Rooted in the experience of the early Christian centuries, the author of the widely-acclaimed Roots of Christian Mysticism thinks about human nature, its challenges, problems, joys and fulfillment. Clement begins by exploring a response to the dysfunctional aspects of nature, and then looks at how we are persons made in the image of the divine and in communion with one another; in the light of what emerges, the author discovers fresh understandings of sexuality, politics, the role of humanity in the cosmos and the power of beauty; his discussion ends with facing our society's unmentionable question: death. Here is a fine book for all explorers into the deeper meaning of what it is to be human.

Olivier Clement offers us a most important book. It should challenge both Orthodox and other Christians in the West not only to be open to the treasures of the traditions of the Christian East of old but, above all, to receive these traditions, expressed here in modern existential terms, and through them enrich and revitalize the Churches at the dawn of the new millennium."