^ Luke i. II — 20. * di^Spi/cTjs rov 'ItjcoC deoupyia
^ Luke i. 26 — 38. c Matt. i. 20 — 23. ** Luke ii. 8—14
* Phil. ii. 6 — 8. ^ irohs rh Kaf>' ^uas afxera^oAws.
on the Heavetily Hierarchy. 2 1
mankind, which Himself arranged and took, but
readily subjected Himself to the dispositions of the
Father and God, through Angels ; and, through
their mediation, was announced to Joseph the de-
parture of the Son to Egypt s, which had been
arranged by the Father, and again the return to
Judaea "^ from Egypt. And tlu-ough Angels we see
Him subjecting Himself to the Father's decrees.
For I forbear to speak, as addressing one who
knows the teaching of our hierarchical tradition,
both concerning the Angel ^ who strengthened the
Lord Jesus, or that even Jesus Himself, when He
had come to manifest the good work of our bene-
ficent salvation, was called ^ Angel ' of Great Coun-
sel. For, as He Himself says, after the manner
of an Angel, " Whatsoever He heard from the Father,
He announced to us'"."
CAPUT V.
For what reason all the HeavcJily Beings are called^ in common., Angels.
This, then, in our judgment, is the reason for
the appellation Angelic in the Oracles. We must
now, I suppose, enquire for what reason the theo-
logians call all" the Heavenly Beings together "An-
gels ; " but when they come to a more accurate
K Matt. ii. 13, *> Ibid. 19, 20. • Luke xxii. 43.
^ C. ii. 30. ' Isa. ix. 6. " John xv. 15. ° Ps. ciii. 20 ; Matt. XXV. 31.
2 2 Dio7iysms the Areopagite
description of the supermundane orders, they name
exclusively, ^' angelic rank," that which completes
the full tale of the Divine and Heavenly Hosts.
Before this, however, they range pre-eminently, the
Orders of Archangels, and the Principalities, the
Authorities, and Powers, and as many Beings as
rthe revealing traditions of the Oracles recognize as
superior to them °. Now, we affirm that throughout
every sacred ordinance the superior ranks possess
the illuminations and powers of their subordinates,
but the lowest have not the same powers as those
who^ are above them. The theologians also call
the most holy ranks of the highest Beings " Angels,"
for they also make known the supremely Divine
illumination. But there is no reason to call the
lowest rank of the celestial Minds, Principalities,
or Thrones, or Seraphim. For it does not possess
the highest powers, but, as it conducts our inspired
Hierarchs to the splendours of the Godhead known
to it ; so also, the saintly powers of the Beings
above it are conductors, towards the Divine Beine.
of that Order which completes the Angelic Hier-
archies. Except perhaps some one might say this
also, that all the angelic appellations are common, as
regards the subordinate and superior communication
of all the celestial powers towards the Divine like-
ness, and the gift of light from God. But, in order
that the question may be better investigated, let
us reverently examine the saintly characteristics set
forth respecting each celestial Order in the Oracles.
** Isa. vi. 2.
071 the Heavenly Hierarchy, 23
CAPUT VI.
Which is the first Order of the Heavenly Beings ? which the middle ? and ivhich the last ?
How many, and of what sort, are the Orders of
the supercelestial Beings, and how the Hierarchies
are classified^ amongst themselves, I affirm, the
deifying Author of their consecration alone distinctly
knows ; and further, that they know their own pro-
per powers and illuminations, and their sacred and
supermundane regularity. For it is impossible that
we should know the mysteries of the supercelestial
Minds and their niost holy perfections, except, some
one might say, so far as the Godhead has revealed
to us, through them, as knowing perfectly their own
condition. We, then, will utter nothing as from
ourselves, but whatever angelic visions have been
gazed upon by the holy Prophets of God, we, as
initiated in these, will set forth as best we can.
The Word of God has designated the whole Heavenly
Beings as nine, by appellations, which shew their
functions. These our Divine Initiator divides into
three threefold Orders. He also says that that
which is always around God is first, and is declared
by tradition to be united closely and immediately
to Him, before all the rest. For he says that the
teaching of the Holy Oracles declares, that the most
Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed^ and many-
w4nged'' hosts, named in the Hebrew tongue Cheru-
bim^ and Seraphim*^, are established immediately
P T^Kovvrai. 1 Ezek. i. i8. • ' Ibid. 6.
* Ibid. X. ' Isa. vi. 2.
2 4 D tony silts the Areopagife
around God, with a nearness superior to all. This
threefold order, then, our illustrious Guide spoke
of as one, and of equal rank, and really first
Hierarchy, than which there is not another more
Godlike or immediately nearer to the earliest illu-
minations of the Godhead. But he says that which
is composed of the Authorities, and Lordships, and
Powers is second ; and, as respects the lowest of
the Heavenly Hierarchies, the Order of the Angels
and Archangels and Principalities is third.
CAPUT VH.
Coficerning the Seraphim and Cherubim and Thrones, and concerning their first Hiera?'chy .
Section I.
We, whilst admitting this as the arrangement of
the holy Hierarchies, affirm, that every appellation of
the celestial Minds denotes the Godlike characteristic
of each ; and those who know Hebrew affirm, that
the holy design? tion of the Serapliim denotes either
that they are kindling or burning; and that of Che-
rubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream of wisdom.
Naturally, then, the first (order) of the Heavenly
Hierarchies is ministered " by the most exalted
Beings, holding, as it does, a rank which is higher
than all, from the fact, that it is established imme-
diately around God, and that the first-wrought Di-
vine manifestations and perfections pass earlier to
" i^povy^lTai.
on the Heavenly Hierai'chy. 25
it, as being nearest. They are called, then, " Burn-
ing," and Thrones, and Stream of Wisdom — by a
name which sets forth their Godlike conditions.
The appellation of Seraphim plainly teaches their
ever moving around things Divine, and constancy,
and warmth, and keenness, and the seething of that
persistent, indomitable, and inflexible perpetual mo-
tion, and the vigorous assimilation and elevation of
the subordinate, as giving new life and rekindling
them to the same heat ; and purifying through fire
and burnt-oflering, and the light-like and light-shed-
ding characteristic which can never be concealed or
consumed, and remains always the same, which de-
stroys and dispels every kind of obscure darkness.
But the appellation of the Cherubim denotes their
knowledge and their vision of God, and their readi-
ness to receive the highest gift of light, and their
power of contemplating the super-Divine comeliness
in its first revealed power, and their being filled
anew with the impartation which maketh wise, and
their ungrudging communication to those next to
them, by the stream of the given wisdom. The
appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent
Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above
every grovelling inferiority, and their supermundane
tendency towards higher things ; and^ their unswerv-
ing separation from all remoteness ; and their in-
variable and firmly-fixed settlement around the verit-
able Highest, with the whole force of their powers ;
and their receptivity of the supremely Divine ap-
proach, in the absence of all passion and earthly
2 6 Dionysius the Areopagite
tendency, and their bearing God ; and the ardent expansion of themselves for the Divine receptions.
Section II.
This, then, is the revelation of their names, so
far as we can give it ; and we ought to say what we
think their Hierarchy is. For I suppose we have
sufficiently shewn above, that the purpose of every
Hierarchy is an unswerving devotion to the divine
imitation of the Divine Likeness, and that every
Hierarchical function is set apart for the sacred re-
ception and distribution of an undefiled purification,
and Divine Light, and perfecting science.
And now I pray that I may speak worthily of the
most exalted Minds — how the Hierarchy amongst
them is exhibited through the Oracles.
One must consider, then, that the Hierarchy is
akin, and in every respect like, to the first Beings,
who are established after the Godhead, who gave
them Being, and who are marshalled, as it were, in
Its very vestibule, who surpass every unseen and
seen created power. We must then regard them as
pure, not as though they had been freed from unholy
stains and blemishes, nor yet as though they were
unreceptive of earthly fancies, but as far exalted
above every stain of remissness and every inferior
holiness, as befits the highest degree of purity — es-
tablished above the most Godlike powers, and cling-
ing unflinchingly to their own self-moved and same-
moved rank in their invariable love of God, conscious
in no respect whatever of any declivity to a worse
071 the Heavenly Hierarchy. 27
condition, but having the unsuUied fixity of their
own GodHke identity — never liable to fall, and always
unmoved; and again, as "contemplative," not con-
templators of intellectual symbols as sensible, nor as
being led to the Divine Being by the varied texture
of holy representations written for meditation, but
as being filled with all kinds of immaterial know-
ledge of higher light, and satiated, as permissible,
with the beautifying and original beauty of super-
essential and thrice manifested contemplation, and
thus, being deemed worthy of the Communion with
Jesus, they do not stamp pictorially the deifying
similitude in divinely-formed images, but, as being
really near to Him, in first participation of the
knowledge of His deifying illuminations ; nay more,
that the imitation of God is given to them in the
highest possible degree, and they participate, so far
as is allowable to them, in His deifying and philan-
thropic virtues, in the power of a first manifestation ;
and, likewise as " perfected," not as being illumi-
nated with an analytic science of sacred variety, but
as being filled with a first and pre-eminent deifi-
cation, as beseems the most exalted science qf the
works of God, possible in Angels. For, not through
other holy Beings, but being ministered from the
very Godhead, by the immediate elqvation to It, by
their power, and rank, surpassing all, they are both
established near the All-Holy without any shadow
of turning, and are conducted for contemplation to
the immaterial and intelligible comeliness, as far as
permissible, and are initiated into the scientific
28 Dionysius the Areopiigite
methods of the works of God, as being first and
around God, being ministered, in the highest degree,
from the very source of consecration.
Section III.
This, then, the theologians distinctly shew (viz.)
that the subordinate Orders of the Heavenly Beings
are taught by the superior, in due order, the deifying
sciences ; and that those who are higher than all are
illuminated from Godhead itself, as far as permissible,
in revelations of the Divine mysteries. For they in-
troduce some of them as being religiously instructed,
by those of a higher rank, that He, Who was raised
to Heaven ^ as Man, is Lord of the Heavenly Powers
and King of Glory ; and others, as questioning Jesus
Himself, as desiring to be instructed in the science
of His Divine work on our behalf, and Jesus Him-
self teaching them immediately, and shewing to them,
at first hand, His beneficent work out of love to
man. For "I," He says, "am speaking of righteous-
ness and judgment of Salvation 5^." Now I am as-
tonished that even the first of the Beings in Heaven,
and so far above all, should reverently strive after
the supremely Divine illuminations, as intermediate
Beings. For they do not ask directly, " Wherefore
are Thy garments red^?" but they first raise the
question among themselves, shewing that they desire
to learn, and crave the deifying knowledge, and not
anticipating the illumination given after a Divine
procedure.
» Ps. xxiv. 7 — lo. y Isa. Ixiii. i. ' Ibid. 2.
on the Heave fily Hieraixhy. 29
Tlie first Hierarchy, then, of the Heavenly Minds
is purified, and enHghtened, and perfi^cted, by being
ministered from the very Author of initiation, through
its elevation to It immediately, being filled, ac-
cording to its degree, with the altogether most holy
purification of the unproachable Light of the pre-
perfect source of initiation, unstained indeed by
any remissness, and full of primal Light, and per-
fected by its participation in first-given knowledge
and science. But to sum up, I may say this, not
inappropriately, that the reception of the supremely
Divine Science is, both purification, and enlighten-
ment, and perfecting, — purifying, as it were, from
ignorance, by the knowledge of the more perfect
revelations imparted to it according to fitness, and
enlightening by the self- same Divine knowledge,
through which it also purifies, that which did not
before contemplate the things which are now made
manifest through the higher illumination ; and per-
fecting further, by the self-same Light, through the
abiding science of the mysteries made clearly
manifest.