Franciscan Studies

BOOK REVIEWS The Gospel of Jesus Christ. By Père M. J. Lagrange, O.P. Translated by Members of the English Dominican Province. Westminster, Md.: Newman Bookshop. Vol. I, xvii, 320. Vol II, viii, 350. $7.50 the set. This work was first published in France about twenty years ago. About ten years ago the present excellent English translation, made by Members of the English Dominican Province, under the direction principally of the late Father Luke Walker, O.P. and Father Reginald Ginns, O.P., was published by Burns, Oates and Washbourne. The Newman Bookshop has done a valuable service to the cause of New Testament study in reprinting this excellent work in the United States. Perhaps the best testimony to the worth of Père Lagrange's "life" of Christ is the fact that thirty five thousand copies have been printed in France, where the book continues to have a steady sale. The author's reason for writing yet another life of Christ, when already so many valuable lives of Christ are available, is that "the gospel is unfathomable , and can too much be ever written about Our Lord Jesus Christ . . .?" This work, however, does not follow the usual pattern. Our sources of information are inadequate as the basis for a "life" or "biography" in the modern sense. They leave so much unsaid that we expect to find in a complete biography. They do not even tell us the day and the week, the month and the year of Our Lord's birth. They give us not even a hint, much less a description of His personal appearance. How He dressed, what He ate, matters which so intrigue many present day minds in reference to their "heroes," were details which were without significance for the evangelists who had such tremendously significant things to tell us about Jesus Christ, and who did not believe in wasting words in so doing. But the Gospels are our only authentic source of information, and, as Père Lagrange remarks, "such is their value as a reflection of Jesus' life and teaching, such their sincerity and beauty, that in the presence of their inspired words one despairs of any other attempt to reproduce the life of Christ. The Gospels themselves are the only life of Christ that can be written. Nothing remains for us but to understand them as well as we can." Accordingly Père Lagrange's "life" is a running commentary on the Gospels , with the events and discourses arranged in chronological order, as he conceived that order. Before writing this work, the author spent the best part of his life in studying the Gospels, and then composing exhaustive and very learned commentaries on each of them, together with lengthy and very erudite defenses of their genuineness and trustworthiness as historical documents . After that he put together a "Synopsis," that is, the arrangement of the text of the four Gospels in parallel columns, and in chronological order, each episode or discourse being set off by captions and numbered. This 508 BOOK REVIEWS509 Synopsis, which appeared originally in Greek and then in French has been published in English under the editorship of Monsignor J. M. T. Barton. In "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" each section carries the number corresponding to the number in the Synopsis containing the text or texts under discussion. The way then to read this work with the greatest profit and understanding is to have the Synopsis at hand, read the text of each section, and then read the commentary of Père Lagrange. Those who follow this method are bound to arrive at a fuller understanding of the Gospels and of Jesus Christ, His work and His teachings by word and example. In fact this is the only way to come to know Christ according to St. Jerome, who said, "Not to know the Gospels, is not to know Jesus Christ." This book was written not for the specialist, but for the ordinary, educated laity. Accordingly there are no lengthy, erudite discussions on disputed points; no quotations in Greek, Latin or Hebrew, and no weighty and confusing footnotes. The author simply refers those who wish such things to his...