This book is a perfect match for the series in which it is published. It contains, in equal measure, chapters on ancient Greek philosophy and early Christian theology which discuss the relationship between image, word and God. In fact the scope of the book is much broader than the ‘early Christian centuries’ indicated by the title, and the amount of material presented in the narrowest of spaces is often stupendous. Setting out from the Old (pp. 1–22) and New (pp. 23–40) Testaments Edwards goes on to discuss the topic in ‘Classical Greek philosophy’ (pp. 41–59) and in ‘Philosophy and Sophists in the early Roman era’ (pp. 61–77). Chapters on ‘Image, text and incarnation’ in the second (pp. 79–96) and third (pp. 97–116) centuries follow. Then comes a chapter on ‘Neoplatonism and the arts’ (pp. 117–34), before ‘Image, text and incarnation’ are discussed in the context of the fourth century (pp. 135–52). The book concludes with chapters on ‘Myth and text in Proclus’ (153–70) and on ‘The Christianity of Christian Platonism’ (pp. 171–88). A brief concluding section (pp. 189–92) is followed by a bibliography and index.

In more than one way this book is a tour de force. Its scope is vast, it deals with some of the most profound and complex questions, and it does so in intricate detail, limited space, and sometimes very demanding language. For example, a section on ‘Myth and imagery in Plutarch’, very clear in its thinking and comprehensive in its learning, fits on not quite four pages (pp. 74–7) – in an ‘epilogue’ to the chapter on ‘Philosophy and Sophists in the early Roman era’. In a similar manner Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria are given less than two pages each (pp. 97–100), to make space for Origen, whose ‘Principles of exegesis’ in turn are summarised on a mere three pages (pp. 100–3). Yet these three pages provide a comprehensive overview of how Origen applied techniques developed by Homeric scholars of the Hellenistic period to an exegesis of the whole Bible in Greek, Old and New Testament. Origen, Edwards explains, was able to build on preliminary work by the Jewish exegete and philosopher Philo of Alexandria some generations earlier and to some extent also on the work of his Christian predecessor Clement of Alexandria. Origen himself admits that he was introduced to the art of biblical interpretation by a ‘Hebrew’, probably a Jewish convert to Christianity. But the way in which he then developed this tradition exceeded anything that had been achieved before him, or has arguably been achieved since. In comparison with Origen, Edwards writes in his inimitable style (p. 101), ‘Philo is seldom so industrious, and rabbinic methods strike the Christian reader as aleatory by comparison. Neither Jew nor pagan’, he continues, ‘could have followed [Origen], of course, in his appeal to the work of Christ … as a … key to the histories and prophecies of the New Testament.’ Edwards concedes that from the perspective of modern biblical exegesis this principle of sensus plenus (i.e. Christ as the ultimate meaning of everything written in the Bible) is almost impossible to accept. But even ancient readers criticised Origen for impoverishing the ‘plain sense’ of the Scriptures. However Edwards is keen not to leave it at that but to explain Origen's approach. We must develop a new sense of what ‘literal’ means, he paraphrases Origen. The literal word is the one which speaks to us directly, most immediately. In this perception the author, the sign and the signified, saying and being, text and world, are one (p. 102). The eternal word is present in an earthly body. As a consequence, this body, and all its functions, have a spiritual dimension. Origen can speak of spiritual senses and of a spiritual resurrection body, which assumes or absorbs the earthly body, but does not destroy or replace it (p. 103). This is how Origen understood the relationship between history and allegory. The latter speaks of the reality which is lived in the former. The distinction between allegory and typology is therefore alien to Origen. The key to the understanding of Scripture, its rationale, its intellect, lies within it. This is the famous principle of interpreting Scripture from Scripture. In that respect Scripture is like the Universe, like Nature, and biblical exegesis is a science, analogous to natural science. Only God is beyond this reality. But ‘all knowledge of God is mediated by Christ, and hence … only a Christ-shaped key will unlock the scriptures’ (p. 106). For Origen, who differs in this respect from Irenaeus, it is ‘in his character as Word that Christ is the image of the Father’ and ‘not in his embodiment’; for ‘the incarnation is a remedy for our trespasses’, not ‘the true abode of the likeness or the image’ (p. 112).

This is just one example of the intricate way in which Edwards pursues his topic, systematically penetrating, yet historically comprehensive and always working from the sources, though still with plenty of up-to-date references to secondary literature. Not least, twenty pages of bibliography bear ample witness to that. In conclusion, this book is a very mature work that draws together a lifetime of scholarship to formulate what might be called a comprehensive patristic theology of the image (cf. p. 192). No student of patristic theology, or indeed of any kind of theology, can afford to ignore this monumental effort. What Edwards has done is to present us with a historical and critical theological study of the fundamental interrelationship between image, word and God, or, to use his own words (as applied to Athanasius' thought), ‘the mutual interdependence of the rejection of idolatry, the adoration of Christ as the image of God and the doctrine that humanity is created in his image’ (ibid.). While keeping a close eye on the relevant patristic texts he has, however, also ‘undertaken a longer and more capacious narrative in the hope of showing that this theology cannot be divorced from the primacy of scripture’ (ibid.) and, one might add, the context of Greek intellectual history from the Classical age to late antiquity. In the present reviewer's opinion this undertaking has been blessed with great success.

The book contains some very few typographical errors, which sometimes distort the meaning or may puzzle the reader. A brief list of corrections follows: p. 2 line 7 should read: ‘a fixed and irreducible deposit’; p. 9 line 2: ‘God's most precious chattel’; p. 33, §2, line 2: ‘is plainly foretold’; p. 48, §3, line 2: ‘speeches’ (not ‘species’); p. 52 line 7 from below: ‘sophistes’; p. 74 line 7: ‘passage’; p. 102 line 9: ‘from truth to truth’; p. 151 line 2: ‘may become’.