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Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 5 9Rémi Brague, On the God of the Christians (and on one or two others). Translatedby Paul Seaton. Notre Dame, IN: St. Augustine’s, 2013, 176 pp., $26.00(hardcover).G r e g ory A . McBr ay e rMorehead State Universityg.mcbrayer@moreheadstate.eduOn the God of the Christians (and on one or two others) is a deeply personalbook that relates the author’s considered thoughts on the attributes of theGod of the Christians; it is a work animated by a spirit of pious devotion. Thebook, written in 2008 and recently translated from the French, aims, aboveall, to “describe the image made of [God] by a certain religion (Christianity)”(xv). The heart of Brague’s exploration, as the title of the book clearlyannounces, is Christian: Quid est Deus, in Christianitate? What is God inChristianity? Anyone interested in this question will undoubtedly find thisbook a rewarding read.Rémi Brague, a French intellectual whose influence extends across bothsides of the Atlantic, is a distinguished scholar with an enormous breadthof expertise, ranging from the ancient philosophy of Plato and Aristotle totwentieth-century philosophy. Among other things, he has traced the culturalgenealogy of Europe over this immense expanse of time, arguing that Romeplayed the central or definitive role in forming European culture by bringingtogether, more or less consciously, the two great roots of Western civilization:Athens and Jerusalem (the title of his book The Eccentric Culture: A Theoryof Western Civilization is literally translated as “Europe: the Roman road”).In Brague’s view, a synthesis between reason and revelation, between Athensand Jerusalem, is possible. As he says in another book, “It is possible that thetheological-political problem is a serious problem in appearance only” (The© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

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