Crossing the Visible or Crossing it Out?: Jean-Luc Marion's Icon as Window into Heaven

Jean-Luc Marion is often interpreted as a thinker of the purely invisible and apophatic, in tension with the rich forms of mediation found in Christian practice. I will challenge these assumptions through a close reading of one of Marion's rare concrete examples, the "icon"— not his p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Horizons
Main Author: Rumpza, Stephanie 1986- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2022
In: Horizons
Year: 2022, Volume: 49, Issue: 1, Pages: 21-48
IxTheo Classification:KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
KCD Hagiography; saints
Further subjects:B window into heaven
B Jean-Luc Marion
B Idol
B Icon
B Iconoclasm
B Kenosis
B Painting
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Summary:Jean-Luc Marion is often interpreted as a thinker of the purely invisible and apophatic, in tension with the rich forms of mediation found in Christian practice. I will challenge these assumptions through a close reading of one of Marion's rare concrete examples, the "icon"— not his philosophical use of the term, but the holy image that initially inspired it. Marion defines the sacred image by its "transparency," "self-effacement," or "kenosis." This seems to indicate that the icon must cancel itself out to make room for God, an iconoclastic attitude with troubling consequences for the believer who prays to the icon and for the rest of the finite world. By rigorously developing Marion's understanding of this word "kenosis," I argue that, counter to initial impressions, this account of the sacred image is deeply faithful to the essential aspects of the Byzantine icon understood as a "window into heaven."
ISSN:2050-8557
Contains:Enthalten in: Horizons
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/hor.2022.4