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254 BOOK REVIEWS most apparent is in their discussion of presence-a question which obviously is central to both works. Schillebeeckx is obviously very aware of the importance of this notion and his treatment of it is very clear and incisive, yet (as evidenced on page 61) he approaches an understanding of presence from the point of view of St. Thomas' analysis of causality, thus immediately classifying and delimiting the basic reality of presence. Rahner, on the other hand, grounds his whole treatment on the notion of divine presence in human history, and allows this notion to re-evaluate the ordinary causal analysis of the Church's life and Sacramental expression . To this extent it would seem that there is greater amplitude in Rahner's treatment, greater possibility of opening up new avenues of insight. Pointing to the difference of approach is not intended to indicate the superiority of either contribution but rather to highlight a tension which exists and must always exist in really creative theological endeavor. For this very reason the simultaneous appearance of these two first-rate examples of theological thought marks a major contribution to our present day development of theology. BERNARD CooKE, S. J. Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin Greek Myths and Christian Mysteries. By HuGO RAHNER. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Pp. xxii + 399. $10.00. It was surely not outside the intention of the author of this fascinating work to contribute to a subsidiary, yet radical, debate going on among Christian scholars on the subject of the tension between hebraic and hellenic modes of thought, of the roles they have played in the formulation of Christian doctrine and Christian culture, of their usefulness in the contemporary renewal of the Catholic Church. Champions of the hebraic modes of thought disdainfully dismiss the hellenic modes by reducing them to Plato, and even then, to the weaknesses of his thought, as though the Christian Fathers had been completely unaware of these. Is it with these men in mind that Fr. Rahner writes: "The eighteenth century was guilty of a disastrous misunderstanding of the nature of Greek piety when it projected its own ' enlightenment ' into the Greek soul. Such illuminati, for whom every kind of mysticism, everything that is dark and sinful, everything that expresses a yearning for redemption , is ' an alien drop in Greek blood,' are even today not wholly out of supply. Yet if they were right how could we explain the hidden longing in myth and mystery? How could we even grasp the secret meanings behind the Odyssey? " (p. xx). BOOK REVIEWS 255 Indirectly, Fr. Rahner pays tribute also to the role of the rational elements in Greek thought in the formation of Christian doctrine and culture , when he stresses the point that the Church freely employed the Greek myths and mysteries only after she was in firm possession of her own teaching. It was the reflective and rational modes of Greek thought that were used by her to come into this possession. (Coincidentally, Lucien Legrand, in an article entitled: "Creation as a Cosmic Victory of Yahweh," digested in Theology Digest, XI, 3, 154-158, makes the same point in regard to the freer use of mythical elements in the later books of the 0. T. These were the books that also betray the influence of hellenic modes of thought.) Fr. Rahner's direct concern is with the religious modes of Greek thought and the rich part they played in the expression of Christian thought. He expresses it so finely and so pointedly for our day: " What is here contained is a gift to that living round-table, made up of men who believe that our Western civilization has broken down only in order that it may be born anew, to the Eranos of those who dimly perceive the truth, as did Plato in his immortal seventh letter, and can behold the kingdom of eternity through the ruins. These are the men who know the comforting law of the spirit, that the demon in man is only permitted to tear down so that the angel in man with faltering hand may trace out the sources of new life. Palaces only collapse so that treasures may be...

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