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The immense influence that Christianity has exercised over a large portion of civilised humanity for a period of nearly 2, 000 years must make any serious study of the founder of Christianity from the psychological point of view worthy of profound attention on the part of the psycho-analyst. The discoveries of Psycho-Analysis on their part seem to call imperiously for application not only to the religious consciousness of the individual worshipper (an application which has to some extent already been made—or at least begun) but also to the personalities of those religious heroes or geniuses who have profoundly modified the nature and course of the religious consciousness of mankind. Dr. Berguer is to be congratulated therefore in his courageous attempt to apply the results of his obviously extensive studies in psychology and comparative theology to the person of Christ himself.
The book is divided into two parts, the first of which consists of an extensive introduction of over 100 pages devoted to the methods of theology, psychology and psycho-analysis, to the relations between Christianity and the religious mysteries of antiquity, to the nature and documentary value of the historical material bearing on the life of Christ and to the arguments of those who have denied Christ's real existence.
In the course of this introduction, Dr. Berguer admits that the documentary evidence available is insufficient for the formation of a satisfactory historical life of Christ, and insists that it is all the more important to shift the emphasis from the historical to the psychological point of view, to understand the personality of Christ as depicted in the accounts we possess, the effect he made by his teaching and example, and the mentality of the persons through whose agency our knowledge of Christ is obtained. With this insistence on the psychological as distinct from the theological or historical point of view every