Origen, the great Alexandrian theologian who died in A.D. 253, is a key figure in the Christian tradition of scriptural interpretation. Earlier this year a monumental book appeared on ‘the sources and significance of Origen's interpretation of scripture'. The author, Dr R. C. P. Hanson, D.D., a senior lecturer in theology at Nottingham University. Allegory and Event is a sequel to Origen's Doctrine of Tradition, which appeared five years ago.

It is a book full of excellent qualities; great erudition, vigorous style, acute judgments. Dr Hanson's over-all estimate of Origen as a ‘prosaic rationalist', a theologian who seriously undervalued the significance of the saving event (heilsgeschichte) in Christian revelation, is probably to be preferred to the more favourable assessments of his thoughts made by the French Jesuits Frs de Lubac and Daniélou, who after Origen himself are the main targets of Dr Hanson's adverse criticisms.