  Although the rites have intelligible contemplation as their goal, it does not appear that non-ritual forms of contemplation, like reading, can substitute for participation in the rites. Dionysian contemplation is public, so that it may unite us to each other; it involves prayer, so that it may unite us explicitly with the godhead; it also requires bodies, since only the interaction of bodies allows the contemplative act to include both components of our nature: body and soul. The names used in Dionysius’ theological treatises acquire their salvific power in this liturgical context. Although the rites involve the performance of bodily actions, they clothe themselves in words: the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and the oral tradition of the liturgical prayers. Only the silence and unknowing of the Mystical Theology finds no clear place within the liturgical rites of the hierarchy, since it transcends both the visible rites of the laity and the intelligible contemplation of the clergy. It may be that, just as some points of the liturgy call for a literal silence, the intelligible contemplation of the hierarch at the altar must engage in its own form of silence, so as to allow the appearance of the godhead beyond naming. On this question, however, Dionysius is as silent as the mystical theology which crowns his vision of the human ascent to God.