The oldest biblical view of man, that which is contained in the corpus put together towards the end of Solomon's reign or the early period of the divided monarchy, brings out with a concrete and satisfying amplitude of vision arid with compelling images a profound intuition into the ambiguous position which man holds in the hierarchy of nature, to which he certainly belongs but which he in part transcends; he is an animal, but he is also ‘just a little lower than the elohim.’ Yahweh God made him out of clay and breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life. He thus became a ‘living soul’ - nefesh hayyah. The word which is usually translated ‘soul’ seems to have been primitively connected with breathing, as also was ‘spirit’ - both words in Hebrew and cognate languages started off with the meaning ‘throat'.

The publication of both volumes of Miss Trevor's Life of Newman together with the first two volumes of the definitive edition of his diaries and letters edited by Fr Stephen Dessain has brought much thinking about Newman out into the open. Reviewing Miss Trevor’s book, the Observer found Newman ‘somewhat unappealing’, ‘ambiguous’, ‘hard to pin down’, and ‘self-pitying’; but the most startling judgment was made at the conclusion of the Times’ review: Newman, we were told, ‘was not a lasting force like Fox or Wesley … It was his deepest convictions that were most antipathetic to what may broadly be called the English genius’. Miss Trevor has herself been criticized for bringing in too much everyday detail about, for example, Newman’s troubles with Faber and Dalgairns, for avoiding much of that treatment of Newman's ideas which is the special feature of the previous and still invaluable Life by Ward, and for making it plain that she believes Newman to have been right and Wiseman, Manning, Faber and Co., wrong.

Everyone knows by now that the Church is in the midst of a great biblical and liturgical revival. It is certainly a wonderful movement with many wonderful results. But such an accomplishment cannot occur without a certain amount of controversy. The ‘extremists’ among the liturgical enthusiasts would like all devotions to be buried forever in oblivion. The ‘conservatives’ cling to the old order; many of them still want to live nineteenth-century piety with their ‘manuals of devotion’ and rosary beads at mass in a silent church where the mass itself is a private devotion. Of course, this is stating the case rather in the extreme, and a great deal has already been done by the liturgists themselves in recent years to clarify the meaning of liturgy, - which in the past has been associated with the idea of rite and exterior ceremonial.

Liturgy is still widely regarded in England as something connected either with archeology, rubrics, or monasteries. In Belgium, France and Germany, for several decades, the liturgy has been seen and used for what it is: the man-in-the-street's closest and most active contact with God. Historical research, used before the war often just to resuscitate defunct liturgical practices for the archaicist's delight, has shown why the liturgy is not, at present, as good a means of contact as it could be - that is, not pastoral enough. Theological consideration of it has not only brought before us the extraordinary depth, range and immediacy of this contact, but has also thrown into still clearer light the essentially pastoral function of the liturgy and indicated the general lines on which it must be made to fulfil this function more effectively.

Very few women can claim to have converted their husbands by being late with dinner but Biagia Ceretani, the wife of John Columbini, is one of them. John Columbini was born in Siena about 1304, and at the time of his marriage was a successful merchant. He was, it seems, intent only on increasing his worldly goods, ambitious, close-fisted and choleric. His biographers say that he gave way to bad temper without scruple though there is no evidence that he did anything more violent than ‘turn the air blue'.

One day he came home after a busy morning, tired and hungry, to an unlaid table and a meal half-prepared. Very naturally he ‘blew his top’ as the saying goes. Biagia, hoping to distract him, thrust a volume of saints’ lives upon him and more naturally still, her husband flung it on the floor.