Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

30 INTRODUCTION
union, and also sees a circular movement of procession, return and
rest in the ultimate that is of clear Neoplatonic inspiration. He also
applies to the liturgy the Neoplatonic language of theurgy, and in
doing so transforms it. 30
But perhaps the most compelling aspect of Denys’ vision is his
understanding of the cosmos. He sees it as a hierarchy, or hierarchy of
hierarchies. The word, hierarchy, is Denys’ own coinage and it
is important to realize what he meant by it. It has come to mean
nowadays a rigid order of graded subordination. But in his Celestial
Hierarchy, Denys defined it quite differently:
In my opinion a hierarchy is a sacred order, a state of
understanding and an activity approximating as closely as
possible to the divine… The goal of a hierarchy, then, is to enable
beings to be as like as possible to God and to be at one with him…
Hierarchy causes its members to be images of God in all
respects, to be clear and spotless mirrors reflecting the glow of
primordial light and indeed of God himself. It ensures that when
its members have received this full and divine splendour they
can then pass on this light generously and in accordance with
God’s will to beings further down the scale. (3.1f.:164D–165A) 31
What Denys means by hierarchy, then, is a radiant display that
reaches out from God throughout the whole of the created order and
draws it back into union with him. Whereas the modern understanding
of hierarchy stresses separation and exclusion, for Denys it connotes
inclusion and union. 32 He sees the cosmos, not in traditional classical
terms as the spheres of the planets, the sun and the moon, and beyond
them the fixed sphere of the stars—for him, as for most Christians,
lifeless beings—but as rank on rank of angelic beings, praising God
and radiating his glory, and drawing human beings up into praise of
God and the transforming power of his glory. This gives Christian
worship, and the Christian message, a cosmic dimension. Just as the
Greek Fathers see the Fall of man in ontological terms—the lettingloose
of corruption and death driving the whole created order towards
non-being—so they see the coming of the reconciling Christ and our
attempts to respond to, and live out, that reconciliation in our lives as
of cosmic significance. The Dionysian vision of the cosmos provides a
metaphysical context in which the cosmic significance of the Christian
Gospel can be made clear.
Maximus is heir to all this: but, more than that, in his own
theological reflection he works out in greater—and more practical—
detail what in Denys is often not much more than splendid and
inspiring rhetoric. How the cosmos has been fractured, and how it is