Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/105

 BOOK REVIEWS gy

Dr. Berguer explicitly disclaims any attempt at exhaustive treatment. As it is, our review has perhaps brought into undue prominence certain fundamental criticisms that might be aimed at Dr. Berguer's attitude -without giving adequate recognition to the numerous interesting' ingenious and suggestive ideas with which the book abounds. Any book on such a subject is bound to be exposed to criticism— from one point of view or another— in an exceptional degree. Whatever may be our personal tendencies as regards the questions at issue, it may be said widiout fear of contradiction that the book desen'es careful study by all students of religious psychology, and that it affords encouraging evidence of the way in which psychology (and paiticularly psycho- analysis) can infuse new life into a subject which— from the theological and historical points of view— appeared to have been well nigh ex- hausted. J C F

Die Herkunft Jesu. Im Lichte freier Forschung. By Dr. Emil Jung, Innsbruck. (Ernst Eeinhardt, Munich, 1920. Pp. 246.)

This exceedingly detailed and learned treatise' is an investigation of all the known historical sources relating to the birth of Jesus, con- taining also an inquiry into the Jewish laws and customs on the matter of adultery and divorce at that period. The author comes to the con- clusion that Jesus was an illegitimate son of Mary's, the father probably being a Roman soldier, and that Joseph knew of the state of affairs' Whether Ihis be true or not the book is certainly a valuable contri- bution to the httle knowledge we possess on this problem.

E.J.

MiTHRAiSM AND CHRiSTiANi-fv. A study in Comparative religion By L. Patterson, M.A., Vice-Principal of Chichester Theological College. (Cambridge University Press, 1921. Pp. 102. Price 6s)

This iittle volume appears to have been written with the two aimii of providing a simple and popular account of Mithraism and of demon- strating its inferiority to Christianity, both theologically and etiiically It provides no new facts about Mithraism and is evidently based in the main on the epoch-making studies of Cumont

There are two versions oJ the birth of Mithra, one that he pro- ceeded from an act of self-conception with the mother, the other that he was the product of incest between his fatiier and the latter's mother. The author comments that 'in neither case is this what we would call a virgin-birth ' and criticizes Jung's attempt to assimilate the myth to

7