Jean Danielou's 'Philo of Alexandria' illuminates the life and work of a key figure in the history of religious thought. Philo of Alexandria was a first-century Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who was born into a wealthy and prominent family in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Educated in both Jewish culture and Greek philosophy, Philo believed that literal interpretations of the Hebrew Bible would distort the Jewish people's perceptions of a God too complex to be understood in literal, human terms. He became one of the first religious thinkers to initiate a strong allegorical reading of Scripture. Jean Danielou places Philo's writing in context, detailing the remarkable events of the philosopher's life, including a diplomatic mission to present himself before the Roman Emperor Caligula on behalf of the persecuted Jews of Alexandria. James Colbert's English translation provides a highly accessible introduction to this important figure, a pioneer of biblical commentary whose work has had a lasting influence on Christian theology. It is essential reading for those interested in patristics, exegesis, or the history of religious and philosophical thought.

Pere Danielou speaks about the relationship between the first Christian community and the Jewish society of this community. The studies of this subject were reanimated by the discovery of the Dead Sea-scrolIs and the gnostic scripts in Nag' Hammadi which throw light on a heterodox Christianity strongly influenced by Jewish institutions. Therefore the sub ject of this lecture is the specific type of Christianity fashioned by J ewish culture. The members of the Christian Community were obliged to observe Jewish customs with a strictness depending upon the intensity of the conflict between Israel and the Roman Empire up to the crisis in the year 70. This would seem to confirm the theory that St. Paul had to fight against a mighty Judaic Christianity his whole life long and that his victory was only a late victory. There were different currents within the Judaic Christianity as Judaism at the time of the beginning of Christianity was highly complex and many sided, currents starting hom a central orthodox Judaism and ranging to more and more developing side currents. One of these currents appears to be very dosely related to the society we learn about in the Qumran scripts and leads us nearer to the question as to the origin of a certain type of asceticism found to be distinctly marked in early Christianity."

To a deplorable extent, Christians accept Church rituals as sacred but baffling heirlooms from the Church's past. It is to remedy this situation that Father Danielou has written this book. The Bible and the Liturgy illuminates, better than has ever before been done, the vital and meaningful bond between Bible and liturgy. Father Danielou aims at bringing clearly before his reader's minds the fact that the Church's liturgical rites and feasts are intended, not only to transmit the grace of the sacraments, but to instruct the faithful in their meaning as well as the meaning of the whole Christian life. It is through the sacraments in their role as signs that we learn. So that their value will be appreciated, Danielou attempts to help us rediscover the significance of these rites so that the sacraments may once again be thought of as the prolongation of the great works of God in the Old Testament and the New.