St Denis the Areopagite. From his Letter to Bishop Titus.
Instead of attaching the common conception to images, we should look upon what they symbolise, and not despise the divine mark and character which they portray, as sensible images of mysterious and heavenly visions.
Commentary.—Mark that he cautions us not to despise sacred images.
The Same, ‘On the Names of God.’
We have taken the same line. On the one side, through the veiled language of Scripture and the help of oral tradition, intellectual things are understood through sensible ones, and the [pg 32] things above nature by the things that are. Forms are given to what is intangible and without shape, and immaterial perfection is clothed and multiplied in a variety of different symbols.
Commentary.—If it be a good work to clothe with shape and form, according to our standard, that which is formless, shapeless, and without consistency, how shall we not make images to ourselves in the same way of things perceived through form and shape, so that we may bear them in mind, and be moved to imitate what they represent.
The Same, on the ‘Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.’
Now, if the substances (ούσίαι) and orders above us, of which we have already made reverent mention, are without bodies, their hierarchy is intellectual and above sense.
We supply by the variety of sensible symbols the visible order, which is according to our own measure. Those sensible symbols lead us naturally to intellectual conception, to God and His divine attributes. Spiritual minds form their own spiritual conceptions, but we are led to the divine vision by sensible images.
[pg 33]