Who Is Jesus of Nazareth? ed. by E. Schillebeeckx, O. P. and B. Willems, O. P., Christ the Center by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jesus Christ by Yves Congar, O. P., Teilhard De Chardin and the Mystery of Christ by C. F. Mooney, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Who Is Jesus of Nazareth? Volume Eleven of Concilium. Edited by E. Schillebeeckx, 0. P. and B. Willems, 0. P. New York, Paulist Press, 1966. Pp. 168. $4.50. Christ the Center. By DIETRICH BoNHOEFFER. New York, Harper & Row, 1966. Pp. 125. $8.00. Jesus Christ. By YvEs CoNGAR, 0. P: New York, Herder &Herder, 1966. Pp. 228. $4.95. Teilhard De Chardin and the Mystery of Christ. By C. F. MooNEY, S. J. New York, Harper & Row, 1966. Pp. 287. $6.00. Jesus of Nazareth is unique. Yet each age interprets him according to its need and its understanding of itself. Bonhoeffer, Congar, and Teilhard are theologians who reflect the emphases of three such interpretations in our own day. Each theologian speaks of Christ. All three are concerned with the same realities and problems in the contemporary world; and all three stress the mission rather than the ontology of Christ. But each theologian brings to his understanding of Christ his own focus, his own paint and brushes. Although many of their considerations overlap, they still emphasize in a unique way some aspect of Christ. Bonhoeffer's reflections lead him to a human and compassionate Christ, a present Jesus working pro me and forming an ecclesial community among needy men in the world. In a straightforward presentation of Christ as the Word, the Church, and the World, Bonhoeffer manages to emphasize his own view of Jesus as lending a sacredness to every individual in the world. Christ is at the center of every activity of man. Congar turns in his meditations to Christ as eternal revealer of the Father and the concrete manifestation of the Father's love for me. In this richly scriptural and patristic view, the French Dominican friar emphasizes Christ in His Church as the link between God and man. In this way, the Church receives special attention, as we would suspect, for Congar has worked untiringly in the area of ecclesiology for many years. Christ is for him at the center of every activity of the Church. Finally, Teilhard envisions Christ as force of unity in the cosmos. Fr. Mooney has masterfully collected this sweeping vision out of the disparate references to it in Teilhard's many works. Christ is the pressure of cosmic unfolding, the core of the rise of consciousness in the world. But he is also seen as the magnetic omega point drawing the whole universe into its convergent unity. Because of Christ, the world does not end " with a BOOK REVIEWS whimper " but with a " bang," a bang of resurrection. Hence, for Teilhard, Christ is at the center of the cosmos. If we were to oversimplify, we might say that Bonhoeffer's Christ is a human one, Cougar's an ecclesial one, and Teilhard's a cosmic one. I Before examining these three Christologies in greater detail, let us first turn to the Concilium volume. In this volume we are presented with an accurate report of the present state of Christological thinking in Catholic theology. Teilhard felt during his lifetime that Christology had ossified. In his opinion, this ossification was due mostly to the static view of the universe in which it was nurtured. But lately, and particularly since the recent war, there has been a great resurgence of studies on the mystery of Christ. Several factors have contributed to this renewal. Among these factors are the debates on the historical Christ, the deep penetration into the meaning of liturgical and sacramental actions, renewal of ecclesiological studies, the rise of existentialism, the introduction of the phenomenological method, and of course, the war itself. However, of all these influences, perhaps the greatest is that of the scriptural research during the past seventy years. The Concilium issue is devoted to this scriptural resurgence and endeavors to bridge the dangerous gap between what Cougar calls "the double truth "-the dogma of recent centuries and the new scriptural findings about Jesus of Nazareth. After all, the most sensitive nerve of any theology is its answer to Our Lord's question: " Who do you say I am? " Do recent findings in the biblical accounts of Christ and in science alter our answer in any way? The answer is...