y I Tim. ii. 4. z John i. 12, 13.

^ Coptic Con. II. 40 ; Ap. C. lib. viii. c. 38.

071 the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. 77

with a shivering and sense of incapacity, neverthe-
less, at last, he agrees, with a good grace, to do,
what is requested, and takes and leads him to the
chief Hierarch.

Section III. ,

He, then, when with joy he has received, as the-
sheep upon his shoulders, the two men, and has
first worshipped, glorifies with a mental thanksgiving
and bodily prostration the One beneficent Source ^
from Which, those who are being called, are called,
and those who are being saved, are saved.

Section IV.

Then collecting a full religious assembly into
the sacred place, for co-operation, and common
rejoicing over the man's salvation, and for thanks-
giving for the Divine Goodness, he first chants a
certain hymn, found in the Oracles, accompanied
by the whole body of the Church ; and after this,
when he has kissed the holy table, he advances
to the man before him, and demands of him, what
has brought him here?

Section V.

When the man, out of love to God, has confessed,
according to the instruction of his sponsor, his ungod-
liness*^, his ignorance of the really beautiful, his in-
sufificiency for the life in God, and prays, through his
holy mediation, to attain to God and Divine things, he
(the Hierarch) testifies to him, that his approach ought
to be entire, as to God Who is All Perfect, and without

b Phil. ii. 13. c i^Q^^Tt^Ta^ Malt. vi. 24 ; Eph. iv. 5.

78 Dionysius the Areopagite

blemish ; and when he has expounded to him fully the
godly course of life, and has demanded of him, if he
would thus live, — after his promise he places his right
hand upon his head, and when he has sealed him,
commands the priests to register the man and his
sponsor.

Section VI.

When these have enrolled the names, he makes
a holy prayer, and when the whole Church have
completed this with him, he looses his sandals, and
removes his clothing, through the Leitourgoi. Then,
when he has placed him facing the west and beating
his hands, averted towards the same quarter, he
commands him thrice to breathe scorn upon Satan,
and further, to profess the words of the renunciation.
When he has witnessed his threefold renunciation,
he turns him back to the east; after he has professed
this thrice ; and when he has looked up to heaven,
and extended his hands thitherward, he commands
him to be enrolled under Christ, and all the Divinely
transmitted Oracles of God. When the man has
done this, he attests again for him his threefold
profession, and again, when he has thrice professed,
after prayer, he gives thanks, and lays his hand upon
him.

Section VII.

When the Deacons have entirely unclothed him,
the Priests bring the holy oil of the anointing. Then
he begins the anointing, through the threefold seal-
ing, and for the rest assigns the man to the Priests,
for the anointing of his whole body, while himself

071 the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. 79

advances to the mother of filial adoption, and when
he has purified the water within it by the holy
invocations, and perfected it by three cruciform
efi'usions of the altogether most pure Muron^, and
by the same number of injections of the all holy
Muron, and has invoked the sacred melody of the
inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, he orders the
man to be brought forward ; and when one of the
Priests, from the register, has announced him * and
his surety, he is conducted by the Priests near the
water to the hand of the Hierarch, being led by
the hand to him. Then the Hierarch, standing
above, when the Priests have again called aloud
near the Hierarch within the water the name of
the initiated, the Hierarch dips him three times,
invoking the threefold^ Subsistence of the Divine
Blessedness, at the three immersions and emersions
of the initiated. The Priests then take him, and
entrust him to the Sponsor and guide of his intro-
duction ; and when they, in conjunction with him,
have cast over the initiated appropriate clothing,
they lead him again to the Hierarch, who, when
he has sealed the man with the most Divinely
operating Muron, pronounces him to be hencefor-
ward partaker of the most Divinely initiating Eu-
charist.

d fivpov is the ungiieni prepared from myrrh, nvpo<peyyT]s is shining with such unguent, and iJivpo<rTayr}5 {ixvpov and a-Ta^u) dripping with ditto. Ap. Con. lib. ii. c. 14.

*^ Syr. Doc. p. 60. Clark. ^ rpiar^v viroaraciv.

Heb. i. 3.

8o Dtonysius the Areopagite

Section VIIL

When he has finished these things, he elevates
himself from his progression to things secondary,
to the contemplation of things^ first, as one, who,
at no time or manner, turns himself to any other
thing whatever than those which are peculiarly his
own, but from things Divine to Divine, — is per-
sistently and always ranging himself under the
banner of the supremely Divine Spirit.

///. Contemplation.

Section I.

This initiation, then, of the holy birth in God,
as in symbols, has nothing unbecoming or irreverent,
nor anything of the sensible images, but (contains)
enigmas of a contemplation worthy of God, likened
to physical and human images. For how should
it appear misleading ? Even when the very divine
meaning of the things done is passed over in silence,
^' the divine Instruction might convince, religiously
pursuing as it does the good life of the candidate,
enjoining upon him the purification from every kind
of evil, through a virtuous and Divine life, by the
physical cleansing through the agency of water in
a bodily form. This symbolic teaching then of
the things done, even if it had nothing more divine,
would not be without religious value, as I think,
introducing a discipline of a well-regulated life, and
suggesting mysteriously, through the total bodily

s From outward signs to inward grace. ^ Catechism.

on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. 8 1

purification by water, the complete purification from the evil life.

Section IL

Let this, then, be, for the uninitiated, a conducting
guidance of the soul, which separates, as is meet
things sacred and uniform from multiplicity, and
apportions the harmonious elevation to the Orders
severally in turn. But we, who have ascended
by sacred gradations to the ' sources of the things
performed, and have been religiously taught these
(sources), shall recognize of what moulds they are the
reliefs, and of what invisible things they are the
likenesses. For, as is distinctly shewn in the Trea'
tise concerning " Intelhgible and Sensible," sacred
things in sensible forms are copies of things intel-
Hgible, to which they lead and shew the way ; and
things intelligible are source and science of things
hierarchical cognizable by the senses.

Section III.

Let us affirm, then, that the goodness of the
Divine Blessedness is always in the same condition
and manner, unfolding the beneficent rays of its own
light upon all the intellectual visions without grudg-
ing. Should, then, the self-choosing self-sufficiency
of the contemplators either turn away from the light
contemplated, by closing, through love of evil, the
faculties for enlightenment naturally implanted within
it, it would be separated from the light present to

i a.pxh.%. G

82 Dlonyslus the Areopagite

it, not turned away, but shining upon it when short-
sighted and turning its face from light generously
running to it ; or should it overstep the bounds
of the visible given to it in due proportion, and
rashly undertake to gaze upon the rays superior to
its vision, the light indeed will do nothing beyond
its proper functions, but it, by imperfectly approach-
ing things perfect, would not attain to things un-
suitable, and, by stupidly disregarding the due
proportion, would fail through its own fault.

But, as I said, the Divine Light is always unfolded
beneficently to the intellectual visions, and it is
possible for them to seize it when present, and al-
ways being most ready for the distribution of things
appropriate, in a manner becoming God. To this
imitation the divine Hierarch is fashioned, unfolding
to all, without grudging, the luminous rays of his
inspired teaching, and, after the Divine example,
being most ready to enlighten the proselyte, neither
using a grudging nor an unholy wrath for former
back-slidings or excess, but, after the example of
God, always enlightening by his conducting light
those who approach him, as becomes a Hierarch,
in fitness, and order, and in proportion to the
aptitude of each for holy things.

Section IV.

But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of
sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate
themselves, he, who recurs to the proper view of

on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Zt^

Nature, will see his proper self in what he was
originally, and will acquire this, as the first holy gift,
from his recovery to the light. Now he, who has
well looked upon his own proper condition with
unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy recesses
of ignorance, but being imperfect he will not, of his
own accord, at once desire the most perfect union
and participation of God, but little by little will
be carried orderly and reverently through things
present to things more forward, and through these
to things foremost, and when perfected, to the
supremely Divine summit. An illustration of this
decorous and sacred order is the modesty of the
proselyte, and his prudence in his own affairs in hav-
ing the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch.
The Divine Blessedness receives the man, thus con-
ducted, into communion with Itself, and imparts to
him the proper light as a kind of sign, making him
godly '^ and sharer of the inheritance of the godly,
and sacred ordering ; of which things the Hierarch's
sea^, given to the proselyte, and the saving enrolment
of the priests are a sacred symbol, registering him
amongst those who are being saved, and placing
in the sacred memorials, beside himself also his
sponsor, — the one indeed, as a true lover of the
life-giving way to truth and a companipn of a godly
guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of
his follower by the Divinely-taught directions.

^ eKdtoy.

^84 Dionysius the Ai'eopagite

Section V.

Yet it Is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities
thoroughly opposed, nor that a man who has had
a certain fellowship with the One should have di-
vided lives, if he clings to the firm participation
in the One ; but he must be resistless and resolute,
as regards all separations from the uniform. This
it is which the teaching of the symbols reverently
and enigmatically intimates, by stripping tlie prose-
lyte, as it were, of his former life, and discarding
to the very utmost the habits within that life, makes
him stand naked and barefoot, looking away towards
the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion of his
hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness,
and breathes out, as it were, the habit of dissimilarity
which he had acquired, and professes the entire
renunciation of everything contrary to the Divine
likeness. When the man has thus become invincible
and separate from evil, it turns him towards the
east, declaring clearly that his position and recovery
will be purely in the Divine Light, in the complete
separation from baseness ; and receiving his sacred
promises of entire consort with the One, since he
has become uniform through love of the truth. Yet
it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in
Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual^ ac-
quire the unchangeableness of the Godlike habit,
by continuous and persistent struggles towards one ^'^,
and by the entire destruction and annilnlation of

on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. 85

things contrary. For it is necessary that a man
should not only depart from every kind of baseness,
but he must be also bravely obdurate and ever
fearless against the baneful submission to it. Nor
must he, at any time, become remiss in his sacred
love of the truth, but with all his power persistently
and perpetually be elevated towards it, always re-
ligiously pursuing his upward course, to the more
perfect mysteries of the Godhead.

Section VI.

Now you may see the distinct illustrations of these
things in the religious rites performed by the Hier-
arch. For the Godlike Hierarch starts with the
holy anointing, and the Priests under him complete
the Divine service of the Chrism, summoning in
type the man initiated to the holy contests, within,
which he is placed under Christ as Umpire : since,
as God, He is Institutor of the awards of contest,
and as wise, He placed its laws, and as generous,
the prizes suitable to the victors ". And this is yet
more Divine, since as good. He devotedly entered
the lists with them, contending, on behalf of their
freedom ^ and victory, for their power over death ^
and destruction ^1, he who is being Jnitiated will
enter the contests, as those of God, rejoicing, and
abides by the regulations of the Wise, and contends
according to them, without transgression, holding