Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/210

 200 Reviews.

Australian savages have more religious faith than they used to be credited with, and that the moral influence of their " high gods " has been greatly exaggerated. It is the discoverer's fervour, of course : we have seen it before ; and time will bring the reaction. The value of this book lies then in its literary quality chiefly, and secondly in its advocacy of the comparative method addressed to scholars of the narrower type. Students of folklore will be glad to have Mr. Lang's opinions clearly set forth (has it not been whispered that he sometimes shifts his ground a trifle ?) but for proofs they will go elsewhere.

Dr. M. RosENFELD : Der Midrasch Deuteronomium Rabba Par. IX. UND XL, 2-10, ueber den Tod Moses. Berlin, 1899.

The justification for taking notice of this publication in the pages of Folk-Lore lies in the fact that the old apocryphal literature has contributed more than any other branch of literary activity to what we call now " popular " literature. There is another reason still, inasmuch as I am firmly convinced that the interest shown in recent times to this apocryphal literature owes its origin not to any kind of religious revival, or to the so-called higher biblical criticism, as to the modern study of folklore. The present book does not deal with any of the more important Apocryphas. Known through a quotation in the Episde of Jude (v. 9), the " Assumption of Moses " had some influence on the evolution of the doctrine of the dual powers in the world, as Satan is represented to dispute the right of the angel to the body of Moses. Curiously enough this very incident is missing in the Latin fragment of the " Assumptio," and even the latest editor of that text, R. H. Charles, has only been able to adduce divers quotations from the writings of the Fathers of the Church in order to supplement this lacuna. We find it, however, very much elaborated in the Hebrew versions, where on the contrary the initial part has disappeared. One of these versions is now published in German translation with the collation of other printed versions of this legend, and the author of this publication tries to bring out the intimate connection which