ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the deeper theological and philosophical implications of beauty and light to which Hagia Sophia represented an artistic and aesthetic equivalent. The historical identity of the Christian Neoplatonist who is known under the name of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is still very much in the dark. Pseudo-Dionysius fundamental aesthetic principles were based on a relatively well-established set of metaphysical thought. The Pseudo-Dionysian concept of divine darkness is made explicit in his Mystical Theology, where he explains how the lower orders of the human hierarchy are gradually initiated into the mysteries of the communion in God. Pseudo-Dionysius similarly reverts time and again to the language of light to describe how the divine reaches down the hierarchical ladder to the lowest forms of being. Hence, material lights are images of the outpouring of an immaterial gift of light, and it is for this reason that for Pseudo-Dionysius, light is the most befitting of the divine names.
