The Early Christian Archaeology of North Britain . By Charles Thomas. (The Hunter Marshall Lectures, 1968). Pp. xvi + 254 + 8 plates. London: Oxford University Press (for the University of Glasgow), 1971. £3.

that this is a later work, not from Athenagoras's hand, which reflects the debate over Origen's view of the resurrection. The extended nature of the debate makes it unwise to attempt an exact dating. There are weighty objections to this theory. It is noticeable that in Leg., 31 Athenagoras refers to St. Paul's conception of the after life as given in 1 Cor. xv, and that in De Res., 18 the argument of Leg., 31 is completed. The suggestion that Athenagoras anticipates Platonic and Pythagorean parallels to the resurrection in Leg., 36 while Aristotelian arguments alone appear in De Resurrectione is based on a misunderstanding of second-century Middle Platonism, which had absorbed Stoic and Aristotelian elements. Moreover, it is odd that if De Resurrectione is directed primarily against Origen's view of the resurrection that the great Alexandrian scholar is nowhere mentioned. It would seem more likely that De Resurrectione had in mind philosophical enquirers who were unfamiliar with the Christian belief in the resurrection. Is that the reason why Jesus's resurrection is nowhere specifically mentioned in the treatise? Agreements in vocabulary and style (admitted by Schoedel, xxv) and the fact that in Leg., 37 Athenagoras states that he is setting aside for the present, presumably for another occasion, the problem of the resurrection, suggest that both works are from the same hand, viz. that of Athenagoras himself. Such an original and subtle thinker as Athenagoras could well have anticipated some of the theological developments of a later period.