BOOK REVIEWS 193 scientious and sincere seekers after God. Nevertheless, to one who has remained an " outsider " (insofar as he has not yet received the baptism of the Spirit) the attitudes and actions of many Pentecostals seem rather strange. We are not prepared to cope calmly with the more bizarre aspects of the " gifts," and our theological training as well as our cultural background has not equipped us to react in a non-judgmental fashion: some of us are prone to be " converted " on the spot, while others will take a very dim view of these festivities. We are quick to give negative labels to that which is alien to us or difficult for us to accept by temperament. In fact, it was a very simple aspect of the Pentecostal prayer-life which was the turning point for me in determining my present attitude toward the movement . I must confess the beginnings of a negative reaction on the second evening of the convention during which I was a concelebrant in a threeband -a-half hour marathon Mass. It was hot and humid, and it came as the evening session of an entire day spent in praying, discussing, and listening to lectures by the leaders of the movement. To me it seemed interminable; an especially disconcerting thing was their penchant for singing hymns of sixteen stanzas: when we had finally arrived at the last, they would as often as not begin singing stanza number one again, and so on all the way through. To make matters worse, when I had finally returned to the motel (praise God for air-conditioning!) and wished to slake my parched soul with a cold beer in the lounge, I was accosted by " the group " just back from the Mass, who strongly and enthusiastically urged me to accompany them to the lawn behind the motel where they were about to have a prayer-meeting. It was then that I made my decision; it was ice-cold and delicious! JAMES M. CAFONE Seton l/all University South Orange, New Jersey Records of Christianity. Volume 1: In the Roman Empire. Edited by DAvm AYERST and A. S. T. FISHER. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971. Pp. 346. Illustrated. $12.00. History and Christianity. By JoHN WARWICK MoNTGOMERY. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1971. Pp. 110. $1.25. The first volume of the new series entitled Records of Christianity is a collection of source writings in translation attempting to illustrate various aspects of the history of the Church-especially personalities-from the reign of Nero to the pontificate of Leo I. The aim of the editors is primarily to introduce new students of the period to this material, and in fact most 194 BOOK REVIEWS of the selections are interesting and valuable from that point of view. However , some of the commentary provided by the editors tends to be theologically simplistic and even factually misleading, such as, for example, the statement on p. 188 that " the earliest Christians of Rome held their services in the catacombs." As an introduction to the history of the primitive Church this book is satisfactory, but J. Stevenson's two volumes (A New Eusebius and Creeds, Councils, and Controversies), which cover virtually the same span of time, continue to be the best available anthologies of early Christian writings in English translation both for beginners and for others. John Warwick Montgomery's slender paperback originated as two lectures , under the title of "Jesus Christ and History," which were delivered by the author at the University of British Columbia in 1968. They later became four magazine articles; these four essays, with an appendix in the form of a panel discussion, constitute the present book. The group of four essays is concerned with the Scriptural account of Jesus' activity, particularly in the light of a statement made by a previous lecturer at the University of British Columbia to the effect that 1) although ,Jesus probably did exist subsequent legends have almost totally obscured his true personality; ~) the Gospels were written long after Jesus' lifetime and are historically inadequate; and 8) Jesus' miracles as recorded in the Gospels have a very tenuous relation to reality. Montgomery's...