ABSTRACT
After what has been called ‘the linguistic turn’ in modem philosophy, some would hold that we are now entering a ‘pictorial turn’: meaning that, through the ubiquitous dissemination of information by television and film, our modem civilization tends to think in terms of images. Marc van Uytfanghe has shown that miracle stories in the sixth century are often conscious continuations and adaptations of biblical ones. The affective pattern of compassion by a human person is expressed in terms of the human life world, through giving a ‘remedy’ which terminates the illness and restores health. As the Light of the world which is also the life of men, Christ was thought to drive out the spirit of darkness that inhabits man when he is left to his own devices, and thereby give him the true life.
