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The second is the ethical dimension in reading. Here, if anywhere, Jeffrey puts greatest emphasis although his theses are profoundly interrelated. The literary tradition which is inspired by the Book, the Bible, commits the serious reader to be serious ethically, for its spring is the ethical seriousness of the gospel. One is not meant to treat literature with formalistic dispassion; the attempt to support the objectivity of textual meaning by downgrading the role of the reader's interest is misguided, even if the intention is to safeguard truth and rationality. For this is to abandon precisely the historical and theological roots of a literary tradition bent on engaging the reader.
The third is the locus of authority, which lies not in the text but that to which it witnesses. I mention this third and not second, though it naturally follows the first point, because its formulation is generally less prominent than the two others, its importance coming particularly (though not only) to light toward the end of the volume, in the discussion of the Puritans. On these characters, Jeffrey is none too keen; they foreshorten their sights to concentrate on text at the expense of the world disclosed by it.
Under these headings a great amount of expository argument takes place. The announcement of the logocentric issue in chapter 1 is succeeded by an account of "Scripture upon Scripture" that leads to a statement of Jesus' typological reading. Jerome, along with Augustine, is then called in to witness to the ethics of reading before a chapter on "Evangelization and Literacy" tells stories from Anglo-Saxon England. This is powerful material and leaves us with a sober impression of barbarian cruelty against which the humane beauty of the Christian gospel stands out in sharp relief. Chaucer and Wycliffe occupy the next space as they press home their understanding of committed reading and then the world of symbolism is opened out to us, both in its medieval integrative force, bringing reader and world together through the evangel, and in its haunting crisis as represented by Goethe. (A number of illustrations enrich the written account.) From the Puritans to Matthew Arnold, this world is then lost either by contracting one's preoccupations or by sloughing off the serious challenge offered to the reader by the contents of the Bible in the atmosphere of post-Enlightenment biblical criticism.
The scene finally shifts across the pond for the tale of "the Bible and the American Myth," a tale of how the Book had force, no doubt about it, and was anything but frozen text, but unfortunately was too often read and vigorously deployed against its grain in the service of the New World. Jeffrey's concluding appeal is different from those of many an American evangelist and politician, but no less passionate: come repentantly to read repentantly and there will be deep rest for our souls. Derrida and his kin should think about that, not about logocentrism.
What an account of Jeffrey's work cannot easily do is to convey the author's extremely wide range of reading in investigating the nooks and crannies as well as the broad pastures of history. It is a very interesting, as well as broadly spanned, volume. Further, there is a sense of urgency allied to the intellectual cause: it is edifying scholarship. The documentation of the tradition's grave summons to serious ethical reading and engagement is helpful and important. Augustine gives us a strong launch. Kierkegaard inimitably reminds us of what is at stake, but he is just the incisive representative of centuries of conviction on the matter. Jeffrey has told us what a Christian literary culture has looked and should look alike.
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