Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem [From shadows and symbols into the truth]!

“Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem” is closely associated with John Henry Newman as the motto he chose for his coat of arms after his elevation to the cardinalate. In that setting it functions less as a line from a particular speech than as a personal device: a compressed statement of spiritual and intellectual pilgrimage. The Latin phrase evokes the movement from partial apprehensions—figures, types, and earthly appearances—toward ultimate reality, a theme that resonated with Newman’s lifelong preoccupation with conscience, doctrinal development, and the relation between visible forms and invisible truths. It is often quoted with an added English gloss (“From shadows and symbols into the truth”).

The phrase frames human life and religious understanding as a passage from the indirect to the direct. “Shadows” and “images” suggest the provisional, mediated ways we grasp reality—through analogy, symbol, ritual, and imperfect concepts—while “truth” points to the final, unclouded vision of what those signs signify. In a Christian key, it implies that earthly experience and even theological language are preparatory: they point beyond themselves to a fuller encounter with God. As Newman’s motto, it also reads autobiographically: a commitment to follow perceived truth beyond inherited forms, while still valuing those forms as meaningful signs rather than mere illusions.

1) “Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.”
2) “From shadows and images into the truth.”
3) “From shadows and symbols into the truth.”