Claude Tresmontant writes in his introduction to this book: "There exists a metaphysical structure, original, inherent in Christian theology as in biblical theology. There exists a Christian metaphysic. There exists, too, at the heart of traditional Christian thought, a free and independent activity of human reason, based on experience, ready to receive the word of God. There exists a Christian philosophy, because human reason, within the Christian society, is not reduced to the condition of a passive instrument, to the condition of a slave. On the contrary, redemption affects reason and understanding, no less than freedom and conduct." Supported by his deep knowledge of Hebrew and other pre-Christian cultures his book is thus an examination of the sources of the earliest Christian metaphysics in the Bible and in the writings of the Fathers. It is also a detailed critique of other metaphysical and philosophical systems from those implicit in the earliest creation myths to Marxism. M. Tresmontant also examines “Platonic anthropology", the "Origenist myth" and the myth of the everlasting return which has been revived in recent years by many writers on comparative religion.