Laeuchli's Contribution to Christian Language

A SWISS-BORN graduate of the University of Basel, Samuel Laeuchli received his Th.D. from Union Theological Seminary, New York. He is presently professor of patristics at Garrett Theological Seminary. This is his first book, and comprises his contribution to the current debate about Christian language. It is an unusually able study. Laeuchli wishes to show that the church has been concerned with the question of appropriate language since its origins. Reflecting some of James Barr's suspicion over treating "words" as basic keys to theological comparisons (Semantics of Biblical Language, 1961), Laeuchli seems to provide a better alternative to such practice than does Barr by showing that the key to a system of thought is its "chain of pivotal words" (p. 16). In an effort to demonstrate his basic argument, the author first discusses "Gnostic language." While he is quite aware that the Gnostics employed many "biblical words," he nevertheless goes on to affirm that "Gnosticism speaks its own language" (p. 18). In this first chapter Laeuchli offers a penetrating and long-overdue analysis of the relationship of Gnostic language to its dominant concepts. Because of this section the book should take its place alongside other major treatments of Gnosticism, like those of Jonas and Schoeps. One questionable point of procedure should be pointed out. Because Gnosticism is so diverse in its individual expressions, Laeuchli chooses to define Gnostic language by distinguishing it from biblical speech (p. 19), rather than by studying systematically the diverse texts. To achieve this objective, he has to focus upon the main New Testament streams-Synoptic, Johannine, Pauline-to the neglect of others and to the neglect of the consideration that even within these there is an incipient Gnosticism. One wonders why he did not deem it appropriate to contrast Gnostic speech with the "orthodox" speech of the second century, such as he finds in Irenaeus. Laeuchli is to be commended, however, for his appreciation of the Gnostic attempt to solve the perennial problem of Christian communication, viz., "the conflict between the word of the Christ and the word about the Christ" (p. 19). While the desideratum of a sympathetic appraisal of the Gnostic "experience" remains, the words of the author, though not complimentary, are in the right direction: "All this [i.e., late Gnostic speculation] is utterly unchristian. But for all its eccentricity this syncretistic foolishness [sic!] is a poetic utterance of a new faith. It reveals life and courage. More than that, it reveals imagination and adventure" (p. 26). In a section on "The Creative Element in Gnostic Language," Laeuchli makes the point of the negative character of Gnostic theology, viz., "the pronouncement of God's essence in a dualistic world" (p. 23). The discussion would have been improved by showing the relation of this "application of the negative particle" (i.e. Greek alpha privative) to the same development in Ignatius (Eph. 7.2: "Unborn" and "impassible") and the orthodox creeds (Nicene: "not made"; Chalcedonian: "inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably"). In his exposition of the way in which the "God the Father" concept was altered in Gnosticism into a biological concept by the introduction of the * The Language of Faith: An Introduction to the Semantic Dilemma of the Early Church. By SAMUEL LAEUCHLI. New York-Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962. 269 pages. $5.50.