La présente thèse se donne pour fin d’interroger la notion d’être-en-Dieu telle qu’elle constitue le fondement de la pensée « mystique » du dominicain Maître Eckhart de Hochheim, connu pour ses sermons en langue vernaculaire prêchant le détachement (abegescheidenheit) et l’union déifiante de l’homme à son créateur. Se déployant doublement, l’être-en-Dieu concerne à la fois l’ordre de la réalité créée, temporelle, et celui de l’être inchangeant et atemporel. La pensée eckhartienne pense l’être-en-Dieu de l’homme comme débutant avec la création, qui fait être tout existant à titre d’idée dans l’intellect divin, et culminant dans le motif conceptuel de la Naissance du Fils dans l’âme – motif théologico-philosophique qui, en plus de constituer l’accomplissement de l’existence humaine, constitue la clé de voûte de la nature elle-même. La Naissance du Fils, simultanément descente de Dieu en l’homme et ascension de celui-ci en celui-là, devient pensable chez Maître Eckhart grâce à un appareillage conceptuel qui emprunte une part importante de ses axiomes les plus fondateurs à un certain aristotélisme dont la lecture, croisée avec celle de la Bible, fait de la divinisation de l’homme un concept rationnellement compréhensible. Il s’agit donc ici de démontrer que dans son effort pour expliquer « par les raisons naturelles des philosophes les propositions de l’un et l’autre Testament » de la révélation biblique, Maître Eckhart constitue un discours épistémologique s’appuyant sur une bipartition des discours scientifiques correspondant à celle des livres de la Bible. Induisant une tension fondatrice entre discours physique, portant sur l’être en mouvement, et discours métaphysique, portant sur l’être parfait, cette épistémologie comprend la totalité de l’existant comme marquée par la tension entre l’être mobile et l’être immobile – deux pans de la réalité qui sont opposés dans leur indivisible unité. À travers ce cadre herméneutique, il faut comprendre la nature elle-même comme cette tension vers l’être absolu et immobile qui constitue sa perfection. La mise en lumière de la construction épistémologique eckhartienne et de son fondement ontologique doit avoir pour fonction de permettre une nouvelle compréhension des motifs conceptuels les plus connus de la « mystique » de Maître Eckhart. Réinterprétés à l’aune de ce cadre épistémologique et ontologique, des notions telles que le détachement et la divinisation de l’homme apparaissent respectivement comme l’application la plus pure de la loi christique et le résultat nécessaire de cette application. La loi christique elle-même, commandant d’aimer toutes choses également, doit ainsi apparaître comme l’accomplissement du mouvement naturel, comme la re-création à laquelle toute existence créée est ordonnée. Cette étude se donne donc pour objectif de présenter au lecteur un Eckhart qui, loin d’être le symbole de dissidence religieuse (un hérétique) ou épistémique (un mystique rejetant les outils et les objectifs de la raison philosophique) qu’on a parfois voulu voir en lui, œuvre au sein d’une compréhension profonde de l’Écriture et avec les outils de la science philosophique pour initier son public à une vérité intérieure. / The following dissertation aims to question the notion of being-in-God, as it provides its foundation to the “mystical” thought of the Dominican theologian Meister Eckhart of Hochheim (widely known for his vernacular predication centered around the ideas of detachment (abegescheidenheit) and of a deifying union of man and God). Constituting a twofold notion, being-in-God as conceptualized by Eckhart pertains both to creation – the world of temporal and changing being – and God himself, who is unchanging and atemporal; for Eckhart, Man’s being-in-God starts with creation, an act through which every existing thing is grounded in being by having a corresponding idea in God’s intellect; it culminates in the concept of the birth of God’s Word in Man’s soul – a theological-philosophical concept that is both the telos of human life and the seal that unifies nature itself. The birth of the Word, understood both as descent of God in Man and ascension of Man into God, is the centerpiece of a conceptual construct which, borrowing heavily from both Aristotelianism and the Bible, presents the divinization of Man as a rational notion, one that can be adequately understood by using the tools of philosophy. Our objective is to demonstrate that, in his efforts to explain Revelation through the “natural arguments” (rationes naturales) of the philosophers, Meister Eckhart builds an epistemological discourse that rests upon the twofold unity of sciences which reflects that of the Bible – itself a reflection of the twofold unity of being. Founded on the complementary opposition of physical and metaphysical discourse – of discourse on imperfect, mobile being, and discourse on absolute, perfect and immobile being – Eckhart epistemology understands being as a whole as marked by a constitutive tension between these two complementary aspects that remain inalienably one through their opposition. Through this hermeneutical framework, we will understand nature itself as tension towards the esse absolute, its perfection. By shining light on the role this epistemology (and the ontology on which it rests) plays as the very scaffolding of Eckhart’s thought, we aim to provide a new understanding of the better known notions of his theology. Interpreted through our hermeneutical framework, the notions of detachment and of divinization of Man must appear respectively as the most accomplished application of the lex nova, and as the necessary result of this application. The lex nova itself, understood as the commandment to love everything equally in God, will present itself as the abolition of natural movement, as the re-creation towards which every being that is subjected to change is moved. This dissertation aims to paint a new portrait of Meister Eckhart as a thinker – as a theologian and a “philosopher of Christianity” – and to challenge the classical reading that sees in him a heretic and a mystic, rejecting church doctrine (or announcing the Protestant Reformation) and earthly knowledge itself – both its tools and its goals. The Meister Eckhart we will present here uses the tools of philosophy to provide his public with a rational explanation of Revelation that might put them on the way to the inner contemplation of Truth itself in God.

Die Kasseler Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister hat ihren Schwerpunkt in der niederländischen, flämischen und deutschen Malerei des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Dazu zählt eine der größten und bedeutendsten Sammlungen von Rembrandt. Die wichtigsten und umfangreichsten Erwerbungen fanden bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts unter den Landgrafen von Hessen-Kassel statt. Die Firnisse zahlreicher Gemälde, darunter Hauptwerke der Galerie, sind dick, stark gegilbt und verschiedentlich borkenartig craqueliert. Diese Firnisse sind vielschichtig. Mehrheitlich stammen ihre Firnisschichten von historischen Restaurierungen. Vielfach erscheint eine Firnisabnahme als wünschenswert, in einigen Fällen erweist sie sich aber als riskant und außergewöhnlich schwierig oder aus konservatorischen Gründen als unmöglich. Die Arbeit ist in drei Hauptteile gegliedert. Im ersten Teil wird die Restaurierungsgeschichte der Kasseler Galerie von den 1750er bis zu den 1960er Jahren anhand von schriftlichen Quellen dargestellt. Bedeutende historische Persönlichkeiten der Restaurierung, Maltechnik und Kunsttechnologie waren in Kassel praktisch (Alois Hauser d. Ä. und d. J.) oder als Gutachter (Kurt Wehlte und Max Doerner) tätig. Die restauratorischen Maßnahmen und verwendeten Materialien waren vielfältig. Es fanden ganzflächige und partielle Abnahmen, Dünnungen und Trennungen von Firnissen statt. Firnisse wurden in verschiedener Weise regeneriert, Gemälde wurden neu gefirnisst oder aber überfirnisst. Vielfach kommt ein sensibler Umgang mit den Kunstwerken und ihren Erhaltungszuständen zum Ausdruck. Im zweiten Teil werden die Grundlagen und Methoden der Objektuntersuchung vorgestellt. Deformationen, Rissbildungen und Schichtenstörungen an Gemälden werden auf der Grundlage ausgewählter Literatur der Lack- und Anstrichwissenschaften, der Materialwissenschaften und Bruchmechanik neu betrachtet. Wesentliche Aspekte sind die innere Spannung von Schichten, der Einfluss von Löse- und Quellungsprozessen auf ihre mechanischen Eigenschaften sowie mehrschichtige Systeme und die Interaktion der einzelnen Schichten. Für die lichtmikroskopische Untersuchung der Gemäldeoberflächen und Querschliffe werden verschiedene Grundlagen geschaffen. Eine für diese Arbeit konzipierte grafische Strukturanalyse ermöglicht die Darstellung und Auswertung der Schichtenkonstellationen sowie der Rissbildungen und Deformationen der Bildoberflächen. Es wird ein Löseversuch am Querschliff entwickelt, mit dem sich Tendenzen des heutigen Löseverhaltens mehrschichtiger Firnisse darstellen und von Lösemitteln beeinflusste Schadensprozesse rekonstruieren lassen. Die koaxiale oder Hellfeld-Beleuchtung wird als ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der lichtmikroskopischen Untersuchung von Gemäldeoberflächen und Querschliffen etabliert. Zudem werden die Möglichkeiten einer Bestimmung von originalen Firnisschichten durch eine mikroskopische Untersuchung aufgezeigt. Die erstmalige Bestandaufnahme der Sammlung, die heute ca. 1600 Werke zählt, ergibt, dass 74 Gemälde eine erhebliche Firnisgilbung und gleichzeitig auffällige Firnisdeformationen aufweisen. Der dritte und umfangreichste Teil stellt die Untersuchung von vier Gemälden als Fallstudien dar. Die ausgewählten Werke sind Bartholomeus Frans Douven, Susanna und die beiden Alten, 1722, Rembrandt, Die Heilige Familie mit dem Vorhang, 1646, Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), Das Bohnenfest (Der König trinkt) und Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695), Die weiße Henne mit Küchlein. Auf der Grundlage des maltechnischen Aufbaus und der individuellen Restaurierungsgeschichte der Gemälde werden die Schichten und Schichtenfolgen sowie die Schäden und Veränderungen der Firnisse dargestellt. Zudem wird die Wirkung von Lösemitteln bei früheren Restaurierungen rekonstruiert. Die Fallstudien geben Einblick in die Möglichkeiten, Risiken und Grenzen einer Abnahme, Dünnung oder Trennung von Firnissen mit Lösemitteln. In einer Fallstudie wird zudem eine mechanische Firnisdünnung untersucht. In drei Fallstudien werden partielle Zwischenfirnisse festgestellt, in einem Fall kann ein originaler Firnis bestimmt werden. Die mehrschichtigen Firnisse weisen vielfältige Schichtenstörungen auf, die Folge von historischen Restaurierungen sind. Auffällige borkenartige Deformationen stehen in Zusammenhang mit Vertiefungen entlang ehemaliger Firnisrisse. Im Querschliff und insbesondere im Bereich des Craquelés erkennt man das partielle Anlösen und Auflösen der Schichtgrenzen sowie die Migration von Firnis und Farbe. Die zum Teil gravierende Lösemittelempfindlichkeit der Malschicht resultiert vor allem aus den partiellen Zwischenfirnissen. Ein zusätzliches Schadensrisiko stellt das ungleiche Löseverhalten des Firnisses dar. Der Firnis wird vorrangig entlang des aktuellen und ehemaligen Craquelés ausgeschwemmt, so dass das Lösemittel dort länger direkt auf die Malschicht einwirkt. Die Ursachen dafür liegen wiederum in den Deformationen und Schichtenstörungen des Firnisses. Die mechanische Dünnung durch Abschleifen mit Firnispulver bietet eine aus konservatorischer Sicht unbedenkliche Alternative. Es werden die Möglichkeiten, aber auch die engen Grenzen ihrer Anwendung aufgezeigt. Die vorliegende Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zur Kunsttechnologie, zur Restaurierungsgeschichte, zu Methoden und Techniken der Untersuchung und Dokumentation und schließlich zur Konzeption von praktischen Restaurierungen. / The main focus of the Old Masters Picture Gallery Kassel is on Dutch, Flemish and German paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries, including one of the largest and most significant Rembrandt collections. The most important and extensive acquisitions were made under the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel until the mid-18th century. The varnishes of numerous paintings, among them the key works of the gallery, are thick, strongly yellowed and occasionally feature bark-like craquelures. These varnishes are multi-layered, with most layers stemming from historical conservation treatments. Quite often, varnish removal appears desirable, but in some cases it proves to be risky and extraordinarily difficult, or even impossible for conservation reasons. The paper is structured in three main sections. The first section describes the conservation history of the Old Masters Picture Gallery Kassel from the 1750s to the 1960s based on written sources. Prominent historical personalities dedicated to conservation, painting techniques and art technology were practitioners in Kassel (Alois Hauser the Elder and the Younger) or functioned as experts (Kurt Wehlte and Max Doerner). A wide variety of conservation measures and materials were applied. Complete and partial removals, thinnings and separations of varnish were conducted. Varnishes were regenerated in different ways, paintings were re-varnished or over-varnished. In many instances one can find a sensitive treatment of the artworks and their visibly aged conditions. The second section elaborates the basics and methods of object examination. Deformations, cracking and layer disruptions on paintings are reappraised based on selected literature dealing with organic coating sciences, material sciences and fracture mechanics. Crucial aspects include the internal stress of layers, the impact of dissolution and swelling processes on their mechanical qualities, as well as multi-layered systems and the interaction between individual layers. Different foundations are created for the light-microscopic examination of painting surfaces and cross-sections. A graphical structure analysis conceived for this work allows depicting and evaluating constellations of layers as well as cracking and deformations on the painting surfaces. A solubility test on the cross-section is developed, presenting tendencies of today’s solvent behaviour of multi-layered varnishes and reconstructing damage processes influenced by solvents. The coaxial or bright field illumination is established as a crucial component of the light-microscopic examination of painting surfaces and cross-sections. Furthermore, the possibilities of determining original varnish layers through light-microscopic examination are demonstrated. The first stocktaking of the collection that today comprises ca. 1.600 works comes to the result that 74 paintings reveal considerable varnish yellowing along with conspicuous varnish deformations. The third and longest section presents the examination of four paintings as case studies. The selected works are Bartholomeus Frans Douven, Susanna and the Elders, 1722, Rembrandt, The Holy Family with a Curtain, 1646, Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), The Bean Festival (The King Drinks), and Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695), The White Hen with Chicken. Based on the structure of the paintings and their individual conservation histories, the layers and layer sequences as well as damage and changes to the varnishes are described. Furthermore, the effect of solvents during earlier conservation treatments is reconstructed. The case studies give an insight into the possibilities, risks and limitations of removing, thinning and separating varnishes with solvents. In one case study, mechanical varnish thinning is also examined. In the case studies, partial intermediate varnishes are ascertained, and in one, an original varnish layer can be determined. The multi-layered varnishes reveal a range of layer defects resulting from historical conservation treatments. Conspicuous bark-like deformations are linked to depressions along former varnish cracks. In the cross-section and especially in the area of the craquelures, the partial solvating and dissolution of layer boundaries as well as the migration of varnish and paint are established. The extreme solvent sensitivity of the paint layer detected in some cases mainly results from the partial intermediate varnishes. The varying solubility of the varnish poses a further damage risk. The varnish is predominantly washed out along the current and former craquelures, so that the solvent directly affects the paint layer for a longer period of time. The reasons for this, in turn, lie in the deformations and layer defects of the varnish. Mechanical thinning by means of sanding with varnish powder offers a harmless alternative from a conservation point of view. The potentials but also strong limitations of its application are shown. This paper makes a contribution to art technology, to the history of conservation, to methods and techniques of examining and documenting, and finally to the conception of practical conservation treatments.

Le présent mémoire constitue une tentative de circonscrire - par l’étude d’un corpus textuel principalement emprunté à l’œuvre vernaculaire (allemande) de Maître Eckhart de Hochheim (1260-1328) – le rôle joué par certains motifs conceptuels caractérisant la notion moderne de sujet-agent au sein de la pensée de ce philosophe, théologien et prédicateur. Plus précisément, il y est question de déterminer en quoi le « je » (ich) décrit en plusieurs lieux textuels de l’œuvre d’Eckhart présente les caractères d’autonomie et de transparence à soi qui sont l’apanage de la subjectivité telle que la conçoit majoritairement une certaine modernité postcartésienne. Notre argument, qui se déploie sur trois chapitres, adopte sur le corpus faisant l’objet de cette étude et la conceptualité qu’il déploie, trois perspectives différentes – lesquelles perspectives sont respectivement d’ordre ontologique (premier chapitre), existentiel ou éthique (second chapitre) et anthropologique (troisième chapitre). La première approche – ontologique – explicite le sens que donne Eckhart aux notions d’être, de néant, d’intellect et d’image, ainsi que la manière dont elles se définissent dialectiquement en rapport les unes avec les autres. Le second chapitre, dont l’approche est existentielle, expose les applications éthiques des concepts abordés au chapitre précédent, analysant la méthode de détachement prescrite par Eckhart pour parvenir à l’état de béatitude. Le troisième et dernier chapitre cherche, quant à lui, à définir de quelle manière l’homme se définit par rapport à l’union à laquelle l’invite Eckhart, et ce autant sur le plan spécifique que sur le plan individuel. / The following dissertation attemps to establish the presence of certain conceptual motives pertaining to the modern conception of subjectivity (as exemplified by the cartesian understanding of the self), in the middle-high german works of Master Eckhart of Hochheim, philosopher, theologian and predicator who was born in 1260 and died in 1328. In order to do so, it develops a three-fold argument taking place over three chapters, each of which presents a different approach - a different perspective - on Eckhart’s thought. The first chapter presents an ontological argument designed to explicitate the meaning of the key eckhartian notions of being, nothingness, intellect and image, whereas the second chapter exploits the existential consequences of Eckhart’s outlook on those notions – consequences which in ethical terms translate into the necessity for the human individual to practice a systematic annihilation of oneself in order to achieve an absolutely pure union with God. The third and last chapter of this dissertation attemps to explicitate de notion of “I” (ich), used by Eckhart to designate the identity that the detached human soul and God share, a type of identity in which we find similarities with the modern conception of the self – conception which Heidegger thought of as being entirely absent from precartesian philosophy.

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology���s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed.

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Le présent mémoire constitue une tentative de circonscrire - par l’étude d’un corpus textuel principalement emprunté à l’œuvre vernaculaire (allemande) de Maître Eckhart de Hochheim (1260-1328) – le rôle joué par certains motifs conceptuels caractérisant la notion moderne de sujet-agent au sein de la pensée de ce philosophe, théologien et prédicateur. Plus précisément, il y est question de déterminer en quoi le « je » (ich) décrit en plusieurs lieux textuels de l’œuvre d’Eckhart présente les caractères d’autonomie et de transparence à soi qui sont l’apanage de la subjectivité telle que la conçoit majoritairement une certaine modernité postcartésienne. Notre argument, qui se déploie sur trois chapitres, adopte sur le corpus faisant l’objet de cette étude et la conceptualité qu’il déploie, trois perspectives différentes – lesquelles perspectives sont respectivement d’ordre ontologique (premier chapitre), existentiel ou éthique (second chapitre) et anthropologique (troisième chapitre). La première approche – ontologique – explicite le sens que donne Eckhart aux notions d’être, de néant, d’intellect et d’image, ainsi que la manière dont elles se définissent dialectiquement en rapport les unes avec les autres. Le second chapitre, dont l’approche est existentielle, expose les applications éthiques des concepts abordés au chapitre précédent, analysant la méthode de détachement prescrite par Eckhart pour parvenir à l’état de béatitude. Le troisième et dernier chapitre cherche, quant à lui, à définir de quelle manière l’homme se définit par rapport à l’union à laquelle l’invite Eckhart, et ce autant sur le plan spécifique que sur le plan individuel. / The following dissertation attemps to establish the presence of certain conceptual motives pertaining to the modern conception of subjectivity (as exemplified by the cartesian understanding of the self), in the middle-high german works of Master Eckhart of Hochheim, philosopher, theologian and predicator who was born in 1260 and died in 1328. In order to do so, it develops a three-fold argument taking place over three chapters, each of which presents a different approach - a different perspective - on Eckhart’s thought. The first chapter presents an ontological argument designed to explicitate the meaning of the key eckhartian notions of being, nothingness, intellect and image, whereas the second chapter exploits the existential consequences of Eckhart’s outlook on those notions – consequences which in ethical terms translate into the necessity for the human individual to practice a systematic annihilation of oneself in order to achieve an absolutely pure union with God. The third and last chapter of this dissertation attemps to explicitate de notion of “I” (ich), used by Eckhart to designate the identity that the detached human soul and God share, a type of identity in which we find similarities with the modern conception of the self – conception which Heidegger thought of as being entirely absent from precartesian philosophy.

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).

This dissertation is presented in two parts. It first identifies the shape and content of an ancient system of Christian thought predicated on the theology of the cross of Jesus Christ, and proposes the marks typifying its theologians. Over against the ensuing hermeneutic it next finds the project of twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth to exhibit many of the defining characteristics of this system, and Barth himself to be fairly deemed a modern theologian of the cross. He crucially recovers, reshapes and reasserts the classical theologia crucis as a modern theological instrument, one answering enlightened theology’s self-glorifying accommodation to modernity with the living Word of the cross. The crucicentric system itself is found to comprise two major theological dimensions, epistemological and soteriological. Each of these comprises dialectically corresponding aspects connected with false and true creaturely glory. The cruciform Word (or theology) speaking through this system likewise moves in two directions. It declares negatively that any attempt by the creature to circumvent the cross so as to know about God directly, or to condition God's electing decision, is necessarily the attempt to know and act as God alone may know and act - an attempt therefore on the glory of God. It declares positively that in the crucified Christ God formally discloses the knowledge of God, and determines the creature for God. This knowledge and election are appropriated to the creature as, drawn into the cruciform environment, its attempt to glorify itself is negated and Christ's exalted humanity received in exchange. Thence it is lifted to participate in Christ's mind and in his glory, a process guided by the Holy Spirit and completed eschatologically. The database for this research includes selected primary materials in the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, a group of medieval mystical theologians, the reformer Martin Luther - particularly here his Heidelberg Disputation, and Karl Barth. It also pays attention to the recent secondary literature peripherally or more concertedly connecting itself to the theology of the cross, of whatever period. In this literature numerous suggestions for the content of the theology of the cross exist, a major methodological task in the current research being to bring these together systematically. To the extent that the inner structure of the system carrying the cruciform Word has not previously been made explicit, and Barth's crucicentric status not finally determined, in moving towards these achievements this dissertation breaks fresh ground. In the process a new test by which to decide the crucicentric status of any theological project is developed, and a further and crucicentric way of reading Barth proposed. / This dissertation identifies the shape, content, and marks of the theology of the cross, an ancient and still extant epistemological and soteriological system of Christian thought. Applying the resulting hermeneutic it then shows this system to be present with renewed vitality and future significance in the modern project of seminal Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).