Symeon of Thessaloniki and the Theology of the Icon Screen

ppearing in highly developed form during the

Palaiologan period, and visually prominent within

the performance space of the liturgy, the icon

screen embodies a number of beliefs critical to the Byzantine

theological tradition. As a symbolic threshold that so

conspicuously marked the boundary between the sensible

and the intelligible, the icon screen ef ectively realized

the uniquely Byzantine understanding of the Incarnation as

a paradoxical dialectic of revelation and concealment.

Despite the apparent dualism between the sensible

and the intelligible mentioned above,1 the Byzantines were

not dualists, and developed a sophisticated phenomenology

of representation consistent with their belief that the invisible

God had been directly revealed to the organs of sensual

apprehension. For Byzantine religious thinkers, the appearance

of the invisible God in the fabric of a human body complicated

the binary oppositions of ancient philosophy and promoted

1 h e problems in this dichotomy, which Byzantine theologians associated with the sanctuary

enclosure, will be discussed in what follows. For now, it should be noted that later Greek thought posited

a dynamic continuity between the sensible and the intelligible, locating both on either end of a single

continuum, the one being an intensii cation of the other. Plotinus, for example, holds that sensations

() here [i.e., in the sensible realm] are dim intellections ( ); intellections there [i.

e., in the noetic realm] are vivid sensations ( ) (Ennead 6.7.7.3031).

Symeon of h essalonike and the h eology of the Icon Screen

+

Nicholas P. Constas

164Nicholas P. Constas

a new Christian synthesis of ontology, semiotics, and aesthetics.2 Indeed, what Alden Mosshammer has argued concerning the intellectual development of Gregory of Nyssa can reasonably be asserted of the Byzantine theological tradition as a whole, namely, that it was a movement away from a Platonizing and exaggerated dualism between mind and body, intelligibles and sensiblestowards a more specii cally Christian understanding of reality.3 h e result was a sacramental vision of the self and the world that did not simply disallow facile disjunctions of sensibles and intelligibles, but dei ned salvation itself as a coincidence of such opposites centered within, and transcended by, the dual-natured person of Christ.4

As stated above, Byzantine theories about the nature of revelation had to contend with the appearance of the uncreated God within the concrete forms of the created world. h at the absolute could enter, and be personally active within, the relative conditions of time and space were beliefs derived, not from the schools of Greek philosophy, but from the religion of Israel and its sacred scriptures, viewed from a distinctly Christian perspective. In rel ecting on the accounts of Gods various theophanies to his chosen people, patristic and Byzantine exegetes were drawn to the heavenly tabernacle revealed to Moses during his sojourn on Mount Sinai (cf. Exod. 25:810). Following Gods detailed directions, Moses constructed an earthly tabernacle closely corresponding to the celestial archetype, which subsequently became the privileged locus of the deity, the visible home of the invisible God, who dwelt within its sanctuary hidden behind a cultic veil.

Because Byzantine exegetes of Scripture were also bishops of the church, the tabernacle of Moses was frequently the model for the decoration and symbolic perception of their own houses of worship. h us the witness of Scripture to a liturgical veil enclosing the divine presence and dividing sacred space directly inl uenced the Byzantine sanctuary enclosure, the main portal of which was ot en equipped with a veil. h is association was so strong that the symbolism of the veil could at times be applied even to the typically stone-carved entablature.5 In addition, the portal doors themselves were (and continue to be) decorated with the iconography of the Annunciation, an image that likewise recalls the liturgy of the tabernacle, for at the very moment of her virginal conception, the Mother of God is depicted weaving a veil for the Temple. With the inclusion of

2 Byzantine thinking on these questions

has recently moved to the center of contem-

porary continental philosophy. See, for

example, Jacques Derridas reading of

Dionysios the Areopagite, How to Avoid

Speaking: Denials, in Derrida and Negative

h eology, ed. H. Coward and T. Foshay

(Albany, 1992), 73142; and the responses by

E. Perl, Signifying Nothing: Being as Sign

in Neoplatonism and Derrida, in

Neoplatonism and Contemporary h ought,

ed. R. Baine Harris (Albany, 2002), 12551;

and J.-L. Marion, In the Name: How to

Avoid Speaking of Negative h eology, in

God, the Git , and Postmodernism, ed. J.

Caputo and M. Scanlon (Indianapolis, 1999),

2053; revised as In the Name: How to

Avoid Speaking of It, in In Excess: Studies of

Saturated Phenomena, trans. R. Horner and

V. Berraud (New York, 2002), 12862. See

also Marions use of categories drawn from

John of Damascus in his God without Being,

trans. T. A. Carlson (Chicago, 1991), and

from Gregory of Nyssa in Being Given:

Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans.

J. L. Kossky (Stanford, 2002).

3 A. Mosshammer, Gregory of Nyssa

and Christian Hellenism, StP 32 (1997):

172. Jaroslav Pelikan has similarly described

the general movement of Eastern Christian

thought from late antiquity to the Early

Byzantine period precisely as a shit from

Christian idealism to Christian materi-

alism, signaling a new Christian meta-

physics and aesthetics and a new

Christian epistemology; see his Imago Dei:

h e Byzantine Apologia for Icons (Princeton,

N.J., 1990), 99, 107. John Meyendorf char-

acterizes late antique Christian idealism

as a dualistic, world-denying Hellenic

spiritualism and underlines the total

incompatibility between Greek philosoph-

ical thought and the Bible, arguing that the

usual slogans and clichs which too ot en

serve to characterize patristic and

Byzantine thought as exalted Christian

Hellenism, or as the Hellenization of

Christianity, or as Eastern Platonism

should be avoided. He concludes by noting

that whereas Greek patristic thought

remained open to Greek philosophical

problematics, [it] avoided being imprisoned

in Hellenic philosophical systems (his

emphasis): J. Meyendorf , Byzantine

h eology (New York, 1983), 2425, 43.

4 See, for example, Maximos the

Confessor, Ambiguorum liber 41, who envi-

sions a series of Christological mediations

between i ve divisions of being (male/

female, earth/paradise, heaven/earth, intel-

ligible/sensible, God/creation). Maximos

concludes this passage, ostensibly a

commentary on Gregory of Nazianzos, Or.

39.13 (PG 36:348d), with a citation from

Dionysios the Areopagite (On the Divine

Names 13.2), whom he praises as the

unerring witness and true theologian

(Louth trans., 15662). See L. h unberg,

Microcosm and Mediator: h e h eological

Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor

(Chicago, 1995), 373408, and A.-S.

Ellverson, h e Dual Nature of Man: A Study

in the h eological Anthropology of Gregory of

Nazianzus (Uppsala, 1981), 1740.

5 Cf. pseudo-Sophronios, Commentarius

liturgicus 4:

,

,

(PG

87.3:3984d); see below, n. 26.

165Symeon of Thessalonike and the Theology of the Icon Screen

various icons along the entablature, the theological tableau was complete, for sacred images were the necessary corollaries of orthodox faith in the Incarnation.6 Drawn like a curtain across the architectural frontier of the sensible and the intelligible, linked to the presence of the deity in the tabernacle of Moses, and closely associated with icons and especially the iconography of the Incarnation, the sanctuary enclosure and its veiled portal were symbolic expressions of the Christian belief that the invisible God had been revealed to the world through paradoxical concealment in a veil of l esh.

h is study seeks to reconstruct a theology of the icon screen as it was understood around the time of its crystallization in the Late Byzantine period. h e principal sources for such a reconstruction are the writings of Symeon of h essalonike (d. 1429), a somewhat neglected i gure whose use of the symbolic theology of Dionysios the Areopagite (ca. 500) is an important key to the task at hand. Symeon provides us with a rich and in certain respects unparalleled theological interpretation of the icon screen, and this will serve as the basis for a larger discussion of its meaning and signii cance. To place Symeons interpretation of the screen within its proper context, this study begins with an analysis of his treatment of sacred space, with particular attention to the longitudinal organization of the church building. h is is followed by a consideration of Symeons symbolic perception of the sanctuary enclosure as a threshold between the sensible and the intelligible, a liminal state that he associates with the cosmological polarities described in the i rst chapter of Genesis. h e frame of reference is then expanded in order to consider the same sacred enclosure in light of Symeons understanding of the church as a Christian tabernacle, focusing primarily on the symbolism of the veil in Jewish and early Christian tradition. As we shall see, the veil of the tabernacle was the supreme expression for the idea of incarnation, and became a convenient (and contested) narrative designation for the doctrine of revelation, including the hesychast distinction of essence and energies within the godhead. With this last idea, we arrive at the central argument of this study, namely, that Symeons mystagogical interpretation of the icon screen is correctly understood as an example of how the symbolic theology of Dionysios the Areopagite, refracted through the lens of hesychasm, was used to rethink the material and spiritual inheritance of the Byzantine liturgy.

Symeon of h essalonikeSymeon of h essalonike was born in Constantinople (ca. 1375), where he was later tonsured a monk in the circle of Kallistos and Ignatios Xanthopouloi.7 From these Late Byzantine mystics, Symeon was initiated into the theology and practice of hesychasm, and maintained strong spiritual ties to their community long at er his departure from the capital.8 h ere is some evidence to suggest that he may have also studied at the Patriarchal School, under the tutelage of the hesychast theologian Joseph Bryennios.9 Given his detailed knowledge of the rituals and ceremonies of Hagia Sophia, it is likely that Symeon served there as a deacon before his elevation to the see of h essalonike, sometime between June 1416 and April 1417. By all accounts, he was a man of strong will and even stronger opinions. h roughout his episcopal tenure, he staunchly resisted the aggression of the Muslim East and the Christian West, both of which were contending for control of h essalonike. He fought, in the words of David Balfour, to save his church from the Latins, and the state from the Turks.10 Standing virtually alone in his opposition to h essalonikes surrender to the Venetians in 1423, he was nevertheless successful in guaranteeing limited freedom for his

6 For discussion, see K. Parry, h eodore

Studites and the Patriarch Nicephoros on

Image-Making as a Christian Imperative,

Byzantion 59 (1989): 16483.

7 On Symeons life and career, see

D. Balfour, Symeon of h essaloniki as

a Historical Personality, GOTR 28 (1983):

5572; idem,

, , Analecta

Vlatadon 34 (h essalonike, 1981), 2976.

h ese works rely upon the fundamental

study, idem, Politico-Historical Works of

Symeon Archbishop of h essalonica, Wiener

Byzantinistische Studien 13 (Vienna, 1979).

8 h at Symeon was a convinced and

enthusiastic Hesychast will be evident to

anyone reading his Dialogue, and particu-

larly its chapters 3032. Gregorios Palamas

is for him a saint and a hero, and he praises

in the same breath Philotheos [Kokkinos]

and Neilos of Constantinople, Neilos and

Nikolaos Kabasilas, h eophanes of Nikaia

and Isidore of h essalonica. But his

greatest admiration is reserved for Kallistos

and Ignatius. Balfour, Politico-Historical

Works, 279; on Kallistos and Ignatios

Xanthopouloi, see ibid., 27986. For a

detailed study of Symeons Palamite creden-

tials, see M. Kunzler, Gnadenquellen:

Symeon von h essaloniki als Beispiel fr die

Einl unahme des Palamismus auf die ortho-

doxe Sakramententheologie und Liturgik

(Trier, 1989).

9 Cf. Balfour, Historical Personality, 59.

10 Ibid., 67.


church under the ensuing Latin occupation. Western rule, however, was short-lived, and Symeon died six months before the city was captured by Murad II in March 1430. Symeon was proclaimed a saint in h essalonike on 3 May 1981, following unanimous decisions of the church of Greece and the patriarchate of Constantinople.

Symeon was a prolii c writer, remarkable given the demands of his oi ce, his chronic ill health, and the harsh conditions of life in the city, which suf ered starvation during the eight-year blockade by the Turks (142230). His major work, known as the Dialogue against Heresies, is a collection of more than a dozen semi-independent treatises dealing with the faith and ritual practices of the Orthodox Church. At er an initial discussion of orthodoxy and heresy, the remaining sections describe and interpret the sacraments, and treat the symbolism of the church building. Written in somewhat popularizing Greek, and cast in the form of questions and answers between a bishop and a priest (or deacon), the Dialogue was apparently intended to be a catechetical handbook for the clergy. A related work, the Interpretation (Hermeneia) of the Christian Temple and Its Rituals, is likewise a detailed description and symbolic interpretation of both the church building and the eucharistic liturgy as celebrated by a hierarch. Symeon also wrote a large number of prayers for various occasions, and hundreds of hymns to saints, including several in praise of his predecessor, St. Gregory Palamas, who was canonized in 1368.11

In the Dialogue, Symeon provides us with an important theological interpretation of the sanctuary enclosure, which presents several distinct advantages for this study: it is contemporary with the icon screen in its later, developed form; it is embedded within both a larger mystical/allegorical account of the liturgy and a symbolic interpretation of sacred space; and it is deeply rooted in an ancient tradition of liturgical, mystagogical, and theological commentaries. Of these latter, Symeons engagement with the symbolic theology of Dionysios the Areopagite is particularly signii cant, although this has not been fully recognized by contemporary scholarship. In his study of the Byzantine mystagogical tradition, Ren Bornert correctly aligned Symeons work with that of Dionysios and Maximos the Confessor, although he failed to note the particular esteem in which the Areopagitical writings were held by the hesychasts.12 In a telling self-disclosure, however, Symeon identii es himself as the last and least among the students of the students of Dionysios,13 which should be taken as an oblique reference to his training under the Xanthopouloi, and more generally to the Palamite interpretation of the corpus Dionysiacum.14 As will become clear, Symeons use of the Areopagitical writings follows the lead of his hesychastic teachers and contributes to his understanding of the sacred space of the church building as a symbolic manifestation of divine presence.

Sacred Spaces: h e Church and the CosmosSymeons interpretation of the sanctuary screen is situated within his larger understanding of the church building as an image of the cosmos. Far from being static or univocal, the forms and structures of this symbolic universe are l uid and complex, generating a multiplicity of simultaneous associations and correlations. Single, and seemingly simple, forms, such as a hemisphere or a column, are thus made to support several senses at once, ot en derived from widely dif erent contexts. In this respect, Symeons mystagogical interpretations of church architecture are reminiscent of patristic allegorical interpretations of Scripture, in which the consecutive elements of linear narratives are spatialized within a i eld of signs that refer backward and forward to each other, not within

11 Both the Dialogue and the Hermeneia

are hereat er cited by PG column number

alone; for discussion, see I. Phountoules,

(h essalonike, 1966), 2934;

for the hymns on Palamas, cf. idem.,

,

, vol. 1,

(h essalonike, 1968), 12021, 13233.

12 R. Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins

de la Divine Liturgie du VIIe au XVe sicle,

AOC 9 (Paris, 1966), 24849, employing

somewhat overdetermined categories,

contrasts Symeons work with that of

Nicholas Kabasilas, who, under the inl u-

ence of Chrysostom, reprsente le ralisme

antiochien, whereas Symeon, par sa

dpendance du Pseudo-Denys et de Maxime

le Confesseur, en revanche, le symbolisme

alexandrin.

13

(256a; cf. 184a).

14 See, for example, Kallistos and Ignatios

Xanthopouloi,

(ed. , vol. 4 [Athens,

1966]), who cite the great Dionysios in

overtly hesychastic contexts: cf. 259 (on the

nature of mental images); 262 (on the minds

union with God); 266 (on the three move-

ments of the soul); and 27172 (on the

nature of divine darkness, dei ned as a

superabundance of supersubstantial light).


historical time, but in a manner similar to the interaction of elements on the surface of a painting or on a point without spatial extension. Symeon indicates, moreover, that architectural meaning is generated by the experience of liturgy itself, and emerges through an interactive process governed by various ritual determinants, including ones religious status, the nature of the ceremony or sacrament being conducted, the time of celebration (e.g., morning or evening), and the participants physical location within the church building.15

h is polysemic and richly layered approach enables Symeon to map a large number of symbolic interpretations onto the basic longitudinal organization of sacred space. For example, he associates the three major divisions of the church building (narthex, nave, sanctuary) with the tripartite division of the cosmos (earth, heaven, and the places beyond the heavens 704bc; cf. 321d), as well as with the three regions of the visible world (earth, paradise, and the visible heaven 337d, 357d, 704ab, 708c). From another point of view, the same threefold division mimics (1) the tripartite structure of the tabernacle (of Moses) and the Temple of Solomon (337d, 704cd; cf. 348d); (2) the three triads of the angelic orders; and (3) the clergy, the faithful, and those in repentance (704bc). And because the three distinct spaces of narthex, nave, and sanctuary are contained within a single architectural unity, the church preeminently signii es the multiplicity within unity of the Holy Trinity (337d; 704b).16

Structures of Dualityh is trinitarian interpretive category, however, is of somewhat secondary importance within Symeons overall interpretation of liturgical space. Instead, the Palaiologan symbolist more consistently employs a twofold formula, whose binary elegance and systematic ei ciency deeply structure his architectural hermeneutics.17 From this perspective, the narthex and nave together correspond to the visible earth (understood to include the visible heaven), while the sanctuary is a type for that which exists beyond visibility, that is, the realm of the invisible God. As we shall see, the shit to a binary formula creates a grand division of sacred space that enhances the importance of the critical frontier demarcated by the icon screen. Moreover, the rationale for such a bifurcation is closely associated with central patterns of religious belief. In a key passage, Symeon argues that the binary forms of sacred space are rel ections of cognate patterns embedded within Christology, anthropology, and the doctrine of God, all of which are interconnected.

h e church is double ( ) on account of its division into the space of the sanctuary ( ) and that which is outside () the sanctuary, and thus it images () Christ himself, who is likewise double ( ), being at once God and man, both invisible and visible. And the church likewise images man, who is compounded of (visible) body and (invisible) soul. But the church supremely images the mystery of the Trinity, which is unapproachable in its essence (), but known through its providential activity and powers ( , 704a).18

In this passage, the two performance areas of the church (the sanctuary and the nave/narthex) are said to image the two natures of Christ, so that the visibility of the nave signii es the visible human nature of Christ, whose invisible nature is represented by the restriction of the sanctuary from public view. In the same way, the twofold nature of man, composed of (visible) body and (invisible)

15 Cf. 333a, 360bc, 708a, and 704b,

where dif erent symbolic structures are said

to depend upon the intention () of

the symbolist. For a discussion of Symeons

hermeneutical principles, see Phountoules,

(above, n. 11), 12141;

and, with caution, H.-J. Schulz, h e

Byzantine Liturgy, trans. M. J. OConnell

(New York, 1986), 11424 (see below, n. 50).

On the relationship between liturgical myst-

agogy and allegorical exegesis, see Bornert,

Commentaires (above, n. 12), 4782, and P.

Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols

within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis

(Toronto, 1984). See also R. Ousterhout,

h e Holy Space: Architecture and Liturgy,

in Heaven on Earth, ed. L. Safran (University

Park, Pa., 1998), 81120; H. Maguire, h e

Language of Symbols, in Earth and Ocean:

h e Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art

(University Park, Pa., 1987), 515; and T.

Kolbaba, Liturgy, Symbols, and Byzantine

Religion, in h e Byzantine Lists (Princeton,

N.J., 2000), 10223.

16 In this regard, Symeon follows

Maximoss predilection for triadic interpre-

tations, although he avoids the latters

tripartite anthropological interpretation of

sacred space (i.e., nave/body, sanctuary/

soul, altar/mind); cf. Maximos, Mystagogia

4 (PG 91:672bc).

17 Cf. Phountoules, ,

12930. For a detailed discussion of binary

logic in the ancient world, see G. E. R.

Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of

Argumentation in Early Greek h ought

(Cambridge, 1966), 1585. See also Maximos,

Mystagogia 2, for a twofold formula in

which the church is a type and image of

the entire universe, visible and invisible

(PG 91:668d).

18 All translations, except from Genesis,

are my own, many of which, for the sake of

clarity and simplicity, paraphrase the

rhetorical l ourishes of the original sources.

h e translation of Genesis is from L. C. L.

Brenton, h e Septuagint with Apocrypha

(London, 1851; repr. Peabody, Mass., 1992).


soul, is likewise imaged by the respective exteriority and interiority of the nave and the sanctuary.19 Finally, the same bilateral structure is said to exemplify a central tenet of Late Byzantine theology, namely, the Palamite doctrine that the godhead is unknowable in its essence (and as such unrepresentable) but nevertheless well known through its various manifestations and activities.20 In Symeons cogent use of these categories, both the doctrine of revelation and the symbolic architecture of the church are formally unii ed, based on a distinction opening around that which is given to visibility and that which is not, or cannot, be given to vision or knowledge.

We have, then, a basic binary formula, rooted in a unii ed doctrinal pattern, which Symeon employs as a systematic principle in the spatial ordering of his liturgical universe. Within that world, the sacraments occupy a central place, and they too are understood in light of the same, binary framework. For example, in his comments on the administration of consecrated oil (), Symeon explains that the person of Christ, the git of unction, and those who receive it are all closely intertwined and ultimately identii ed in light of the basic unity in duality by which they are structured:

In this sacrament, two prayers () are said, signifying the dual-natured () Jesus, who is bodiless, unspeakable, and cannot be apprehended (), but who for our sakes assumed a body, and becoming comprehensible () was

seen and conversed with men (Baruch 3:38), remaining God without change, so that he might sanctify us in a twofold manner (), according to that which is invisible and that which is visible, by which I mean the soul and the body. And thus he transmitted the sacraments to us in a twofold form (), at once visible and material, for the sake of our body, and at the same time intelligible and mystical ( ), and i lled with invisible grace for the sake of our soul[and thus when administering the consecrated oil we say that it is] for the sanctii cation of soul and body. (524d525a).21

h is double, inward/outward character is distinctive of every sacrament, having a visible and invisible aspect; a combination of things immediately accessible to the senses and of things which are not. In the rite of anointing, this is expressed through the use of two prayers along with the twofold utterance of the administration formula. As Symeon makes clear, the dual nature of the sacrament has its origin in the sacrament of the Incarnation, that is, in the dual-natured Jesus, who as God remained purely spiritual while becoming fully material as man. Symeon therefore ai rms that the material and the spiritual are not separate or opposed, but rather conjoined, for there is one and the same church above and below, since God came and appeared among us, and was seen in our formand the same [sacred ceremony] is celebrated both above and below (340b; cf. 296cd). Once again, the principle of physical and metaphysical union is a direct corollary of the Incarnation, when the invisible God visibly appeared among us, traversing and thereby abolishing the paradigmatic opposition of

above and below. In the dual-natured person of the God-man, both the created, visible image and its uncreated, invisible archetype are woven together in a uniform coincidence of opposites rendered present through the sacramental mystery of the liturgy.

h e Sanctuary Veil as Sacramental SymbolWith these crowning formulations, Symeon appears to have ef ectively overcome the binary opposition of the sensible and the intelligible, the visible and the

19 In a prayer recited publicly at the

annual commemoration of the dedication

() of St. Sophia in h essalonike (25

January), Symeon joins a binary cosmo-

logical scheme to a binary anthropology and

Christology: You have vouchsafed that this

temple should be built as a type of the whole

world ( ), both

heaven and earth; and as an image ()

of human nature, intelligible and sensible;

and as an example and imitation

( ) of you, the Lord

of all, who being God, became man;

Phountoules ed., 50, lines 1115.

20 Note that here Symeon does not

contrast the divine essence with the

Palamite terminology of energies, but

rather with the Dionysian language of

providential [activity] and powers, which

is widely attested in the Areopagitical

corpus; see the index of G. Heil and A. M.

Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum (Berlin, 1991),

2:278, 294. Symeon elsewhere notes that as

the house of God, the church typii es the

entire cosmos, for God is everywhere and at

the same time transcends all things (337d);

cf. below, n. 67.

21 Cf. 337d, where Symeon notes that

spiritual blessings are mediated through

material objects, such as saintly relics,

because we are double ( ), and

receive double git s, and thus grace subsists

() in material things (cf. 352a,

177cd); and below, n. 32, on incense as a

medium of divine grace. See also John of

Damascus, Orationes de imaginibus 3.12:

Because we are twofold (), fashioned

of soul and body, and because our soul is not

naked, but covered as if by a veil (

), it is impossible for us to

attain to spiritual things ( ) apart

from corporeal realities (

). And for this reason Christ

assumed a body and a soul, and this is also

why baptism is twofold (), of water

and spirit, and so too communion, prayer,

and psalmody, are all twofold, bodily and

spiritual (Kotter ed., 3:12324, lines 23

35); and Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex

h eodoto 81:

,

(PG 9:696b).


invisible, which are conjoined in the Incarnation, mediated through liturgy, rendered present through the sacraments, and monumentalized in the twofold organization of sacred space. Into this seemingly indissoluble union, however, the Palaiologan symbolist introduces an important qualii cation. Turning to the language of veils and symbols, Symeon asserts that the earthly liturgy dif ers from its heavenly counterpart in one critical sense: h e Lords priestly activity () and communion and comprehension ()22 constitute one single work (), which is celebrated at the same time both above and below, except that there (i.e., in heaven) [it is celebrated] without veils ( ) and symbols ( ); but here [it is celebrated] through symbols ( ), because we are enveloped () in this heavy and mortal load of l esh (340ab; cf. 296cd).23 Here the single work of the liturgy is said to be dif erentiated with respect to the place and manner of its celebration. Whereas the heavenly liturgy is celebrated in

unveiled immediacy, its earthly performance is mediated through symbols, which Symeon characterizes as veils. With this latter image, that which covers and conceals has become a metaphor for the totality of material objects employed in the celebration of the Byzantine liturgy (e.g., church building, altar, chalice, vestments, bread, wine). Contrary to expectation, however, these symbolic veils are not said to obstruct the communion and comprehension of divine mysteries, but instead function precisely as the irreducible medium of religious experience, a network of i gures, as it were, providing the conditions for perceiving that which is beyond i guration. h ere is thus one liturgy, in which heaven and earth jointly participate, although it is experienced in a manner proper to each. In the case of the earthly liturgy, celebrated by human souls enveloped in l esh, participation in the divine can occur only through symbols and veils, a phrase that designates the sensuous apprehension of that which cannot otherwise be known. Symeon can therefore be said to espouse a realist notion of the symbol, a sacramental theology of real presence, in which symbolic forms do not simply refer to objects outside themselves, but rather contain or participate directly in their referents.

h at Symeon chose to encapsulate a general theory of the symbolic in the image of a liturgical veil was not, of course, arbitrary and is closely related to his symbolic understanding of the sanctuary enclosure. In distinguishing those within the sanctuary from those who stand outside it, Symeon describes the latter as participating in the mysteries of the sanctuary, not immediately, but mediately ( , ), and through certain veils ( ) (312b). h e sanctuary doors, moreover, which are closely associated with the veil, have the same symbolic function, and are described in virtually identical terms.

At erwards, the doors are closedfor the sublime things cannot be contemplated ( ) by the lower members, neither are the mysteries understood ( ) by all, for at that moment Jesus is veiled () r om the many, and disclosed only gradually ( ). At erwards, the doors are opened, analogous to the contemplation of the more advanced and perfectand Christ unites and is united to all, but in a manner relative to the capacity of each, for all do not immediately () participate in him, for some do so purely, and without veils ( ). (296bc)

At i rst glance, we might be inclined to recoil from what appears to be the construction of a theological caste system, whose higher levels enjoy immediate

22 Bornert, Commentaires byzantins

(above, n. 12), 24950, associates this term

with the contemplation () of intel-

ligible realities through liturgical rites and

symbols, identii ed with the perception of

eschatological realities through the types of

the Old Testament; cf. ibid., 25961.

23 Cf. Phountoules,

(above, n. 11), 32, lines 412;

and Plotinus, Ennead 6.7.7.3031 (discussed

above, n. 1).


and unveiled access to God, whereas the lower members can only gape at veils drawn across closed doors, passively awaiting incremental disclosures controlled by hierarchy. Upon closer inspection, however, these remarks are concerned only to dif erentiate specii c forms or modes of contemplation (described above as symbolic), and thus should not be taken to mean that the lower members do not participate in the divine source of redemption. All participate in God in ways that are proper to them. No one is by nature excluded from communion with God, but the transcendent deity is imparted only under various symbolic forms, or veils, that are analogous to ones capacity to receive it. Symeon has taken this principle directly from Dionysios the Areopagite, whose doctrine of divine revelation played a prominent role in the hesychastic controversy. h e question at the center of the storm was whether or not human beings participated directly in the life of God, or if such experiences were inexorably mediated by various

symbols, referred to as veils.24 I shall return to this question in detail below. Here, it should be emphasized that, among the hesychasts, the veil was a central image for representing the symbolic nature of human religious experience, and Symeon has mapped it directly onto the function of the sanctuary enclosure.

h e Sanctuary Enclosure: Visible h reshold of the Invisibleh us far, we have considered Symeons architectural hermeneutics, which present the sacred space of the church as an image of the tabernacle, the visible earth, and the entire cosmos. With Symeons interpretive shit from tertiary to binary patterns, we saw a new space emerge, a place of identity and dif erence mediated through symbols and covered by veils. Sacred space was thereby reorganized around the distinction between that which is given to visibility and that which is not, or cannot, be given to vision and/or knowledge. It is here that Symeon situates his remarks on the sanctuary enclosure as follows:

h e sanctuary enclosure ()25 brings to light the distinction between the sensible ( ) and the intelligible ( ), and [thus] it is like a

i rmament (; cf. Gen. 1:6) separating () intelligible [forms] ( ) r om material objects ( ); and the columns in r ont of the altar of Christ are the pillars of his church, and they preach about him and support us. Hence the entablature ()26 above the columns maintains () the

bond of love (cf. Eph. 4.3; Col. 3.14) and the union in Christ of the saints on earth with the [saints] in heaven.27 And thus [the icon of] the Savior is placed above the entablature in the middle of the sacred icons of [his] Mother, and of the Baptist; and of the angels, and the apostles; and the rest of the saints. h ese icons teach that Christ is in this way in heaven among his saints, and also [here] with us now, and that he will come again.28 (345cd).

24 Cf. Dionysios the Areopagite, On the

Celestial Hierarchy 1.2 (Heil and Ritter

ed., 8, lines 1013) and the texts cited below,

n. 49. On the archaeology of liturgical veils

in Dionysios, see C. Schneider, Studien

zum Ursprung liturgischer Einzelheiten

stlicher Liturgien: , Kyrios

1 (1936): 5773.

25 C. Walter notes that this term

seems to be virtually restricted to Symeon

of h essaloniki, for whom it means the

sanctuary enclosure; idem, h e Byzantine

Sanctuary: A Word List, in his Pictures

as Language: How the Byzantines Exploited

h em (London, 2000), 271 (a search of the

h esaurus Linguae Graecae produced

no matches). Walter, ibid., 27273, cross-

references Symeon, Hermeneia 7:

, ,

(PG

155:704d), and suggests that refer

to the panels of the sanctuary barrier, but

elsewhere designates the double doors of

the iconostasis or simply the iconostasis.

are further attested in Symeons

liturgical rubrications, ed. J. Darrouzs,

Sainte-Sophie de h essalonique daprs un

rituel, REB 34 (1976): 49, lines 5152 (

); 53, line 14

( );

53, lines 3031 (

); 53, line

32 ( ); and 61,

line 20 (

).

26 Walter, Byzantine Sanctuary, 273,

citing this passage, notes that for Symeon

[this word] seems to be a technical term for

entablature, the same translation for which

is provided by Lampe, 769; cf. pseudo-

Sophronios (above, n. 5); and Manuel Philes,

(Miller ed., 1:117

18 [no. 223]).

27 Cf. 296bc: h e souls of the saints

reside above with the angels, and together

with them they keep watch around us,

dwelling within our churches.

28 Symeon is apparently describing an

image of the Deesis placed in the center

of the epistyle. h e association of the (ot en

curtained) bema with the anticipation of

judgment recalls patristic descriptions

of courtrooms; cf. pseudo-Makarios, Hom.

4.30.3: When the judge takes his seat before

the tribunal ( ),

a curtain is placed before the door (

) (Berthold ed.,

70, lines 2526); Gregory of Nyssa, Contra

Eunomium 1.1.141: Again the lieutenant

governor, again the tragic pomp of trial;

againthe criers and lictors and the

curtained bar ( ),

things that readily daunt even those who are

thoroughly prepared (Jaeger ed., 1:141,

lines 16); and Chrysostom, De incompre-

hensibili Dei natura 4.4: When a judge

appears in court and is about to take his seat

at the tribunal, the jailers lead the prisoners

from their cells and seat them before the

chancel barrier ( ), and

before the curtain that covers the entrance

to the court (

)so it shall be when

Christ appears to take his seat, as it were,

before the high tribunal (

) and reveal himself in the

mysteries (PG 48:733, lines 2028).


h is is in certain respects a somewhat obscure and enigmatic passage, due in part to Symeons tendency to blur the distinction between symbols and their referents. h is may be deliberate inasmuch as Symeons interpretation of the iconography of the entablature as an imago ecclesiae holds within vision an eschatological unity which itself blurs the boundaries of time and space. Equally complex are Symeons analytical categories (e.g., matter, sense perception, intelligibility), which are taken over from the rei ned psychological vocabulary of religious contemplation.29 It would be impossible to accommodate here all the elements of this extremely dense passage, and we shall therefore identify three related points that are central to the argument of this study. h e i rst is the perception of the sanctuary enclosure as a symbolic boundary between the sensible and the intelligible, a distinction that has been with us from the outset. h e second theme, related to the i rst, is the association of the sanctuary enclosure with the i rmament described in the i rst chapter of Genesis.30 In Jewish and Christian tradition, the i rmament was a cosmological keystone that marked a liminal divide between heaven and that which transcends the heavens. As its name suggests, it was the solid (), perceptible boundary of the visible creation, behind which was concealed the uncreated God.31 Symeons identii cation of the sanctuary enclosure with the i rmament is linked to our third theme, which embraces the previous two, namely, the notion that the veil of the tabernacle was a representation of the veil of the heavens, and, more generally, that the entire tabernacle was a microcosm of the heavenly tabernacle or of the cosmos as a whole.

Symeon and the Tabernacle of MosesSymeons cosmological interpretation of sacred architecture, including his identii cation of the sanctuary enclosure with the heavenly i rmament (Gen. 1:6), are part of his larger belief in the relationship between the tabernacle of Moses and the church, both of which are understood as microcosms of creation. To demonstrate this claim, Symeon gestures toward the organization of sacred space, reporting that the tripartite structure of the church building was foreshadowed in both the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon, for these were divided into three parts culminating in the Holy of Holies. He maintains, moreover, that these spatial divisions correspond to the structures of the spiritual universe, and he concludes that, just like the Holy of Holies, the Christian sanctuary is a type of the places beyond the heavens (cf. Heb. 9:24), containing the throne of the immaterial God (cf. Heb. 1:8, 4:16, 8:1, 12:2) (337d). h e ritual use of incense, which Symeon describes in detail, is yet another mark of continuity between the tabernacle and the church, for it symbolizes the ef usions of divine glory emanating from the divine presence.32

29 Cf. above, n. 22.

30 Gen. 1:68: And God said, Let there

be a i rmament () in the midst

of the water, and let it be a division

() between water and water, and

it was so. And God made the i rmament,

and God divided between the water which

was under the i rmament and the water

which was above the i rmament. And God

called the i rmament Heaven, and God

saw that it was good, and there was evening

and there was morning, the second day

(trans. Brenton). Cf. Exod. 24.10.

31 See, for example, Eusebios of Caesarea,

Praeparatio evangelica 11.6:

,

(PG 21:857c); and Cyril of

Jerusalem, Catecheses ad illuminandos 9.1:

In virtue of his great love for mankind, God

has covered his divinity with the heaven like

a curtain (), so that we might

not perish [at the sight of him]for if the

sight of the archangel Gabriel struck terror

in the hearts of the prophets, surely the

vision of God as he is in his own nature (

) would destroy the human race (PG

33:637b640a).

32 See 624c: At vespers, it was customary

for the acolytes to i ll the church with

incense, to the glory of God and as a type of

his sacred glory, which once i lled the taber-

nacle so that Moses and Aaron could not

enter until it dissipated. h is was also done

in imitation of the temple of Solomon,

which was i lled with the glory of God;

329bc: h e use of incense is in place of the

cloud that i lled and sanctii ed both the

tabernacle and the temple of Solomon, being

a type of the Holy Spirit; and 644a: h e

use of incense is to signify that the taber-

nacle was built by Moses and Bezaleel in the

Holy Spirit. Symeons association of incense

with the presence of the Spirit is underlined

in his admonition to deacons not to cense

a heretic, should one chance to be present

out of curiosity, for incense is the imparta-

tion () of divine grace, ed.

Darrouzs, Sainte-Sophie (above, n. 25),

49.6061; cf. 561d:

[i.e., ]

.


Symeon also sees in the tabernacle a type of the body of Christ, a connection authorized by the New Testament and richly developed by exegetes of the patristic period. Working within this tradition, the Palaiologan mystagogue asserts that the holy tabernacle was an image of that all-holy and living temple, by which I mean the Lordly body, which the True and Living Wisdom built for herself (Prov. 9:1), God the Word incarnate (325c).33 Here Symeon is particularly interested in the veil of the tabernacle, a covering that he identii es with the l esh that concealed the incarnate Logos. h is connection is particularly pronounced in his comments on the main portal of the sanctuary, which is arguably the visual and symbolic focal point of the entire screen. Symeon sees the sanctuary portal, presumably veiled, as a symbol of Christ, the self-described

door () of the sheep (John 10:7)because Christ is the one who gave us entrance () into the Holy of Holies through the veil of his l esh (cf. Heb. 10:1920) (293a).34 h e seemingly peculiar association of Christs l esh with the veil of the tabernacle was canonized by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and we shall return to it in a moment.

h rough a kind of symbolic displacement, Symeon similarly interpets the veil that covers the altar table: the holy veil () on the divine altar [symbolizes] the immaterial tabernacle around God, which is the glory and grace of God, by which he himself is concealed (), clothing himself with light as with a garment (Ps. 103:2) (348cd). Here the deity is said to be hidden, not by invisibility or darkness, but paradoxically by light itself, that is, by the very medium that makes vision possible. Contrary to expectation, it is light (or vision itself) that simultaneously reveals and conceals the presence of God, like a garment covering the body. Signii cantly, in the hesychast tradition exemplii ed by Gregory Palamas, the idea of concealment in a sacred veil was identii ed with the ascent of Moses on Sinai, where he entered into the cloud (Exod. 24:18), beheld the pattern () of the heavenly tabernacle (Exod. 25:9), and was instructed to make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet woven, and i ne linen spun (Exod. 26:31), a central biblical narrative to which we may now turn.

33 Cf. 697ab: h e omnipresent God,

moved by divine love, came and tabernacled

() among us (John 1:14). See also

h eodotos of Ancyra, Hom. in s. Deiparam

13: h e one who was begotten before

themorning star (cf. Ps. 109:3) in the last

days called the holy virgin his mother, and

the Wisdom of God built for herself a

temple (cf. Prov. 9.1; Jn. 2.21) not made by

hands (cf. Mark 14:58; Acts 17:24) in the

body of the honorable virgin and taber-

nacled among us (John 1:14), because the

Most High does not dwell in shrines made

by human hands (Acts 17:24) (Jugie ed.,

332 [214], lines 1924).

34 Cf. 645a: Christ renewed and

prepared for us a way through the veil of

his l esh, by which we have entrance to

the sanctuary (Heb. 10:20); and 704cd:

the veil of the sanctuary is a type of the

heavenly tabernacle () which is

around God. See also Severianos of Gabala,

De velo: h e temple was one structure,

but nonetheless divided into two parts, that

is, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies,

being a type of the Lordly body. For just

as the former was visible () to all, but

the latter only to the high priest, so too was

the Saviors divinity hidden (

) in the Incarnation, but nevertheless

exercised itself in plan view (

); and the veil, too, was a type

of the Lords body, for just as the veil stood

in the middle () of the Temple,

separating that which was outwardly

() visible from the inner ()

mystery, so too the body of the Lord veiled

his divinity, barring mortal vision from

the sight of the immortal. And this teaching

is not mine, but Pauls, who says that he

opened up a new way through the veil,

that is, his l esh (Heb. 10:20) (PG 52:830,

lines 1333).


h e Veil of the TabernaclePatristic and Byzantine writers dealt extensively with the veil of the tabernacle (and, by extension, that of the Jerusalem Temple), which separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies (cf. Exod. 26:31, 37:3, 40:3; Mt. 27:51). As an example, we may consider a passage from a twelt h-century homily on the early life of the Virgin by James of Kokkinobaphos. h e homily, based on the apocryphalProtoevangelion of James, deals in part with the Virgins work on the veil of the Temple, a textile that the homilist interprets as a symbol for the l esh of Christ. In Marys purple thread, the Byzantine monk sees foreshadowings of the Incarnation, for Christ will presently clothe himself in the royal robe of the l esh woven from the body of the Virgin, and in return he shall show her forth as the Queen of all created beings. He then ponders the meaning of veil (), which he dei nes as a polysemic term ( ) having a range of applications ( ). He observes that the curtain of the Temple is a veil, for it shrouds in mystery the presence of God. And the sky above us is also a veil, for the heavenly azure conceals the expanse of the universe. He therefore concludes that the veil of the Temple was intended by Moses to symbolize the veil of heaven, and both veils together prei gured the veil of Christs l esh, which enfolded and concealed his divinity.35

Christian thinkers who made these associations were exploring a relationship between the veil of the tabernacle and the l esh of Christ that, as we have seen, was established in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and thus had the imprimatur of sacred Scripture.36 In an allegorical reading of the tabernacle liturgy, the outer tent ( ) is said to be a symbol () of the present age (Heb. 9:6, 9), rendering by implication the inner tent a symbol of heaven and the age to come. Traversing the outer boundary, Christ the high priest passed through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands ( ) (Heb. 9:11), entering, not into a sanctuary () made with hands, an antitype of the true one, but into heaven itself (Heb. 9:24). h erefore, the argument concludes, we have coni dence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the veil, that is, his l esh ( , ) (Heb. 10:1920).37

In order to clarify these ideas, it is helpful to recall that the tabernacle was understood to be a microcosm of the six days of creation (Gen. 12), revealed to Moses during his six-day sojourn on the summit of Mount Sinai (Exod. 24:16).38 h e days of creation, moreover, determined the various stages of the tabernacles construction, and thus the veil of the sanctuary was installed on the second day (Exod. 26:3133), imitating the i rmament that, on the second day of creation, was positioned between the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:68).

35 James of Kokkinobaphos, Hom. 4,

which remains unedited, at Vat. gr. 1162,

fol. 109v; cited in I. Hutter, Die Homilien

des Mnches Jakobus und ihre Illustration

(Vienna, 1970), 2:26; cf. 1:15759; cf.

Chrysostom, In Heb. hom. 15: By the tent

not made with hands he means the l esh.

And he called it a greater and more perfect

tent, since God the Word and all the energy

of the Spirit dwell within it, for it is not

by measure that God gives the Spirit to him

(John 3:34). And it is not made with

hands, for man did not construct it, but it

is spiritual, of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke

1:29). He calls the body () a tent,

a veil, and heaven to the extent that one

thing or another is signii ed (),

although they are called by the same word.

I mean, for instance, that heaven is a veil,

and the l esh of Christ is also a veil, for

it concealed his divinity (

) (PG 63:119, 139). See also

h eodoret, Interpretatio in xiv epistulas s.

Pauli: In Heb. 9:1112; 10:1922 (PG 82:741,

749); idem, Eranistes, Ettlinger ed., 76.

36 For a detailed analysis, see H. Attridge,

h e Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia,

1989), who states that the document known

as the Epistle to the Hebrews is the most

elegant and sophisticated, perhaps the most

enigmatic, text of 1st-century Christianity

(p. 1). On Heb. 10:1920, see pp. 28387.

37 N. H. Young,

(Hebr. 10, 20): Apposition,

Dependent or Explicative? New Testament

Studies 20 (197374): 100104, argues

against various attempts to mitigate the

direct association of the tabernacle veil with

the l esh of Christ.

38 See, e.g., Basil of Seleucia, Assumpt.:

God directed that Moses the writer should

become the iconographer ()

of creation, and through the construction of

the tabernacle he was ordered to imitate

() the creator, for the appearance

() of the tabernacle is an imitation

() of the earth and of the things

on the earth (PG 28:1097c); and Kosmas

Indikopleustes, Christian Topography 5.19

20, who states that the tabernacle was a

type (, cf. Exod. 15.30) of what Moses

had seen on Sinai, that is, an impress of the

whole world (

), Wolska-Conus ed., 2:3539.


h e basic liturgical division of the tabernacle, therefore, corresponds to the basic division of creation, the veils of which conceal respectively the visible mysteries of the universe and the invisible mystery of God.39 For later commentators, including Philo, Josephus, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the veil represented the boundary between the visible world and the invisible, between being and becoming, between the world of the senses and that of the intellect.40 h ose who passed through the veil were mediators, i gures who functioned in both worlds, and who through ritual sacrii ces united humanity with divinity.

In the context of the tabernacle liturgy, the high priest alone was permitted to pass through the veil, and only on the Day of Atonement. On that day, he wore special vestments fashioned exactly at er the manner of the veil, and they too represented the fabric of creation (cf. Wisdom 18:24: For upon his long robe the whole world was depicted). According to Philo, the high priest was a i gure of the heavenly high priest, that is, the Divine Logos, who likewise passed through a veil, not in an ascent into the sanctuary, but in a descent from the divine throne to earth (Wisdom 18:1416). As the Logos descended through the veil of the heavens, it took form and became visible, clothing itself in the elements of the creation: Now the garments that the supreme Logos puts on as a raiment is the world, for he arrays himself in earth and air and water and i re and all that comes forth from these.41 Arrayed in the perceptible garments of creation, the Logos revealed itself to sensual apprehension and now stands on the border ( ) as a mediator between creatures and their creator.42 h e veiling of the Logos, which revealed its invisible presence by concealing it, provided an important expression for the idea of incarnation, and passed directly into Christian usage through Hebrews 10:1920.

With these ideas in mind, we may return briel y to the iconography of the Annunciation and the signii cance of its location on the threshold of the sanctuary. h e Virgins work on the veil of the Temple is an activity coincident with the Incarnation, and it is the act of drawing out the thread that signii es the moment of conception. In producing thread for the veil of the Temple, the labor of Marys hands symbolizes the activity of her womb. Concealed (and thus revealed) in a curtain of colored matter, the formless divinity is transformed in the womb of the Virgin, who has rendered it dissemblant from its very self, engendering a form for the formless through the folds of a garment, a veil of l esh.43 h e Byzantine association of the sanctuary veil with the tissue of the human body i nds a striking parallel in Philos Life of Moses. Commenting on the fabrication of the various Temple curtains, Philo notes that the ten curtains are woven from four kinds of material, which multiply into the number forty. Philo observes that this i gure is generative of life, corresponding to the number of

39 Chrysostom, In diem nat. 3: h e

temple was built as an image ()

of the entire world, sensible and intelligible.

For just as heaven and earth are divided

() by the i rmament which

stands in their midst, he directed that the

temple be likewise divided ()

in two, and he placed a veil in its midst; and

whereas that which was outside the veil

was apprehensible by all ( ),

that which was within it was not given to

vision (), except to the high priest

(PG 49:355); cf. h eodoret, Quaestiones in

Octateuchum: Qu. in Exod. 60: h e taber-

nacle was an image of creation (

), for just as God divided the

earth from the heaven by means of the

i rmamenthe ordered that the veil be

placed in the midst of the tabernacle as a

type of the i rmament, dividing the taber-

nacle in two (

,

) (PG 80:281ab); and Basil

of Seleucia, Assumpt.: He screened of

() the inner portions of the taber-

nacle, gracing its invisible portion by means

of a curtain (). h rough

these forms () he legislated the

imitation of heaven and earth, desiring to

bar entrance to the innermost shrine, which

he reserved only for the high priest, as a

type of the Lords ascension into heaven

(PG 28:1097cd).

40 h is material has been collected and

studied by M. Barker, On Earth as It Is in

Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New

Testament (Edinburgh, 1995).

41 Philo, On Flight 110 (Colson trans., 68).

42 Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine h ings?

2056: To His Word, His chief messenger,

highest in age and honor, the Father of

all has given the special prerogative, to stand

on the border and separate the creature

( ) from the creator (

)saying I stood between the

Lord and you (Deut. 5.5), that is, neither

uncreated () as God, nor created

() as you, but midway between the

two extremes, a surety to both sides (

, )

(Whitaker trans., 385).

43 Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione

9: h e beauty and multiform ornament of

the church is Christ, who is one yet under-

stood by many riddles, such as the i ne-spun

linen (Exod. 26.31), for the bodiless Word

was spun () when he was knitted

together () with the l esh; and

not just linen but blue linen, for he is not

only from earth but from the heavensand

purple, for he is not a slave but a King from

God; and woven from scarlet, to indicate,

as we said, his being knitted together with

the l eshfor scarlet is a symbol ()

of blood (PG 68:636ab). For discussion of

this passage, see N. Constas, Proclus of

Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in

Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2003), chap. 6.


weeks in which man is fully formed in the workshop of nature ( ), a metaphor of fecundity later ascribed to the womb of Mary.44

Symeon himself associates the i gure of Mary directly with the central gate of the sanctuary enclosure (562d; cf. 636d, 637d, 640bc),45 which had been decorated with the iconography of the Annunciation from at least the Middle Byzantine period.46 In addition, the incarnational symbolism of the sanctuary doors could be further enhanced by equipment with an actual curtain, or veil (), suspended across the entrance into the sanctuary.47 Altogether, the conjunction of scripture, theology, iconography, and architecture created an appropriate symbol for the incarnation of the Logos, who passed through the virginal gates and entered the world of matter. Weaving a cultic veil for the Temple, the Virgin was poised, not simply on the visible entrance to the sanctuary, but on the threshold of that which is beyond visibility, the presence of the invisible God. In such a richly articulated arrangement, the promise held forth by Marys thread appeared to be fuli lled in the folds of an actual fabric, the veiled gate of the Christian temple.

As the central narrative in the history of Gods revelation to Israel, the book of Exodus had a profound inl uence on the patristic and Byzantine religious imagination. References and allusions to Moses sojourn on Mount Sinai resonate across the entire landscape of Greek Christian literature, from the New Testament to the writings of Symeon of h essalonike and beyond. h e veil of the tabernacle assumed a particularly prominent place within Byzantine theology and served as a central metaphor for the paradoxical nature of divine revelation. In addition, the symbolic perception of the tabernacle as a type of the cosmos, and of its veil as a kind of heavenly curtain, encouraged expansive cosmological interpretations of the church building and the veiled portal of its sanctuary. h e Epistle to the Hebrews ensured that the Incarnation would never be absent from rel ection on cosmology and sacred architecture, which were profoundly shaped by theological controversies down through the last years of the empire.

44 Philo, Life of Moses 2.17 (Colson trans.,

491); cf. idem, Special Laws 3.33:

(Colson trans., 494); cf.

Proklos, Hom. 1.1:

(Constas ed., 136, lines

1415; cf. 14950).

45 In a hymn to the Virgin, Symeon

praises her as a Living Temple and Gate

() of God (cf. Ezek. 44:12)

(Phountoules ed., 125, line 9). In the dedica-

tion prayer for the church of the h eotokos

Acheiropoietos, which was read publicly

before the gates ( ) of the

Temple (cf. 328c), Symeon asks the Virgin,

Be with us now, and together with our

entrance into your temple, open ()

for us also the mercies of your Son, you who

are the Heavenly Gate ( ;

cf. Gen. 28.17), ibid., 3132, lines 23 and 12.

For additional occurrences of this image, see

ibid., 17071, 21516, 246.

46 h e earliest evidence is a 12th-c.

illumination from the Homilies of James

of Kokkinobaphos, Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 90r,

i g. 42. See A. Grabar, Deux notes sur

lhistoire de liconostase daprs des monu-

ments de Yougoslavie, ZRVI 7 (1961): 1322,

esp. 15, i g. 4; G. Babi, Limage symbolique

de la Porte Ferme saint-Clment

dOhrid, in Synthronon: Art et archologie

de la i n de lantiquit et du moyen ge (Paris,

1968), 14551; and the recently published

bema doors from Sinai dated to the late 12th

c., in Sinai, Byzantium, Russia: Orthodox

Art r om the Sixth to the Twentieth Century,

ed. Y. Piatnitsky et al. (London, 2000), 236

37. See also E. Kitzinger, h e Mosaics of

the Cappella Palatino in Palermo, ArtB 31

(1949): 277 n. 41.

47 Sanctuary veils are attested in Egypt

as early as the 6th c. See T. F. Mathews,

h e Early Churches of Constantinople:

Architecture and Liturgy (University Park,

Pa., 1971), 16271; R. F. Tat , A History of the

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 2, h e

Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of

Git s and Other Preanaphoral Rites of the

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, OCA 200

(Rome, 1975), 41116; and S. E. J. Gerstel,

Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of

the Byzantine Sanctuary (Seattle, 1999), 89.

Gregory of Nyssa uses the imagery of veiled

portals as a metaphor for the entrance of

the divine into the human soul, imaged in

the i gure of Solomons bride, later identi-

i ed with Mary: She opens the door ()

drawing aside the covering () of the

heart. She removes from the door the veil

of the l esh ( ).

She opens wide the gate () of the soul

so that the King of Glory may enter; In

Canticum canticorum 11 (Jaeger and

Langerbeck ed., 333, lines 25).


Revelation as ConcealmentIn this study of Symeon of h essalonike, we have encountered a robust organization of reality into a series of contrasting polarities, a dynamic system of binaries holding in purposive tension the sensible and the intelligible, the visible and the invisible, the revealed and the concealed. Like so many of his patristic and Byzantine predecessors, Symeon did not understand these heterogeneous orders as constituting an ontological or metaphysical dualism, but rather as a complex perichoresis of the spiritual and the material, a fecund syzygia internally bounded by charged liminal sites. In the texts considered above, these contrasting magnitudes are associated with the symbolic function of the sanctuary enclosure and open up around the image of the veil, a key metaphor that enables Symeon to correlate the two dissevered halves of the world and the self: its physical, sensory, externalized half and its ideal, transcendent noumenal half, transforming life into a unitary act of perception and understanding, a liturgical work of art.

As we have seen, this basic structural principle is deeply indebted to the work of Dionysios the Areopagite, with respect to whom Symeon identii es himself as the last and least of the students of his students, a self-ef acing claim for the place of his own work in an unbroken chain of interpretation and practice.48 In particular, Symeons repeated assertion that the earthly liturgy is mediated by

veils and symbols is taken directly from Dionysioss treatise On the Celestial Hierarchy, in which the self-styled disciple of St. Paul (cf. Acts 17:34) declares,

it is impossible for the divine ray to otherwise illumine us except by being concealed in a variety of sacred veils ( ), a notion that succinctly expresses Dionysioss doctrine of revelation and is variously attested throughout the Areopagitical writings.49

h at a Late Byzantine mystagogical writer should draw on the renowned liturgical commentaries of Dionysios the Areopagite might at i rst glance seem hardly worthy of notice, and may explain why the Palaiologan prelates use of the Areopagitical corpus has received only superi cial consideration in contemporary scholarship. It is, however, a mistake to dismiss Symeons use of Dionysios as simply an entry in an inventory compiled by a Byzantine antiquarian who was confused about his sources.50 It is well established that Symeon was an ardent hesychast, and his work is therefore best viewed from the perspective of the spiritual and theological concerns of the fourteenth and i t eenth centuries.51 During this period, Byzantine intellectuals became increasingly preoccupied with the writings of Dionysios, beginning with George Pachymeres celebrated paraphrase of the corpus Dionysiacum presented to the patriarch of Alexandria in the i rst decade of the fourteenth century.52 With the controversy between Barlaam and Gregory Palamas (ca. 133541), the Dionysian

renaissance of the Palaiologan period assumed a heightened intensity, for the quarrel of these men involved a disagreement over the correct interpretation of the divine Dionysios.53 Taking a one-sided and reductive view of apophatic theology, Barlaam argued that God is simply inaccessible, and he concluded that the light of h abor (cf. Matt. 17:2) was not the eternal, uncreated light of

48 Cf. above, n. 13.

49 Dionysios the Areopagite, On the

Celestial Hierarchy 1.2 (Heil and Ritter ed.,

8, lines 1013). Cf. other texts by Dionysios

the Areopagite, such as, On the Divine

Names 1.4:

(Suchla ed., 114, lines 17);

idem, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 4.2:

,

(Heil and Ritter ed., 97, lines 57);

idem, Letter 9.1:

,

(Heil and

Ritter ed., 198, lines 1012); and idem, Letter

8.1 (Heil and Ritter ed., 177, lines 36).

50 Schulz, Byzantine Liturgy (above, n. 15),

115, notes that, for Symeon, Dionysios,

regarded as a disciple of the apostles, is

repeatedly cited [in the Dialogue] as the most

important witness to tradition, and that

the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy serves as the

model for Symeons teaching on the sacra-

ments. h is is certainly true, but Schulz

seems unaware of the hesychastic inl uence

on Symeons appropriation of Dionysios.

Moreover, Schulz stresses Symeons depen-

dence on Maximos, although he subse-

quently states that Symeon ultimately

bursts Maximus framework apart, and in

the i nal analysis retains only Germanos

and h eodore, whose identii cation of

symbol and reality now appears in an even

more extreme form (p. 119). He concludes

that Symeons work is essentially derivative,

being an inventory of all the interpretive

motifs approved by the church, in conse-

quence of which large sections of his expla-

nation [are] both ambiguous and confusing

(p. 124).

51 See above, n. 8.

52 See M. Aubineau, Georges Hiro-

mnemon ou Georges Pachymrs, commen-

tateur du Pseudo-Dionysios? JTS 22 (1971):

54144, cited in A. Rigo, Il corpus pseudo-

Dionisiano negli scritti di Gregorio Palamas

(e di Barlaam) del 13361341, in Denys

lAropagite et sa postrit en Orient et en

Occident, ed. Y. de Andia (Paris, 1997), 517.

53 h e notion of a Dionysian renaissance

should not be overemphasized: the

Areopagitical corpus had been the subject

of continuous commentary since the 6th

c., beginning most notably with the scholia

of John of Scythopolis, written between 537

and 543; cf. P. Rorem and J. C. Lamoreaux,

John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus

(Oxford, 1998), 922; for Scythopoliss

scholia on the , cf. ibid.,

pp. 150 (on CH 1.2), 177 (EH 4.2), and 190

(DN 1.4).


God, but rather a created, transitory phenomenon. For the hesychasts, however, this was not only a radically incomplete reading of the Areopagitical corpus but a denial of the experience of divinizing grace, and they took up the gauntlet precisely where it had been thrown down.

At issue was Dionysioss understanding of the vision of God as an experience mediated by symbols, which, as we have seen, were frequently designated as veils (). John VI Kantakouzenos (emp. 134754, d. 1383), for example, writing in defense of the hesychastic view, reviews a number of contemporary opinions concerning the disputed divine and blessed light of h abor. He notes that some of you call it a created phenomenon (), and a veil (), or an apparition () that appears and then vanishes away, but you54 call it a creature () that abides (); still others say that it is neither created nor uncreated, deeming it a kind of wonder ().55

In a letter addressed to a Latin bishop, Kantakouzenos ai rms the necessary role of created symbols in the elevation of the mind to God. Because the context for discussion is the narrative of the Transi guration, the symbol in question is the body of Christ, the created medium of divine light, and thus the symbolic veil of Dionysios is here directly identii ed with the veil of l esh from the Epistle to the Hebrews:

According to Dionysios the Areopagite, it is impossible for the divine ray to otherwise illumine us except by being anagogically concealed in a variety of sacred veils ( ),56 and I say that this is absolutely true, for it is not possible for the human intellect to be illumined by the thearchic ray, if it is not i rst elevated anagogically by creatures to the idea of God. For neither were the apostles at that time [i.e., the Transi guration] able to see the light as it is in its own nature, as Chrysostom says,57 but rather by means of the veil, that is, the l esh of Christ (Heb. 10:20), but even then not according to nature, as Dionysios demonstrates, but rather in a manner beyond human nature and beyond human reason.58

h e same ideas are advanced in Kantakouzenoss Tomos of 1351, from where they were directly cited by Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 130078), who additionally asserts that the glory of the divinity becomes the glory of the body, but the mystery beyond nature cannot be contained () by human eyes, thus the unendurable and unapproachable light concealed itself by means of the l esh, as if under a kind of veil ( ).59

Similar views are shared by Kokkinoss student, h eophanes of Nicaea, both of whom are praised by Symeon in his Dialogue (chap. 31). In his treatise On the Light of h abor (ca. 1370), h eophanes deals extensively with the nature of divine revelation through symbols and seeks to distinguish the uncreated nature of the divine light ( ) from the symbolic forms it assumes relative to subjective perceptions ( ). Here, the image of the veil is ready to hand: h e light of h abor, even though it naturally inheres within the substance of the divine nature, was projected like a veil ( )being a symbol and type of Gods incomprehensibility, for such [symbols] are called coverings () of the truth.60

h e importance of the veil as a theological symbol owes much to the authority of Dionysios the Areopagite. Its centrality among the hesychasts, however, was assured by Palamas himself, who had i rst introduced it into the debate. In an important passage from the Triads, Palamas grapples directly with a locus

54 Here the author addresses the subject

of his critique, Prochoros Kydones, an anti-

Palamite theologian condemned in 1368.

55 Refutatio Prochori Cydonii 1.5 (scr. ca.

1368; Voordeckers and Tinnefeld ed., 8, lines

3139); cf. ibid., 1.26:

(38,

lines 1415): ibid., 1.50:

(76, lines 4648); ibid., 1.53:

(80, line 24); idem, Letter 4.1:

, , , ,

(202, lines 2228); and idem,

Letter 5.1 (215, lines 1922).

56 Citing Dionysios, On the Celestial

Hierarchy 1.2. For an opposing interpreta-

tion of this passage, see Gregory Akindynos,

Refutatio magna, Or. 1.45 (Nadal Caellas

ed., 53, lines 2734), and ibid., 1.26 (Nadal

Caellas ed., 32, lines 58). See J. Nadal

Caellas, Denys lAropagite dans les

traits de Grgoire Akindynos, in Denys

lAropagite (above, n. 52), 53362, esp. 559

60; and T. Boiadjiev, Gregorios Akindynos

als Ausleger des Dionysios Pseudo-

Areopagita, in Die Dionysios-Rezeption im

Mittelalter (Turnhout, 2000), 10522.

57 Pseudo-Chrysostom = Severianos of

Gabala, De velo (PG 52:830); cf. above, n. 34.

58 Letter 5.10 (scr. ca. 136869; Tinnefeld

and Voordeckers ed., 228, lines 2031).

59 Philotheos Kokkinos, Antirrheticus

contra Gregoram, or. 11 (Kaimakes ed., 429,

lines 74447); the citation from the Tomos

(PG 151:753c) is in the Kaimakes ed., 410,

lines 1034:

.

60 De lumine h aborio, or. 3, lines 54751

(Soteropoulos ed.); cf. idem, or. 4, lines 982

85; cf. I. D. Polemis, h eophanes of Nicaea:

His Life and Works, Wiener Byzantinische

Studien 20 (Vienna, 1996), 20814, for

corrections to the edition of Soteropoulos.


classicus from the Mystical h eology of Dionysios, in which liturgy, mysticism, and the doctrine of revelation are closely intertwined in an exegesis of Moses ascent on Sinai:

When Moses entered the sacred cloud, he saw not only the immaterial tabernacle (which he copied by means of matter) but the very hierarchy of the h earchy and its properties, which through various material means were depicted by the priesthood of the law.61 For the tabernacle and everything in it, such as the priesthood and that which pertains to it, were perceptible symbols, veils () of the things that Moses saw in the cloud, but the things themselves were not symbols, for to those who have transcended both impurity and purity and have entered the mystical cloud,

they appear uncovered (), 62 for how could those things be symbols which appear devoid of every covering ( )? And this is why Dionysios begins the Mystical h eology by saying O Trinity beyond being, direct us to the highest summit of mystical [scriptures], where the simple, absolute, and unchanging mysteries of theology are veiled () in the brilliant darkness of the cloud. 63

Palamas begins these theological pyrotechnics with Moses entrance into the cloud, followed by the revelation of the immaterial tabernacle, materially i gured in the symbolic veils of the liturgy. A distinction is subsequently introduced between the sensory perception of liturgical symbols and the deeper insight available to those who, like Moses, have entered the mystical cloud, and behold the things themselves, devoid of every covering. h e passage concludes with a Dionysian paradox, for the uncovered objects of contemplation remain veiled in brilliant darkness. Every unveiling, it would seem, is yet another concealing, and one veil is removed, only to disclose another. Elsewhere, however, Palamas speaks quite clearly of a more direct form of vision, unmediated by veils, a phenomenon that we also observed in the writings of Symeon. In the words of Palamas, h is light and this vision () not only transcend sense perception, but transcend all forms of being, for now [we see] by means of sense perception and through existents and partial symbols, but then we shall transcend these things, and we shall behold the eternal light immediately, with no intervening veil (, ).64 What are we to make of this seeming contradiction?

In order to understand the symbolic function of the veil among the hesychasts of the fourteenth and i t eenth centuries, it should be recalled that these thinkers, following Dionysios the Areopagite, envisioned creation as a theophany, that is, as a manifestation of God.65 In a celebrated passage from On the Divine Names, Dionysios describes creation as the self-manifestation of the uncreated deity: In a moment of ecstasy, the cause of all comes to be outside itself by its providences for all beings; and being, as it were, seduced by goodness and af ection and love, is led down from being above all and transcending all is brought down to being in all.66 h is movement of erotic ecstasy is Gods creative git of himself to the world, in which the absolutely nameless and unknowable becomes knowable through all things and subject to all names. But even in this ecstatic self-impartation, God nevertheless remains radically unknowable in his essence. In his own nature, God is neither a being nor even being itself, but in the ecstasy of creation he becomes all things in all things and nothing in any.67 And because creation is the self-revelation of God himself, Dionysios regards all creatures as symbols of intelligible reality

veils of the uncreated divine energies, the hesychasts would saybecause they

61 Cf. Dionysios, On the Ecclesiastical

Hierarchy 5.2: In the hierarchy of the Law,

the rite () was an uplit ing to spiritual

worship, and the guides were those whom

Moses had initiated into the holy taber-

nacle. It was Moses who, for the edii ca-

tion of others, depicted () in this

holy tabernacle the institutions of the hier-

archy of law. He established all the sacred

actions of the law as an image () of

what was revealed to him on Sinai (Heil

and Ritter ed., 105, lines 915).

62 Citing Dionysios, Mystical h eology 1.3

(Heil and Ritter ed., 143, lines 1315).

63 Triads 2.3.55 (Meyendorf ed., 2:5013,

lines 2027, 19). For discussion and bibli-

ography, see R. Sinkewicz, Gregory

Palamas, in La thologie byzantine, ed.

G. Conticello and V. Conticello (Turnhout,

2002), 2:13182, esp. 16164. On Palamass

use of Dionysios, cf. R. Sinkewicz, h e

Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the

Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,

Medieval Studies 44 (1982): 181242; and

A. M. Ritter, Gregor Palamas als Leser das

Dionysios Pseudo-Areopagita, in Denys

LAropagite, 56377, but note that both

authors follow Meyendorf s dubious claim

that Palamas introduced a christological

corrective to Dionysios, on which see J.

Romanides, Notes on the Palamite Contro-

versy and Related Topics, GOTR 9.2 (1963

64): 25062, esp. 24957; and A. Golitzin,

Dionysios Areopagites in the Works of St.

Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a

Christological Corrective and Related

Matters, SVh Q 46 (2000): 16390.

64 Triads 2.3.24 (Meyendorf ed., 2:435,

lines 1012); cf. Symeon, 296cd, above,

at n. 23.

65 h e following analysis is indebted to

H. Urs von Balthasar, Denys, in his h e

Glory of the Lord: A h eological Aesthetics

(Edinburgh, 1969), 2:144210; and E. Perl,

Symbol, Sacrament, and Hierarchy in Saint

Dionysios the Areopagite, GOTR 39 (1994):

31156; idem, Saint Gregory Palamas and

the Metaphysics of Creation, Dionysios 14

(1990): 10530.

66 On the Divine Names 4.13 (Suchla ed.,

159, lines 914); cf. E. Perl, h e Metaphysics

of Love in Dionysios the Areopagite, Journal

of Neoplatonic Studies 6.1 (1997): 4573.

67 On the Divine Names 7.3:

(Suchla ed.,

198, lines 89).


are symbols of God himself as imparted and revealed.68 Creation then, is a form of incarnation, because it is a true theophany of the divine, the paradoxical visibility of the invisible, the sensuous apprehension of that which cannot otherwise be known.

h ese Dionysian principles were developed by Palamas and his disciples, who unequivocally ai rm that human beings know God by sense perception no less than by intellection.69 h us the distinction between mediated and

unmediated communion is ultimately a false dichotomy. Direct ontological communion with God is not distinct from some other form of communion, but rather takes place in, through, and because of the various symbolic mediations.70 Dionysios states that the same knowledge of God that angels receive noetically is received by human beings symbolically, that is, the same knowledge is imparted in the manner proper to each,71 and thus to reify the distinction between mediated and unmediated participation would be to inscribe a faulty kind of structuralism. Balthasar has therefore rightly suggested that

unmediated should be taken to mean only that the i rst hierarchy has no need of a further intermediary between itself and God, which need not, however, imply that because of this it possesses an essential vision of God. In the end, one is let with the paradox of a mediated immediacy.72

Such a paradox means that, in the very moment of its unveiling, the divine conceals itself. h e self-revelation of God, precisely because it is the revelation of an inexpressible plenitude, is necessarily a veiled unveiling. h is is no less true for the Incarnation: for he is hidden even at er his manifestation, or to speak more divinely, precisely in his manifestation.73 In the paradoxical

manifestation of the unmanifest, what is incomprehensible is given in what is really comprehensible, for it is in every case the incomprehensible God in his totality who makes himself comprehensible in his communications.74 h us one cannot, in a gnostic ascent from sense perception to pure intellection, strip away the symbols, or remove the veils, because when these are removed, there is

nothing there, nothing, that is, which can be given to human comprehension. What is required is a movement into the signs, an understanding of the veils of creation as ontological symbols. One does not encounter God by discarding created symbols, but by experiencing them as symbols, as visible mirrors of the invisible. God is present only in the created symbols, accessible only in the veils that conceal him, because the nature of the symbolic is to conceal and reveal simultaneously, or, to speak more divinely, to reveal by concealing.

Conclusion: Toward a h eology of the Icon Screenh ough ot en disparaged as a form of private mysticism, Byzantine hesychasm was deeply rooted in the experience of the liturgy. As Michael Kunzler has so compellingly argued, participation in the grace of the sacraments (understood as participation in the uncreated energies of God) was the basis for the theology of Palamism, so called.75 h e same holds true for the theology of Dionysios the Areopagite, which disallows any spirituality divorced from the sacramental life of the church, forging instead a via media between the

68 h us Balthasar, Denys, 179:

Dionysios contemplates the divine symbols

with an aesthetic delight. h ings are not

simply the occasion for his seeing God:

rather, he sees God in things. Colors, shapes,

essences and properties are for him imme-

diate theophanies.

69 And, at the same time, that God is

unknowable to intellection no less than he is

to sense perception; cf. Perl, Symbol, 319,

who notes that a dichotomy between sense

and mind is the farthest thing from

Dionysios intent, for it would mean that

God is inaccessible to sense but accessible to

mind, whereas Dionysios invariably insists

that God is both inaccessible and accessible

to both sense and mind (emphasis added).

70 See On the Divine Names 2.7:

, ,

,

(Suchla ed., 131, lines

56, 910); and the discussion in Perl,

Symbol, 34449.

71 On the Celestial Hierarchy 7.2 (Heil and

Ritter ed., 29, lines 515); On the

Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 6.1 (Heil and Ritter

ed., 11516). Cf. On the Divine Names 7.2

(Suchla ed., 195, lines 1220).

72 Balthasar, Denys, 207. Cf. On the

Divine Names 2.5, where Dionysios speaks of

the (Suchla ed., 129,

line 3), and ibid., 2.11 (Suchla ed., 133, lines

1415).

73 From Dionysios, Letter 3, which in its

entirety reads as follows: He who is beyond

being () has come forth from his

secret place ( ), becoming a

human being i

Date post:	10-Sep-2015
Category:	Documents
Upload:	limpdelicious
View:	19 times
Download:	5 times

Symeon of Thessaloniki and the Theology of the Icon Screen

Documents