Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/291

 Notices of New Boohs. 281 of their development. Dr Todd has printed these tracts in black letter, preserving the ancient orthography and punctuation, so that apart from their high value to the theological and ecclesiastical student, they furnish good specimens of the English language in the second half of the fourteenth century.] C. H. Friesisches Arcliiv ; Beitrage zur Geschichte der Friesen und ihrer Sprache, herausgegeben von H. G. Ehrentraut ; zweiter Band : Oldenburg, 1854. [The first instalment of this work appeared in 1849. It purposes to investigate and place on record the antiquities of a Teutonic family extending from the Scheldt as far as Jutland. The editor, M. Ehren- traut, is one of those thorough archaeologists who labours at his subject con amove. Many of the papers are extremely interesting not only to his fellow-countrymen in this or that locality, but to philologers in general : and as some among ourselves have now begun to study the peculiar features of the English language in good earnest, they will thank us for bringing a new work like the present under their notice. It abounds with evidence of the original affinity subsisting between the Altfriesisch and the Anglo-Saxon, as well as of the common Jaws by which their dialects have been produced.] C. H. Das Christenthum und die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, von Dr Ferdinand Christian Baur, Ord. Prof. d. Theol. a. d. Univ. Tubingen. Tubingen, Fues, 1853. 8vo. pp. xii. and 504. [This latest work of Dr Baur is of the highest value, as giving a general view of the results at which he has arrived in his numerous essays on the first literature, constitution, and doctrine of the Christian Church. The clearness, calmness, and subtilty of his writing leaves nothing to be desired in it as the exposition of his system ; and we may accept it as an authoritative statement of the critical school of which he is the founder and ablest representative. The greater part of the book is merely a reconstruction of old materials, with some additions from the Treatise against all heresies attributed to Hippolytus, and the remark- able Gnostic work, nians 2o</a. It is not of course a history of facts, but of principles a philosophy of the history of the Catholic Church. Dr Baur insists much on the fact that he regards Christianity purely objectively; but that is only true when he has arbitrarily limited the subject. From the first he assumes that the different forms of thought and doctrine which combined to complete the Catholic Church of the third century, could not have had their rise in a Catholic and Apostolic Church of the first century. This is important, as marking in what direction our positive criticism must be turned. Christian apologists must shew that the types of Apostolic doctrine were essentially united by one informing spirit, that heresies arose from their partial and exclusive development, that the Church was the outward organization in which they were united.