their own churches. Schools were founded everywhere, and a great impulse was given to industry of all kinds. The Arabs had been brought by their conquests into contact with the civilization of the old world, and the Spanish Christians were through them made acquainted with the masters of ancient learning, Euclid, Galen, Aristotle. No doubt, since some literary treasures were preserved in monastic libraries from the fifth to the tenth centuries, it was not only to the Moors that Europe owes its introduction to them. Egbert's library at York contained the works of Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Aristotle. But in Spain their dominion gave a great impetus to culture and classical studies, and Theodulf's own references to classical authors make it probable that he was educated in some Spanish school. Among' wise heathen,' whom he had read, he classed Donatus, Virgil, Ovid, and

1 Carm. vi. 709; cf. 755.

2 lbid. iv. 16.

3 M. Cuissard's suggestion that he was born at Saragossa has little support.

Cf. Ven. Beda Hist., Mayor and Lumby, p. 299 n.; and Guizot, Hist. Civilization in France, ii. 232 (trans.).