The History of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and The History
of the Likeness of Christ. The Syriac Texts. Edited, with English Translations, by E. A. Wallis Budge, M.A. (Luzac and Co. 103. 6d.)—We have here, in the fifth volume of the "Semitic Text and Translation Series," a curious collection of "stories concerning the Virgin and Child which were current in Syria and Palestine as early as the fourth century of our era, as well as some which were incorporated with them at a later date," to quote from the preface. The miracles described differ little from conjuring tricks, and the feeling and atmosphere are strangely non-Christian and unlike that of the New Testament. Some of them are very quaint, particularly that of the man who was delivered from a snake which he had treated with mistaken kind- ness. The "history of the likeness of Christ, which the Jews of Tiberias made to mock at n the days of the Emperor Zeno," "illustrates the curious belief in the power of pictures or figures, to transform themselves, under certain conditions, into the living bodies of the beings whom they represented."
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