Symbolic Realism in the Liturgy:

A Philosophy of Worship

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Thomas Aquinas College

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

by
Jonathan M. Culbreath

Advisor: Dr. Travis Cooper

March 11, 2017

 Now the human mind, in order to be united to God, needs to be guided by the sensible world, since
“invisible things . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,” as the Apostle says (Rm.1:20).
Wherefore in the Divine worship it is necessary to make use of corporeal things, that man's mind may be aroused
thereby, as by signs, to the spiritual acts by means of which he is united to God.

– St. Thomas Aquinas

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Introduction

Modern man is woefully inattentive to the divine in things. Rationalism, a philosophical product of

the Enlightenment period, has deceived man into presuming that he has the key to unlocking all the

mystery in the world, so that no longer is the truth greater than himself. Man is now the maker of

truth, the lord of nature, a god unto himself of his own making. The cosmos is no longer a manifold

revelation of the God who is beyond all being and knowledge, but a mere resource at the disposal of

human genius. The history of ideas has thus lately ended in a crisis of religion, which – in either a

gentler or more sinister form – has penetrated even into the religious mind itself, who pays lip-

service to God and to religion, but no longer finds his God anywhere, that he might kneel down

before Him and worship Him. Worship itself has become impoverished. For several centuries now,

even the Catholic Church has been affected by this rationalism, and its liturgical forms and attitudes

have undergone serious upheaval at several points in recent history.

But the object of this thesis is not to sketch the history of these events, nor even to provide

a critique and analysis of its effects in detail.1 Rather, in this treatise I hope to address a crucial need

which the current situation presents: to recover a genuine and traditional understanding of liturgical

symbolism and the sense of the sacred. I hope to show principally that the liturgical action is a means

whereby the reality of the divine mystery is made truly present under the veil of symbolic ritual forms, so

that the worshiper might encounter it in an intimate way for the sake of his own deification. The

liturgy does not merely remind us of, or help us to meditate upon, certain pious concepts or ideas;

rather it reveals those very realities to us in a tangible, though hidden way. In other words, the

1There are several recent scholarly works which provide a reasonable critique of the recent liturgical reforms from sound
historical, liturgical, and theological perspectives. In chronological order, the following are some noteworthy resources:
Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, Una Voce, 1993; Laszlo Dobszay, The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the
Reform, Catholic Music Association of America, 2003; Laszlo Dobszay, The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman
Rite, Bloomsbury, 2010; Anthony Cekada, Work of Human Hands, Philothea Press, 2010; Geoffrey Hull, The Banished
Heart, Bloomsbury, 2010; Lauren Pristas, The Collects of the Roman Missals: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons
before and after the Second Vatican Council, Bloomsbury, 2013; Peter Kwasniewski, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis, Angelico
Press, 2014.

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liturgical symbol is an earthly medium of divine presence. Our encounter with this presence through the

liturgy is the very way of our divine assimilation (deification or theosis) through participation in the

work of God. This doctrine I shall refer to as symbolic realism. Thus, the chief object of this thesis will

be to validate the doctrine of symbolic realism in its foremost application to the sacred liturgy.

I will begin by establishing a philosophical doctrine of the symbol and symbolic realism,

relying heavily on the Platonic doctrine of participation, as well as the adaption of this doctrine by

St. Thomas Aquinas.2 Then I will treat of the knowledge that is gained through symbolism, and the

manner in which it is gained, viz. through the mediation of the body. Following this, I will

demonstrate the connection between symbolism and religious ritual. These arguments will rely

primarily on the Neoplatonic doctrine of theurgy, as expounded by Iamblichus and Proclus. Finally, I

will show specifically how the Catholic liturgy fulfills, exemplifies, and perfects the given account of

symbolic realism and religious ritual, inasmuch as the liturgy is essentially the ritual realization of a

divine mystery that is present in the religious symbol.3

I. Symbolism and Symbolic Knowledge

A. BEING AS SYMBOL. The doctrine of symbolic realism is inextricably tied to a theophanic vision of the

cosmos, according to which all being is a participation in the Being Itself that transcends all being.

This vision was common to men of antiquity, who saw in all things, if only indistinctly, the power

and life of something other and divine. “All things are full of Gods” – this phrase, uttered first by the

2 The more recent work of Jean Borella has been invaluable in the formulation of a metaphysics of symbolism through a
synthesis of these sources, Platonic, Patristic, and Thomistic. See The Crisis of Religious Symbolism and Symbolism and Reality,
Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis, 2016.
3 Other works that approach liturgical theology from this or similar points of view are Odo Casel, The Mystery of Christian

Worship, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2016; Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology, Pueblo Books, 1984; David
Fagerberg, Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology, Hillenbrand Books, 2004; Laurence Paul Hemming, Worship as a
Revelation, Burns & Oates, 2008. There are relatively few works which treat of the liturgical theology of St. Thomas in
detail, and even fewer of the philosophical underpinnings of such a theology. Among these few is the small treatise:
David Berger, Thomas Aquinas & The Liturgy, Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2004.

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pre-Socratic Thales, 4 animated the ancient vision of the cosmos, and was to be repeated and

expounded by philosophers and mystics for ages afterwards. The ancient religions of man were

founded upon an awareness of the divine ground underlying the world of experience, and they

instinctively attributed the works of nature to a certain divine causality. The ancient symbolic

mythologies were thus not merely thefictional products of imaginative minds; they were rather the

product of a deeply religious intuition of the world as an act of divine revelation.5

Many philosophers throughout history have sought to provide a philosophical foundation

for this intuition. A certain version of this theophanic vision was given its first clear expression by

Plato, who posited the existence of certain divine and archetypal forms or ideas according to which

all particularthings were modeled. In the Phaedo, Socrates assumes the separate existence of the form

of absolute Beauty – Beauty Itself – by which all beautiful things are beautiful at all. He explains:

If there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other
reason than that it shares in that Beautiful, and I say so with everything. Do you
agree to this sort of cause?—I do.

I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes and if

someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or
any such thing, I ignore these other reasons – for all these confuse me – but I
simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it
beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may
described its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on
the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by
the Beautiful.”6

Likewise, in the Republic, Plato explains that the multiplicity of visible, particular instances of the

same kind is to be reduced to the unity of a single, intelligible form in which they all participate:

We say that there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so on for
each kind, and in this way we distinguish them in words.—We do.

4 See Aristotle, On the Soul, I.,411a7: “Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the whole universe, and it is
perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the opinion that all things are full of gods.”
5 See Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality. Eliade insists that “myth” in the archaic sense of the term does not denote a

“fable,” “invention,” or “fiction,” but rather a “true story, and beyond that, a story that is a most precious possession
because it is sacred, exemplary, significant” (pg.1). A myth is an essentially symbolic tale that exemplifies a divine work
performed in illo tempore.
6Phaedo, 100c3-d8.

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 And beauty itself and good itself and all the things that we thereby set down as
many, reversing ourselves, we set down according to a single form of each,
believing that there is but one, and call it “the being” of each.—That’s true.

And we say that the many beautiful things and the rest are visible but not
intelligible, while the forms are intelligible but not visible.7

All particular instances are thus accounted for by their participation in eternal archetypes. The

archetypes themselves, moreover, exist in a certain order to each other, some more universal than

others. Thus, there is a gradation of universality and hence nobility among the intelligible forms

themselves: “In addition, he [the philosopher] can discriminate forms that are different from each

other but are included within a single form that’s outside of them…” 8 The greatest degree of

universality is found in the highest form, which in the Republic is called the Good, and it is compared

to the sun:for it is that in virtue of which all things have intelligibility:“What gives truth to the things

known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the Good.”9 The Good, indeed, is that

which gives intelligibility to the multiplicity of the forms themselves, in virtue of which all particulars

have any intelligibility at all. But not only are all things intelligible in virtue of the Good; they have

their very being only in virtue of their participation in it. Just as the sun does not only make things

visible, but is the source of their generation, growth, and nourishment, so likewise the Good is a

cause of the very being and reality of things: “Therefore, you should say that not only do the objects

of knowledge owe their being known to the Good, but their being is also due to it...”10 Thus, what it

means to be is to partake in the forms, to be their visible manifestation and presentation, and thus to

be the participation and manifestation of the Good itself.

7Republic, 5071-8.
8Sophist253d5-6.
9Republic, 508e.
10Republic, 509b6-8.

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 The forms are, for Plato, the most real of real things – they alone are what is really real;11 and

above all, what is the most supremely real – nay, beyond real12 – is the One, or the Good, which is the

supreme principle of the forms themselves. The particulars of common experience have only the

reality which they derive from the forms, since they exist only by participation in them, and not

according to themselves. The philosopher would thus be misguided who sought for wisdom in the

concrete things of his experience. For these things are but reflections of that wherein true wisdom

lies, namely the pure intelligible forms themselves. Knowledge, indeed, seeks to rest in that which is

most fully real; but particulars, according to Plato, are mere images and appearances of what is real

itself. This is not to deny any reality whatsoever to particulars– they are not mere chimeras or

illusions, as might be proposed by the modern empiricists. Rather, Plato places the particulars of

sensible experience in a position that is “intermediate between what purely is and what in every way

is not.”13 Hence, these by themselves cannot suffice to satisfy the philosophic hope for the fullness

of Being. Only as appearances of that which is fully Being, i.e. as symbols, can philosophy approach

particulars; for only as such do they give access to Being in its fullness.

But while Plato stresses in this way the complete otherness and transcendence of that which is the

true object of philosophy, thereby redirecting the mind away from sensible experience towards the

intelligible sphere, yet there emerges from this doctrine a corresponding sense of the divinity with

which sensible particulars are immanently endowed, precisely in virtue of their participation in the

intelligible forms. Thus, on the one hand, it is futile to seek for knowledge by resting in particulars,

since they have no reality of themselves, but only that which they derive from their participation in

11Republic, 596a-598c. Here Plato argues that imitation never produces a pure reality, but only a copy or an appearance of
a reality. The works of the divine craftsman are no less works of imitation than that of human craftsman. Therefore, the
works of nature are not what is really real: it is rather their forms, of which they are the imitations, that are really real.
12
See Republic, 509b8: “…although the Good is not Being, but superior to it in rank and power.” Eric Perl remarks that
this passage is “for Neoplatonism perhaps the single most important passage in his [Plato’s] works…” See Perl,
Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite, State University of New York Press, 2007,9.
13Republic, 478d. Particulars are here presented as objects, not of knowledge, but of opinion: “As for those who study the

many beautiful things but do not see the beautiful itself…these people, we shall say, opine everything but have no
knowledge of anything they opine.” (479e)

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the intelligible sphere. On the other hand, by virtue of this very same derivation from the intelligible

sphere, sensible particulars are divinely informed, and bear within them the presence of the supreme

intelligible archetype itself, the Good, or the One, just as “nothing else makes it beautiful other than

the presence of... the Beautiful.” 14 Indeed, it is only by this presence that they have being and

intelligibility at all. The Good is thus simultaneously transcendent and immanent to all of its

participants; it is simultaneously absent from and present to them. Once again, this corresponds to the

nature of the symbol; for it belongs to the symbol to at once reveal and conceal its referent, to be at once

the revelation of its penetrating clarity and the veil of its hidden mystery.

This is the essence of the Platonic conception of being, and it is the foundation of the

doctrine of symbolic realism. According to the doctrine of participation, all being is a revelation of

something Other and divine, and an emanation of its presence. This is simply to say that all being is

inherently symbolic. Accordingly, “symbol” here means much more than a mere visible reminder or

aid to the mental faculties. Rather, the symbol thus understood is the mode through which the One

discloses itself and makes itself really present. The Catholic philosopher, Jean Borella expresses it well:

“The symbol is a thing, a being or an event endowed with a semantic property, a reality of the world

of common experience in which is presentified a transcendent intelligible.”15 Again, says Borella: “And

what then basically is a being or thing of our world, if not a ‘mode of presence’ of the essence or

archetype in our space/time continuum, a mode under which we can know this essence, ‘see’ it,

become aware of it then and perhaps re-ascend to it?”16 From this doctrine flows a whole, coherent

doctrine of the symbol, according to which particular realities participate in a divine, intelligible

referent, and through their common participation they likewise correspond and refer to each other

indirectly. The ultimate reduction of all intelligibility to the supreme intelligibility of the Good

14Phaedo, 100d.
15Borella, The Crisis of Religious Symbolism and Symbolism and Reality, 385.
16Ibid, 419.

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thereby establishes a means of seeing a divine unity and harmony amidst the multiplicity of things;

and in this harmony, all things bear symbolic reference to the single, primary reality in which they

participate, and to each other likewise. The doctrine of symbolic realism is thus inscribed in the very

fabric of being itself.

Traditional Christian thought adopts this Platonic understanding of being into its doctrine of

God and His relation to creation. St. Thomas Aquinas, infrequently credited for the Platonic

character of his thought, 17 employs the doctrine of participation in his profound metaphysical

treatises on the nature of God and creation. Whereas the common interpretation of Plato’s doctrine

of the forms places the forms in a separate intelligible sphere, outside of the matter which they

inform, St. Thomas’ perceives – as did St. Augustine 18 and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 19

before him – that it is necessary to place them in the divine intellect, and thus ultimately in the

divine nature itself. According to Thomas, God contains within Himself, in an infinite and

supereminent mode, all of the perfections of His creatures, 20 which thus have their being and

perfection only in virtue of their participation by analogy in the being of God.21 God’s creatures are

so many expressions of the ways in which God knows Himself, and thus they reflect and participate

in the divine ideas – the forms – which derive their meaning from the Unity of God’s essence:

17 The subject of St. Thomas’ Platonic inspiration is of much intrigue. The Neoplatonism in St. Thomas’ philosophy has
been largely overlooked, with a more exclusive attention being paid to his Aristotelianism. But a more thorough survey
of St. Thomas’ sources reveals an immense debt to the Platonic tradition. For studies of St. Thomas’ Platonism, see
Wayne Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae, Oxford University Press,
2004; Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, E.J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands, 1992; Berhard
Blankenhorn, The Mystery of Union with God: Dionysian Mysticism in Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, Catholic University
of America Press, 2016.
18 See Augustine, Eighty-Three Different Questions, Q.46, par.2: “[The] ideas [forms] are certain original and principal forms

of things, i.e., reasons, fixed and unchangeable, which are not themselves formed and, being thus eternal and existing
always in the same state, are contained in the Divine Intelligence. And though they themselves neither come into being
nor pass away, everything which can come into being and pass away and everything which does come into being and
pass away is said to be formed in accord with these ideas.”
19 See Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names, V.8: “The exemplars of everything preexist as a transcendent unity

with It [the Divine Cause].”

20See Summa Theologica, Ia, q.4, a.1. “All created perfections are in God. Hence He is spoken of as universally perfect,

because He lacks not (says the Commentator, Metaph. v) any excellence which may be found in any genus.”
21See S.T., Ia, a.3, ad.3: “Likeness of creatures to God is not affirmed on account of agreement in form according to the

formality of the same genus or species, but solely according to analogy, inasmuch as God is essential being, whereas
other things are beings by participation.”

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 Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to
every mode in which it can be known. Now it can be known not only as it is in
itself, but as it can be participated in by creatures according to some degree of
likeness. But every creature has its own proper species, according to which it
participates in some degree in likeness to the divine essence. So far, therefore, as
God knows His essence as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it
as the particular type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other
creatures. So it is clear that God understands many particular types of things and
these are many ideas.22

In this way, God is made known through His effects, by reason of the very presence in them of His

perfections, according to which alone they have being and intelligibility. God’s very perfections, in

the words of St. Thomas, “emanate from Him into creatures” 23 ; God is like a “fountain of all

goodness,”24 who “gives goodness to all things by copious effusion.”25 His perfections pre-exist in

Him “unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received and divided and multiplied”26 – not

so that God enters into composition with creatures,27 but so that by the act of creation He manifests

Himself in His effects, as light refracted through crystal or reflected in a mirror. Creation is God’s

act of sharing Himself by a true diffusion or emanation.

God is thus the supreme archetype of the Good or the One of which Plato and the

Neoplatonists speak; the divine ideas present in the divine mind are the forms which derive from the

Good by God’s knowledge of Himself; and creatures are the outward expressions of those forms,

the manifestation of their diffusive presence. Symbolic realism thus understood is inherent in St.

Thomas’ metaphysical system no less than in that of Plato.

Christian theology, partially inspired by the theological philosophy of Plato, incorporates this

doctrine into the Trinitarian doctrine of the procession of the Word, the Second Person of the

Trinity, which St. Thomas describes as the interior, divine expression – i.e. concept – of the divine

22S.T., Ia, q.15, a.2.

23In Div. Nom, II.1.
24 Ibid, IV,1.
25 Ibid, VIII.4.
26S.T. Ia, q.12, a.4.
27 S.T., Ia, q.4, a.8, ad.1:“The Godhead is called the being of all things, as their efficient and exemplar cause, but not as

being their essence.” Ad.2: “The Word is an exemplar form; but not a form that is part of a compound.”

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intellect.28 All creation is, as it were, modeled after the Word itself, “through whom all things were

made.”29 Hence, St. Thomas writes:

Word implies relation to creatures. For God by knowing Himself, knows every
creature. Now the word conceived in the mind is representative of everything that
is actually understood. Hence there are in ourselves different words for the
different things which we understand. But because God by one act understands
Himself and all things, His one only Word is expressive not only of the Father,
but of all creatures. And as the knowledge of God is only cognitive as regards
God, whereas as regards creatures, it is both cognitive and operative, so the Word
of God is only expressive of what is in God the Father, but is both expressive and
operative of creatures; and therefore it is said (Ps. 32:9): “He spake, and they were
made;” because in the Word is implied the operative idea of what God makes.30

This is to say that creatures are nothing other than the external expression of the divine intellect, of

which the divine Word is the internal expression. As expression, the Word is thus, in a manner, the

archetype of every symbol: the perfect expression of God. Creatures in the world are like the

vocalized words of a song or a poem artistically conceived in the mind of God, and sung or recited

according to the operative concept that is the divine Word. A succinct summary of this synthesis of

the Platonic and biblical bases for the doctrine of symbolism is offered by the Perennialist scholar,

Rene Guenon:

If the Word is Thought inwardly and word outwardly, and if the world is the
result of the Divine Word offered at the beginning of time, then nature in its
entirety can be taken as a symbol of supernatural reality. Everything that exists,
whatever its mode, having its principle in the Divine Intellect, translates or
represents this principle in its own way and according to its own order of
existence; and thus, from one order to another, all things are linked and
correspond with each other so that they cooperate towards the universal and total
harmony, which is like a reflection of the divine Unity itself. This correspondence
is the veritable basis of symbolism and this is why the laws of a lower domain can
always be taken to symbolize realities of a higher order, where they have the

28See S.T., Ia, q.27, a.1-2; Super Evangelium S. Joannis, c.1, 29: “[I]t is clear that the Word, properly speaking, is always
understood as a Person in the Divinity, since it implies only something expressed, by the one understanding; also, that in
the Divinity the Word is the likeness of that from which it issues; and that it is co-eternal with that from which it issues,
since it was not first formable before being formed, but was always in act; and that it is equal to the Father, since it is
perfect and expressive of the whole being of the Father; and that it is co-essential and consubstantial with the Father,
since it is his substance.”
29John, 1:3.
30S.T. Ia, q.34, a.3.

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 profound reason for their existence, the cause which is both their principle and
their end.31

In summary, to know philosophically is to ascend from the symbol to its archetype, and

ultimately to mystical union with supreme Goodness and Unity. Philosophical knowledge is thus

nothing other than symbolic knowledge. Accordingly, for Plato, as for so many of the ancients,

philosophy could be conceived as an ultimately religious endeavor, inasmuch as it could only be

attained by ascending towards the eternal and immaterial archetypes which are the ground of all

being. 32 As beings only exist through participation in their archetypes, which themselves have

intelligibility only through the Good or the One, so does the philosopher have wisdom only by

participating as a knower in those same archetypes, and ultimately in the supreme archetype itself.

The ascent of the philosopher from the cave in the Republic is precisely this mystical ascent towards

union with the Good. The soul moves from lower natures towards what is purely intelligible and

immaterial, from mere images to the really real, from multiplicity to Unity. The notion of religious

worship is thus treated almost interchangeably with the notion of the spiritual ascent to union with

the highest principles, which are themselves bound up essentially with the existence of the gods. In

Christian thought, this philosophic life is perfected in the life of faith itself. Under the illumination

of supernatural faith, the symbol gains even greater power, becoming a sort of portal to the inner life

of the Trinity, in which the divine Word is uttered from eternity. Religious worship, inspired by this

supernatural faith, is likewise transformed into a means of communication with the Trinitarian

Godhead itself.

31Guenon, Fundamental Symbols, Quinta Essentia, 1995, pg. 15. The Perennialist school, which was pioneered in many
respects by Rene Guenon, has much to offer in the way of religious symbolism, often from a heavily Platonic
perspective.
32 There is much to be said for the position that philosophy was an essentially religious endeavor for most of the

ancients. Although Plato and the Neoplatonists especially stand out in their emphasis on the religious dimensions of the
philosophic science, this emphasis seems to permeate all of the philosophical instincts of ancient man. Algis Uzdavinys,
Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity, Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis, 2010; Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy as Rite of Rebirth,
The Prometheus Trust, 2008; Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, Blackwell, 1995.

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B. EMBODIMENT AND SYMBOLIC KNOWLEDGE. In treating of the human mode of worship, by

which the soul ascends to divine communion, it is necessary to emphasize the distinctly corporeal

character of symbolic knowledge. This account will be sought in the Neoplatonic doctrine of theurgy.

This doctrine is expounded most completely by the Syrian theurgist, Iamblichus (A.D. 240-325),

whose influence upon Christian liturgical theology comes by way of Pseudo-Dionysius the

Areopagite. At the outset of this pursuit, it is necessary to understand the Iamblichean doctrine of

embodiment, the definitive conditioning factor of man’s mode of knowing.

In the Phaedo, Socrates describes the philosophic soul as a prisoner in a cell, which is the

body. “The lovers of learning know that when philosophy gets hold of their soul, it is imprisoned in

and clinging to the body, and that it is forced to examine other things through it as through a cage

and not by itself, and that it wallows in every kind of ignorance.” 33 For this reason, the soul,

encouraged by its love of wisdom, desires to be set free from the limits of the body and be released

into the intelligible realm which is its proper habitat.

As I say, the lovers of learning know that philosophy gets hold of their soul when
it is in that state, then gently encourages it and tries to free it by showing them
that investigation through the eyes is full of deceit, as is that through the ears and
the other senses. Philosophy then persuades the soul to withdraw from the senses
in so far as it is not compelled to use them and bides the soul to gather itself
together by itself, to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing by itself, the
soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true whatever it examines by
other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and
visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and invisible.34

The body here is presented as being in some manner an impediment to the soul’s progress:

“Because of this, it can have no part in the company of the divine, the pure and uniform.” 35

Knowledge and wisdom are attained only by a certain separation from the body, its sensitive faculties,

and its desires. Thus, Socrates argues that the true philosopher has no fear of death, which is the

33Phaedo, 82d8-e4.
34 Ibid, 83a1-b4.
35 Ibid, 83e1-2.

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separation of soul and body, for by practicing philosophy he must seek to tear himself away from

bodily attachments – philosophy is thus a certain training for death:

If it [the soul] is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, as
it had no willing association with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered
itself together by itself and always practiced this, which is no other than practicing
philosophy in the right way, in fact, training to die easily. Or is this not training
for death?36

By and large, a negative attitude towards corporeality seems to present itself in this dialogue,

which leads many followers of Plato to conclude that the body is simply speaking not the soul’s

proper habitat.37 This is, however, counterbalanced by a positive attitude which appears in another

dialogue, the Timaeus. Iamblichus reads these texts in light of each other, and accordingly offers a

balanced and harmonious interpretation of the role of matter in symbolic knowledge.

In the creation myth of the Timaeus, the Demiurge assigns to his subordinate gods the task of

creating the human race, who are to have a share of both mortality and immortality. That they might

share in mortality, he leaves the creation of their corruptible bodies to the subordinate gods: “If

these creatures came to be and came to share in life by my hand, they would rival the gods. It is you,

then, who must turn yourselves to the task of fashioning these living things, as your nature allows.

This will assure their mortality, and this whole universe will be a completed whole.” 38 That they

might share in immortality, the Demiurge reserves to himself the task of “mixing” their souls: “And

to the extent that it is fitting for them to possess something that shares our name of ‘immortal,’

something described as divine and ruling within those of them who always consent to follow after

justice and after you, I shall begin by sowing that seed, and then hand it over to you.”39 The task of

infusing these souls into bodies is left to the gods: “The rest of the task is yours. Weave what is

36 Ibid, 80e1-81a2.
37 Among the Platonists who hold to this conviction, Plotinus is perhaps the most notable. This reading of Plato has
dominated the common interpretation throughout most of the subsequent history of philosophy, but it is by no means
the only reading. The later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus offer a more balanced view, as will be shown.
38 Ibid, 41c2.
39Ibid, 41c10-d1.

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mortal to what is immortal, fashion and beget living things.”40 The gods proceed to mix the elements

of matter into a unified body, “and they went on to invest this body – into and out of which things

were to flow – with the orbits of the immortal soul.”41 Matter is here presented as a receptacle of

divine meaning, capable of receiving a share in divine life, though by itself corruptible and mortal.

Timaeus grants, however, that as long as it is ungoverned by the soul, it exists in a state of chaos;

and thus, in its initial embodiment, the soul is weighed and buffeted by the storm of this chaos:

“These orbits, now bound within a mighty river, neither mastered that river nor were mastered by it,

but tossed it violently and were violently tossed by it.” 42 But the soul may gain composure and

governance over its body, after sufficient training, nourishment, and formation. 43 In the end,

embodiment is not inherently a defect, but can be redeemed by the proper ordering of body and soul.

Iamblichus perceives in these texts a balanced way of interpreting the Phaedo. If the soul is

not fully embodied, as earlier followers of Plato would not admit,44 and if ensouled bodies are not

thereby imbued with a certain participation in divine life, then, in effect, the cosmos as a whole is

robbed of its ability to play a role in the soul’s deification. Iamblichus writes that this would entail

that “the divine is set apart from the earthly realm, and that it does not mingle with humanity, and

that this realm is bereft of divinity.”45 But in fact, according to the Timaeus, matter is a genuine

receptacle of divine form, and mortal bodies of immortal souls. Consequently, it must be somehow

40Ibid, 41d2.
41 Ibid, 43a6.
42 Ibid, 43a7.
43See Ibid, 44b1-c3: “But as the stream that brings growth and nourishment diminishes and the soul’s orbits regain their

composure, resume their proper courses and establish themselves more and more with the passage of time, their
revolutions are set straight, to conform to the configuration each of the circles takes in its natural course. They then
correctly identify what is the same and what is different, and render intelligent the persons who possess them. And to be
sure, if such a person also gets proper nurture to supplement his education, he’ll turn out perfectly whole and healthy,
and will have escaped the most grievous of illnesses. But if he neglects this, he’ll limp his way through life and return to
Hades uninitiated and unintelligent.”
44 E.g., Plotinus: “[Even] our soul has not sunk entirely, but there is always something of it in the Intelligible World.”

(Enneads, IV.8,8.)
45 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis I.8, 28. Here Iamblichus explicitly makes a connection to religious ritual: “And indeed,

speaking generally, this doctrine constitutes the ruination of sacred ritual and theurgical communion of gods with men,
by banishing the presence of higher classes of being outside the confines of the earth.” A certain liturgical sense of
symbolic realism is thus already present in this understanding.

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through the mediation of material beings, and consequently of his own body, that man can ascend to

the gods. Hence, Iamblichus describes the life of embodiment – the mortal life subject to generation

and corruption – as being only for the sake of a subsequent ascent of the soul back to the gods:

[From] their first descent the god sent down the souls for this purpose, that they
should return again to him… For even as, at the universal level, the realm of
generation and this universe are dependent upon intellectual reality, so also in the
dispensation of souls, liberation from the processes of generation is in harmony
with the care bestowed upon their introduction into generation.46

Thus, the soul descends into a mortal, generated body, only so that it may return to its source by a

spiritual ascension through this body as its vehicle. Accordingly, the mode of worship, the spiritual

ascent itself, of such beings must necessarily be suited to their embodied nature:

Those who are governed by universal nature, and who themselves live according
to their own proper natures and make use of the powers of nature, practice a
mode of worship which is suited to nature and to those bodies which are moved
by natural causes, paying due attention to particular localities and climatic
conditions and qualities attendant on bodies, and motions and changes proper to
things subject to generation, and to what depends upon these both in the other
departments of worship and in the area of sacrifices.47

Thus, the soul, while still embodied, is capable of divine union by way of a manner of worship that

interacts with the world in a bodily fashion: “[The] gods in their benevolence and graciousness

unstintingly shed their light upon theurgists, summoning up their souls to themselves and

orchestrating their union with them, accustoming them, even while still in the body, to detach themselves

from their bodies, and to turn towards their eternal and intelligible first principle.” 48 In this,

Iamblichus follows Plato himself, who maintains in the Laws that intelligence is attained, and the

gods honored, only in conformity to the patterns of the material cosmos itself:

46De Mysteriis, VIII.8, 272.

47 Ibid, V.18, 224-225.
48 Ibid, I.12, 41. Iamblichus is here emphatic that the gods cannot be manipulated by human means, but choose to reveal

themselves in the cosmos so that man might encounter and be illuminated by them through a ritualized attention to their
presence in the cosmos: “For the illumination that comes about as a result of invocations is self-revelatory and self-
willed, and is far removed from being drawn down by force, but rather proceeds to manifestation by reason of its own
divine energy and perfection…”

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 The days must be grouped into months, and the months into years, in such a way
that the seasons, along with their various sacrifices and festivals, may each receive
proper recognition by being duly observed in their natural sequence. The result
will be to keep the state active and alert, to render the gods due honor, and to
make men better informed on these matters.49

Thus, it is precisely by means of physical mediation that the human soul can achieve unity

with the gods. The constitution of the human being is in direct proportion to the cosmos which is to

serve for its growth towards intelligence and divine union: as the cosmos is a complex organization

of material elements infused with the World-Soul, whereby it participates in divine meaning, so is

man a body-soul composite, constituted to harmonize with the structure of the cosmos itself. It is

only to the degree that man does not live according to this harmony, does not order himself

according to the proper spiritual reference of the material cosmos, that matter reverts to the chaos

described in Timaeus. It is from this condition of matter that the soul described in the Phaedo seeks to

be liberated: matter on its own terms, steeped in chaos, in rebellion against the cosmic order that the

soul would bestow upon it.50 But this liberation requires a profound conversion, a transformation of

spiritual vision. Such a conversion only occurs by rejecting matter on its own terms, and seeing it in a

completely new light: no longer simply in its self-reference, but as a vehicle of divine meaning. In this

way, all corporeal being is referred back to its eternal archetypes: it is recognized as symbolic.

This doctrine has vast consequences for religion, expanding into a sublime doctrine of the

necessity of symbolic ritual in divine worship. Thus far, we have discovered how the facts of

participation, embodiment, and symbolic knowledge condition the human mode of worship to

proceed in a corporeal fashion. What is now to be seen is how a doctrine of the ritualistic nature of

worship seems to follow directly from these facts. The Neoplatonic tradition, exemplified especially in

49Laws, 809d.
50Gregory Shaw states very clearly the Iamblichean interpretation of the Phaedo in light of the Timaeus: “The mistake of
an embodied soul was not in having a body, nor in being fully aware of physical existence. The error lay in the weighing
of the soul’s attention. Its consciousness was to be anchored in the whole, the harmonic unity of the Demiurge, with
only minimal attention given to one’s localized self.”(Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 60).

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the theurgical doctrine of Iamblichus and Proclus, again plays a significant role in the exposition of

this doctrine.51 Moreover, through the light of faith and the lens of sacred theology, this doctrine

receives clarity from the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. To this doctrine we shall now turn.

II. Symbolism and Religious Ritual

A. RELIGION, SYMBOLISM, AND PHILOSOPHIC DEATH. Philosophy, as we have seen, was

conceived by Plato and his followers as an ultimately religious endeavor, since it consists in the ascent

of the soul to the knowledge of the highest and most divine realities which manifest themselves

through sensible beings. Moreover, philosophic knowledge is identified with symbolic knowledge,

precisely because it is mediated by sensible beings. These sensible beings are participants and

receptacles of divine being, which is therefore mysteriously present to them by their very participation

in it. This is to say that they are its symbols; and symbolism is a medium of its presence. It is the very

encounter with this divine presence through the symbol that constitutes the essence of philosophic

knowledge. Philosophic, symbolic, are practically synonymous by this account,52 and they culminate

in nothing other than religious knowledge.

But as explained above by Iamblichus, this knowledge can only be attained by way of a

radical conversion of the soul in its relation to the body which it inhabits, and thus toward the

corporeal realities which it encounters through the same body. This conversion consists in the
51There are several recent magisterial treatises on the Neoplatonic doctrine of theurgy. The following three have been
consulted for this thesis: Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonisn of Iamblichus, Angelico Press/Sophia
Perennis, 2014; Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity, Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis, 2010; Algis
Uzdavinys, Philosophy as Rite of Rebirth, The Prometheus Trust, 2008.
52This is not to discount the importance of discursive reasoning in scientific philosophy. Discursive reasoning certainly

serves as an aid to symbolic vision, which is akin to the philosophic contemplation which Aristotle attributes to the end
of the philosophic discourse (Nicomachean Ethics, X.7), albeit Aristotle does not give an explicit account of symbolic
knowledge as such. The discursive act is like an aid to the faculty by which the symbolic mind strips away the elements of
an experience that are superfluous to its essential meaning. In this way, discursion serves symbolic knowledge. But if
divorced from symbolic knowledge, it becomes a veritable self-imprisonment of the intellect closed in upon itself, infatuated
by the allure of its own concepts, and no longer open to the greater meaning of things, their reference to something
Other. This is the great difference between the ancients and the moderns – the latter beginning in the rationalism of
Descartes and culminating in Immanuel Kant, who seeks to glorify the power of reason by severing it from any reality
other and greater than itself.

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redirection of spiritual attention, by which material being is referred to the intelligible meaning in

which it participates. Thus, a conversion occurs within the human body-soul composite and in the

world outside, as it is known by the soul. Firstly, in the human composite the human body is re-

subjected to the rule of the soul, so that the soul is no longer fettered by the body, but employs it as

the instrument of its knowledge. Secondly, the soul’s vision of the world outside itself is transformed

in like manner: sensible things are no longer merely sensible things; they no longer refer merely to

themselves. Rather, the soul sees them now as symbols, participants of a higher plane of reality,

modes of a divine presence that is worth knowing for itself.

This conversion of the soul corresponds, not only to the conversion (literally, the “turning

around”) of the prisoner in the cave towards the light, but also to the philosophic death described by

Plato in the Phaedo. Death is a certain separation of the soul from the body. Philosophy involves this

separation of the soul from the body, inasmuch as the body on its own terms – in its chaotic self-

reference – must be rejected. The soul tears itself away from the bonds of its slavery to the body so

that it may return to refer the body back to the soul itself: the body on its own terms is rejected, only

to be adopted again on the soul’s terms. The body is referred and subjected to the governance of the

spirit, just as the sensible cosmos is now seen in light of the intelligibility which informs it. Thus,

communion with the intelligible is re-established even through the body itself, and the soul is free

again to rise to deiformity. The little death which the philosopher undergoes with every philosophic

act is only the first step to philosophic enlightenment and communion with the divine: death is the

necessary prelude to resurrection.53

53The images of death and the ascent from the cave, drawn from Plato, are themselves symbolically weaved into the very
structure of the symbol itself. Death and resurrection (rebirth) are themselves symbolic of man’s conversion from a
mundane to a divine way of knowing – they are symbolic of symbolic knowledge itself; and of any object’s redirection to
its intelligible referent – they are symbolic of the symbol itself. Likewise, the ascent from the cave, after turning from the
shadows, is a symbol of the same conversion from mundane to divine knowledge. There is also, consequently, a likeness
between the cave and the grave: the darkness of the cave corresponds to death in the grave, from both of which the soul
ascends with new vision and life in renewed harmony with the sphere of intelligibles. Plotinus himself draws this

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 Thus, just as there are two conversions – one of the knower, and one in the thing known –

so are there, as it were, two deaths that occur in the philosophic act: one on the part of the

philosopher himself, and another on the part of the object which he knows as a symbol. This second

death consists in the separation of the object from its merely material and mundane existence, its

self-reference. For it is not as a thing in itself, closed in upon its own self-reference, that the object

mediates philosophic knowledge. Rather, it is precisely insomuch as it is referred away from itself to

something Other, that it can be known as a symbol. In this way, the object undergoes a certain

symbolic destruction, so that it may be referred instead to its transcendent referent. It is precisely the

necessity of this destruction – the death of the object to itself – that imposes upon the philosopher a

like necessity within himself. The philosopher can only see things as symbols if he transforms his

own way of apprehending things, and thus he dies to himself along with the object of his

apprehension; and together both philosopher and object are redirected to a new plane of

intelligibility in which they now refer as symbols to what is Other and divine.

St. Thomas stresses that “an effect is most perfect when it returns to its source,” and that

“each and every creature returns to its source so far as it bears a likeness to its source, according to

its being and its nature, wherein it enjoys a certain perfection.”54 But in a certain manner, creatures

exist in a more perfect and intelligible mode as known by man, since such a mode of existence

brings them closer to the simple and intelligible mode in which they exist in God, who is their

supreme archetype: “In order that the imitation of God, in this mode of containing, might not be

lacking to creatures, intellectual creatures were made which contain corporeal creatures, not by

quantitative extension, but in simple fashion, intelligibly; for what is intellectually known exists in the

comparison explicitly in the Enneads, IV,8,4: “A thing fallen, chained, at first barred off from intelligence and living only
by sensation, the soul is, as they say, in tomb or cavern pent.”
54Summa Contra Gentiles, II.46.In this passage St. Thomas appends a brief and interesting commentary on the symbolism

of the circle, which he says is symbolic of perfection: “Thus, the circle is the most perfect of all figures, and circular
motion the most perfect of all motions, because in their case a return is made to the starting point.” This theme of exitus-
reditus, procession and return, is central to St. Thomas’ whole system of thought.

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knowing subject, and is contained by his intellectual operation.”55 It would follow that the more man

conforms his knowledge of things to the way in which God contains them in Himself simply, the

more perfectly does he know them. But God knows things only through His knowledge of Himself,

as referred to Himself.56 It is thus for man, the philosopher, to perform the act of this referral on the

human level. Things return to their supreme principle precisely by being known by the philosopher

as referred to this principle.

St. Paul seems to confirm this very doctrine when he teaches that “every creature groans and

travails in pain”57 until the moment that it is “delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the

liberty of the glory of the children of God.”58 This is delivery is the symbolic “death” of the object,

followed by its “resurrection.” This, moreover, corresponds to the death and resurrection of the

knower himself: “And not only it [the creation], but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the

Spirit: even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the

redemption of our body.”59 By knowing through the symbol, which “dies” to itself and “resurrects”

unto its metaphysical reference, the philosopher likewise dies to himself and is carried along with the

symbol – or carries it along with himself – up towards the primordial One, which is God Himself, in

which resurrected stage his body will have been redeemed and reconfigured according to its eternal

form. This is the religious trajectory of philosophic knowledge.

55Ibid.
56 See S.T., Ia, q.14, a.2: “[It] is manifest that He [God] perfectly understands Himself; otherwise His existence would not
be perfect, since His existence is His act of understanding. Now if anything is perfectly known, it follows of necessity
that its power is perfectly known. But the power of anything can be perfectly known only by knowing to what its power
extends. Since therefore the divine power extends to other things by the very fact that it is the first effective cause of all
things, as is clear from the aforesaid, God must necessarily know things other than Himself.” See also, S.T., Ia, q.15, a.2:
“So far, therefore, as God knows His essence as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular
type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other creatures.”
57 Romans, 8:22.
58 Romans, 8:21.
59Romans, 8:23. The Apostle, in this chapter, proposes a theological doctrine of flesh and spirit which resembles the

philosophical doctrine of the symbol, according to which it is not the flesh under its own law that gives life, but the law
of the spirit, in reference to which alone the flesh itself may be redeemed.

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 The Neoplatonist, Proclus (A.D., 412-485), a disciple of Iamblichus and another proponent

of the doctrine of theurgy, summarizes the philosophical ground for theurgy in the second book of

On Platonic Theology. Here he describes, in his own words, the twofold “death” and “resurrection” of

the soul and the object of its knowledge, explaining that God has planted in the universe, and

especially in human souls, certain seeds of divinity, which sprout only when the soul forgets its own

earthbound nature, and carries up with itself the objects of its knowledge, or is carried with them, to

be united to its supreme and divine principle. Creatures must “transcend their own natures”60 in

order to attain this union: they must die to themselves and resurrect again to a new and higher

purpose:

[The] human soul [should] purify itself from things appropriate to its own level in
the union and community with the first principle leaving out all its multiplicity
and awakening its true existence, with ‘closed eyes’ as it is said, and to approach
the ‘king of all things’ and to participate in its light, as far as that it is allowed…
Thus, they unite with the unique first principle, not through what they are, but on
the contrary, through that which transcends their own nature... Thus each entity
returning into itself finds from its own nature the symbol of the Father of all
things and everything worships him according to its own nature, and unites with
him through appropriate mystical signs, stripping its own nature and wanting only
to be one with its own sign and participate in that with the desire of unknown
nature and the source of good.61

B. RELIGION AND RITUAL. It is at this point that the necessity of symbolic ritual as the essential

religious act begins to emerge. The philosophic act is completed by the perfect act of referral, in

which the being-as-symbol is acknowledged for its symbolic reference, and consequently given back to

60 At first sight, there may appear to be a contradiction between this text and the text of Iamblichus, where he asserts
above (see note. 41) that those “who themselves live according to their own proper natures and make use of the powers
of nature, practice a mode of worship which is suited to nature and to those bodies which are moved by natural causes.”
But the Neoplatonists, far from contradicting themselves, are profoundly aware of a fundamental tension within nature
itself, which seeks to transcend itself by being referred to something supernatural and divine. Indeed, this is wonderfully
consonant with the nature of symbolism: a creature may only be symbolic if it possesses a nature, a “what-it-is,” if it is
something; yet precisely what it means to be of such a nature is ultimately to refer to that transcendent nature in which it
participates. It has its own nature only by participation in another.
61Proclus, On Platonic Theology, II, 57. Cited in Tuomo Lankila, “Hypernoetic Cognition and the Scope of Theurgy in

Proclus,” Arctos 44 (2010).

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its referent. In knowing it precisely as thus referred to God, the philosopher begins the act of

returning it to God. He separates it from its earthly mode of being, its self-reference closed in upon

itself – and thereby it dies – and channels it into its original divine reference – and thereby it resurrects

and is made sacred. This twofold event, the death and resurrection (re-referral) of an object to God, is

what constitutes every ritual act of sacrifice.62 Thus, in the very nature of the symbol and of symbolic knowledge

is inscribed the necessity and essence of the fundamental religious act: the rite of sacrifice.

St. Thomas accordingly describes sacrifice as the act of returning the creature back to its first

principle, God, in acknowledgment of its procession from Him alone in the first place – i.e., in

acknowledgment of its symbolic value. By this acknowledgment, man better directs himself to the

knowledge of God, the principle and archetype of all creatures. Hence:

In order to direct his mind to God aright, man must recognize that whatever he
has is from God as from its first principle, and direct it to God as its last end.
This was denoted in the offerings and sacrifices, by the fact that man offered
some of his own belongings in honor of God, as though in recognition of his
having received them from God, according to the saying of David (1 Chronicles
29:14): "All things are Thine: and we have given Thee what we received of Thy
hand." Wherefore in offering up sacrifices man made protestation that God is the
first principle of the creation of all things, and their last end, to which all things
must be directed.63

St. Thomas likewise accounts for the destruction or death that occurs in the act of sacrifice: “A

‘sacrifice, properly speaking, requires that something be done to the thing which is offered to God,

for instance animals were slain and burnt, the bread is broken, eaten, blessed. The very word signifies

this, since ‘sacrifice’ is so called because a man does something sacred.”64

62 By this account of sacrifice that death and immolation are far from the only or even the most important components of
the sacrifice, though they are certainly necessary. Even in St. Thomas’ account, the destruction of the sacrificial object is
only for the sake of re-directing it to the principle from which it originally proceeds. Death and resurrection both pertain to
the essence of sacrifice. (See note 84, below.)
63S.T.,Ia IIae, q.102, a.3.
64Ibid, IIa IIae, q.85, a.3, ad.3. Properly speaking, in St. Thomas’ terms, a sacrifice differs from an oblation, since the

latter does not necessarily involve destruction of the object. “On the other hand an "oblation" is properly the offering of
something to God even if nothing be done thereto, thus we speak of offering money or bread at the altar, and yet
nothing is done to them. Hence every sacrifice is an oblation, but not conversely.” However, the nature of oblation
seems nonetheless to emulate sacrifice in some degree, insofar as any object offered to God must be set apart from its

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 The possibility of directing the symbolic object back to its divine referent by means of

sacrifice is rooted in the nature of symbolism itself. Iamblichus is explicit that the efficacy of

sacrifice derives from the inherent likeness, by participation, of creatures to the gods: “But since the

offerings partake also of incorporeal forms and of reason-principles of a certain sort and

measurements of simple nature, from this very circumstance alone one may see the suitability of the

offerings.”65 Thus, by their original likeness to the divine nature from which they proceed, creatures

are naturally fit for sacrifice; for they desire to return to their first principle. But this sacrifice is only

accomplished by a certain destruction, by which the object is “freed” as it were from its material

constraints, so that it may subsequently be given back to its immaterial referent. Iamblichus

describes this liberation from matter as the symbolic effect of fire, which destroys the victime and

carries it upward towards the heavens:

…the fire of our realm, imitating the activity of the divine fire, destroys all that is
material in the sacrifices, purifies the offerings with fire and frees them from the
bonds of matter, and renders them suitable, through the purification of their
nature, for consorting with the gods, and by the same procedures liberates us
from the bonds of generation and makes us like to the gods, and renders us
worthy to enjoy their friendship, and turns round our material nature towards the
immaterial.66

The language in these passages is striking. Iamblichus is clearly speaking in the terms of Plato

himself, when he speaks of the likeness of material creatures to their divine archetypes, 67 the

purification of nature of material bonds,68 and the turning round of nature from material towards

profane mode of being – this “setting-apart” seems to correspond to a kind of death or destruction, for the sake of new
purpose.
65De Mysteriis, I.15, 49. Iamblichus continues: “And indeed, if any degree of kinship and likeness, whether near or

remoted, is present, this is sufficient for the contact of which we are now speaking. For nothing enters, even to a
minimal extent, into likeness with the gods, to which the gods are not straightway present and united. It is not, then, as
with beings which are possessed of sense-perception and souls, but in accordance with the divine forms themselves and
with the gods themselves, that the contact (resulting from these offerings), so far as possible, comes abount.”
66
De Mysteriis, V.12, 216.
67 Cf. theTimaeus.
68 Cf. the Phaedo.

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immaterial.69 Here the marvelous reconciliation of the doctrines of Timaeus and Phaedo (as well as The

Republic) comes to a climax in the development of a philosophy of sacrifice in religious worship. The

philosopher of Plato in this way becomes the theurgist of Iamblichus, the officiant of a sacrifice as

understood by Iamblichus and Thomas Aquinas. The natural symbols of the cosmos likewise

become the sacred objects and sacrificial victims of theurgic ritual.

Theurgy in Iamblichus literally means “work of the gods,” indicating its close connection to

the demiurgic work of creation. It consists in a ritual action performed in harmony with the natural

symbolic patterns of the cosmos, employing various objects of symbolic value, for the sake of divine

worship and deification. The demiurgic activity itself, cosmogenesis, as described in the Timaeus,

consists in nothing else but the infusion of being and intelligibility into matter, thereby imbuing it

with a symbolic reference to eternal archetypes. Theurgy repeats this on a human scale: the creatures

of the material universe are referred back to their divine archetypes, and acknowledged and

employed for their symbolic value. This occurs in the very act of ritual sacrifice, and in an extended

sense, in every sort of ritual activity.70 By thus imitating the demiurgic activity, the theurgist himself

shares in the work of the gods, and is lifted up along with the ritual symbol to the knowledge of

diviner things. Thus, Iamblichus describes the theurgic rites of the Egyptians, who,

…imitating the nature of the universe and the demiurgic power of the gods,
display certain signs of mystical, arcane, and invisible intellections by means of
symbols, just as nature copies the unseen principles in visible forms through some
mode of symbolism, and the creative activity of the gods indicates the truth of the
forms in visible signs.71

By this account, the symbol is referred directly to its metaphysical archetype, but also to the

primary instantiation of that archetype in the original work that is performed by the gods. Myth and

69Cf. the Republic.

70Cf. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 29-36. Eliade describes the essence of religious ritual – for example, the
consecration of a sacred space – as consisting in the repetition on a lower scale of some divine activity, specifically the
divine work of cosmogony. “In reality the ritual by which he [man] constructs a sacred space is efficacious in the
measure in which it reproduces the work of the gods” (29). And “consecrating a territory is equivalent to making it a cosmos,
to cosmicizing it” (30).
71De Mysteriis, VII.1, 250.

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metaphysics here coincide in the account of the symbol: in the practice of theurgy, the ritual symbols

participate in their intelligible archetypes, but thereby also reflect the first instances in which those

archetypes are realized, namely the mythical creative activities of the gods themselves. “Myth” here

refers to a divine event performed in an “archetypal time,” a occurrence that takes place by virtue of

a “transcendent history,” that is, according to the time of the gods. The myth lies “midway” between

the particulars of the sensible cosmos and their metaphysical and universal archetypes; and the ritual

symbol refers directly to the archetype, and indirectly to the cosmogonic myth in which that

archetype is first instantiated. Hence, in theurgy, the theurgist himself “re-enters,” so to speak, into

the myth of cosmogenesis itself, by the act of renewing in cosmic objects their symbolic meaning.72

The resurrection of the object, subsequent to its death or destruction, corresponds exactly with

this renewal of the divine cosmogenesis. The material object first dies to itself, through the

transformation of vision in the philosopher-theurgist, so that it may be re-infused with divine meaning

and intelligibility by returning to its principle: and thus the demiurgic creation is renewed within it.

Concurrently, the theurgist likewise dies to himself and resurrects unto deiformity, being now a

participant of the divine activity. Worship thus primarily consists in sacrifice, since it is in the act of

sacrifice that the acknowledgement of the Creator through the creature-symbol is fully actualized.

Moreover, all ritual celebrations consequently involve in their essence the celebration of a new and

more heavenly creation, in which all creatures are consciously and actively acknowledged as symbols of

divine meaning, and effects of a divine work.

This celebration of a new creation, of a cosmos renewed in its original divine conformity,

creates in all such rituals an unmistakable sense of the sacred, an awareness of the other-worldliness and

divine character of the event that is taking place. Nothing of this sense of the sacred bears the mark of

72 Cf. Eliade, Myth and Reality, 45: “[The] only way to renew the World is to repeat what the Immortals did in illo tempore,
is to reiterate the creation. This is why the priest reproduces the exemplary itinerary of the Immortals and repeats their
acts and words.”

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the ordinary or the mundane; its character is rather one of solemnity, rooted in the awareness of the

symbolism, which refers to something Other. St. Thomas describes this sense of solemnity in relation

to a certain psychological tendency of human nature:

Now man's tendency is to reverence less those things which are common, and
indistinct from other things; whereas he admires and reveres those things which
are distinct from others in some point of excellence… And for this reason it
behooved special times, a special abode, special vessels, and special ministers to
be appointed for the divine worship, so that thereby the soul of man might be
brought to greater reverence for God.73

In this way, the whole constellation of symbols employed in the celebration of sacred ritual coalesces

to form a complex symbol of a higher and eternal realm, which is “incarnated,” as it were, in the

sacred ritual.74 Frithjof Schuon, another Perennialist scholar, beautifully describes this sense of the

sacred, which permeates the religious awareness enshrined in ritual, in the following words:

The sacred is the projection of the celestial Center into the cosmic periphery, or
of the “Motionless Mover” into the flux of things. To feel this concretely is to
possess the sense of the sacred, and thereby the instinct of adoration, devotion,
and submission; the sense of the sacred is the awareness – within the world of
that which may or may not be – of That which cannot not be, whose immense
remoteness and miraculous proximity we experience at one and the same time…
The sense of the sacred is also the innate consciousness of the presence of God: it
is to feel this presence sacramentally in symbols and ontologically in all things.75

Likewise, Jean Borella describes the same sense of the sacred as the awareness, evoked by liturgical

symbolism, of a reality that transcends nature and makes itself present through the liturgical symbols

themselves:

The sense of the supernatural is the sense of a higher nature, the capacity to have
a presentiment of a reality surpassing the natural order, or that the possibilities of
existence do not limit themselves to what we ordinarily experience (the real as

73S.T.,Ia IIae, q.102, a.4.

74 From this it is clear that the recent tendency to create, in the liturgy, a sense of the ordinary and the comfortable day-
to-day lifestyle is in reality a perversion and a corruption of authentic religion, which strains for the vision of what is
above, and for the transformation of what is earthly into a vehicle of what is other-worldly. The very essence of religion and
religious ritual demands from man that he step out of his merely human “comfort-zone” and into a world of divine
transcendence, infinitely greater and more beautiful than himself or his customary world. He must, in other words, die to
his world, and resurrect in another. This is the very meaning of the sense of the sacred, which is, indeed, practically identical
to the philosophic intuition of symbolic meaning.
75 Schuon, From the Divine to the Human, 88.

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 spontaneously perceived and lived, or as scientifically construed). In order for this
sense to be awakened in us, we need to have in this world of ours an experience
of forms which, by themselves, refer to nothing of the mundane. This experience
is given us by liturgical forms, that is, by symbols through which the invisible
transcendent, the divine, renders itself more present.76

III. The Symbolism of the Christian Liturgy.

A. INCARNATION: FULFILLMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHIC HOPE. Any philosophical knowledge must

necessarily fall short of man’s final end, which is supernatural: the immediate vision of God’s

essence.77 The natural symbol is certainly a powerful presentation of God unto the philosopher, as it

affords him a glimpse of God as archetype of the creature; and it is certainly true that by traversing

the symbol as, so to speak, a stepping-stone, the philosopher begins a movement by which he

approaches union with God on a natural level. But there is something missing; for man’s end, which

he desires by elicitation, is supernatural. Man’s nature still conditions him to know through symbolic

mediation; and unless something is added to his nature, or to the nature of the symbol – or both, as

the case may be – he can never rise to the direct and unmediated communication with the divine

essence. The natural symbol is incapable of even beginning for man the journey that will definitively end

in this vision of the divine essence. Man according to his nature is thus placed in a precarious

position: his knowledge through the symbol seems to urge him on towards the desire of immediate -

beatific vision, but such a vision nonetheless transcends the symbolic mode of knowing, which is the

only mode by which man, according to his mere nature, is capable of knowing. Man is in this way a

paradox and problem unto himself.

76Jean Borella, The Sense of the Supernatural, 39-40.

77See S.T., Ia, q.12, a.4: “It is impossible for any created intellect to see the essence of God by its own natural power. For
knowledge is regulated according as the thing known is in the knower. But the thing known is in the knower according
to the mode of the knower. Hence the knowledge of every knower is ruled according to its own nature. If therefore the
mode of anything's being exceeds the mode of the knower, it must result that the knowledge of the object is above the
nature of the knower… Therefore the created intellect cannot see the essence of God, unless God by His grace unites
Himself to the created intellect, as an object made intelligible to it.”

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 But this is not all. Though human nature urges man onward to “seek that which is above,”78

and thus to conform himself to the vision of the symbol, man has fallen away from this original

vocation. The triumph of matter over spirit, of which the ancients were well aware, is nothing other

than the effect of this Original Sin, a symptom of fallen human nature. “In many ways human nature

is in bondage,” says Aristotle.79 Indeed, the chaos of matter in the Timaeus, and the impediments

posed by the body in the Phaedo, for example, are fully explained only by the revealed fact of

Original Sin. Fallen man directs his attention no longer to the immortal and intelligible archetypes of

all creation, but to creation itself apart from its divine reference. In the words of St. Athanasius:

“They fabricated idols for themselves instead of the truth, and honored beings which do not exist

rather than God who is, worshipping ‘the creature rather than the Creator’ (Rom, 1:25), and, much

worse, they even transferred the honor due to God to wood and stones and to every material

object…”80 In this sense, the failure to perceive things symbolically is part and parcel with the fallen

condition, though this mode of perception does belong properly to human nature.

The ancient philosophers and theurgists sought for ways to combat these weaknesses of

human nature, and indeed many of them did not fail to recognize certain necessary truths. The

Neoplatonic theurgists recognized the necessity of a God who reveals Himself, and who thus works

man’s salvation by divine power, bringing man up through the medium of theurgic symbols to

divine union; for man cannot save himself. Man’s role is to receive this self-revelation of God and

let it transform him. But what the ancients could not see is that even the natural revelation of God in

the cosmos is insufficient by itself for man’s salvation: for it is precisely at the level of nature that man

has fallen, and man’s end itself is beyond the scope of nature. How then should the original integrity

of human nature be restored, and how brought to that beatific end which surpasses nature itself?

78Colossians, 3:1.
79Aristotle,
Metaphysics, I.12, 982b29.
80Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 11.

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 God has revealed to man that indeed he is meant for the beatific vision; and, working always

in harmony with the natures He has created, God has bequeathed to man the very means of rising to

this vision. In doing so He has also provided man with the perfect remedy to his fallen condition. By

divine revelation, the natural symbols of the cosmos not only take on a new power and meaning, but

they are completed in the symbol par excellence: the Incarnate Word. Christ is the perfect instance of a

divine act of revelation, by which “the invisible things of God... are clearly seen, being understood

by the things that are made.” 81 Accordingly, St. Thomas observes that the fittingness of the

Incarnation is evident from the very nature of philosophic or symbolic knowledge, though it also

transcends and surpasses it. Moreover, it is evident also from the very nature of divine Goodness,

which is self-diffusive and seeks to communicate itself in the most perfect way.82 The philosophic

hope for full and perfect contact with the fullness of being thus receives the beginning of its fulfillment

in the Incarnation, which renders present and accessible the very substance and personality of the Word

of God, who is the perfect expression of the Father: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”83

Jean Borella states the matter well, showing how the Incarnation is the most fitting

fulfillment of the symbolic mode of knowing:

We need to have bestowed on us the grace of a corporeal reality which, in its very
flesh, is entirely assumed by the Spirit which dwells within it, informs it and
incorporates it in being. An existence transparent to the glory of essence is
needed, a matter so totally ransomed, so totally integrated with the spiritual Act
which gives it being, that it ceases to remain outside of It, to ex-ist (ex-sistere), that
it finds itself wholly united to It, a flesh altogether and without remnant united to
its Word: in short, a body without a corpse… The revelation of Christ, of His
incarnation, redemption and ascension into heaven, is then the realization of the
philosophic hope.84

81Romans, 1:20.
82See S.T., IIIa, q.1, a.1. Here, in the Sed contra, St. Thomas gives an argument for the fitness of the Incarnation that is
based on Romans 1:20. He elsewhere cites this same verse in support of the position that man can know God in this life,
but only by the mediation of his senses: “It is written, ‘That which is known of God,’ namely, what can be known of
God by natural reason, ‘is manifest in them.’ … Our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge
can go as far as it can be led by sensible things.” (Ia, q.12, a.12.)
83 John 13:9.
84Borella, The Crisis of Religious Symbolism and Symbolism and Reality, 424-425.

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In every natural symbol, recognizable by the natural intellectual faculty, the reality of its archetype is

actualized only to the degree that suits its creaturely mode. That is, the archetype is not fully actual in

any creature, since it is merely participated by it, and in this way “prefigured” by it. The symbol bears

in itself the “promise” of an encounter with the Pure Actuality of its archetype; yet no natural symbol

presents the opportunity for this encounter. The fulfillment of this promise of this encounter is only

ensured in the symbol that transcends and surpasses created nature, the symbol that is, indeed, more

than a symbol, in which Pure Actuality is not merely participated but wholly present, substantially united

to the created nature in a single hypostasis. All natural symbols thus find their supernatural

completion only in the Incarnation. The divine archetype of every symbol is fully realized and

instantiated only in the person of Jesus Christ, where symbol and archetype are indeed identified, so

that here alone is it literally true to say that the symbol is its archetype, that the Man is God.85 Thus,

insofar as all natural symbols ultimately refer to God, who is the archetype of all things, all natural

symbols likewise refer to that instance which is the archetype, which is the Word, which is God. All

symbols are in this way indirectly symbolic of Christ Himself; and this is perceptible only to the eyes

of faith.

This is what is missing from the philosophical account proposed by the Platonists. The

philosopher is indeed urged by his knowledge of the symbol to desire a vision of clarity, in which the

divine archetypes are seen in perfect unity and simplicity. “For there resides in every man a natural

desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees; and thence arises wonder in men.”86 In this

way, the philosopher-theurgist seeks his own deification: to be united to God in perfect simplicity

and beatitude. But until he receives faith in the Incarnation, his deification is impossible; the

85See S.T., IIIa, q.16, a.2: “Granted the reality of both natures, i.e. Divine and human, and of the union in person and
hypostasis, this is true and proper: ‘Man is God, even as this: ‘God is man.’ For this word ‘man’ may stand for any
hypostasis of human nature; and thus it may stand for the Person of the Son of God, Whom we say is a hypostasis of
human nature. Now it is manifest that the word ‘God’ is truly and properly predicated of the Person of the Son of God,
as was said in the First Part. Hence it remains that this is true and proper: ‘Man is God.’”
86S.T., Ia, q.12, a.1.

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Incarnation alone makes it possible: “God became man so that man might become God.”87 An old

prayer during the Offertory in the ancient Roman liturgy expresses precisely this mystery: “O God,

Who, in creating human nature, didst marvelously ennoble it, and hast still more marvelously

renewed it: grant that by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His

divinity Who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord…”88

It is for this reason that the third part of St. Thomas’ Summa is concerned with “Christ, Who, as man,

is our way to God.”89

St. Thomas writes emphatically that “since Christ's humanity is the ‘instrument of the

Godhead,’… therefore all Christ's actions and sufferings operate instrumentally in virtue of His

Godhead for the salvation of men.” 90 That is to say, as a consequence of the Incarnation, the

mysteries of Christ’s life – His actions, passions, etc. – are thus likewise symbolic or super-symbolic,

since they bear within them the substance and power of the divine nature. Thus, it is only by the

acknowledgment of these mysteries, and the participation in the work of Christ thereby, that the

Christian soul may hope to attain its divinization.

The life of Christ is a furtherance of the divine work, a continuation and surpassing of the

original act of cosmogenesis. Just as, according to Iamblichus, the divine archetypes are primarily

realized in the work of the Demiurge and his servant gods in the Timaeus, so are these archetypes

renewed and re-instantiated in the person of Jesus Christ.. For this reason, Christ is called the “firstborn

of creation,”91 for in Him the whole and new cosmos is summarized in a preeminent way. And thus,

as the theurgical participation in the original mythical cosmogenesis is merely the natural beginning

of the soul’s assimilation to the gods, so is the participation in the mysteries of Christ’s humanity the

87This phrase is common among the Church fathers. See, for example, Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 54.
88Missale Romanum,1962. All translations taken from The Roman Catholic Daily Missal, Angelus Press, 2009.
89S.T., Ia, q.2, Prologue.
90S.T., IIIa, q.48, a.6.
91 Colossians, 1:15-16. St. Paul explains the rationale for this name: “For in him were all things created in heaven and on

earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by him
and in him.” This is the doctrine of the Word, in whom are contained the archetypes of all creatures.

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graced beginning of the soul’s full and definitive divinization. But in theurgy, this divinization is

(partially) accomplished only by the referral and return of the symbol to its divine archetype, its

“death” and “resurrection” in sacrifice. And so, likewise, the new super-cosmic symbol of Jesus

Christ must also be referred and returned. The mysteries of the Incarnation therefore culminate in

nothing else but the Death and Resurrection of Christ Himself. The death and resurrection are the very

proof of His divine origin, for thereby He shows definitively His return to God in newness of life:

“Although He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God.”92 His death and

resurrection thus constitute by necessity the most perfect sacrifice,93 and hence the locus of the most perfect

and complete acknowledgment of symbolic meaning. (Christ Himself is here both the priest and the

victim,94 the supreme theurgist who offers Himself to God as the symbolic victim; hence, in Christ,

the two “deaths” of the philosopher and the symbol coincide in one subject.) Thus, just as the

original cosmogenesis is the foundation for a certain natural ritual of religious worship, by means of

which the divine work is renewed, so is the supernatural mystery of the Incarnate Word the

foundation for a new and supernatural order of religious worship. This order of worship is the

Christian liturgy.95

92 2 Corinthian, 13:4.
93 Jean Hani emphasizes, in perfect conformity with the above Neoplatonic account of sacrifice, that the sacrifice of
Christ does not consist only or even more importantly in His death and immolation, but in this coupled with the
resurrection: “[The] sacrifice of Christ extends much further than is usually suggested by the word, immolation and
death not being the whole of sacrifice. To tell the truth, they are not even the essential, although, as we have recalled,
they may be necessary for it and indeed are only the condition of passage to another plane of existence, from that of the
fallen physical world to the spiritual world. Christ’s death is only the prelude to His resurrection, to His birth, as man, in
the divine universe where, still as man, He is glorified.” (Hani, The Divine Liturgy, 23).
94Cf. S.T., IIIa, q.22, a.2: “Therefore Christ Himself, as man, was not only priest, but also a perfect victim, being at the

same time victim for sin, victim for a peace-offering, and a holocaust.”
95In the 20th century, it was the Benedictine, Odo Casel, who proposed a more or less complete doctrine of the mysteries

of Christ, as made really present in the whole rite of the liturgy. This doctrine was received with some controversy, as it
seemed novel at the time; but in its essentials it is firmly grounded in the tradition of the church fathers, and even in the
teaching of St. Thomas. Casel took much of his inspiration, moreover, from his study of ancient mystery religions, such
as those described by the later Neoplatonic theurgists. See Casel, The Mystery of Christian Worship, Trans. Darton,
Longman, and Todd, 1962, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2015.

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B. THE MYSTERY OF THE SACRED LITURGY. According to the Church fathers, the special function

of the liturgy is to make the Incarnation and its many mysteries available to man throughout time

and space. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, himself a Christian Neoplatonist96, explains that by the

Incarnation, the divine goodness “showed us a supramundane uplifting and an inspired way of life in

shaping ourself to it as fully as lay in our power.”97 Deification is granted to man only through man’s

participation in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, by which man is modeled and shaped according

to the divine harmonies. But Dionysius asks:

This imitation of God, how else are we to achieve it if not by endlessly reminding
ourselves of God’s sacred works and doing so by way of the sacred hymns and
the sacred acts established by the hierarchy? We do this, as the scriptures say, in
remembrance of him. This is why the hierarch, the man of God, stands before the
divine altar. He praises the divine works which I have mentioned, those sacred
works wrought gloriously by Jesus, exercising here his most divine providence for
the salvation of the human race. This he does, as scripture tells us, for the good
pleasure of the most holy Father and the holy Spirit. And the hierarch sings the
praises of all this venerable work and beholds with the eyes of the mind this
spectacle for conceptual contemplation. He proceeds to the task of the symbolic
sacred act…98

The symbolic sacred act is, for Dionysius, a portal through which the worshipper comes into real

contact with the mysteries praised by the hierarch. Just as theurgy is, for Iamblichus, an imitation of

a primordial divine work – indeed, a participation in it – the hierarchy (“sacred order”) is, for

Dionysius, an imitation of the divine work performed originally by Jesus Christ. Hence, “he [the

hierarch] prays, then, to be made more worthy to do this holy task in imitation of God. He prays

that, like Christ himself, he might perform the divine things… Then he performs the most divine

acts and lifts into view the things praised through the sacred clothed symbols.”99

96 For a fairly comprehensive description of the Neoplatonic inspirations of the Areopagite’s metaphysics, see Eric Perl,
Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite, State University of New York Press, 2007. For the influence
of Neoplatonic theurgy on Dionysius’ description of the liturgy, see, for example, Gregory Shaw, “Neoplatonic Theurgy
and Dionysius the Areopagite, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Winter, 1999.
97Dionysius the Areopagite, Eccliastical Hierarchy., III, 3, 12, 441C.
98Ibid., 441C-441D.
99Ibid., 444A.

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 Dionysius is here describing the symbolic power of the liturgy, primarily as it is exemplified

in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist (the “synaxis” or “communion,” in the Areopagite’s words),

which is an extension of the Incarnation. For, just as the Incarnation is more than a symbol, where

participation gives way to substantial presence, so the Eucharist enacts a real and substantial

presence. Though different in its mode of presentation from the Incarnation itself, in both cases it is

literally possible to gaze upon the appearance – either of the man or of the accidents of bread and

wine – and proclaim that one is there encountering God Himself in the fullness of His divinity.

Where the natural symbol is divine by participation only, the Incarnation, and by extension the

Eucharist, offers an encounter with what is divine by very nature, God in His essence, though still

shrouded by corporeal appearances. Incarnation and Eucharist alike fulfill and surpass the power

and function of every symbol, since they make available the substantial reality in its fullness, rather

than a mere participation in it. The Eucharist is the instrument by which the Incarnate Word

communicates Himself to his followers, just as the Incarnation itself is such an instrument of God’s

diffusive goodness. By means of both mysteries, which the Pseudo-Areopagite seems to describe

almost interchangeably, the One is multiplied and diffused unto its communicants, who are thereby

led to participate in the divine life of Christ.

The bread which had been covered and undivided is now uncovered and divided
into many parts. Similarly, he shares the one sup with all, symbolically multiplying
and distributing the One in symbolic fashion. With these things he completes the
most holy sacred act. For because of His goodness and His love for humanity, the
simple, hidden oneness of Jesus, the most divine Word, has taken the route of
incarnation for us and, without undergoing any change, has become a reality that
is composite and visible. He has beneficently accomplished for us a unifying
communion with Himself… This, then, is what the hierarch reveals in the sacred
rites, when he uncovers the veiled gifts, when he makes a multiplicity of what had
originally been one, when the distributed sacrament and those receiving are made
perfectly one, when a perfect communion of all the participants is achieved.100

100 Ibid., 444A-B, 444C.

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 St. Thomas explains the Eucharistic presence with reference to the concept of

transubstantiation, which describes the actual conversion of the substance of bread and wine – the

symbols – into the very substance of Christ Himself, though still concealed by the accidental species

of bread and wine.101 It is precisely with a view to the symbolic act of knowing, which is fulfilled in

the act of faith, that this explanation of the Eucharistic presence is crucial to St. Thomas’ sacramental

theology. St. Thomas writes: “The presence of Christ's true body and blood in this sacrament cannot

be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone.” 102 For faith is precisely of things

unseen.103 There is, indeed, a natural sort of faith that is required in order to see the hidden symbolic

meaning of things even as they exist in their natural condition;104 but the supernatural virtue of faith is

required in order to perceive the hidden presence of the substance of Christ in the Eucharist.

Accordingly, Laurence Paul Hemming comments:

All too frequently transubstantiation, with its talk (in St. Thomas’s formulation of
it) of ‘substance’ and ‘accidents’ – the categories of thirteenth-century thought,
derived from Neoplatonism and from Aristotle – is criticized for attempting to
describe a kind of ‘Eucharistic physics.’ It does nothing of the sort…
Transubstantiation has nothing to do with physics, and everything to do with
faith.105

In this way, the natural mode of symbolic knowledge is surpassed and transcended by supernatural

faith, which allows one to receive the Eucharist spiritually,106 i.e. in a manner that begets the life of

eternal glory in the soul of the recipient.107 It is only on the condition of possessing the symbolic

101See S.T.,IIIa, q.75.

102S.T.,IIIa, q.75, a.1.
103 Hebrews, 11:1: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”
104 I call this faculty “natural faith” only because it is analogous to the supernatural faith which has something unseen for

its object. Natural faith is certainly neither infused nor based on supernatural revelation, but in a manner it still concerns
what is unseen, what is hidden behind the veil of corporeal forms. It is but the philosophic intuition of symbolic
meaning.
105 Hemming, Worship as a Revelation, 66.
106S.T.,IIIa, q.80, a.1.“It sometimes happens that a man is hindered from receiving the effect of this sacrament; and such

receiving of this sacrament is an imperfect one. Therefore, as the perfect is divided against the imperfect, so sacramental
eating, whereby the sacrament only is received without its effect, is divided against spiritual eating, by which one receives
the effect of this sacrament, whereby a man is spiritually united with Christ through faith and charity.”
107S.T.,IIIa, 9.79, a.2.“It belongs to this sacrament to cause the attaining of eternal life. Because it was by His Passion that

Christ opened to us the approach to eternal life, according to Heb. 9:15: "He is the Mediator of the New Testament; that

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mode of knowing, and going beyond it in faith, that eternal life is made possible through the

reception of the Eucharist.

But the doctrine of the Eucharistic presence would be incomplete if it were to lack an

account of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Sacrament and sacrifice are inseparable in the Eucharist. Just as

the reality of Christ’s Incarnation is fulfilled by His death and resurrection, wherein occurs the

supra-philosophic acknowledgment of Christ’s symbolic meaning, so is the real presence of the

Incarnate Word in the Eucharist fulfilled only by the real presence of His sacrifice in the Eucharistic

ritual. This sacrifice is the heart and core of the Christian liturgy, around which the whole Christian

religious life revolves, towards which it is all ordered as to its crown and pinnacle, and from which it

all flows as from its source and fountainhead. Indeed, all of the sacraments derive their power only

from the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, which is made present in the Eucharist.108 In the consecration

of the Eucharist, the priest in persona Christi offers the same sacrifice, in a new and unbloody mode,

which Christ Himself offered of Himself on the cross at Calvary. The separate consecration and

reception of the bread and the wine is the symbol of the separation of body and blood in sacrificial

death, 109 to be reunited later in the liturgy in the rite of commingling, which symbolizes the

resurrection. 110 The ritual destruction and restoration of the symbolic victim, Christ Himself,

through symbolic death and resurrection, thus constitute the essential component of the liturgical

sacrifice.

by means of His death . . . they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Accordingly in the form
of this sacrament it is said: ‘This is the chalice of My blood, of the New and Eternal Testament.’ In like manner the
refreshment of spiritual food and the unity denoted by the species of the bread and wine are to be had in the present life,
although imperfectly, but perfectly in the state of glory.”
108 Cf. S.T. IIIa, q.62, a.5: “Likewise by His Passion He inaugurated the Rites of the Christian Religion by offering

"Himself---an oblation and a sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2). Wherefore it is manifest that the sacraments of the Church
derive their power specially from Christ's Passion, the virtue of which is in a manner united to us by our receiving the
sacraments. It was in sign of this that from the side of Christ hanging on the Cross there flowed water and blood, the
former of which belongs to Baptism, the latter to the Eucharist, which are the principal sacraments.”
109S.T., IIIa, q.74, a.1: “Consequently, bread and wine are the proper matter of this sacrament. And the reasonableness of

this is seen… secondly, in relation to Christ's Passion, in which the blood was separated from the body. And therefore in
this sacrament, which is the memorial of our Lord's Passion, the bread is received apart as the sacrament of the body,
and the wine as the sacrament of the blood.”
110Hani, The Divine Liturgy, 71.

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 Since the deification of the soul only occurs by the union of the soul with the offering of the

symbol back to its divine archetype, so that the soul is “carried” up to God by this ritual return, it is

precisely only by union with the sacrifice of Christ, in whom, symbolically, all of the cosmos is

summarized, that the soul may likewise offer itself and be united to God. The reality and symbolism

of Holy Communion effects this ascent of the soul. The sacrificial body and blood of Christ are

received by the communicant as “spiritual food,” “not indeed as being converted into us through its

conjunction with us, but rather we ourselves being converted into it by conjunction with it.” 111 The

communicant becomes Christ, and thus becomes divine by participation. Holy Communion in the

reception of the Eucharist, then, is the central act by which the soul liturgically realizes the mystery

of Christ within itself. The soul is united to the divine sacrifice in the “sacrament of charity,”

renouncing its bondage to the generation and corruption of the law of flesh, thereby dying the death

of immolation with Christ, and resurrecting unto divine union in love and contemplation, living the

life of Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in

me.”112 Thus, the whole dynamism of philosophic-symbolic knowledge and theurgical ritual as the

means of the soul’s ascent to God is concentrated in the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrifice and

Holy Communion, wherein the whole mystery of redemption is contained.113

Certainly, none of the remaining six sacraments enacts such a presence as does the

Eucharist, in which alone, as in the Incarnation, the substance of that which appears literally is what

is symbolized by the appearance, since the substance of bread and wine is converted into the very

111In IV Sent. d.8, a.3, q.1. See also: S.T., IIIa, q.73, a.3, ad.2: “The difference between corporeal and spiritual food lies in
this, that the former is changed into the substance of the person nourished, and consequently it cannot avail for
supporting life except it be partaken of; but spiritual food changes man into itself, according to that saying of Augustine
(Confess. vii), that he heard the voice of Christ as it were saying to him: ‘Nor shalt thou change Me into thyself, as food
of thy flesh, but thou shalt be changed into Me.’”
112 Galatians, 2:19-20.
113See S.T., IIIa, q.83, a.4: “…the whole mystery of our salvation is comprised in this sacrament…”

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substance of Christ Himself, hidden beneath the accidents of bread and wine.114 In this way, the

Eucharist is the greatest of the sacraments, being the “end and consummation of all the

sacraments.”115 Nonetheless, each of the sacraments employs symbols that have been transformed

by a divine power, which adds supernatural meaning to the natural meaning of each. Each sacrament

receives a new participation in the divine power, by which it now possesses a real power to transform

the soul of its recipient. The symbol in the sacrament is no longer only an occasion for

contemplation, but also a means of supernatural transformation and sanctification, by which the soul

is empowered to contemplate the divine Truth and participate in the divine goodness in a

supernatural way. The sacraments bestow upon the soul a grace which makes it a “partaker of the

divine nature,”116 conferring a divine life unattainable by even the loftiest natural means. Further still,

by this divine empowering, the soul is prepared to reap the fruits of contemplation and communion

which are received in the greatest of the sacraments, the Eucharist, for the sake of which all the

others exist. Together, all of the sacraments initiate the soul into the life of glory, elevating the soul

to participate in the divine life in a manner that is the same in its genus as eternal life itself,117 though

still shrouded by veils and unenlightened by the lumen gloriae. Thus, it is only by the Incarnational

power of the sacraments, which reveal God and confer His graces to the soul in a supernatural way,

that the divine destiny of man is truly realized and fulfilled.

In each of the other sacraments, it is likewise possible to see how the new and supernatural

symbolism completes the symbolism inherent in the ritual by nature. In Baptism, for example, the

114 See In IV Sent. d.8, a.1, q.1. St. Thomas here explains that in each of the six sacraments beside the Eucharist, the
matter is endowed with a new power to give grace, while still retaining its substantial form; whereas in the Eucharist, the
substantial form of the matter is converted into the very substance of Christ Himself. There is thus a difference in the
mode of presence: in the Eucharist, the presence of Christ in substance is such as to take the place of the natural
substance itself, hidden beneath only the accidents; whereas in the other sacraments, the presence of Christ is through
the grace that is symbolized and operative through the material substance itself.
115S.T., IIIa, q.63, a.6. St. Thomas is here citing the authority of the Areopagite himself, in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, III.
1162 Peter 1:4.
117Cf. S.T., IIa IIae, q.24, a.3, ad.2: “Grace and glory are referred to the same genus, for grace is nothing else than a

beginning of glory in us.”

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element of water is used as a symbol of the soul’s immersion in divine purity. Water indeed

symbolizes this divine purity by its nature, and religions have universally employed it as a means of

making contemplative contact with the reality of that purity, inasmuch as it is participated by water.

Moreover, the purity symbolized by water is itself an aspect of that divine life which conquers all

death; and hence purification is but a twofold process of death and resurrection. Water contains this

in its meaning. But this mystery itself finds its completion in the corresponding works of the

Incarnate Christ, namely His death and resurrection, by which He conquers sin and rises in glory

from the grave. The power of these mysteries has passed into the sacrament of Baptism by the

institution of Christ. Thus, only in this sacrament does water possess the actual power to confer the

grace of divine purity on the soul, such that the soul is infused with the supernatural virtues and

planted with the very seed of eternal life itself. The symbolic meaning of water now involves this power

to bestow the grace of purification, of Christic death and rebirth.118 The sacrament of Baptism is the

action of Christ dying and rising, working upon the soul through the power of the Holy Spirit; so

that the recipient dies with Christ to his sinful self – symbolized by the immersion or “burial” in

water – and rises again, quickened with new and divine life – symbolized by the emergence from the

water, as from the womb of a mother or the tomb of the earth. 119 In this first of the seven

sacraments, the symbolic reality of death and resurrection is ritually undergone for the first time by the

118 In some sense, both the Eucharist and Baptism are rooted in the same mystery, which is the death of Christ, and
there is a common element in both which corresponds to the death and resurrection of the recipient. But it is specifically
the resurrection from death to Original Sin that is symbolized and effected by Baptism, which thus belongs to the
beginning of the supernatural life. Whereas it is the death of the soul to itself and its resurrection unto eternal glory in
union with God that is symbolized and effected by the Eucharist, which therefore pertains to the end and
consummation of the supernatural life. It is the peak and high-point of the mountain that the soul ascends, whereas
Baptism is the foot of the mountain. Cf. S.T.,IIIa, q.73, a.3, ad.3: “Baptism is the sacrament of Christ's death and
Passion, according as a man is born anew in Christ in virtue of His Passion; but the Eucharist is the sacrament of
Christ's Passion according as a man is made perfect in union with Christ Who suffered. Hence, as Baptism is called the
sacrament of Faith, which is the foundation of the spiritual life, so the Eucharist is termed the sacrament of Charity,
which is ‘the bond of perfection’ (Col. 3:14).”
119 Van der Leeuw comments on the relation between the symbols of birth, death, womb, and implicitly tomb, in his

masterful treatise on religious symbolism: “Birth. Movement and change, coming into being and passing away, are now a
being born and a return to the womb. The Mother is the all-nourishing earth: life is to be born of Mother-earth, death is
to enter in to her.” (Religion: Its Essence and Manifestation, 91.)

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catechumen, who is thereby initiated into the community of the saints, the Church of Christ.

Moreover, since the rite of purification is a rite of death and rebirth, and it is a prefigurement of

sacrifice itself; for by the purification, the soul divests itself of its mundane attachments and re-

devotes itself entirely to God. Baptism thus sets the soul on a new path towards the divine union

that is finally effected by the Eucharistic participation in the sacrifice of Christ.

The first writer to explain this Baptismal symbolism was none other than St. Paul the

Apostle, in a striking passage of the epistle to the Romans. The realism of the sacramental symbolism

is especially noteworthy in the Apostle’s description: “Know you not that all we who are baptized in

Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death:

that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of

life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness

of his resurrection.”120 Pseudo-Dionysius repeats the same doctrine: “By dying to sin in Baptism one

could say mystically that he shares in the death of Christ Himself.”121

Multiple Church fathers repeat this doctrine, emphasizing the reality of what the symbolic

acts of Baptism accomplish. For example, St. John Chrysostom stresses with great clarity the reality

of the spiritual transformation, a real regeneration or resurrection that is effected in the soul by Baptism:

And for what reason, says one, if the laver take away all our sins, is it called, not a
laver of remission of sins, nor a laver of cleansing, but a laver of regeneration?
Because it does not simply take away our sins, nor simply cleanse us from our
faults, but so as if we were born again… For it creates and fashions us anew not
forming us again out of earth, but creating us out of another element, namely, of
the nature of water. For it does not simply wipe the vessel clean, but entirely
remoulds it again.122

St. Ambrose of Milan likewise teaches that in Baptism, the eyes of faith should behold not simply

the externals perceptible to the senses, but a presence that works in and through them:

120 Romans, 6:3-5.

121 Eccl. Hier., II, 3, 404A.
122 John of Chrysostom, Instructions to Catechumens, First Instruction, par.3.

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 What did you see? Water, certainly, but not water alone; you saw the deacons
ministering there, and the bishop asking questions and hallowing. First of all, the
Apostle taught you that ‘those things are not to be considered which we see, but
the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen are eternal.’(1 Corinthians 5:18) For you read elsewhere:
‘That the invisible things of God, since the creation of the world, are understood
through those things which have been made; His eternal power also and Godhead
are estimated by His works.’(Romans 1:20) Wherefore also the Lord Himself says:
‘If you believe not Me, believe at least the works.’(John 10:38) Believe, then, that
the presence of the Godhead is there. Do you believe the working, and not
believe the presence? Whence should the working proceed unless the presence
went before?123

St. Thomas Aquinas, a true synthesizer of ancient and patristic doctrine, is the inheritor of this

tradition of symbolic realism in the sacraments, as is evident when he writes: “For, clearly, Christ

Himself perfects all the sacraments of the Church: it is He who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins;

it is He, the true priest, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power His body

is daily consecrated on the altar.”124

The matter of the sacraments is accordingly perceptible in a completely new light, by virtue

of the power given to it by divine institution. 125 The symbolism of the sacraments bears a

supernatural reference to an archetype that can be known only supernaturally by faith. But this

supernatural reference is not unrelated to the natural symbolism of the sacramental matter; rather, it

presupposes it, perfects it, and determines it126, such that nature itself is now seen to bear new meaning

and power in the supernatural context of the sacraments. The doctrines of participation, embodiment,

and Incarnation thus come together to form the principles of the symbolism in all of the sacraments.

123 Ambrose of Milan, On the Mysteries, III, par.8.

124S.C.G., IV.76, 7.
125 See S.T., IIIa, q.64, a.2, Sed Contra: “The institutor of anything is he who gives it strength and power: as in the case of

those who institute laws. But the power of a sacrament is from God alone, as we have shown above. Therefore God
alone can institute a sacrament.”
126 See Ibid., ad.2: “From their very nature sensible things have a certain aptitude for the signifying of spiritual effects:

but this aptitude is fixed by the Divine institution to some special signification. This is what Hugh of St. Victor means by
saying (De Sacram. i) that ‘a sacrament owes its signification to its institution.’ Yet God chooses certain things rather
than others for sacramental signification, not as though His choice were restricted to them, but in order that their
signification be more suitable to them.” For example, water is naturally apt to symbolize purity in a general way; it also
symbolizes unlimited possibility. Baptism possesses a determinate form of these meanings by imparting a purifying grace
upon the soul, thereby beginning the realization of the soul’s capacity for the infinite – its capacity to be deified.

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 The sacraments, however, do not make up the entire rite of the Church. Each of the

sacraments is accompanied by a surrounding complex ceremonial, much of which is not strictly

essential to the sacrament in its bare minimum conditions for validity. Other liturgical symbols

besides the sacraments likewise receive new meaning from supernatural revelation, though they do

not all necessarily receive new supernatural power to transform the soul by the conferral of grace.

Yet these too are, in a lesser way, extensions of the Incarnation, inasmuch as they are now knowable

as being modeled after and fulfilled by it. Though they do not confer grace by their own power, they

are necessary occasions for a new and graced contemplation through the eyes of faith, by which the

soul may still witness the mysteries of Christ. As such, they are also occasions for the nourishment

of grace, and are necessary to the supernatural growth and ascent of the faithful soul, since through

them the reality and presence of God, participated now in a supernatural way, may still be

encountered. Participation is still the basis for this symbolism; but by revelation, the reality of the

archetype participated is now known in a more complete way, inasmuch it is perfectly instantiated

only in the mysteries of Christ – His Incarnation, and His sacrifice. The liturgical symbols thus bear

this Christic instantiation of their archetypes in their new meaning, which is perceptible only to the

eyes of faith.

Space does not permit here a complete illustration of the realism of the various liturgical

rituals and symbols,127 but it will be expedient to consider two notable examples: a) the symbolism of

the sun in liturgical orientation, b) the symbolism of sacrifice in a particular ritual during the liturgy

of the Mass (or the Divine Liturgy, as it is called in the East), namely the Offertory.

127There is a wealth of literature to consult that expounds the symbolism of the ancient rites of the Church. Multiple
Church fathers have written substantial treatises, among them, of course, Dionysius the Areopagite, Cyril of Jerusalem,
Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mospuestia, Nicholas Cabasilas, and many others. For contemporary
commentaries on liturgical symbolism, see Jean Hani, The Divine Liturgy: Insights into Its Mystery, Angelico Press/Sophia
Perennis, 2016; The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, Angelico Press/Sophia Perennis, 2016; Rev. James Jackson, Nothing
Superfluous: An Explanation of the Symbolism of the Rite of St. Gregory the Great, Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, 2016. The
symbolism of the liturgical year receives the most comprehensive treatment by far in Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The
Liturgical Year (in 15 volumes), Loreto Press, 2000.

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 A) Solar Symbolism and Liturgical Orientation

In the traditional liturgies of the Church, it is the custom for the priest to orient himself

towards the East while in the act of performing the sacred ritual. This Eastward orientation is itself a

part of the ritual, and it is imbued with a symbolic meaning that is both natural and supernatural,

cosmic and revealed. The priest worships in the direction of the rising sun, which in many ancient

religions and philosophies128 was seen as a sublime symbol of divine life, power, and intelligibility. St.

Clement of Alexandria, a student of the ancient mystery religions and Neoplatonic philosophies,

comments on the natural symbolism of the East:

And since the dawn is an image of the day of birth, and from that point the light
which has shone forth at first from the darkness increases, there has also dawned
on those involved in darkness a day of the knowledge of truth. In correspondence
with the manner of the sun's rising, prayers are made looking towards the sunrise
in the east. Whence also the most ancient temples looked towards the west, that
people might be taught to turn to the east when facing the images.129

The Bible likewise repeats this symbolism in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old

Testament, this symbolism appears countless times; but some of the most notable instances occur in

the book of Ezekiel, such as when the prophet receives a vision of the temple: “And He brought me

to the gate that looked towards the East. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came in by the

way of the East: and His voice was like the noise of many waters, and the earth shone with His

majesty… And the majesty of the Lord went into the temple by the way of the gate that looked to

the East.”130 Daily the sun sets, and daily proves itself invincible to the “death” that was its setting.

Daily, by setting, the sun puts the earth to sleep, and all creatures fall into a state that itself resembles

death – only to be awakened again by the rising of the sun. The sun is in this way the symbol of the

god whose dying and rising is causal of the daily dying and rising of all creatures. Only the god has

power over life and death, and all creatures derive new life from him alone, if they participate also in

128For a fairly detailed account of the symbolisms of the sun, see Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 124-151.
129Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VII., cap. vii. (T&T Clark edition, 1989, pg. 535).
130Ezechiel, 43:1-2,4.

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his death. Life corresponds also with knowledge since it is by the rising of the sunlight that all things

become daily visible again. Divine life and the light of knowledge come from the East. It is by

opening towards the East that the subjects of the god await His coming, His appearance as Life, His

resurrection, and His enlightenment.

The Resurrection of Christ Himself is the defining instantiation of this eternal archetype that

is symbolized and re-presented only in an imperfect, participated mode, by the figure of the rising

sun. Hence, Christ is called “the Orient,”131 the “light of the world,”132 the “Rising Sun,” and the

“Sun of Justice.”133 Christ rose in the East,134 and His second coming is foretold to be from the

East.135 By faith alone can this be perceived, and thus by faith alone can the sun be perceived as the

symbol of the rising Christ, by whose resurrection the Christian soul itself is resurrected unto eternal

glory.

The Eastward orientation of liturgical worship thus symbolizes everything that is natural

about the symbolism of the sun, and likewise, on the basis of faith, everything that is supernatural

and revealed. The congregation of Christian worshipers, led by the priest, directs their attention to

the Resurrection of Christ, the Sun of Justice, which is the completion and culmination of their

faith. Likewise, in the ancient ceremony of Baptism, the catechumen faces the West to renounce

Satan and his works, and turns to the East to receive the sacrament and begin his approach to

God.136 (For this reason, in traditional church architecture the baptistery is placed near or outside the

entrance of the church, since to enter is to proceed towards the East where Christ appears.) In these

131 Zechariah. 3:8.

132 John, 8:12.
133 Malachi, 3:20.
134Malachi, 4:2.
135 Mattew, 24:27.
136 Cf. Dionysius the Areopagite, Eccl. Hier., II, 396B: “He [the hierarch] unties [the man’s sandals] and has the deacons

remove his garments. Then he puts him facing westward with his hands outstretched in a gesture of abhorrence. Three
times he bids him breathe his rejection of Satan and his abjuration of him. Three times he speaks the words and the
other repeats them. Then he turns him eastward with eyes raised and hands lifted to heaven and he commands him to
submit to Christ and to all divinely granted sacred lore.”

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examples, among many others, the Christian marches forward with the Church towards Christ and

awaits His coming from the East on the last day, when the faithful Christian himself will rise again

to be joined to God in an everlasting life of glory.137

In this use of cosmic orientation in the ritual of the liturgy, the natural cosmos is sanctified

and consecrated for the use of divine worship. The cosmic object, the rising sun, itself becomes a

liturgical object, insofar as it is liturgically employed for its symbolic value. On the natural level,

therefore, it is the medium of that philosophic knowledge that rests in the divine archetype; on the

supernatural level, it is the medium of the faith-enlightened vision which rests in the perfect

instantiation of the same archetype, the person of Jesus Christ. On both levels, the sun is the

liturgical object, removed from its self-reference and referred to its archetypal form or instance. The

theurgist, or the priest, and in conjunction with him every true worshipper, thus participates in a new

cosmogenesis by which an object of the cosmos is renewed in divine meaning. In the context of

Christian worship, this meaning is supernatural, and pertains to the essential act of the Christian’s

progress towards salvation. It is, moreover, a “prophecy” or a “promise” of that renewal of the

cosmos which will be accomplished at the end of time: “And I saw a new heaven and a new

earth…”138

B) The Symbolism of Sacrifice in the Offertory

The above case exemplifies the extension of the sense of sacrifice to every ritual symbol.

This is an element of capital importance in the traditional rites of the Church, both East and West.

Sacrifice is indeed, as shown above, a natural consequence of the structure of all symbolism and

137Itis a telling fact of the modern liturgical condition that the Eastward orientation is no longer considered a necessary
or even fitting element of the liturgical ritual, whereas its fittingness would never have been questioned in the ancient
church, or indeed by many ancient religions. One may rightly question the legitimacy of eliminating such basic and
prominent symbols from the liturgy when they are evidently of such great importance to the spiritual contemplation of
divine realities.
138Revelation, 21:1.

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symbolic knowledge, which revolve around the concepts of death and resurrection. All symbols thus

anticipate sacrifice itself in each their own fashion. More to the point, on the basis of faith and

divine revelation, all symbols anticipate that perfect sacrifice which was offered of Himself by Jesus

Christ on the cross, and which is made present upon the altar every time the Eucharistic liturgy, the

mass, is celebrated. The symbolism of the sun foretells the resurrection from death, in which the

soul participates only by participation in Christ’s resurrection from sacrificial death. One could

observe countless other aspects of the liturgy which at least implicitly point to the sacrifice as their

center and core.

There is one rite in the mass in which this symbolic anticipation of the Eucharistic sacrifice

is made explicit: this is the rite known as the Offertory. In the traditional rites of the Church, the

Offertory, though it is prior to the actual consecration of the Eucharistic species, bears the likeness

of a sacrifice in which the gifts of bread and wine are offered to God as symbols of the very body

and blood of Christ. The Offertory is accordingly treated as much more than a mere preparation of

the gifts to be offered at the consecration; it is rather acknowledged explicitly as an anticipation of

that very offering. 139

In the Tridentine use of the Roman Rite, the priest lifts the bread on the paten towards

heaven, and prays: “Receive, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this spotless host, which I,

Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins,

offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians living or dead,

that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal. Amen.”140 Wine and water and

139Yet again, the Offertory is another instance of a symbolic ritual in the liturgy that has been practically suppressed in
the modern liturgical reforms. The new Offertory of the Missal of Pope Paul VI treats this rite as a mere preparation of
the gifts for the consecration, and their offering is no longer expressly symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ Himself. The
new prayers merely look ahead to the sacrifice that will occur at the consecration, and no longer acknowledge in the
present the participation of the offering in that very sacrifice. This is based on the misconception that the sacrificial
language of the Offertory was out of place because it was before the actual consecration – an assumption undermined by
the inherently sacrificial meaning of all true symbolism in the first place, as has been demonstrated above.
140See The Roman Catholic Daily Missal, Angelus Press, 2009, pg. 859.

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poured into the chalice, signifying the blood and water which flowed from the heart of Jesus: “O

God, Who, in creating human nature, didst marvelously ennoble it, and hast still more marvelously

renewed it: grant that by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His

divinity Who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our

Lord…” 141 Then he lifts up the chalice, praying: “We offer unto Thee, O Lord, the chalice of

salvation, beseeching Thy clemency that, in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty, it may ascend with the

savor of sweetness, for our salvation and for that of the whole world. Amen.”142 In these prayers, the

bread and the wine are referred to, in the present, by names which properly belong to the Host after

transubstantiation, yet are extended to include the bread and wine as symbols of the body and blood

of Christ. These prayers are followed by two others which explicitly refer to the offering of the

bread and wine as a sacrifice: “In an humble spirit, and a contrite heart, may we be received by Thee,

O Lord; and may our sacrifice be so offered up in Thy sight this day that it may be pleasing to Thee,

O Lord God.” “Come, O Sanctifier, almighty, eternal God, and bless + this sacrifice prepared for

the Thy Holy Name”143 At this last prayer, the sign of the cross is made over the sacred species, to

symbolize their participation in the crucifixion, and the reintegration of the cosmos through Christ.

The cross is itself dense with meaning, for it symbolizes the integration of the cosmos around a

divine center, from which heaven and earth – vertical and horizontal – proceed and to which they

return. Moreover, the three-dimensional cross with six arms represents the structure the entire

cosmos, in which time is defined by the motion of the sun on the ecliptic through the four points of

the compass around the central axis. The cosmos is in this way “crucified.” But Christ bears the

whole cosmos within Himself, being the “firstborn of all creatures.” 144 By dying upon the cross,

141Ibid., 861.
142 Ibid., 863.
143 Ibid., 863.
144 Colossians, 1:15. See also note 91.

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Christ thus re-integrates the world around its center, reconciles and returns it to God, and carries it

with Him in His sacrifice.145

The rite of the Eastern Church is even more explicit. In the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom,

the Offertory ritual is performed prior to the start of the Divine Liturgy in a rite called the

Proskomide. The sacrifice of Christ is here re-enacted almost dramatically, along with scriptural texts

which explicitly describe the sacrifice. The holy bread, called the prosphora, is imprinted with a seal,

the central part of which is a square figure called the Lamb, a symbol of Christ the “lamb led to the

slaughter.”146 In the proskomide, the priest begins by addressing Christ: “You have redeemed us from

the curse of the Law by Your previous Blood; nailed to the Cross, and pierced with a spear, You

poured forth immortality to all mankind. O our savior, glory to You.”147 The priest is equipped with

a spear, which he then waves over the prosphora three times in the sign of the Cross, saying each

time: “In remembrance of our Lord, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ.” He then proceeds to cut the

central part of the load – the Lamb – from the seal, while reciting: “Like a sheep led to the slaughter,

and like a lamb without blemish, that before its shearer is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. In

His humiliation judgment of Him was taken away. Who shall declare His generation?” He then lifts

the Lamb upon the spear, saying “For His life is taken away [or ‘lifted up’] from the earth,” evoking

the raising of the cross. The deacon exhorts the priest with the words, “Master, sacrifice.” The priest

then engraves the figure of the cross into the back of the seal, saying: “The Lamb of God, Who

takes away the sin of the world, is sacrificed for the life and salvation of the world.” Finally, the

priest pierces the right side of the Lamb: “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at

once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness – his testimony is true.” The

145 See Jean Hani, The Divine Liturgy, 93-108. Also, Rene Guenon, The Symbolism of the Cross, Sophia Perennis et
Universalis, 1996. It is again noteworthy that the liturgical prominence of the cross, which constantly appears and
reappears in the traditional rite – not in the Offertory alone – has been heavily reduced in the liturgical reforms.
146 Isaiah, 53:7.
147 This quotation and all of the following quotations from the Divine Liturgy are taken from The Divine Liturgy of Our

Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom: A Study Text, Ruthenian Recension, (Draft) 2011-2013.

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deacon brings him wine and water, to represent the very blood and water which spilled from the

side of Christ, and the priest blesses it.

The symbolism of Christ’s sacrifice could not be more explicit than it is in this highly vivid

and almost dramatic ritual, which, as in the Roman Rite, precedes the actual consecration of the bread

and the wine during the anaphora, where the transubstantiation occurs. The liturgy itself seems to

proclaim that it is nothing but the re-presentation through symbolism of the sacrifice which Christ

Himself offered by dying on the cross and resurrecting from the grave; that its symbols all point to

and, in various degrees, re-actualize and re-visit this very mystery. Granted, the substantial presence

of Christ crucified is not realized until the consecration of the bread and wine; but all symbols, seen

under the light of faith, refer to the mystery of Christ their archetype. In the Offertory rites of both

the East and West, this symbolism is fittingly made explicit, so that the inner eye of the worshiper is

always directed to the sacred mystery of Christ, and so that the worshiping soul may always maintain

contact with the reality of Christ.

In these and many other ways, the realism of the symbolic presence extends beyond the

sacraments and to all of the rituals and sacred objects of the liturgy. Simply because, unlike the

sacraments, the liturgical symbols do not bear the power to confer grace within their meaning, they are

not for that reason superfluous, unimportant, or even unnecessary; nor are they even mere aids to

the mental faculties in its efforts of prayer or meditation. On the contrary, the liturgical symbols are

necessary for the religious man, who proceeds to God by way of symbolic knowledge, and by way of

faith, in accord with his soul-body composition. Finally, more than an aid to meditative imagination,

the symbols of the liturgy are the very medium through which God makes Himself present. Thus, the

entire corpus of liturgical rituals and symbols, centered around the mysteries of the sacraments, is

nothing more nor less than the means of contemplating, encountering, and participating in the very

life of God through Jesus Christ.

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IV. Summary and Conclusion

We have seen that the true philosopher knows things in a religious-symbolic mode – that is, he

knows things precisely in their reference to their divine archetype, as media of a divine presence, and

as the means of mystical ascent to union with God. But the symbol is not only a medium of

presence, it is also a promise: through the presence which informs it in a hidden way, the symbol leads

the philosopher on to desire a fuller and unlimited encounter with this presence. We have seen that

the symbolic mind strains for the vision of that which lies behind the veil of the symbol. Ultimately

this means that the symbolic mind hopes in the end to see that mystery unveiled, stripped of the

particularities by which it is conditioned, so that the conditions imposed upon knowledge fall away and

become, as it were, obsolete. As the philosopher grows, by continual death and resurrection, he

makes some small progress towards this experience; and yet he can only penetrate deeper and deeper

into the symbol itself. The mystery of the symbol, its nature as a veil, is never lifted: “We see now

through a glass darkly.”148 The symbol entices the knower to desire clarity, but it can never give it to

him – that is, not until the revelation of Christ.

In the Incarnation, Christ is the symbol par excellence, for He is the perfect embodiment of

divine reality. The presence of God in a creature has never been so real as in the humanity of Jesus.

Consequently, it is in Him that the philosopher begins to find his desire for Being satisfied. It is only

by the supernatural revelation of Christ that the symbolic promise begins to receive its fulfillment,

and the future actuality of the vision of God is definitively ensured. By knowing Christ, man knows

God Himself in the most intimate way, as he walks with the Incarnate Word and gazes upon the His

Passion, Death, and Resurrection; so that finally he is raised up with Christ to the contemplation of

God face-to-face in the beatific vision.

148 1 Corinthians, 13:12.

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 But the symbol does not itself fall away in this state of clarity, though the conditions of

knowledge which it imposes become obsolete. On the contrary, the beatific vision is indeed the very

redemption of the symbol, its return to its first principle, its final conformity to its divine archetype.

The symbolic mode of knowing certainly disappears, but the creature itself is reintegrated fully into a

divine mode of being. This is the climax of the creature’s resurrection: the philosophic resurrection, which

is the act of symbolic referral, is completed and fulfilled by the resurrection of the body and the re-creation

of Heaven and Earth on the Last Day, which are effected by the Resurrection of Christ Himself.

But the clarity of beatific vision – after the final resurrection – is preceded only by the

tireless and, indeed, superhuman effort (for it is only possible by the divine workings of grace) to

detach oneself from the particularity of the symbol, even as its very particularity is so necessary to

mediate philosophic knowledge, and attend rather to the universal Being in which the particularity of

the symbol is grounded. Indeed, the sensible world is a necessary medium of divine knowledge only

because it begs to be left behind in some manner, so that it may be subsequently resurrected and

reintegrated in a glorified state. This leaving behind, so necessary to know the symbol as a symbol, i.e. to

know in it its intelligible referent, is the philosophic death. It is a death that occurs within the

philosopher, and within the particular object itself which mediates his knowledge. It is only by this

death, and by the subsequent resurrection, that the end of philosophic knowledge is attained.

This, as we have seen, is the basis of sacrifice, and thus of all liturgical ritual. Every time the

liturgy is celebrated, worshiper and victim continually die and relive through the sacrifice of Christ.

By this continual dying and rising, the soul becomes well-seasoned for his final death itself, the final

and total separation of soul and body, the final self-offering to God; so that afterwards, he may rise

again to look upon God, entirely unimpeded and unburdened by corporeal chains, yet fully reunited to

his newly beautified and glorified body. It is only by the Death and Resurrection of the symbol par

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excellence, the man Jesus Christ, that the Christian himself may consequently die and resurrect unto

the beatific vision.

The mysteries of Christ, revolving around the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection,

therefore constitute the essence of the Christian mystery, and thus the essence of the Christian

liturgy. The Christian way of living in Christ – or of being lived in by Christ, as St. Paul aptly expresses

it 149 – simply is the sacred liturgy. In other words, the liturgy is nothing other than the perfect

embodiment of the reality of God’s presence in the visible world, i.e. by the Incarnation, and the

perfect acknowledgement of that presence as it is embodied in the sacred symbols, through the

mediation of which the Christian soul ascends from the cave in which it is enslaved by sin and

ignorance, and is gradually liberated and enabled to look upon the reality of God fully unveiled in

the beatific vision. The liturgy is thus the necessary means of the Christian’s deification.

149 See Galatians 2:20.

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 †

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