One of the most remarkable features of the Church’s life today is its persistent and widespread effort to return to the springs of that life. In every domain—biblical, liturgical, catechetical—there is a desire to rediscover the sources in their freshness, to re-animate the Church with the primitive vitality, and power which enabled it to reach out all over the world. So far as biblical studies go, this effort finds one concrete expression in archaeological and anthopological research into the history of the Jewish people. The object of this research, as Fr Joseph Bourke, o.p., suggested in his recent ‘Survey of Old Testament Studies’ in this review, is to reconstruct the ‘living context’ in which the Old Testament traditions were originally formulated.

It is remarkable to find that this concern for the revival of the past also exists in the African continent. Anthopologists in Africa are more and more interested in the study of African culture, and particularly African religion and ritual, not in order to reject them but to re-discover virgin Africa. Seized by the passion for négritude, this movement to renew negro-African culture, occurs just at the moment when Africa is opening out into modern life, and seeks to advance but realizes it cannot do so without returning to the authentic roots of its history.