ABSTRACT
Ambrose Autpert flourished centuries after the great patristic tradition; he was far from the culture of the British Isles and stood against the grain of Carolingian court scholars interested in classical letters and arts. In the history of the papacy, Autpert comes to the foreground in the correspondence between Pope Hadrian I and Charlemagne. Autpert’s opposition to elements threatening the unity of the Church can be read between the lines of his writings. In 754 the iconoclastic Council of Hiereia anathematised those who portrayed the Incarnate God in physical images, but it also anathematised those who thought of him through images on the grounds that mental images help visualise his flesh alone and not his divinity. Floating in a limbo between the Greek and the Latin traditions because of their unusual structure, contents, and tone, Autpert’s homilies still puzzle scholars. Autpert’s ‘textual icons’ of Mary and the Incarnate God encapsulate and vividly render themes of contemporary eastern thought and practices.
