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150 BOOK REVIEWS as the action of God. To speak in allegory's defense with categories that the author himself develops, we might say that allegory too can reflect and be shaped by the weight of the divine realities and words it means to penetrate. My specific caution concerns the following remark: "The influence of Origenistic exegesis is most apparent in Hilary's first work, the Commentary on Matthew ..." (p. 392). Is this correct? The common wisdom on this work, after the studies of Jean Doignon, is that this is the one text of Hilary that reflects a pure and ancient Latin tradition of exegesis before Hilary's contact with the East. If this is correct, it alters the significance the author assigns to what he regards as a retreat from this kind of exegesis in Hilary's later work. This is something for the specialists to work out, but in any case what remains especially interesting in Hilary's exegesis is the meeting of two different traditions and not merely an "Origenist exegesis" that modifies itself. As a final word I would draw attention to the author's first word, his Introduction. This is elegantly written and should not be overlooked. It introduces the book well, but it also summarizes it. Here the contemporary relevance of the patristic hermeneutic is expressed most clearly. Hermeneutics must be a theological pursuit and it "cannot but be under the impact of the dynamic Word of the living God" (p. 13). Mount Angel Abbey and Semiruiry St. Benedict, Oregon Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo Rome JEREMY DRISCOLL, 0.S.B. Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis. By L. GREGORY JONES. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995. Pp. xix+ 313. $28.00 (cloth); $18.00 {paper). Forgiveness is a form of internalized ressemimem, and to crave forgiveness is to demonstrate the most abject kind of self-hatred. Or forgiveness means an ahistorical obliteration of the past: "forgive and forget." Or it means leaving victims exposed to the continued harms done to them by their oppressors, whom the victims have a "Christian duty" to forgive. Or forgiveness is at best an eschatological possibility-"eschatological" here meaning "in the sweet by-and-by"-with but limited relevance to the realities of life in a violent world. Consider these varied objections to the concept of forgiveness, and then consider the words prayed in Christian churches Sunday after Sunday: BOOK REVIEWS 151 "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." How do we understand God's forgiveness, how do we understand our own obligation to forgive, in light of such objections? Questions like these are at the heart of Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, by L. Gregory Jones, a United Methodist theologian who teaches at Loyola College in Baltimore. This book aims to fill a gap in contemporary theological ethics: there has not been a full-scale treatment of the subject in quite some time. Jones argues that whatever forgiveness means, it must not be used as a pious slogan to mask unpleasant truths about ourselves and the world we inhabit. In this sense the book seeks to offer a kind of critique of pure forgiveness, motivated precisely by the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth summons his followers to lives patterned on the forgiveness he embodied. The book is divided into three major parts. Part 1 is a ground-clearing exercise aimed at distinguishing authentic Christian forgiveness from false versions, and asserting that while forgiveness often seems helpless against evil it is not without its own peculiar power. Chapter 1, "Rejecting Cheap Grace," tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose vision of "costly grace" led him to situate concepts like conversion, repentance, and forgiveness in the concrete life of the communio sanctorum. Jones interprets Bonhoeffer's story as a twofold struggle: against the sheerly private conception of forgiveness found in middle-class Christianity, and against the despairing view that the Nazi evil had rendered the Church's gospel of forgiveness otiose. If we view the world as "too light," Jones tells us, forgiveness is trivialized; if we view it as "too dark," forgiveness is trumped. Much of the rest of the book is devoted to exploring and...

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