The Celestial Hierarchy

It is necessary, therefore, as I judge, first to explain what we understand the contemplation of every hierarchy to be, and what benefit each hierarchy gives to those who praise the Divinity. Then we must praise the heavenly hierarchies according to their manifestation in the sacred Scriptures. After this, we must say by what divine forms the sacred descriptions of Scripture figure the heavenly orders, and to what truth it is necessary to ascend through those forms, so that we do not, like the multitude, think impurely that the heavenly and deiform minds are actually many-footed beings, or beings of many faces, or formed according to the brutishness of oxen, or according to the savage image of lions, or shaped after the curved beak of eagles, or represented by the threefold motion of birds’ wings; nor that we should imagine fiery wheels above the heavens, material thrones necessary for the Divinity to recline upon, multicolored horses, armed chief-commanders, or whatever else has been handed down to us from Scripture in a sacred and figurative way, through a variety of manifesting symbols.

For theology has most artfully used sacredly fashioned forms for the sake of non-figurative intelligences, unveiling our mind, as has been said, and providing for it by a reduction proper and connatural to it, and shaping the anagogical sacred Scriptures in a manner suited to it.

But if someone admits the sacred compositions, since they concern simple beings which in themselves are unknown to us and cannot be contemplated, yet judges the sacred descriptions of the holy intelligences in Scripture to be unsuitable, and, so to speak, calls this whole dramatic display of angelic names harsh, and says that theologians, when they came to give bodily form to things altogether incorporeal, ought to have represented and manifested them by forms proper to them, and, as far as possible, akin to them—drawn from the most precious things among us, and from immaterial, somehow supereminent essences—and not to have clothed heavenly and deiform simplicities with earthly, lowly, and manifold shapes: this, indeed, he might say, would have been more sublime for us, and would not have lowered supermundane manifestations into unsuitable dissimilarities. Nor would this have done unlawful injury to the divine powers, and likewise it would not have misled our mind by inserting it into impure compositions.

And perhaps it might even be supposed that the supercelestial regions are filled with certain leonine and equine multitudes, with lowing hymns of praise, with a winged principality of angels, with other animals, and with baser materials, since the Scriptures describe them through outwardly manifest likenesses that are wholly deformed, leading to what is incongruous, ignoble, and passible.

But the investigation of truth, as I judge, shows that the most sacred wisdom of Scripture has provided for both matters in its formations of the heavenly minds: so that, perhaps one might say, it neither does injury to the divine powers, nor fixes us passibly in the vile lowliness of images.

For if one asks why forms have been beautifully provided for the formless, and figures for those who lack figure, one might say that there is not only one cause, namely our own analogy, which cannot be stretched immediately into invisible contemplations and therefore desires reductions proper and connatural to itself, presenting to us possible forms of formless and supernatural contemplations. Rather, there is also this: that it is most fitting for the mystical Scriptures to conceal the sacred and hidden truth of supermundane intelligences by incomprehensible and divine enigmas, and to make it inaccessible to the many. For not everyone is sacred, nor, as the Scriptures say, is knowledge for all.

But if someone thinks that the causes described by deformed images are dishonored, saying that such ugly forms are applied to deiform and most holy dispositions, it is enough to say to him that the mode of sacred manifestation is twofold. One mode proceeds, as it were, by likeness, through sacred figures that resemble the things manifested. The other proceeds through dissimilar forms, shaped into what is entirely unlike and unbecoming.

Thus the mystical traditions of the manifesting Scriptures sometimes praise the adorable blessedness of the superessential Thearchy as Word, Intellect, and Essence, declaring its divine rationality and wisdom, its truly existing subsistence, and the true cause of the subsistence of all beings. They also represent it as Light, and call it Life. These wondrous representations are indeed more glorious, and are shown in some way to surpass material forms; yet even so they fall short of likeness to the thearchic truth. For the Thearchy is above every essence and life; no light characterizes it, and every reason and intellect is left incomparably behind by its likeness.

At other times, however, it is praised supermundanely by the same Scriptures through dissimilar manifestations, when they call it invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible; and through these terms they signify not what it is, but what it is not. This, as I judge, is more powerful concerning it, because, as the hidden and sacerdotal tradition has taught, we truly say that it is not according to any of the things that are; but we do not know its superessential, invisible, ineffable, and infinite transcendence.

Therefore, if negations in divine matters are true, while affirmations are unfitted and incomplete, then manifestation through dissimilar representations is more suitable to the obscurity of hidden mysteries.

And so the sacred descriptions of Scripture do not dishonor the heavenly orders when they manifest them by dissimilar forms. Through these forms they show that the supermundane excellences transcend all material things together. Nor do I think that anyone of sound wisdom will deny that dissimilar likenesses raise our mind more effectively. For with the more precious sacred forms, it is likely that one may be deceived into thinking that the heavenly essences are golden beings, or certain flashing men, clothed in beautiful garments, shining white, fiery, and harmlessly resplendent, or anything else similar among the imagined forms by which theology has figured the heavenly intelligences.

To prevent this from happening to those who understand nothing higher than visible beauties, the restorative wisdom of the holy theologians wonderfully descended even to unbecoming dissimilarities. It does not permit our material element to remain and rest in base images. Rather, it purifies the soul upward, and by the deformity of the compositions suggests that it is neither just nor true to suppose that the supercelestial and divine sights are truly like very material and base things merely because they are thus represented.

But it is also necessary to understand this: nothing among existing things is altogether deprived of participation in the good. For, as the truth of Scripture says, all things are very good. Therefore, from all things it is possible to understand good contemplations, and from material things to form, for invisible and intelligible realities, those dissimilar likenesses already mentioned—though intelligible things possess in one way what sensible things possess in another.

For example, rage exists in irrational animals through passible movement, and their furious motion is filled with every irrationality. But in intellectual beings, the irascible power must be understood in another way: it signifies, as I judge, their manly rationality and their unyielding stability in divine and immutable foundations.

In the same way, we say that desire in irrational beings is a kind of unreasoning and material passibility, born incontinentally in changeable things from natural movement or habit, and an irrational continuity of bodily pleasure which compels the whole animal toward what is desirable according to sense. But when, by dissimilar likenesses, we attribute desire to intellectual beings, we must understand it as divine love beyond reason and intellect: an immaterial, inflexible, and need-free longing for superessentially pure and impassible contemplation; a longing for that pure and most sublime brightness, and for the invisible, form-giving beauty of eternal, true, and invisible communion. It must be understood as a power which receives sufficiency and return, which cannot be oppressed by anything, because of its unconfused and immutable love of divine beauty, and its universal return toward that which is truly desirable.

Likewise, irrationality and insensibility, in irrational animals or inanimate materials, we properly call a defect of reason and sense. But in immaterial and intellectual essences, we reverently and fittingly confess these terms to signify their supereminent transcendence, as supermundane beings, over our passing and bodily reason, and over material sense, which is alien to incorporeal minds.

Therefore it is not discordant to form representations of heavenly beings even from lowly parts of matter. For matter itself, since it possesses its subsistence from the truly Good, has throughout its whole material disposition certain echoes of intellectual beauty. Through these it is possible to be led back to the immaterial archetypes, receiving, as has been said, the likenesses dissimilarly, and defining the same things not in the same way, but harmoniously and beautifully, according to the properties of intelligible and sensible things.

We shall find that the mystical theologians wonderfully use these forms not only in declarations of the heavenly orders, but sometimes even in the thearchic manifestations themselves. Sometimes they praise the Thearchy by precious lights, as the Sun of justice, as the morning Star rising sacredly in the soul, and as Light shining unveiled and intelligibly. Sometimes they use middle images: as fire shining without harm, as water bestowing the fullness of life, and, to speak symbolically, as entering into the belly and overflowing in rivers that flow back immeasurably. Sometimes they use the lowest images: as fragrant ointment, as the cornerstone. They even clothe it with beastly form, applying to it the appearance of a lion and a panther, clothing it with the likeness of a leopard and of a raging bear. I will add what seems lowest of all and most striking: the divine sages have handed down that it even forms itself under the image of a worm.

Thus all the theosophers, and the prophets by hidden inspiration, distinguish the holy of holies from things holy but undefiled, and they honor the sacred dissimilar figuration, so that divine things may not be handled by the impure, and so that zealous contemplators of the wonderful sacred images may not remain in the figures as though they were the truth itself. Therefore divine things are honored both by true negations and by diverse likenesses drawn from the lowest echoes of composite things.

There is nothing incongruous, then, if the heavenly essences are represented through unsuitable and dissimilar likenesses, for the reasons already stated. For perhaps we would not have come equally into inquiry because of our need, nor into anagogy through diligent search of divine things, unless the deformity of the manifesting representation of angels forced us to it: not allowing our mind to remain in the dissimilar forms, but compelling it to deny material passibilities, and training it to be extended purely through visible things into supermundane heights.

So much has been said by us concerning the material and unsuitable descriptions of angelic images in the divine Scriptures.

Next, however, it is necessary to distinguish what we judge hierarchy itself to be, and what benefit hierarchy gives to those who receive a share in hierarchy. Let Christ be the guide of this discourse—if it is lawful for me to say this—my Christ, the inspiration of every hierarchical manifestation.

But you, child, according to the holy ordinance of our sacerdotal tradition, listen reverently and fittingly to these things wondrously spoken. Become divine in God and in doctrine, and with the secrecy of your mind veil holy things from the impure multitude, guarding them as things uniform. For it is not lawful, as the Scriptures say, to cast before swine the clear, light-like, and beneficent adornment of the invisible pearls.

Hierarchy, according to my understanding, is a divine order, knowledge, and activity, assimilated as far as possible to the deiform, and ascending proportionally into the likeness of God according to the illuminations divinely bestowed upon it.

The divine Beauty, as simple, as supremely good, and as the principle of perfection, is altogether pure of every dissimilarity. Yet it distributes to each according to his worth the light proper to him; and it perfects in the most divine consecration, according to the compact and immutable formation of those perfected into conformity with itself.

Therefore, the meaning of hierarchy is likeness and union with God, as far as possible. Having God Himself as the leader of all sacred knowledge and action, and looking immutably toward His most divine beauty, hierarchy forms, as far as possible, its own praisers into divine images. It perfects them as most clear and pure mirrors, receptive of the principal light and divine ray. Having been sacredly filled with the brightness given to them, they again abundantly manifest that brightness to those who come after them, according to the divine laws.

For it is not lawful for the perfecters of holy things, nor for those who are sacredly perfected, to do anything at all contrary to their own perfective principles or sacred ordinations. Nor is it lawful for them to subsist otherwise than by desiring that divine brightness itself, reverently and fittingly looking toward it, and being reformed according to the proportion proper to each of the holy intelligences.

Does not, then, he who speaks of hierarchy declare a certain wholly sacred disposition: an image of divine beauty in hierarchical orders and sciences, celebrating the mysteries of its own illumination, and assimilated, as far as possible, to its own principle?

For the perfection of each of those who have received hierarchy consists in this: to ascend, according to his own proportion, into the imitation of God; and, what is more divine than all, as the Scriptures say, to become a fellow-worker with God, and to show forth the divine activity shining in himself, as far as possible.

For the order of hierarchy is this: some are purified, and others purify; some are illuminated, and others illuminate; some are perfected, and others perfect; each in whatever manner belongs to his deiform union.

The divine Blessedness, so far as it may be spoken of among men, is pure of every dissimilarity, full of eternal light, perfect, and lacking none of all perfection. It purifies, illuminates, and perfects.

Rather, it is holy purification itself, illumination itself, and perfection itself: above purification, above light, already perfect before all perfected things, perfect through itself, the principle of perfection through itself, the cause of every hierarchy and of every sacred thing according to its supereminent exaltation.

Therefore, as I judge, those who are to be purified must be made entirely pure and freed from every confusion of dissimilarity. Those who are to be illuminated must be filled with divine light and renewed, in the most chaste eyes of the mind, toward a contemplative habit and power. Those who are being restored from imperfection must become participants in the perfective knowledge of the sacred things that have been contemplated.

Those who purify, by the greatness of their purification, must hand on to others from their own purity. Those who illuminate, as more luminous minds, properly disposed both to participate in light and to distribute it, and richly filled with holy brightness, must in every way pour forth their superabundant light upon those who are worthy of light. Those who perfect, as teachers of the perfective tradition, must perfect those who are to be perfected by the most sacred doctrine, through knowledge of the sacred things contemplated.

Therefore, each order of the hierarchical disposition is led back, according to its own proportion, to divine cooperation, accomplishing, by grace and by God-given power, those things which are naturally and supernaturally united to the Thearchy, which are superessentially acted by it, and which are hierarchically manifested for the possible imitation of minds that love God.

Therefore, since we have, as I judge, well defined what hierarchy is, we must next praise the angelic hierarchy, and contemplate with supermundane eyes its wondrous figurative representations in Scripture, so that through these mystical representations we may ascend to their most deiform simplicity. At the same time, we shall praise the principle of all hierarchical knowledge with the reverence divinely spoken of beforehand, and with perfective thanksgivings.

First of all, this must be said as true: that the superessential Thearchy, by its universal goodness, established the essences of all things that are, and brought them into being. For this belongs properly to the Cause of all things, and to the Goodness above all things: to call all existing things to communion with itself, according as it is determined for each being by its own proper proportion.

Therefore all things that are participate in the providence which flows from the superessential and most causal Divinity. For perhaps they would not exist at all unless they received their essence from the principle of all things. All existing things, therefore, participate in its being; for the Divinity above being is the being of all things. Living things participate in that same vivifying power which is above every life. Rational and intellectual beings participate in that same Wisdom, perfect in itself and pre-perfect before all perfection, which is above all reason and intellect.

And it is clear that those essences are nearer to it which have received from it more abundantly. Therefore the holy ranks of the heavenly essences, being above those things which merely exist, above irrational living things, and above rational beings such as we are, have been made participants in hierarchical tradition. For, invisibly reforming themselves into divine imitation, looking supermundanely toward the likeness of the Thearchy, and desiring to form their intellectual beauty accordingly, they possess more abundant and beautiful communions with it. They are attentive to every divine life; they are, first and abundantly, and always, as far as is lawful, stretched upward toward the highest in the steadfastness of divine and inflexible love; receiving the principal illuminations immaterially and purely, ordered toward them, and possessing an entirely intellectual life.

They, therefore, have first and abundantly been made participants in God, and they are first and manifoldly manifestors of the divine hiddenness. For this reason, beyond all others, they have been especially deemed worthy of the name “angelic,” because the divine illumination first comes forth into them, and through them the manifestations above us are borne down to us.

For, as theology says, the Law was given to us through angels. Angels also led our glorious fathers before the Law back to the divine: either by introducing what was to be done, and by leading them from error and impure life to the right way of truth; or by prophetically revealing sacred orders of supermundane mysteries, hidden visions, or certain divine foretellings.

But if someone says that, in some cases, theophanies were made immediately to certain saints, let him also learn wisely from the most sacred Scriptures that no one has seen, nor shall see, what God is in Himself and what His hidden nature is. Theophanies, however, were made to the saints according to divine appointments, through certain sacred manifestations of visions proportioned to those who saw them.

Therefore that most wise theology rightly calls the vision described in it a divine theophany, as though it were a form of formless likenesses, because by it those who saw were led back toward the divine, and because through it a divine illumination was given to those who saw, and certain divine things were wondrously taught to them. But our glorious fathers were instructed in these divine visions through the mediation of the heavenly powers.

Does not the tradition of Scripture say that the sacred legislation itself was given to Moses from God, as though immediately from Him, in order truly to teach us that the Law is divine and sacred in character? Yet theology also wisely teaches that it came to us through angels, as the divine order of law established this lawfully: namely, that through the first ranks the second are led back to God.

For not only among higher and lower minds, but also among powers of equal rank, this law has been established by the superessential principle of the ordering of all things: that in every hierarchy there are first, middle, and last orders and powers, and that the more divine are teachers and guides of the lesser, leading them toward divine approach, illumination, and communion.

I see also that the angels were the first to teach the divine mystery of Christ’s humanity, and that afterward, through them, the grace of knowledge descended to us. Thus the most divine Gabriel taught Zacharias, the high priest, the mysteries: namely, that the child who would be born from him, beyond hope, by divine grace, would be a prophet, divinely and savingly manifesting to the world the divine operation of the manly Jesus. Gabriel also taught Mary how the divine mystery of the ineffable divine formation would take place in her.

Another of the angels instructed Joseph how the things divinely promised to his forefather David would truly be fulfilled. Another evangelized the shepherds, who had been brought back, as it were, from the silence and withdrawal of many, and with him the multitude of the heavenly host handed down to those on earth that most praiseworthy doxology.

And let me look to the highest appearances of light in the Scriptures. For I see that even Jesus Himself, the superessential Essence of the supercelestial essences, when He came immutably to that which belongs to us, did not refuse the good human order arranged under Him, chosen and ministerial, but obediently submitted Himself to the arrangements of the Father and God through angels.

Through these intermediaries, Joseph was told of the departure of the Son into Egypt, appointed by the Father, and again of His return from Egypt into Judea. And through angels we see Him ordered under the paternal laws.

I refrain from speaking, since you know from our sacerdotal traditions what is expressly handed down concerning the angel who strengthened Jesus; or that Jesus Himself, having come for our saving and manifesting beneficence, is called the Angel of great counsel. For, as the Angel Himself foretold, whatever He heard from the Father, He announced to us.

This, then, so far as concerns us, is the reason for the angelic name in Scripture.

But, as I judge, it is necessary to inquire for what reason the theologians call all the heavenly essences together angels, yet, when they come to the manifestation of those supermundane orders themselves, they specifically name the angelic order as the one which, in a completing manner, terminates the divine and heavenly ranks. Above this order they arrange, in superior position, the adornments of the Archangels, and the Principalities, Powers, and Virtues, and whatever other essences the manifesting tradition of Scripture knows to be established above these.

We say, then, that throughout every sacred disposition the higher orders possess also the illuminations and powers of the lower dispositions; but the last orders do not participate in the excellences of those above them.

Therefore the theologians call even the most holy orders of the highest essences angels, for they too are manifestors of the thearchic illumination. But there is no reason to call the lowest order of the heavenly minds Principalities, or Thrones, or Seraphim; for it does not participate in the most excellent powers.

Rather, just as this lowest angelic order leads our divine high priests back to the splendors of the Divinity known to it, so also the powers of the essences before it, which are still more pure, lead it upward; and they belong to the divine order which consummates the angelic hierarchies.

Unless, indeed, someone should say this also: that all the angelic names are common, according to the subjection of all the heavenly powers to the deiform and God-given light, and according to their supereminent communion in it.

But in order that the account may be more exactly distinguished by us, let us reverently consider the holy and fitting properties of each heavenly disposition as they are expressed in Scripture.

How many and what sort the orders of the supercelestial essences are, and how the hierarchies are perfected according to them, I say that only their own contemplative principle of perfection knows exactly. Furthermore, I say that even they themselves do not know their own powers and illuminations, and their own sacred and super-adorned ordering, except insofar as the Divinity, knowing its own mysteries well, has taught us through them whatever things it has taught us as proper to them.

It is impossible, therefore, for us to know the mysteries of the supercelestial minds and their most holy perfections, unless someone should say that we know those things which the Divinity has taught us through them, as through beings who know well what belongs to themselves.

Therefore we do not speak anything from our own motion. But whatever contemplations of the angels have been contemplated by the holy theologians, these we shall set forth, teaching them as far as we are able.

Theology has called all the heavenly essences by nine manifesting names. These our divine holy initiator divides into three threefold dispositions.

He says that the first is that which always exists around God, and which is handed down as being attentively and immediately united to Him before the others. For he says that the manifestation of the divine Scriptures hands down that the most holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged orders called in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim, are placed immediately around God, according to a nearness set above all others.

Therefore this threefold order, our common guide says, is one and equally ordered, and truly the first hierarchy. There is no other more deiform than it, nor any more immediately intent upon the first-working illuminations of the Divinity itself.

He says that the second hierarchy is completed from the Powers, Dominations, and Virtues.

And the last of the three heavenly hierarchies is the disposition of the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities.

Accepting this order of the sacred hierarchies, we say that all the names of the heavenly intellects contain a declaration of the deiform property of each one.

Those who know Hebrew have explained the holy name Seraphim as meaning either “those who burn” or “those who heat”; and Cherubim as meaning “abundance of knowledge” or “outpouring of wisdom.”

Therefore the first of the heavenly hierarchies is fittingly sanctified by the most excellent essences, since it has an order higher than all the rest: namely, to be placed immediately around God, and to receive into itself, as being nearest, the first-working theophanies and perfections in a more principal manner.

The name Seraphim, then, teaches and manifests their deiform habit: for it signifies their perpetual motion around divine things, their unceasing, fervent, sharp, and super-heated intensity; their ever-moving, never-failing, and inflexible motion; their power of reductively and actively assimilating those beneath them, as though reheating them and reviving them into a similar heat; their fiery, heavenly, and holocaust-like purifying power; and their unveiled and inextinguishable property, ever light-like and illuminating, driving away and making manifest every dark obscurity.

The name Cherubim, however, signifies their knowing and God-seeing power: their receptivity of the highest gift of lights; their contemplation of the divine Beauty in its first-operative power; their being filled with the wisdom-giving tradition; and their copious communication to those below them of the outpoured wisdom granted to them.

The name Thrones signifies that they are most high and firmly established seats, utterly exalted above every ignoble subjection; that they are borne upward, supermundanely, toward the highest; that they are inflexibly removed from every extreme, and are immutably and steadfastly placed with all their powers in the most sublime realm around Him who is truly exalted; that they are receptive of the divine super-advent in all impassibility and immateriality; that they bear God, and are servilely open to divine receptions.

This, then, is the explanation of the names themselves, so far as concerns us. But we must now say what we understand their hierarchy to be.

I think we have already said sufficiently that the contemplation of every hierarchy depends inflexibly upon a God-imitating deiformity, and that every hierarchical activity is divided into a sacred participation and transmission of pure purification, divine light, and perfective knowledge. Now, however, let us fittingly pursue the account of the most exalted intellects, and consider how hierarchy is manifested in them by Scripture.

It must be understood that the first essences, which are placed after their substance-making Thearchy, and are ordered, as it were, in its vestibules, surpass every created power, whether invisible or visible. Their hierarchy must be judged proper to them and altogether of one form.

Therefore they must be understood as pure, not as though they had been freed from unclean stains and defilements, nor as though they had not received material phantasies, but as being pure of every subjection, higher than all inferiority, and set above every more firmly established temple according to the most exalted chastity, above all the most deiform powers. By their own self-moving and ever-identical motion, according to the unchangeable order of their love for God, they are inflexibly received; they know no fall into what is beneath them, but possess the most pure establishment of their own deiform speciality, incapable of fall or change.

They must again be understood as contemplative, not as though they were led back to God by sensible symbols or by intellectual contemplations through the variety of sacred Scriptural theory, but as being filled with every immaterial knowledge of a higher light; as being filled, so far as is lawful, with the contemplation of the form-giving, principal, superessential, and thrice-radiant Beauty; and as being made worthy of communion with Jesus in like manner.

They do not receive a deifying likeness in images sacredly fashioned into forms; rather, they truly draw near to Him in the first participation of the knowledge of His deifying lights. Because likeness to God has been granted to them in the most immediate way, they communicate, as far as possible, in the first-operative power of His deifying and human virtues.

They must likewise be understood as perfect, not as though they were illuminated by an analytic knowledge through sacred variety, but as being filled with the first and supereminent deification, according to the most exalted knowledge of divine works possible among angels. For they are not sanctified through other holy essences, but by the Thearchy itself. They are immediately extended toward it above all others by their supereminent power and order; they are established in the most pure strength altogether; they are brought, as far as is lawful, to the contemplation of immaterial and invisible Beauty; and, as the first essences around God, they are drawn toward the knowable principles of the divine works. They have been sanctified in the most exalted manner by the very Principle of perfection.

The theologians openly declare this: that the lower ranks of the heavenly essences are fittingly instructed in deifying knowledge by the higher ranks, while the highest of all are illuminated, as far as is lawful, by teachings from the Thearchy itself. For they introduce certain heavenly beings as being sacredly instructed by those before them that the Lord of the heavenly powers and the King of glory has been received humanly into the heavens. They introduce others as questioning Jesus Himself and learning from Him the knowledge of His divine action on our behalf; and they show Jesus Himself immediately teaching them and, by His first generosity, revealing to them His human benignity. For He says: “I speak justice and the judgment of salvation.”

But I marvel that even the first of the heavenly essences, though so far surpassing all the rest in the thearchic illuminations, still reverently desire mediate questioning. For they do not at once ask, “Why are Thy garments red?” Rather, they first deliberate among themselves before asking, showing that they learn and desire deifying knowledge, but do not leap ahead of the illumination given according to the divine procession.

Therefore the first hierarchy of the heavenly intellects, sanctified by the very Principle of perfection, because it is immediately extended toward it, is purified, illuminated, and perfected by the most holy purification, being filled proportionately with the abundant light of a pre-perfect consummation: pure of every diminution, full of the first light, and perfect through participation in the first-given knowledge and science.

And perhaps I may not improperly add this also: that purification, illumination, and perfection are the assumption of divine knowledge. Purification removes ignorance by the knowledge, bestowed according to order, of more perfect teachings. Illumination is by that divine knowledge itself, through which it also purifies the one who previously did not contemplate what it now manifests through a higher illumination. And perfection is again by that same light, as a habitual knowledge of the most lucid teachings.

This, then, so far as our knowledge reaches, is the first rank of the heavenly essences: standing around God and immediately about God, circling His eternal knowledge simply and unceasingly, according to the most exalted, ever-moving stability possible among angels; seeing many blessed contemplations purely; illuminated by a simple and immediate radiance; and filled with divine nourishment. It receives many things through the first-given outpouring, yet one thing through the domestic and unifying unity of the divine refreshment. It has been made worthy of much communion with God and cooperation with Him, according to the possible likeness of good habits and actions. It knows many divine things in a superior way, and has been made a participant, as far as is lawful, in divine knowledge and understanding.

For this reason theology has handed down its praises to those who dwell on earth, and in these praises the eminence of its most exalted illumination is wondrously manifested.

Some of them, speaking sensibly, roar like the voice of many waters:

“Blessed is the glory of the Lord from His place.”

Others cry aloud that most praiseworthy and most pious theology:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth; the whole earth is full of His glory.”

These most exalted hymnologies of the heavenly minds we have already opened, as far as possible, in the treatise concerning the Divine Praises, and enough has been said about them there, so far as concerns us.

From those things it is enough for the present to recall only this: that the first rank, having been illuminated, as far as is lawful, in theological knowledge by the thearchic Goodness, as a deiform hierarchy, then handed down the same knowledge to the others. In brief, it teaches this: that it is lawful for the most pious, super-praiseworthy, and most laudable Thearchy to be blessed, known, and praised by the God-receiving intellects as far as possible. For these intellects, being deiform, are, as Scripture says, the divine places of the thearchic repose.

And they teach that the Monad is also Unity, substantially threefold; and that, from the supercelestial essences down to the last things of the earth, it extends its goodness into all things by providence, as the super-principal principle and cause of every essence, and as embracing all things superessentially in immeasurable containment.

We must now pass on to the middle rank of the heavenly intellects, contemplating, as far as possible, with supermundane eyes those Dominations, and the truly powerful spectacles of the divine Powers and Virtues. For every name of the essences above us signifies their deiform properties, by which they imitate God.

Therefore I judge that the manifesting name of the holy Dominations declares a certain absolute anagogy, free from every disgrace of diminution; a lordship in no way inclined toward the likeness of tyrannical dissimilarities; a dominion liberally severe, set above every diminishing servitude, needing no subjection of any kind, removed from every dissimilarity, unceasingly desiring the true Lordship itself, and, as far as possible, deiformly conforming both itself and those after it to the likeness of that lordly power which subsists by nature. It is turned toward no vain appearance, but toward the universal reality which properly is, and it is made, as far as possible, a participant in the ever deiform Lordship.

The name of the holy Virtues, however, signifies a certain strong and immutable manliness in all their operations according to their deiformity; a nature not weakly disposed toward the reception of the divine illuminations given to it, but powerfully led back into the imitation of God; not abandoning its deiform motion through any weakness of its own, but firmly bearing the superessential and power-giving Virtue, and becoming, as far as is lawful, an image resembling that Virtue. It is powerfully turned toward that Virtue as the principle of all virtues, and it proceeds deiformly toward those below as a giver of virtue.

The name of the holy Powers signifies an order equal in power to the divine Dominations and Virtues, well ordered and unconfused with respect to divine receptions; an ordered power of supermundane and intellectual authority, not tyrannically rushed downward toward inferior things by authoritative powers, but powerfully led upward to divine things after due order, and deiformly leading those after it upward. It is assimilated, as far as is lawful, to the power-giving Authority, and reveals that Authority, as far as possible, to the angels through the well-ordered ranks established by it, with authoritative power.

Possessing these deiform properties, the middle rank of the heavenly minds is purified, illuminated, and perfected, as has been said, by the divine illuminations given to it secondarily through the first hierarchical rank, and conveyed through that middle rank by a second manifestation.

Therefore, when we hear that speech comes through one angel to another, we shall take this as a symbol of a perfection which is far more than perfect, and which, hidden in itself, proceeds to those that follow. For those who are wise concerning our sacred sacrifices say that the perfections of divine things which shine by themselves are more perfect than those which exist through other participations of contemplation.

Thus I judge that the immediate participation of the angelic orders first extended toward God is more perfect than participation through the mediation of those already perfected. For this reason, in our sacerdotal tradition, the first intellects are called the perfective, light-giving, and purifying powers of the lower ones, since through them the lower orders are led back to the superessential principle of all things, and are made participants, as far as is lawful for them, in the perfection-giving purifications, illuminations, and perfections.

For this is altogether the divinely promulgated order of divine rank: that the second orders participate in divine illuminations through the first.

You will find this also expressed many times by the theologians. For when the divine and paternal philanthropy was instructing Israel for its sacred salvation, correcting it convertibly, and handing it over to avenging and harsh nations for discipline, by every kind of providential guidance toward the better, it both sent Israel into captivity and mercifully restored it again to its former constancy.

One of the theologians, Zacharias, saw one of the first angels, as I judge, one of those around God—for, as I said, the name “angel” is common to all—learning from God Himself the words of counsel concerning this matter. He then saw another angel, one of the subordinate angels, going forth to meet the first, as though for the reception and participation of illumination. Then, having been instructed by him in the divine counsel as by a high priest, this second angel turned to teach the theologian that Jerusalem would be fruitfully inhabited by a multitude of men.

Another theologian, Ezechiel, says that this was most sacredly promulgated by the most glorious Divinity established above the Cherubim. For the divine philanthropy, instructing Israel, as has been said, by disciplinary training and leading it toward the better, by divine justice condemns the guilty and justifies the innocent.

The first after the Cherubim, girded about the loins with sapphire and clothed, according to the hierarchical symbol, in a long robe, teaches this. The divine ordering commands the other angels, who had axes, to be taught by the first concerning this divine judgment. For He said to the one: “Pass through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the innocent men.” But to the others He said: “Go through the city after him and strike; let not your eyes spare. But do not come near anyone upon whom the mark is.”

What might one say, perhaps, of the angel who said to Daniel, “The word has gone forth”? Or of that first angel receiving fire from the midst of the Cherubim? Or, still more abundantly for showing the angelic order, that the Cherubim put the fire into the hands of the one clothed in the sacred stole? Or of the one calling the most divine Gabriel and saying to him, “Make this man understand the vision”? Or whatever else has been said by the sacred theologians concerning the deiform order of the heavenly Thearchies?

To this order the arrangement of our own hierarchy is assimilated, as far as possible. It will have the angelic beauty so far as this can be represented in images, being formed through it and led back to the superessential ordering-principle of every hierarchy together.

The remaining order for our contemplation, which completes the angelic hierarchies, is arranged from the deiform Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. And first, as far as I can, I think it necessary to explain the manifestations of these holy names.

The name of the heavenly Principalities manifests their deiform principality and power of leadership, together with sacred order and most fitting princely virtues. It signifies that they are wholly turned toward the super-principal Principle, that they lead others hierarchically, that they are themselves reformed, as far as possible, toward that very Principle of principality, and that they manifest His superessential ordering through the adornment of principal virtues.

The order of the holy Archangels, however, is indeed equal in power to the heavenly Principalities. For, as I said, the hierarchy and disposition of both them and the Angels is one. Yet, since there is no hierarchy which does not have first, middle, and last powers, the holy order of Archangels is received as a communicative middle within the hierarchy of the extremes. For it communicates both with the most sacred Principalities and with the holy Angels: with the former, because it is principally turned toward the superessential Principle, is reformed toward Him as far as possible, and unifies the Angels according to its well-ordered and invisible leaderships; with the latter, because it also belongs to them by an interpretive and annunciatory order, receiving the divine illuminations hierarchically through the first powers, announcing them deiformly to the Angels, and through the Angels manifesting them to us, according to the sacred proportion of each of those divinely illuminated.

For the Angels themselves, as we have said, complete and consummate all the dispositions of the heavenly minds, in the sense that they possess angelic property as the last consummating order among the heavenly essences. They are more properly named Angels in relation to us than the higher orders, since their hierarchy is nearer to us and more concerned with what surrounds us.

For the most excellent disposition, as has been said, must be understood to sanctify the second, since it is ordered first and nearest to the hidden Godhead itself. The second disposition, which is completed by the holy Dominations, Virtues, and Powers, presides over the hierarchy of the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels: the first hierarchy doing this more manifestly, and the hierarchy after it more hiddenly.

But the manifesting disposition of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels presides over human hierarchies in due sequence, so that there may be, in order, a return, conversion, communion, and union with God; and so also that there may be a procession from God, most excellently bestowed upon all hierarchies, arriving communicatively and with most sacred order.

Hence theology assigns our hierarchy to Angels, naming Michael as the prince of the Jewish people, and others as patrons of the nations. For the Most High established the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the Angels of God.

But if someone should say, “How, then, was the Hebrew people alone led back into the thearchic illuminations?” we must answer that the right knowledge of the Angels is not to be blamed for the error of the other nations concerning non-existent gods. Rather, those nations themselves, by their own inclinations, fell away from the right return toward the divine, through self-love, pride, and the worship of opinions which they treated as divine and proportionate to themselves. And the Hebrew people itself is testified to have suffered this same thing. For Scripture says: “Thou hast rejected the knowledge of God, and hast gone after thy own heart.”

For we do not possess a compelled life; nor are the divine lights of providential illumination darkened by the proper power of providence over those provided for. Rather, the dissimilarity of intellectual visions, before the overflowing paternal goodness, either makes the gift of light altogether unparticipated and undistributed to their reformation, or makes the participations different: small or great, obscure or clear, though the fountain-ray itself is one, simple, always the same, and superabundantly expanded.

Furthermore, even the other nations—from whom we also have looked toward that great and abundant sea of divine light, prepared for all, handed down to all, and opened to all—were not ruled by certain alien gods. Rather, there is one Principle of all, and the Angels presiding over each nation led those who followed them back to that Principle.

Melchisedech must be understood as a high priest, most beloved of God: not of gods that do not exist, but of the truly existing, most high God. For the theosophers did not simply call Melchisedech a friend of God, but also a priest. Was this not so that they might clearly signify to the wise that he not only turned himself toward the God who truly is, but also, as high priest, led others by the return toward the true and only Divinity?

And we shall also remind your high-priestly understanding of this: that both to Pharaoh among the Egyptians, through the Angel who ruled over him, and to the prince of the Babylonians under his own president, there was distributed in visions something providential and authoritative from the providence and dominion over all things. Leaders, ministers of the true God, were appointed for those nations; and the manifestation of visions formed by Angels was revealed immediately from God through Angels to the holy men Daniel and Joseph.

For there is one Principle and Providence of all. And it must in no way be thought that the Jews were led fully by the Divinity, while Angels, either specially, or equally honorably, or as opposing powers, or as certain other gods, ruled the other nations. Rather, that Scriptural saying must be received according to this sacred understanding: not as though God divided our rule with other gods or Angels, and was content with Israel for His own national principality and national rule; but rather that the one and same exalted Providence of all distributed all men, for their salvation, to the restorative guidance of their proper Angels, while Israel alone, almost beyond all others, was turned toward the illumination and knowledge of the true Lord.

Hence theology, signifying that Israel was possessed by God Himself for the true service of God, says: “He became the portion of the Lord.” But showing also that God distributed him, like the other nations, to one of the holy Angels, in order that through him he might know the one Principle of all, it says that Michael led the Jewish people. By this it clearly teaches us that there is one Providence of all, superessentially placed above all invisible and visible powers together, and that all the Angels ruling over the several nations extend, according to their essential will, the powers that follow them toward Him as their proper Principle.

Thus, then, the most honorable order of minds around God is connected in this way: being sanctified by the perfective illumination, by ascending immediately into it, it is purified, illuminated, and perfected by an illumination of the Divinity that is both more hidden and more manifest.

It is more hidden insofar as it is more invisible, more simplified, and more unified. It is more manifest insofar as it is given first, shines first, is more universal, and is poured into that order in a more fitting form.

From that first order, again, the second is proportionately led; from the second, the third; and from the third, the hierarchy among us, according to the law of that well-ordering rank, in divine harmony and proportion, is hierarchically led back to the super-principal Principle and Consummation of every good order.

All are manifestors and angels of those who are before them: the most honorable orders are manifestors of God who moves them; the others, proportionately, are manifestors of those who are moved by God.

For the superessential Harmony of all things has provided for each rational and intellectual being with sacred order and ordered guidance, according to the measure in which each order of the hierarchies has been sacredly and fittingly established. And we see every hierarchy divided into first, middle, and last powers.

But, to speak more particularly, that same divine Harmony has distinguished each individual rank according to the divine harmonies themselves. For this reason the theologians say that even the most divine Seraphim cry out one to another. By this, as I judge, they openly declare that the first ranks hand on theological knowledge to the second.

And perhaps I might add this also, not unfittingly: that each mind, both heavenly and human, has in itself its own particular first, middle, and last ordinations and powers. These are assigned according to each one’s proper anagogical ascent through the hierarchical illuminations, proportionately manifested. Through them each mind comes to participate, as far as is lawful and possible for it, in the most unknowable purification, the fullest light, and the pre-perfect perfection.

For nothing is perfect of itself, while still needing universal perfection, except the truly most perfect and pre-perfect One.

But after these things have been defined, it is worth understanding why we are accustomed to call all the angelic essences alike heavenly virtues or heavenly powers.

For it must not be said, as in the case of the Angels, that the order of the holy Virtues is the last rank of all, and that the higher ranks participate in the sacred and beautiful illumination of the lower essences, while the last ranks do not in any way participate in the first. Nor should we say that, for this reason, all the divine intellects are called heavenly virtues, while the Seraphim, Thrones, and Dominations are not called so at all.

For the lower properties are participated in by the highest in a universal way. Indeed, the Angels themselves, and before the Angels the Archangels, the Principalities, and the Powers—though ordered by theology after the Virtues—are often commonly called by us, together with the other holy essences, heavenly virtues.

But we say that, when we use the name heavenly virtues commonly of all, we do not introduce any confusion of the proper qualities of each rank. Rather, since all the divine intellects are divided, according to their own supermundane reason, into essence, power, and operation, whenever we call all of them, or some of them, without strict precision, “heavenly essences” or “heavenly virtues,” we must understand that we are signifying periphrastically the beings of whom we speak, either from the essence or from the power proper to each one.

For we must not attach the higher property of the holy Virtues, which we have already carefully distinguished, entirely to the lower essences, thereby reversing the unconfused ordering of the angelic ranks. For according to the account often rightly given by us, the higher ranks abundantly possess also the sacred properties of the lower ranks; but the last ranks do not possess the higher universal excellences of the greater ranks. Rather, the illuminations which first appear in the higher ranks are distributed to the lower ranks proportionately through those first ranks.

This question also arises for those who carefully contemplate the intelligible Scriptures: if the lowest ranks do not participate in the universal excellences of the higher ranks, why is the high priest among us called by Scripture “the angel of the Lord Almighty”?

The answer, as I judge, is not contrary to what has already been defined.

For we say that the lowest ranks are left behind with respect to the universal and superior power of the greater orders. Yet they do participate in a middle and proportionate way, according to the one common and conjunctive fellowship of all. For example, the order of the holy Cherubim participates in wisdom and knowledge in a higher way; but the ranks of essences beneath them also participate in wisdom and knowledge, though in a particular way, subject to them.

To participate in wisdom and knowledge absolutely is common to all deiform intellectual beings. But to participate in them attentively, and first, or second, or lower down, is not common to all; rather, it is determined for each one according to its own proper proportion.

And perhaps one would not err in defining this same principle concerning all the divine minds. For just as the first ranks abundantly possess the holy and beautiful properties of the lower ranks, so the lowest ranks possess those of the higher ranks, though not in the same way, but in a lower manner.

Therefore, as I judge, there is nothing disordered if theology also calls the high priest among us an angel, insofar as he participates, according to his proper power, in the interpretive and annunciatory property of the Angels, and is extended, as far as possible for men, toward likeness with their manifesting office.

You will also find that theology calls both the heavenly and supernal essences gods, and likewise among us the men who are most beloved of God and are wonderful. For the divine hiddenness is superessentially removed from and set above all things together, and nothing among existing things can properly and altogether be named as like it.

Nevertheless, whatever power among intellectual and rational beings is wholly converted toward its unity, and is ceaselessly extended toward its divine illuminations as far as possible, becomes worthy—according to its power, if it is right to say so—of divine imitation and of being called by the divine name.