Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES Unless They Be Sent. By AuGUSTINE RocK, 0. P. Dubuque: Wm. C Brown Co., J.953. Pp. 214 with index. $3.50. This very valuable contribution is not concerned directly with the art of preaching but with an analysis of the theology of the preaching office. The author states this in the preface and indicates that he relies mainly on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure and St. Albert the Great. This is a wise selection of authorities since these giants were not only experts in Scripture, Patrology and Theology but also skilled as teachers and preachers. That fact gives them a power of discrimination and practicality which the author is quick to grasp and to put at the service of the reader. The Introduction to this volume correlates preaching with teaching, prophecy, miracles and the active and contemplative life. Subsequent chapters analyze the work of preaching from the viewpoints of the four causes. Each chapter is a gem of completeness and accuracy from the historical angle. The notes to each chapter are pertinent and authoritative. There is a splendid index and the bibliography is a real contribution. It is difficult to select from the wealth of material in this volume that which is most important. The basic content of preaching does not change since it is the word of God. The method of presentation is bound to change because of many factors that even the great Patristic and medieval theologians and preachers emphasize. New problems of thought and action arise and must be met. New forms of unbelief have to be answered. New developments in learning have to be used. Changing levels of religious, political and social life have to be considered. The writer does well in showing how his selected authorities among the saintly preachers were aware of the need of integrating these static and dynamic elements of successful preaching. This is a real service to the achievement of a more efficient Catholic pulpit today. Equally commanding in the selection of material by Dr. Rock is the evidence from the Fathers of the need of both piety and learning in the preacher. This, too, is inspirational for the creation of good preaching today. St. Thomas, especially, emphasizes the need of these endowments in the preacher and both the history of heresy and the history of preaching reveal the fatality of failure to integrate both of these. Incidental ·to this fact is the emphasis which these great preaching theologians placed on aii appeal to both the intellects and the God-given emotions of audiences. This volume is wise in giving their testimony on this truth so needed in pulpits guidance. 592 BRIEF NOTICES 598 This scholarly volume is not intended to serve as a text in either the field of homiletics or the field of preaching. As a theological and historical background for these areas Unless They Be Sent is indispensable and Dr. Rock has made us his debtors. The Metaphysical and Psychological Principles of Love. By MICHAEL J. FARAON, 0. P. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown Co., 195~. Pp. 113. $3.00. The Wisdom of Love. By RAYMOND R. McGINNIS. Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1951. Pp. 161. The background for Fr. Faraon's presentation of the Thomistic doctrine on love is the importance of this subject in existentialist philosophy. The author realizes the anti-intellectualist outlook of existentialism, and stresses the importance for these modern philosophers of the affective states and of love, not only in themselves and in the phenomenological description and analysis of them, but especially in their epistemological aspect as sources for the knowledge of the real world. The discussion of the nature of love, then, is not a mere historical study; it must not be the unproductive analysis of a medieval doctrine without value for the solution of problems confronting philosophers to-day; rather, the metaphysical and psychological study of the Thomistic teaching on love is seen to be capable of making a valuable contribution to modern philosophical problems and research. With this in mind Fr. Faraon sets out to give a summary of the Thomistic doctrine on this matter. He first discusses the metaphysical background on which a profitable discussion...