'' Mai. iv. 2. ■■ Num. xxiv. 17 ; 2 Pet. i. 19. » John i. 5. * Exod. iii. 2. ° John vii. 38. "^ Cant. i. 2. f Eph. ii. 20. ^ ilob. xiii. 8. ' Ibid. 7. *> Ibid. 8. c ibid.
1 2 Dionysius the Areopagite
I will also add, that which seems to be more dis-
honourable than all, and the most incongruous, viz.
that distinguished theologians have shewn it to us
as representing Itself under the form of a worm''.
Thus do all the godly-wise, and interpreters of the
secret inspiration, separate the holy of holies ^ from
the uninitiated and the unholy, to keep them un-
defiled, and prefer the dissimilar description of
holy things, so that Divine things should neither
be easily reached by the profane, nor those who
diligently contemplate the Divine imagery rest in
the types as though they were true ; and so Divine
things should be honoured by the true negations,
and by comparisons with the lowest things, which
are diverse from their proper resemblance. There is
then nothing absurd if they depict even the Heavenly
Beings under incongruous dissimilar similitudes, for
causes aforesaid. For probably not even we should
have come to an investigation, from not seeing our
way, — -not to say to mystic meaning through an
accurate enquiry into Divine things, — unless the
deformity of the descriptions representing the Angels
had shocked us, not permitting our mind to hnger
in the discordant representations, but rousing us
utterly to reject the earthly proclivities, and accus-
toming us to elevate ourselves through things that
are seen, to their supermundane mystical meanings.
Let these things suffice to have been said on account
of the material and incongruous descriptions of the
holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is
^ Ps. xxii. 6. * 0740 Tuv ayiwi'.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. i 3
necessary to define what we think the Hierarchy is
in itself, and what benefit those who possess a
Hierarchy derive from the same. But let Christ
lead the discourse — if it be lawful to me to say — He
Who is mine, — the Inspiration of all Hierarchical
revelation. And thou, my son, after the pious rule
of our Hierarchical tradition, do thou religiously
listen to things religiously uttered, becoming inspired
through instruction in inspired things; and when
thou hast enfolded the Divine things in the secret
recesses of thy mind, guard them closely from the
•profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not
lawful, as the Oracles say, to cast to swine the
unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of
the intelligible pearls.
Caput Hl
What is Hierarchy ? and what the use of Hierarchy ?
Section I.
Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order
and science and operation, assimilated, as far as
attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted
to the illuminations granted to it from God, ac-
cording to capacity, with a view to the Divine imi-
tation. Now the God-becoming Beauty, as simple,
as good, as source of initiation, is altogether free
from any dissimilarity, and imparts its own proper
light to each according to their fitness, and perfects
in most Divine initiation, as becomes the undeviat-
ing moulding of those who are being initiated har-
moniously to itself.
14 Dionysius the Areopagite
Section II.
The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimila-
tion and union, as far as attainable, with God, hav-
ing Him Leader of all religious science and opera-
tion, by looking unflinchingly to His most Divine
comeliness, and copying, as far as possible, and by
' perfecting its own followers as Divine images, mirrors
most luminous and without flaw, receptive of the
primal light and the supremely Divine ray, and de-
voutly filled with the entrusted radiance, and again,
spreading this radiance ungrudgingly to those after
it, in accordance with the supremely Divine regu-
lations. For it is not lawful for the Mystic Rites
of sacred things, or for things religiously done, to
practise anything whatever beyond the sacred regu-
lations of their own proper function. Nor even must
.they attempt otherwise, if they desire to attain its
deifying splendour, and look to it religiously, and
are moulded after the example of each of the holy
minds. He, then, who mentions Hierarchy, denotes
a certain altogether Holy Order, an image of the su-
premely Divine freshness, ministering the mysteries
of its own illumination in hierarchical ranks, and
sciences, and assimilated to its own proper Head
as far as lawful.
For each of those who have been called into the
Hierarchy, find their perfection in being carried to
the Divine imitation^ in their own proper degree;
and, what is more Divine than all, in becoming a
^ Eph. V, I.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 15
fellow-worker o with (}od, as the Oracles say, and
in shewing the Divine energy in himself manifested
as far as possible. For it is an Hierarchical regu-
lation that some are puriaedand that others purify'' ;
that some are enlightened and others enlighten * ;
that some are perfected and others perfect ; the
Divine imitation will fit each one in this fashion.
The Divine blessedness, to speak after the manner
of men, is indeed unstained by any dissimilarity*^,
and is full of invisible light ^ — perfect °\ and needing
no perfection ; cleansing, illuminating, and perfect-
ing, yea, rather a holy purification, and illumination,
and perfection — above purification, above light, pre-
eminently perfect, self-perfect source and cause of
every Hierarchy, and elevated pre-eminently above
every holy thing.
Section IH.
It is necessary then, as I think, that those who
are being purified should be entirely perfectec], with-
out stain, and be freed from all dissimilar confusion;
that those who are being illuminated should be filled
with the Divine Light, conducted to the habit and
faculty of contemplation in all purity of mind ; that
those who are being initiated should be separated
from the imperfect, and become recipients of that
perfecting science of the sacred things contemplated.
Further, that those who purify should impart, from
their own abundance of purity, their own proper holi-
ness ; that those who illuminate, as being more
<? I Cor. iii. 9. •» Ps. li. 9. ' Ibid. cxix. 18.
'' Deut. vi. 4. ' John xii. 46. "» Matt. v. 48.
1 6 Dionysius the Areopagite
luminous intelligences, whose function it is to re-
ceive and to impart light, and who are joyfully filled
with holy gladness, that these should overflow, in pro-
portion to their own overflowing light, towards those
who are worthy of enlightenment ; and that those
who make perfect, as being skilled in the impartation
of perfection, should perfect those being perfected,
through the holy instruction, in the science of the
holy things contemplated. Thus each rank of the
Hierarchical Order is led, in its own degree, to the
Divine co-operation, by performing, through grace
and God-given power, those things which are natur-
ally and supernaturally in the Godhead, and accom-
plished by It superessentially, and manifested hier-
archically, for the attainable imitation of the God-
loving Minds °.
CAPUT IV.
What is 7neant by the appellation " Angels ? "
Section I.
Now that the Hierarchy itself has been, in my
judgment, sufficiently defined, we must next extol
the Angelic Hierarchy, and we must contemplate,
with supermundane eyes, its sacred formations, de-
picted in the Oracles, in order that we may be borne
aloft to their Divinely resplendent simplicity, through
the mystic representations, and may extol the source
of all Hierarchical science with God-becoming rever-
ence and with thanksgivings. First of all, however,
° The Holy Angels.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy. 17
let this truth be spoken — that it was through good- ness that the superessential Godhead, having fixed all the essences of things being, brought them into being. For this is the peculiar characteristic of the Cause of all things, and of goodness surpassing all, to call things being to participation of Itself, as each order of things being was determined from its own analogy. For all things being share in a Providence, which bubbles forth from the superessential Deity, Cause of all things. For they would not be, unless they had participated in the Essence and Origin of 'things being. All things then, without life, participate in It by their being. For the being of all things is the Deity, above being ; things living participate in its life-giving power, above all life ; things rational and intellectual participate in its self-perfect and pre- eminently perfect wisdom, above all reason and mind. It is evident, then, that all those Beings are around It, which have participated in It, in many forms.
Section II.
The holy orders, then, of the Heavenly Beings
share in the supremely Divine participation, in a
higher degree than things which merely exist, or
which lead an irrational life, or which are rational
like ourselves. For by moulding -themselves intel-
ligibly to the Divine imitation, and looking super-
mundanely to the supremely Divine likeness, and
striving to mould their intellectual appearance, they
naturally have more ungrudging communications with
It, being near and ever moving upwards, as far as
1 8 Dionyshis the Areopagite
lawful, elevating themselves with the intensity of the
Divine unswerving love, and receiving the primal
illuminations without earthlv stain, and ranging them-
selves to these, and having their whole life intel-
lectual. These, then, are thev who, at first hand,
and under many forms, participate in the Divine,
and, at first hand, and under many forms, make
known the supremely Divine Hiddenness. Where-
fore, beyond all, they are deemed pre-eminently worthy
of the appellation Angelic, on the ground that the
supremely Divine illumination comes to them at
first hand, and, through them, there pass to us mani-
festations above us. Thus, then, the Law, as the
Word of God affirms, was given to us through the
ministration of Angels ^ ; and Angels led our illus-
trious fathers p before the Law, and after the Law,
to the Divine Being, either by leading *i them to what
was to be done, and by converting them from error,
and an unholy life, to the straight way of truth r, or
by making known to them sacred ordinances S or
hidden visions, or supermundane mysteries*, or cer-
tain Divine predictions through the Prophets ^
Section IIL
But if any one should say that Divine manifes-
tations were made directly and immediately to some
holy men '^, let him learn, and that distinctly, from
the most Holy Oracles, that no one hath seen, nor
° Gal. iii. i8. p Acts vii. 53. "J Gen- xxii. 12.
' Acts X. 3. » Dan. vii. 16. * Ibid. 10.
" 2 Cor. xii. 2. * Matt. ii. 13.
on the Heavenly Hierarchy, 1 9
ever shall see, the " hidden " to Kpv^iov of Almighty
God as it is in itself >'. Now Divine manifestations
were made to the pious as befits revelations of God,
that is to say, through certain holy visions analogous
to those who see them. Now the all-wise Word of
God (Theologia) naturally calls Theophany that par-
ticular vision which manifests the Divine similitude
depicted in itself as in a shaping of the shapeless,
from the elevation of the beholders to the Divine
Being, since through it a divine illumination comes
to the beholders, and the divine persons themselves
are religiously initiated into some mystery. But
our illustrious fathers were initiated into these Divine
visions, through the mediation of the Heavenly Powers.
Does not the tradition of the Oracles describe the
holy legislation of the Law, given to Moses, as
coming straight from God, in order that it may
teach us this truth, that it is an outline of a Divine
and holy legislation ? But the Word of God, in its
Wisdom, teaches this also — that it came to us
through Angels, as though the Divine regulation
were laying down this rule, that, through the first,
the second are brought to the Divine Being. For
not only witli regard to the superior and inferior
minds, but even for those of the same rank, this
Law has- been established by the "superessential
supreme ordinance, that, within each Hierarchy,
there are first, and middle, and last ranks and
powers, and that the more divine are instructors
y John i. 18 ; I John iv. 12 ; l I'im. vi. 16.
3Q Dionysius the Areopagite
and conductors of the less, to the Divine access, and illumination, and participation.
Section IV.
But I observe that Angels first were initiated in the
Divine mystery of the love of Jesus towards man, then,
through them, the gift of its knowledge passed to us.
Thus, for example, the most divine Gabriel instructed
Zachariah^, the Hierarch, that the son who was to be
born to him, beyond hope, by Divine grace, should
be a prophet of the ^ God-incarnate work of the
Lord Jesus, to be manifested to the world for its
salvation, as becomes the Divine goodness ; and
he revealed to Mary ^, how, in her, should be born
the supremely Divine mystery of the unutterable God-
formation. Yet another Angel instructed Joseph^,
how, in very truth, should be fulfilled the things
Divinely pronnsed to his ancestor David. Another
declared glad tidings to the shepherds ^, as being
purified by their separation from the multitude, and
their quiet life, and, with him, a multitude of the
Heavenly Host announced to those on earth that
often-sung doxology. Let us then ascend to the
highest manifestations of light contained in the
Oracles, for I perceive that even Jesus Himself S
the superessential Cause of the super-heavenly Beings,
when He had come to our condition, without change \
did not overstep die good order which becomes