functioning as a kind of limit to the purication of

dispositions the prophets called for. Isaacs sacrice

he is effectively both priest and victim becomes a
pregurement of the messiah who would deliver the
limit or ultimate in response, the return of the gift of
God (life) that is in some sense appropriate or
adequate - which thereby becomes the acceptable
sacrice and source for the effectiveness of all other
sacrices, past and future. This expanded sacrice of
Isaac lls out the suffering servant and replaces the
Passover as the central act of Judaisms response
and thereby of human response to Gods self-
offering, carried out on what became the Temple
mount, and the ground of acceptability for all other
Temple sacrices. Thus what seems new or strange to
us about the gospels was familiar to Jews of the time.
Christ-following Jews identied Jesus with the pre-
existent, eternal Word of God who is simultaneously
the anticipated human Isaac whose response to God
is so complete that it cannot be eclipsed or super-
seded; this is the basis for the urgent, uncompromis-
ing and denitive signicance announced about him
in the gospels.
Daly extends and strengthens these conclusions
by appropriating Rene Girards insight that all
humans begin life locked in mimetic rivalry. Both
microscopically and macroscopically that is,
individually and politically this threat is typically
resolved by turning these heightened emotions
violently against an outsider who is different, and
thus easier to blame for the tension. The other
becomes the scapegoat, whose death returns us to
social order; this is the origin of sacrice. The
Isaac-Jesus gure voluntarily undergoes such
destruction to expose the lie the innocence of the
victim on which the mechanism is based. This
robs it of its effectiveness, and starts humanity on
its second adventure (it was sacrice that made us
human, if in a Hobbesian or fallen sense) that of
substituting Christian sacrice (or anti-sacrice)
as a kind of methadone to maintain order in society
without falling back to the opium of scapegoating.
We are inveterate mimetic creatures whereby we
appropriate and mirror the desires of those around
us; we are now called by the gospels to substitute
the desires of Jesus for the ubiquitous desires
of appropriative materialism that threaten to destroy
us.
Heythrop College Patrick Madigan
Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist. By Matthew W. Levering. Pp. x, 210,
Illuminations: Theory and Religion. Malden MA, Blackwell, 2005, $90.00.
This book seeks to expound a theology of the
Eucharist conscious of the roots of Christian worship
in the cult of ancient Judaism, and in continuing
dialogue with Judaism. The scope of the work, and its
objectives, are admirable, and there can be no doubt
that it will prove informative, particularly within the
strand of Roman Catholic thought from which it
emerges. There are, however, some aspects of the
treatment which will be problematic for readers who
do not share the theological orientation and are more
critical in their reconstruction of Christian origins
and of second temple Judaism. The discussion of the
Jewish sacricial cult depends more upon the work of
contemporary Jewish theologians than of critical
scholarship, Jewish and Christian, of second temple
Judaism. There is, similarly, too little attention to the
evolution of the Christian Eucharist, and this too is
somewhat selective. Consequently very limited ap-
preciation is shown of the complexity of Jewish
sacricial worship and the range of cultic motifs in
Judaism for the early Church to reinterpret in its own
ritual life. While the eirenic approach to Judaism is
commendable, the manner in which it is pursued
means that the riches of that tradition, and their
appropriation and reinterpretation in early Chris-
tianity, are not appreciated. The Aqedah tradition is
almost certainly attributed too much formative
inuence on early Christian eucharistic theology,
while the historical sacrices of the Jerusalem temple,
are virtually ignored. Conversely, the author is
unduly dismissive of the contribution both to
historical scholarship and to contemporary euchar-
istic theology of De Lubac, with whom he appears to
be familiar only through a secondary source. The
notion, crucial, one would have thought, to the title,
of the Church as the Body of Christ is disregarded in
favour of a eucharistic theology focussed exclusively
on transubstantiation. While engaging with theolo-
gians of other traditions, particularly the (Russian)
Orthodox, the theology expounded is essentially
Thomist, articulated in contemporary philosophical
categories. In places, particularly towards the end,
Levering points to the crucial (pun intended) issue of
how the worship of God relates to the corporate life
of Christian communities. It would have been
invaluable to see his insights expounded further.
There can be no doubt that this book will be much
appreciated within the theological tradition in which
it was written, and more widely by theologians
concerned with relating an inherited tradition of
Christian worship and doctrine with contemporary
philosophical and theological debates. But there is,
inevitably, a great deal more in the Christian
Eucharist, as well as the Jewish sacricial tradition,
which remains to be drawn into theological discourse
in the modern world.
University of Zululand N. H. Taylor
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