Kép- és kultusz-elméletünk klasszikusa - Pázmány Péter : Öt szép levél

Pázmány's pamphlet against Péter Alvinczi, the famous Five Beautiful Letters (Öt syép levél) was completed in Graz in 1609. Pázmány (primate and archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary) published this text again as an appendix also in the first edition of the Guide (Kalauz) (1613) (with substantive changes). Although there are a lot of topical issues in Pázmány's pamphlet, the colossal philosophy serving as its basis was really modern in its time. The words "picture" and "cult" can be, or what is more, have to be interpreted in many ways. This is the real meaning of Pázmány's pamphlet. It is well known that Pázmány took the Five Beatiful Letters as a basis when writing the forth and the fifth book of the Guide. He refutes the Lutheric and Calvinistic dogmas about the church. In Pázmány's work, the theology of the Tridentium is already detectable. "Pictures are to be given decent honour and respect, not because they incorporate some gods or force...but for the gods they sign to be respected by this way." Pázmány's reasoning bears one of the axióma of semiotical theology on itself. The pictures (statues, etc.) in the church are "signs" of Christ. Their veneration through the picture refers to the one who the picture "signs". This sign theory of Pázmány includes not only pictures and statues but words as well