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I'm going to speak this evening on the Imago Day.

That's to say in English, the image of God.

And I'll talk about it chiefly as it's treated in the early church, in the patristic period,

and mainly by St Augustine.

But I'll also, right at the end, look ahead, first to the school of Chart in the 12th century,

and second to Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century.

The only thing that may be new for most of you, I think, is reference to the school of

Chathre, since it's not particularly well known. It was eclipsed by the Abbey of St. Victor and the great theologians of that Abbey,

Hugh of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor. Well, if we're talking about the Imago Day,

we have to situate it in the right part of theology. The Imago Day belongs in what we call theological anthropology.

And theological anthropology is an analysis of what it means to be human when viewed by the lens of Christian thought.

If we're looking at something through the lens of Christian thought, we're going to be

concerned with many things, but primarily we're going to be concerned with creation and redemption.

So theological anthropology will be concerned that human beings just don't spring up out of the dust.

We are created with particular talents and with particular end in view,

and that we are redeemed from our thoughts.

So theological anthropology differs from the modern academic subject of anthropology, which

is empirical in its methods.

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