As it stands now, the infancy narrative of the first gospel is the work of the Greek writer who perhaps translated and certainly expanded the original Aramaic gospel of the apostle Matthew. But equally certainly he did not invent the episodes which he has used to construct it; they come to him, perhaps already somewhat moulded or schematized, from the traditions of the earliest communities. His narrative falls into two parts, conicident with our two chapters; the first traces and proves the Davidic descent of Jesus, the true king of Israel; the second narrates his danger from the actual usurping king, Herod. Within the narrative in its final form, there are secondary themes; in the first part, the defence of the purity of Jesus’ mother, in the second, the homage paid to him by the Gentile world and its co-operation in preserving him.

In this article and the ones which follow we shall be looking in some detail at the system of sacraments which constitutes the framework of the Church. It will perhaps be remembered that in a previous article I said that certain things which are said metaphorically of the people of God in the Old Testament are said literally of Christ; and these same expressions—'first bom son of God', ‘priest of Yahweh', etc., are to be said sacramentally of the new people of God, the Church. The Church is Christ existing sacramentally in the world; existing, that is, in our hearts by means of the system of sacraments.

It is common to treat of each sacrament as fulfilling some particular spiritual need of a man or as corresponding to some phase of his natural life. In what follows we shall use a rather different method. We shall try to understand each sacrament by seeing what part it has to play iin the realisation of the Church.

Hebrew thought, and therefore the Hebrew way of speaking, is concrete and realist. Greek thought, which has influenced to some degree all our western civilization, is abstract, speculative, analytic. For example, by reflection and analysis Greek philosophy arrived at the notion of man composed of two elements—the one visible and material, the other invisible and spiritual; and for most of us it has become almost instinctive to speak of man as composed of ‘body and soul’, without realising that we are speaking in terms of Greek philosophy.

But the Hebrews took man as they found him—he is just a man, a single thing, a living being endowed with movement and intelligence and speech. of Course, they did distinguish different aspects of this single being, they could look at him from different points of view; but these different aspects were simply aspects of the same single whole— not separate parts which were really different things and only accidentally united.

It is a pleasure to welcome the appearance in English of a work of deep theological relevance. Dr von Rad's commentary was published in the German Protestant series, Das Alte Testament Deutsch, nearly a decade ago. Now that it is available in English, it is to be hoped that it will be widely read. If so, the result can only be a growth in our understanding of the developing relationship between man and his creator, who has revealed himself in scripture as the Lord of history. Let us be clear that this commentary on Genesis is not primarily aimed at the expert philologist or literary critic. Von Rad accepts the classical documentary theory in general, and he devotes a minimum of space in this book to discussing the sources of particular passages. In this he is at the other extrerne to Martin Noth in his commentary on Exodus in the same Series (scheduled to appear in English also in the Old Testament library), which is devoted very largely to source criticism.

The organisation now known as the Catholic People's Weeks was founded in 1945 by a small group of priests and laity and has the main aim of helping ordinary Catholics to appreciate their faith more keenly and to live deeper and fuller lives in their homes, parishes and places of work. The original, and eventual, aim is to provide residential Catholic colleges for further education. The immediate need met by these study weeks has proved to be considerable and the organisation, which has Cardinal Godfrey as its Patron, has expanded rapidly in the last few years.

Our first introduction to this association was when we joined its group going for Easter to Worth Priory. Despite the high standard of chant in a Benedictine church, we were not to be mere spectators, for with great charity we were encouraged by the monks to participate fully in the liturgy.