The Celestial Hierarchy

Carry on, then, with what remains. Let us, if it seems good, release our intellectual eye from the lofty contemplations sustained by angelic strength, and descend to the divided and manifold breadth of the multiform variety of angelic figures; and again, from these things, as from apparent incongruities, let us be analytically reflected back into the simplicity of the heavenly minds.

Let this first be known to you: the sacred interpretations of formed images sometimes signify the same ranks of heavenly essences as sanctifying, and again as sanctified; as sanctifying the lower ranks, and as sanctified by the higher ranks; and the same ranks, as has been said, have first, middle, and last powers. No disordered account is introduced by this manner of explanation.

For if we said that certain ranks are sanctified by those before them, and then that those same ranks sanctify those before them; or again, that those who sanctify the last ranks are themselves sanctified by the very ranks whom they sanctify, then there would truly be disorder and much confusion. But if we say that the same ranks both sanctify and are sanctified, though never by the same ranks or in relation to the same ranks, but that each rank is sanctified by those before it and sanctifies those after it, then perhaps one may say, without incongruity, that the forms sacredly made in Scripture can rightly and truly be applied sometimes to the first, sometimes to the last, and sometimes to the middle powers.

Therefore the power of being turned upward convertibly, and of being firmly turned back upon themselves as guardians of their own powers, and of proceeding socially toward those that come after them in a providential participation of power—these can all be attributed, not falsely, to the heavenly essences: to some in a higher and universal way, as has often been said; to others in a particular and subordinate way.

Now we must begin our account and inquire, in the first interpretation of the forms, why theology is found to honor the sacred description of fire almost beyond all others.

You will find that it not only gives form to fiery wheels, but also to fiery living beings, to men flashing like fire, and to heaps of burning coals placed around the heavenly essences, and to rivers flaming with fire and roaring with immeasurable sound. It also says that the Thrones are fiery, and that the highest Seraphim themselves, by their very name, signify heavenly burning. It distributes to them the property and operation of fire, and, in general, it especially honors the fiery formation both above and below.

Therefore I judge that fire signifies what is most deiform in the heavenly minds. For the holy theologians often describe the superessential and formless Essence under the image of fire, since fire possesses, as far as visible things can, many images of the divine property, if it is lawful so to speak.

For sensible fire is, so to speak, in all things, and passes clearly through all things, and yet is removed from all things. It is luminous, and at the same time, as it were, hidden. It is unknown in itself, unless matter is present upon which it may manifest its proper operation. It is immeasurable and invisible in itself, powerful over all things, bringing into its own activity whatever things are in them. It is mobile. It gives itself to all things that in any way approach it. It renews by the preservation of nature. It illuminates with veiled splendors. It is incomprehensible, clear, distinct, rebounding, bearing upward, sharply penetrating, exalted, not subject to the disgrace of diminution, always moving, self-moving, moving others, containing, uncontained, needing no other, secretly latent, increasing from itself, and manifesting its own greatness in the materials that receive it. It is active, powerful, invisibly present to all things together. If neglected, it seems not to exist; but by friction, as by a certain natural and proper vindication, it suddenly shines forth, and again remains incomprehensibly impalpable, undiminished in all its richest self-communications.

And perhaps someone could find many beautiful properties of fire as sensible images of divine operation. Knowing this, the theosophers form the heavenly essences from fire, signifying their deiform character and their imitation of God, so far as possible.

They also describe them in human form, because of intellect, and because they possess powers of vision turned upward; because of the upright and luminous character of the human figure; because of its natural ruling and royal quality; because man, though possessing the least sensory power in comparison with the other irrational animals, is nevertheless the most powerful of all according to the greatness of intellect, according to the continuity of rational knowledge, and according to the natural freedom and sovereign power of the soul.

It is also possible, as I judge, to find heavenly powers represented in each particular part of our bodily form.

The powers of sight signify the clearest gaze toward divine lights, and again the tender, fluid, unrebounding, sharply mobile, pure, open, and impassible reception of divine illuminations.

The powers of smell signify receptivity, as far as possible, toward the distribution of that fragrance which is sweet beyond intellect, and also the power of discerning and wholly fleeing whatever is not of that kind.

The powers of hearing signify participation in, and knowing receptivity toward, divine inspiration.

The powers of taste signify fullness of invisible nourishment and receptivity toward divine and nourishing streams.

The powers of touch signify the diagnostic knowledge of what is suitable or harmful.

The eyelids and eyebrows signify the guarding of the understanding of divine visions.

Youth and mature age signify the ever-renewing power of life.

The teeth signify the division of the nourishing perfection given from above. For every intellectual essence divides and multiplies, by providential power, the uniform understanding given to it by a more divine being, so as to guide the lower rank according to its proportion.

The shoulders, arms, and hands signify the productive, operative, and active power.

The heart is a symbol of deiform life, sowing its own vital power deiformly into the things foreknown.

The breast signifies the strong and guarding power of the life-giving distribution which proceeds from the heart beneath it.

The back signifies the continuity of all fertile powers together.

The feet signify motion, swiftness, and speed in the divine movement that always advances. For this reason theology has represented the feet of the holy intellects as winged. For wingedness signifies anagogical speed, the active power of the heavenly journey upward, and the removal from every lowliness by being borne upward. The lightness of the wings signifies nothing earthly, but a wholly pure and weightless ascent to the height.

Nakedness, being unshod, looseness, and freedom signify what is immeasurable and pure, free from the addition of external things, and assimilated, as far as possible, to divine simplicity.

But since the simple and greatly varied Wisdom also clothes the naked and gives them certain vessels to carry, let us, as far as possible, unfold the sacred garments and instruments of the heavenly minds.

I judge that the bright and fiery garment signifies the deiform and luminous character according to the image of fire, because of their rest in heaven, where light is, and because they are to be called either wholly invisible, or intellectually illuminating, or intellectually illuminated.

The priestly garment signifies the power of leading toward divine and mystical contemplations, and the consecration of the whole life.

The girdles signify the guarding of their fertile powers, and the habit which gathers them into themselves, turning them unitedly inward, and carrying them circularly around themselves with ease and without fall, in likeness to their nature.

The rods signify royalty and leadership, and the power that defines all things rightly.

The spears and axes signify separation from dissimilarities, and the sharp, effective, and active power of discernment.

Geometrical and architectural instruments signify the power of founding, building, and perfecting, and whatever else belongs to the providence that restores and converts the lower ranks.

Sometimes the instruments used by the holy angels are also symbols for us of divine judgments: some declare corrective discipline or punitive justice; others declare liberation from distress, or the end of discipline, or the restoration of former stability, or the addition of other gifts, small or great, sensible or invisible. In general, perhaps a discerning mind will not hesitate to join visible things beautifully to invisible things.

That they are also called winds signifies their speed, their activity reaching almost everywhere without delay, and their movement which carries downward things from above and upward things from below: raising the lower ranks to a higher elevation, and moving the higher ranks toward a communicative and providential procession for the lower.

Perhaps someone will also say that the windy name of aerial spirit signifies the deiform character of the heavenly beings. For air too possesses an image and form of divine operation, as has been shown at greater length in Symbolic Theology by the fourfold distinction: according to the moving, generative, swift, and powerful capacity of nature, and according to the unknown and invisible hiding-place of the principles and ends of motion. For Scripture says: “Thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.”

Theology also forms them under the appearance of a cloud, signifying by this that the sacred intellects are supermundanely filled beyond measure with hidden light; that at the first appearance they receive the first manifestation magnificently; and that they distribute it brightly and proportionately in rich abundance to those that are second. It also signifies that there subsists in them a generative, life-giving, active, and perfective power, according to the intellectual conception of rains, which calls forth the receiving wombs by moist showers into vital births.

Theology also places around the heavenly essences the appearances of air, amber, and multicolored stones.

Amber, being both gold-like and silver-like, signifies incorruptible splendor, as in gold, and at the same time a generous, undiminished, and uncontaminated brilliance; and also, as in silver, an open, light-like, and heavenly clarity.

Bronze, according to the explanations handed down, must be attributed either to fire or to gold-like brightness.

The multicolored appearances of stones must be understood as signifying, if white, what is light-like; if red, what is gold-like; if pale, what is youthful and new. In each species you will find an anagogical interpretation of the typical images.

But since I think these things have been said sufficiently by us according to our power, we must pass on to the sacred interpretation of the beast-like forms sacredly attributed to the heavenly minds.

The lion must be understood to signify what is principal, strong, untamed, and hidden; and also an assimilating power with respect to the ineffable Divinity, veiling the intellectual traces, and perhaps mystically clothing them with a magnificent covering, according to the divine illumination restored to itself in its own path.

The ox signifies what is strong and new; what opens intellectual furrows for the reception of heavenly and generative rains; and what is guarding and most powerful.

The eagle signifies what is royal and borne on high, swift-flying, sharp and sober in seeking strengthening nourishment, agile, well-contrived, and contemplative. With healthy gazes of its speculative powers, it looks immediately, directly, and inflexibly toward the abundant and many-shining ray of the divine Sun.

The horse signifies obedience and governability. The white horse signifies what is truly luminous and, as it were, most akin to divine light. The black horses signify what is hidden. The red signifies what is fiery and active. Those mixed from white and black signify a power which, by perfective force, joins the extremes, connecting the first to the second and the second to the first, convertibly and providentially.

But if we were not watching the due measure of the discourse, perhaps we could also not unfittingly apply the properties of the parts of the animals mentioned, and all their bodily conformations, to the heavenly powers according to dissimilar similitudes: their rage, for example, to intellectual fortitude, of which the lowest expression is sound; their desire to divine love; and, to speak in summary, all the senses and manifold parts of irrational animals could be led back to the immaterial understandings and uniform powers of the heavenly essences.

For the wise, however, these examples suffice; indeed, the interpretation of one significant image is enough to explain similar images close to it.

We must also consider this: rivers, wheels, and connected chariots are attributed to the heavenly essences.

The fiery rivers signify divine streams, giving to them a rich and unfailing flow, and nourishing them with life-giving fecundity.

The chariots signify the conjunctive fellowship of equals.

The wheels, being winged and moving inflexibly and undeviatingly toward the things set before their sight, signify the power of their excellent operation proceeding along a straight and just path. Their whole intellectual rotation is supermundanely directed along the same unfaltering and straight course.

There is also another anagogical way to interpret the imaginative description of the intellectual wheels. For, as the theologian says, a name was given to them. According to the Hebrew tongue, this signifies “revolutions” or “revelations.”

The fiery and deiform wheels have revolutions because of their ever-moving motion around the same Good itself. They have revelations because of their manifestation of secrets, their restoration of those beneath them, and their perfective conduction of higher illuminations down to lower things.

There remains for us a word of explanation concerning the joy of the heavenly ranks. For they are not at all receptive of the passible delight that belongs to us. Yet they are said to rejoice together with God over the finding of those who were lost, according to a deiform feasting, and according to their deiformity in the providence and salvation of those who return to God. They rejoice with most abundant gladness and with that ineffable constancy, in which holy men too have often been made participants through the deifying visitations of divine illuminations.

So much has been said by me concerning the sacred representations. We fall short of a careful manifestation of them; nevertheless, I judge that what has been completed is enough to keep us from remaining basely in figurative phantasies.

But if you also say, “Why have we not then made mention of all the angelic powers, operations, or images found in Scripture?” we answer truly: concerning those whose supermundane knowledge we have not known, we ourselves need another light-leading teacher. Some things, however, we have passed over as being equivalent in force to what has already been said, in order to preserve the proper measure of the discourse, and to honor by silence the mystery that is above us.

Here ends the book on the Celestial Hierarchy.

You have poured forth the illuminations of the angelic descriptions; you have revealed to men how to see with the mind the ordered star.