Andrew Louth - Syriac Christian Church

74 INTRODUCTION
vision, when our God and Saviour Jesus Christ shall indeed
transform us into himself by taking away from us the marks of
corruption and bestow on us the original mysteries which have
been represented for us through sensible symbols here below.
(Myst. 24:704D–705A)
What these divisions do is, it seems to me, to set up a set of echoing
correspondences. Sanctuary/nave is reflected in invisible/visible,
heaven/earth, soul/body, mind/reason, New Testament/Old
Testament, meaning/text. So the movement between sanctuary and
nave in the liturgy interprets and is interpreted by movement between
the other divisions. There is still the circular movement—from
sanctuary to nave and nave to sanctuary—that Denys celebrated, but
it is subordinated to the movement from nave to sanctuary, from earth
to heaven, towards our final rest in God, that undergirds Maximus’
vision. The divisions cease to separate and fragment, and become a
kind of ladder. So the liturgical movement celebrates the healing of
the five divisions by the Incarnation as Maximus expounds it in Amb.
41, and the rhythm of the liturgy enables the participant to realize the
healing power of divine grace. The divisions are not done away, rather
they contribute to the multiplicity inevitable in creatures who are
‘after God’ (as Maximus often puts it): from isolating and diminishing,
they come to represent the richness and diversity of God’s creation.
The movement between God and humankind in the Incarnation,
ascetic struggle leading to contemplation as a healing of divisions
within the human person and the cosmos, the liturgy as celebrating
the mutual encounter between divine self-emptying and human
deification: these are the themes Maximus draws together in his
vision of the cosmic liturgy that is the reality of the humblest
celebration of the divine liturgy.