Introduction:

1. The Middle Ages as an age of personal awakening and self-expression of the Germanic peoples.
2. The Church as the mother of the people and the main educator.
3. The development of the image of Christ as a mirror of development of the human person.

A. The early time of the Middle Ages (7th to 10th century)
Time of learning and imitation and beginning creativity.

B.The Romanic Age (10th to 12th century)
Powerful architecture as expression of new self-awareness  and confidence.

1. The religious image:
    Christ the Lord and Judge.  (B1-1)
    The king and redeemer on the cross. (B1-2)
    The Lord of the gospel-stories. (B1-3)
2. The image of man:
   The knight. (B2-1)
   The commoner. (B2-2)

C. The early Gothic Age (12th to 13th century)
    Time of true "catholicity", universality and integration:
    Time of intellectual creativity (Establishment of universities).
    Time of spiritual and evangelical (religious-ethical) striving.
    Time of sublime beauty.
    Time of strong sense for transcendence and immanence.

1. The religious image:
    Christ, the teacher, close to the people. (C1-1)
    Christ on the cross, full of calmness. (C1-2)
2. The image of man:
    The in faith integrated person, full of human dignity, self-awareness and love. (C2-2)

D. The late Middle Ages (14th to 16th century)
Tensions and beginning disintegration within the intellectual framework of the traditional faith-based world view:
Tensions between intellect and will and mistrust in the purely conceptual.
Tensions between science and the traditional understanding of revelation.

1. The religious image:
    The very human Christ. (D1-1)
    The servant of God in extreme suffering. (D1-2)
2. The image of man:
    The torments of body and soul. (D2-1)
    New explorations of the physical and spiritual world. (D2-2)

A tentative conclusion:
The life and word of Christ has a tremendous humanizing and personalizing influence in the development of culture.

The image of Christ is at once result and new source of the process of growth of the person. Without giving up its basic contentions, the image of Christ is more and more humanized and emptied of its divine glory, while the human person is struggling for its own independent identity.

Fr. Matthias Christian SVD
1941 born in Austria, county of Salzburg
1968 arrived as young priest in Taiwan
1974 Master of philosophy, Fu Jen University
For six years chaplain work and teaching "Philosophy of Life"
198o Return to Austria for work and studies
1986 Doctor of Philosophy, University of Vienna
Since 1987 formation work within the religious society, chaplain work, teaching "Bible and Life" and "Religious Art".