ABSTRACT
In this first chapter I demonstrate how the judicious use of symbolic materiality in liturgy might become a creative and invaluable means of releasing an anagogic ascent to the divine. Indeed, for Denys the Areopagite, St John of Damascus and the Victorines, the liturgical employment of the symbolic and material – what might be more colloquially termed the ‘horizontal’ – became essential for understanding this movement. Denys offers a brilliant exhortation to interpret the symbols of liturgy and the Scriptures so that worshippers might gradually go beyond those things which have a connection to the created order. St John of Damascus, too, is equally concerned to emphasize the use of the material as he defends the employment of icons and images in Christian homage and worship, suggesting they are divine veils revealing to the senses ‘things beyond being’. And the later medieval Victorines, taking their cue from Denys, show how it is inadvisable to let go of the material since its proper use is vital for raising the soul towards God’s unknowability and mystery. Although some of their theology might be problematic for an easy transfer into twenty-first century discourse about liturgy, the thrust of their thinking remains applicable and instructive.
