Isaac and Oedipus. A Study in Biblical Psychology of the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Akedah: By Erich Wellisch. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954. Pp. 131. 15 s.)

The author, who is well equipped with historical and biblical material, stipulates infanticide as the primal crime of humanity, of greater importance and of more historical significance than either parricide or fratricide. (This view has also been recently expressed by psycho-analytic writers, who have, however, not confined their attention to the crime of the father against the son.) He then proceeds to discuss the Oedipus myth in the light of his re-evaluation of the primal crime of humanity. He concludes that ideas about oedipal guilt feelings and unconscious conflicts should be replaced by the concept of 'moral masochism'. (Glover, 1949.)

Finally, the author turns to the biblical story of the 'Akedah', the binding of Isaac for sacrifice. He suggests that a change of heart in Abraham followed the binding of his son, which led to 'the creation of new heavens and a new earth'. Thus he looks on Isaac as the precursor of Christ, and upon Abraham's internal change from aggression to love as the birth of a new religion. A new phase in the evolution of civilization is, therefore, reached at the moment when the child is spared and the animal sacrificed instead.

Consequently, the author feels that the story of Isaac and Abraham is a more successful resolution of the problem posed in the full story of Oedipus, and is, therefore, of greater use as an analogy in clinical work.

Most psycho-analysts and anthropologists would agree with the stress the author lays on the importance of this step in the process of development of both civilizations and individuals. Analysts, however, would probably express it differently by saying that a new phase of human civilization is reached when the father turns from identification with the aggressor (God's voice commanding the slaughter of Isaac) to identification with the victim (the divine voice commanding him to spare the child).

A very fine selection of illustrations accompanies the book. We learn with much regret that the author di