Image and Incarnation

The doctrine of the Incarnation was wellspring and catalyst for theories of images verbal, material, and spiritual. Section I, Representing the Mystery of the Incarnation , takes up questions about the representability of the mystery. Section II, Imago Dei and the Incarnate Word , investigates how Christ's status as the image of God was seen to license images material and spiritual. Section III, Literary Figurations of the Incarnation , considers the verbal production of images contemplating the divine and human nature of Christ. Section IV, Tranformative Analogies of Matter and Spirit , delves into ways that material properties and processes, in their effects on the beholder, were analogized to Christ's hypostasis. Section V, Visualizing the Flesh of Christ , considers the relation between the Incarnation and the Passion.