supposing that even they so read it in their Mark than for supposing that they read also in their Mark (at xiii. 32): TEρì Tηs ημéρas Tŷs ¿σxáτηs οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδὲ ὁ ὑιός. If this is merely a paraphrase of the meaning, that may equally well be so too.

We presume that the "c. 377" attached to the reference to Didymus' treatise on the Trinity is meant to indicate the column in Migne, Patr. Gr., where the passage referred to may be found. No such passage, however, is found at that reference. In cols. 349-352, however, there is a passage which we take to be the one intended. Heb. ii. 24 had just been quoted and commented on; and the discourse continues: "The Son also, however, showed that the deity is one, when He said, 'Why callest thou me good? No one is good but one, God'; but that the three hypostases are of equal dignity and of equal power, by the teaching concerning baptism [that is, by Mat. xxviii. 19]. Not responding to the lawyer who questioned Him temptingly, "Call me not good' but 'Why callest thou me good?' He showed that He too is good equally with the Father, and from His Father's goodness manifests His own, and demonstrates that He is good generated from God...." It is, of course, conceivable that Didymus is referring here to a rival reading of Mk. x. 18 rejected by him. But there is no likelihood of that being the case. On the face of it, what he says is that this reading is not found in Mk. x. 18. We observe in passing that Didymus elsewhere also quotes Mk. x. 18 in the form "Why callest thou me good?" without betraying any consciousness of another reading; e.g. at col. 864: “And the response to the lawyer who temptingly addressed our Lord as a man, 'Good Master' and heard 'Why callest thou me good?' is of this kind . . . ."

Thus nothing is left as evidence of the currency of a reading "Call me not good!" but Epiphanius' representation that this was the reading of Marcion's Gospel, supported by the appearance of the passage in this form in the Clementine Homilies. Conybeare seems very sure that Marcion's text read as Epiphanius represents. A glance at the very full note of Zahn at the place (Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons,1 II, 1890, pp. 483-4) will show how little this confidence is justified. Zahn himself prints Marcion's text in the hesitant form: τí (or μý) μe λέγετε ἀγαθόν; εἷς ἐστὶν ἀγαθός, ὁ (?) θεὸς ὁ πατήρ (?); tells us that it is "variously transmitted"; and suggests that the un transmitted by Epiphanius may be only a transcriptional error for rí, -unless, he adds, the rí transmitted by Hippolytus is a transcriptional error for μή. We ought not to let it fall out of sight, that there is no evidence for the currency of the phrase "Call me not good", as a reading at Mk. x. 18; Lk. xviii. 19, Mt. xix. 17 earlier than the fourth century, for it seems that the Clementine Homilies should be assigned to that century (cf. Dom Chapman, ZNTW, IX, 1908). When Hippolytus (Refut., VII, 31) cites this text from a Marcionite book-apparently from Marcion himself-he gives it in the form, rí μe Xéyete åyaðóv. Our own inclination is to suppose that the reading μή με λέγε ἀγαθόν stood in Marcion's Gospel as it was in circulation in the fourth century,

but was not original in it. We are led to this view by the circumstance that in the Clementine Homilies too (where this reading occurs four times; iii. 57, xvii. 4, xviii. 1, 3) it seems to appear (xviii. 1) as a Marcionite reading (Zahn, pp. 469, 483). But it is to be observed that in this understanding of the matter, all appeal to the Clementine Homilies as evidence that this reading was in circulation elsewhere than in Marcionic circles, or earlier than the fourth century, is precluded. Conybeare is as sure that Marcion (he would doubtless extend this to the Marcionites as a body) could not have invented the reading "Call me not good" as that it was read by Marcion. One would think a simple reading of Hippolytus' chapter just referred to (Refut., vii, 31) would disabuse anyone's mind of this misjudgment. Whether, however, the reading arose by "doctrinal modification" on the part of the Marcionites or by simple transcriptional error as Zahn supposes, is of little moment. The point of importance is that there is no convincing evidence that such a reading was known earlier than the fourth century and no evidence whatever that it ever had any currency outside (later) Marcionite circles and perhaps among the Arians, to whom it was transmitted by the Clementine Homilies; for this is apparently the significance of the Clementine Homilies in this matter-that they formed the connecting link between Marcionite and Arian. It is meaningless, therefore, when Conybeare remarks: "Marcion's evidence goes back far behind any other", though that remark would be inexplicable in any case. It is probably not Marcion's personal evidence that is in question, but only that of the later Marcionites. And were it his personal evidence that was in question, Justin who quotes the text in the interrogative form was his strict contemporary, Tatian but a little younger contemporary, to say nothing of Marcosians and Naasenes with whom Irenaeus and Hippolytus connect the text in its interrogative form. In any case the total direct transmission of the text of the New Testament is not to be treated with this levity. On the face of it, apart from all citations of as early a date as Marcion, the text as set down in the critical editions of the New Testament is older than Marcion and was already in his day in wide circulation in versions as well as in the original Greek. When we speak in terms of relative originality—instead of in those of mere chronology-there is no room for question here. Any history which may be back of our existent manuscript-text of Mark and Luke in this passage (as indeed of that of Matthew too) is not a textual history but a literary history. What emerges from the ruck of confusion into which Conybeare has gratuitously cast the matter is thus simply that there may have been in circulation in heretical circles in the fourth century a reading in Mk. x. 18 or Luke xviii. 19 which substituted an imperative for the interrogatory form. Needless to say such a fact affords no slightest justification for looking upon this form as "the original" form. BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD.

Princeton.

ASSYRIOLOGICAL RESEARCH DURING THE PAST DECADE1

Assyriology is still a comparatively young science. It is but a life-time-three-score and ten years-since the first excavations were conducted in the vicinity of Mosul by French and English excavators.2 And only within a decade have the last of the pioneers-Jules Oppert, Rassam and Schrader-passed away. The work of Oppert as excavator and decipherer carried us back almost to the very beginning of Assyriology. He was a member of the second French expedition, which was sent out in 1852, and in 1857 he helped to place this science on a firm basis and to win for it the confidence of scholars by his translation of the cylinder inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. Rassam in 1854 discovered the famous Library of Assurbanapal at Nineveh, from which 20,000 tablets or fragments of tablets, many them of the greatest value, have been recovered. Schrader, rightly called "the father of Assyriology in Germany", carried us back into the sixties; and his investigations, which were especially along historical and geographical lines, won for him an international reputation.

of

The labors of these men, and many others whose names might be mentioned, have made possible the rapid advance which Assyriology has made during the past decades. They have supplied our museums with thousands of inscriptions

'This article is in substance an address delivered on September 19th, 1913, in Miller Chapel at the opening of the One Hundred and Second Session of Princeton Theological Seminary. The writer has however claimed the privilege of quite considerably revising and expanding it before its publication.

'Botta began excavations at Nineveh (Kuyundjik) in December, 1842, Layard at Calah (Nimrud) in November, 1845.

*Rawlinson, Hincks, Fox-Talbot and Oppert were the members of a committee appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to make test translations of this inscription. They worked independently of one another and the substantial agreement between their translations did a great deal to establish confidence in Assyriological studies and to remove suspicions regarding their value and reliability.

and antiquities of various kinds. They deciphered the complicated cuneiform script and have solved most of its difficulties. They have published many inscriptions and supplied the student of to-day with grammar and lexicon, with works on history and religion, and with textbooks and helps of all sorts. In fact so rapid has been the progress that the Assyriologist of to-day is being forced to become in ever increasing measure a specialist in some one or more of the many fields of investigation which the cuneiform inscriptions have opened up to us. And even when we restrict ourselves to the work of the decade which is past1-the seventh and in many ways the most productive in the history of Assyriology-it is by no means easy to trace the progress which has been made and it is necessary for us to confine ourselves more especially to the most important fields. We shall consider therefore the progress this decade has made in the work of excavation; in philological research; in chronology and history; in the study of legal and business documents, and letters and of the proper names; and in the investigation of the religion.

THE EXCAVATIONS

The work of excavation has been carried on with vigor and although no single finds have been reported which rank in importance with the discovery of the Library of Assurbanapal by Rassam in 1854, the finding of the Tell-elAmarna letters in 1888 and the unearthing of the Stele of Hammurapi in 1901, some very important discoveries have been made and much valuable information has been obtained.

4

This period is counted roughly as beginning with 1903 and extending to the present time. This is a little over a decade, but still is sufficiently accurate for our purpose. For several years back Dr. H. Pick of the Royal Library at Berlin has prepared a brief yearly summary of the progress made in Assyriological research for the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Cf. also H. W. Hogg, Survey of Recent Publications on Assyriology, vol. I, 1908; vol. II, 1910, which are favorably spoken of by Pick, and also L. W. King's survey for the years 1910-12 in the Britannica Year-Book, 1913, pp: 256-60.

The Germans who were the last to enter the field have done more work during this period than any other single nation. The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, which was founded in 1898 and began excavations at Babylon in the following year, has continued its work uninterruptedly and although the results of those excavations have been rather disappointing in some ways they have thrown very welcome light upon the topography of Babylon, especially upon the character of the fortifications, palaces and temples of the Babylon of the time of Nebuchadnezzar.5 In 1903-just ten years ago excavations were commenced at Assur, the ancient capital of Assyria, and have been in progress ever since. These excavations have been especially valuable for the light which they have thrown upon the early history of Assyria."

The Orient-Gesellschaft has also conducted excavations at Fāra, which is probably to be identified with the ancient Shuruppak, which according to the Babylonian legend was the home of Ut-napishtim the hero of the Flood, and at Abu Hatab, another very ancient ruin, and has recently begun excavations at Warka, the Biblical Erech. Three cities of far less antiquity, Hatra, near Assur, and Samarra and

"Meissner who was for a time connected with the expedition, has recently expressed the opinion (OLZ, XV, 416) that the fears entertained by "most German Assyriologists” that these excavations would not be sufficiently successful to warrant the great expense involved, have been proved to have been justified by the results. "Especially as regards literary and archaeological data, the results are quite moderate. Only the architect has thus far perhaps gotten his money's worth." The costs of the 13 years excavations he estimated at $200,000 or more. For an account of these excavations cf. the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft also the Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen of the same society and especially the account of the work of the expedition recently presented by Koldewey in his Das wiedererstehende Babylon (1913). Koldewey who has been in charge of the work at Babylon from the very start estimates that about one-half of the necessary work has been accomplished. The magnitude of the task is shown by his statement that 200 to 250 men have been working on it steadily for thirteen or fourteen years.

Cf. pp. 243 ff. For the official accounts of these excavations cf. the publications of the Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft mentioned in note 5.