THE
P RTAL
April 2016
Page 22
Without Precedent
Dr Aidan Nichols OP reviews Geoffrey Kirk’s new book
Those who
have heard Geoffrey Kirk in the flesh will know what to expect from any book coming
from his hand: wit, incisiveness, and a powerful passion for the truth. Without Precedent fulfils all these
expectations.
New Testament, for Geoffrey Kirk,
do not enable us to assert that the
Jesus of history was an advocate
of women’s liberation – though
equally, they do not warrant us in
denying it. That is one major claim
of this book, and in making it the
author delights in dissipating the fog
of political correctness that so often
surrounds this subject. But a second
claim follows on quickly enough.
The New Testament revelation is
a revelation in images, and those
images speak with force and clarity
about the essential message given
to the Church. They tell of a Father’s
Son who in the manner of a priestking was incarnate for us, fulfilling his kingship and
priesthood on the Cross and in its sequel, the entry
into the heavenly Sanctuary. Respect for revelation,
not misogyny, requires the Lord’s ministerial icons to
As Rowan Williams declares approvingly on the be congruent with his own masculin