Intriguingly, Dionysius warns us that we cannot begin to understand how symbols work until we rid ourselves of the notion that divine things are likely to be beautiful. Images of luminous angels and celestial chariots are only likely to confuse us, since we will be tempted to imagine that that’s what heaven is actually like, and in fact we cannot possibly conceive of what heaven is like. Instead, effective symbols are, like the original symbolon, homely objects selected apparently at random; often, ugly, ridiculous things, whose very incongruity reminds us that they are not God, of the fact
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