A Complete Treatment of Icons

From the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique

Introduction

Each era of Catholic Theology displays a unique strength. Whether it be the great syntheses of the high medieval era or the unless precision of the era of the eminent Baroque scholastics. In the 19th and (early to mid) 20th centuries, the great strength was the capacity to place all of theology on the most impressive positive grounds. For the first time in history, it seemed that a theologian could have endless access to all of the sources of theology, especially thanks to the massive collections of patristic and scholastic literature, along with an ever increasing body of secondary literature which commented on these primary sources.

Hence, during this time there was a concerted effort by theologians to write works that did not simply say “something” about a certain topic. These theologians wished to say everything there was to say about a topic, evaluating and collecting contributions from every source that one could possibly find. One of the most impressive works to come out of this effort was the French Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. This 65,000 page work sought to collect massive articles on every topic imaginable in Catholic Theology, which took over 50 years to complete.

It is for this reason that I decided to seek the help of the DTC in light of recent controversies surrounding the question of the religious use of images. Many of the classic works of theology (in their tracts on Christology or Mariology) are very scant on the topic and usually simply explain the doctrine of the Church, along with brief notes about different theological opinions present within the schools and quickly answering some objections. Yet, there is typically not a full and robust treatment of the topic. In looking at the DTC article I was pleased to find that its treatment spanned nearly 120 pages in translation and did provide many of the sources, historical notes, etc., that I was looking for.

NOTE: The following translation is a machine translation done by Claude. I do not read French and cannot vouch for the accuracy at every point. Claude is quite apt at modern languages and there is no reason to question its overall fidelity. Also, it is important to note that I (especially as a Thomist) do not necessarily agree at every point with the conclusions drawn by the author. Yet, the resource remains invaluable.

Click here (note: download file to use the TOC)

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