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 Symeon of Thessalonike and the Theology of the Icon Screen
+
Nicholas P. Constas

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 effectively 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 The 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 intensification of the other. Plotinus, for example, holds that “sensations
(αἰσθήσεις) here [i.e., in the sensible realm] are dim intellections (ἀμυδρὰς νοήσεις); intellections there [i.
e., in the noetic realm] are vivid sensations (ἐναργεῖς αἰσθήσεις)” (Ennead [Link]–31).

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 a new Christian synthesis of ontology, semiotics, and aesthetics.2 Indeed, what 2 Byzantine thinking on these questions
Alden Mosshammer has argued concerning the intellectual development of has recently moved to the center of contem-
Gregory of Nyssa can reasonably be asserted of the Byzantine theological porary continental philosophy. See, for
example, Jacques Derrida’s reading of
tradition as a whole, namely, that it was “a movement away from a Platonizing
Dionysios the Areopagite, “How to Avoid
and exaggerated dualism between mind and body, intelligibles and sensibles… Speaking: Denials,” in Derrida and Negative
towards a more specifically Christian understanding of reality.”3 The result Theology, ed. H. Coward and T. Foshay
was a sacramental vision of the self and the world that did not simply disallow (Albany, 1992), 73–142; and the responses by
facile disjunctions of sensibles and intelligibles, but defined salvation itself as E. Perl, “Signifying Nothing: Being as Sign
a coincidence of such opposites centered within, and transcended by, the dual- in Neoplatonism and Derrida,” in
Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought,
natured person of Christ.4
ed. R. Baine Harris (Albany, 2002), 125–51;
As stated above, Byzantine theories about the nature of revelation had to
and J.-L. Marion, “In the Name: How to
contend with the appearance of the uncreated God within the concrete forms Avoid Speaking of ‘Negative Theology’,” in
of the created world. That the absolute could enter, and be personally active God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, ed. J.
within, the relative conditions of time and space were beliefs derived, not from Caputo and M. Scanlon (Indianapolis, 1999),
the schools of Greek philosophy, but from the religion of Israel and its sacred 20–53; revised as “In the Name: How to
scriptures, viewed from a distinctly Christian perspective. In reflecting on Avoid Speaking of It,” in In Excess: Studies of
Saturated Phenomena, trans. R. Horner and
the accounts of God’s various theophanies to his chosen people, patristic and
V. Berraud (New York, 2002), 128–62. See
Byzantine exegetes were drawn to the heavenly tabernacle revealed to Moses also Marion’s use of categories drawn from
during his sojourn on Mount Sinai (cf. Exod. 25:8–10). Following God’s detailed John of Damascus in his God without Being,
directions, Moses constructed an earthly tabernacle closely corresponding to trans. T. A. Carlson (Chicago, 1991), and
the celestial archetype, which subsequently became the privileged locus of the from Gregory of Nyssa in Being Given:
deity, the visible home of the invisible God, who dwelt within its sanctuary Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans.
J. L. Kossky (Stanford, 2002).
hidden behind a cultic veil.
Because Byzantine exegetes of Scripture were also bishops of the church, the 3 A. Mosshammer, “Gregory of Nyssa
tabernacle of Moses was frequently the model for the decoration and symbolic and Christian Hellenism,” StP 32 (1997):
perception of their own houses of worship. Thus the witness of Scripture to a 172. Jaroslav Pelikan has similarly described
the general movement of Eastern Christian
liturgical veil enclosing the divine presence and dividing sacred space directly
thought from late antiquity to the Early
influenced the Byzantine sanctuary enclosure, the main portal of which was Byzantine period precisely as a shift from
often equipped with a veil. This association was so strong that the symbolism of “Christian idealism” to “Christian materi-
the veil could at times be applied even to the typically stone-carved entablature.5 alism,” signaling a “new Christian meta-
In addition, the portal doors themselves were (and continue to be) decorated physics and aesthetics” and a “new
with the iconography of the Annunciation, an image that likewise recalls the Christian epistemology”; see his Imago Dei:
The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (Princeton,
liturgy of the tabernacle, for at the very moment of her virginal conception, the
N.J., 1990), 99, 107. John Meyendorff char-
Mother of God is depicted weaving a veil for the Temple. With the inclusion of acterizes late antique “Christian idealism”
as a dualistic, world-denying “Hellenic
4 See, for example, Maximos the 5 Cf. pseudo-Sophronios, Commentarius spiritualism” and underlines the “total
Confessor, Ambiguorum liber 41, who envi- liturgicus 4: κοσμητὴς ἐστὶ κατὰ τὸ νομικὸν incompatibility between Greek philosoph-
sions a series of Christological “mediations” καὶ ἅγιον κόσμιον, ἐμφαῖνον τοῦ ical thought and the Bible,” arguing that the
between five divisions of being (male/ σταυρωθέντος Χριστοῦ τὸ ἐκσφράγισμα διὰ “usual slogans and clichés which too often
female, earth/paradise, heaven/earth, intel- σταυροῦ κοσμούμενον, ἢ εἰς τύπον ὁ serve to characterize patristic and
ligible/sensible, God/creation). Maximos κοσμητὴς τοῦ καταπετάσματος (PG Byzantine thought as exalted ‘Christian
concludes this passage, ostensibly a 87.3:3984d); see below, n. 26. Hellenism,’ or as the ‘Hellenization of
commentary on Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. Christianity,’ or as Eastern ‘Platonism’…
39.13 (PG 36:348d), with a citation from should be avoided.” He concludes by noting
Dionysios the Areopagite (On the Divine that whereas “Greek patristic thought
Names 13.2), whom he praises as the remained open to Greek philosophical
“unerring witness and true theologian” problematics, [it] avoided being imprisoned
(Louth trans., 156–62). See L. Thunberg, in Hellenic philosophical systems” (his
Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological emphasis): J. Meyendorff, Byzantine
Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor Theology (New York, 1983), 24–25, 43.
(Chicago, 1995), 373–408, and A.-S.
Ellverson, The Dual Nature of Man: A Study
in the Theological Anthropology of Gregory of
Nazianzus (Uppsala, 1981), 17–40.

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 various icons along the entablature, the theological tableau was complete, for
sacred images were the necessary corollaries of orthodox faith in the Incarnation.6 6 For discussion, see K. Parry, “Theodore
Drawn like a curtain across the architectural frontier of the sensible and the Studites and the Patriarch Nicephoros on
intelligible, linked to the presence of the deity in the tabernacle of Moses, and Image-Making as a Christian Imperative,”
Byzantion 59 (1989): 164–83.
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 flesh.
This 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.
The principal sources for such a reconstruction are the writings of Symeon of
Thessalonike (d. 1429), a somewhat neglected figure 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 significance. To place Symeon’s
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. This is followed by a
consideration of Symeon’s 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 first chapter
of Genesis. The frame of reference is then expanded in order to consider the
same sacred enclosure in light of Symeon’s understanding of the church as a
Christian tabernacle, focusing primarily on the symbolism of the veil in Jewish 7 On Symeon’s life and career, see
D. Balfour, “Symeon of Thessaloniki as
and early Christian tradition. As we shall see, the veil of the tabernacle was the
a Historical Personality,” GOTR 28 (1983):
supreme expression for the idea of incarnation, and became a convenient (and 55–72; idem, Ἁγίου Συμεὼν Ἀρχιεπισκόπου
contested) narrative designation for the doctrine of revelation, including the Θεσσαλονίκης, Ἔργα Θεολογικά, Analecta
hesychast distinction of “essence” and “energies” within the godhead. With this Vlatadon 34 (Thessalonike, 1981), 29–76.
last idea, we arrive at the central argument of this study, namely, that Symeon’s These works rely upon the fundamental
mystagogical interpretation of the icon screen is correctly understood as an study, idem, Politico-Historical Works of
Symeon Archbishop of Thessalonica, Wiener
example of how the symbolic theology of Dionysios the Areopagite, refracted
Byzantinistische Studien 13 (Vienna, 1979).
through the lens of hesychasm, was used to rethink the material and spiritual
inheritance of the Byzantine liturgy. 8 “That Symeon was a convinced and
enthusiastic Hesychast will be evident to
anyone reading his Dialogue, and particu-
Symeon of Thessalonike larly its chapters 30–32. Gregorios Palamas
Symeon of Thessalonike was born in Constantinople (ca. 1375), where he was is for him a saint and a hero, and he praises
later tonsured a monk in the circle of Kallistos and Ignatios Xanthopouloi.7 in the same breath Philotheos [Kokkinos]
From these Late Byzantine mystics, Symeon was initiated into the theology and and Neilos of Constantinople, Neilos and
practice of hesychasm, and maintained strong spiritual ties to their community Nikolaos Kabasilas, Theophanes of Nikaia
long after his departure from the capital.8 There is some evidence to suggest that and Isidore of Thessalonica…. But his
greatest admiration is reserved for Kallistos
he may have also studied at the Patriarchal School, under the tutelage of the
and Ignatius….” Balfour, Politico-Historical
hesychast theologian Joseph Bryennios.9 Given his detailed knowledge of the Works, 279; on Kallistos and Ignatios
rituals and ceremonies of Hagia Sophia, it is likely that Symeon served there as Xanthopouloi, see ibid., 279–86. For a
a deacon before his elevation to the see of Thessalonike, sometime between June detailed study of Symeon’s Palamite creden-
1416 and April 1417. By all accounts, he was a man of strong will and even stronger tials, see M. Kunzler, Gnadenquellen:
opinions. Throughout his episcopal tenure, he staunchly resisted the aggression Symeon von Thessaloniki als Beispiel für die
Einflußnahme des Palamismus auf die ortho-
of the Muslim East and the Christian West, both of which were contending
doxe Sakramententheologie und Liturgik
for control of Thessalonike. “He fought,” in the words of David Balfour, “to
(Trier, 1989).
save his church from the Latins, and the state from the Turks.”10 Standing
virtually alone in his opposition to Thessalonike’s surrender to the Venetians 9 Cf. Balfour, “Historical Personality,” 59.

in 1423, he was nevertheless successful in guaranteeing limited freedom for his 10 Ibid., 67.

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 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 Thessalonike on 3 May 1981,
following unanimous decisions of the church of Greece and the patriarchate of
Constantinople.
Symeon was a prolific writer, remarkable given the demands of his office, his
chronic ill health, and the harsh conditions of life in the city, which suffered
starvation during the eight-year blockade by the Turks (1422–30). 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. After 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 11 Both the Dialogue and the Hermeneia
In the Dialogue, Symeon provides us with an important theological are hereafter cited by PG column number
interpretation of the sanctuary enclosure, which presents several distinct alone; for discussion, see I. Phountoules,
Τὸ λειτουργικὸν ἔργον τοῦ Συμεὼν τῆς
advantages for this study: it is contemporary with the icon screen in its later,
Θεσσαλονίκης (Thessalonike, 1966), 29–34;
developed form; it is embedded within both a larger mystical/allegorical for the hymns on Palamas, cf. idem.,
account of the liturgy and a symbolic interpretation of sacred space; and it is Συμεὼν Ἀρχιεπισκόπου Θεσσαλονίκης, Τὰ
deeply rooted in an ancient tradition of liturgical, mystagogical, and theological λειτουργικὰ συγγράμματα, vol. 1, Έὐχαὶ καὶ
commentaries. Of these latter, Symeon’s engagement with the symbolic ὕμνοι (Thessalonike, 1968), 120–21, 132–33.
theology of Dionysios the Areopagite is particularly significant, although this
has not been fully recognized by contemporary scholarship. In his study of the
Byzantine mystagogical tradition, René Bornert correctly aligned Symeon’s 12 R. Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins
work with that of Dionysios and Maximos the Confessor, although he failed de la Divine Liturgie du VIIe au XVe siècle,
to note the particular esteem in which the Areopagitical writings were held by AOC 9 (Paris, 1966), 248–49, employing
the hesychasts.12 In a telling self-disclosure, however, Symeon identifies himself somewhat overdetermined categories,
contrasts Symeon’s work with that of
as the “last and least among the students of the students of Dionysios,”13 which
Nicholas Kabasilas, who, under the influ-
should be taken as an oblique reference to his training under the Xanthopouloi, ence of Chrysostom, “représente le réalisme
and more generally to the Palamite interpretation of the corpus Dionysiacum.14 antiochien,” whereas Symeon, “par sa
As will become clear, Symeon’s use of the Areopagitical writings follows the lead dépendance du Pseudo-Denys et de Maxime
of his hesychastic teachers and contributes to his understanding of the sacred le Confesseur, en revanche, le symbolisme
space of the church building as a symbolic manifestation of divine presence. alexandrin.”

13 ἀδρανεῖς ὄντες καὶ ἔσχατοι τῶν μαθητῶν

Sacred Spaces: The Church and the Cosmos αὐτοῦ μαθηταί (256a; cf. 184a).
Symeon’s interpretation of the sanctuary screen is situated within his larger 14 See, for example, Kallistos and Ignatios
understanding of the church building as an image of the cosmos. Far from Xanthopouloi, Μέθοδος καὶ κανὼν ἀκριβὴς
being static or univocal, the forms and structures of this symbolic universe περὶ τῶν αἱρουμένων ἡσυχῶς βιῶναι καὶ
are fluid and complex, generating a multiplicity of simultaneous associations μοναστικῶς (ed. Φιλοκαλία, vol. 4 [Athens,
and correlations. Single, and seemingly simple, forms, such as a hemisphere or 1966]), who cite the “great Dionysios” in
overtly hesychastic contexts: cf. 259 (on the
a column, are thus made to support several senses at once, often derived from
nature of mental images); 262 (on the mind’s
widely different contexts. In this respect, Symeon’s mystagogical interpretations union with God); 266 (on the three move-
of church architecture are reminiscent of patristic allegorical interpretations of ments of the soul); and 271–72 (on the
Scripture, in which the consecutive elements of linear narratives are “spatialized” nature of divine darkness, defi ned as a
within a field of signs that refer backward and forward to each other, not within “superabundance of supersubstantial light”).

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 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 one’s religious status, the nature of the ceremony or
sacrament being conducted, the time of celebration (e.g., morning or evening),
and the participant’s physical location within the church building.15 15 Cf. 333a, 360bc, 708a, and 704b,
This polysemic and richly layered approach enables Symeon to map a large where different symbolic structures are said
number of symbolic interpretations onto the basic longitudinal organization to depend upon the “intention” (σκοπός) of
the symbolist. For a discussion of Symeon’s
of sacred space. For example, he associates the three major divisions of the
hermeneutical principles, see Phountoules,
church building (narthex, nave, sanctuary) with the tripartite division of the Τὸ λειτουργικὸν ἔργον (above, n. 11), 121–41;
cosmos (“earth, heaven, and the places beyond the heavens” 704bc; cf. 321d), and, with caution, H.-J. Schulz, The
as well as with the three regions of the “visible world” (“earth, paradise, and Byzantine Liturgy, trans. M. J. O’Connell
the visible heaven” 337d, 357d, 704ab, 708c). From another point of view, the (New York, 1986), 114–24 (see below, n. 50).
same threefold division mimics (1) the “tripartite structure of the tabernacle On the relationship between liturgical myst-
agogy and allegorical exegesis, see Bornert,
(of Moses) and the Temple of Solomon” (337d, 704cd; cf. 348d); (2) the “three
Commentaires (above, n. 12), 47–82, and P.
triads of the angelic orders”; and (3) the “clergy, the faithful, and those in
Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols
repentance” (704bc). And because the three distinct spaces of “narthex, nave, within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis
and sanctuary” are contained within a single architectural unity, the church (Toronto, 1984). See also R. Ousterhout,
preeminently signifies the multiplicity within unity of the Holy Trinity (337d; “The Holy Space: Architecture and Liturgy,”
704b).16 in Heaven on Earth, ed. L. Safran (University
Park, Pa., 1998), 81–120; H. Maguire, “The
Language of Symbols,” in Earth and Ocean:
Structures of Duality The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art
This “trinitarian” interpretive category, however, is of somewhat secondary (University Park, Pa., 1987), 5–15; and T.
importance within Symeon’s overall interpretation of liturgical space. Instead, Kolbaba, “Liturgy, Symbols, and Byzantine
the Palaiologan symbolist more consistently employs a twofold formula, whose Religion,” in The Byzantine Lists (Princeton,
binary elegance and systematic efficiency deeply structure his architectural N.J., 2000), 102–23.
hermeneutics.17 From this perspective, the narthex and nave together correspond 16 In this regard, Symeon follows
to the visible earth (understood to include the visible heaven), while the Maximos’s predilection for triadic interpre-
sanctuary is a type for that which exists beyond visibility, that is, the realm of tations, although he avoids the latter’s
the invisible God. As we shall see, the shift to a binary formula creates a grand tripartite anthropological interpretation of
division of sacred space that enhances the importance of the critical frontier sacred space (i.e., nave/body, sanctuary/
soul, altar/mind); cf. Maximos, Mystagogia
demarcated by the icon screen. Moreover, the rationale for such a bifurcation
4 (PG 91:672bc).
is closely associated with central patterns of religious belief. In a key passage,
Symeon argues that the binary forms of sacred space are reflections of cognate 17 Cf. Phountoules, Τὸ λειτουργικὸν ἔργον,
129–30. For a detailed discussion of binary
patterns embedded within Christology, anthropology, and the doctrine of God,
logic in the ancient world, see G. E. R.
all of which are interconnected. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of
Argumentation in Early Greek Thought
The church is double (διπλοῦς ὤν) on account of its division into the space of the (Cambridge, 1966), 15–85. See also Maximos,
sanctuary (τῶν ἀδύτων) and that which is outside (ἐκτός) the sanctuary, and thus Mystagogia 2, for a twofold formula in
it images (εἰκονίζει) Christ himself, who is likewise double (διπλοῦν ὄντα), being at which the church is a “type and image of
the entire universe, visible and invisible”
once God and man, both invisible and visible. And the church likewise images man,
(PG 91:668d).
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 (οὐσίᾳ), but
known through its providential activity and powers (τῇ προνοίᾳ καὶ ταῖς δυνάμεσιν,
704a).18 18 All translations, except from Genesis,
are my own, many of which, for the sake of
In this passage, the two performance areas of the church (the sanctuary clarity and simplicity, paraphrase the
rhetorical flourishes of the original sources.
and the nave/narthex) are said to image the two natures of Christ, so that the
The translation of Genesis is from L. C. L.
visibility of the nave signifies the visible human nature of Christ, whose invisible Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha
nature is represented by the restriction of the sanctuary from public view. In the (London, 1851; repr. Peabody, Mass., 1992).
same way, the twofold nature of man, composed of (visible) body and (invisible)

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 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 19 In a prayer recited publicly at the
central tenet of Late Byzantine theology, namely, the Palamite doctrine that annual commemoration of the dedication
the godhead is unknowable in its essence (and as such unrepresentable) but (ἐγκαίνια) of St. Sophia in Thessalonike (25
January), Symeon joins a binary cosmo-
nevertheless well known through its various manifestations and activities.20 In
logical scheme to a binary anthropology and
Symeon’s cogent use of these categories, both the doctrine of revelation and the Christology: “You have vouchsafed that this
symbolic architecture of the church are formally unified, based on a distinction temple should be built as a type of the whole
opening around that which is given to visibility and that which is not, or cannot, world (εἰς τύπον τοῦ κόσμου παντός), both
be given to vision or knowledge. heaven and earth; and as an image (εἰκόνα)
We have, then, a basic binary formula, rooted in a unified doctrinal pattern, of human nature, intelligible and sensible;
and as an example and imitation
which Symeon employs as a systematic principle in the spatial ordering of his
(παράδειγμα καὶ ἐκμίμημα) of you, the Lord
liturgical universe. Within that world, the sacraments occupy a central place,
of all, who being God, became man”;
and they too are understood in light of the same, binary framework. For example, Phountoules ed., 50, lines 11–15.
in his comments on the administration of consecrated oil (εὐχέλαιον), Symeon
20 Note that here Symeon does not
explains that the person of Christ, the gift of unction, and those who receive it
contrast the divine “essence” with the
are all closely intertwined and ultimately identified in light of the basic “unity Palamite terminology of “energies,” but
in duality” by which they are structured: rather with the Dionysian language of
“providential [activity] and powers,” which
In this sacrament, two prayers (εὐχαί) are said, signifying the dual-natured (διφυῆ) is widely attested in the Areopagitical
Jesus, who is bodiless, unspeakable, and cannot be apprehended (ἄληπτος), but corpus; see the index of G. Heil and A. M.
Ritter, Corpus Dionysiacum (Berlin, 1991),
who for our sakes assumed a body, and becoming comprehensible (περιληπτός) was
2:278, 294. Symeon elsewhere notes that “as
“seen and conversed with men” (Baruch 3:38), remaining God without change, so the house of God, the church typifies the
that he might sanctify us in a twofold manner (διπλῶς), according to that which is entire cosmos, for God is everywhere and at
invisible and that which is visible, by which I mean the soul and the body. And thus the same time transcends all things” (337d);
he transmitted the sacraments to us in a twofold form (διπλᾶ), at once visible and cf. below, n. 67.
material, for the sake of our body, and at the same time intelligible and mystical
(νοητὰ δὲ καὶ μυστικὰ), and filled with invisible grace for the sake of our soul…[and
thus when administering the consecrated oil we say that it is] “ for the sanctification
of soul and body.” (524d–525a).21 21 Cf. 337d, where Symeon notes that
spiritual blessings are mediated through
This double, inward/outward character is distinctive of every sacrament, material objects, such as saintly relics,
“because we are double (διπλοῖ ὄντες), and
having a visible and invisible aspect; a combination of things immediately
receive double gift s, and thus grace subsists
accessible to the senses and of things which are not. In the rite of anointing, this (ἐφίσταται) in material things” (cf. 352a,
is expressed through the use of two prayers along with the twofold utterance 177cd); and below, n. 32, on incense as a
of the administration formula. As Symeon makes clear, the dual nature of the medium of divine grace. See also John of
sacrament has its origin in the sacrament of the Incarnation, that is, in the “dual- Damascus, Orationes de imaginibus 3.12:
natured Jesus,” who as God “remained” purely spiritual while “becoming” fully “Because we are twofold (διπλοῖ), fashioned
of soul and body, and because our soul is not
material as man. Symeon therefore affirms that the material and the spiritual
naked, but covered as if by a veil (ὡς ὑπὸ
are not separate or opposed, but rather conjoined, for there is “one and the same
παραπετάσματι), it is impossible for us to
church above and below, since God came and appeared among us, and was seen attain to spiritual things (τὰ νοητὰ) apart
in our form…and the same [sacred ceremony] is celebrated both above and below” from corporeal realities (ἐκτὸς τῶν
(340b; cf. 296cd). Once again, the principle of physical and metaphysical union σωματικῶν)…. And for this reason Christ
is a direct corollary of the Incarnation, when the invisible God visibly “appeared assumed a body and a soul, and this is also
among us,” traversing and thereby abolishing the paradigmatic opposition of why baptism is twofold (διπλοῦν), of water
and spirit, and so too communion, prayer,
“above” and “below.” In the dual-natured person of the God-man, both the
and psalmody, are all twofold, bodily and
created, visible image and its uncreated, invisible archetype are woven together spiritual” (Kotter ed., 3:123–24, lines 23–
in a uniform coincidence of opposites rendered present through the sacramental 35); and Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex
mystery of the liturgy. Theodoto 81: τὸ βάπτισμα οὖν διπλοῦν…τὸ
μὲν αἰσθητὸν δι᾿ ὕδατος, τὸ δὲ νοητὸν διὰ
The Sanctuary Veil as Sacramental Symbol πνεύματος (PG 9:696b).
With these crowning formulations, Symeon appears to have effectively overcome
the binary opposition of the sensible and the intelligible, the visible and the

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 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 qualification. Turning to the
language of “veils” and “symbols,” Symeon asserts that the earthly liturgy differs
from its heavenly counterpart in one critical sense: “The Lord’s priestly activity
(ἱερουργία) and communion and comprehension (κατανόησις)22 constitute 22 Bornert, Commentaires byzantins
one single work (ἔργον), which is celebrated at the same time both above and (above, n. 12), 249–50, associates this term
below, except that there (i.e., in heaven) [it is celebrated] without veils (χωρὶς with the “contemplation” (θεωρία) of intel-
ligible realities through liturgical rites and
παραπετασμάτων) and symbols (συμβόλων τινῶν); but here [it is celebrated]
symbols, identified with the perception of
through symbols (διὰ συμβόλων), because we are enveloped (περικείμεθα) in eschatological realities through the types of
this heavy and mortal load of flesh” (340ab; cf. 296cd).23 Here the “single the Old Testament; cf. ibid., 259–61.
work” of the liturgy is said to be differentiated with respect to the place and
23 Cf. Phountoules, Τὰ λειτουργικὰ
manner of its celebration. Whereas the heavenly liturgy is celebrated in συγγράμματα (above, n. 11), 32, lines 4–12;
“unveiled” immediacy, its earthly performance is mediated through “symbols,” and Plotinus, Ennead [Link]–31 (discussed
which Symeon characterizes as “veils.” With this latter image, that which above, n. 1).
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 figures, as it were, providing the conditions
for perceiving that which is beyond figuration. There 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 flesh,” 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.
That 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 (πλὴν ἐμμέσως, καὶ οὐκ ἀμέσως), and through certain veils (διὰ
παραπετασμάτων τινῶν)” (312b). The sanctuary doors, moreover, which are
closely associated with the veil, have the same symbolic function, and are
described in virtually identical terms.

Afterwards, the doors are closed…for the sublime things cannot be contemplated
(οὐ θεωρητά) by the lower members, neither are the mysteries understood (οὐδὲ
γνωστά) by all, for at that moment Jesus is veiled (κεκαλυμμένος) from the many,
and disclosed only gradually (κατὰ μικρὸν ἀνοιγόμενος). Afterwards, the doors are
opened, analogous to the contemplation of the more advanced and perfect…and
Christ unites and is united to all, but in a manner relative to the capacity of each,
for all do not immediately (ἀμέσως) participate in him, for some do so purely, and
without veils (οἱ μὲν ἀκραιφνῶς καὶ παραπετασμάτων χωρίς).” (296bc)

At first glance, we might be inclined to recoil from what appears to be the

construction of a theological caste system, whose higher levels enjoy immediate

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 and unveiled access to God, whereas the lower members can only gape at veils
drawn across closed doors, passively awaiting incremental disclosures controlled 24 Cf. Dionysios the Areopagite, On the
Celestial Hierarchy 1.2 (Heil and Ritter
by hierarchy. Upon closer inspection, however, these remarks are concerned only
ed., 8, lines 10–13) and the texts cited below,
to differentiate specific forms or modes of contemplation (described above as n. 49. On the archaeology of liturgical veils
symbolic), and thus should not be taken to mean that the “lower members” do in Dionysios, see C. Schneider, “Studien
not participate in the divine source of redemption. All participate in God in ways zum Ursprung liturgischer Einzelheiten
that are proper to them. No one is by nature excluded from communion with östlicher Liturgien: καταπέτασμα,” Kyrios
God, but the transcendent deity is imparted only under various symbolic forms, 1 (1936): 57–73.
or “veils,” that are “analogous” to one’s capacity to receive it. Symeon has taken 25 C. Walter notes that this “term
this principle directly from Dionysios the Areopagite, whose doctrine of divine seems to be virtually restricted to Symeon
revelation played a prominent role in the hesychastic controversy. The question of Thessaloniki, for whom it means the
at the center of the storm was whether or not human beings participated directly sanctuary enclosure”; idem, “The Byzantine
Sanctuary: A Word List,” in his Pictures
in the life of God, or if such experiences were inexorably “mediated” by various
as Language: How the Byzantines Exploited
“symbols,” referred to as “veils.”24 I shall return to this question in detail below. Them (London, 2000), 271 (a search of the
Here, it should be emphasized that, among the hesychasts, the veil was a central Thesaurus Linguae Graecae produced
image for representing the “symbolic” nature of human religious experience, and no matches). Walter, ibid., 272–73, cross-
Symeon has mapped it directly onto the function of the sanctuary enclosure. references Symeon, Hermeneia 7: διὰ δὲ
τῶν κιγκλίδων, ἤτοι τῶν διαστύλων, τὴν
διαφορὰν τῶν αἰσθητῶν πρὸς τὰ νοητά (PG
The Sanctuary Enclosure: Visible Threshold of the Invisible 155:704d), and suggests that κιγκλίδες “refer
Thus far, we have considered Symeon’s architectural hermeneutics, which present to the panels of the sanctuary barrier,” but
the sacred space of the church as an image of the tabernacle, the visible earth, elsewhere designates the “double doors of
and the entire cosmos. With Symeon’s interpretive shift from tertiary to binary the iconostasis” or simply the “iconostasis.”
patterns, we saw a new space emerge, a place of identity and difference mediated Διάστυλα are further attested in Symeon’s
through symbols and covered by veils. Sacred space was thereby reorganized liturgical rubrications, ed. J. Darrouzès,
around the distinction between that which is given to visibility and that which “Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique d’après un
rituel,” REB 34 (1976): 49, lines 51–52 (θυμιᾷ
is not, or cannot, be given to vision and/or knowledge. It is here that Symeon
τὰς τῶν διαστύλων εἰκόνας); 53, line 14
situates his remarks on the sanctuary enclosure as follows: (προσκυνεῖ τὰς ἐν τοῖς διαστύλοις εἰκόνας);
53, lines 30–31 (οἱ ὀστιάριοι ἔμπροσθεν τῶν
The sanctuary enclosure (διάστυλα)25 brings to light the distinction between the εἰκόνων ἐν τοῖς διαστύλοις ἴστανται); 53, line
sensible (τῶν αἰσθητῶν) and the intelligible (τὰ νοητά), and [thus] it is like a 32 (ἀνερχόμενοι ἄχρι τῶν διαστύλων); and 61,
“firmament” (στερέωμα; cf. Gen. 1:6) separating (διαφράττον) intelligible [forms] line 20 (διὰ τοῦ καμαριδίου τῶν διαστύλων
ἐξελθὼν εἰς τὸν ναόν).
(τὰ νοούμενα) from material objects (ἀπὸ τῶν ὑλικῶν); and the columns in front of the
altar of Christ are the pillars of his church, and they preach about him and support 26 Walter, “Byzantine Sanctuary,” 273,
us. Hence the entablature (κοσμήτης)26 above the columns maintains (συνέχων) the citing this passage, notes that “for Symeon
[this word] seems to be a technical term for
“ bond of love” (cf. Eph. 4.3; Col. 3.14) and the union in Christ of the saints on earth
entablature,” the same translation for which
with the [saints] in heaven.27 And thus [the icon of] the Savior is placed above the
is provided by Lampe, 769; cf. pseudo-
entablature in the middle of the sacred icons of [his] Mother, and of the Baptist; and Sophronios (above, n. 5); and Manuel Philes,
of the angels, and the apostles; and the rest of the saints. These icons teach that Christ εἰς τὸν κοσμήτην τοῦ ναοῦ (Miller ed., 1:117–
is in this way in heaven among his saints, and also [here] with us now, and that he 18 [no. 223]).
will come again.28 (345cd).

27 Cf. 296bc: “The souls of the saints the tribunal (καθέζεται…πρὸ βήματος), appears in court and is about to take his seat
reside above with the angels, and together a curtain is placed before the door (εἰς τὴν at the tribunal, the jailers lead the prisoners
with them they keep watch around us, θύραν τίθεται παραπέτασμα)” (Berthold ed., from their cells and seat them before the
dwelling within our churches.” 70, lines 25–26); Gregory of Nyssa, Contra chancel barrier (πρὸ τῶν κιγκλίδων), and
Eunomium 1.1.141: “Again the lieutenant before the curtain that covers the entrance
28 Symeon is apparently describing an governor, again the tragic pomp of trial; to the court (τῶν τοῦ δικαστηρίου
image of the Deesis placed in the center again…the criers and lictors and the παραπετασμάτων)…so it shall be when
of the epistyle. The association of the (often curtained bar (κιγκλίδες παραπετάσματα), Christ appears to take his seat, as it were,
curtained) bema with the anticipation of things that readily daunt even those who are before the high tribunal (τοῦ Χριστοῦ
judgment recalls patristic descriptions thoroughly prepared” (Jaeger ed., 1:141, μέλλ οντος ὥσπερ ἐφ᾽ ὑψηλοῦ προκαθέζεσθαι
of courtrooms; cf. pseudo-Makarios, Hom. lines 1–6); and Chrysostom, De incompre- βήματος) and reveal himself in the
4.30.3: “When the judge takes his seat before hensibili Dei natura 4.4: “When a judge mysteries” (PG 48:733, lines 20–28).

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 This is in certain respects a somewhat obscure and enigmatic passage, due
in part to Symeon’s tendency to blur the distinction between symbols and their
referents. This may be deliberate inasmuch as Symeon’s 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 Symeon’s analytical categories (e.g., matter, sense perception,
intelligibility), which are taken over from the refined psychological vocabulary
of religious contemplation.29 It would be impossible to accommodate here all 29 Cf. above, n. 22.
the elements of this extremely dense passage, and we shall therefore identify
three related points that are central to the argument of this study. The first 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. The second theme, related to the first, is the association of the sanctuary
enclosure with the “firmament” described in the first chapter of Genesis.30 In 30 Gen. 1:6–8: “And God said, ‘Let there
Jewish and Christian tradition, the “firmament” was a cosmological keystone be a fi rmament (στερέωμα) in the midst
that marked a liminal divide between heaven and that which transcends the of the water, and let it be a division
(διαχωρίζον) between water and water, and
heavens. As its name suggests, it was the “solid” (στερεόν), perceptible boundary
it was so. And God made the fi rmament,
of the visible creation, behind which was concealed the uncreated God.31 and God divided between the water which
Symeon’s identification of the sanctuary enclosure with the “firmament” is was under the fi rmament and the water
linked to our third theme, which embraces the previous two, namely, the notion which was above the fi rmament. And God
that the veil of the tabernacle was a representation of the veil of the heavens, called the fi rmament ‘Heaven,’ and God
and, more generally, that the entire tabernacle was a microcosm of the heavenly saw that it was good, and there was evening
and there was morning, the second day”
tabernacle or of the cosmos as a whole.
(trans. Brenton). Cf. Exod. 24.10.

Symeon and the Tabernacle of Moses 31 See, for example, Eusebios of Caesarea,
Symeon’s cosmological interpretation of sacred architecture, including his Praeparatio evangelica 11.6: Μωσῆς τὸν
identification of the sanctuary enclosure with the heavenly “firmament” (Gen. οὐρανὸν ἐτύμως…στερέωμα προσαγορεύει,
παρὰ τὸ πρῶτον εἶναι μετὰ τὴν ἀσώματον καὶ
1:6), are part of his larger belief in the relationship between the tabernacle
νοερὰν οὐσίαν τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου στερεὸν καὶ
of Moses and the church, both of which are understood as microcosms of αἰσθητὸν σῶμα (PG 21:857c); and Cyril of
creation. To demonstrate this claim, Symeon gestures toward the organization Jerusalem, Catecheses ad illuminandos 9.1:
of sacred space, reporting that the “tripartite structure of the church building “In virtue of his great love for mankind, God
was foreshadowed in both the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon, has covered his divinity with the heaven like
for these were divided into three parts culminating in the Holy of Holies.” He a curtain (παραπέτασμα), so that we might
not perish [at the sight of him]…for if the
maintains, moreover, that these spatial divisions correspond to the structures
sight of the archangel Gabriel struck terror
of the spiritual universe, and he concludes that, just like the Holy of Holies,
in the hearts of the prophets, surely the
the Christian “sanctuary is a type of the places beyond the heavens (cf. Heb. vision of God as he is in his own nature (καθ᾽
9:24), containing the throne of the immaterial God (cf. Heb. 1:8, 4:16, 8:1, 12:2)” ὃ ἦν) would destroy the human race” (PG
(337d). The ritual use of incense, which Symeon describes in detail, is yet another 33:637b–640a).
mark of continuity between the tabernacle and the church, for it symbolizes the
eff usions of divine glory emanating from the divine presence.32

32 See 624c: “At vespers, it was customary use of incense is to signify that the taber-
for the acolytes to fi ll the church with nacle was built by Moses and Bezaleel in the
incense, to the glory of God and as a type of Holy Spirit.” Symeon’s association of incense
his sacred glory, which once fi lled the taber- with the presence of the Spirit is underlined
nacle so that Moses and Aaron could not in his admonition to deacons “not to cense
enter until it dissipated. Th is was also done a heretic, should one chance to be present
in imitation of the temple of Solomon, out of curiosity, for incense is the imparta-
which was fi lled with the glory of God”; tion (μετάδοσις) of divine grace,” ed.
329bc: “The use of incense is in place of the Darrouzès, “Sainte-Sophie” (above, n. 25),
cloud that fi lled and sanctified both the 49.60–61; cf. 561d: θυμίαμα…τὸ μεταδοτικὸν
tabernacle and the temple of Solomon, being τῆς θείας αὐτοῦ [i.e., τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος]
a type of the Holy Spirit”; and 644a: “The χάριτός τε καὶ εὐωδίας.

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 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 33 Cf. 697ab: “The omnipresent God,
particularly interested in the veil of the tabernacle, a covering that he identifies moved by divine love, came and ‘tabernacled
with the flesh that concealed the incarnate Logos. Th is connection is particularly (ἐσκήνωσεν) among us’ (John 1:14).” See also
Theodotos of Ancyra, Hom. in s. Deiparam
pronounced in his comments on the main portal of the sanctuary, which is
13: “The one who was ‘begotten before
arguably the visual and symbolic focal point of the entire screen. Symeon sees themorning star’ (cf. Ps. 109:3) in the last
the sanctuary portal, presumably veiled, as a symbol of Christ, the self-described days called the holy virgin his mother, and
“door (θύρα) of the sheep (John 10:7)…because Christ is the one who gave us the ‘Wisdom of God built for herself a
‘entrance (εἴσοδον) into the Holy of Holies through the veil of his flesh’ (cf. temple’ (cf. Prov. 9.1; Jn. 2.21) ‘not made by
Heb. 10:19–20)” (293a).34 The seemingly peculiar association of Christ’s flesh hands’ (cf. Mark 14:58; Acts 17:24) in the
body of the honorable virgin and ‘taber-
with the veil of the tabernacle was canonized by the author of the Epistle to the
nacled among us’ (John 1:14), because the
Hebrews, and we shall return to it in a moment.
‘Most High does not dwell in shrines made
Through a kind of symbolic displacement, Symeon similarly interpets the by human hands’ (Acts 17:24)” (Jugie ed.,
veil that covers the altar table: “the holy veil (καταπέτασμα) on the divine 332 [214], lines 19–24).
altar [symbolizes] the immaterial tabernacle around God, which is the glory
and grace of God, by which he himself is concealed (καλυπτόμενος), ‘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. Significantly, in the hesychast tradition
exemplified by Gregory Palamas, the idea of “concealment in a sacred veil” was
identified with the ascent of Moses on Sinai, where he “entered into the cloud”
(Exod. 24:18), beheld the “pattern (παράδειγμα) of the heavenly tabernacle”
(Exod. 25:9), and was instructed to “make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet
woven, and fine linen spun” (Exod. 26:31), a central biblical narrative to which
we may now turn.

34 Cf. 645a: “Christ renewed and his divinity, barring mortal vision from
prepared for us a way ‘through the veil of the sight of the immortal. And this teaching
his flesh, by which we have entrance to is not mine, but Paul’s, who says that he
the sanctuary’ (Heb. 10:20)”; and 704cd: ‘opened up a new way through the veil,
the “veil of the sanctuary is a type of the that is, his flesh’ (Heb. 10:20)” (PG 52:830,
heavenly tabernacle (σκηνήν) which is lines 13–33).
around God.” See also Severianos of Gabala,
De velo: “The 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 (ἑωρᾶτο) to all, but
the latter only to the high priest, so too was
the Savior’s divinity hidden (ἡ θεότης…ἐν
κρυφῇ) in the Incarnation, but nevertheless
exercised itself in plan view (ἐργαζομένη δὲ
ἐν τῷ φανερῷ); and the veil, too, was a type
of the Lord’s body, for just as the veil stood
in the middle (ἐμεσολάβει) of the Temple,
separating that which was outwardly
(ἔξωθεν) visible from the inner (ἔσωθεν)
mystery, so too the body of the Lord veiled

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 The Veil of the Tabernacle
Patristic 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 twelft h-century homily on the early
life of the Virgin by James of Kokkinobaphos. The homily, based on the
apocryphalProtoevangelion of James, deals in part with the Virgin’s work on
the veil of the Temple, a textile that the homilist interprets as a symbol
for the flesh of Christ. In Mary’s purple thread, the Byzantine monk sees
foreshadowings of the Incarnation, for Christ will presently “clothe himself in
the royal robe of the flesh 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” (καταπέτασμα), which he defines as a “polysemic term” (ὄνομα 35 James of Kokkinobaphos, Hom. 4,
which remains unedited, at Vat. gr. 1162,
πολύσημον) having a range of applications (διαφόροις ἐφαρμόζον τοῖς πράγμασιν).
fol. 109v; cited in I. Hutter, Die Homilien
He observes that the curtain of the Temple is a veil, for it shrouds in mystery des Mönches Jakobus und ihre Illustration
the presence of God. And the sky above us is also a veil, for the heavenly azure (Vienna, 1970), 2:26; cf. 1:157–59; cf.
conceals the expanse of the universe. He therefore concludes that the veil of Chrysostom, In Heb. hom. 15: “By the ‘tent
the Temple was intended by Moses to symbolize the veil of heaven, and both not made with hands’ he means the flesh.
veils together prefigured the veil of Christ’s flesh, which enfolded and concealed And he called it a ‘greater and more perfect
tent,’ since God the Word and all the energy
his divinity.35
of the Spirit dwell within it, for ‘it is not
Christian thinkers who made these associations were exploring a relationship by measure that God gives the Spirit to him’
between the veil of the tabernacle and the flesh of Christ that, as we have seen, (John 3:34)…. And it is ‘not made with
was established in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and thus had the imprimatur of hands,’ for man did not construct it, but it
sacred Scripture.36 In an allegorical reading of the tabernacle liturgy, the “outer is spiritual, ‘of the Holy Spirit’ (cf. Luke
tent” (πρώτην σκηνήν) is said to be a “symbol (παραβολή) of the present age” (Heb. 1:29). He calls the body (σῶμα) a ‘tent,’
9:6, 9), rendering by implication the inner tent a symbol of heaven and the age to a ‘veil,’ and ‘heaven’ to the extent that one
thing or another is signified (σημαινόμενον),
come. Traversing the outer boundary, “Christ the high priest” passed through
although they are called by the same word.
the “greater and more perfect tent not made with hands (οὐ χειροποιήτου)” I mean, for instance, that heaven is a ‘veil,’
(Heb. 9:11), entering, “not into a sanctuary (ἅγια) made with hands, an antitype and the flesh of Christ is also a ‘veil,’ for
of the true one, but into heaven itself ” (Heb. 9:24). “Therefore,” the argument it concealed his divinity (κρύπτουσα τὴν
concludes, “we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by θεότητα)” (PG 63:119, 139). See also
the new and living way which he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh Theodoret, Interpretatio in xiv epistulas s.
Pauli: In Heb. 9:11–12; 10:19–22 (PG 82:741,
(διὰ τοῦ καταπετάσματος, τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ)” (Heb. 10:19–20).37
749); idem, Eranistes, Ettlinger ed., 76.
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. 1–2), revealed 36 For a detailed analysis, see H. Attridge,
The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia,
to Moses during his six-day sojourn on the summit of Mount Sinai (Exod.
1989), who states that the “document known
24:16).38 The days of creation, moreover, determined the various stages of the
as the Epistle to the Hebrews is the most
tabernacle’s construction, and thus the veil of the sanctuary was installed on elegant and sophisticated, perhaps the most
the second day (Exod. 26:31–33), imitating the “firmament” that, on the second enigmatic, text of 1st-century Christianity”
day of creation, was positioned between the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:6–8). (p. 1). On Heb. 10:19–20, see pp. 283–87.

37 N. H. Young, “τοῦτ᾿ ἔστιν τῆς σαρκὸς (μιμήσασθαι) the creator, for the appearance
αὐτοῦ (Hebr. 10, 20): Apposition, (πρόσωπον) of the tabernacle is an imitation
Dependent or Explicative?” New Testament (μίμημα) of the earth and of the things
Studies 20 (1973–74): 100–104, argues on the earth” (PG 28:1097c); and Kosmas
against various attempts to mitigate the Indikopleustes, Christian Topography 5.19–
direct association of the tabernacle veil with 20, who states that the tabernacle was a
the flesh of Christ. “type” (τύπος, cf. Exod. 15.30) of what Moses
had seen on Sinai, that is, an “impress of the
38 See, e.g., Basil of Seleucia, Assumpt.:
whole world” (τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου τὸ
“God directed that Moses the writer should
ἐκμαγεῖον), Wolska-Conus ed., 2:35–39.
become the iconographer (εἰκονογράφον)
of creation, and through the construction of
the tabernacle he was ordered to imitate

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 The basic liturgical division of the tabernacle, therefore, corresponds to the basic 39 Chrysostom, In diem nat. 3: “The
division of creation, the veils of which conceal respectively the visible mysteries temple was built as an image (εἰκόνα)
of the universe and the invisible mystery of God.39 For later commentators, of the entire world, sensible and intelligible.
For just as ‘heaven and earth’ are divided
including Philo, Josephus, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the veil
(διάφραγμα) by the ‘fi rmament’ which
represented the boundary between the visible world and the invisible, between stands in their midst, he directed that the
being and becoming, between the world of the senses and that of the intellect.40 temple be likewise divided (διατεμών)
Those who passed through the veil were mediators, figures who functioned in in two, and he placed a veil in its midst; and
both worlds, and who through ritual sacrifices united humanity with divinity. whereas that which was outside the veil
In the context of the tabernacle liturgy, the high priest alone was permitted was apprehensible by all (πᾶσι συνεχώρησεν),
that which was within it was not given to
to pass through the veil, and only on the Day of Atonement. On that day, he
vision (ἀθέατον), except to the high priest”
wore special vestments fashioned exactly after the manner of the veil, and they
(PG 49:355); cf. Theodoret, Quaestiones in
too represented the fabric of creation (cf. Wisdom [Link] “For upon his long Octateuchum: Qu. in Exod. 60: “The taber-
robe the whole world was depicted”). According to Philo, the high priest was a nacle was an image of creation (τῆς κτίσεως
figure of the heavenly high priest, that is, the Divine Logos, who likewise passed τὴν εἰκόνα), for just as God divided the
through a veil, not in an ascent into the sanctuary, but in a descent from the earth from the heaven by means of the
divine throne to earth (Wisdom 18:14–16). As the Logos descended through fi rmament…he ordered that the veil be
placed in the midst of the tabernacle as a
the veil of the heavens, it took form and became visible, clothing itself in the
type of the fi rmament, dividing the taber-
elements of the creation: “Now the garments that the supreme Logos puts on as nacle in two (ἐν μέσῳ δὲ τὸ καταπέτασμα
a raiment is the world, for he arrays himself in earth and air and water and fire διατείνας ἐν τύπῳ τοῦ στερεώματος, διχῇ
and all that comes forth from these.”41 Arrayed in the perceptible garments of διεῖλεν αὐτὴν)” (PG 80:281ab); and Basil
creation, the Logos revealed itself to sensual apprehension and now “stands on of Seleucia, Assumpt.: “He screened off
the border” (μεθόριος στάς) as a mediator between creatures and their creator.42 (διατειχίσας) the inner portions of the taber-
nacle, gracing its invisible portion by means
The veiling of the Logos, which revealed its invisible presence by concealing
of a curtain (παραπετάσματι)…. Th rough
it, provided an important expression for the idea of incarnation, and passed
these forms (σχήματα) he legislated the
directly into Christian usage through Hebrews 10:19–20. imitation of heaven and earth, desiring to
With these ideas in mind, we may return briefly to the iconography of bar entrance to the innermost shrine, which
the Annunciation and the significance of its location on the threshold of the he reserved only for the high priest, as a
sanctuary. The Virgin’s work on the veil of the Temple is an activity coincident type of the Lord’s ascension into heaven”
with the Incarnation, and it is the act of “drawing out the thread” that signifies (PG 28:1097cd).

the moment of conception. In producing thread for the veil of the Temple, the 40 Th is material has been collected and
labor of Mary’s hands symbolizes the activity of her womb. Concealed (and thus studied by M. Barker, On Earth as It Is in
revealed) in a curtain of colored matter, the formless divinity is transformed Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New
Testament (Edinburgh, 1995).
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 flesh.43 41 Philo, On Flight 110 (Colson trans., 68).
The Byzantine association of the sanctuary veil with the tissue of the human body 42 Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things?
finds a striking parallel in Philo’s Life of Moses. Commenting on the fabrication 205–6: “To His Word, His chief messenger,
of the various Temple curtains, Philo notes that the “ten curtains” are woven highest in age and honor, the Father of
from “four kinds of material,” which multiply into the number “forty.” Philo all has given the special prerogative, to stand
observes that this figure is “generative of life, corresponding to the number of on the border and separate the creature
(τὸ γενόμενον) from the creator (τοῦ
πεποιηκότος)…saying ‘I stood between the
43 Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione of blood” (PG 68:636ab). For discussion of
Lord and you’ (Deut. 5.5), that is, neither
9: “The beauty and multiform ornament of this passage, see N. Constas, Proclus of
uncreated (ἀγένητος) as God, nor created
the church is Christ, who is one yet under- Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in
(γενητός) as you, but midway between the
stood by many riddles, such as the ‘fi ne-spun Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2003), chap. 6.
two extremes, a surety to both sides (ἀλλ ὰ
linen’ (Exod. 26.31), for the bodiless Word
μέσος τῶν ἄκρων, ἀμφοτέροις ὁμηρεύων)”
was ‘spun’ (κέκλωσται) when he was knitted
(Whitaker trans., 385).
together (συμπλοκή) with the flesh; and
not just ‘linen’ but ‘blue linen,’ for he is not
only from earth but from the heavens…and
‘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 flesh…for scarlet is a symbol (σημεῖον)

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 weeks in which man is fully formed in the workshop of nature” (ἐν τῷ τῆς φύσεως
ἐργαστηρίῳ), a metaphor of fecundity later ascribed to the womb of Mary.44 44 Philo, Life of Moses 2.17 (Colson trans.,
Symeon himself associates the figure of Mary directly with the central gate 491); cf. idem, Special Laws 3.33: οἱ ἐν τῇ
of the sanctuary enclosure (562d; cf. 636d, 637d, 640bc),45 which had been μήτρᾳ τῷ τῆς φύσεως ἐργαστηρίῳ
ζῳοπλαστοῦντες (Colson trans., 494); cf.
decorated with the iconography of the Annunciation from at least the Middle
Proklos, Hom. 1.1: τὸ ἐργαστήριον τῆς
Byzantine period.46 In addition, the incarnational symbolism of the sanctuary ἑνότητος τῶν φύσεων (Constas ed., 136, lines
doors could be further enhanced by equipment with an actual curtain, or veil 14–15; cf. 149–50).
(καταπέτασμα), suspended across the entrance into the sanctuary.47 Altogether,
45 In a hymn to the Virgin, Symeon
the conjunction of scripture, theology, iconography, and architecture created praises her as a “Living Temple and Gate
an appropriate symbol for the incarnation of the Logos, who passed through (πύλη) of God (cf. Ezek. 44:1–2)”
the virginal gates and entered the world of matter. Weaving a cultic veil for (Phountoules ed., 125, line 9). In the dedica-
the Temple, the Virgin was poised, not simply on the visible entrance to the tion prayer for the church of the Theotokos
sanctuary, but on the threshold of that which is beyond visibility, the presence Acheiropoietos, which was read publicly
of the invisible God. In such a richly articulated arrangement, the promise held “before the gates (πρὸ τῶν πυλῶν) of the
Temple” (cf. 328c), Symeon asks the Virgin,
forth by Mary’s thread appeared to be fulfi lled in the folds of an actual fabric,
“Be with us now, and together with our
the veiled gate of the Christian temple. entrance into your temple, open (διάνοιξον)
As the central narrative in the history of God’s revelation to Israel, the book for us also the mercies of your Son, you who
of Exodus had a profound influence on the patristic and Byzantine religious are the ‘Heavenly Gate’ (ἡ ἐπουράνιος πύλη;
imagination. References and allusions to Moses’ sojourn on Mount Sinai cf. Gen. 28.17),” ibid., 31–32, lines 23 and 1–2.
resonate across the entire landscape of Greek Christian literature, from the New For additional occurrences of this image, see
ibid., 170–71, 215–16, 246.
Testament to the writings of Symeon of Thessalonike and beyond. The veil of the
tabernacle assumed a particularly prominent place within Byzantine theology 46 The earliest evidence is a 12th-c.
and served as a central metaphor for the paradoxical nature of divine revelation. illumination from the Homilies of James
of Kokkinobaphos, Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 90r,
In addition, the symbolic perception of the tabernacle as a type of the cosmos,
fi g. 42. See A. Grabar, “Deux notes sur
and of its veil as a kind of heavenly curtain, encouraged expansive cosmological
l’histoire de l’iconostase d’après des monu-
interpretations of the church building and the veiled portal of its sanctuary. The ments de Yougoslavie,” ZRVI 7 (1961): 13–22,
Epistle to the Hebrews ensured that the Incarnation would never be absent from esp. 15, fi g. 4; G. Babić, “L’image symbolique
reflection on cosmology and sacred architecture, which were profoundly shaped de la ‘Porte Fermée’ à saint-Clément
by theological controversies down through the last years of the empire. d’Ohrid,” in Synthronon: Art et archéologie
de la fin de l’antiquité et du moyen âge (Paris,
1968), 145–51; and the recently published
47 Sanctuary veils are attested in Egypt
bema doors from Sinai dated to the late 12th
as early as the 6th c. See T. F. Mathews,
c., in Sinai, Byzantium, Russia: Orthodox
The Early Churches of Constantinople:
Art from the Sixth to the Twentieth Century,
Architecture and Liturgy (University Park,
ed. Y. Piatnitsky et al. (London, 2000), 236–
Pa., 1971), 162–71; R. F. Taft , A History of the
37. See also E. Kitzinger, “The Mosaics of
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 2, The
the Cappella Palatino in Palermo,” ArtB 31
Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of
(1949): 277 n. 41.
Gifts and Other Preanaphoral Rites of the
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, OCA 200
(Rome, 1975), 411–16; and S. E. J. Gerstel,
Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of
the Byzantine Sanctuary (Seattle, 1999), 8–9.
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 fi gure of Solomon’s bride, later identi-
fied with Mary: “She opens the door (θύρα)
drawing aside the covering (κάλυμμα) of the
heart. She removes from the door the veil
of the flesh (τὸ τῆς σαρκὸς παραπέτασμα).
She opens wide the gate (πύλη) of the soul
so that the King of Glory may enter”; In
Canticum canticorum 11 (Jaeger and
Langerbeck ed., 333, lines 2–5).

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 Revelation as Concealment 48 Cf. above, n. 13.
In this study of Symeon of Thessalonike, we have encountered a robust 49 Dionysios the Areopagite, On the
organization of reality into a series of contrasting polarities, a dynamic system of Celestial Hierarchy 1.2 (Heil and Ritter ed.,
binaries holding in purposive tension the sensible and the intelligible, the visible 8, lines 10–13). Cf. other texts by Dionysios
and the invisible, the revealed and the concealed. Like so many of his patristic the Areopagite, such as, On the Divine
and Byzantine predecessors, Symeon did not understand these heterogeneous Names 1.4: μεμυήμεθα νῦν μὲν ἀναλόγως ἡμῖν
διὰ τῶν ἱερῶν παραπετασμάτων τῆς τῶν
orders as constituting an ontological or metaphysical dualism, but rather as a
λογίων καὶ τῶν ἱεραρχικῶν παραδόσεων
complex perichoresis of the spiritual and the material, a fecund syzygia internally φιλανθρωπίας αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητὰ καὶ τοῖς
bounded by charged liminal sites. In the texts considered above, these contrasting οὖσι τὰ ὑπερούσια περικαλυπτούσης καὶ
magnitudes are associated with the symbolic function of the sanctuary enclosure μορφὰς καὶ τύπους τοῖς ἀμορφώτοις τε καὶ
and open up around the image of the veil, a key metaphor that enables Symeon to ἀτυπώτοις περιτιθείσης καὶ τὴν ὑπερφυῆ καὶ
correlate the two dissevered halves of the world and the self: its physical, sensory, ἀσχημάτιστον ἁπλότητα τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῶν
externalized half and its ideal, transcendent noumenal half, transforming life μεριστῶν συμβόλων πληθούσης τε καὶ
διαπλαττούσης (Suchla ed., 114, lines 1–7);
into a unitary act of perception and understanding, a liturgical work of art.
idem, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 4.2:
As we have seen, this basic structural principle is deeply indebted to the work αὐτὴν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῆς ἀποκαλυψαμένην τὰ
of Dionysios the Areopagite, with respect to whom Symeon identifies himself παραπετάσματα, θεώμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν…
as the “last and least of the students of his students,” a self-effacing claim for the αἴγλην (Heil and Ritter ed., 97, lines 5–7);
place of his own work in an unbroken chain of interpretation and practice.48 In idem, Letter 9.1: ἀνατείνειν ἐπὶ τὰ θειότατα
particular, Symeon’s repeated assertion that the earthly liturgy is mediated by τοῖς προμεμηχανημένοις τῶν τυπωτικῶν
συμβόλων ἀναπλασμοῖς, ὡς συγγ ενῆ τὰ
“veils and symbols” is taken directly from Dionysios’s treatise On the Celestial
τοιαῦτα πέφυκε παραπετάσματα (Heil and
Hierarchy, in which the self-styled disciple of St. Paul (cf. Acts 17:34) declares, Ritter ed., 198, lines 10–12); and idem, Letter
“it is impossible for the divine ray to otherwise illumine us except by being 8.1 (Heil and Ritter ed., 177, lines 3–6).
concealed in a variety of sacred veils (τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῶν ἱερῶν παραπετασμάτων…
50 Schulz, Byzantine Liturgy (above, n. 15),
περικεκαλυμμένην),” a notion that succinctly expresses Dionysios’s doctrine of
115, notes that, for Symeon, “Dionysios,
revelation and is variously attested throughout the Areopagitical writings.49 regarded as a disciple of the apostles, is
That a Late Byzantine mystagogical writer should draw on the renowned repeatedly cited [in the Dialogue] as the most
liturgical commentaries of Dionysios the Areopagite might at fi rst glance important witness to tradition,” and that
seem hardly worthy of notice, and may explain why the Palaiologan prelate’s “the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy serves as the
use of the Areopagitical corpus has received only superficial consideration in model for Symeon’s teaching on the sacra-
ments.” Th is is certainly true, but Schulz
contemporary scholarship. It is, however, a mistake to dismiss Symeon’s use
seems unaware of the hesychastic influence
of Dionysios as simply an entry in an “inventory” compiled by a Byzantine on Symeon’s appropriation of Dionysios.
antiquarian who was “confused” about his sources.50 It is well established that Moreover, Schulz stresses Symeon’s depen-
Symeon was an ardent hesychast, and his work is therefore best viewed from dence on Maximos, although he subse-
the perspective of the spiritual and theological concerns of the fourteenth quently states that Symeon ultimately
and fi fteenth centuries.51 During this period, Byzantine intellectuals became “bursts Maximus’ framework apart,” and in
the “fi nal analysis retains only Germanos
increasingly preoccupied with the writings of Dionysios, beginning with George
and Theodore, whose identification of
Pachymeres’ celebrated paraphrase of the corpus Dionysiacum presented to the
symbol and reality now appears in an even
patriarch of Alexandria in the first decade of the fourteenth century.52 With the more extreme form” (p. 119). He concludes
controversy between Barlaam and Gregory Palamas (ca. 1335–41), the Dionysian that Symeon’s work is essentially derivative,
“renaissance” of the Palaiologan period assumed a heightened intensity, for the being an “inventory of all the interpretive
quarrel of these men involved a disagreement over the correct interpretation of motifs approved by the church,” in conse-
the “divine Dionysios.”53 Taking a one-sided and reductive view of apophatic quence of which “large sections of his expla-
nation [are] both ambiguous and confusing”
theology, Barlaam argued that God is simply inaccessible, and he concluded
(p. 124).
that the light of Thabor (cf. Matt. 17:2) was not the eternal, uncreated light of

51 See above, n. 8. l’Aréopagite et sa postérité en Orient et en of John of Scythopolis, written between 537
Occident, ed. Y. de Andia (Paris, 1997), 517. and 543; cf. P. Rorem and J. C. Lamoreaux,
52 See M. Aubineau, “Georges Hiéro-
John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus
mnemon ou Georges Pachymérès, commen- 53 The notion of a “Dionysian renaissance”
(Oxford, 1998), 9–22; for Scythopolis’s
tateur du Pseudo-Dionysios?” JTS 22 (1971): should not be overemphasized: the
scholia on the παραπετάσματα, cf. ibid.,
541–44, cited in A. Rigo, “Il corpus pseudo- Areopagitical corpus had been the subject
pp. 150 (on CH 1.2), 177 (EH 4.2), and 190
Dionisiano negli scritti di Gregorio Palamas of continuous commentary since the 6th
(DN 1.4).
(e di Barlaam) del 1336–1341,” in Denys c., beginning most notably with the scholia

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 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 Dionysios’s understanding of the vision of God as an experience
mediated by “symbols,” which, as we have seen, were frequently designated
as “veils” (παραπετάσματα). John VI Kantakouzenos (emp. 1347–54, 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
54 Here the author addresses the subject
Thabor.” He notes that “some of you call it a ‘created phenomenon’ (κτίσμα), and
of his critique, Prochoros Kydones, an anti-
a ‘veil’ (παραπέτασμα), or an ‘apparition’ (φάσμα) that appears and then vanishes Palamite theologian condemned in 1368.
away, but you54 call it a ‘creature (κτίσμα) that abides (μένον)’; still others say
55 Refutatio Prochori Cydonii 1.5 (scr. ca.
that it is neither created nor uncreated, deeming it a kind of wonder (τέρας).”55
1368; Voordeckers and Tinnefeld ed., 8, lines
In a letter addressed to a Latin bishop, Kantakouzenos affirms the necessary 31–39); cf. ibid., 1.26: ἑωρακέναι…ἴνδαλμα
role of created symbols in the elevation of the mind to God. Because the context καθ᾽ ὑμᾶς καὶ φάσμα καὶ παραπέτασμα (38,
for discussion is the narrative of the Transfiguration, the “symbol” in question lines 14–15): ibid., 1.50: ὑπολάβωσί τινες τὸ
is the body of Christ, the created medium of divine light, and thus the “symbolic τίμιον φῶς ἐκεῖνο φάσμα καὶ παραπέτασμα
veil” of Dionysios is here directly identified with the “veil of flesh” from the καὶ κτίσμα καὶ ἴνδαλμα φαινόμενον καὶ
πάλιν λυόμενον (76, lines 46–48); ibid., 1.53:
Epistle to the Hebrews:
τὸ οἷον προκάλλυμά τι καὶ παραπέτασμα
(80, line 24); idem, Letter 4.1: καὶ οἱ μὲν
According to Dionysios the Areopagite, “ it is impossible for the divine ray to αὐτῶν οὐσίαν τὸ ἐν Θαβωρίῳ φῶς ἐδόξασαν
otherwise illumine us except by being anagogically concealed in a variety of τοῦ Θεοῦ…οἱ δέ, φάσμα, κτίσμα, ἴνδαλμα,
sacred veils (τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῶν ἱερῶν παραπετασμάτων),”56 and I say that this is παραπέτασμα καὶ νοήσεως κατώτερον
absolutely true, for it is not possible for the human intellect to be illumined by ἀνθρωπίνης (202, lines 22–28); and idem,
the thearchic ray, if it is not fi rst elevated anagogically by creatures to the idea of Letter 5.1 (215, lines 19–22).

God. For neither were the apostles at that time [i.e., the Transfiguration] able to 56 Citing Dionysios, On the Celestial
see the light as it is in its own nature, as Chrysostom says,57 but rather “ by means Hierarchy 1.2. For an opposing interpreta-
of the veil, that is, the flesh” of Christ (Heb. 10:20), but even then not according tion of this passage, see Gregory Akindynos,
Refutatio magna, Or. 1.45 (Nadal Cañellas
to nature, as Dionysios demonstrates, but rather in a manner beyond human
ed., 53, lines 27–34), and ibid., 1.26 (Nadal
nature and beyond human reason.58 Cañellas ed., 32, lines 5–8). See J. Nadal
Cañellas, “Denys l’Aréopagite dans les
The same ideas are advanced in Kantakouzenos’s Tomos of 1351, from where traités de Grégoire Akindynos,” in Denys
they were directly cited by Philotheos Kokkinos (ca. 1300–78), who additionally l’Aréopagite (above, n. 52), 533–62, esp. 559–
asserts that “the glory of the divinity becomes the glory of the body, but the 60; and T. Boiadjiev, “Gregorios Akindynos
als Ausleger des Dionysios Pseudo-
mystery beyond nature cannot be contained (ἀχώρητον) by human eyes, thus
Areopagita,” in Die Dionysios-Rezeption im
the unendurable and unapproachable light concealed itself by means of the flesh,
Mittelalter (Turnhout, 2000), 105–22.
as if under a kind of veil (ὡς ὑπὸ παραπετάσματί τινι).”59
Similar views are shared by Kokkinos’s student, Theophanes of Nicaea, both 57 Pseudo-Chrysostom = Severianos of
Gabala, De velo (PG 52:830); cf. above, n. 34.
of whom are praised by Symeon in his Dialogue (chap. 31). In his treatise On
the Light of Thabor (ca. 1370), Theophanes deals extensively with the nature 58 Letter 5.10 (scr. ca. 1368–69; Tinnefeld
of divine revelation through “symbols” and seeks to distinguish the uncreated and Voordeckers ed., 228, lines 20–31).

nature of the divine light (τὸ μὲν ὑποκείμενον ἄκτιστον) from the symbolic forms 59 Philotheos Kokkinos, Antirrheticus
it assumes relative to subjective perceptions (τὸ σύμβολον διὰ τοὺς ὁρῶντας καὶ contra Gregoram, or. 11 (Kaimakes ed., 429,
νοοῦντας οἰκονομεῖται). Here, the image of the veil is ready to hand: “The light lines 744–47); the citation from the Tomos
(PG 151:753c) is in the Kaimakes ed., 410,
of Thabor, even though it naturally inheres within the substance of the divine
lines 103–4: νῦν μὲν κτιστὸν εἶναι τοῦτο καὶ
nature, was projected like a veil (προβεβλημένον ὡς παραπέτασμα)…being a φάντασμα καὶ παραπέτασμα καὶ ἴνδαλμα.
symbol and type of God’s incomprehensibility, for such [symbols] are called
60 De lumine Thaborio, or. 3, lines 547–51
‘coverings’ (περικαλύμματα) of the truth.”60
(Soteropoulos ed.); cf. idem, or. 4, lines 982–
The importance of the veil as a theological symbol owes much to the authority
85; cf. I. D. Polemis, Theophanes of Nicaea:
of Dionysios the Areopagite. Its centrality among the hesychasts, however, was His Life and Works, Wiener Byzantinische
assured by Palamas himself, who had first introduced it into the debate. In Studien 20 (Vienna, 1996), 208–14, for
an important passage from the Triads, Palamas grapples directly with a locus corrections to the edition of Soteropoulos.

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 classicus from the Mystical Theology of Dionysios, in which liturgy, mysticism,
and the doctrine of revelation are closely intertwined in an exegesis of Moses’ 61 Cf. Dionysios, On the Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy 5.2: “In the hierarchy of the Law,
ascent on Sinai:
the rite (τελετή) was an uplift ing to spiritual
worship, and the guides were those whom
When Moses entered the sacred cloud, he saw not only the immaterial tabernacle Moses had initiated into the holy taber-
(which he copied by means of matter) but the very hierarchy of the Thearchy and its nacle…. It was Moses who, for the edifica-
properties, which through various material means were depicted by the priesthood tion of others, depicted (ἱερογραφῶν) in this
of the law.61 For the tabernacle and everything in it, such as the priesthood and that holy tabernacle the institutions of the hier-
archy of law. He established all the sacred
which pertains to it, were perceptible symbols, veils (παραπετάσματα) of the things
actions of the law as an image (εἰκόνα) of
that Moses saw in the cloud, but the things themselves were not symbols, for “to those
what was revealed to him on Sinai” (Heil
who have transcended both impurity and purity” and have entered the mystical cloud, and Ritter ed., 105, lines 9–15).
“they appear uncovered (ἀπερικαλύπτως),” 62 for how could those things be symbols
62 Citing Dionysios, Mystical Theology 1.3
which appear devoid of every covering (γυμνὰ παντὸς περικαλύμματος)? And this
(Heil and Ritter ed., 143, lines 13–15).
is why Dionysios begins the Mystical Theology by saying “O Trinity beyond being,
direct us to the highest summit of mystical [scriptures], where the simple, absolute, 63 Triads 2.3.55 (Meyendorff ed., 2:501–3,
lines 20–27, 1–9). For discussion and bibli-
and unchanging mysteries of theology are veiled (ἐγκεκάλυπται) in the brilliant
ography, see R. Sinkewicz, “Gregory
darkness of the cloud.” 63 Palamas,” in La théologie byzantine, ed.
G. Conticello and V. Conticello (Turnhout,
Palamas begins these theological pyrotechnics with Moses’ entrance into the 2002), 2:131–82, esp. 161–64. On Palamas’s
cloud, followed by the revelation of the immaterial tabernacle, materially figured use of Dionysios, cf. R. Sinkewicz, “The
in the “symbolic veils” of the liturgy. A distinction is subsequently introduced Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the
Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,”
between the sensory perception of liturgical symbols and the deeper insight
Medieval Studies 44 (1982): 181–242; and
available to those who, like Moses, have “entered the mystical cloud,” and behold
A. M. Ritter, “Gregor Palamas als Leser das
the “things themselves,” devoid of “every covering.” The passage concludes with Dionysios Pseudo-Areopagita,” in Denys
a Dionysian paradox, for the uncovered objects of contemplation remain “veiled L’Aréopagite, 563–77, but note that both
in brilliant darkness.” Every unveiling, it would seem, is yet another concealing, authors follow Meyendorff ’s dubious claim
and one veil is removed, only to disclose another. Elsewhere, however, Palamas that Palamas introduced a “christological
speaks quite clearly of a more direct form of vision, unmediated by veils, a corrective” to Dionysios, on which see J.
Romanides, “Notes on the Palamite Contro-
phenomenon that we also observed in the writings of Symeon. In the words of
versy and Related Topics,” GOTR 9.2 (1963–
Palamas, “This light and this vision (θεωρία) not only transcend sense perception, 64): 250–62, esp. 249–57; and A. Golitzin,
but transcend all forms of being, for now [we see] by means of sense perception “Dionysios Areopagites in the Works of St.
and through existents and partial symbols, but then we shall transcend these Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a
things, and we shall behold the eternal light immediately, with no intervening ‘Christological Corrective’ and Related
veil (ἀμέσως, μηδενός μεσιτεύοντος παραπετάσματος).”64 What are we to make Matters,” SVThQ 46 (2000): 163–90.
of this seeming contradiction? 64 Triads 2.3.24 (Meyendorff ed., 2:435,
In order to understand the symbolic function of the veil among the lines 10–12); cf. Symeon, 296cd, above,
hesychasts of the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries, it should be recalled that at n. 23.
these thinkers, following Dionysios the Areopagite, envisioned creation as a 65 The following analysis is indebted to
theophany, that is, as a manifestation of God.65 In a celebrated passage from On H. Urs von Balthasar, “Denys,” in his The
the Divine Names, Dionysios describes creation as the self-manifestation of the Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics
uncreated deity: “In a moment of ecstasy, the cause of all comes to be outside (Edinburgh, 1969), 2:144–210; and E. Perl,
“Symbol, Sacrament, and Hierarchy in Saint
itself by its providences for all beings; and being, as it were, seduced by goodness
Dionysios the Areopagite,” GOTR 39 (1994):
and affection and love, is led down from being above all and transcending all 311–56; idem, “Saint Gregory Palamas and
is brought down to being in all.”66 This movement of “erotic ecstasy” is God’s the Metaphysics of Creation,” Dionysios 14
creative gift of himself to the world, in which the absolutely nameless and (1990): 105–30.
unknowable becomes knowable through all things and subject to all names. 66 On the Divine Names 4.13 (Suchla ed.,
But even in this ecstatic self-impartation, God nevertheless remains radically 159, lines 9–14); cf. E. Perl, “The Metaphysics
unknowable in his essence. In his own nature, God is neither a being nor even of Love in Dionysios the Areopagite,” Journal
being itself, but in the ecstasy of creation he becomes “all things in all things of Neoplatonic Studies 6.1 (1997): 45–73.
and nothing in any.”67 And because creation is the self-revelation of God 67 On the Divine Names 7.3: ἐν πᾶσι
himself, Dionysios regards all creatures as “symbols” of intelligible reality— πάντα ἐστὶ καὶ ἐν οὐδενὶ οὐδέν (Suchla ed.,
“veils” of the uncreated divine energies, the hesychasts would say—because they 198, lines 8–9).

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 are symbols of God himself as imparted and revealed.68 Creation then, is a form 68 Thus Balthasar, “Denys,” 179:
of incarnation, because it is a true theophany of the divine, the paradoxical “Dionysios contemplates the divine symbols
visibility of the invisible, the sensuous apprehension of that which cannot with an aesthetic delight. Th ings are not
simply the occasion for his seeing God:
otherwise be known.
rather, he sees God in things. Colors, shapes,
These Dionysian principles were developed by Palamas and his disciples, essences and properties are for him imme-
who unequivocally affirm that human beings know God by sense perception diate theophanies.”
no less than by intellection.69 Thus the distinction between “mediated” and
69 And, at the same time, that God is
“unmediated” communion is ultimately a false dichotomy. Direct ontological unknowable to intellection no less than he is
communion with God is not distinct from some other form of communion, but to sense perception; cf. Perl, “Symbol,” 319,
rather takes place in, through, and because of the various symbolic mediations.70 who notes that a “dichotomy between sense
Dionysios states that the same knowledge of God that angels receive “noetically” and mind is the farthest thing from
is received by human beings “symbolically,” that is, the same knowledge is Dionysios’ intent, for it would mean that
imparted in the manner proper to each,71 and thus to reify the distinction God is inaccessible to sense but accessible to
mind, whereas Dionysios invariably insists
between “mediated” and “unmediated” participation would be to inscribe
that God is both inaccessible and accessible
a faulty kind of structuralism. Balthasar has therefore rightly suggested that to both sense and mind” (emphasis added).
“unmediated” should be taken to mean “only that the first hierarchy has no need
70 See On the Divine Names 2.7: πάντα
of a further intermediary between itself and God, which need not, however,
γὰρ τὰ θεῖα, καὶ ὅσα ἡμῖν ἐκπέφανται,
imply that because of this it possesses an ‘essential vision’ of God.” In the end, ταῖς μετοχαῖς μόναις γινώσκονται…οὐδὲν
one is left with the paradox of a “mediated immediacy.”72 ἕτερον νοοῦμεν, ἢ τὰς εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐξ αὐτῆς
Such a paradox means that, in the very moment of its unveiling, the divine προαγομένας δυνάμεις (Suchla ed., 131, lines
conceals itself. The self-revelation of God, precisely because it is the revelation 5–6, 9–10); and the discussion in Perl,
of an inexpressible plenitude, is necessarily a veiled unveiling. This is no less “Symbol,” 344–49.
true for the Incarnation: for “he is hidden even after his manifestation, or to 71 On the Celestial Hierarchy 7.2 (Heil and
speak more divinely, precisely in his manifestation.”73 In the paradoxical Ritter ed., 29, lines 5–15); On the
“manifestation of the unmanifest,” what is “incomprehensible is given in what Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 6.1 (Heil and Ritter
is really comprehensible, for it is in every case the incomprehensible God in his ed., 115–16). Cf. On the Divine Names 7.2
(Suchla ed., 195, lines 12–20).
totality who makes himself comprehensible in his communications.”74 Thus one
cannot, in a gnostic ascent from sense perception to “pure” intellection, strip 72 Balthasar, “Denys,” 207. Cf. On the
away the symbols, or remove the veils, because when these are removed, there is Divine Names 2.5, where Dionysios speaks of
the ἀμεθέκτως μετεχόμενα (Suchla ed., 129,
“nothing” there, nothing, that is, which can be given to human comprehension.
line 3), and ibid., 2.11 (Suchla ed., 133, lines
What is required is a movement into the signs, an understanding of the veils 14–15).
of creation as ontological symbols. One does not encounter God by discarding
73 From Dionysios, Letter 3, which in its
created symbols, but by experiencing them as symbols, as visible mirrors of the
entirety reads as follows: “He who is beyond
invisible. God is present only in the created symbols, accessible only in the veils being (ὑπερούσιον) has come forth from his
that conceal him, because the nature of the symbolic is to conceal and reveal secret place (ἐκ τοῦ κρυφίου), becoming a
simultaneously, or, “to speak more divinely,” to reveal by concealing. human being in order to manifest himself
among us. And yet he is hidden even after
Conclusion: Toward a Theology of the Icon Screen his manifestation (κρύφιος δέ ἐστι καὶ μετὰ
Though often disparaged as a form of private mysticism, Byzantine hesychasm τὴν ἔκφανσιν), or to speak more divinely,
precisely in his manifestation (ἐν τῇ
was deeply rooted in the experience of the liturgy. As Michael Kunzler has so
ἐκφάνσει). For this mystery of Jesus is
compellingly argued, participation in the grace of the sacraments (understood hidden (κέκρυπται) and cannot be explained
as participation in the uncreated energies of God) was the basis for the or understood as it is in itself in any way, but
theology of Palamism, so called.75 The same holds true for the theology of even when spoken remains ineffable, when
Dionysios the Areopagite, which disallows any “spirituality” divorced from thought unknown” (Heil and Ritter ed., 159,
the sacramental life of the church, forging instead a via media between the lines 5–10).

74 Balthasar, “Denys,” 185.

75 Kunzler, Gnadenquellen (above, n. 8), of God. Man as a created being has need
95–102, 144–48; cf. G. Mantzarides, The of these created means if he is to approach
Deification of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and and receive the uncreated grace of the
the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y., Holy Spirit.”
1984), 41: “The sacraments are created
media which transmit the uncreated grace

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 extremes of an anti-institutional mysticism, on the one hand, and an anti-
charismatic institutionalism, on the other.76 Hence the ease with which the 76 On which, see A. Golitzin, “Dionysios
corpus Dionysiacum was taken up and championed by the liturgically minded Areopagita: A Christian Mysticism?” Pro
hesychasts, not least among them Symeon of Thessalonike, who was the “leading Ecclesia 12.2 (2003): 161–212.

liturgiologist of the Byzantine Church in its late period.”77 We may therefore 77 Balfour, “Historical Personality,” 56
characterize Symeon’s entire project as an attempt to correlate a Dionysian (above, n. 7).
discourse of liturgy (including its rites and material culture) with the theology
of his revered predecessor, St. Gregory Palamas. For Symeon, the language of
“light” and “illumination,” which pervades the liturgy and the sacraments, is
identified with the timeless, uncreated light of the Transfiguration. The living
archetype and source of every sacrament, moreover, is the dual-natured person
of the incarnate Christ, through whom the divine energies are given to the
world, mediated through a “veil of flesh” (Heb. 10:20).
As we have seen, the status of creation within this tradition is complex. In
the ecstasis of its providential love, the transcendent deity has come to exist
“outside of itself,” reflected within the “variety of sacred veils” that constitute
the differentiated forms of the cosmos.78 Symeon affirms that the result of this 78 Cf. above, nn. 66–67.
“manifestation of the unmanifest” is neither a binary opposition between God
and creation, nor a disjunction of the “sensible” and the “intelligible,” as noted
at the outset of this study. Rather, the logic of revelation is conceptualized
through a twofold reduction: to the imparticipable, unknowable God on the
one side and to the symbolic forms or determinations of creatures on the other.
The world is thus the manifestation of the hidden and transcendent beauty of
God, the perfect figuration of that which cannot be figured.
Symeon applies this twofold principle, not simply to the elements of the
cosmos, but to the material culture of the liturgy, including its “nonsacramental”
elements (if such there be). For the Palaiologan mystagogue, the church is not
simply a building or conglomeration of things, neither is it an institution or
department of state, but an extension of the Incarnation, a manifestation of the
deity “outside of itself,” symbolically figured on the plane of material being, an
icon of the divine energies as structures of divinizing grace. Consistent with this
79 Cf. above, n. 20.
belief, the twofold distinction of sacred space, organized around the visibility of
the nave and the invisibility of the sanctuary, is nothing less than a figure of the 80 Cf. Dionysios, Letter 9.1: “The impas-
godhead, unknowable in its essence (and therefore unrepresentable), but well sible part of the soul borders (ἀφορίσαι)
upon the simple and most deeply interior-
known in and through its various manifestations and activities. As noted above,
ized visions of deiform images…this is
this is the Palamite doctrine of God as both concealed and revealed, a distinction
evident in those who, having beheld the
that Symeon has mapped directly onto the twofold organization of sacred space, things of God beyond the veils
largely through a rethinking of the symbolic ontology of Dionysios.79 (προκαλυμμάτων ἐκτός), subsequently
At the same time, the Byzantine mystagogue envisions the same sacred space shape within themselves a certain image
as an icon of both man (body and soul) and Christ (humanity and divinity), (ἀναπλάττουσι τύπον τινά)” (Heil and Ritter
based, once again, on a distinction between that which is given to visibility ed., 198, lines 8–14). See also Theodore the
Studite, Letter 380 (Fatouros ed., 2:513) =
and that which is not, or cannot, be given to vision or knowledge. Here it
Liber ii.36 (PG 99:1213cd), cited in N.
is worth noting that in the microcosmic temple of the human person it is psyche, Constas, “Icons and the Imagination,” Logos
with its procession of forms and images, that serves as the boundary and link 1.1 (1997): 116; cf. G. Mathews, Byzantine
between visible flesh and invisible mind.80 Such an intermediary, iconoplasmic Aesthetics (London, 1963), 117–19; H. J.
role suggests an intriguing analogy to the nature and function of the icon Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology (The
screen, and it is to be regretted that Symeon does not explore it in any detail. Hague, 1971), 88–95; A. Charles,
“L’imagination: Miroir de l’âme selon
Instead, his efforts are more directly focused on the church as a symbol of the
Proclus,” in Le Néoplatonisme, Colloque
body of Christ.
international sur le néoplatonisme,
In bringing together the structures of Christology and those of sacred space, Royaumont, 9–13 juin 1969 (Paris, 1971),
Symeon enacts an architectural exegesis of the scriptural notion of the church as 241–51; G. Watson, Phantasia in Classical
the “body of Christ” (cf. 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:19–22; 1 Pet. 2:4– Thought (Galway, 1988), and below, n. 82.

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 10). Christ himself, moreover, associated his physical body with the Jerusalem
Temple (John 2:21; cf. Mark 14:58),81 the same body whose “flesh” the Epistle to 81 For a discussion of these passages, see
the Hebrews identified with the “veil” of the tabernacle (Heb. 10:20). Neither R. Brown, “True and False Witness:
passage escaped the notice of patristic and Byzantine exegetes. And because they Architecture and the Church,” Theology
Today 23 (1967): 521–37.
also understood the “veil of the flesh” (Heb. 10:20) to be a type of the primordial
“firmament” (Gen. 1:6), the result was an exegetical tour de force in which body,
tabernacle, temple, and cosmos formed a single edifice, the keystone of which
was the archetypical figure of the incarnate Logos. The most important example
of such a reading undoubtedly belongs to the twelfth-century writer Michael
Glykas, whose discussion I shall briefly outline, both for its direct relevance to
Symeon’s symbolic perception of the sanctuary enclosure, and because it has, to
my knowledge, completely escaped scholarly notice.
Glykas takes as his point of departure the patristic equation of the “veil of
the flesh” with the “firmament,” an association he subsequently modifies in the
course of his exegesis. A close reader of Scripture, Glykas observes that Moses
speaks of a “first heaven,” followed by a “second,” subcelestial heaven, called the
“firmament,” which separates the “waters above” from “those below” (cf. Gen.
1:6–8). What, he asks, are we to make of this peculiar passage? Working with
the exegetical principle that “all things are types of Christ,” he suggests that
the “first heaven” is a type of Christ’s “invisible, incomprehensible divinity
(ἀοράτου καὶ ἀκαταλήπτου…θεότητος),”82 whereas the firmament is a type of 82 Bekker ed., 20.15–16.
Christ’s assumed humanity. The water, moreover, which flows on the frontier
between them, is an image of Christ’s human soul, which “functioned as
a mediator between his divinity and the density of his flesh (μεσιτευούσης
θεότητι καὶ σαρκὸς παχύτητι).”83 Given that both Genesis and the Gospel of 83 Bekker ed., 20.19–20. In patristic
John begin with the phrase, “In the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῇ),” Glykas avers that anthropology, the soul is typically that
the “first heaven is by nature ‘heaven,’ and is called so from the beginning (Gen. aspect of the self that mediates between the
mind and the body; cf. above, n. 80. The
1:1),” in the same way that Christ is the “Logos from the beginning (John 1:1).”84
association of the soul with water is an
These transcendent natures are then contrasted with the “material firmament, ancient trope, perhaps most famously
which was not ‘from the beginning’ and was only called ‘heaven’ after its union expressed by Porphyry, On the Cave of the
with the heaven above, because the holy body of Christ is called ‘God’ not in Nymphs, trans. R. Lamberton (Barrytown,
virtue of its own nature, but in virtue of divinization and union, and this is N.Y., 1986). If, then, the Virgin’s “drawing
why Paul calls the ‘veil of the tabernacle’ the ‘holy flesh of Christ’ (cf. Heb. out of the thread” symbolizes the creation
of Christ’s flesh within her womb (cf. above,
10:20), for it was formed from blood, just as the firmament was made from the
n. 43), then her apocryphal visit to the well,
lower moistures.”85 in order to “draw out water,” must surely
Consistent with the tendencies of Symeon’s own exegesis, we have an symbolize the fashioning of his human soul;
alignment of Christ’s transcendent divinity with the invisible heaven, both cf. Protoevangelium Iacobi, ed. C.
of which are respectively united to, and distinguished from, Christ’s created Tischendorff, Evangelia Apocrypha
humanity and the lower firmament. Anticipating Symeon’s (Dionysian) (Hildesheim, 1966), 20.
sacramental theology, Glykas describes the interweaving of the created and the 84 Bekker ed., 20.20–21.1.
uncreated in the symbolic veil of Christ’s body. The resulting communication
85 Bekker ed., 21.1–8. Glykas attributes
of properties is such that, in the words of Philotheos Kokkinos, the “glory of the this interpretation to Anastasios of Sinai,
divinity becomes the glory of the body.”86 Most interestingly, the intermediary although it is not attested in any of the
role, which is typically ascribed to the veil/firmament as a type of Christ’s flesh, works ascribed to that writer.
is here given to his created human soul, that is, to the liminal realm of psyche, 86 Cited above, n. 59.
mentioned above. This is because the mediation described here is not between
Christ and those who, through the sacramental veil of his flesh, participate
in the divine energies, but rather between Christ’s human flesh and his own
divinity, which are joined through the medium of his human soul. In both cases,
however, it is Christ who forms the “bond of love” (cf. Eph. 4:3; 345c) between
the two worlds; it is he himself who is clothed in the cosmic veil that joins the
visible and invisible worlds.

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 These two worlds, the immanent and the transcendent, the visible and the
invisible, are intimately connected by a boundary that simultaneously separates
them and unites them. This boundary is of course symbolized architecturally
by the “sanctuary enclosure, which brings to light the distinction between the
sensible and the intelligible, and is thus like a ‘firmament’ (Gen. 1:6), marking
the frontier between intelligible forms from material objects” (345c). Consistent
with these overarching symbolic functions, the icon screen is an imposing, even
formidable object. Its power, moreover, resides precisely in its liminality, in its
compelling dual structure of the mind and its reflection, referring each observer
in turn to an alternate vision of the world and himself. As a symbol, the icon
screen is always between two things, two universes, two temporalities, two
modes of signification; between sensible form and intelligible ideal, between
forms and formlessness, vacillating endlessly between a present dissemblance
and a future semblance. As the symbol of the cosmic boundary between the
“sensible and the intelligible,” the icon screen is “saturated with the meanings of
the invisible world,” yet nevertheless is “visibly manifest and vividly material.”
As a symbolic veil of flesh, the icon screen is “pure meaning wrapped in the
thinnest membrane of materiality; the common limit of the sequence of
earthly states and the sequence of heavenly states, the boundary where the final
determinations of earth meet the increasing densifications of heaven. It is thus
the sign of a movement, a reflexivity, between the two realms, in which both
domains of existence are given to consciousness and vision.”87 87 The quotations are from P. Florensky,
As the “thinnest membrane of materiality,” the icon screen corresponds to Iconostasis, trans. D. Sheehan and O.
the enigma of the virginal body depicted on its central portal: a threshold both Andrejev (Crestwood, N.Y., 1996), 43.

radically sealed and yet radically open to the informing presence of the divine.
Locating the Virgin and her angelic interlocutor around a cultic gate allowed
Byzantine artists to play with the distance and the spacing that their colloquy
presupposes, as well as with the idea of crossing a threshold, an originary rite
of passage, namely, that of the Logos into Mary’s sealed flesh, which in turn
enabled the passage of all humanity into a new time and a new place.
A matrix of figurability par excellence, the icon screen is a symbol of symbols,
a super-icon, or meta-icon, the icon of all icons, for it expands to include the
entire world of “all things visible and invisible.” It is a boundary, a sign of
difference that both divides and unites, bifurcating the perceived world and
reintegrating it through a series of reflective, interconnected correspondences, a
range of relations mediated by gestures, language, and imagery. It puts into play,
displays for all to see, a fecund universe of figures from where, and in which, the
Spirit will progressively come forth. Every sign, every symbol, every meaning
acquires depth by dividing, by splitting in two: the “letter kills but the spirit
gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). The icon screen is thus the mysterious book, written on
both sides, to be fully unsealed only at the end of time (cf. Rev. 5:1).
Before concluding our study, let us consider a final line of questioning. Our
choice of descriptive language can be unwittingly prescriptive. Is the icon screen
necessarily a “screen” or “barrier” in any meaningful sense of those terms? Is it
not made to disappear from view? Do we see it as a wall that arrests and turns
back our vision or as a permeable membrane that both conceals and reveals? Is
the icon screen the suppression of vision or its intensification? Is it a barrier or an
enticement: a foothold for ascent, the strategy of grace? According to Florensky,
the iconostasis is itself vision, inasmuch as it is the manifestation of Christ and
his saints, an appearance of heavenly witnesses, who proclaim to us that which
is from the other side of mortal flesh. If the church were fi lled with mystics and
visionaries, he argues, there would be no need for an icon screen, but because our

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 “sight is weak and our prayers feeble,” the screen provides us with visual strength
for our “spiritual brokenness.” Florensky stresses that this spiritual support does
not conceal from the believer an otherwise lucid object of sight; on the contrary,
it points out to the “half-blind the mysteries of the altar, and opens for them an
entrance into a world closed to them by their own entrapment.” Destroy the
material icon screen, he asserts, and the altar itself will “wholly vanish from our
consciousness as if covered over by an essentially impenetrable wall.” A temple
without a material iconostasis, he maintains, constructs a solid wall between the
altar and the faithful; but the iconostasis “opens windows in that wall, through
whose glass we see what is permanently occurring beyond.” To destroy it thus
means to block up the windows. It means “smearing the glass and diminishing
the spiritual light for those of us who cannot otherwise see it.”88 88 Ibid., 62–63.
We expect, and perhaps demand, that every revelation be an unveiling,
a drawing aside of the curtain, a lifting of the veil. But when the object of
revelation is not an object at all, but that which is invisible and beyond
predication, then it can give itself to us only through an event/appearance that
is also a concealing. Divine transcendence, divine hiddenness, remains absolute,
and yet providentially reveals itself by concealing itself in a sacred veil, which is
at once the revelation of, and means of participation in, the very life of God.

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