Paul the Silentiary

While Procopius wrote about Hagia Sophia before the 558 earthquakes, another sixth-century writer by the name of Paul the Silentiary wrote about the Great Church for the celebration of its re-consecration in 563 CE. Particularly, Silentiary wrote about the evening illumination by the candelabras and their reflected light from the multicolored mosaics inside the church as follows:

But no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening… stretched from the projecting stone cornice, on whose back is planted the foot of the temple’s lofty dome, long twisted chains of beaten brass, linked in alternating curves by many hooks… And to each chain he has attached silver discs, suspended circle-wise in the air around the central confines of the church. Thus, descending from their lofty course, they float in a circle above the heads of men. The cunning craftsman has pierced the discs all over with his iron tool so that they may receive shafts of dire-wrought glass and provide pendent sources of light for men at night… in the [same circle] you will see, next to the discs, the shape of the lofty cross with many eyes upon it, and in its pierced back it holds luminous vessels. Thus hangs the circling choir of bright lights… And in a smaller, inner circle you will find a second crown bearing lights along its rim, while in the very centre another noble disc rises shining in the air, so that darkness is made to flee.

Silentiary verses (Ekphrasis toi naoi tes Hagias Sophias) 806-838, as quoted in Schibille 2014: 71.

Moreover, Silentiary observed the diversity of colors emitted from the marble stones curried and transported from afar and the mosaics decorating the interior of the Church:

… the speckled Phrygian stone, sometimes rosy mixed with white, sometimes gleaming with purple and silver flowers. There is a wealth of porphyry stone, too, besprinkled with little bright stars… You may see the bright green stone of Laconia and the glittering marble with wavy veins… of the Iasian [iasian] peaks, exhibiting slanting streaks of blood-red and livid white; the pale yellow with swirling red from the Lydian headland; the glittering crocus-like golden stone… of the Moorish hills; that of glittering black upon which the Celtic crags, deep in ice, have poured here and there an abundance of milk; the pale onyx with client of precious metal; and that which the land of Atrax yields… in parts vivid green not unlike emerald, in others of a darker green, almost blue. It has spots resembling snow next to flashes (marmaryges) of black so that in one stone various beauties mingle.

Silentiary verses 617-646, as quoted by Schibille 2014: 20.

As Prof. Schibille aptly summarizes it, “[t]he colors of the marble surfaces literally transform the ecclesiastical space into a blossoming meadow in spring” (2014: 21). The colors and patters of the stones works of the interior designs recreate the beauty of the earth in her diversity.

Hagia Sophia recreates heaven on earth and consecrates earth by symbols of heaven. It does not mimic heaven. It transforms the earth into a heaven. This seems to be the intent on the part of the Justinian artists and craftsmen.

Prof. Nadine Schibille

Prof. Nadine Schibille’s analyses of Hagia Sophia—largely based on the two sixth-century ekphraseis, the architecture, the mosaic designs and artistry, and the stone materials and colors—are indeed remarkable and comprehensive (Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Aesthetic Experience, Farnham Surrey, England: Ashgate Pub. Limited, 2014). However, in that fine work, the liturgies and the vigils that took place inside the edifice that she admires and studies, are entirely missing. This is understandable, though regrettable. As the title of her book suggests, her aim is to offer an aesthetic analysis of Hagia Sophia, an analysis of the experiences that the Byzantitians at her heyday might have experienced. Schillibe’s work belongs to aesthetics, an art criticism, that analyzes the aesthetic experience of being there in the Church. In her view, aesthetic experience can be excluded from religious experience. Is this separation, even if possible, not arbitrary?

In any event, given the objective, it is fitting that Prof. Schibille employs the sixth-century ekphraseis authored by Procopius and Silentiary, as referenced above.

Ekphrasis (ἔκφρασις, ‘a description’) was “a literary device defined as a description of an event or object[. Its purpose] was to evoke by verbal means the same effects that the actual visual experience would have elicited and to thus communicate meaning” (Schibille, 2014: 4). Ekphraseis, in short, are not religious works.

But does an aesthetic analysis do justice to an edifice conceived in theology and constructed to produce religious experience? Is aesthetics compatible with theology and can it be separated from the latter when it comes to a religious edifice? To pose a similar question: Is a church or icon a work of art?

These questions are simply set aside by Prof. Schibille, who in the last two chapters endeavors to ground the Byzantine aesthetics she analyzes on Neo-Platonists’ aestheticism (i.e., that of Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus, and of Pseudo-Dionysius). We must note, however, that these thinkers themselves, perhaps Plato excluded, were highly religious, although Proclus and Iamblichus were pagan. Like many other patristics, Pseudo-Dionysius thought and breathed the Neo-Platonic milieu of his time. But their Christian experiences enabled them to transform and baptize Neo-Platonism into Christian theology.

Notwithstanding the lack of religious dimensions, what Prof. Schibille writes on the very first page of her work is entirely correct:

The architects created an ecclesiastical space within which the concept of divine immanence and transcendence could be apprehended in the material form of color and light.

Schibille, 2014: 1.

Can art deal with the “divine immanence and transcendence”? Can human intellect comprehend such reality, I ask further?

In any event, I for one find Prof. Schibille’s work enormously helpful for engaging in a theological and philosophical analysis of Hagia Sophia and of her Liturgy.

I believe, as I will show (employing Schibille’s analyses, at least in part) that Pseudo Dionysius’ theology explains in large part the design and function of Hagia Sophia—a crowning achievement of the art and culture of Byzantium. In my view, Dionysius’ treatise on the Byzantine liturgy explains better than any other works the purpose, design, and the effects of Hagia Sophia. I would even venture to say that there is an osmosis between Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine liturgy. They mutually contributed to each other in their respective formation and, in the case of the Liturgy, its evolution. As Robert F. Taft writes:

… the Byzantine rite is basically the rite of the Great Church.

The Great Entrance, 2004: 33.

As the cathedral church of this [Byzantine] rite, [Hagia Sophia] not only served the cult of the city; it formed it.

Taft, 2004: 182.

Indeed, the builders of Hagia Sophia (including the architects Anthemius and Isidore) must have wanted to create (the experience of) divine immanence and transcendence to be ‘experienced’ at the same time: transcendence in immanence and immanence of transcendence.

Through the use of light, color, the materials employed by the craftsmanship, the builders have largely succeeded in accomplishing their goal, as Schibille’s work amply demonstrates, and as the visitors from Kiev, as quoted above, attest.

I would go further. The edifice is “an ecclesiastical space” first and foremost, rather than a work of art. As such, I submit, it is entirely a theological construct: a symbol—I would say to be more precise—of Orthodox Church in her faith and practice with a rich theological tradition, which arguably apexed in the eighth century with a few later exceptions.

To be sure, the building that expresses the heights of Byzantine art and culture took a great engineering feat; but it was ultimately a means to an end: to uplift the liturgical celebrants to achieve theōsis (θέωσις, divinization, becoming God in His image).

More specifically, Orthodox Christians then and now believe that the Bread and the Cup consecrated in the Eucharistic rite (and our activities with and around them) are the symbols (sacraments) of the reality/Mysteries of Christ’s sacrificial presence—the mystical reality actualized by the order and structure (ordo, τάξις) of the Divine Liturgy, which in turn can only take place in consecrated churches, such as Hagia Sophia, in accordance with established tradition(s) of the Church.

If the church itself is the symbol of the Body of Christ (I Cor 12, Eph 1.22-23, Rom 12.4-5, Col 1.18), the rituals (i.e., initiations) performed therein are yet another symbol of Christ and His work—the divine work that culminates as sacrifice on the altar in the sanctuary, the work that emanates and overflows from the altar and proceeds beyond and over the parameters of the church and into the community (κοινωνία, communion) at large.

The divine work (i.e., God’s service to mankind) overflows like the living water springing from the altar in the temple, giving life to the otherwise dead rivers and the sea, as depicted in Ezekiel 47, or like the living water flowing through the center of the new Jerusalem, nourishing the trees and fruits on both sides of the river banks, as depicted in Rev 22.

The aim of the Liturgy, then, is to create and recreate the divine reality (the Mystery at its core) on earth and thereby to transform the fallen world therein, so that God’s goodness, love, and justice may permeate and overflow throughout. The Divine Liturgy is both the reality and symbol of the divine work accomplished by human participation (in the company of angels, the co-celebrants with us), emanating, exceeding, and overflowing the church and beyond the four walls thereon.

Thus, the Liturgy begins:

Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….

Pseudo-Dionysius

In Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (EH), Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (b./d. ~500) presents Christ first and foremost as Light. For him, the culmination of the Divine Liturgy is to become illuminated by the Light, thereby achieving illumination (φώτισμα) that in turn illuminates others. To imitate Christ is to become light, like Him.

Moreover, for early Christians, as Taft notes, and as for Dionysius, the term φώτισμα is to be understood not only as ‘illumination’ but also as ‘baptism’ (Taft, 2001: 176). To be baptized is to become one in Christ in death and in the new life lived in Him (Phil 1.21, 2.7-8, 3.10, 2 Cor 4.10, Rom 6.3, Gal 2.20). Since Christ is Light, to be baptized is to become light, like Christ. Thus, the one who is baptized is the one who is illuminated. By joining Christ in baptism, we become Christ ourselves, we become light illuminated by His Light.

We join Christ in the Eucharist, too. Since Christ is Light, to be united with Him in communion (κοινωνία) is to become light ourselves.

Archbishop Alexander Golitzin puts it best:

for Dionysius the Glory of God, the heavenly fire, and especially the divine light, is present in Christ, who in turn appears on the altar of the consecrated eucharistic elements and in the heart—or intellect—of the baptized Christian.

Golitzin, Mystagogy: a Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita, 2013: 4.

Thus, the first hymn the choir sings when the communion completes is:

We have seen the true Light…

As Prof. Schibille demonstrates, light plays the central role in the design and experience of Hagia Sophia. In Dionysius’s treatise On Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, too, Christ the Light plays the central role.

Although no one knows who Dionysius the Areopagite actually was, the scholars generally agree that he lived around 500 CE and that he was a high ranking clergy in the Palestine-Syria area, the Levont. Golitzin surmises Pseudo-Dionysius’ origin to be one of “the Jewish-Christian villages and communities of Aramaic-speaking Palestine” (2013: 55) and speculates that he might be ****.

His writings were so widely accepted as authoritative that he was cited by both sides in the Nestorian debates held during the Council of Chalcedon, convoked by the Emperor Justinian in 532. (Golitzin, 2013: xix). Five years later, in December 537, Hagio Sophia, commissioned by the same Emperor, was dedicated.

Given the fact that light is the central motif both in Hagia Sophia and in Dionysius’ writings, and given the fact that Pseudo-Dionysius was considered as authority by both sides of the Nestorian debates at the Council of Chalcedon in 532—only 5 years earlier when Hagia Sophia was dedicated (in December 537), it is reasonable to propose that Hagia Sophia was conceived and constructed with Dionysius’ symbolic theology of light in mind.

My thesis is further supported by the additional fact that the Liturgy that Dionysius commented on in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy was the same that was performed in Hagia Sophia, notwithstanding the fact that Dionysius refers to certain aspects of the liturgy, such as the rite of myron/oil that was known to be performed only in the Syrian Orthodox Church.

According to the surviving records, the rite of myron was recorded as being performed, according to Louth, only in the Syrian Orthodox Church “probably from the time of Denys himself” and later by the Syrian bishop Jacob of Seraph (c. 451-521), Jacob of Edessa (c. 640-708), and George (c. 640-724), Bishop of the Arabians (Louth, 1989: 64).

The liturgy of myron (the “most perfecting rite,” EH 473B, Campbell trans.) is performed exclusively by bishops, archbishops, or patriarchs, and is “kept [away] from the gaze of the multitude,” as it is performed in the sanctuary behind the iconostasis (EH 476C).

Dionysius (known as Denys in France since 9th century) speaks of placing the [bottle of] myron on the Divine Altar “veiled under twelve sacred wings [layers]” (EH 473A), referring to the vision of God Isaiah had along with the appearance of a pair of seraphim, each covering itself with the six-wings while flying with the two middle wings (Isaiah 6.1-8).

For Dionysius the myron—though hidden behind the 12 layers of wings—reveals to us in its fragrance “Jesus Himself, as being a well-spring of the wealth of the Divine sweetness” (EH 480A). It is the consecrated myron that “completes every consecration” (EH 484A; Campbell, 1981: 59; trans. altered).

The relationship between Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Liturgy was an osmosis. They mutually formed each other. As Robert F. Taft puts it,

As the cathedral church of this rite, it not only served the cult of the city; it formed it.

Taft, 2004: 182.

Since the church was constructed in order to perform the Liturgy, and since Pseudo-Dionyisus carried the day as a widely known theological authority, it is highly likely that the creators of Hagia Sophia—such as the two architects, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus—would have read and were influenced by Dionaysius’ Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and his other works.

The connection grows deeper, if we consider the theological idea that both Hagia Sophia and Dionysius share: the idea of symbol grounded on the reality of the Incarnation. As Schibille aptly notes,

The architects created an ecclesiastical space within which the concept of divine immanence and transcendence could be apprehended in the material form of color and light.

Schibille, 2014: 1.

Likewise, it is symbol that paradoxically contains in material forms both divine transcendence and divine immanence at once in a single “ecclesiastical space,” as does Hagia Sophia. Such a jointer also happens in the Incarnation of God-man, Christ, which is precisely the central doctrine in Dionysius, as Golitzin puts it succinctly:

In Jesus, Dionysius tells us, transcendence and immanence have met and been joined.

Golitzin, 2013: 43.

A symbol is the material and visible location where the divine and the human are brought into conjunction with each other. It is the ecclesiastical space/place where God’s work is done in conjunction with human work, i.e., liturgy. Liturgy is the symbolic drama where the Incarnation continues to happen.

Liturgy can take place in any churches, to be sure; just as the Incarnation is spoken of in any other theological works. But the historical and theological proximity between Hagia Sophia and Pseudo-Dionaysius, both of whom share the motif of light as central, is too close to ignore.

The connection that links Hagia Sophia to Dionysius can be further buttressed by the fact that the artists who created the mosaics in Hagia Sophia were probably the same artists who also created the mosaics in St Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt Sinai, which was also commissioned by Emperor Justinian I, the same Emperor who commissioned Hagia Sophia. In the Monastery, the mosaic depicting Christ’s Transfiguration set above the Eucharist table in the apse is of particular interest to us. Golitzin observes:

Christ is depicted clothed in brilliant white and gold. Rays shoot out from his Person to strike Elijah and Moses at his right and left, together with the stunned disciples at his feet—including… the figure of Peter, directly below, who is awakening from sleep into mystical vision. […] In addition, the mandorla around Christ has a curious feature, also usually reproduced in later Byzantine icons. It is banded. At its outer edge a pale shade, roughly the same hue as the rays, its several rings of color grow increasingly dark as we move inward until, immediately around the Person of Christ, the innermost ring is a midnight blue verging on black.

Golitzin, 2013: 58.

The effect the mandorla creates with its banded layers of light gradually getting darker until, suddenly, the bright white clothes of Christ strikes the eyes in contrast, according to Golitzin, is “a depiction of mystical vision sited directly over the table of the Eucharist” in the apse of the chapel in the Monastery—”light, overpowering, coming forth from the depth of silent divinity and, still, hidden even in the manifestation” (Golitzin, 2013: 58).

The allusion is clear: Moses enters in the cloud of darkness when God spoke to him “face to face” (Exod 33.11, cf., 24.17; Deut 5.22). Dionysius interprets the cloud of darkness as “the Ray of that divine Darkness” or “the Darkness of Unknowing” (MT 1000A, 1001A)—the level one reaches when meeting God “face to face.” This is the moment of theōsis (θέωσις), the moment when one’s soul touches the Light, Christ, and becomes light herself, which is to happen, according to Dionysius, when one partakes the Eucharist. But this moment of theōsis is described as happening “suddenly” (ἐξαίφνης), according to Dionysius, as in the spark of light when in contact:

‘Sudden’ is that which, contrary to expectation, and out of the, as yet, unmanifest, is brought into the manifest. …the Superessential proceeded forth out of the hidden, into the manifestation amongst us, by having taken substance as man. But, He is hidden, even after the manifestation, or to speak more divinely, even in the manifestation, for in truth this of Jesus has been kept hidden, and the mystery with respect to Him has been reached by no word nor mind, but even when spoken, remains unsaid, and when conceived unknown.

Letter III, 1069B.

The mosaic at Mt Sinai clearly depicts the moment of “sudden” encounter with the Risen Lord, Christ the Light, at the Eucharist table. Golitzin remarks: “Whoever… commissioned that image knew his Dionysius very well indeed” (2013: 58).

It is reasonable to assume that, if the commissioner or the mosaic artist had a hand in constructing the design and interior of Hagia Sophia, Dionysius’s theology provided the governing principles in conceiving and constructing the Great Church, as it did for the mosaic of the Transfiguration in the chapel of St Catherine Monastery at Mt. Sinai.

As Golitzin notes, the term ‘suddenly’ (ἐξαίφνης) is closely associated with the soul’s “touching of the Good,” in which “there is not one thing which is seen, and another thing that is its light; nor is there intellect and object of intellect, but the radiance, engendering these things later, lets them be beside itself. It itself is only the radiance engendering Intellect…” (Enneads 6.7.36; cf. 5.3.17; 5.5.7; cf., Plato’s Symposium, 210E4).

Light sparkles light; and this happens suddenly. This is the mode of our becoming Christ via the Eucharist.

Related topics:

Symbol and Glory.

The Great Entrance.

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