Augustine and the theories of images of the Middle Ages

Augustine is the only ancient thinker to have drafted a treatise on the concept of images, Question 74, where he shows the possibility of an image (invisible) of the invisible. This conception sheds light upon the reticence of the Libri Carolini towards the theology of icons developed by the Second Council of Nicaea. The Augustinian doctrine of the mental image, associated with the deciphered text, makes it possible to understand the medieval theory of meditation, and the inflection it undergoes in becoming. representation" (Aelred de Reivaulx). It makes possible, finally, the justification of the face to face vision, as opposed to the invisibility of God in the hereafter, a position defined by Dionysius and John Scotus Erigena, to be condemned in 1241.