In the light of what has been said in the first part of this article, it may be useful to examine briefly the text of Matt. 16, 17-19. It is remarkable that most of the interesting exegesis of this passage has been the work of Protestant scholars, notably O. Cullmann in his Peter: Apostle and Martyr, and also J. Ringger, ‘Das Felsenwort. Zur Sinndeutung von Matt. 16, 18, vor allem im Lichte der Symbol- geschichte’ in Roesle-Cullmann, Begegnung der Christen, 1959, together with numerous articles on key-concepts by J. Jeremias now available in English in the translation of Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. As to the propriety of looking at these verses in isolation, we may quote the remark of the Catholic exegete, W. Trilling (Das wahre Israel, 3rd ed., 1964): ‘This language, dense with imagery, of a kind also found in the Qumran writings, is in itself foreign to Matthew’ (p. 156). It may be that within the perspective of a modern jurisdictional theology of the primacy, the symbolic sense of the text was not easily accessible to Catholic scholars before Protestant exegetes opened the way to an understanding of it in some respects closer to patristic exegesis.

In summary, then, the whole passage is an instance of anticipated eschatology, in which the Messiah invests an individual with his own messianic powers over the messianic community.

v. 17. In response to his messianic confession, Simon is greeted with a ‘beatitude’ or ‘macarism’, for in him the eschatological event of the last times has been anticipated by ‘apocalypse’.

The debate over Humanae Vitae reminds one strongly of the controversy—now much less pronounced than it was—over the nature of the ethic of Jesus. I want to suggest how an answer which emerged in that controversy may have a bearing on the present discussion among Catholics.

The Sermon on the Mount has been interpreted in three main ways—as an utterly transcendental ethic, as an interim-ethic, and as an ethic realizable in terms of this present world. Broadly speaking, the first and third of these alternatives received most support and they have their counterparts in the present debate. The transcendental view commanded great respect; the ethic of Jesus was absolute, it promulgated a new sort of law demanding a superhuman obedience. The opposite view argued that the ethic could not be attained, and we had much better wrest significance from such principles of justice, fair play, equality, etc., as we had and attempt a progressive improvement of humanity with these. In practice, this often corresponded with the third view about the nature of Christ’s teaching: Christian morality was about a human ideal, a vision of a better world after which we must all strive.

The most lucid critic of these positions was Reinhold Niebuhr, in a long line of books, notably Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) and An Interpretation of Christian Ethics in 1936. Niebuhr holds that the great mistake of most of the usual interpretations of the ethic of Jesus is their failure to realize the ‘true dialectic of the spiritual life’.

Theology and the Social Sciences need to have a close relationship for they are both concerned to say things about the nature of man and the values which govern his decisions. But what kind of exchange is possible—will it be a happy marriage, a shot-gun wedding or a straight take-over bid ? The purpose of this article is to suggest that both sides can be enriched by attending to what the other is saying. Since it is the work of one whose first training is in the theological field, it rather stresses the gains which are achieved by bringing human warmth of the behavioural sciences to the sometimes arid tracts of traditional dogmatics! It is vitally important that the connections should be made because it is the task of theologians always to seek to communicate the truths they hold within the context of the contemporary perceptions of truth. Not that they will always accept these uncritically. Sometimes upon examination the theologian will want to say, ‘This way of describing things so conflicts with all that I hold true that I cannot accept it.’ At other times he will be bound to say, ‘My reason tells me that your findings are valid, therefore they must modify my theological assertions’, or perhaps, I now see that what this theological assertion meant is different from the way in which I previously understood it.’ Such a process of re-thinking and testing-out is bound to produce a considerable amount of anxiety w'hile the period of ferment lasts.

This paper could well have been called Christianity and Materialism, but since it is concerned with arguing, from the Christian side, for a more materialistic interpretation of Christianity than is usual, the present title seems more appropriate. It is addressed, however, not merely to Christians but to all those who are interested in bringing together the values inherent in Communism and in Christianity, without detriment to either and to the enrichment of both.

Two things are to concern us. Firstly, how far it is possible (or indeed necessary) for a Christian to be a genuine materialist—even in some sense an atheist—without departing from traditional Christian belief in God; and secondly, how far it would be possible for a Marxist to believe in God, even to be a member of a Christian Church, without betraying his materialist philosophy and the political humanism to which he is committed. These questions could probably be dealt with more easily amongst either Christians or Marxists alone, but whilst much valuable progress is to be made in that way, it is also important that both sides should be able to discuss this matter together. To facilitate and further such dialogue is precisely the purpose of this contribution.

What I want to be able to show to Christians is how necessary it is for them, if they are to be true to Christ, to appreciate and absorb the value of an atheistic materialism such as that of Marx; and in doing this, to show to Marxists that Christians,

By the language of anthropology I mean Lévi-Strauss’s language of anthropology, and in particular, the language used by Lévi-Strauss in the three volumes of his Mythologiques which have appeared to date, LeCru et le Cuit (The Cooked and the Raw) 1964; Du Miel auxCendres (From Honey to Ashes) 1966; and L’Origine des Manures de Table (The Origin of Table-Manners) 1968. Since these three thick books have been produced with such amazing rapidity, and since they are little known here in England as yet, and since they represent a radical new departure in anthropological language, it seems useful to make a preliminary estimate of their contents and probable significance.

Lévi-Strauss’s ‘debts’ to structural linguistics, especially that of Jakobson and the Prague School, have been enormously overestimated. The time has come to suggest another view of things, to suggest in what ways the language of anthropology’ as used by Lévi-Strauss is not tied down by an unrelenting linguistic method, is not co-extensive wdth present tendencies in the linguistics of, say, Chomsky. Lévi-Strauss’s language of anthropology is a breakthrough entirely sui generis whose importance is certainly underestimated if it is compared to current linguistic models.

For Lévi-Strauss regards structural analysis as the discovery of a language which is inherent in the materials he studies, not imposed upon them from above by reference to some artificial linguistic schematism. In fact, even by 1952, when he and Jakobson and others met at Bloomington, Indiana, at a Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists, Lévi-Strauss had already found the methods of Jakobson insufficient and partly irrelevant to the work he wanted to do himself.