天階體系 第 1 章

For “from him are all things, and unto him,” as the sacred word has said.

Therefore, calling upon Jesus—the Father’s light, the true light “which enlightens every man that comes into the world,” through whom we have obtained access to the Father, the Source of light—let us lift up our eyes, so far as is possible, to the illuminations of the most sacred Scriptures handed down by the Fathers; and let us, as far as we are able, contemplate the hierarchies of the heavenly intelligences which they have revealed to us symbolically and anagogically. And having received with immaterial and unwavering eyes of the mind the originating and supra-original gift of light from the divine Father—the gift which makes manifest to us in figurative symbols the most blessed hierarchies of the angels—let us once again be stretched up from it toward its simple ray.

For it never departs from its own unitary oneness; rather, in a manner befitting its goodness, it multiplies and proceeds for the anagogic and unifying blending of those for whom it provides, while it yet remains firmly within itself, fixed unmovably in unchanging selfsameness. And it stretches upward those who lawfully look up to it, in proportion to themselves, and unifies them in accordance with its own simplifying union.

For it is not possible for the divine ray to shine upon us otherwise than by being anagogically veiled round about with the variety of the sacred coverings, and fitted, by the Father’s providence, in a manner connatural and proper to us.

…it inscribed [these] intelligences in the sacred compositions of the Scriptures, that it might lead us up through things perceptible to things intelligible, and from the sacredly fashioned symbols to the simple summits of the heavenly hierarchies.

It is therefore necessary, as I think, first to set forth what we hold to be the aim of every hierarchy, and how each one benefits its own initiates; next, to hymn the heavenly hierarchies according to their disclosure in the Scriptures; then, following upon this, to say with what sacred forms the sacred writings of the Scriptures figure the heavenly orders, and to what simplicity one must be led up through these fashionings—so that we, like the multitude, may not impiously suppose that the heavenly and godlike intelligences are some many-footed and many-faced beings, or formed after the brutishness of oxen or the bestial shape of lions, or fashioned after the hooked beak of eagles or the feathered plumage of birds; nor imagine certain fiery wheels above the heaven, or material thrones suitable for the Godhead to recline upon, or certain many-colored horses, and spear-bearing commanders-in-chief, and whatever else the Scriptures have sacredly fashioned and handed down to us in the variety of revelatory symbols.

For indeed theology has artlessly employed poetic sacred fashionings for the sake of the figureless intelligences, considering, as has been said, our intelligence, providing for its own proper and connatural elevation, and fashioning for it the anagogic sacred writings.

But if someone thinks that the sacred compositions are to be accepted (since the simple things, in themselves, are unknown and uncontemplated by us), yet supposes the depictions of the holy intelligences in the Scriptures to be unfitting, and that the whole, so to speak, of this rough stage-setting of angelic names is improper; and asserts that the theologians, in coming at all to the corporeal portrayal of the incorporeal beings, ought to have fashioned and revealed them by forms proper to them and, so far as possible, kindred—drawn from the most honored and somewhat immaterial and supereminent beings among us—and not to have clothed the heavenly and godlike simplicities with the lowest, earthly multiformities (for the one course would have been more anagogic for us and would not have dragged down the supercosmic revelations into unfitting dissimilarities, whereas the other both does outrage to the divine powers unlawfully and perhaps leads our intelligence astray, settling it into unholy compositions; and perhaps such a one will even suppose that the supraheavenly regions are filled with certain swarms of lions and horses, and with bellowing hymnody and flocks of birds and other animals and yet baser materials—whatever, inclining toward the absurd, the bastard, and the passion-ridden, those wholly dissimilar likenesses of the supposedly revelatory Scriptures depict): yet the search for truth, as I think, demonstrates that the most sacred wisdom of the Scriptures, in the formings of the heavenly intelligences, took thoughtful care of each of these things, so as neither, as one might say, to do outrage to the divine powers, nor to fix us, passion-bound, in the lowliness of base images.

…of anagogies, which set before us the formings, attainable by us, of the formless and supernatural visions; but also because this too is most fitting to the mystical Scriptures: to conceal, through ineffable and sacred enigmas, and to set beyond the reach of the multitude, the sacred and hidden truth of the supercosmic intelligences.

For not everyone is sacred, nor is knowledge for all, as the Scriptures say.

But if someone should find fault with the unfitting depictions, saying that he is ashamed to ascribe such shameful forms to the godlike and most holy orderings, it suffices to say to him that the mode of sacred revelation is twofold: the one proceeding, as is fitting, through likenesses by means of sacredly figured similar images; the other fashioned through dissimilar formings into what is utterly unlike and unfitting.

Indeed, the mystical traditions of the revelatory Scriptures sometimes hymn the venerable blessedness of the superessential Godhead as Word and Mind and Being, manifesting its God-befitting reason and wisdom, and its truly real existence, and its being the true cause of the existence of beings; and they portray it as light, and call it life. Such sacred fashionings, though more venerable and seeming somehow to surpass the material formings, yet even so fall short of the divine likeness to the truth (for it is beyond all being and life, since no light characterizes it, and every word and mind fall incomparably short of its likeness). At other times it is hymned supercosmically by the same Scriptures with negative revelations, when they call it invisible and infinite and uncontainable, and the rest, by which is signified not what it is, but what it is not.

For this, as I think, is even more proper to it; since, as the hidden and priestly tradition has taught, we speak truly when we say that it is not anything of beings, but we are ignorant of its superessential and inconceivable and unutterable infinitude.

If, then, negations concerning divine things are true, while affirmations are inharmonious with the hiddenness of the ineffable, the revelation through dissimilar formings is more proper for the invisible things.

Therefore the sacred writings of the Scriptures honor, and do not disgrace, the heavenly orderings when they reveal them by dissimilar formings, and through these demonstrate them to have gone forth supercosmically beyond all material things.

And that the unfitting likenesses lead up our intelligence rather more than the fitting ones do—I do not think any of the right-minded would contradict.

For with regard to the more honorable sacred fashionings, it is likely even to be led astray, supposing the heavenly beings to be certain gold-like and light-like men, radiantly flashing, fair, clothed in shining raiment, harmlessly shimmering with fire, and adorned with whatever other similar-figured beauties theology has used to figure the heavenly intelligences.

Lest those who have conceived nothing higher than the apparent beauties should suffer this, the uplifting wisdom of the holy theologians sacredly descends even to the unfitting dissimilarities, not permitting our material part to remain at rest in the base images, but rousing the upward-tending part of the soul, and goading it by the misshapenness of the symbols, so that it should seem neither lawful nor true—even to those who are very material—that the supraheavenly and divine visions are in truth resemblant to such base things.

…[nothing] is wholly deprived of participation in the beautiful, since, as the truth of the Scriptures says, “All things are very good.”

It is possible, then, from all things to conceive beautiful contemplations, and to fashion for the intelligible and intellectual realities, out of material things, what are called the dissimilar similarities, since intellectual things possess in another mode what has been assigned otherwise to perceptible things.

For anger arises in irrational creatures from a passionate impulse, and their incensive movement is full of all unreason; but in intellectual beings the incensive faculty must be conceived in another way, indicating, as I think, their manly rationality and their inexorable steadfastness in their godlike and unchanging establishments.

Likewise, we say that in irrational creatures desire is a certain unreflecting and material passionate inclination, arising uncontrollably from an inborn movement or from habit in changeable things, and the irrational dominance of bodily appetite that drives every animal toward what it desires by sense; but when, ascribing dissimilar similarities to intellectual beings, we fashion for them desire, we must conceive it as a divine love of the immateriality that is beyond reason and mind, and as the unswerving and unyielding aspiration toward the superessentially pure and impassible contemplation, and toward that pure and most lofty clarity, and toward the unseen and beauty-making comeliness of the truly eternal and intelligible communion.

And we may understand “uncontrollableness” as referring to that intense, unturning love—which can be hindered by nothing—owing to the unmixed and unchanging love of the divine beauty, and to the total inclination toward what is truly to be desired.

But even irrationality and insensibility, in the case of irrational animals or inanimate materials, we properly call a privation of reason and sense; whereas in the case of immaterial and intellectual beings, we confess, in a manner befitting holiness, their supereminence—as supercosmic beings—over our transitive and bodily reason and over the material sense, which is alien to the incorporeal intelligences.

It is possible, therefore, to fashion forms for the heavenly beings not unsuitably even from the basest parts of matter, since matter too, having received its existence from the truly Beautiful, possesses throughout all its material ordering certain echoes of the intellectual comeliness, and it is possible through these to be led up to the immaterial archetypes—the similarities being taken, as has been said, dissimilarly, and the same things being defined not identically but harmoniously and properly with respect to the intellectual and the perceptible properties.

We shall find that the mystical theologians sacredly invest with these things not only the manifestations of the heavenly orders, but also, at times, the divine revelations themselves.

And sometimes they hymn it from the apparent honorable things, as “Sun of righteousness,” as “Morning Star” sacredly rising in the mind, and as light shining unveiled and intelligibly; sometimes from middle things, as fire harmlessly illuminating, as water bestowing the fullness of life and, to speak symbolically, slipping into the belly and gushing forth rivers that flow unrestrained; sometimes from the lowest things, as fragrant ointment, as cornerstone.

But they also clothe it with bestial form, ascribing to it the property of a lion and of a leopard, and they say that it shall be a panther, and a bear bereft of her cubs.

I will add even what seems baser than all and more unfitting: that those skilled in divine things have handed down that it fashions for itself even the form of a worm.

…they conceal the Holy of Holies and venerate the dissimilar sacred fashioning, so that neither may divine things be easily handled by the profane, nor may the lovers of the divine images remain fixed upon the figures as though they were true; and so that divine things may be honored by the true negations and by the dissimilar likenesses drawn from the lowest of their proper echoes.

There is nothing absurd, then, if they also fashion the heavenly beings from the unfitting, dissimilar similarities, according to the causes stated.

For perhaps not even we would have come—out of perplexity, to inquiry, and through the careful searching of sacred things, to elevation—had not the unseemliness of the revelatory fashioning of the angels disturbed us, not allowing our intelligence to remain among the unfitting formings, but provoking it to reject the material inclinations, and habituating it sacredly to be stretched up through the apparent things toward the supercosmic ascents.

Let so much, then, be said by us concerning the material and unfitting angel-like depictions of the sacred Scriptures. Next we must determine what we hold the hierarchy itself to be, and what benefit those allotted to a hierarchy gain from the hierarchy itself.

And may Christ—my Christ, if it is lawful for me to say so—the inspiration of all hierarchic revelation, lead the discourse.

But you, O child, according to the holy ordinance of our hierarchic tradition, both listen reverently to the things sacredly spoken, becoming, in the initiation, inspired among the inspired; and, having veiled the holy things in the hiddenness of your mind, guard them as unitary from the unholy multitude.

For it is not lawful, as the Scriptures say, to cast before swine the unmixed and light-like and beauty-making good order of the intelligible pearls.

Hierarchy is, in my view, a sacred order and knowledge and activity, being assimilated as far as possible to the godlike, and led up, in proportion to the illuminations divinely given to it, toward the imitation of God. But the God-befitting beauty, as simple, as good, as the source of all consecration, is wholly unmixed with all dissimilarity, yet it imparts to each, according to worth, of its own light, and perfects them in a most divine consecration, in accordance with the harmoniously unvarying conformation of those being perfected to itself.

The aim of hierarchy, then, is assimilation to God and union with him, so far as is possible, having him as the guide of all sacred knowledge and activity; and gazing unswervingly toward his most divine comeliness, and being stamped after it so far as possible, and rendering its own initiates divine images, mirrors most translucent and unstained, receptive of the originating-light and divine ray, sacredly filled with the splendor given to them, and again shining this forth ungrudgingly upon the things that follow, according to the divine ordinances.

For it is not lawful for those who perform the sacred rites, or for those sacredly being perfected, to do anything whatever contrary to the sacred orderings of their own consecrating source; nor indeed can it be otherwise, if they aspire to the deifying splendor of that source, and look toward it in a manner befitting the sacred, and are stamped after it according to the proportion of each of the sacred intelligences.

Therefore, whoever speaks of hierarchy indicates, generally, a certain sacred ordering, an image of the divine loveliness, which in hierarchic orders and knowledges sacredly performs the mysteries of its own illumination, and is assimilated, so far as is lawful, to its own principle.

…[each, according to its] proportion, to be led up to the imitation of God, and—what is indeed most divine of all—as the Scriptures say, to become “a fellow-worker with God,” and to display the divine activity manifesting itself in oneself so far as possible.

For example, since it is an order of hierarchy that some be purified and others purify, some be illumined and others illumine, some be perfected and others perform the perfecting, the imitation of God will be fitting to each in the following manner.

The divine blessedness—to speak in human terms—is unmixed with all dissimilarity, full of eternal light, perfect and lacking in no perfection; purifying and illumining and perfecting; or rather, it is itself purification and illumination and perfection, beyond purification, beyond light, the pre-perfect Source of all consecration, the cause of all hierarchy, and exalted above every sacred thing in surpassing transcendence.

It is necessary, therefore, as I think, that those being purified be rendered wholly unmixed and freed from all dissimilar commingling; that those being illumined be filled with the divine light, led up to the contemplative habit and power with the wholly pure eyes of the mind; that those being perfected, transferred from the imperfect, become partakers of the perfecting knowledge of the sacred things contemplated; that the purifiers, in superabundance of purification, impart to others their own purity; that the illuminators, as more translucent intelligences, fitted for the reception and the imparting of light, and most blessedly filled with the sacred radiance, channel the light overflowing upon them in every way unto those worthy of light; and that the perfecters, as knowledgeable in the imparting of perfection, perfect those being perfected by the all-sacred initiation of the knowledge of the sacred things contemplated.

Therefore each order of the hierarchic ordering is led up, according to its own proportion, toward the divine cooperation, accomplishing by grace and God-given power those things that are present to the Godhead naturally and supernaturally, and are wrought by it superessentially, and are revealed hierarchically for the attainable imitation of the God-loving intelligences.

Now that the hierarchy itself, whatever it may be, has, as I think, been well defined by us, we must next hymn the angelic hierarchy and contemplate with supercosmic eyes its sacred formings in the Scriptures, so that we may be led up to their most godlike simplicity through the mystical fashionings, and may hymn the source of all hierarchic knowledge with God-befitting reverence and with thanksgivings befitting the source of consecration.

First of all, this must be said truly: that by goodness the superessential Godhead, having established all the substances of beings, brought them forth into being.

For this is proper to the cause of all and to the goodness that is beyond all: to call beings into communion with itself, as is determined for each of beings according to its own proportion.

All beings, then, participate in providence, which wells forth from the superessential and all-causing Godhead.

For they would not be, had they not partaken of the substance and principle of beings.

All inanimate things, then, participate in it by being (for being is of all things the Godhead that is beyond being); living things participate in its life-giving power that is beyond all life; rational and intellectual things participate in its self-perfect and pre-perfect wisdom that is beyond all reason and mind.

…[things that are simply] in being, and things living irrationally, and the rational beings like ourselves, have come to be in participation of the divine imparting.

For [the heavenly beings], intelligibly stamping themselves toward the imitation of God, and looking supercosmically toward the divine resemblance, and desiring to form their intellectual aspect, reasonably possess more ungrudging communions with it; being ever-proximate and ever stretched up toward what is above, as is lawful, in the intensity of divine and unswerving love, and receiving the originating illuminations immaterially and unmixedly, and being ranged toward them, and having their whole life intellectual.

These, then, are the ones who first and in manifold ways come to be in participation of the divine, and who first and in manifold ways are revelatory of the divine hiddenness; wherefore also, beyond all, they have been deemed worthy, in a select manner, of the angelic appellation, because the divine illumination comes to be in them first, and through them are conveyed to us the revelations that are above us.

Thus, then, the Law, as theology says, was given to us through angels; and angels led up to the divine our renowned fathers both before the Law and after the Law—either by introducing to them what should be done, and leading them over from error and unholy life to the straight way of truth, or by prophetically revealing sacred orderings, or the hidden visions of supercosmic mysteries, or certain divine foretellings.

But if anyone should say that theophanies have also been granted immediately and directly to certain of the saints, let him learn this too clearly from the most sacred Scriptures: that what the hidden thing of God itself is, no one has ever seen nor shall see; but theophanies have come to the holy ones in a manner befitting God, through certain sacred visions proportionate to those who behold them.

And all-wise theology rightly calls that vision—which displayed in itself, as inscribed therein, the divine likeness in the forming of the formless—a theophany, by reason of the leading up of the beholders toward the divine; since through it a divine illumination comes to be in those who behold, and they are sacredly initiated into something of the divine things themselves.

And our renowned fathers were initiated into these divine visions through the mediation of the heavenly powers.

Or does not the tradition of the Scriptures say that the sacred legislation of the Law was indeed granted directly from God to Moses, that it might truly instruct us that it is a representation of the divine and sacred ordering—and yet theology also clearly teaches this, that it came forth to us through angels, as though the God-ordained order legislated this very thing: that the second things should be led up to the divine through the first?

For not only in the case of the higher and lower intelligences, but also among those of equal rank, has this law been ordained by the superessential ordering-principle of all things: that in each hierarchy there be first and middle and last orders and powers, and that the more divine be initiators and hand-leaders of the lesser toward the divine approach and illumination and communion.

And I see that even the divine mystery of Jesus’ love for mankind was first revealed to angels, and then through them the grace of this knowledge passed over to us.

Thus the most divine Gabriel led Zacharias the priest into the mystery that the child to be born to him, against hope, by divine grace, should become a prophet of the manly divine work of Jesus, which was to appear to the world in a manner befitting goodness and salvation; and led Mary into the mystery how the divine mystery of the ineffable God-forming should come to be in her.

But I will lift up my eyes also to the most exalted light-manifestations of the Scriptures.

For I see that even Jesus himself, the superessential cause of the supraheavenly beings, having come unchangeably to our condition, does not draw back from the human-befitting good order appointed and chosen by him, but obediently submits himself to the dispositions of the Father and God made through angels; and through their mediation there is announced to Joseph the withdrawal of the Son into Egypt as ordered by the Father, and again the return from Egypt into Judaea; and through angels we see him being set under the Father’s ordinances.

For I forbear to speak—to you who know the things made known in our priestly traditions—both concerning the angel who strengthened Jesus, and that Jesus himself, according to our saving good work, having come into the revelatory order, was proclaimed “Angel [Messenger] of great counsel.”

For, as he himself says in a manner befitting an angel-messenger, “Whatever I have heard from the Father, I have announced to you.”

This, then, is, in our view, the reason for the angelic appellation in the Scriptures. But we must, I think, inquire for what cause the theologians call all the heavenly beings together “angels,” yet, when they come to the revelation of their supercosmic orderings, name properly “angelic” the order that completes, as a finishing rank, the divine and heavenly hosts.

Before this they rank, in a higher position, the archangelic orderings, and the principalities and the authorities and the powers, and all those beings surpassing these which the revelatory traditions of the Scriptures recognize.

And we say that, in every sacred ordering, the higher orders possess also the illuminations and powers of the lower orderings, but the last do not possess those of the ones above them.

The most holy orders of the highest beings, then, the theologians also call “angels.”

For these too are revelatory of the divine illumination.

But there is no reason to name the last order of the heavenly intelligences “principalities” or “thrones” or “Seraphim.”

For it does not participate in the highest powers; but just as this last order leads up our inspired hierarchs toward the radiances of the Godhead known to it, so too the all-sacred powers of the beings before it are anagogic toward the divine—I mean the powers of that ordering which completes the angelic hierarchies—unless indeed one should also say this: that all the angelic appellations are common, according to the communion of all the heavenly powers in the godlike and in the gift of light from God, a communion that is at once subordinate and preeminent.

But that our discourse may be the more clearly distinguished, let us sacredly behold the holiness-befitting properties revealed in the Scriptures of each heavenly ordering.

…[each ordering’s] own powers and illuminations, and their own sacred and supercosmic good order.

For it is impossible for us to know the mysteries of the supraheavenly intelligences and their most holy perfectings, except insofar as someone might say [we know] what the Godhead has initiated us into through them, as those who well know their own affairs.

Therefore we shall say nothing of our own motion.

But whatever of the angelic visions has been contemplated by the sacred theologians, this, having been initiated, we shall set forth as far as we are able.

Theology has called all the heavenly beings by nine revelatory appellations.

These our divine hierarch (initiator) divides into three triadic orderings.

And he says that the first is that which is ever around God, and immediately proximate to him, and which is handed down as having been united to him directly, before the others.

For the revelation of the sacred Scriptures, he says, hands down that the most holy Thrones and the many-eyed and many-winged orders—named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim—are established immediately around God, by reason of their nearness, which surpasses all.

This triadic ordering, then, our renowned guide called one and of equal rank and truly the first hierarchy, than which there is no other more godlike, nor any more immediately proximate to the first-working illuminations of the Godhead; and he says that the second is that completed by the Authorities and Dominions and Powers, and the third, at the lowest of the heavenly hierarchies, the ordering of the Angels and Archangels and Principalities.

Accepting this ordering of the holy hierarchies, we say that every appellation of the heavenly intelligences indicates the godlike property of each.

And the holy appellation of the Seraphim, those who know Hebrew say, signifies either “the enkindlers” or “the warmers”; and that of the Cherubim, “fullness of knowledge” or “outpouring of wisdom.”

Reasonably, then, the first of the heavenly hierarchies is consecrated by the highest beings, having the order more exalted than all, by being established immediately around God, and by the first-working theophanies and perfectings being conveyed to it, as the nearest, in a more originating manner.

They are named, accordingly, “Warmers,” and “Thrones,” and “Outpouring of wisdom,” by a name revelatory of their godlike states.

…both firmly established, and receptive of the divine visitation in all impassibility and immateriality, and God-bearing, and ministerially open toward the divine receptions.

This, then, is the revelation, as in our view, of their names.

But we must say what we hold their hierarchy to be.

For I think it has already been sufficiently said by us that the aim of every hierarchy is unwaveringly to depend upon the God-imitating godlikeness, and that every hierarchic operation is divided into a sacred participation in, and an imparting of, unmixed purification and divine light and perfecting knowledge.

Now I pray to speak worthily of the highest intelligences, how their hierarchy is revealed through the Scriptures.

To the first beings, which, established after the Godhead that gives them their being, and ranged as it were in its forecourt, surpass every created power, invisible and visible, we must hold the hierarchy to be proper to them and wholly of one kind.

We must, then, hold them to be pure, not as freed from unholy stains and defilements, nor as incapable of material imaginings, but as being unmixedly higher than all descent, and established above every lower sacred thing according to their supreme purity; firmly cleaving, unswervingly, to their own ever-moving and self-moving order, in accordance with their God-loving immutability; and not knowing at all any lessening toward the worse, but ever possessing the unfailing and immovable, most unmixed establishment of their own godlike property.

We must again hold them to be contemplative, not as beholders of perceptible symbols or of intellectual ones, nor as led up to the divine by the variety of sacred-written contemplation, but as filled with a light higher than all immaterial knowledge, and filled, so far as is lawful, with the contemplation of the superessential and thrice-shining beauty—source of beauty and originating beauty; and as likewise deemed worthy of communion with Jesus, not by stamping the deifying likeness representationally in sacredly fashioned images, but as truly drawing near to him in a first participation of the knowledge of his deifying lights; and, moreover, that the imitation of God has been granted to them most exaltedly, and that they share, so far as is attainable for them, in first-working power, in his deifying and man-loving virtues.

And likewise they are perfected, not as illumined with an analytic knowledge of the sacred variety, but as filled with a first and surpassing deification, according to that highest knowledge of the divine works possible among angels.

For not through other holy beings, but consecrated by the Godhead itself, by being stretched up immediately toward it with the power and order surpassing all, they are established toward the all-pure and the in-every-way unswerving, and are led, so far as is lawful, to the immaterial and intelligible comeliness for contemplation; and they are initiated, as the first and those around God, into the knowledgeable principles of the divine works, being consecrated most exaltedly by the very Source of consecration itself.

This, then, the theologians clearly indicate: that the lower orderings of the heavenly beings are taught the divine sciences in good order by those that surpass them, while those higher than all are illumined with the initiations, so far as is lawful, by the Godhead itself.

Jesus himself initiates these immediately, and as first-giver reveals to them his man-loving beneficence.

“For I,” he says, “speak righteousness and the judgment of salvation.” And I marvel that even the first of the supraheavenly beings, so far surpassing all, reverently aspire to the divine illuminations as intermediaries.

Therefore the first hierarchy of the heavenly intelligences, being consecrated by the very Source of consecration—by being stretched up immediately toward it—is filled in proportion to itself with the most holy purification of the boundless light, of the pre-perfect consummation, and is purified and illumined and perfected, being rendered unmixed with all descent, full of the first light, and a partaker of first-given knowledge and science.

And summing up, I would say, not unreasonably, that the reception of the divine knowledge is purification and illumination and perfection: purifying, as it were, from ignorance by the knowledge of the more perfect initiations imparted according to order; illumining by that very divine knowledge through which it also purifies the one who had not before contemplated the things now revealed through the higher illumination; and perfecting, again, by that same light, with the abiding knowledge of the most luminous initiations.

This, then, in my understanding, is the first ordering of the heavenly beings, which stands “in a circle around God” and immediately about God, and simply and unceasingly dances around his eternal knowledge, according to its most exalted, ever-moving establishment as among angels; beholding purely many and blessed contemplations, illumined with simple and immediate brightnesses, and filled with divine nourishment—abundant by the first-given outpouring, yet one by the unvaried and unifying oneness of the divine feasting; deemed worthy of much communion with God and cooperation by its assimilation, so far as attainable, to him in the beautiful states and activities; knowing many of the divine things in a transcendent manner, and coming to be in participation, so far as is lawful, of the divine science and knowledge.

For some of them, to speak in perceptible terms, cry aloud “as the voice of many waters”: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place”; while others cry out that much-hymned and most venerable theology: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

…extending even to the ends of the earth its most good providence over all beings, as the supra-originating principle and cause of every being, and grasping all things superessentially in an unrestrained embrace.

But we must now pass on to the middle ordering of the heavenly intelligences, beholding with supercosmic eyes, so far as is attainable, those Dominions and the truly powerful spectacles of the divine Authorities and Powers.

For each appellation of the beings above us manifests their God-imitating properties of godlikeness.

Of the holy Dominions, then, I think the revelatory name signifies a certain unenslaved elevation, free of all servile abasement, in no way and by no manner bowed down to any of the tyrannical dissimilarities; itself, in a freedom-befitting manner, as an inexorable Dominion superior to all diminishing servility, unyielding to every descent, and exalted above all dissimilarity; ceaselessly aspiring to true dominion and lordship, and shaping, so far as is attainable, both itself and the things after it in a good-formed manner toward its own lordly resemblance; turned not toward any of the things that seem so at random, but wholly toward the truly Existent, and ever coming to be in participation, so far as is possible for it, of the lordly godlikeness.

And of the holy Powers, [the name signifies] a certain manly and unshaken courage in all their godlike activities, in no way feebly weakening toward the reception of the divine illuminations imparted to it, but powerfully led up toward the imitation of God, not forsaking through unmanliness its godlike movement, but unswervingly gazing upon the superessential and power-bestowing Power, and becoming, so far as attainable, a power-like image of it, and turned powerfully toward it as toward the originating Power, while proceeding in a power-bestowing and godlike manner toward the things below.

And of the holy Authorities, of equal rank with the divine Dominions and Powers, [the name signifies] the well-ordered and unconfused good order with respect to the divine receptions, and the orderliness of the supercosmic and intellectual authoritativeness, which does not tyrannically misuse the authoritative powers toward the worse, but is unrestrainedly led up in good order toward the divine, and leads up the things after it in a good-formed manner; and is assimilated, so far as is lawful, to the authority-bestowing Source of authority, and makes this shine forth, so far as possible among angels, in the well-ordered ranks of the authoritative power that are proper to it.

Possessing these godlike properties, the middle ordering of the heavenly intelligences is purified and illumined and perfected in the manner described, by the divine illuminations imparted to it secondarily through the first hierarchic ordering, and conveyed in a second-manifest manner through that middle one.

Indeed, the saying that a thing said by one angel passes through to another, we shall make a symbol of the perfecting accomplished from afar and dimmed, by reason of the procession, into a secondary stage.

For as those skilled in our sacred rites say that the self-appearing fillings of the divine things are more perfect than the God-beholding participations had through others, so too, I think, among the angelic orders, the immediate participation of those stretched up to God in the first rank is more vivid than the things accomplished through mediation.

…[the first ranks themselves] being led up to the superessential Source of all, and coming to be in participation, so far as is lawful for them, of the consecrating-source-given purifications and illuminations and perfectings.

For this is universally, in a manner befitting God, decreed by the divine ordering-principle: that the second things partake of the divine illuminations through the first.

And you will find this revealed by the theologians in many places.

For when the divine and fatherly love for mankind, having instructed Israel correctively for its sacred salvation, and having delivered it up to punishing and untamed nations for its amendment, by every kind of leading-over of those for whom it provided toward the better, both released it from captivity and graciously led it back to its former well-being—one of the theologians, Zacharias, sees one of the first and, as I think, of the angels around God (for, as I said, the angelic appellation is common to all), having learned from God himself the consolatory words concerning this, as has been said; and another, one of the lower angels, going forth to meet the first as toward the reception and sharing of illumination; and then, being initiated by the first into the divine counsel, as by a hierarch, and entrusted with initiating the theologian: that “Jerusalem shall be inhabited abundantly, by reason of the multitude of men.” And another of the theologians, Ezekiel, says that this was all-sacredly decreed by the supremely glorious Godhead enthroned upon the Cherubim.

For, as has been said, leading Israel over toward the better by fatherly love through instruction, it deemed it just, with a God-befitting righteousness, that the guiltless should give judgment concerning the guilty.

This is first initiated, after the Cherubim, by the one girded about the loins with sapphire, who had put on the full-length robe, after a hierarchic symbol; and the divine ordering-principle commands the rest of the angels, who held the axes, to be initiated by the former one into the divine judgment concerning this.

There remains for our sacred contemplation the ordering that closes the angelic hierarchies, the one ordered by the godlike Principalities and Archangels and Angels.

And I think it necessary first to state, so far as is possible for me, the revelations of the holy appellations of these.

…[the property of the holy Principalities is] to lead in a princely (originating) manner, and to be stamped, so far as possible, after that very Principle which makes principles, and to manifest its superessential ordering-rule by the princely good order of the powers.

And the order of the holy Archangels is of equal rank with the heavenly Principalities.

For there is, as I said, one hierarchy and ordering of them and of the Angels.

But since there is no hierarchy without first and middle and last powers, the holy order of the Archangels, sharing in the hierarchic middle position, partakes of the extremes.

For it shares both with the most holy Principalities and with the holy Angels: with the former, in that it is turned in a princely manner toward the superessential Principle, and is stamped after it so far as is attainable, and unifies the Angels according to its well-ordered and ranked and invisible governances; with the latter, in that it is also of the revelatory order, receiving the divine illuminations hierarchically through the first powers, and announcing them to the Angels in a good-formed manner, and through Angels manifesting them to us, according to the sacred proportion of each of those divinely illumined.

For the Angels, as we have already said before, complete, as a finishing rank, the whole orderings of the heavenly intelligences, possessing—at the last, as among heavenly beings—the angelic property, and being more properly named “angels” by us than the former ones, inasmuch as their hierarchy is concerned with the more manifest and is more world-related.

For the highest ordering, as has been said, being in the first rank near the Hidden, we must hold to be hierarch over the second in a hidden manner; and the second, which is completed by the holy Dominions and Powers and Authorities, leads the hierarchy of the Principalities and Archangels and Angels—more manifestly than the first hierarchy, but in a more hidden manner than the one after it; and the revelatory ordering of the Principalities and Archangels and Angels presides, through one another, over the human hierarchies, so that there may be, in good order, the ascent toward God and the conversion and communion and union, and indeed also the procession, graciously imparted by God to all the hierarchies, and communally visiting them with most sacred good order.

Hence theology has assigned our hierarchy to angels, naming Michael ruler of the people of the Jews, and others of other nations.

“For the Most High set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.” But if someone should say—

and how was it that the people of the Hebrews alone were led up to the divine illuminations?

—we must answer that it is not the upright presidings of the angels that should be blamed for the straying of the other nations after gods that are not, but those very nations themselves, who by their own inclinations fell away from the upright ascent toward the divine, through self-love and willfulness and the proportionate veneration of the things that seemed to them God-befitting.

This the very people of the Hebrews are witnessed to have suffered.

For, it says, “You have thrust away the knowledge of God, and have walked behind your own heart.”

For we do not have a constrained life; nor, because of the self-determination of those for whom providence cares, are the divine lights of the providential illumination dimmed; but the dissimilarity of the intellectual eyes makes the overflowing gift of light from the fatherly goodness either wholly unparticipated and, by reason of their resistance, unimparted, or makes the participations diverse—small or great, dim or bright—of the one and simple and ever-selfsame and super-unified source-ray.

From which considerations we too have lifted up our eyes to the boundless and ungrudging sea of the divine light, ever ready and open for imparting to all; no alien gods presided, but there was one Source of all, and toward this the angels who hierarchically presided over each nation led up those who followed. We must conceive Melchizedek as a most God-loving hierarch, not of those who are not, but of the truly Existent, the Most High God.

For indeed the divinely wise theologians have called Melchizedek not simply God-loving, but also a priest, that to the prudent they might clearly manifest that not only was he himself turned toward the truly Existent God, but moreover that he led others also, as a hierarch, in the ascent toward the true and only Godhead.

For there is one Source and providence of all; and we must in no way suppose that the Godhead presides over the Jews in a partial manner, while angels in a private capacity, or on equal terms, or in opposition, or certain other gods, preside over the rest of the nations; but that saying too must be understood according to this sacred sense—not as though God had divided with other gods or angels the rule over us, and apportioned Israel to himself for an ethnarch and leader of a nation, but rather that, while the one Most High providence of all distributed all men salvifically by the uplifting hand-leadings of their own angels, almost Israel alone, beyond all, was turned toward the light-giving and the knowledge of the truly Lord.

Hence theology, manifesting that Israel apportioned itself to the service of the truly Existent God, says, “He became the Lord’s portion”; and indicating that he too, equally with the rest of the nations, was assigned to one of the holy angels, in order that through him he might recognize the one Source of all, it said that Michael rules over the people of the Jews—clearly teaching us that there is one providence of the whole, superessentially established above all the invisible and visible powers, and that all the angels presiding over each nation lift up, so far as they have power, those who willingly follow toward it as their own Source.

And all are revelatory, even the Angels, of those before them: the most senior, of God who moves them; and proportionately the rest, of those moved from God.

For the all-superessential harmony provided so greatly for the sacred good order and the orderly ascent of each of the rational and intellectual beings, that it established for each of the hierarchies also their God-befitting ranks.

And we see every hierarchy divided into first and middle and last powers; but it has also distinguished each particular ordering, so to speak, by these same inspired harmonies.

And I would add this too, not unreasonably: that each heavenly and human intelligence, in itself, possesses its own particular first and middle and last orders and powers, manifested proportionately for the proper ascents, befitting each, of the hierarchic illuminations spoken of; according to which each comes to be in participation, so far as is lawful and attainable for it, of the most pure purification, of the over-full light, of the pre-perfect perfecting.

For there is nothing self-perfect, or wholly without need of perfection, except the truly Self-perfect and Pre-perfect.

Now that these things have been determined, it is worth considering for what cause we are accustomed to call all the angelic beings together “heavenly powers.”

For it is not possible to say of the angels, as one might, that the last ordering of all is that of the holy Powers, and that the orderings of the higher beings partake of the holiness-befitting illumination of the last, while the last in no way partake of that of the first; and for this reason all the divine intelligences are named “heavenly powers,” but never “Seraphim” or “Thrones” or “Dominions.”

For the last do not partake of the total properties of the highest.

For the Angels, and before the Angels the Archangels and Principalities and Authorities—ranked by theology after the Powers—are often called by us in common, together with the other holy beings, “heavenly powers.”

And we say that, in using the appellation of “heavenly powers” in common for all, we do not introduce any confusion of the properties of each ordering; but since, by the supercosmic principle that concerns them, all the divine intelligences are divided into three—into being and power and activity—whenever we call all of them, or some, indiscriminately “heavenly beings” or “heavenly powers,” we must hold that we are manifesting periphrastically those of whom the discourse treats, from the being or power of each of them.

For we must not attach the higher property of the holy Powers—already well distinguished by us—wholly to the lower beings as well, to the overturning of the unconfused ordering-rule of the angelic orders.

For according to the principle often rightly rendered by us, the higher orderings possess abundantly also the sacred properties of the lower, but the last do not possess in a total manner the higher wholenesses of their seniors, since the first-manifest illuminations are conveyed to them only partially, through the first, in proportion to themselves.

This too is inquired into by the lovers of the intelligible Scriptures:

For if the last beings do not partake of the higher wholenesses, for what cause is our hierarch named by the Scriptures “Angel of the Lord Almighty”?

But the saying is not contrary, as I think, to what has been determined before.

For we say that the last fall short of the total and higher power of the orderings of their seniors.

For they partake of the partial and proportionate [power], according to the one harmonious and connective communion of all.

For example, the order of the holy Cherubim partakes of higher wisdom and knowledge; and the orderings of the beings beneath them likewise partake of wisdom and knowledge, but partially in comparison with those, and in a lower manner. And to be in participation of wisdom and knowledge at all is common to all the godlike among the intellectual beings; but to do so proximately and primarily, or secondarily, and in a lower manner, is no longer common, but is determined for each according to its own proportion.

And one would not err in determining this also concerning all the divine intelligences.

For just as the first possess abundantly the holiness-befitting properties of the lower, so the last possess those of the former—yet not in like manner, but in a lower manner.

There is nothing absurd, then, as I think, if theology also calls our hierarch an “angel,” since he partakes, according to his own power, of the revelatory property of the angels, and is stretched up, so far as is attainable for men, toward their revelatory likeness.

And you will find that theology calls “gods” both the heavenly beings above us and the most God-loving and sacred men among us—although the divine hiddenness is superessentially exalted above and established above all things, and nothing of beings can properly and totally be named as resembling it.

Except that, insofar as any of the intellectual and rational beings is wholly turned, so far as it has power, toward union with it, and is ceaselessly stretched up, so far as is attainable, toward its divine illuminations, by its God-imitation according to its power—if it is lawful to say so—it has been deemed worthy also of the divine namesake.

Come, then, let us also consider this, so far as we have power: for what reason a Seraph is said to be sent to one of the theologians.

For one might be perplexed that it is not one of the lower angels, but he himself who is numbered among the most senior beings, who purifies the prophet.

Some, then, say that, according to the principle already laid down concerning the communion of all the intelligences, the Scripture does not mean that one of the foremost intelligences around God came for the purification of the theologian; but that one of the angels set over us was called, as the performer of the prophet’s purification, by the namesake of the Seraphim, on account of the fiery removal of the sins spoken of, and the rekindling of the one purified toward the divine obedience; and they say that the Scripture said simply “one of the Seraphim,” not of those established around God, but of the purifying powers set over us.

But another offered me a not at all absurd defense concerning the present objection.

…he ascribed [the purification] to the first-working hierarchy.

And perhaps this account does after all hold true.

For the one who said this declared that the divine power, ranging over all things, advances and penetrates unrestrainedly through all, and is yet again invisible to all—not only as superessentially exalted above all, but also as secretly extending over all things its providential activities.

But moreover it also appears proportionately to all the intellectual beings, and, entrusting its own gift of light to the most senior beings as the first, it distributes it through them, in good order, to those below them, according to the God-beholding commensurateness of each ordering.

Or, that I may say it more clearly and by means of proper examples—even if they fall short of God who is exalted above all, yet are more manifest to us:

the diffusion of the sun’s ray passes easily-imparted into the first matter, which is more translucent than all, and through it shines forth its own brightnesses more manifestly; but striking the denser materials, it has a dimmer imparting brilliance, by reason of the unsuitability of the illumined materials for the disposition that conveys the gift of light; and from this, little by little, it is drawn together to the point of being almost wholly unimpartable.

Again, the heat of fire imparts itself more to the more receptive things, and to those pliant and easily led toward assimilation to it; but toward resistant or contrary substances either no trace, or a dim trace, of its enkindling activity appears.

And what is more than this: that it strikes the non-kindred things through those that are proper to it—first, if it so happens, making fiery the things easily altered toward enkindling, and through these proportionately warming either water or some other of the things not easily kindled.

According to this same principle of natural good order, then, in a supernatural manner, the ordering-rule of all good order, visible and invisible, manifests the splendor of its own gift of light first-manifestly, in most blessed outpourings, upon the highest beings, and through these the beings after them partake of the divine ray.

For these, having first recognized God and exaltedly aspired to divine virtue, have been deemed worthy to become the first-working of the God-imitating power and activity, so far as is attainable; and they stretch up the beings after them, so far as they have power, toward the like emulation, in a good-formed manner, ungrudgingly imparting to them of the splendor that has visited them; and again those impart to the lower ones; and at each step the first imparts to the one after it of the divine light which is bestowed and which passes through to all proportionately by providence.

There is, then, for all the things illumined, a principle of being illumined: God, by nature and truly and properly, as the substance of light and the cause of being itself and of seeing; but by position and in a God-imitating manner, each higher being, partially, [is a principle] for the one after it, in that the divine lights are channeled through it into that one.