Thomistenlexikon ed. by David Berger and Jörgen Vijgen (review)

326 BOOK REVIEWS is the significance of saying that Marcion's version of Paul did "not mean simply that Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament"? The word "simply" is a problem. Marcion seems more to say that Christ was the antithesis, rather than the fulfillment, of Israel's Scriptures. The Church had considerable work to show, both against Marcion and against Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, that Jesus fulfills the Law for our salvation. Furthermore on this third point, did the Church need Marcion to say that Jesus was not simply giving an example of righteous works, or was that already imbedded within the apostolic tradition of understanding the person of Christ? Edwards has done a great service in writing this book, and its power is demonstrated in its ability to provoke reconsiderations of what is too facilely believed about the fascinating world of early Christianity. Theologically, the book succeeds in disturbing even those who accept Newman's note of assimilation. It will prove especially valuable to those dealing with accounts of who is "in" and who is "out" in the first five Christian centuries, and should also be read by ecclesiologists, ecumenists, and others interested in broad questions pertaining to the nature of Tradition, Church teaching, and the theological enterprise. Readers should be alerted that the book suffers from some poor proofreading. I was frequently distracted by errors, as many as three or four on a single page (e.g., pp. 41, 155, 168, 171, and 175). Some mistakes are howlers, such as this Christological affirmation: "there is one Sin and not two" (8). Others require a theological eye. Genesis 1:3 does not say "Let us make man in our image" (15), and it is misleading to speak of the Council of Ephesus occurring in 433 (6 and136). The back cover even misrepresents the prodigious work by Edwards. He has a very useful translation of Optatus, Against the Donatists, not Optatus, Against the Gnostics. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D.C. ANDREW HOFER, 0.P. Thomistenlexikon. Edited by DAVID BERGERandJ6RGENVIJGEN. Bonn: Nova & Vetera, 2006. Pp. viii+ 374. 98.00€ (cloth). ISBN 978-3-936741-37-7. In the third edition (1993-2001) of the prestigious eleven-volume German Catholic theological encyclopedia, Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, edited by Walter Cardinal Kasper in cooperation with a group of leading German Catholic theologians, the competent entry in volume 9 on "Thomism" (pp. 1517-22) by Klaus Obenauer ends with the following noteworthy statement: "Although currently Thomism has lost its significance to a large degree, it still contains a BOOK REVIEWS 327 rich reservoir of metaphysical insights that could be reactivated, if one only were to think beyond certain narrow hyper-concentrations [Engfuhrungen] of Thomism in particular and scholastic philosophy in general" (p. 1521). Attracted by the promise of this rich reservoir of metaphysical insights and guided by the entries on "Thomism" and "Neoscholasticism/Neothomism," the student of Thomism in search of further and deeper orientation will most likely turn to various entries on individual representatives ofthis veritable intellectual tradition and school of thought-to not much avail, alas. While Thomas de Vio Cajetan is covered in one full column and while Domingo Soto receives thirty-four and Gustav Siewerth twenty-four lines of one column, Ambroise Gardeil and Josef Pieper have to content themselves with seventeen lines of one column each, Francisco Marin-Sola with fourteen, Antonin Sertillanges with thirteen, Hermann Plassmann and Franz Diekamp with eleven, John Capreolus, Ceslaus Maria Schneider, and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange with eight lines each. One searches in vain for entries on the Belgian Charles de Koninck, the French Thomas Deman, or the American Joseph Owens. In order to get the larger picture right, one needs to understand that in this most recent edition of the Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, St. Dominic, Matthias Josef Scheeben, and the early nineteenth-century German Catholic rationalist Anton Gunther each receive forty lines of one column-while the other early nineteenth-century German Catholic rationalist, Georg Hermes, receives sixty-four lines! Needless to say, with very few exceptions, the entries on most Thomists across the centuries offer very little beyond the bare...