Tatian, the second century Christian apologist, is something of an enigma to students of early Christian history and doctrine. How far was he influenced by his teacher Justin Martyr? What caused him to become an extreme exponent of the encratite heresy? Did his heretical views only develop after Justin's death, and were these the cause of his leaving Rome? or were these views only a development of tendencies which existed from the beginning? The answers which we give to these questions will largely depend on the view we take of, and the date we assign to, the one apologetic work of his which is extant—his Oration to the Greeks, a violent polemic against Graeco-Roman culture in the course of which Tatian reveals, in somewhat cryptic manner, his own theological views and gives a brief account of his own spiritual pilgrimage.

The methods of appointment to English sees in the later Middle Ages are not of a kind to give assurance that the men chosen as bishops would be concerned to exercise pastoral care and give undivided attention to the daily routine of diocesan administration. This is not to deny that from time to time men so concerned did reach the Episcopal bench, but their numbers are small indeed, and seldom was the length of an episcopate such as to enable even the most assiduous bishop to make a significant impact on the remoter areas of dioceses too extensive for the available means of travel and communication. But to Worcester in the last month of 1443 was provided John Carpenter, who was to rule the see for some thirty-two years, whose absences from it, though frequent, were of relatively brief duration, and who seems to have entertained a deep personal concern for its affairs and the spiritual and temporal welfare of its people. The very bulk of his register—in two volumes—one substantial the other only less so—serves to provide a detailed prospect of diocesan activity in the middle years of the fifteenth century.

Although the thought of Augustine and Pascal and their way of positing philosophical and theological problems differ widely from eeach other, there are important elements which seem to call for comparison. For Augustine caritas is the hallmark of knowledge of God, and only when this is experienced will that knowledge be true.

One of the most interesting of the various groups of Orthodox Christians that constituted the Rum Milleti within the Ottoman Empire were the Karamanli Christians of Asia Minor. These Karamanli Christians, or Karamanlides, were a substantial body of Christians Orthodox in religion but Turkish in speech. During the Ottoman period they were largely concentrated in the interior of Asia Minor, although they were also to be found in the Crimea and on the shores of the Sea of Azov. The question of their origin is a matter of controversy and is likely to remain so. Greek scholars incline to the view that the Karamanlides were of Greek descent and adopted Turkish as their vernacular, either by force or as a result of their isolation from the Greek speaking Orthodox Christians of the coastal regions. Turkish scholars regard them as the descendants of Turks who had migrated to Byzantine territories before the conquest or had served as mercenaries in the Byzantine armies and who had adopted the religion but not the language of their new rulers.

Liturgy, it has often been said, implies doctrine. Nowhere is this more patently clear than in the rubric before the second Exhortation ‘in case he [the Minister] shall see the people negligent to come to the Holy Communion’ in the Prayer Book of 1662. In view of the fact that ‘An Order for Holy Communion’ contained in the Report of the Liturgical Commission, April 1966, has departed from the valuable precedent of 1662, it may not be without contemporary value that we enquire into the origin, purpose and structure of this second Exhortation.