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.