For all those alive to the discoveries of modern psychology, THE DOGMA OF CHRIST can only increase the impact of Dr. Erich Fromm's work, The title essay in this collection has often been cited as germinal to the contemporary discussion of religion and psychology. Dr. Fromm approaches the dogma of Christ by way of a discriminating use of the insights provided by psychoanalysis and social history. Much of the experience of early Christianity, with its emphasis on the role of the son, is understood in terms of the revolutionary stirrings of long-oppressed social groups that had every reason to displace the authority of the Roman Empire, which had become a tyrannical paternalism. Through a tracing of the historical development of Christianity up to the time when it became the official religion of the Empire, Fromm interprets the ultimate dogmatic definition of a man-made God as-a re-emphasis of the authority of the father and the vindication of psychoanalytic theory.