He begins with the creation as told in Genesis and interprets that record partly as a mystic race record according to the Gnostics and Theosophists, and partly as a record of fact; but he sets down both interpretations side by side, and forces no conclusions. You get the sense that the old scholar knows he is dealing with an epic; but whether that epic is a myth reflecting a fact on the clouds, or a fact obscured by myth—you must decide for yourself; for “Know, O brother,” he says, “where there is true love, there is no fear; and where there is freedom of speech, there is no dread . . . on subjects beyond the capacity of our simple understanding . . . do not enquire too closely into the divine words.” And the advice is as good for our day as for his own. The first thirty chapters have an amazing similarity to _Genesis_, the _Book of Enoch_, the _Book of Jasher_, _Revelation_; and should be read parallel with _Ezekiel_ and _Daniel_. They carry the human mind back to the very dawn of time. It is where the record comes down to apostolic days that it throws a flashlight on the historic personages in the fiction of this volume. I make no comment but set down in brief the old writer’s contributions to historic data. He says that Mary, the Mother of the Messiah, was brought up among the Temple virgins. The Salome, who was the midwife at Christ’s birth, resembles the Salome of the Gnostics’ _Pistis Sophia_. Whether the star followed by the Magi were a star of vision, or a constellation of the Zodiac—he does not know. He does not think the massacre of the infants followed immediately after the visit to the manger, but within two years. The legends of the Magi’s gifts are given very fully. He says it was the father of Nathaniel who saved John the Baptist’s life, when Zechariah was murdered before the altar of the Temple. This refers to Christ’s recognition of Nathaniel later with Philip. He says Christ met Lazarus first in Egypt, when Lazarus befriended the exiles, Joseph and Mary. The Herodias episode is given very fully as recorded in Chapter II here. Machærus is given as the place of John’s imprisonment and murder. Abgar, King of Edessa, who wrote letters to Christ, finally bought Christ’s woven seamless garment over which the soldiers cast dice. Joseph of Arimathea, he calls a Senator. He says Mary died between her fifty-eighth and sixty-first year. He gives very fully the ten occasions on which Christ was seen in vision or in body—the last time by Stephen and Paul. The upper chamber of the Last Supper had been prepared by Lazarus to whom it belonged, by Simon the Cyrenian, who helped to carry the cross, by Joseph, the Senator, and by Nicodemus.