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BOOK REVIEWS 135 definition-grace is a quality of the soul-although this statement is not intended as a definition but only as a generic notion, as one author explicitly notes (Van Noort, De Gratia Christi, p. 145). He chides these authors for affirming a position with no attempt to explain how the statement is verified; yet in the application of his own views to the grace of Baptism and the Eucharist he attempts no solution of the problems advanced but merely indicates the need for further theological research. The uneven and sometimes difficult style provides another obstacle. The sentence structure can be quite involved: a ninety-eight word sentence can be difficult to follow. A provocative book in the questions that it raises and the insights that it provides; and in another sense, in the questions that it glosses over and the positions which it oversimplifies. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. 0. RoBERT J. HENNESSEY, 0. P. Hamann's Socratic Memorabilia. A Translation and Commentary by JAMES C. O'FLAHERTY. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. Pp. ~~9. $7.50. Some of the more outstanding individuals influenced by Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788), religious thinker of the Age of Goethe, were Herder, Goethe, F. H. Jacobi, Jean Paul Richter, Soren Kierkegaard, and Ernst JUnger. In terms of literary movements his influence has been noted in cultural development from the Sturm und Drang, through the romanticism and religious revival of the eighteenth century, to expressionism, existentialism , and dialectical theology of the twentieth. Yet it was not until the middle of this century that a German scholar, Josef Nadler, published a definitive edition of Hamann's collected works. In the last three decades, however, an increasing number of journal articles and other types of studies suggests a trend that might be considered the beginning of a " Hamann renaissance." The present volume attempts to fill a genuine need, since no translation of the entire Socratic Memorabilia has previously appeared in English or in any other language. Professor O'Flaherty has divided, his study into two parts. Part I is an analysis of the concept of form in the Socratic Memorabilia; Part II consists of an annotated translation of the work with the German text on facing pages. The author approaches the essay through the study of literary form, because he believes that content and form are so fused in Hamann's writings that such a method will be useful to shed light in a 136 BOOK REVIEWS special way on the work and to provide the basis for an analysis of its philosophical and theological implications. The genesis of the essay is 1raced to Hamann's conversion to an evangelical version of Christianity in London in 1758 and to the later unsuccessful attempt of two friends to persuade him to renounce his new faith. One of the friends was to become the celebrated philosopher Emmanuel Kant; the other was an ardent rationalist, Johann Christoph Berens. The Socratic Memorabilia was an answer to the friendly remonstrations of Kant and Berens and a clear rejection of the Enlightenment version of Socrates as a rationalistic hero. Hamann presents the sage as a forerunner of Christ and to some extent of the Christian believer. Professor O'Flaherty points out that Hamann, finding it impossible to speak directly of the Christian message in an age of rationalism, attempts to interpret Socrates within the Christian frame of reference. One of the most original features of the discussion of form is an analysis of the intrinsic dramatic qualities of Hamann's little work in Chapter 4 of Part I. Here as elsewhere the translator and commentator reveals considerable breadth and depth of scholarship. The analysis of Part I and the translator's notes contribute immeasurably to a reader's total comprehension of the content of the Memorabilia. The appendix contains a tabulation of typological themes, biblical references , and a graphic representation of the essential unity of the work. An extensive bibliography is followed by a very serviceable index. In the present volume Professor O'Flaherty makes accessible to a wide circle of readers a classic of the Age of Goethe which should merit the interest of philosophers as well...

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