Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/536

498 'Judas, not Iscariot,' while the Curetonian MS. has simply 'Thomas,' evidently a relic of the reading just mentioned. We know, moreover, that in the Old Syriac version Barabbas was called Jesus Bar-Abba; and, as Prof. Burkitt has pointed out, "it was also the reading of Origen, and there is good reason for thinking that it stood in the immediate archetype of B" (the best Greek MS. of the Gospels). May we not suppose that the reading in Joh. xiv. 22 had a similar tradition behind it?

Dr. Rendel Harris has set forth his thesis in a highly attractive and readable form, and with not less learning than skill. He has thrown much light on obscure subjects, and opened up many questions of extraordinary interest, but until most of these questions have received even more careful and minute investigation he can scarcely claim to have said the last word on the subject of the Dioscuri in the Christian Calendar.

this volume the great Cambridge edition of the Jataka approaches conclusion. The sixth and last volume is in progress under the capable hands of Dr. Rouse. The present instalment is perhaps not quite so interesting as some of its predecessors. It includes a larger proportion of stupid verse, and the editor has not been very diligent in hunting up parallels from Indian and general folk-lore. But the translation is admirably done, and, as will be seen, the book contains much of interest to the student of Indian beliefs and superstitions.

Thus (p. 6) we have the legend of the discovery of strong drink. The birds drop grains of paddy from a tree, which falling into water, ferment; the birds and other animals drink of