Sunday, December 17, 2023

The "Rite of Ointment" in Pseudo-Dionysius, "The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy"

  

I. The rite of the ointment, and what is perfected by it.

 

1. Of such a kind, then, is the most holy synaxis. Such as the beautiful visions of the mind which, as I have often said, sacredly and hierarchically effect our communion and gathering with the One. There is, however, another rite of perfection belonging to the same order. Our teachers have named it the sacrament of ointment. After we have examined in detail the sacred imagery its parts present, we shall thus be uplifted in hierarchical contemplation through its parts to be the One.

 

II Mystery of the sacrament of ointment.

 

As happens with the synaxis, the imperfect orders have to be excluded as soon as the hierarch has spread the fragrance around the whole sacred space, and all have reverently completed the singing of the psalms and the readings of the most divine scriptures. Then the hierarch takes the ointment, covered by a dozen sacred folds, and places it on the divine altar. Everyone joins in that sacred song which God inspired in the prophets. A consecrating prayer is offered over the ointment and this is then used in the holy sacraments of sanctification for almost all of the hierarchy’s rites of consecration. (The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 4.1-2, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works [trans. Colm Luibheid; The Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1987], 224-25)

 

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