The article presents a relation between a word and a picture against a background of art theology developing in Christianity. Such an assumption releases from the presentation of a selection of illustrations to biblical texts. Assumed deliberations have a form of an outline illustrated by the examples from the field of miniature painting and engraving, depicting in a literal sense a transformation of a word into a picture. The studies from the field of a word function in faith tradition created the whole theological and biblical literature. On the other hand analyses of the analo- gical role of a picture in Christianity are relatively new and only seldom are they conducted by theologians or art historians.

The title of the present dissertation constitutes a travesty of a sentence announced by St. John in the prologue of his Gospel: "And the Word was made flesh" (1:14). When John is talking about the Logos it means in our perspective a written word, that is the Revelation described in the Bible. Based on what St. Paul said in the Letter to the Romans (10:14-18) the expression: Fides ex auditu started to be used in theology. The question of the role of a picture in religion can be encapsulated in a paraphrase of this expression, as: Fides ex visu. Certain people in specific circumstances acquire faith through the sense of sight, through image.

The Prophets attributed to pictures magic forces and the power of influencing human souls. Therefore they pushed them into the field of magic and witchcraft, into the world of dark forces, using signs. According to their teaching a real cult does not need any material signs. A monotheistic religion wants to remain a religion based on reading and not watching „suspicious" pictures. Rejecting visual representations, the Old Testament favours verbal symbols. And not only has the image of a false godbecome the idol, but also a false image of the true God. The invisible God can be described, but not painted. Art is too weak to show the greatness of God. The undescribed God remained invisible. He made himself known to people only through the revealed word and depicting Him in paintings was forbidden because it was a threaten to the primary Plan of Salvation. In such an approach a word becomes a power and the rejected picture becomes weak because it is useless and even harmful. This was well expressed by Re'gis Debray, who wrote that art with its altars, paintings and figures was too heavy to be carried by the Jew, this eternal wanderer, on his way. Thus he took the book.

Despite strict bans we can find in the Old Testament statements containing human longing for watching God, either during the sleepas in the case of patriarch Jacob, or in a „face-to-face" meeting as Moses at Mount Sinai, or in a prophetic seeing as it was experienced e.g. by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or the other ones „seeing".

The situation changed in the New Testament, when the eternal Logos - the son of God became a man. It was possible to see God through the incarnate Word, as Jesus Christ became the most ideal icon of God. The incarnation gave a possibility of depicting the one that was so far Invisible. This can be contained in a sentence that „the Word was made a picture". The Mystery of the Incarnation was invoked by the iconodules at the Second Council of Nicea, in 787.

Christianity is a religion of a word and a picture, but Protestants are different from Catholics in their approach to pictures. Taking a doctrinal assumption on the sole primacy of a word (sola Scriptura), certain sections of the Reformation rejected a picture as a form of superstition. The specific character of Protestant art became the custom of placing citations from the Bible on paintings, or even placing the sole citations or the sentences of the Reformation in altar reredos.

The influence of St. Augustine on the development of western latin theological thinking is significant. In many ways, he also influenced thinking of counter-reformation and reformation theologians, mainly Martin Luther. Martin Luther quotes the passage of the 80th homily on the Gospel of John in the third paragraph of the Smalcald Articles. Therefore, it is certain that Augustine influenced the understanding of baptism, mainly the relation between faith and word during administration of the sacrament of baptism. The aim of our study is to offer theological analysis of the 80th homily on the Gospel of John mentioned above in the context of Augustine´s thinking. It is a short dictated text written by the theologian of Hippo in 419-423 where he explains the Gospel of John 15, 1-5 word by word. Reformation, counter-reformation and post-Trentian theologians used to refer to the third paragraph of the 80th homily too often and their interpretation was influenced by their position, whether they were on the side of Catholics or Protestants. It is interesting that although the text was often quoted, there were only several studies that dealt with it in a professional way. Augustine´s homily reflects the spiritual wealth of the battle with donatism (the role of administrator and recipient of the sacrament of baptism) and pelagianism (baptism of children). In this study, we point to the fact that it is a commentary on the Sacred Scripture, therefore we analyse the homily as a whole. The study also includes the first complete translation of the homily into Slovak language.

The aim of the article is to examine the specific properties of language actions in terms of their moral evaluation. The author starts from the question whether responsibility for words has the same meaning as responsibility for a physical action. In her analysis, the author deliberates whether in both cases the same rules and criteria are applicable. Referring to the classical theory of speech acts proposed by John L. Austin, who introduced a fundamental division into constative and performative utterances and went on to distinguish illocutionary effects from perlocutionary consequences of speech acts, the author investigates how far a subject is responsible for the words he uses.

Sulla metodologia di omiletica

Sommario

L’omiletica fa parte della teologia pratica. Essa ĺ una riflessione scientifica sulla predicazione della parola di Dio nella situazione d’oggi. L’omiletica viene suddivisa in fondamentale, materiale, formale e particolare. L’oggetto di studio omiletico sono: testi della Sacra Scrittura, documenti della Chiesa, testi teologici ed anche i testi delle omelie, prediche e conferenze, come anche, pi raramente, i dati dell’esperienza umana. I metodi della ricerca sono quelli applicati nelle scienze non teologiche; ále conclusioni derivati da questa ricerca hanno per sempre un carattere teologico.

The subject of this article is an analysis of the earliest of Karl Marx’s articles, Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction. The essence of his views presented in that article was to protest against the restriction of the right to free expression of opinions by journalists. Marx pointed out that the new Prussian Censorship Instruction only seemed to liberalize censorship, but in fact in many aspects tightened the rules, for example, reinforced those that pertained to religious criticism. He thought that the Prussian Censorship Instruction was not an enactment of law, because by limiting freedom, lawmakers acted against the essence of the press, law and state. Marx thought that a press law was needed to guarantee freedom of the press and that censorship should be abolished entirely.

Bible and liturgy are the main sources of the Church's life. The Bible tells us about God saving man and the liturgy makes present the salvation given by God. The presentation of the Bible in the liturgy begins with the description of the syna- gogue worship at the time of the early Church. Since the beginning Christians read the Bible during the liturgy. The liturgy of the word was formed gradually, until it reached its final shape in he antiquity. That form was preserved till the Second Vatican Council. The Council resolved to enrich the table of the Divine Word and to read the Scripture in a cycle longer than one year. For Sundays and festivities has been introduced a triennial cycle, the readings of the liturgy of the hours have been changed, biblical readings have been added to the liturgy of the sacraments and the Psalms have been distributed in a 4-weeks cycle.

The words of the Bible are not only read but they become prayer and song. The liturgical prayers draw their inspiration, words and expressions from the Scripture. It is Christ who proclaims the gospel, God speaks to his people and the Church listens to the Divine Word. The liturgy of the Word is closely connected with the liturgy of the Eucharist. During the Mass, the table of the Divine Word and the table of the Eucharist are spread.