  What Dionysius manages to do is both to capture this spirit profoundly, and, therefore, transform it, as well as to make it concrete and accessible in the scriptural, sacramental, and ordinary experiences of Christian practitioners. Instead of the 4 dimensions of the Neoplatonic universe, Dionysius has the following: (1) the sensible world or Legal hierarchy, i.e., the world considered under the aspect either of objective “thinginess” or of law, namely, in the case of law, a world in which we are dependent upon prescriptions rather than upon any deeper understanding, a world in which the “mysteries” or hidden things (such as Baptism and the Eucharist) are mere mechanical ceremonies and the Scriptures are given only a literal meaning. For Dionysius (as for Plato), law is necessary, but still deficient. The law of Moses, for instance, “gave only a veiled contemplation as to enlighten without harm weak capacities for sight” (EH 501c). Then (2) there follows the ecclesiastical hierarchy, namely, the sensible world as the limbs of the mystical body of Christ led by soul into the significance of the intelligible or celestial hierarchy, where the symbols can begin to be read. Its mysteries, both sensible and intelligible, are the Scriptures and the Sacraments, its initiators the priests, and its initiated the ones who receive them. From this perspective, Dionysius transforms Neoplatonism radically but at the same time provokes entirely new possibilities in the structures he transforms.