Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Plested, Marcus

Titel

St Theodore the Studite's defence of the icons. Theology and philosophy in ninth-century Byzantium. By Torstein Theodor Tollefsen. (Early Christian Studies.) Pp. xiv + 193 incl. 2 tables. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. £60. 978 0 19 881677 5

Ist Teil von

• The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2021, Vol.72 (1), p.151-153

Ort / Verlag

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• What we are seeing in the icon is nothing less than the circumscription of the uncircumscribable divinity within a specific human form or individuated human existence but not – in line with the teaching of the ecumenical councils – a human hypostasis. Among the book's drawbacks, apart from its slimness, I must query the frequency of the appearance of SS Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, whose weight in modern theological discourse owes more to contemporary sensibilities and the success of the nouvelle théologie than a sober analysis of the tradition in which Theodore stood. More positively, I must draw attention to the appendix in which Tollefsen admirably and eloquently argues for the ‘naturalness’ of the icon within Christianity – in other words the thesis that Christianity contains certain truths and principles that allow, inform and even positively elicit visual representation.