Book Reviews : L'Opinion Publique. By GASTON BERGER and Others. (Paris: Presses Univer sitaires de France. 1957. Pp. 447. Francs 1,600.)

• Date: 01 September 1958
• Author: Henry W. Ehrmann
• Published date: 01 September 1958
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295801100329
• Subject Matter: Articles

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dimensions of anti-Semitic beliefs held by Christians. Among the many
paradoxes which weave through the history of anti-Semitism, the saddest,
says Berdyaev, is that &dquo;those who rejected the Cross have to carry it, while
those who welcomed it are so often engaged in crucifying others.&dquo; One
religious explanation he offers is that the Jews’ zealous monotheism seems to
condemn trinitarian views. Another is that the Jewish sense of social justice
seems an affront to many Christians. In the past it has been an affront to
other-worldly Christians who found Jewish preoccupation with worldly
virtue heretical, and an affront to this-worldly Christians who felt in Jewish
community spirit a judgment on their own failure to implement ethical
Christianity.
As for &dquo;solutions&dquo; of this perennial problem, Berdyaev offers none apart
from the continual possibility of spiritual regeneration. He does not remind
the reader that doctrines should not be allowed to blind us to the under-
lying human relationships involved. For, on the one hand, whatever doc-
trinal justifications may be contrived to justify anti-Semitism, &dquo;Anti-Semit-
ism is fatally sure to develop into anti-Christianity.&dquo; And, on the other
hand, he tells us, there are only two races in the world, &dquo;crucifiers and
crucified, oppressors and oppressed&dquo; and self-professed Christians and Jews
have been on both sides of this division.
LEE C. McCDONALD.
Pomona College.
L’Opinion Publique. By GASTON BERGER and Others. (Paris: Presses Univer-
sitaires de France. 1957. Pp. 447. Francs 1,600.)
The field of public opinion research has had a number of intellectual
godparents. Hence, when the extremely active Center of Political Science
of the Institute of Juridical Studies at Nice chose the broad field of public
opinion as the topic of its second study session, it called on the participation
of scholars, both French and foreign, from many disciplines. All of the
political science institutes...