Section III.
Wherefore, the Divine Institution of sacred Rites, having deemed it worthy of the supermundane imi-
• Rom. V. 2. ^ Syr. Doc. p. 6i, Clark.
«r Plato Rep. 6, 7— II, 121 — 126. Read Allegory of Cave.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 3
tation of the Heavenly Hierarchies, and having de-
picted the aforesaid immaterial Hierarchies in ma-
terial figures and bodily compositions, in order that
we might be borne, as far as our capacity permits,
from the most sacred pictures to the instructions
and similitudes without symbol and without type,
transmitted to us our most Holy Hierarchy. For
it is not possible for our mind to be raised to that
immaterial representation and contemplation of the
Heavenly Hierarchies, without using the material
guidance suitable to itself, accounting the visible ^'
beauties as reflections of the invisible comeliness ;
and the sweet ^ odours of the senses as emblems of
the spiritual distribution ; and the material ^ lights
as a likeness of the gift of the immaterial enlighten-
ment ; and the detailed sacred instructions ^, of the
feast of contemplation within the mind ; and the
ranks °^ of the orders here, of the harmonious and
regulated habit, with regard to Divine things ; and
the reception of the most Divine Eucharist, of the
partaking'^ of Jesus, and whatever other things were
transmitted to Heavenly Beings supermundanely, but
to us symbolically. =^
For the sake, then, of this our proportioned deifi-
cation, the philanthropic Source of sacred mysteries,
by manifesting the Heavenly Hierarchies to us,
and constituting our Hierarchy as fellow-ministers
with them, through our imitation of their Godlike
•" Ps. xix. ' Num. XV. 3. '' Luke ii. 9.
• John vii. 14. ° Rom. xiii. 1,2. " i Cor. x. 16.
4 Dio7iysius the Areopagite
priestlinP^'^ °, sn far nq in nq 1ipg^pc;rxiJ^^^-,nnrlpr
_sensiblelikeness the supercelestial Minds, in the
inspired compositions ol the Uracles, iri order~that
It might lead us through the sensible to the intel-
ligible p, and from inspired symbols to the simple
sublimities of the Heavenly Hierarchies.
CAPUT n.
That Divine and Heavenly things are appropriately revealed^ even through dissimilar symbols.
Section I.
It is necessary then, as I think, first to set forth
what we think is the purpose of every Hierarchy,
and what benefit each one confers upon its followers;
and next to celebrate the Heavenly Hierarchies ac-
cording to their revelation in the Oracles ; then fol-
lowing these Oracles, to say in what sacred forms
the holy writings of the Oracles depict the celestial
orders, and to what sort of simplicity we must be
carried through the representations ; in order that we
also may not, like the vulgar, irreverently think that
the heavenly and Godlike minds are certain many-
footed 'i and many-faced^ creatures, or moulded to
the brutishness of oxen% or the savage form of fions*,
and fashioned like the hooked beaks of eagles °, or
the feathery down of birds ^, and should imagine that
there are certain wheels^ of fire above the heaven,
" I Pet ii. 9. ^ v6r}Ta. "J Ezek. i. 7. ^ Ibid. i. 6.
» Ibid. i. 10. ' Ibid. " Ibid. * Ibid. i. 6—8.
y Dan. vii. 9.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 5
or material thrones ^ upon which the Godhead may
recline, or certain many-coloured ^ horses, and spear-
bearing leaders of the host ^, and whatever else was
transmitted by the Oracles to us under multifarious
symbols of sacred imagery.
And indeed, the Word of God *= artlessly makes
use of poetic representations of sacred things, re-
specting the shapeless minds, out of regard to our
intelligence, so to speak, consulting a mode of edu-
cation proper and natural to it, and moulding the
inspired writings for it.
Section II.
But if any one think well to accept the sacred com-
positions as of things simple and unknown in their
own nature, and beyond our contemplation, but
thinks the imagery of the holy minds in the Oracles
is incongruous, and that all this is, so to speak, a
rude scenic representation of the angelic names ;
and further says that the theologians ought, when
they have come to the bodily representation of crea-
tures altogether without body, to represent and dis-
play them by appropriate and, as far as possible,
cognate figures, taken, at any rate, from our most
honoured and immaterial and exalted beings, and
ought not to clothe the heavenly and-^ Godlike simple
essences with the many forms of the lowest creatures
to be found on the earth (for the one would perhaps
be more adapted to our instruction,, and would not
« Dan. vii. 9. ? Zech. i. 8. ** Joshua v. 13, 14;
2 Mace. iii. 25. "^ 0eoAo7io.
6 Dionysius the Areopagite
degrade the celestial explanations to incongi'uous
dissimilitudes; but the other both does violence
without authority to the Divine powers, and likewise
leads astray our minds, through dwelling upon these
irreverent descriptions) ; and perhaps he will also
think that the super-heavenly places are filled with
certain herds of lions, and troops of horses, and bel-
lowing songs of praise, and flocks of birds, and other
living creatures, and material and less honourable
things, and whatever else the similitudes of the
Oracles, in every respect dissimilar, describe, for
a so-called explanation, but which verge towards the
absurd, and pernicious, and impassioned; now, in my
opinion, the investigation of the truth demonstrates
the most sacred wisdom of the Oracles, in the de-
scriptions of the Heavenly Minds, taking forethought,
as that wisdom does, wholly for each, so as neither,
as one may say, to do violence to the Divine Powers,
nor at the same time to enthral us in the grovelling
passions of the debased imagery. P'or any one might
say that the cause why forms are naturally attributed
to the formless, and shapes to the shapeless, is not
alone our capacity which is unable immediately to
elevate itself to the intelligible contemplations, and
that it needs appropriate and cognate instructions
which present images, suitable to us, of the formless
and supernatural objects of contemplation ; but fur-
ther, that it is most agreeable to the revealing Oracles
to conceal, through mystical and sacred enigmas,
and to keep the holy and secret truth respecting the
supermundane minds inaccessible to the multitude.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 7
For it is not every one that is holy, nor, as the Ora- cles affirm, does knowledge belong to all ^.
Section III.
But if any one should blame the descriptions as
being incongruous, by saying that it is shameful to
attribute shapes so repugnant to the Godlike and
most holy Orders, it is enough to reply that the
method of Divine revelation is twofold ; one, in-
deed, as is natural, proceeding through likenesses
that are similar, and of a sacred character, but the
other, through dissimilar forms, fashioning them into
entire unlikeness and incongruity. No doubt, the
mystical traditions of the revealing Oracles some-
times extol the august Blessedness of the super-
essential Godhead, as Word ^, and Mind ^, and Es-
sence^, manifesting its God-becoming expression and
wisdom, both as really being Origin, and true Cause
of the origin of things being, and they describe It as
light '', and call it life. While such sacred descrip-
tions are more reverent, and seem in a certain way
to be superior to the material images, they yet, even,
thus, in reality fall short of the supremely Divine simili-
tude. For It is above every essence and life. No light,
indeed, expresses its character, and every description
and mind incomparably fall short pf Its similitude.
But at other times its praises are supermundanely
sung, by the Oracles themselves, through dissimilar
revelations, when they affirm that it is invisible S and
^ I Cor. viii. 7. * John i. I. ' Ps. cxxxvi. 5.
K Exod. iii. 14. '' John i. 4. ' I Tim, vi. 16.
8 Dionysius the Areopagite
infinite^, and incomprehensible'; and when there is
signified, not what it is, but what it is not. For this,
as I think, is more appropriate to It, since, as the
secret and sacerdotal tradition taught, we rightly de-
scribe its non-relationship to things created, but we
do not know its superessential, and inconceivable,
and unutterable indefinability. If, then, the nega-
tions respecting things Divine are true, but the affir-
mations are inharmonious, the revelation as regards
things invisible, through dissimilar representations, is
more appropriate to the hiddenness of things unutter-
able. Thus the sacred descriptions of the Oracles
.honour, and do not expose to shame, the Heavenly
Orders, when they make them known by dissimilar
pictorial forms, and demonstrate through these their
supermundane superiority over all material things.
And I do not suppose that any sensible man will
gainsay that the incongruous elevate our mind more
than the similitudes; for there is a likelihood, with
regard to the more sublime representations of heaven-
ly things, that we should be led astray, so as to think
that the Heavenly Beings are certain creatures with
the appearance of gold, and certain men with the
appearance of light", and glittering like lightning",
handsome °, clothed in bright shining raiment, shed-
ding forth innocuous flame, and so with regard to all
the other shapes and appropriate forms, with which
the Word of God has depicted the Heavenly Minds.
In order that men might not suffer from this, by
'' Ps. cxlv. 13. ' Rom. xi. 33; Jer. li. 15.
" Acts i. 10. " Matt, xxviii. 3. • Acts vi. 15.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 9
thinking they are nothing more exalted than their beau-
tiful appearance, the elevating wisdom of the pious
theologians reverently conducts to the incongruous
dissimilarities, not permitting our earthly part to rest
fixed in the base images, but urging the upward
tendency of the soul, and goading it by the unseem-
liness of the phrases (to see) that it belongs neither
to lawful nor seeming truth, even for the most
earthly conceptions, that the most heavenly and
Divine visions are actually like things so base.
Further also this must particularly be borne in mind,
that not even one of the things existing is altogether
deprived of participation in the beautiful, since, as
is evident and the truth of the Oracles affirms, all
things are very beautiful P-
Section IV.
It is, then, possible to frame in one's mind good
contemplations from everything, and to depict, from
things material, the aforesaid dissimilar similitudes,
both for the intelligible and the intelligent; since
the intelligent hold in a different fashion things
which are attributed to things sensible differently.
For instance, appetite, in the irrational creatures, takes
its rise in the passions, and their movement, which
takes the form of appetite, is full of all kinds of
unreasonableness. But with regard to the intelli-
gent, we must think of the appetite in another
fashion, as denoting, according to my judgment,
their manly style, and their determined persistence
P Gen. i. 31.
10 Dionysius the Areopagite
in their Godlike and unchangeable steadfastness.
In Hke manner we say, with regard to the irrational
creatures, that lust is a certain uncircumspect and
earthly passionate attachment, arising incontinently
from an innate movement, or intimacy in^^ things
subject to change, and the irrational supremacy of
the bodily desire, which drives the whole organism
towards the object of sensual inclination. But when
we attribute "lust" to spiritual beings, by clothing
them with dissimilar similitudes, we must think that
it is a Divine love of the immaterial, above ex-
pression and thought, and the inflexible and deter-
mined longing for the supernally pure and passionless
contemplation, and for the really perpetual and
intelligible fellow^ip in that pure and most exalted
splendour, and in the abiding and beautifying come-
liness. And 'incontinence' we may take for the
persistent and inflexible, which nothing can repulse,
on account of the pure and changeless love for the
Divine beauty, and the whole tendency towards the
really desired. But with regard to the irrational
living beings, or soulless matter, we appropriately
call their irrationality and want of sensible percep-
tion a deprivation of reason and sensible perception.
And with regard to the immaterial and intelligent
beings, we reverently acknowledge their superiority,
as supermundane beings, over our discursive and
bodily reason, and the material perception of the
senses which is alien to the incorporeal Minds. It
is, then, permissible to depict forms, which are not
discordant, to the celestial beings, even from por-
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 1 1
tions of matter which are the least honourable, since
even it, having had its beginning from the Essentially
Beautiful, has throughout the whole range of matter
some echoes of the intellectual comeliness ; and it
is possible through these to be led to the imma-
terial archetypes — things most similar being taken,
as has been said, dissimilarly, and the identities being
defined, not in the same way, but harmoniously, and
appropriately, as regards the intellectual and sensible
beings.
Section V.
We shall find the Mystic Theologians enfolding
these things not only around the illustrations of
the Heavenly Orders, but also, sometimes, around
the supremely Divine Revelations Themselves. At
one time, indeed, they extol It under exalted ima-
gery as Sun ^ of Righteousness, as Morning ^ Star
rising divinely in the mind, and as Light * illuming
without veil and for contemplation ; and at other
times, through things in our midst, as Fire ^^ shedding
its innocuous light: as Water", furnishing a fulness
of life, and, to speak symbolically, flowing into a belly,
and bubbling forth rivers flowing irresistibly ; and
at other times, from things most remote, as sweet-
smelling ointment % as Head Corner-stoned But
they also clothe It in forms of wild beasts, and attach
to It identity with a Lion % and Panther % and say that
it shall be a Leopard ^, and a rushing Bear ^ But,