The Works Of Dionysius The Areopagite - Volume 2

THE WORKS
OF
DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE.

PART II.

THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY,
AND
THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH,
FROM THE ORIGINAL GREEK,
BY THE
REV. JOHN PARKER, M.A.,

Author of

“Christianity Chronologically Confirmed.” &c.

James Parker and Co,
6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET, STRAND, LONDON;
AND 27 BROAD-STREET, OXFORD.
1899.

DEDICATION

TO

THE MEMORY OF

EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY,

THEOLOGIAN

OF THE

CHURCH OF BRITAIN.

BOOKS TO BE READ

1st. “The doctrine of the Lord, through the Twelve Apostles, to the Gentiles.” Spence, Nisbet.

2nd. “The Apostolic Constitutions.” Lagarde. Williams and Norgate, 1862.

3rd. “Coptic Constitutions.” Lagarde. Tattam, 1845,

4th. Justin Martyr—for Liturgy.

5th. Hippolitus, “Refutation of all heresies.” Duncker. Göttingen, 1859.

6th. Hierocles on “Golden Verses” of Pythagoras. Roger Daniel. London, 1654.

7th. “Ecclesiastical History (in Greek) from establishment of the Church to our own time.” By Professor Kyriakos. Athens, 1898.

8th. “St. Denys, l’Areopagite, premier Evèque de Paris.” Darras, 1863. Vives, Paris.

9th. Gale’s “Court of the Gentiles.” Hall, Oxon, 1672.

10th. Dexter’s Chronicle. Migne, T. 31.

11th. Monuments inédits. Faillon.

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE
AND
THE ALEXANDRINE SCHOOL.

ALEXANDRIA became the home of Christian Philosophy, but Athens was its birthplace. Pantaenus and Ammonius-Saccus were chief founders of the Alexandrine School. They were both Christian. They both drew their teaching from the Word of God, “ the Fountain of Wisdom,” and from the writings of Hierotheus, and Dionysius the Areopagite—Bishops of Athens. For several centuries there had been a Greek preparation for the Alexandrine School. As the Old Testament was a Schoolmaster, leading to Christ, so the Septuagint, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristobulus, Philo, and Apollos were heralds who prepared the minds of men for that fulness of light and truth in Jesus Christ, which, in Alexandria, clothed itself in the bright robes of Divine Philosophy.

Pantaenus was born in Athens, a.d. 120, and died in Alexandria, a.d. 213. He was Greek by nationality, and Presbyter of the Church in, Alexandria by vocation. First, Stoic, then Pythagorean, he became Christian some time before a.d. 186, at which date he was appointed chief instructor in the Didaskeleion, by Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria. Pantaenus recognised the preparation for the Christian Faith in the Greek Philosophy. Anastasius-Sinaita describes him as “one of the early expositors who agreed with each other in treating the first six days of Creation as prophetic of Christ and the whole Church.”

Eusebius says, that “Pantaenus expounded the treasures of the Divine dogmas preserved direct, as from father to son, from St. Paul and other Apostles. Phptius records that Pantaenus was pupil of those who had seen the Apostles, but that he certainly had not listened to any of them themselves. Now, if Pantaenus was pupil of those who had seen the Apostles, and yet had, not listened to their oral teaching, it is natural to infer that he was pupil through their writings. I am a pupil of Dr. Pusey, but I never listened to his oral teaching; I am pupil through his writings. Now, there exist, to this day, the writings of two Presbyters who had seen the Apostles—both, converts to the faith through St. Paul,—-whose writings contain the treasures of the Divine dogmas, received from St. Paul and the other Apostles. Those two Presbyters are Hierotheus and Dionysius the Areopagite, both ordained Bishop of Athens by St. Paul. Dionysius the Areopagite expressly calls, St. Paul his “chief initiator,” and as such, gives his teaching on the holy Angels, in the sixth chapter of the Heavenly Hierarchy; and frequently describes St. Paul as his “chief instructor.”

If, then, we can prove that the writings of Dionysius existed before and were known in Alexandria, when Pantaenus delivered his lectures in that city, we may fairly infer that Pantaenus would know, and knowing, would use, the writings penned by the Chief of his own Areopagus, and Bishop of his own Athens.

Historical criticism does not permit us to reject probabilities, merely because they confirm the Christian Faith.

Dexter, in his Chronicle, collected from the Archives of Toledo and other churches in Spain, gives this testimony:—

“U.C. 851 (a.d. 98). Dionysius Areopagita dicat Eugenio Marcello, dicto, propter ingenii excellentiam, Timotheo, libros de Divinis Nominibus.”

Dionysius of Alexandria, writing to Tope Sixtus II., c. 250, respecting the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, affirms “that no one can intelligently dispute their paternity—that no one penetrated more profoundly than Dionysius into the mysterious depths of Holy Scripture—that Dionysius was disciple of St. Paul, and piously governed the Church of Athens.” If, then, the Bishops of Alexandria and Rome exchanged letters only a few years after the death of Pantaenus, and only seven years after the death of Ammonius, and in those letters affirmed the writings to be undoubtedly written by Dionysius the Areopagite, it would be the height of absurdity to affirm that such writings were unknown to Pantaenus and Ammonius.

But we do not need to base our proof on mere supposition. Routh gives two fragments of Pantaenus. The second is a distinct echo of Dionysius. In Divine Names (c. 7), Dionysius discusses how Almighty God knows existing things, and explains the text; “He, knowing all things before their birth” as proving that “not as learning existing things from existing things, but from Himself, and in Himself, as Cause, the Divine Being pre-holds and pre-comprehends the notions and essence of all things, not approaching each several thing according to its kind, but knowing and containing all things within one grasp of the cause. Thus Almighty God knows existing things, not by a knowledge of existing things, but by that of Himself.” Dionysius, c. V. s. 8, speaking of creation, declares that the Divine and good volitions of Almighty God define and produce existing things.

Pantaenus teaches the same: “Neither does He know things sensible sensibly (αἰσθητῶς), nor things intelligible intellectually. For it is not possible that He, Who is above all things, should comprehend things being, after things being (κατὰ τα ὄντα), but we affirm that He knows things being” as His own volitions . . . yea, as His own volitions, Almighty God knows things being, since by willing (θέλων), He made all things being.”

In Mystic Theology, c. V., Dionysius says, “Almighty God does not know existing things, qua existing.” The teaching of Ammonius-Saccus is the same; Ammonius uses the word βούλημα, Dionysius and Pantaenus, θελήματα, of God, as Source of Creation. ix

But, though the known fragments of Pantaenus are few, we possess abundant writings of two pupils, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, from which we may gather the teaching of their master. Clement speaks of Pantaenus as his “great instructor and collaborator.” Such is the similarity between the writings of Clement and Dionysius, that some have hazarded the conjecture that Clement the Philosopher, mentioned by Dionysius, was Clement of Alexandria! I give only one familiar illustration. Clement writes: “As then, those riding at anchor at sea, drag the anchor, but do not drag it to themselves, but themselves to the anchor, thus those who are drawn to God in the gnostic life, find themselves unconsciously led to God.” Dionysius, D. N., c. III. s. 1, says, “or, as if after we have embarked on ship, and are holding on to the cable, attached to some rock, we do not draw the rock to us, but ourselves, and the ship, to the rock. Wherefore, before everything, and especially theology, we must begin with prayer; not as though we ourselves were drawing the power, which is everywhere, and nowhere present, but as, by our godly reminiscences and invocations, conducting ourselves to, and making ourselves one with It.”

Origen confessed that Pantaenus was his superior in the philosophy of the schools, and that he moulded his teaching upon the model of Pantaenus. Do the writings of Origen bear the stamp of Dionysius and Hierotheus? Origen, on the resurrection of the body, says, “For how does it not seem absurd xthat this body which has endured scars for Christ, and, equally with the soul, has borne the savage torments of persecutions, and has also endured the suffering of chains, and rods, and has been tortured with fire, beaten with the sword, and has further suffered the cruel teeth of wild beasts, the gallows of the cross, and divers kinds of punishments,—that this should be deprived of the prizes of such contests. If forsooth, the soul alone, which not alone contended, should receive the crown, and its companion the body, which served it with much labour, should attain no recompense, for its agony and victory,—how does it not seem contrary to all reason, that the flesh, resisting for Christ its natural vices, and its innate lust, and guarding its virginity with immense labour,—that one, when the time for rewards has come, should be rejected as unworthy and the other should receive its crown? Such a fact would undoubtedly argue on the part of God, either a lack of justice or a lack of power.” Dionysius (E. H., c. VII.) says, “Now the pure bodies of the holy souls, enrolled together as yoke-fellows, and fellow travellers, which together strove during the divine contests, throughout the Divine Life, in the unmoved steadfastness of the souls, will together receive their own resurrection. For, having been made one with the holy souls, to which they were united during this present life, by having become members of Christ, they will receive in return the godlike and incorruptible immortality and blessed inheritance.” Dionysius (D. N., c. VI. s. 2) says, “what is still more divine, It promises to “transfer our whole selves (I mean souls and bodies, their yoke-fellows), to a perfect life and immortality. Others again do this injustice to bodies, that, after having toiled with the holy souls, they unjustly deprive them of the holy retributions, when they have come to the goal of their most divine course.” “For if the man have passed a life dear to God in soul and body, the body which has contended throughout the Divine struggles will be honoured together with the devout soul.”

To shew that Origen knew the works of Hierotheus, we give an extract from his letter to Gregory: “Would that you might both participate in and continually augment this part, so that you may not only say, ‘we are partakers of Christ,’ but also partakers of God.” Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (fragment V.) says, “the Presbyters, the disciples of the Apostles, say that this is the gradation and method of those who are saved, and that they advance through steps of this nature, and that, moreover, they ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father; and that, in due time, the Son will yield up His work to the Father.” Who the Presbyters, the disciples of the Apostles were, we may gather from the three last chapters of the “Book of Hierotheus,” in which the very same doctrine is taught. Is it not, then, a legitimate inference, that when Photius says “ that Pantaenus was a pupil of the Presbyters who had seen the Apostles,” he designated Hierotheus and Dionysius the Areopagite, generally known under that title?

Ammonius Saccus was born of Christian parents in Alexandria, and died in that city, a.d. 242.

Anastasius Sinaita calls him “the Wise,” and Hierocles, “the taught of God.” Besides being famous for his expositions of Holy Scripture, he wrote the “Diatesseron,” or “Harmony of the Gospels,” contained in the Bib. Patrum. In a.d. 236, he wrote the agreement between Moses and Jesus. He was the great conciliator, who sought the good in every system, and to make all one in Christ. Pressensé beautifully describes him as a man who wished to believe and to know—to adore and to comprehend—to conciliate the Greek Philosophy with the Mysteries of the East. He wrote a commentary on the golden verses of Pythagoras, which Hierocles published, as well as reproduced his other works. The titles of his books, mentioned by Photius, such as “Providence” and “Free Will,” recall those of the lost books of Dionysius, of which we have only a summary in his known works. (Cod. 251-214.)

Ammonius was surnamed Saccus from having been a corn carrier. Virgil, Shakespere, Milton, were great geniuses in themselves, but when we know the sources from which they drew, we can better understand their achievements.

Dionysius was indebted to Hierotheus—Ammonius xiiidrew from Dionysius. This we shall shew, not as we might, by his works as described by Photius, but from Plotinus, his disciple, in order that we may have the prevailing proof, to some minds, of testimony not necessarily Christian.

Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, a.d. 205, and died in Campagna, a.d. 270. At the age of 29, he began to search for truth, in the schools of Alexandria. He wandered from teacher to teacher, but could find no rest until he was persuaded to go and hear Ammonius-Saccus. After listening to him, he exclaimed, “This is what I sought.”

Plotinus remained under him eleven years, until the death of Ammonius, a.d. 242. In a.d. 244, Plotinus began to teach in Rome. Plotinus was not a refined scholar. Porphyry, therefore, committed his teaching to writing. Porphyry was regarded as the greatest enemy to the Christian Faith in the early centuries. Persecutors burned the bodies of Christians, but Porphyry sought to undermine their faith in the Holy Scriptures, by quibbles of unbelief, which have been revived to-day as “New Criticism.” Porphyry wrote against the Holy Scriptures with a bitterness engendered by a conviction of their truth. Now, it is a startling fact, that though the teaching of Plotinus comes to us through Porphyry, there is not a word in the Enneades, in which the teaching of Plotinus is given, against the Christian Faith. It is true that Eutochius published another version of the teaching of Plotinus, on the ground that his teaching was coloured by Porphyry, but we prefer to rest our proof on Porphyry, as not being prejudiced in favour of the truth.

Let us then first see what Plotinus teaches respecting the Holy Trinity. He says, “We need not go beyond the three Hypostaseis” (Persons). It is true that Plotinus presents that Trinity as “One,” “Mind,” and “Soul,” whereas Dionysius gives the formula “Father, Son, and Spirit.” Occasionally Plotinus uses “Logos” instead of “Mind.” But even this substitution of “One” for “Father” may be traced to Dionysius, who speaks of the Triad, ἐναρχικὴ and even ἐναρχικῶν ὑποστὰσεων, “One springing.” The “One” represents the Father. Plotinus says, “We may represent the first principle, ‘One,’ as source, which has no other origin than Itself, and which pours Itself in a multitude of streams without being diminished by what it gives.” Dionysius speaks of the “Father” as sole source of Godhead, and says that “the Godhead is undiminished by the gifts imparted.” In Chap. XII. of Divine Names, Dionysius treats of “One” and “Perfect” as applied to Almighty God.

Let Us now hear Plotinus on the “Beautiful” Enneades (I. 6-7). Plotinus says, “The soul advances in its ascent towards God, until being raised above everything alien, it sees face to face, in His simplicity, and in all His purity, Him upon Whom all hangs, to Whom all aspire; from Whom all hold existence, life and thought. What transport of love must not he feel who sees Him! with what ardour ought he not to desire to be united to Him! He, who has not seen Him, desires Him as the Good; he who has seen Him, admires Him as the sovereign Beauty; and struck at once with astonishment and pleasure, disdains the things which heretofore he called by the name of Beauty. This is what happens to those to whom have appeared the forms of gods and demons;—they no longer care For the beauty of other bodies. What think you, then, should he experience who has seen the Beautiful Himself,—the Beautiful surpassing earth and heaven! The miserable is not he, Who has neither fresh colour nor comely form, nor power, nor royalty; it is alone he, Who sees himself excluded from the possession of Beauty—a possession in comparison with which he ought to disdain royalty, rule of the whole earth, of the sea, and heaven itself, if he should be able, by abandoning, by despising all these, to rise to the contemplation of the Beautiful, face to face.” Plotinus also recognised, “that the eye soiled with impurity could never bear the sight, or attain to the vision of that Beauty. We must render the organs of vision analogous and like to the object that they would contemplate. Every man ought to begin by rendering himself beautiful and divine to obtain a Vision of the Beautiful and the Deity.” Well might St. Augustine say, that “with the change of a few words, Plotinus became concordant with Christ’s religion.” No wonder that Gregory and Basil quoted so largely from Plotinus. Let us now hear what Dionysius says of the “Good and Beautiful”:—“Goodness turns all things to Itself; all things aspire to It, as source and bond and end. From this Beautiful comes being to all existing things. All things aspire to the Beautiful and Good,—and there is no existing thing which does not participate in the Beautiful and Good.” Read the Fourth Chapter of the Divine Names.

Porphyry records that Plotinus attained to that vision of the Beautiful three times during his life. How that vision of the Beautiful is to be attained, Dionysius describes in the “Mystic Theology:”—“But thou, O dear Timothy, by thy persistent commerce with the mystic visions, leave behind both sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all objects of sense and intelligence, and all things not being and being, and be raised aloft agnostically to the union, as attainable, with Him Who is above every essence and knowledge. For by unchecked and absolute extasy, in all purity, from thyself, and all, thou wilt be carried on high to the superessential Ray of the Divine Darkness, when thou hast cast away all and become free from all.” Ammonius had such extasy during his lectures, in which he seemed to have Divine visions.

Plotinus differs from Dionysius in regarding creation as an act of necessity, whereas Dionysius regards it as an act of love. Plotinus treats evil as “an elongation from God.” Dionysius speaks of Almighty God as immanent in matter the most elongated from spirit. Plotinus traces evil to matter; Dionysius to the fallacious choice of a free agent. May it not be that the pagan colouring of Porphyry in these respects led Eutochius to give a more faithful and consistent account of the teaching of Plotinus.

But the crowning proof that Dionysius was the source from which the Alexandrine School drew much of its wisdom, is Proclus (450-485). Suidas affirmed long ago that Proclus cribbed whole passages from Dionysius. Professor Stiglmayr fills seven pages with parallel passages.

Vachérot describes certain chapters of the “Divine Names” as extracts from Proclus, word for word, and says the whole doctrine of Dionysius seems to be a commentary upon the Theology of Alexandria. Barthélémy St. Hilaire says that Dionysius and Scotus Erigena, almost entirely implanted, in the middle age, the doctrine of Neo-Platonism. Matter is more profound; Professor Langen finds in Dionysius the “characteristics of Neo-Platonic speculation.” The similarity of doctrine is denied by none. Which writings appeared first? that is the question.

Dexter commemorates the “Divine Names” a.d. 98.

Polycarp quotes Dionysius verbatim as “a certain one.” Jerome quotes him as “quidam Graecorum.” Dionysius of Alexandria (a.d. 250), writing to Sixtus II., declares that no one can intelligently doubt that the writings are those of Dionysius, the convert of St. Paul, Bishop of Athens. Tertullian, expresses the Agnosia “nihil scire omnia scire,” Origen quotes him by name. Theodore (a.d. 420) answers objections,—whom Photius approved. Gregory calls Dionysius “an ancient and venerable Father.” The Second Council of Nicea quotes the very words, contained in the “Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,” c. I. s. 4, as those of the great Dionysius. Bishop Pearson proves that the best judges in the sixth, fifth, fourth and third centuries regarded the writings as written: by Dionysius the Areopagite. German scholars to-day admit that the external testimony is in favour of their genuineness.

Yet eccentric critics, on account of the precise theology, cannot believe that the works were written; by a learned Greek,—Chief of the Areopagus—who forsook all to follow Christ,—the convert and disciple of St.. Paul,—the familiar friend of St. John and other Apostles, to whom our Saviour revealed the mysteries of the Father; but those critics can believe that an unknown man, whose century no one can fix, and possibly a Syrian, may have gleaned from writers of the first four centuries these theological pearls expressed in Greek in a style unique and always like itself. They can, believe that the Author of these Divine writings, would incorporate, fictitious allusions to persons and events of the apostolic, age, to add lustre to incomparable works, and to impute them to another. They can believe that writings, so composed, were foisted upon a credulous Christendom, so that Dionysius of Alexandria, Maximus, St. John Damascene, and the Council of Nicea, accepted them as the genuine works of Dipnysius. I do not belong to that school. Only unbelief could believe anything so incredible. Rational men will not hazard the surmise that works known in the first century were gleaned from writings composed four hundred years afterwards.

The tone of the Alexandrine School may be further illustrated from Amelius and Dionysius the Sublime. Amelius attended Plotinus twenty-four years as companion and pupil. Eusebius gives an extract from his writings, in which Amelius says, “This plainly was the Word, by Whom, being Eternal, things becoming became, as Heraclitus would say.” It was probably he who said, “the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel ought to be written in gold, and placed in the most conspicuous place in every church.” De Civ. Dei, LX. c. 29. Dionysius, the famous secretary of Zenobia, attended the lectures of Ammonius-Saccus. He was the “arbiter” of all literary questions. He expresses his admiration, De sub. L. 9, of the diction of Moses in the description of the six days’ creation, and numbers St. Paul amongst the most brilliant Greek orators, as a man who propounded a “dogma beyond demonstration.”

We claim that the testimony of these illustrious men, and the extracts from Pantaenus, Ammonius, and their disciples, justify the conclusion that the Alexandrine School was Biblical, Christian, and Philosophical, that its Philosophy was a Divine Philosophy of the Faith, not a pagan philosophy against the Faith, and that the main sources of its Divine Philosophy were the writings of Hierotheus and Dionysius, Bishops of Athens.

JOHN PARKER.

Cannes,
Epiphany, 1899.

For sketch of Life, Internal Evidence of date, and External Testimony to genuineness during first nine centuries, see “Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.” (Skeffington, 2s. 6d.)

ON THE
HEAVENLY HIERARCHY.

CAPUT I.

To my Fellow Presbyter Timothy. Dionysius the Presbyter.

That every divine illumination, whilst going forth lovingly to the objects of its forethought under various forms, remains simplex. Nor is this all. It also unifies the things illuminated.

Section I.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights.”

Further also, every procession of illuminating light, proceeding from the Father, whilst visiting us as a gift of goodness, restores us again gradually as an unifying power, and turns us to the oneness of our conducting Father, and to a deifying simplicity. For all things are from Him, and to Him, as said the Sacred Word.

Section II.

Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, “which lighteth every man coming into 2the world,” “through Whom we have access to the Father,” Source of Light, let us aspire, as far as is attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our fathers in the most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze, as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Minds manifested by them symbolically for our instruction. And when we have received, with immaterial and unflinching mental eyes, the gift of Light, primal and super-primal, of the supremely Divine Father, which manifests to us the most blessed Hierarchies of the Angels in types and symbols, let us then, from it, be elevated to its simple splendour. For it never loses its own unique inwardness, but multiplied and going forth, as becomes its goodness, for an elevating and unifying blending of the objects of its care, remains firmly and solitarily centred within itself in its unmoved sameness; and raises, according to their capacity, those who lawfully aspire to it, and makes them one, after the example of its own unifying Oneness. For it is not possible that the supremely Divine Ray should otherwise illuminate us, except so far as it is enveloped, for the purpose of instruction, in variegated sacred veils, and arranged naturally and appropriately, for such as we are, by paternal forethought.

Section III.

Wherefore, the Divine Institution of sacred Rites, having deemed it worthy of the supermundane imitation of the Heavenly Hierarchies, and having depicted the aforesaid immaterial Hierarchies in material figures and bodily compositions, in order that we might be borne, as far as our capacity permits, from the most sacred pictures to the instructions and similitudes without symbol and without type, transmitted to us our most Holy Hierarchy. For it is not possible for our mind to be raised to that immaterial representation and contemplation of the Heavenly Hierarchies, without using the material guidance suitable to itself, accounting the visiblePs. xix. beauties as reflections of the invisible comeliness; and the sweet odours of the senses as emblems of the spiritual distribution; and the material lights as a likeness of the gift of the immaterial enlightenment; and the detailed sacred instructions, of the feast of contemplation within the mind; and the ranks of the orders here, of the harmonious and regulated habit, with regard to Divine things; and the reception of the most Divine Eucharist, of the partaking of Jesus, and whatever other things were transmitted to Heavenly Beings supermundanely, but to us symbolically.

For the sake, then, of this our proportioned deification, the philanthropic Source of sacred mysteries, by manifesting the Heavenly Hierarchies to us, and constituting our Hierarchy as fellow-ministers with them, through our imitation of their Godlike priestliness, so far as in us lies, described under sensible likeness the supercelestial Minds, in the inspired compositions of the Oracles, in order that It might lead us through the sensible to the intelligible, and from inspired symbols to the simple sublimities of the Heavenly Hierarchies.

CAPUT II.

That Divine and Heavenly things are appropriately revealed, even through dissimilar symbols.

Section I.

It is necessary then, as I think, first to set forth what we think is the purpose of every Hierarchy, and what benefit each one confers upon its followers; and next to celebrate the Heavenly Hierarchies according to their revelation in the Oracles; then following these Oracles, to say in what sacred forms the holy writings of the Oracles depict the celestial orders, and to what sort of simplicity we must be carried through the representations; in order that we also may not, like the vulgar, irreverently think that the heavenly and Godlike minds are certain many-footed and many-faced creatures, or moulded to the brutishness of oxen, or the savage form of lionsIbid., and fashioned like the hooked beaks of eaglesIbid., or the feathery down of birds, and should imagine that there are certain wheels of fire above the heaven, 5or material thrones upon which the Godhead may recline, or certain many-coloured horses, and spear-bearing leaders of the host, and whatever else was transmitted by the Oracles to us under multifarious symbols of sacred imagery.

And indeed, the Word of God artlessly makes use of poetic representations of sacred things, respecting the shapeless minds, out of regard to our intelligence, so to speak, consulting a mode of education proper and natural to it, and moulding the inspired writings for it.

Section II.

But if any one think well to accept the sacred compositions as of things simple and unknown in their own nature, and beyond our contemplation, but thinks the imagery of the holy minds in the Oracles is incongruous, and that all this is, so to speak, a rude scenic representation of the angelic names; and further says that the theologians ought, when they have come to the bodily representation of creatures altogether without body, to represent and display them by appropriate and, as far as possible, cognate figures, taken, at any rate, from our most honoured and immaterial and exalted beings, and ought not to clothe the heavenly and Godlike simple essences with the many forms of the lowest creatures to be found on the earth (for the one would perhaps be more adapted to our instruction, and would not 6 degrade the celestial explanations to incongruous dissimilitudes; but the other both does violence without authority to the Divine powers, and likewise leads astray our minds, through dwelling upon these irreverent descriptions); and perhaps he will also think that the super-heavenly places are filled with certain herds of lions, and troops of horses, and bellowing songs of praise, and flocks of birds, and other living creatures, and material and less honourable things, and whatever else the similitudes of the Oracles, in every respect dissimilar, describe, for a so-called explanation, but which verge towards the absurd, and pernicious, and impassioned; now, in my opinion, the investigation of the truth demonstrates the most sacred wisdom of the Oracles, in the descriptions of the Heavenly Minds, taking forethought, as that wisdom does, wholly for each, so as neither, as one may say, to do violence to the Divine Powers, nor at the same time to enthral us in the grovelling passions of the debased imagery. For any one might say that the cause why forms are naturally attributed to the formless, and shapes to the shapeless, is not alone our capacity which is unable immediately to elevate itself to the intelligible contemplations, and that it needs appropriate and cognate instructions which present images, suitable to us, of the formless and supernatural objects of contemplation; but further, that it is most agreeable to the revealing Oracles to conceal, through mystical and sacred enigmas, and to keep the holy and secret truth respecting the supermundane minds inaccessible to the multitude. For it is not every one that is holy, nor, as the Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all.

Section III.

But if any one should blame the descriptions as being incongruous, by saying that it is shameful to attribute shapes so repugnant to the Godlike and most holy Orders, it is enough to reply that the method of Divine revelation is twofold; one, indeed, as is natural, proceeding through likenesses that are similar, and of a sacred character, but the other, through dissimilar forms, fashioning them into entire unlikeness and incongruity. No doubt, the mystical traditions of the revealing Oracles sometimes extol the august Blessedness of the super-essential Godhead, as Word, and Mind, and Essence, manifesting its God-becoming expression and wisdom, both as really being Origin, and true Cause of the origin of things being, and they describe It as light, and call it life. While such sacred descriptions are more reverent, and seem in a certain way to be superior to the material images, they yet, even thus, in reality fall short of the supremely Divine similitude. For It is above every essence and life. No light, indeed, expresses its character, and every description and mind incomparably fall short of Its similitude.

But at other times its praises are supermundanely sung, by the Oracles themselves, through dissimilar revelations, when they affirm that it is invisible, and 8infinite, and incomprehensible; and when there is signified, not what it is, but what it is not. For this, as I think, is more appropriate to It, since, as the secret and sacerdotal tradition taught, we rightly describe its non-relationship to things created, but we do not know its superessential, and inconceivable, and unutterable indefinability. If, then, the negations respecting things Divine are true, but the affirmations are inharmonious, the revelation as regards things invisible, through dissimilar representations, is more appropriate to the hiddenness of things unutterable. Thus the sacred descriptions of the Oracles honour, and do not expose to shame, the Heavenly Orders, when they make them known by dissimilar pictorial forms, and demonstrate through these their supermundane superiority over all. material things. And I do not suppose that any sensible man will gainsay that the incongruous elevate our mind more than the similitudes; for there is a likelihood, with regard to the more sublime representations of heavenly things, that we should be led astray, so as to think that the Heavenly Beings are certain creatures with the appearance of gold, and certain men with the appearance of light, and glittering like lightning, handsome, clothed in bright shining raiment, shedding forth innocuous flame, and so with regard to all the other shapes and appropriate forms, with which the Word of God has depicted the Heavenly Minds. In order that men might not suffer from this, by 9thinking they are nothing more exalted than their beau tiful appearance, the elevating wisdom of the pious theologians reverently conducts to the incongruous dissimilarities, not permitting our earthly part to rest fixed in the base images, but urging the upward tendency of the soul, and goading it by the unseemliness of the phrases (to see) that it belongs neither to lawful nor seeming truth, even for the most earthly conceptions, that the most heavenly and Divine visions are actually like things so base. Further also this must particularly be borne in mind, that not even one of the things existing is altogether deprived of participation in the beautiful, since, as is evident and the truth of the Oracles affirms, all things are very beautiful.

Section IV.

It is, then, possible to frame in one’s mind good contemplations from everything, and to depict, from things material, the aforesaid dissimilar similitudes, both for the intelligible and the intelligent; since the intelligent hold in a different fashion things which are attributed to things sensible differently. For instance, appetite, in the irrational creatures, takes its rise in the passions, and their movement, which takes the form of appetite, is full of all kinds of unreasonableness. But with regard to the intelligent, we must think of the appetite in another fashion, as denoting, according to my judgment, their manly style, and their determined persistence in their Godlike and unchangeable steadfastness. In like manner we say, with regard to the irrational creatures, that lust is a certain uncircumspect and earthly passionate attachment, arising incontinently from an innate movement, or intimacy in things subject to change, and the irrational supremacy of the bodily desire, which drives the whole organism towards the object of sensual inclination. But when we attribute “lust” to spiritual beings, by clothing them with dissimilar similitudes, we must think that it is a Divine love of the immaterial, above expression and thought, and the inflexible and determined longing for the supernally pure and passionless contemplation, and for the really perpetual and intelligible fellowship in that pure and most exalted splendour, and in the abiding and beautifying comeliness. And 'incontinence’ we may take for the persistent and inflexible, which nothing can repulse, on account of the pure and changeless love for the Divine beauty, and the whole tendency towards the really desired. But with regard to the irrational living beings, or soulless matter, we appropriately call their irrationality and want of sensible perception a deprivation of reason and sensible perception. And with regard to the immaterial and intelligent beings, we reverently acknowledge their superiority, as supermundane beings, over our discursive and bodily reason, and the material perception of the senses which is alien to the incorporeal Minds. It is, then, permissible to depict forms, which are not discordant, to the celestial beings, even from 11portions of matter which are the least honourable, since even it, having had its beginning from the Essentially Beautiful, has throughout the whole range of matter some echoes of the intellectual comeliness; and it is possible through these to be led to the immaterial archetypes—things most similar being taken, as has been said, dissimilarly, and the identities being denned, not in the same way, but harmoniously, and appropriately, as regards the intellectual and sensible beings.

Section V.

We shall find the Mystic Theologians enfolding these things not only around the illustrations of the Heavenly Orders, but also, sometimes, around the supremely Divine Revelations Themselves. At one time, indeed, they extol It under exalted imagery as Sun of Righteousness, as Morning Star rising divinely in the mind, and as Light illuming without veil and for contemplation; and at other times, through things in our midst, as Fire, shedding its innocuous light; as Water, furnishing a fulness of life, and, to speak symbolically, flowing into a belly, and bubbling forth rivers flowing irresistibly; and at other times, from things most remote, as sweet-smelling ointment, as Head Corner-stone. But they also clothe It in forms of wild beasts, and attach to It identity with a Lion, and Panther, and say that it shall be a Leopard, and a rushing BearIbid.. But, I will also add, that which seems to be more dishonourable than all, and the most incongruous, viz. that distinguished theologians have shewn it to us as representing Itself under the form of a worm. Thus do all the godly-wise, and interpreters of the secret inspiration, separate the holy of holies from the uninitiated and the unholy, to keep them undefined, and prefer the dissimilar description of holy things, so that Divine things should neither be easily reached by the profane, nor those who diligently contemplate the Divine imagery rest in the types as though they were true; and so Divine things should be honoured by the true negations, and by comparisons with the lowest things, which are diverse from their proper resemblance. There is then nothing absurd if they depict even the Heavenly Beings under incongruous dissimilar similitudes, for causes aforesaid. For probably not even we should have come to an investigation, from not seeing our way,—not to say to mystic meaning through an accurate enquiry into Divine things,—unless the deformity of the descriptions representing the Angels had shocked us, not permitting our mind to linger in the discordant representations, but rousing us utterly to reject the earthly proclivities, and accustoming us to elevate ourselves through things that are seen, to their supermundane mystical meanings. Let these things suffice to have been said on account of the material and incongruous descriptions of the holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is 13necessary to define what we think the Hierarchy is in itself, and what benefit those who possess a Hierarchy derive; from the same. But let Christ lead the discourse—if it be lawful to me to say—He Who is mine,—the Inspiration of all Hierarchical revelation. And thou, my son, after the pious rule of our Hierarchical tradition, do thou religiously listen to things religiously uttered, becoming inspired through instruction in inspired things; and when thou hast enfolded the Divine things in the secret recesses of thy mind, guard them closely from the profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not lawful, as the Oracles say, to cast to swine the unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of the intelligible pearls.

CAPUT III.

What is Hierarchy? and what the use of Hierarchy?

Section I.

Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation. Now the God-becoming Beauty, as simple, as good, as source of initiation, is altogether free from any dissimilarity, and imparts its own proper light to each according to their fitness, and perfects in most Divine initiation, as becomes the undeviating moulding of those who are being initiated harmoniously to itself.

Section II.

The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimilation and union, as far as attainable, with God, having Him Leader of all religious science and operation, by looking unflinchingly to His most Divine comeliness, and copying, as far as possible, and by perfecting its own followers as Divine images, mirrors most luminous and without flaw, receptive of the primal light and the supremely Divine ray, and devoutly filled with the entrusted radiance, and again, spreading this radiance ungrudgingly to those after it, in accordance with the supremely Divine regulations. For it is not lawful for the Mystic Rites of sacred things, or for things religiously done, to practise anything whatever beyond the sacred regulations of their own proper function. Nor even must they attempt otherwise, if they desire to attain its deifying splendour, and look to it religiously, and are moulded after the example of each of the holy minds. He, then, who mentions Hierarchy, denotes a certain altogether Holy Order, an image of the supremely Divine freshness, ministering the mysteries of its own illumination in hierarchical ranks, and sciences, and assimilated to its own proper Head as far as lawful.

For each of those who have been called into the Hierarchy, find their perfection in being carried to the Divine imitation in their own proper degree; and, what is more Divine than all, in becoming a fellow-worker with God, as the Oracles say, and in shewing the Divine energy in himself manifested as far as possible. For it is an Hierarchical regulation that some are purified and that others purify; that some are enlightened and others enlighten; that some are perfected and others perfect; the Divine imitation will fit each one in this fashion. The Divine blessedness, to speak after the manner of men, is indeed unstained by any dissimilarity, and is full of invisible light—perfect, and needing no perfection; cleansing, illuminating, and perfecting, yea, rather a holy purification, and illumination, and perfection—above purification, above light, preeminently perfect, self-perfect source and cause of every Hierarchy, and elevated pre-eminently above every holy thing.

Section III.

It is necessary then, as I think, that those who are being purified should be entirely perfected, without stain, and be freed from all dissimilar confusion; that those who are being illuminated should be filled with the Divine Light, conducted to the habit and faculty of contemplation in all purity of mind; that those who are being initiated should be separated from the imperfect, and become recipients of that perfecting science of the sacred things contemplated. Further, that those who purify should impart, from their own abundance of purity, their own proper holiness; that those who illuminate, as being more luminous intelligences, whose function it is to- receive and to impart light, and who are joyfully filled with holy gladness, that these should overflow, in proportion to their own overflowing light, towards those who are worthy of enlightenment; and that those who make perfect, as being skilled in the impartation of perfection, should perfect those being perfected, through the holy instruction, in the science of the holy things contemplated. Thus each rank of the Hierarchical Order is led, in its own degree, to the Divine co-operation, by performing, through grace and God-given power, those things which are naturally and supernaturally in the Godhead, and accomplished by It superessentially, and manifested hierarchically, for the attainable imitation of the God-loving Minds.

CAPUT IV.

What is meant by the appellation “Angels?”

Section I.

Now that the Hierarchy itself has been, in my judgment, sufficiently defined, we must next extol the Angelic Hierarchy, and we must contemplate, with supermundane eyes, its sacred formations, depicted in the Oracles, in order that we may be borne aloft to their Divinely resplendent simplicity, through the mystic representations, and may extol the source of all Hierarchical science with God-becoming reverence and with thanksgivings. First of all, however, let this truth be spoken —that it was through goodness that the superessential Godhead, having fixed all the essences of things being, brought them into being. For this is the peculiar characteristic of the Cause of all things, and of goodness surpassing all, to call things being to participation of Itself, as each order of things being was determined from its own analogy. For all things being share in a Providence, which bubbles forth from the superessential Deity, Cause of all things. For they would not be, unless they had participated in the Essence and Origin of things being. All things then, without life, participate in It by their being. For the being of all things is the Deity, above being; things living participate in its life-giving power, above all life; things rational and intellectual participate in its self-perfect and preeminently perfect wisdom, above all reason and mind. It is evident, then, that all those Beings are around It, which have participated in It, in many forms.

Section II.

The holy orders, then, of the Heavenly Beings share in the supremely Divine participation, in a higher degree than things which merely exist, or which lead an irrational life, or which are rational like ourselves. For by moulding themselves intelligibly to the Divine imitation, and looking supermundanely to the supremely Divine likeness, and striving to mould their intellectual appearance, they naturally have more ungrudging communications with It, being near and ever moving upwards, as far as lawful, elevating themselves with the intensity of the Divine unswerving love, and receiving the primal illuminations without earthly stain, and ranging themselves to these, and having their whole life intellectual. These, then, are they who, at first hand, and under many forms, participate in the Divine, and, at first hand, and under many forms, make known the supremely Divine Hiddenness. Wherefore, beyond all, they are deemed pre-eminently worthy of the appellation Angelic, on the ground that the supremely Divine illumination comes to them at first hand, and, through them, there pass to us manifestations above us. Thus, then, the Law, as the Word of God affirms, was given to us through the ministration of Angels; and Angels led our illustrious fathers before the Law, and after the Law, to the Divine Being, either by leading them to what was to be done, and by converting them from error, and an unholy life, to the straight way of truth, or by making known to them sacred ordinances, or hidden visions, or supermundane mysteries, or certain Divine predictions through the Prophets.

Section III.

But if any one should say that Divine manifestations were made directly and immediately to some holy men, let him learn, and that distinctly, from the most Holy Oracles, that no one hath seen, nor ever shall see, the “hidden” τὸ κρύφιον of Almighty God as it is in itself. Now Divine manifestations were made to the pious as befits revelations of God, that is to say, through certain holy visions analogous to those who see them. Now the all-wise Word of God (Theologia) naturally calls Theophany that particular vision which manifests the Divine similitude depicted in itself as in a shaping of the shapeless, from the elevation of the beholders to the Divine Being, since through it a divine illumination comes to the beholders, and the divine persons themselves are religiously initiated into some mystery. But our illustrious fathers were initiated into these Divine visions, through the mediation of the Heavenly Powers. Does not the tradition of the Oracles describe the holy legislation of the Law, given to Moses, as coming straight from God, in order that it may teach us this truth, that it is an outline of a Divine and holy legislation? But the Word of God, in its Wisdom, teaches this also—that it came to us through Angels, as though the Divine regulation were laying down this rule, that, through the first, the second are brought to the Divine Being. For not only with regard to the superior and inferior minds, but even for those of the same rank, this Law has been established by the superessential supreme ordinance, that, within each Hierarchy, there are first, and middle, and last ranks and powers, and that the more divine are instructors and conductors of the less, to the Divine access, and illumination, and participation.

Section IV.

But I observe that Angels first were initiated in the Divine mystery of the love of Jesus towards man, then, through them, the gift of its knowledge passed to us. Thus, for example, the most divine Gabriel instructed Zachariah, the Hierarch, that the son who was to be born to him, beyond hope, by Divine grace, should be a prophet of the God-incarnate work of the Lord Jesus, to be manifested to the world for its salvation, as becomes the Divine goodness; and he revealed to Mary, how, in her, should be born the supremely Divine mystery of the unutterable God-formation. Yet another Angel instructed Joseph, how, in very truth, should be fulfilled the things Divinely promised to his ancestor David. Another declared glad tidings to the shepherds, as being purified by their separation from the multitude, and their quiet life, and, with him, a multitude of the Heavenly Host announced to those on earth that often-sung doxology. Let us then ascend to the highest manifestations of light contained in the Oracles, for I perceive that even Jesus Himself, the superessential Cause of the super-heavenly Beings, when He had come to our condition, without change, did not overstep the good order which becomes mankind, which Himself arranged and took, but readily subjected Himself to the dispositions of the Father and God, through Angels; and, through their mediation, was announced to Joseph the departure of the Son to Egypt, which had been arranged by the Father, and again the return to Judaea from Egypt. And through Angels we see Him subjecting Himself to the Father’s decrees. For I forbear to speak, as addressing one who knows the teaching of our hierarchical tradition, both concerning the Angel who strengthened the Lord Jesus, or that even Jesus Himself, when He had come to manifest the good work of our beneficent salvation, was called Angel of Great Counsel. For, as He Himself says, after the manner of an Angel, “Whatsoever He heard from the Father, He announced to us.”

CAPUT V.

For what reason all the Heavenly Beings are called, in common, Angels.

This, then, in our judgment, is the reason for the appellation Angelic in the Oracles. We must now, I suppose, enquire for what reason the theologians call all the Heavenly Beings together “Angels;” but when they come to a more accurate description of the supermundane orders, they name exclusively, “angelic rank,” that which completes the full tale of the Divine and Heavenly Hosts. Before this, however, they range pre-eminently, the Orders of Archangels, and the Principalities, the Authorities, and Powers, and as many Beings as the revealing traditions of the Oracles recognize as superior to them. Now, we affirm that throughout every sacred ordinance the superior ranks possess the illuminations and powers of their subordinates, but the lowest have not the same powers as those who are above them. The theologians also call the most holy ranks of the highest Beings “Angels,” for they “also make known the supremely Divine illumination. But there is no reason to call the lowest rank of the celestial Minds, Principalities, or Thrones, or Seraphim. For it does not possess the highest powers, but, as it conducts our inspired Hierarchs to the splendours of the Godhead known to it; so also, the saintly powers of the Beings above it are conductors, towards the Divine Being, of that Order which completes the Angelic Hierarchies. Except perhaps some one might say this also, that all the angelic appellations are common, as regards the subordinate and superior communication of all the celestial powers towards the Divine likeness, and the gift of light from God. But, in order that the question may be better investigated, let us reverently examine the saintly characteristics set forth respecting each celestial Order in the Oracles. 23

CAPUT VI.

Which is the first Order of the Heavenly Beings? which the middle? and which the last?

How many, and of what sort, are the Orders of the supercelestial Beings, and how the Hierarchies are classified amongst themselves, I affirm, the deifying Author of their consecration alone distinctly knows; and further, that they know their own proper powers and illuminations, and their sacred and supermundane regularity. For it is impossible that we should know the mysteries of the supercelestial Minds and their most holy perfections, except, some one might say, so far as the Godhead has revealed to us, through them, as knowing perfectly their own condition. We, then, will utter nothing as from ourselves, but whatever angelic visions have been gazed upon by the holy Prophets of God, we, as initiated in these, will set forth as best we can. The Word of God has designated the whole Heavenly Beings as nine, by appellations, which shew their functions. These our Divine Initiator divides into three threefold Orders. He also says that that which is always around God is first and is declared by tradition to be united closely and immediately, to Him, before all the rest. For he says that the teaching of the Holy Oracles declares, that the most Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged hosts, named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim, are established immediately around God, with a nearness superior to all. This threefold order, then, our illustrious Guide spoke of as one, and of equal rank, and really first Hierarchy, than which there is not another more Godlike or immediately nearer to the earliest illuminations of the Godhead. But he says, that which is composed of the Authorities, and Lordships, and Powers is second; and, as respects the lowest of the Heavenly Hierarchies, the Order of the Angels and Archangels and Principalities is third.

CAPUT VII.

Concerning the Seraphim and Cherubim and Thrones, and concerning their first Hierarchy.

Section I.

We, whilst admitting this as the arrangement of the holy Hierarchies, affirm, that every appellation of the celestial Minds denotes the Godlike characteristic of each; and those who know Hebrew affirm, that the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling or burning; and that of Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream of wisdom. Naturally, then, the first (order) of the Heavenly Hierarchies is ministered by the most exalted Beings, holding, as it does, a rank which is higher than all, from the fact, that it is established immediately around God, and that the first-wrought Divine manifestations and perfections pass earlier to it, as being nearest. They are called, then, “Burning,” and Thrones, and Stream of Wisdom—by a name which sets forth their Godlike conditions. The appellation of Seraphim plainly teaches their ever moving around things Divine, and constancy, and warmth, and keenness, and the seething of that persistent, indomitable, and inflexible perpetual motion, and the vigorous assimilation and elevation of the subordinate, as giving new life and rekindling them to the same heat; and purifying through fire and burnt-offering, and the light-like and light-shedding characteristic which can never be concealed or consumed, and remains always the same, which destroys and dispels every kind of obscure darkness. But the appellation of the Cherubim denotes their knowledge and their vision of God, and their readiness to receive the highest gift of light, and their power of contemplating the super-Divine comeliness in its first revealed power, and their being filled anew with the impartation which maketh wise, and their ungrudging communication to those next to them, by the stream of the given wisdom. The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling inferiority, and their supermundane tendency towards higher things; and their unswerving separation from all remoteness; and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest, with the whole force of their powers; and their receptivity of the supremely Divine approach, in the absence of all passion and earthly tendency, and their bearing God; and the ardent expansion of themselves for the Divine receptions.

Section II.

This, then, is the revelation of their names, so far as we can give it; and we ought to say what we think their Hierarchy is. For I suppose we have sufficiently shewn above, that the purpose of every Hierarchy is an unswerving devotion to the divine imitation of the Divine Likeness, and that every Hierarchical function is set apart for the sacred reception and distribution of an undefiled purification, and Divine Light, and perfecting science.

And now I pray that I may speak worthily of the most exalted Minds—how the Hierarchy amongst them is exhibited through the Oracles.

One must consider, then, that the Hierarchy is akin, and in every respect like, to the first Beings, who are established after the Godhead, who gave them Being, and who are marshalled, as it were, in Its very vestibule, who surpass every unseen and seen created power. We must then regard them as pure, not as though they had been freed from unholy stains and blemishes, nor yet as though they were unreceptive of earthly fancies, but as far exalted above every stain of remissness and every inferior holiness, as befits the highest degree of purity—established above the most Godlike powers, and clinging unflinchingly to their own self-moved and same-moved rank in their invariable love of God, conscious in no respect whatever of any declivity to a worse condition, but having the unsullied fixity of their own Godlike identity—never liable to fall, and always unmoved; and again, as “contemplative,” not contemplators of intellectual symbols as sensible, nor as being led to the Divine Being by the varied texture of holy representations written for meditation, but as being filled with all kinds of immaterial knowledge of higher light, and satiated, as permissible, with the beautifying and original beauty of super-essential and thrice manifested contemplation, and thus, being deemed worthy of the Communion with Jesus, they do not stamp pictorially the deifying similitude in divinely-formed images, but, as being really near to Him, in first participation of the knowledge of His deifying illuminations; nay more, that the imitation of God is given to them in the highest possible degree, and they participate, so far as is allowable to them, in His deifying and philanthropic virtues, in the power of a first manifestation; and, likewise as “perfected,” not as being illuminated with an analytic science of sacred variety, but as being filled with a first and pre-eminent deification, as beseems the most exalted science of the works of God, possible in Angels. For, not through other holy Beings, but being ministered from the very Godhead, by the immediate elevation to It, by their power, and rank, surpassing all, they are both established near the All-Holy without any shadow of turning, and are conducted for contemplation to the immaterial and intelligible comeliness, as far as permissible, and are initiated into the scientific methods of the works of God, as being first and around God, being ministered, in the highest degree, from the very source of consecration.

Section III.

This, then, the theologians distinctly shew (viz.) that the subordinate Orders of the Heavenly Beings are taught by the superior, in due order, the deifying sciences; and that those who are higher than all are illuminated from Godhead itself, as far as permissible, in revelations of the Divine mysteries. For they introduce some of them as being religiously instructed, by those of a higher rank, that He, Who was raised to Heaven as Man, is Lord of the Heavenly Powers and King of Glory; and others, as questioning Jesus Himself, as desiring to be instructed in the science of His Divine work on our behalf, and Jesus Himself teaching them immediately, and shewing to them, at first hand, His beneficent work out of love to man. For “I,” He says, “am speaking of righteousness and judgment of Salvation.” Now I am astonished that even the first of the Beings in Heaven, and so far above all, should reverently strive after the supremely Divine illuminations, as intermediate Beings. For they do not ask directly, “Wherefore are Thy garments red? “ but they first raise the question among themselves, shewing that they desire to learn, and crave the deifying knowledge, and not anticipating the illumination given after a Divine procedure. 29

The first Hierarchy, then, of the Heavenly Minds is purified, and enlightened, and perfected, by being ministered from the very Author of initiation, through its elevation to It immediately, being filled, according to its degree, with the altogether most holy purification of the unproachable Light of the pre-perfect source of initiation, unstained indeed by any remissness, and full of primal Light, and perfected by its participation in first-given knowledge and science. But to sum up, I may say this, not inappropriately, that the reception of the supremely Divine Science is, both purification, and enlightenment, and perfecting,—purifying, as it were, from ignorance, by the knowledge of the more perfect revelations imparted to it according to fitness, and enlightening by the self-same Divine knowledge, through which it also purifies, that which did not before contemplate the things which are now made manifest through the higher illumination; and perfecting further, by the self-same Light, through the abiding science of the mysteries made clearly manifest.

Section IV.

This, then, according to my science, is the first rank of the Heavenly Beings which encircle and stand immediately around God; and without symbol, and without interruption, dances round His eternal knowledge in the most exalted ever-moving stability as in Angels; viewing purely many and blessed contemplations, and illuminated with simple and immediate splendours, and filled with Divine nourishment,—many indeed by the first-given profusion, but one by the unvariegated and unifying oneness of the supremely Divine banquet, deemed worthy indeed of much participation and co-operation with God, by their assimilation to Him, as far as attainable, of their excellent habits and energies, and knowing many Divine things pre-eminently, and participating in supremely Divine science and knowledge, as is lawful. Wherefore the Word of God has transmitted its hymns to those on earth, in which are Divinely shewn the excellency of its most exalted illumination. For some of its members, to speak after sensible perception, proclaim as a “voice of many waters,” “Blessed is the glory of the Lord from His place” and others cry aloud that frequent and most august hymn of God, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth, the whole earth is full of His glory.” These most excellent hymnologies of the supercelestial Minds we have already unfolded to the best of our ability in the “Treatise concerning the Divine Hymns,” and have spoken sufficiently concerning them in that Treatise, from which, by way of remembrance, it is enough to produce so much as is necessary to the present occasion, namely, “That the first Order, having been illuminated, from this the supremely Divine goodness, as permissible, in theological science, as a Hierarchy reflecting that Goodness transmitted to those next after it,” teaching briefly this, “That it is just and right that the august Godhead — Itself both above praise, and all-praiseworthy—should be known and extolled by the God-receptive minds, as is attainable; for they as images of God are, as the Oracles say, the Divine places of the supremely Divine repose; and further, that It is Monad and Unit tri-subsistent, sending forth His most kindly forethought to all things being, from the super-heavenly Minds to the lowest of the earth; as super-original Origin and Cause of every essence, and grasping all things super-essentially in a resistless embrace.

CAPUT VIII.

Concerning Lordships and Powers and Authorities, and concerning their middle Hierarchy.

Section I.

Let us now pass to the middle Order of the Heavenly Minds, gazing, as far as we may, with supermundane eyes upon those Lordships, and the truly terrible visions of the Divine Authorities and Powers. For each appellation of the Beings above us manifests their God-imitating characteristics of the Divine Likeness. I think, then, that the explanatory name of the Holy Lordships denotes a certain unslavish elevation, free from all grovelling subserviency, as becomes the free, not submitting itself in any way whatever to one of the tyrannical dissimilarities, as a cruel Lordship; superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimilarity, ever aspiring to the true Lordship, and source of Lordship; and moulding, as an image of goodness, itself, and those after it, to its Lordly bearing, as attainable, turning itself wholly to none of the things that vainly seem, but to the Lordly Being, and ever sharing in the Lordly Likeness of God, to its utmost ability; and the appellation of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching virility, for all those Godlike energies within them—not feebly weak for the reception of any of the Divine illuminations vouchsafed to it—vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the superessential and powerful-making power, and becoming a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable, and powerfully turned to this, as Source of Power, and issuing forth to those next in degree, in gift of Power, and in likeness to God; and that the appellation of the Holy Authorities, of the same rank as the Divine Lordships and Powers, (denotes) the beautiful and unconfused good order, with regard to the Divine receptions, and the discipline of the supermundane and intellectual authority, not using the authoritative powers imperiously for base purposes, but conducted indomitably, with good order, towards Divine things, and conducting those after it benignly, and assimilated, as far as permissible, to the Authoritative Source of authority, and making this visible, as is possible to Angels, in the well-ordered ranks of the authoritative power within it. The middle Order of the Heavenly Minds having these Godlike characteristics, is purified and illuminated and perfected in the manner described, by the Divine illuminations vouchsafed to it at second hand, through the first Hierarchical Order, and passing through this middle as a secondary manifestation.

Section II.

No doubt, as regards that message, which is said to pass through one angel to another, we may take it as a symbol of a perfecting completed from afar, and obscured by reason of its passage to the second rank. For, as men skilled in our sacred initiations say, the fulness of Divine things manifested directly to ourselves is more perfecting than the Divine contemplations imparted through others. Thus, I think, the immediate participation of the Angelic ranks elevated in first degree to God, is more clear than those perfected through the instrumentality of others. Wherefore by our sacerdotal tradition, the first Minds are named perfecting, and illuminating, and purifying Powers of the subordinate, who are conducted, through them, to the superessential Origin of all things, and participate, as far as is permissible to them, in the consecrating purifications, and illuminations, and perfections. For, this is divinely fixed absolutely by the Divine source of order that, through the first, the second partake of the supremely Divine illuminations. This you will find declared by the theologians in many ways. For, when the Divine and Paternal Love towards man whilst chastening, in a startling manner, His people Israel, for their religious preservation, after delivering them to terrible and savage nations for correction, by various leadings of His guided people to better things, both liberated them from their misery, and mildly led them back, through His compassion, to their former state of comfort; one of the theologians, Zechariah, sees one of the first Angels, as I think, and near God, (for the Angelic appellation is common, as I said, to them all), learning from God Himself the comforting words, as they are called, concerning this matter; and another Angel, of inferior rank, advancing to meet the first, as for reception and participation of enlightenment: then, by him instructed in the Divine purpose as from a Hierarch, and charged to reveal to the theologian that Jerusalem should be abundantly occupied by a multitude of people. And another theologian, Ezekiel, says that this was righteously ordained by the glorious Deity Itself, seated above the Cherubim. For Paternal Love towards man, conducting Israel as we have said through chastisement to better things, by a righteousness worthy of God, deemed right to separate the guilty from the guiltless. This is first revealed to one after the Cherubim; him who was bound about the loins with a sapphire, and wore displayed the robe coming down to the feet, as a Hierarchical symbol. But the Divine Government enjoins the other Angels, who bore the battle-axes, to be instructed from the former, as to the Divine judgment in this matter. For, to one, He said that he should go through the midst of Jerusalem, and place the sign upon the forehead of the innocent men, but to the others; “Go into the city after him and strike, and draw not back your eyes, but to every one upon whom is the sign draw not near.”

What would any one say concerning the Angel, who said to Daniel, “The word has gone forth?” or concerning him the first, who took the fire from the midst of the Cherubim, or what is more remarkable than this for shewing the good order amongst the Angels, that the Cherubim casts the fire into the hands of him who wears the sacred vestment; or concerning Him Who called the most divine Gabriel, and said to him, “Make this man understand the vision,” or whatever else is recorded by the holy theologians concerning the Godlike order of the Heavenly Hierarchies; by being assimilated to which, as far as possible, the discipline of our Hierarchy will have the Angelic comeliness, as it were, in reflection, moulded through it, and conducted to the superessential Source of order in every Hierarchy.

CAPUT IX.

Concerning the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, and concerning their last Hierarchy.

Section I.

There remains for our reverent contemplation a Division which completes the Angelic Hierarchies, that divided into the Godlike Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. And I think it necessary, to declare first the meaning of their sacred appellations to the best of my ability. For that of the Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function, after the Divine example, with order religious and most befitting the Princely, and their being wholly turned to the super-princely Prince, and leading others in princely fashion, and being moulded, as far as possible, to that prince-making Princedom Itself, and to manifest its superessential princely order, by the regularity of the princely powers.

Section II.

The (Order) of the Holy Archangels is of the same rank with the heavenly Principalities. For there is one Hierarchy and Division, as I said, of them and the Angels. But since there is not a Hierarchy which does not possess first and middle and last powers, the holy order of Archangels occupies the middle position in the Hierarchy between the extremes, for it belongs alike to the most holy Principalities and to the holy Angels; to the Principalities because it is turned in a princely fashion to the superessential Princedom, and is moulded to It as far as attainable, and unites the Angels after the fashion of its own well-regulated and marshalled and invisible leadings; and it belongs to the Angels, because it is of the messenger Order, receiving hierarchically the Divine illuminations from the first powers, and announcing the same to the Angels in a godly manner, and, through Angels, manifesting to us, in proportion to the religious aptitude of each of the godly persons illuminated. For the Angels, as we have already said, complete the whole series of Heavenly Minds, as being the last Order of the Heavenly Beings who possess the Angelic characteristic; yea, rather, they are more properly named Angels by us than those of higher degree, because their Hierarchy is occupied with the more manifest, and is more particularly concerned with the things of the world. For the very highest Order, as being placed in the first rank near the Hidden One, we must consider as directing in spiritual things the second, hiddenly; and that the second, which is composed of the holy Lordships and Powers and Authorities, leads the Hierarchy of the Principalities and Archangels and Angels, more clearly indeed than the first Hierarchy, but more hiddenly than the Order after it, and the revealing order of the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels, presides, through each other, over the Hierarchies amongst men, in order that the elevation, and conversion, and communion, and union with God may be in due order; and, further, also that the procession from God vouchsafed benignly to all the Hierarchies, and passing to all in common, may be also with most sacred regularity. Hence, the Word of God has assigned our Hierarchy to Angels, by naming Michael as Ruler of the Jewish people, and others over other nations. For the 38 Most High established borders of nations according to number of Angels of God.

Section III.

But if any one should say, “How then were the people of the Hebrews alone conducted to the supremely Divine illuminations?” we must answer, that we ought not to throw the blame of the other nations wandering after those which are no gods upon the direct guidance of the Angels, but that they themselves, by their own declension, fell away from the direct leading towards the Divine Being, through self-conceit and self-will, and through their irrational veneration for things which appeared to them worthy of God. Even the Hebrew people are said to have suffered the same thing; for He says, “Thou I hast cast away knowledge of God, and hast gone after thine own heart.” For neither have we a life governed by necessity, nor on account of the free will of those who are objects of providential care, are the Divine rays of the providential illumination blunted; but the inaptitude of the mental visions makes the overflowing light-gift of the paternal goodness, either altogether unparticipated or inpenetrable to their resistance, or makes the participations of the one fontal ray, diverse, small, or great, obscure, or brilliant, although that ray is one and simple, and always the same and ever overflowing; for even if, over the other nations (from whom we also have emerged to that boundless and bounteous sea of Divine Light, which is readily-expanded for the ready reception of all), certain not alien gods were wont to preside; yet there is one Head of all, and to this, the Angels, who religiously direct each nation, conduct those who follow them. Let us consider Melchizedek as being a Hierarch, most dear to God; (not of gods which are not, but of the truly most high God); for the godly-wise did not call Melchizedek simply dear to God, but also Priest, in order that they may clearly shew to the wise, that not only was he himself turned to the true God, but further that he was guide to others, as Hierarch of the elevation to the true and only Godhead.

Section IV.

Let me also recall this to your Hierarchical judgment—that both to Pharaoh, from the Angel who presided over the Egyptians, and to the Babylonian Prince, from his own Angel, the watchful and ruling care of the Providence and Lordship over all, was interpreted in visions; and for those nations, the worshippers of the true God were appointed leaders, for the interpretation of things shaped by Angelic visions revealed from God through Angels to holy men akin to the Angels, Daniel and Joseph. For there is one Prince and Providence over all. And never must we think that the Godhead is leader of Jews by lot, and that Angels, independently, or as of equal rank, or in opposition, or that certain other gods, preside over the other nations. But that particular phrase of the Divine Word must be accepted according to the following sacred intention; not as though God had divided government amongst men, with other gods, or Angels, and had been elected by lot to the government and leadership of Israel, but in this sense—whilst the one Providence of Highest over all, assigned all mankind, savingly, to the directing conduct of their own Angels, yet Israel, almost alone in comparison with all, turned himself to the Light-gift, and recognition of the true Lord-Hence the Word of God, as shewing that Israel elected himself for the worship of the true God, says this, “He became Lord’s portion;” and as indicating that he was assigned equally with the other nations, to one of the holy Angels, for the recognition, through him, of the Head of all, said “That Michael became leader of the (Jewish) people,” demonstrating distinctly that there is one Providence of the whole, superessentially established above all the powers, unseen and seen, and that all the Angels who preside over each nation, elevate, as far as possible, those who follow them with a willing mind, to It as their proper Head.

CAPUT X.

A Repetition and Summary of the Angelic discipline.

Section I.

We have concluded, then, that the most reverend Order of the Minds around God, ministered by the perfecting illumination through its immediate elevation to it, is purified, and illuminated, and perfected by a gift of light from the Godhead, more hidden and more manifest—more hidden, indeed, as being more intelligible, and more simplifying, and more unifying; more manifest, as being a first gift and a first manifestation, and more complete, and more affused to it as transparent. And from this (Order) again, in due degree, the second, and from the second, the third, and from the third, our Hierarchy, is reverently conducted to the super-original Origin and End of all good order, according to the self-same law of well-ordered regularity, in Divine harmony and proportion.

Section II.

Now all Angels are interpreters of those above them, the most reverend, indeed, of God, Who moves them, and the rest, in due degree, of those who have been moved by God. For, to such an extent has the superessential harmony of all things provided for the religious order and the regulated conduct of each of the rational and intellectual beings, that each rank of the Hierarchies, has been placed in sacred order, and we observe every Hierarchy distributed into first, and middle, and last Powers. But to speak accurately, He distinguished each Division itself, by the same Divine harmonies; wherefore the theologians say that the most Divine Seraphim cry one to another, indicating distinctly, as I think by this, that the first impart their knowledge of divine things to the second.

Section III.

I might add this not inappropriately, that each heavenly and human mind has within itself its own special first, and middle, and last ranks, and powers, manifested severally in due degree, for the aforesaid particular mystical meanings of the Hierarchical illuminations, according to which, each one participates-, so far as is lawful and attainable to him, in the most spotless purification, the most copious light, the pre-eminent perfection. For there is nothing that is self-perfect, or absolutely without need of perfecting, except the really Self-perfect and preeminently Perfect.

CAPUT XI.

For what reason all the Heavenly Beings, in common, are called Heavenly Powers.

Section I.

Now that we have defined these things, it is worthy of consideration for what reason we are accustomed to call all the Angelic Beings together, Heavenly Powers. For it is not possible to say, as we may of the Angels, that the Order of the holy Powers is last of all. The Orders of the superior Beings share in the saintly illumination. of the last; but the last in no wise of the first; and on this account all the Divine Minds are called Heavenly Powers, but never Seraphim and Thrones and Lordships. For the last do not enjoy the whole characteristics of the highest. For the Angels, and those above the Angels—Archangels, and Principalities, and Authorities,—placed by the Word of God after the Powers, are often in common called by us, in conjunction with the other holy Beings, Heavenly Powers.

Section II.

But we affirm that, whilst often using the appellation, Heavenly Powers, for all in common, we do not introduce a sort of. confusion of the characteristics of each Order. But, inasmuch as all the Divine Minds, by the supermundane description given of them, are distributed into three,—into essence, and power, and energy,—when we speak of them all, or some of them, indiscriminately, as Heavenly Beings or Heavenly Powers, we must consider that we manifest those about whom we speak in a general way, from their essence or power severally. For we must not apply the superior characteristic of those holy Powers, whom we have already sufficiently distinguished, to the Beings which are entirely inferior to them, so as to overthrow the unconfused order of the Angelic ranks. For according to the correct account which we have already frequently given, the superior Orders possess abundantly the sacred characteristics of the inferior, but the lowest do not possess the superior completeness of the more reverend, since the first-manifested illuminations are revealed to them, through the first Order, in proportion to their capacity.

CAPUT XII.

Why the Hierarchs amongst men are called Angels.

Section I.

But this is sometimes also asked by diligent contemplators of the intelligible Oracles; Inasmuch as the lowest Orders do not possess the completeness of the superior, for what reason is our Hierarch named by the Oracles, “Angel of the Sovereign Lord?”

Section II.

Now the statement, as I think, is not contrary to what has been before defined; for we say that the last lack the complete and pre-eminent Power of the more reverend Divisions; for they participate in the partial and analogous, according to the one harmonious and binding fellowship of all things. For example, the rank of the holy Cherubim participates in higher wisdom and knowledge, but the Divisions of the Beings beneath them, participate, they also, in wisdom and knowledge, but nevertheless partially, as compared with them, and in a lower degree. For the participation of wisdom and knowledge throughout is common to all the minds which bear the image of God; but the being near and first, or second and inferior, is not common, but, as has been determined for each in its own degree. This also one might safely define respecting all the Divine Minds; for, as the first possess abundantly the saintly characteristics of the inferior, so the last possess those of the superior, not indeed in the same degree, but subordinately. There is, then, as I think, nothing absurd, if the Word of God calls our Hierarch, Angel, since he participates, according to his own capacity, in the messenger characteristic of the Angels, and elevates himself, as far as attainable to men, to the likeness of their revealing office.

Section III.

But you will find that the Word of God calls gods, both the Heavenly Beings above us, and the most beloved of God, and holy men amongst us, although the Divine Hiddenness is transcendently elevated and established above all, and no created Being can. properly and wholly be said to be like unto It, except those intellectual and rational Beings who are entirely and wholly turned to Its Oneness as far as possible, and who elevate themselves incessantly to Its Divine illuminations, as far as attainable, by their imitation of God, if I may so speak, according to their power, and are deemed worthy of the same divine name.

CAPUT XIII.

For what reason the Prophet Isaiah is said to have been purified by the Seraphim.

Section I.

Come, then, let us examine this as best we can, why the Seraphim is said to be sent to one of the Theologians; for some one may object, that not one of the inferior Angels, but he, the enrolled amongst the most reverend Beings, cleanses the Prophet.

Section II.

Some, then, affirm that, according to the definition already given of the mutual relation of all the Minds, the Logion does not name one of the highest around God, as having come for the cleansing of the Theologian, but that some one of the Angels, placed over us as a sacred Minister of the Prophet’s cleansing, is called by the same name. as the Seraphim, on the ground that the removal of the faults spoken of, and the restoration of him who was cleansed for the Divine mission, was through fire; and they say that the Logion speaks simply of one of the Seraphim, not one of those who are established around God, but one of the Powers set over us for the purpose of cleansing.

Section III.

Now another man brought forward to me a by no means foolish defence of the present position. For he said that that great one, whoever he was,—the Angel who formed this vision for the purpose of teaching the theologian Divine things,—referred his own cleansing function to God, and after God, to the first working Hierarchy. And was not this statement certainly true? For he who said this, affirmed that the supremely Divine Power in visiting all, advances and penetrates all irresistibly, and yet is invisible to all, not only as being superessentially elevated above all, but as secretly transmitting its providential energies to all; yea, rather, it is manifested to all the intellectual Beings in due degree, and by conducting Its own gift of Light to the most reverend Beings, through them, as first, It distributes in due order to the subordinate, according to the power of each Division to bear the vision of God; or to speak more strictly, and through familiar illustrations (for if they fall short of the Glory of God, Who is exalted above all, yet they are more illustrating for us), the distribution of the sun’s ray passes with easy distribution to first matter, as being more transparent than all, and, through it with greater clearness, lights up its own splendours; but when it strikes more dense materials, its distributed brilliancy becomes more obscure, from the inaptitude of the materials illuminated for transmission of the gift of Light, and from this it is naturally contracted, so as to almost entirely exclude the passage of Light. Again, the heat of fire transmits itself chiefly to things that are more receptive, and yielding, and conductive to assimilation to itself; but, as regards repellent opposing substances, either it leaves none, or a very light, trace of its fiery energy; and further, when through substances favourable to its proper action, it comes in contact with things not congenial,—first, it perchance makes things easily changed to heating hot, and through them heats proportionately either water or something else which is not easily heated. After the same rule, then, of Nature’s well-ordered method, the regulation of all good order, both visible and invisible, manifests supernaturally the brightness of its own gift of Light, in first manifestation to the most exalted Beings, in abundant streams, and through these, the Beings after them partake of the Divine ray. For these, as knowing God first, and striving preeminently after Divine virtue, and to become first-workers, are deemed worthy of the power and energy for the imitation of God, as attainable, and these benevolently elevate the beings after them to an equality, as far as possible, by imparting ungrudgingly to them the splendour which rests upon themselves, and these again to the subordinate, and throughout each Order, the first rank imparts its gift to that after it, and the Divine Light thus rests upon all, in due proportion, with providential forethought. There is, then, for all those who are illuminated, a Source of illumination, viz., God, by nature, and really, and properly, as Essence of Light, and Cause of Being, and Vision itself; but, by ordinance, and for Divine imitation, the relatively superior (is source) for each after it, by the fact, that the Divine rays are poured through it to that. All the remaining Angelic Beings, then, naturally regard the highest Order of the Heavenly Minds as source, after God, of every God-knowledge and God-imitation, since, through them, the supremely Divine illumination is distributed to all, and to us. Wherefore, they refer every holy energy of Divine imitation to God indeed as Cause, but to the first Godlike Minds, as first agents and teachers of things Divine.

The first Order, then, of the holy Angels possesses, more than all, the characteristic of fire, and the streaming distribution of supremely Divine wisdom, and the faculty of knowing the highest science of the Divine illuminations, and the characteristic of Thrones, exhibiting their expansion for the reception of God; and the ranks of the subordinate Beings possess indeed the empyrean, the wise, the knowing, the God-receptive, faculty, but subordinately, and by looking to the first, and through them, as being deemed worthy of the Divine imitation in first operation, are conducted to the attainable likeness of God. The aforesaid holy characteristics, then, which the Beings after them possess, through the first, they attribute to those Beings themselves, after God, as Hierarchs.

Section IV.

He who said this, used to affirm, that this vision was shewn to the Theologian, through one of the 50holy and blessed Angels set over us, and that from his illuminating direction, he was elevated to that intellectual contemplation in which he saw the most exalted Beings seated (to speak symbolically) under God, and with God, and around God, and the super-princely Eminence elevated unspeakably above them and all, seated on high in the midst of the superior Powers. The Theologian then learned, from the things seen, that, as compared with every super-essential pre-eminence, the Divine Being was seated incomparably above every visible and invisible power, yea, even that It is exalted above all, as the Reality of all things, as Absolute—not even like to the first of created Beings;—further also, that It is source and essentiating Cause, and unalterable Fixity of the undissolved continuance of all things, from, Which is both the being and the well-being of the most exalted Powers themselves. Then he revealed that the Godlike powers of the most holy Seraphim, themselves, whose sacred appellation signifies the Fiery, concerning which we shall shortly speak as best we can, conducted the elevations of the empyrean power to the Divine likeness. And, the holy Theologian, by viewing the description of free and most exalted elevation of the sixfold wings to the Divine Being in first, middle, and last conceptions, and further, their endless feet and many faces, and their extended wings—one under their feet, and the other over their faces, as seen in vision, and the perpetual movement of their middle wings—was brought to the intelligible knowledge of the things seen, since there was manifested to him the power of the most exalted minds for deep penetration and contemplation, and the sacred reverence which they have, supermundanely, for the bold and courageous and unattainable scrutiny into higher and deeper mysteries; and of the incessant and high-flying perpetual movement of their Godlike energies in due proportion. But he was also taught the hidden mysteries of that supremely Divine and much esteemed Hymn of Praise—whilst the Angel who formed the vision imparts, as far as possible, his own sacred knowledge to the Theologian. He also taught him this, that the participation, as far as attainable, in the supremely Divine and radiant purity, is a purification to the pure however pure; and it being accomplished from the very Godhead by most exalted causes, for all the sacred Minds by a superessential hiddenness, is in a manner more clear, and exhibits and distributes itself, in a higher degree, to the highest powers around It; but with regard to the second, or us, the lowest mental powers, as each is distant from, as regards the Divine likeness, so It contracts its brilliant illumination to the single unknowable of its own hiddenness. And it illuminates the second, severally, through the first; and, if one must speak briefly, it is firstly brought from hiddenness to manifestation through the first powers. This, then, the Theologian was taught by the Angel who was leading him to Light—that purification, and all the supremely Divine operations, 52illuminating through the first Beings, are distributed to all the rest, according to the relation of each for the deifying participations. Wherefore he reasonably attributed to the Seraphim, after God, the characteristic of purification by fire. There is nothing, then, absurd, if the Seraphim is said to purify the Prophet. For, as God purifies all, by being cause of every purification, yea, rather (for I use a familiar illustration) just as our Hierarch, when purifying or enlightening through his Leitourgoi or Priests, is said himself to purify and enlighten, since the Orders consecrated through him attribute to him their own proper sacred operations; so also the Angel who effected the purification of the Theologian attributes his own purifying science and power to God, indeed, as Cause, but to the Seraphim as first-operating Hierarch; as any one might say with Angelic reverence, whilst teaching one who was being purified by him, “There is a preeminent Source, and Essence, and Worker, and Cause of the cleansing wrought upon you from me, He Who brings both the first Beings into Being, and holds them together by their fixity around Himself, and keeps them without change and without fall, moving them to the first participations of His own Providential energies (for this, He Who taught me these things used to say, shews the mission of the Seraphim), but as Hierarch and Leader after God, the Marshal of the most exalted Beings, from whom I was taught to purify after the example of God — this is he, who cleanses thee through me, through whom the Cause and Creator of all cleansing brought forth His own provident energies from the Hidden even to us.” These things, then, he taught me, and I impart them to thee. Let it be a part of thy intellectual and discriminating skill, either, to acquit each of the causes assigned from objection, and to honour this before the other as having likelihood and good reason, and perhaps, the truth; or, to find out from yourself something more allied to the real truth, or to learn from another; (God, of course, giving expression, and Angels supplying it;) and to reveal to us, the friends of Angels, a view more luminous if it should be so, and to me specially welcome.

CAPUT XIV.

What the traditional number of the Angels signifies.

This also is worthy, in my opinion, of intellectual attention, that the tradition of the Oracles concerning the Angels affirms that they are thousand thousands, and myriad myriads, accumulating and multiplying, to themselves, the supreme limits of our numbers, and, through these, shewing clearly, that the ranks of the Heavenly Beings cannot be numbered by us. For many are the blessed hosts of the supermundane minds, surpassing the weak and contracted measurement of our material number, and being definitely known by their own supermundane and heavenly intelligence and science alone, which is given to them in profusion by the supremely Divine and Omniscient Framer of Wisdom, and essentiating Cause and connecting Force, and encompassing Term of all created things together.

CAPUT XV.

What are the morphic likenesses of the Angelic Powers? what the fiery? what the anthromorphic? what are the eyes? what the nostrils? what the ears? what the mouths? what the touch? what the eyelids? what the eyebrows? what the prime? what the teeth? what the shoulders? what the elbows and the hands? what the heart? what the breasts? what the back? what the feet? what the wings? what the nakedness? what the robe? what the shining raiment? what the sacerdotal? what the girdles? what the rods? what the spears? what the battle-axes? what the measuring lines? what the winds? what the clouds? what the brass? what the electron? what the choirs? what the clapping of hands? what the colours of different stones? what the appearance of the lion? what the appearance of the ox? what the appearance of the eagle? what the horses? what the varieties of coloured horses? what the rivers? what the chariots? what the wheels? what the so-called joy of the Angels?

Section I.

Come, then, let us at last, if you please, rest our mental vision from the strain of lofty contemplation, befitting Angels, and descend to the divided and manifold breadth of the many-shaped variety of the Angelic forms, and then return analytically from the 55 same, as from images, to the simplicity of the Heavenly Minds. But let this first be made plain to you, that the explanations of the sacredly depicted likenesses represent the same ranks of the Heavenly Beings as sometimes ruling, and, at other times, as being ruled; and the last, ruling, and the first, being ruled; and the same, as has been said, having first, and middle, and last powers —without introducing anything absurd into the description, according to the following method of explanation. For if indeed we were to say that some are ruled by those above them, and then that they rule the same, and that those above, whilst ruling those below, are ruled by those same who are being ruled, the thing would manifestly be absurd, and mixed with all sorts of confusion. But if we say that the same rule and are ruled, but no longer the self-same, or from the self-same, but that each same is ruled by those before, and rules those below, one might say appropriately that the Divinely pictured presentations in the Oracles may sometimes attribute, properly and truly, the very same, both to first, and middle, and last powers. Now the straining elevation to things above, and their being drawn unswervingly around each other, as being guardians of their own proper powers, and that they participate in the providential faculty to provide for those below them by mutual communication, befit truly all the Heavenly Beings, although some, pre-eminently and wholly, as we have often said, and others partially and subordinately. 56

Section II.

But we must keep our discourse within bounds, and must search, in our first explanation of the types, for what reason the Word of God prefers the sacred description of fire, in preference to almost every other. You will find it, then, representing not only wheels of fire, but also living creatures of fire, and men, flashing, as it were, like lightning, and placing around the Heavenly Beings themselves heaps of coals of fire, and rivers of flame flowing with irresistible force; and also it says that the thrones are of fire; and that the most exalted Seraphim glow with fire, it shews from their appellation, and it attributes the characteristic and energy of fire to them, and throughout, above and below, it prefers pre-eminently the representation by the image of fire. I think, then, the similitude of fire denotes the likeness of the Heavenly Minds to God in the highest degree; for the holy theologians frequently describe the superessential and formless essence by fire, as having many likenesses, if I may be permitted to say so, of the supremely Divine property, as in things visible. For the sensible fire is, so to speak, in everything, and passes through everything unmingled, and springs from all, and whilst all-luminous, is, as it were, hidden, unknown, in its essential nature, when there is no material lying near it upon which it may shew its proper energy. It is both uncontrollable and invisible, self-subduing all things, and bringing under its own energy anything in which it may happen to be; varying, imparting itself to all things near it, whatever they may be; renewing by its rousing heat, and giving light by its uncovered illuminations; invincible, unmingled, separating, unchangeable, elevating, penetrating, lofty; subject to no grovelling inferiority, ever moving, self-moving, moving other things, comprehending, incomprehended, needing no other, imperceptibly increasing itself, displaying its own majesty to the materials receiving it; energetic, powerful, present to all invisibly, unobserved, seeming not to be, and manifesting itself suddenly according to its own proper nature by friction, as it were by a sort of seeking, and again flying away impalpably, undiminished in all the joyful distributions of itself. And one might find many characteristics of fire, appropriate to display the supremely Divine Energy, as in sensible images. The Godly-wise, then, knowing this, depict the celestial Beings from fire, shewing their Godlikeness, and imitation of God, as far as attainable.

Section III.

But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations.

Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject.

The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration.

The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams.

The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious. 59

The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God.

The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life.

The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior.

The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing.

The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good.

The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart.

The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life.

The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.

Section IV.

But since again the simple and variegated wisdom both clothes the naked, and distributes certain implements to them to carry, come, let us unfold, according to our power, the sacred garments and implements of the celestial Minds. The shining and glowing raiment, I think, signifies the Divine likeness after the image of fire, and their enlightening, in consequence of their repose in Heaven, where is the Light, and their complete illuminating intelligibly, and their being illuminated intellectually; and the sacerdotal robe denotes their conducting to Divine and mystical visions, and the consecration of their whole life. And the girdles signify the guard over their productive powers, and the collected habit of being turned uniformly to It, and being drawn around Itself by an unbroken identity, in a well-ordered circle.

Section V.

The rods signify the kingly and directing faculty, making all things straight. The spears and the battle-axes denote the dividing of things unlike, 61and the sharp and energetic and drastic operation of the discriminating powers. The geometrical and technical articles denote the founding, and building, and completing, and whatever else belongs to the elevating and guiding forethought for the subordinate Orders. But sometimes the implements assigned to the holy Angels are the symbols of God’s judgments to ourselves; some, representing His correcting instruction or avenging righteousness, others, freedom from peril, or end of education, or resumption of former well-being, or addition of other gifts, small or great, sensible or intelligible. Nor would a discriminating mind, in any case whatever, have any difficulty in properly adapting things visible to things invisible.

Section VI.

But the fact that they are named winds denotes their rapid action, passing almost instantaneously to all things, and their transporting movement in passing from above to below, and again from below to above, their elevating the second to the height above, and moving the first to a common and provident advance of the inferior Orders. But perhaps some one would say that the appellation of wind, to the aerial spirit, also denotes the Divine likeness of the Heavenly Minds; for this also bears a likeness and type of the supremely Divine energy (as 62we have demonstrated more fully in the symbolic theology, in our explanation of the four elements) in accordance with the moving and life-producing, and the rapid and resistless development of Nature, and the Hiddenness of the moving sources and terminations to us unknown and invisible. For He says, “Thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth.” But also the Word of God attributes to them the appearance of a cloud, signifying, through this, that the holy minds are filled super-mundanely with the hidden Light, receiving the first manifestation without boasting over it as such, which they distribute ungrudgingly to the second, as a secondary manifestation, and in proportion to capacity; yea, further, that the productive, and life-producing, and increasing, and perfecting power is enshrined in them, after the fashion of the intelligible production of showers, which summons the receptive womb of the earth, by fruitful rains, to the life-giving pangs of birth.

Section VII.

Also, the Word of God attributes to the Heavenly Beings a likeness to Brass, Electron, and many-coloured stones. Electron, as being partly like gold, partly like silver, denotes the incorruptible, as in gold, and unexpended, and undiminished, and spotless brilliancy, and the brightness, as in silver, and a luminous and heavenly radiance. But to the 63 Brass, according to the reasons assigned, must be attributed either the likeness of fire or that of gold.

We must consider that the many-coloured appearances of stones denote either as white, the luminous; or as red, the fiery; or as yellow, the golden; or as green, the youthful and the full grown; and within each likeness you will find an explanation which teaches the inner meaning of the typical images.

But since, I think, according to our power, this has been sufficiently said, let us pass to the sacred explanation of the Divine representations of the Heavenly Minds through wild beasts. We must consider that the shape of a Lion signifies the leading, and robust, and indomitable, and the assimilation, as far as possible, to the unutterable Godhead, by the concealment of the intellectual footprints, and by the mystically modest covering of the path, leading to It, during Divine illumination.

Section VIII.

The Image of the Ox denotes the strong and the mature, turning up the intellectual furrows for the reception of the heavenly and productive showers; and the Horns, the guarding and indomitable.

The representation of the Eagle denotes the kingly, and soaring, and swift in flight, and quickness in search of the nourishment which makes strong, and wanness, and agility, and cleverness; and the unimpeded, straight, and unflinching gaze towards the bounteous and brilliant splendour of the Divine rays of the sun, with the robust extension of the visual powers.

That of Horses represents obedience and docility, and of those who are white, brilliancy, and as especially congenial to the Divine Light; but of those who are dark blue, the Hidden; and of those red, the fiery and vigorous; and of the piebald, the uniting of the extremes by the power passing through them, and joining the first to the second, and the second to the first, reciprocally and considerately.

Now if we did not consult the proportion of our discourse, we might, not inappropriately, adapt the particular characteristics of the aforesaid living creatures, and all their bodily representations to the Heavenly Powers, upon the principle of dissimilar similitudes; for instance, their appearance of anger, to intellectual manliness, of which anger is the remotest echo, and their desire, to the Divine love; and to speak summarily, referring all the sensible perceptions, and many parts of irrational beings, to the immaterial conceptions and unified Powers of the Heavenly Beings. Now not only is this sufficient for the wise, but even an explanation of one of the dissimilar representations would be sufficient for the accurate description of similar things, after the same fashion.

Section IX.

But we must examine the fact that rivers are spoken of, and Wheels and Chariots attached to the Heavenly Beings. The rivers of fire signify the supremely Divine streams furnishing to them an ungrudging and incessant flow, and nourishing the productive powers of life; the chariots, the conjoined communion of those of the same rank; the wheels being winged, and advancing without turning and without deviation, the power of their advancing energy within a straight and direct path, towards the same unflinching and straight swoop of their every intellectual track, supermundanely straight and direct way. Also it is possible to explain, after another mystical meaning, the sacred description of the intellectual wheels; for the name Gel, Gel, is given to them, as the theologian says. This shews, according to the Hebrew tongue, revolutions and revelations. For the Empyrean and Godlike wheels have revolutions, indeed, by their perpetual movement around the Good Itself; but revelations, by the manifestation of things hidden, and by the elevation of things at our feet, and by the descending procession of the sublime illuminations to things below. There remains for accurate explanation, the statement respecting the rejoicing of the Heavenly Orders; for they are utterly incapable of our impassioned pleasure. Now they are said to rejoice with God over the discovery of what was lost, as befits their Divine good nature, and that Godlike and ungrudging rejoicing over the care and salvation of those who are turned to God; and that joy, beyond description, of which also holy men often partake, whilst the deifying illuminations of the Deity rest upon them. Let it suffice, then, to have said this much concerning the Divine representations, which, no doubt, falls short of their accurate explanation, but which will prevent us, I think, from being servilely entangled in the resemblance of the types. But if you should say that we have not mentioned in order the whole Angelic Powers, or operations, or likenesses, depicted in the Oracles, we answer in truth, that we do not possess the supermundane science of some; and further, in regard to them, we have need of another to conduct to light and to reveal. Other things, however, as being parallel to the things said, we have omitted, out of regard to the symmetry of the discourse; and the hiddenness, beyond our capacity, we have honoured by silence.

St. Michael and All Angels, 1898.

ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY.

CAPUT I.

To my Fellow Presbyter Timothy. Dionysius the Presbyter.

What is the traditional view of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and what is its purpose?

Section I.

We must, then, most pious of pious sons, demonstrate from the supermundane and most sacred Oracles and traditions, that ours is a Hierarchy of the inspired and Divine and Deifying science, and of operation, and of consecration, for those who have been initiated with the initiation of the sacred revelation derived from the hierarchical mysteries. See, however, that you do not put to scorn things most holy (Holy of Holies); but rather treat them reverently, and you will honour the things of the hidden God by intellectual and obscure researches, carefully guarding them from the participation and defilement of the uninitiated, and reverently sharing holy things with the holy alone, by a holy enlightenment. For thus, as the Word of God has taught us who feast at His Banquet, even Jesus Himself—the most supremely Divine Mind and superessential, the Source and Essence, and most supremely Divine Power of every Hierarchy and Sanctification and Divine operation—illuminates the blessed Beings who are superior to us, in a manner more clear, and at the same time more intellectual, and assimilates them to His own Light, as far as possible; and by our love of things beautiful elevated to Him, and which elevates us, folds together our many diversities, and after perfecting into a uniform and Divine life and habit and operation, holily bequeaths the power of the Divine Priesthood; from which by approaching to the holy exercise of the priestly office, we ourselves become nearer to the Beings above us, by assimilation, according to our power, to their abiding and: unchangeable holy steadfastness; and thus by looking upwards to the blessed and supremely Divine self of Jesus, and reverently gazing upon whatever. we are permitted to see, and illuminated with the knowledge of the visions, we shall be able to become, as regards the science of Divine mysteries, purified and purifiers; images of Light, and workers, with God, perfected and perfecting.

Section II.

Then what is the Hierarchy of the Angels and Archangels, and of supermundane Principalities and Authorities, Powers and Lordships, and Divine Thrones, or of the Beings of the same ranks as the Thrones—which the Word of God declares to 69be near, and always about God, and with God, naming them in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim—by pondering the sacred ranks and divisions of their Orders and Hierarchies, you will find in the books we have written—not as befits their dignity but to the best of our ability—and as the Theology of the most holy Scriptures guided, when they extolled their Hierarchy. Nevertheless, it is necessary to say this, that both that, and every Hierarchy extolled now by us, has one and the same power, throughout the whole Hierarchical transaction; and that the Hierarch himself, according to his essence, and analogy, and rank, is initiated in Divine things, and is deified and imparts to the subordinates, according to the meetness of each for the sacred deification which comes to him from God; also that the subordinates follow the superior, and elevate the inferior towards things in advance; and that some go before, and, as far as possible, give the lead to others; and that each, as far as may be, participates in the truly Beautiful, and Wise, and Good, through this the inspired and sacerdotal harmony.

But the Beings and ranks above us, of whom we have already made a reverent mention, are both incorporeal, and their Hierarchy is both intelligible and supermundane; but let us view our Hierarchy, comformably to ourselves, abounding in the variety of the sensible symbols, by which, in proportion to our capacity, we are conducted, hierarchically according to our measure, to the uniform deification —God and Divine virtue. They indeed, as minds, think, according to laws laid down for themselves; but we are led by sensible figures to the Divine contemplations, as is possible to us. And, to speak truly, there is One, to Whom all the Godlike aspire, but they do not partake uniformly of this One and the Same, but as the Divine balance distributes to each the meet inheritance. Now these things have been treated more systematically in the Treatise concerning “Intelligible and Sensible.” But now I will attempt to describe our Hierarchy, both its source and essence, as best I can; invoking Jesus, the source and Perfecting of all Hierarchies.

Section III.

Every Hierarchy, then, is, according to our august tradition, the whole account of the sacred things falling under it, a most complete summary of the sacred rites of this or that Hierarchy, as the case may be. Our Hierarchy, then, is called, and is, the comprehensive system of the whole sacred rites included within it, according to which the divine Hierarch, being initiated, will have the communication of all the most sacred things within himself, as chief of Hierarchy. For as he who speaks of Hierarchy speaks of the order of the whole sacred rites collectively, so he, who mentions Hierarch, denotes the inspired and godly man—the skilled in all sacred knowledge—in whom the whole Hierarchy is clearly completed and recognized within himself.

Head of this Hierarchy is the Fountain of Life, the Essence of Goodness, the one Triad, Cause of things that be, from Which both being and well-being come to things that be, by reason of goodness. Of this most supremely Divine blessedness —exalted beyond all, the threefold Monad, the really Being,—the Will, inscrutable to us, but known to Itself, is the rational preservation of beings amongst us and above us; but that (preservation) cannot otherwise take place, except those who are, being saved are being deified. Now the assimilation to, and union with, God, as far as attainable, is deification. And this is the common goal of every Hierarchy,—the clinging love towards God and Divine things divinely and uniformly ministered; and previous to this, the complete and unswerving removal of things contrary, the knowledge of things as they are in themselves; the vision and science of sacred truth; the inspired communication of the uniform perfection of the One Itself, as far as attainable; the banquet of contemplation, nourishing intelligibly, and deifying every man elevated towards it.

Section IV.

Let us affirm, then, that the supremely Divine Blessedness, the essential Deity, the Source of 72deification, from Which comes the deification of those deified, bequeathed, by Divine Goodness, the Hierarchy, for preservation, and deification of all rational and intellectual Beings. And to the supermundane and blessed inheritances there is bequeathed something more immaterial and intellectual (for Almighty God does not move them to things divine, from without, but intelligibly, since they are illuminated as to the most Divine will from within, with brilliancy pure and immaterial), but to us—that which has been bequeathed to them, uniformly, and enveloped, is bequeathed from the Divinely transmitted Oracles, in a variety and multitude of divisible symbols, as we are able to receive it. For the Divinely transmitted Oracles are essence of our Hierarchy. And we affirm that these Oracles—all such as were given from our godly initiators in inspired Letters of the Word of God —are most august; and further, whatever our leaders have revealed to us from the same holy men, by a less material initiation, and already akin, as it were, to the Heavenly Hierarchy, from mind to mind, through the medium of speech, corporeal, indeed, but nevertheless more immaterial, without writing. Nor did the inspired Hierarchs transmit these things, in conceptions clear to the commonalty of worshippers, but in sacred symbols. For it is not every one that is hallowed; nor, as the Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all. 73

Section V.

Necessarily, then, the first leaders of our Hierarchy, after having been filled themselves with the sacred gift, from the superessential Godhead, and sent, by the supremely Divine Goodness, to extend the same gift successively, and, as godly, earnestly desiring themselves the elevation and deification of those after them, presented to us—by their written and unwritten revelations—in accordance with their sacred injunctions, things supercelestial, by sensible images, the enfolded, by variety and multitude, and things Divine, by things human, and things immaterial, by things material, and the superessential, by things belonging to us. Nor did they do this merely on account of the unhallowed, to whom it is not permitted even to touch the symbols, but because our Hierarchy is, as I said, a kind of symbol adapted to our condition, which needs things sensible, for our more Divine elevation from these to things intelligible. Nevertheless the reasons of the symbols have been revealed to the Divine initiators, which it is not permitted to explain to those who are yet being initiated, knowing that the Lawgivers of things divinely transmitted deliberately arranged the Hierarchy in well-established and unconfused ranks, and in proportionate and sacred distributions of that which was convenient to each, according to fitness. Wherefore trusting in thy sacred promises (for it is a pious duty to recall them to thy recollection) — that, since every Hierarchical sacred word is of binding force, thou wilt not communicate to any other but those Godlike initiators of the same rank with thyself, and wilt persuade them to promise, according to hierarchical regulation, to touch pure things purely, and to communicate the mysteries of God to the godly alone, and things perfect to those capable of perfection, and things altogether most holy to the holy, I have entrusted this Divine gift to thee, in addition to many other Hierarchical gifts.

CAPUT II.

I. Concerning things done in Illumination.

We have, then, reverently affirmed that this is the purpose of our Hierarchy, viz., our assimilation and union with God, as far as attainable. And, as the Divine Oracles teach, we shall attain this only by the love and the religious performance of the most worshipful Commandments. For He says: “He that loveth Me will keep My Word, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and will make Our abode with him.” What, then, is source of the religious performance of the most august commandments? Our preparation for the restitution of the supercelestial rest, which forms the habits of our souls into an aptitude for the reception of the other sacred sayings and doings, the transmission of our holy and most divine regeneration. For, as our illustrious Leader used to say, the very first movement of the mind towards Divine things is the willing reception of Almighty God, but the very earliest step of the religious reception towards the religious performance of the Divine commandments is the unutterable operation of our being from God. For if our being from God is the Divine engendering, never would he know, and certainly never perform, any of the Divine instructions, who had not had his beginning to be in God. To speak after the manner of men, must we not first begin to be, and then to do, our affairs? Since he, who does not exist at all, has neither movement nor even beginning; since he, who in some way exists, alone does, or suffers, those things suitable to his own nature. This, then, as I think, is clear. Let us next contemplate the Divine symbols of the birth in God. And I pray, let no uninitiated person approach the sight; for neither is it without danger to gaze upon the glorious rays of the sun with weak eyes, nor is it without peril to put our hand to things above us. For right was the priesthood of the Law, when rejecting Osias, because he put his hand to sacred things; and Korah, because to things sacred above his capacity; and Nadab and Abihu, because they treated things, within their own province, unholily. 76

II. Mysterion of Illumination.

Section I.

The Hierarch, then, wishing that all men whatsoever should be saved by their assimilation towards God, and come to recognition of truth, proclaims to all the veritable Good News, that God being compassionate towards those upon earth, out of His own proper and innate goodness, deigned Himself to come to us with outstretched arms, by reason of loving-kindness towards men; and, by the union with Him, to assimilate, like as by fire, things that have been made one, in proportion to their aptitude for deification. “For as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become children of God—to those who believe on His Name, who were begotten, not of bloods, nor of will of flesh, but of God.”

Section II.

He, who has felt a religious longing to participate in these truly supermundane gifts, comes to some one of the initiated, and persuades him to act as his conductor to the Hierarch. He then professes wholly to follow the teaching that shall be given to him, and prays him to undertake the superintendence of his introduction, and of all his after life. Now he, though religiously longing for his salvation, when he measures human infirmity against the loftiness of the undertaking, is suddenly seized with a shivering and sense of incapacity, nevertheless, at last, he agrees, with a good grace, to do what is requested, and takes and leads him to the chief Hierarch.

Section III.

He, then, when with joy he has received, as the sheep upon his shoulders, the two men, and has first worshipped, glorifies with a mental thanksgiving and bodily prostration the One beneficent Source, from Which, those who are being called, are called, and those who are being saved, are saved.

Section IV.

Then collecting a full religious assembly into the sacred place, for co-operation, and common rejoicing over the man’s salvation, and for thanksgiving for the Divine Goodness, he first chants a certain hymn, found in the Oracles, accompanied by the whole body of the Church; and after this, when he has kissed the holy table, he advances to the man before him, and demands of him, what has brought him here?

Section V.

When the man, out of love to God, has confessed, according to the instruction of his sponsor, his ungodliness, his ignorance of the really beautiful, his insufficiency for the life in God, and prays, through his holy mediation, to attain to God and Divine things, he (the Hierarch) testifies to him, that his approach ought to be entire, as to God Who is All Perfect, and without blemish; and when he has expounded to him fully the godly course of life, and has demanded of him, if he would thus live,—after his promise he places his right hand upon his head, and when he has sealed him, commands the priests to register the man and his sponsor.

Section VI.

When these have enrolled the names, he makes a holy prayer, and when the whole Church have completed this with him, he looses his sandals, and removes his clothing, through the Leitourgoi. Then, when he has placed him facing the west and beating his hands, averted towards the same quarter, he commands him thrice to breathe scorn upon Satan, and further, to profess the words of the renunciation. When he has witnessed his threefold renunciation, he turns him back to the east, after he has professed this thrice; and when he has looked up to heaven, and extended his hands thitherward, he commands him to be enrolled under Christ, and all the Divinely transmitted Oracles of God. When the man has done this, he attests again for him his threefold profession, and again, when he has thrice professed, after prayer, he gives thanks, and lays his hand upon him.

Section VII.

When the Deacons have entirely unclothed him, the Priests bring the holy oil of the anointing. Then he begins the anointing, through the threefold sealing, and for the rest assigns the man to the Priests, for the anointing of his whole body, while himself advances to the mother of filial adoption, and when he has purified the water within it by the holy invocations, and perfected it by three cruciform effusions of the altogether most pure Muron, and by the same number of injections of the all holy Muron, and has invoked the sacred melody of the inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, he orders the man to be brought forward; and when one of the Priests, from the register, has announced him and his surety, he is conducted by the Priests near the water to the hand of the Hierarch, being led by the hand to him. Then the Hierarch, standing above, when the Priests have again called aloud near the Hierarch within the water the name of the initiated, the Hierarch dips him three times, invoking the threefold Subsistence of the Divine Blessedness, at the three immersions and emersions of the initiated. The Priests then take him, and entrust him to the Sponsor and guide of his introduction; and when they, in conjunction with him, have cast over the initiated appropriate clothing, they lead him again to the Hierarch, who, when he has sealed the man with the most Divinely operating Muron, pronounces him to be henceforward partaker of the most Divinely initiating Eucharist. 80

Section VIII.

When he has finished these things, he elevates himself from his progression to things secondary, to the contemplation of things first, as one, who, at no time or manner, turns himself to any other thing whatever than those which are peculiarly his own, but from things Divine to Divine,—is persistently and always ranging himself under the banner of the supremely Divine Spirit.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

This initiation, then, of the holy birth in God, as in symbols, has nothing unbecoming or irreverent, nor anything of the sensible images, but (contains) enigmas of a contemplation worthy of God, likened to physical and human images. For how should it appear misleading? Even when the very divine meaning of the things done is passed over in silence, the divine Instruction might convince, religiously pursuing as it does the good life of the candidate, enjoining upon him the purification from every kind of evil, through a virtuous and Divine life, by the physical cleansing through the agency of water in a bodily form. This symbolic teaching then of the things done, even if it had nothing more divine, would not be without religious value, as I think, introducing a discipline of a well-regulated life, and. suggesting mysteriously, through the total bodily purification by water, the complete purification from the evil life.

Section II.

Let this, then, be, for the uninitiated, a conducting guidance of the soul, which separates, as is meet things sacred and uniform from multiplicity, and apportions the harmonious elevation to the Orders severally in turn. But we, who have ascended by sacred gradations to the sources of the things performed, and have been religiously taught these (sources), shall recognize of what moulds they are the reliefs, and of what invisible things they are the likenesses. For, as is distinctly shewn in the Treatise concerning “Intelligible and Sensible,” sacred things in sensible forms are copies of things intelligible, to which they lead and shew the way; and things intelligible are source and science of things hierarchical cognizable by the senses.

Section III.

Let us affirm, then, that the goodness of the Divine Blessedness is always in the same condition and manner, unfolding the beneficent rays of its own light upon all the intellectual visions without grudging. Should, then, the self-choosing self-sufficiency of the contemplators either turn away from the light contemplated, by closing, through love of evil, the faculties for enlightenment naturally implanted within it, it would be separated from the light present to it, not turned away, but shining upon it when shortsighted and turning its face from light generously running to it; or should it overstep the bounds of the visible given to it in due proportion, and rashly undertake to gaze upon the rays superior to its vision, the light indeed will do nothing beyond its proper functions, but it, by imperfectly approaching thing’s perfect, would not attain to things unsuitable, and, by stupidly disregarding the due proportion, would fail through its own fault.

But, as I said, the Divine Light is always unfolded beneficently to the intellectual visions, and it is possible for them to seize it when present, and always being most ready for the distribution of things appropriate, in a manner becoming God. To this imitation the divine Hierarch is fashioned, unfolding to all, without grudging, the luminous rays of his inspired teaching, and, after the Divine example, being most ready to enlighten the proselyte, neither using a grudging nor an unholy wrath for former back-slidings or excess, but, after the example of God, always enlightening by his conducting light those who approach him, as becomes a Hierarch, in fitness, and order, and in proportion to the aptitude of each for holy things.

Section IV.

But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the proper view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and will acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the light. Now he, who has well looked upon his own proper condition with unbiassed eyes, will depart from the gloomy recesses of ignorance, but being imperfect he will not, of his own accord, at once desire the most perfect union and participation of God, but little by little will be carried orderly and reverently through things present to things more forward, and through these to things foremost, and when perfected, to the supremely Divine summit. An illustration of this decorous and sacred order is the modesty of the proselyte, and his prudence in his own affairs in having the sponsor as leader of the way to the Hierarch. The Divine Blessedness receives the man, thus conducted, into communion with Itself, and imparts to him the proper light as a kind of sign, making him godly and sharer of the inheritance of the godly, and sacred ordering; of which things the Hierarch’s seal, given to the proselyte, and the saving enrolment of the priests are a sacred symbol, registering him amongst those who are being saved, and placing in the sacred memorials, beside himself also his sponsor,—the one indeed, as a true lover of the life-giving way to truth and a companion of a godly guide, and the other, as an unerring conductor of his follower by the Divinely-taught directions.

Section V.

Yet it is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities thoroughly opposed, nor that a man who has had a certain fellowship with the One should have divided lives, if he clings to the firm participation in the One; but he must be resistless and resolute, as regards all separations from the uniform. This it is which the teaching of the symbols reverently and enigmatically intimates, by stripping the proselyte, as it were, of his former life, and discarding to the very utmost the habits within that life, makes him stand naked and barefoot, looking away towards the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion of his hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness, and breathes out, as it were, the habit of dissimilarity which he had acquired, and professes the entire renunciation of everything contrary to the Divine likeness. When the man has thus become invincible and separate from evil, it turns him towards the east, declaring clearly that his position and recovery will be purely in the Divine Light, in the complete separation from baseness; and receiving his sacred promises of entire consort with the One, since he has become uniform through love of the truth. Yet it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual acquire the unchangeableness of the Godlike habit, by continuous and persistent struggles towards one, and by the entire destruction and annihilation of 85 things contrary. For it is necessary that a man should not only depart from every kind of baseness, but he must be also bravely obdurate and ever fearless against the baneful submission to it. Nor must he, at any time, become remiss in his sacred love of the truth, but with all his power persistently and perpetually be elevated towards it, always religiously pursuing his upward course, to the more perfect mysteries of the Godhead.

Section VI.

Now you may see the distinct illustrations of these things in the religious rites performed by the Hierarch. For the Godlike Hierarch starts with the holy anointing, and the Priests under him complete the Divine service of the Chrism, summoning in type the man initiated to the holy contests, within which he is placed under Christ as Umpire: since, as God, He is Institutor of the awards of contest, and as wise, He placed its laws, and as generous, the prizes suitable to the victors. And this is yet more Divine, since as good, He devotedly entered the lists with them, contending, on behalf of their freedom and victory, for their power over death and destruction, he who is being initiated will enter the contests, as those of God, rejoicing, and abides by the regulations of the Wise, and contends according to them, without transgression holding fast the hope of the beautiful rewards, as being enrolled under a good Lord and Leader of the awards: and when after following in the Divine footsteps of the first of athletes, through goodness, he has overthrown, in his struggles after the Divine example, the energies and impulses opposed to his deification, he dies with Christ—to speak mystically —to sin, in Baptism.

Section VII.

And consider attentively, I pray, with what appropriateness the holy symbols are presented. For since death is with us not an annihilation of being, as others surmise, but the separating of things united, leading to that which is invisible to us, the soul indeed becoming invisible through deprivation of the body, and the body, through being buried in earth in consequence of one of its bodily changes, becoming invisible to human ken, appropriately, the whole covering by water would be taken as an image of death, and the invisible tomb. The symbolical teaching, then, reveals in mystery that the man baptized according to religious rites, imitates, so far as Divine imitation is attainable to men, by the three immersions in the water, the supremely Divine death of the Life-giving Jesus, Who spent three days and three nights in the tomb, in Whom, according to the mystical and secret teaching of the sacred text, the Prince of the world found nothing. 87

Section VIII.

Next, they throw garments, white as light, over the man initiated. For by his manly and Godlike insensibility to contrary passions, and by his persistent inclination towards the One, the unadorned is adorned, and the shapeless takes shape, being made brilliant by his luminous life.

But the perfecting unction of the Muron makes the man initiated of good odour, for the holy perfecting of the Divine birth unites those who have been perfected to the supremely Divine Spirit. Now the overshadowing which makes intelligibly of a good savour, and perfect, as being most unutterable, I leave to the mental consciousness of those who are deemed worthy of the sacred and deifying participation of the Holy Spirit within their mind.

At the conclusion of all, the Hierarch calls the man initiated to the most Holy Eucharist, and imparts to him the communion of the perfecting mysteries.

CAPUT III.

I. Concerning things accomplished in the Synaxis.

Courage, then, since we have made mention of this (Eucharist) which we may not pass over to celebrate any other Hierarchical function in preference to it. For according to our illustrious Leader, it is “initiation of initiations,” and one must first lay down the Divine description of it, before the rest, from the inspired and hierarchical science of the Oracles, and then be borne by the supremely Divine Spirit to its sacred contemplation. First, let us reverently consider this; for what reason that, which is common also to the other Hierarchical initiations, is pre-eminently attributed to it, beyond the rest; and it is uniquely called, “Communion and Synaxis,” when each consecrating function both collects our divided lives into uniform deification, and gives communion and union with the One, by the Godlike folding together of our diversities. Now we affirm that the Perfecting by the communications of the other Hierarchical symbols springs from the supremely Divine and perfecting gifts of it. For it scarcely ever happens, that any Hierarchical initiation is completed without the most Divine Eucharist, as head of the things done in each, ministering the collecting of the person initiated to the One, and completing his communion with God, by the Divinely transmitted gift of the perfecting mysteries. If, then, each of the Hierarchical initiations, being indeed incomplete, will not make perfect our communion and our gathering to the One, even its being initiation is precluded on account of the lack of completeness. Now since the imparting of the supremely Divine mysteries to the man initiated is the head and tail of every initiation, naturally then the Hierarchical judgment hit upon an appellation propel to it, from the truth of the facts. Thus, for instance, with regard to the holy initiation of the Divine birth; since it imparts first-Light, and is head of all the Divine illuminations, we celebrate the true appellation from the enlightening effected. For, though it be common to all Hierarchical functions to impart the gift of sacred light to those initiated, yet it gave to me the power to see first, and through its first light I am enlightened to gaze upon the other religious rites. Having said this, let us minutely investigate and examine hierarchically the accurate administration and contemplation of the most pure initiation, in every particular.

II. Mysterion of Synaxis, that is, Communion.

The Hierarch, having completed a reverent prayer, near the Divine Altar, starts with the incensing, and proceeds to every part of the enclosure of the sacred place; he then returns to the Divine Altar, and begins the sacred chanting of the Psalms, the whole ecclesiastical assembly chanting, with him, the sacred language of the Psalter. Next follows the reading of the Holy Scriptures by the Leitourgoi. After these readings the catechumens quit the sacred enclosure, as well as the “possessed,” and the penitents. But those who are deemed worthy of the sight and participation of the Divine Mysteries remain. Of the Leitourgoi, some stand near the closed gates of the sanctuary, whilst others perform some other duty of their own rank. But chosen members of the ministering Order with the Priests lay the holy Bread and the Cup of Blessing upon the Divine Altar, whilst the universal Song of Praise is being professed beforehand by the whole body of the Church. Added to these, the Divine Hierarch makes a sacred prayer, and proclaims the holy Peace to all. When all have kissed each other, the mystical proclamation of the holy tablets is performed. When the Hierarch and the Priests have washed their hands in water, the Hierarch stands in the midst of the Divine Altar, and the chosen Deacons alone, with the Priests, stand around. The Hierarch, when he has sung the sacred works of God, ministers things most divine, and brings to view the things sung, through the symbols reverently exposed, and when he has shewn the gifts of the works of God, he first proceeds to the sacred participation of the same, and turns and exhorts the others. When he has received and distributed the supremely Divine Communion, he terminates with a holy thanksgiving; whilst the multitude have merely glanced at the Divine symbols alone, he is ever conducted by the Divine Spirit, as becomes a Hierarch, in the purity of a Godlike condition, to the holy sources of the things performed, in blessed and intelligible visions.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

Here then, too, O excellent son, after the images, I come in due order and reverence to the Godlike reality of the archetypes, saying here to those yet being initiated, for the harmonious guidance of their souls, that the varied and sacred composition of the symbols is not without spiritual contemplation for them, as merely presented superficially. For the most sacred chants and readings of the Oracles teach them a discipline of a virtuous life, and previous to this, the, complete purification from destructive evil; and the most Divine, and common, and peaceful distribution of one and the same, both Bread and Cup, enjoins upon them a godly fellowship in character, as having a fellowship in food, and recalls to their memory the most Divine Supper, and arch-symbol of the rites performed, agreeably with which the Founder of the symbols Himself excludes, most justly, him who had supped with Him on the holy things, not piously and in a manner suitable to his character; teaching at once, clearly2and Divinely, that the approach to Divine mysteries with a sincere mind confers, on those who draw nigh, the participation in a gift according to their own character.

Section II.

Let us, then, as I said, leave behind these things, beautifully depicted upon the entrance of the. innermost shrine, as being sufficient for those, who are yet incomplete for contemplation, and let us proceed from the effects to the causes; and then, Jesus lighting the way, we shall view our holy Synaxis, and the comely contemplation of things intelligible, which makes radiantly manifest the blessed beauty of the archetypes. But, oh, most Divine and holy initiation, uncovering the folds of the dark mysteries enveloping thee in symbols, be manifest to us in thy bright glory, and fill our intellectual visions with single and unconcealed light.

Section III.

We must, then, in my opinion, pass within the All Holy Mysteries, after we have laid bare the intelligible of the first of the votive gifts, to gaze upon its Godlike beauty, and view the Hierarch, divinely going with sweet fragrance from the Divine Altar to the furthermost bounds of the holy place, and again returning to it to complete the function. For the Blessedness, supremely Divine above all, even if, through Divine goodness, It goes forth to the communion of the holy who participate in It, yet 93It never goes outside its essential unmoved position and steadfastness; and illuminates all the Godlike in due degree, being always self-centred, and in nowise moved from its own proper identity; so, too, the Divine initiation (sacrament) of the Synaxis, although it has a unique, and simple, and enfolded Source, is multiplied, out of love towards man, into the holy variety of the symbols, and travels through the whole range of the supremely Divine description; yet uniformly it is again collected from these, into its own proper Monady, and unifies those who are being reverently conducted towards it. In the same Godlike manner, the Divine Hierarch, if he benignly lowers to his subordinates his own unique Hierarchical science, by using the multiplicities of the holy enigmas, yet again, as absolute, and not to be held in check by smaller things, he is restored to his proper headship without diminution, and, when he has made the intellectual entry of himself to the One, he sees clearly the uniform raisons d’être of the things done, as he makes the goal of his philanthropic progress to things secondary the more Divine return to things primary.

Section IV.

The chanting of the Psalms, being co-essential with almost all the Hierarchical mysteries, was not likely to be separated from the most Hierarchical of all. For every holy and inspired Scripture sets forth for those meet for deification, either the originated beginning and ordering of things from God; or the Hierarchy and polity of the Law; or the distributions and possessions of the inheritances of the people of God; or the understanding of sacred judges, or of wise kings, or of inspired Priests: or philosophy of men of old time, unshaken in endurances of the things let loose in variety and multitude; or the treasures of wisdom for the conduct of life; or songs and inspired pictures of Divine Loves; or the declaratory predictions of things to come; or the Theandric works of Jesus; or the God-transmitted and God-imitating polities and holy teachings of His Disciples, or the hidden and mystic gaze of the beloved and divinely sweet of the disciples, or the supermundane theology of Jesus; and implanted them in the holy and Godlike instructions of the mystic rites. Now the sacred description of the Divine Odes, whose purpose is to sing the words and works of God throughout, and to praise the holy words and works of godly men, forms an universal Ode and narrative of things Divine, and makes, in those who inspiredly recite it, a habit suitable for the reception and distribution of every Hierarchical mystery. 95

Section V.

When, then, the comprehensive melody of the holy Hymns has harmonized the habits of our souls to the things which are presently to be ministered, and, by the unison of the Divine Odes, as one and concordant chorus of holy men, has established an accord with things Divine, and themselves, and one another, the things, more strained and obscure in the intellectual language of the mystic Psalms, are expanded by the most holy lections of the inspired writings, through more full and distinct images and narratives. He, who devoutly contemplates these, will perceive the uniform and one conspiration, as being moved by One, the supremely Divine Spirit. Hence, naturally, in the history of the world, after the more ancient tradition, the new Covenant is proclaimed; the inspired and Hierarchical order teaching this, as I think, that the one affirmed the Divine works of Jesus, as to come; but the other accomplished; and as that described the truth in figures, this shewed it present. For the accomplishment, within this, of the predictions of that, established the truth, and the work of God is a consummation of the Word of God.

Section VI.

Those who absolutely have no ear for these sacred initiations do not even recognize the images,—unblushingly rejecting the saving revelation of the Divine Birth, and in opposition to the Oracles reply to their destruction, “Thy ways I do not wish to know.”

Now the regulation of the holy Hierarchy permits the catechumens, and the possessed, and the penitents, to hear the sacred chanting of the Psalms, and the inspired reading of the all-Holy Scriptures; but it does not invite them to the next religious services and contemplations, but only the eyes of the initiated. For the Godlike Hierarchy is full of reverent justice, and distributes savingly to each, according to their due, bequeathing savingly the harmonious communication of each of the things Divine, in measure, and proportion, and due time. The lowest rank, then, is assigned to the catechumens, for they are without participation and instruction in every Hierarchical initiation, not even having the being in God by Divine Birth, but are yet being brought to Birth by the Paternal Oracles, and moulded, by life-giving formations, towards the blessed introduction to their first life and first light from Birth in God. As, then, children after the flesh, if, whilst immature and unformed, they should anticipate their proper delivery, as untimely born and abortions, will fall to earth without life and without light; and no one, in his senses, would say from what he saw, that they, released from the darkness of the womb, were brought to the light (for the medical authority, which is learned in the functions of the body, would say that light operates on things receptive of light); so also the all-wise science of religious rites brings these first to delivery, by the preparatory nourishment of the formative and life-giving Oracles; and when it has made their person ripe for Divine Birth, gives to them savingly, in due order, the participation in things luminous and perfecting; but, at present, it separates things perfect from them as imperfect, consulting the good order of sacred things, and the delivery and life of the catechumens, in a Godlike order of the Hierarchical rites.

Section VII.

Now the multitude of the possessed indeed is unholy, but it is next above the catechumens, which is lowest. Nor is that which has received a certain participation in the most holy offices, but is yet entangled by contrary qualities, whether enchantments or terrors, on a par, as I think, with the altogether uninitiated and entirely uncommunicated in the Divine initiations; but, even for them, the view and participation in the holy mysteries is contracted, and very properly. For, if it be true that the altogether godly man, the worthy partaker of the Divine mysteries, the one carried to the very summit of the Divine likeness, to the best of his powers, in complete and most perfect deifications, does not even perform the things of the flesh, beyond the most necessary requirements of nature, and then as a parergon, but will be, at the same time, a temple, and a follower, according to his ability, of the supremely Divine Spirit, in the highest deification, implanting like in like;—such an one as this would never be possessed by opposing phantoms or fears, but will laugh them to scorn, and when they approach, will cast them down and put them to flight, and will act rather than comply, and in addition to the passionless and indomitableness of his own character, will be seen also a physician to others, for such “possessions” as these; (and I think further, yea, rather, I know certainly that the most impartial discrimination of Hierarchical persons knows more than they, that such as are possessed with a most detestable possession, by departing from the Godlike life, become of one mind and one condition with destructive demons, by turning themselves from things that really are, and undying possessions, and everlasting pleasures, for the sake of the most base and impassioned folly destructive to themselves; and by desiring and pursuing the earthly variableness, and the perishable and corrupting pleasures, and the unstable comfort in things foreign to their nature, not real but seeming;) these then, first, and more properly than those, were shut out by the discriminating authority of the Deacon; for it is not permitted to them to have part in any other holy function than the teaching of the Oracles, which is likely to turn them to better things. For, if the supermundane Service of the Divine Mysteries excludes those under penitence, and those who have already attained it, not permitting anything to come near which is not completely perfect, and proclaims, and this in all sincerity, that “I am unseen and uncommunicated by those who are in any respect imperfectly weak as regards the summit of the Divine Likeness” (for that altogether most pure voice scares away even those who cannot be associated with the worthy partakers of the most Divine mysteries).; how much more, then, will the multitude of those who are under the sway of their passions be unhallowed and alien from every sight and participation in the holy mysteries. When, then, the uninitiated in the mysteries, and the imperfect, and with them the apostates from the religious life, and after them, those who through unmanliness are prone to the fears and fancies of contrary influences, as not reaching through the persistent and indomitable inclination towards godliness, the stability and activity of a Godlike condition; then, in addition to these, those who have separated indeed from the contrary life, but have not yet been cleansed from its imaginations by a godly and pure habit and love, and next, those who are not altogether uniform, and to use an expression of the Law, “entirely without spot and blemish,” when these have been excluded from the divine temple and the service which is too high for them, the all-holy ministers and loving contemplators of things all-holy, gazing reverently upon the most pure rite, sing in an universal Hymn of Praise the Author and Giver of all good, from Whom the saving mystic Rites were exhibited to us, which divinely work the sacred deification of those being initiated. Now this Hymn some indeed call a Hymn of Praise, others, the symbol of worship, but others, as I think, more divinely, a Hierarchical thanksgiving, as giving a summary of the holy gifts which come to us from God. For, it seems to me the record of all the works of God related to have been done for us in song, which, after it had benevolently fixed our being and life, and moulded the Divine likeness in ourselves to beautiful archetypes, and placed us in participation of a more Divine condition and elevation; but when it beheld the dearth of Divine gifts, which came upon us by our heedlessness, is declared to have called us back to our first condition, by goods restored, and by the complete assumption of what was ours, to have made good the most perfect impartation of His own, and thus tp have given to us a participation in God and Divine things.

Section VIII.

When the supremely Divine love towards Man has thus been religiously celebrated, the Divine Bread is presented, veiled, and likewise the Cup of Blessing, and the most Divine greeting is 101devoutly performed, and the mystic and supermundane recital of the holy-written tablets. For it is not possible to be collected to the One, and to partake of the peaceful union with the One, when people are divided amongst themselves. For if, being illuminated by the contemplation and knowledge of the One, we would be united to an uniform and Divine agreement, we must not permit ourselves to descend to divided lusts, from which are formed earthly enmities, envious and passionate, against that which is according to nature. This unified and undivided life is, in my opinion, established by the holy service of the “peace,” which establishes like in like, and separates the Divine and unified visions from things divided. The recital of the holy tablets after the “peace” proclaims those who have passed through life holily, and have reached the term of a virtuous life without faltering, urging and conducting us to their blessed condition and Divine repose, through similarity to them, and, announcing them as living, and, as the Word of God says, “not dead, but as having passed from death to a most divine life.”

Section IX.

But observe that they are enrolled in the holy memorials, not as though the Divine memory were represented under the figure of a memorial, after the manner of men; but as one might say, with 102reverence towards God, as beseems the august and unfailing knowledge in God of those who have been perfected in the likeness of God. For “He knoweth,” say the Oracles, “them that are His,” and “precious, in the sight of the Lord, is the death of His saints, “death of saints,” being said, instead of the perfection in holiness. And bear this religiously in mind, that when the worshipful symbols have been placed on the Divine Altar, through which (symbols) the Christ is signified and partaken, there is inseparably present the reading of the register of the holy persons, signifying the indivisible conjunction of their supermundane and sacred union with Him. When these things have been ministered, according to the regulations described, the Hierarch, standing before the most holy symbols, washes his hands with water, together with the reverend order of the Priests. Because, as the Oracles testify, when a man has been washed, he needs no other washing, except that of his extremities, i.e his lowest; through which extreme cleansing he will be resistless and free, as altogether uniform, in a sanctified habit of the Divine Likeness, and advancing in a goodly manner to things secondary, and being turned again uniquely to the One, he will make his return, without spot and blemish, as preserving the fulness and completeness of the Divine Likeness. 103

Section X.

There was indeed the sacred laver, as we have said, in the Hierarchy of the Law; and the present cleansing of the hands of the Hierarch and the Priests suggests it. For it behoves those who approach the most hallowed service to be purified even to the remotest imaginations of the soul, through likeness to it, and, as far as possible, to draw nigh; for thus they will shed around more visibly the Divine manifestations, since the supermundane flashes permit their own splendour to pass more thoroughly and brilliantly into the brightness of mirrors like themselves. Further, the cleansing of the Hierarch and the Priests to their extremities, i.e. lowest, takes place before the most holy symbols, as in the presence of Christ, Who surveys all our most secret thoughts, and since the utmost purification is established under His all-surveying scrutiny, and most just and unflinching judgment, the Hierarch thus becomes one with the things Divine, and, when he has extolled the holy works of God, he ministers things most Divine, and brings to view the things being sung.

Section XI.

We will now explain, in detail, to the best of our ability, certain works of God, of which we spoke. For I am not competent to sing all, much less to know accurately, and to reveal their mysteries to others. Now whatever things have been sung and ministered by the inspired Hierarchs, agreeably to the Oracles, these we will declare, as far as attainable to us, invoking the Hierarchical inspiration to our aid. When, in the beginning, our human nature had thoughtlessly fallen from the good things of God, it received, by inheritance, the life subject to many passions, and the goal of the destructive death. For, as a natural consequence, the pernicious falling away from genuine goodness and the transgression of the sacred Law in Paradise delivered the man fretted with the life-giving yoke, to his own downward inclinations and the enticing and hostile wiles of the adversary—the contraries of the divine goods; thence it pitiably exchanged for the eternal, the mortal, and, having had its own origin in deadly generations, the goal naturally corresponded with the beginning; but having willingly fallen from the Divine and elevating life, it was carried to the contrary extremity,—the variableness of many passions, and lead astray, and turned aside from the strait way leading to the true God,—and subjected to destructive and evil-working multitudes—naturally forgot that it was worshipping, not gods, or friends, but enemies. Now when these had treated it harshly, according to their own cruelty, it fell pitiably into danger of annihilation and destruction; but the boundless Loving-kindness of the supremely Divine goodness towards man did not, in Its benevolence, withdraw from us Its spontaneous forethought, but having truly participated sinlessly in all things belonging to us, and having been made one with our lowliness in connection with the unconfused and flawless possession of Its own properties in full perfection, It bequeathed to us, as henceforth members of the same family, the communion with Itself, and proclaimed us partakers of Its own beautiful things; having, as the secret teaching holds, loosed the power of the rebellious multiplicity, which was against us; not by force, as having the upper hand, but, according to the Logion, mystically transmitted to us, “in judgment and righteousness.”

The things within us, then, It benevolently changed to the entire contrary. For the lightless within Our mind It filled with blessed and most Divine Light, and adorned the formless with Godlike beauties; the tabernacle of our soul It liberated from most damnable passions and destructive stains by a perfected deliverance of our being which was all but prostrate, by shewing to us a supermundane elevation, and an inspired polity in our religious assimilation to Itself, as far as is possible.

Section XII.

But how could the Divine imitation otherwise become ours, unless the remembrance of the most holy works of God were perpetually being renewed by the mystical teachings and ministrations of the Hierarchy? This, then, we do, as the Oracles say, 106“for Its remembrance.” Wherefore the Divine Hierarch, standing before the Divine Altar, extols the aforesaid holy works of God, which proceed from the most divine forethought of Jesus on our behalf, which He accomplished for preservation of our race, by the good pleasure of the most Holy Father in the Holy Spirit, according to the Logion. When he has extolled their majesty, and gazed, with intellectual eyes, upon their intelligible contemplation, he proceeds to their symbolical ministration,—and this,—as transmitted from God. Whence after the holy hymns of the works of God, he piously and, as becomes a hierarch, deprecates his own unworthiness for a service above his merits, first, reverently crying aloud to Him, “Thou hast said, This do for My remembrance.” Then, having asked to become meet for this the God-imitating of service, and to consecrate things Divine by the assimilation to Christ Himself, and to distribute them altogether purely, and that those who shall partake of things holy may receive them holily, he consecrates things most Divine, and brings to view through the symbols reverently exposed the things whose praises are being sung. For when he has unveiled the veiled and undivided Bread, and divided it into many, and has divided the Oneness of the Cup to all, he symbolically multiplies and distributes the unity, completing in these an altogether most holy ministration. For the “one,” and “simple,” and “hidden,” of Jesus, the most supremely Divine Word, by His incarnation amongst us, came forth, out of goodness and love towards man, to the compound and visible, and benevolently devised the unifying, communion, having united, to the utmost, our lowliness to the most Divine of Himself; if indeed we have been fitted to Him, as members to a body, after the identity of a blameless and Divine life, and have not, by being killed through destructive passions, become inharmonious, and unfastened, and unyoked, to the godly and most healthy members. For, if we aspire to communion with Him, we must keep our eye fixed upon His most godly Life in the flesh, and we must retrace our path to the Godlike and blameless habit of Its holy sinlessness by assimilation to It; for thus He will communicate harmoniously to us the communion with the similar.

Section XIII.

The Hierarch makes known these things to those who are living religiously, by bringing the veiled gifts to view, by dividing their oneness into many, and by making the recipients partakers of them, by the utmost union of the things distributed with those who receive them. For he delineates in these things under sensible forms our intelligible life in figures, by bringing to view the Christ Jesus from the Hidden within the Divine Being, out of love to man, made like unto us by the all-perfect and unconfused incarnation in our race, from us, and advancing to the divided condition of ourselves, without change from the essential One, and calling the human race, through this beneficent love of man, into participation with Himself and His own good things, provided we are united to His most Divine Life by our assimilation to it, as far as possible; and by this, in very truth, we shall have been perfected, as partakers of God and of Divine things.

Section XIV.

Having received and distributed the supremely Divine Communion, he terminates with a holy thanksgiving, in which the whole body of the Church take part. For the Communion precedes the imparting, and the reception of the mysteries, the mystic distribution. For this is the universal regulation and order of the Divine Mysteries, that the reverend Leader should first partake, and be filled with the gifts, to be imparted, through him, from God to others, and so impart to others also. Wherefore, those who rashly content themselves with the inspired instructions, in preference to a life and condition agreeable to the same, are profane, and entirely alien from the sacred regulation established. For, as in the case of the bright shining of the sun, the more delicate and luminous substances, being first filled with the brilliancy flowing into them, brightly impart their overflowing light to things after them; so it is not tolerable that one, who has not become altogether Godlike in his whole character, and proved to be in harmony with the Divine influence and judgment, should become Leader to others, in the altogether divine.

Section XV.

Meanwhile, the whole order of the Priests having been collected together in hierarchical order, and communicated in the most Divine mysteries, finishes with a holy thanksgiving, after having recognized and sung the favours of the works of God, according to their degree. So that those, who have not partaken and are ignorant of things Divine, would not attain to thanksgiving, although the most Divine gifts are, in their essential nature, worthy of thanksgiving. But, as I said, not having wished even to look at the Divine gifts, from their inclination to things inferior, they have remained throughout ungracious towards the boundless graces of the works of God. “Taste and see,” say the Oracles, for, by the sacred initiation of things Divine, the initiated recognize their munificent graces, and, by gazing with utmost reverence upon their most Divine height and breadth in the participation, they will sing the supercelestial beneficent works of the Godhead with gracious thanksgiving. 110

CAPUT IV.

I. Concerning things performed in the Muron, and concerning things perfected in it.

So great and so beautiful are the intelligible visions of the most holy Synaxis, which minister hierarchically, as we have often said, our participation in, and collection towards, the One. But there is another perfecting Service of the same rank, which our Leaders name “Initiation of Muron,” by contemplating whose parts in due order, in accordance with the sacred images, we shall thus be borne, by hierarchical contemplations, to its Oneness through its parts.

II. Mysterion of Initiation of Muron.

In the same way as in the Synaxis, the orders of the imperfect are dismissed, that is, after the hierarchical procession has made the whole circuit of the temple, attended with fragrant incense; and the chanting of the Psalms, and.the reading of the most Divine Oracles. Then the Hierarch takes the Muron and places it, veiled under twelve sacred wings, upon the Divine Altar, whilst all cry aloud, with most devout voice, the sacred melody of the inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, and when he has finished the prayer offered over it, he uses it, in the most holy mystic Rites of things being hallowed, for almost every Hierarchical consecration.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

The elementary teaching, then, of this the perfecting service, through the things done over the Divine Muron, shews this, in my judgment, that, that which is holy and of sweet savour in the minds of devout men is covered, as with a veil, since it Divinely enjoins upon holy men to have their beautiful and well-savoured assimilations in virtue to the hidden God not seen for vain glory. For the hidden comeliness of God is unsullied, and is sweet beyond conception, and manifested for spiritual contemplation to the intellectual alone, through a desire to have the unsullied images of virtue in souls of the same pattern. For by looking away from the undistorted and well imitated image of the Godlike virtue to that contemplated and fragrant beauty, he thus moulds and fashions it to the most beautiful imitation. And, as in the case of sensible images, if the artist look without distraction upon the archetypal form, not distracted by sight of anything else, or in any way divided in attention, he will duplicate, if I may so speak, the very person that is being sketched, whoever he may be, and will shew the reality in the likeness, and the archetype in the image, and each in each, save the difference of substance; thus, to copyists who love the beautiful in mind, the persistent and unflinching contemplation of the sweet-savoured and hidden beauty will confer the unerring and most Godlike appearance. Naturally, then, the divine copyists, who unflinchingly mould their own intellectual contemplation to the superessentially sweet and contemplated comeliness, do. none of their divinely imitated virtues “to be seen of men, as the Divine text expresses it; but reverently gaze upon the most holy things of the Church, veiled in the Divine Muron as in a figure. Wherefore, these also, by religiously concealing that which is holy and most Divine in virtue within their Godlike and God-engraved mind, look away to the archetypal conception alone; for not only are they blind to things dissimilar, but neither are they drawn down to gaze upon them. Wherefore, as becomes their character, they do neither love things, merely seeming good and just, but those really being such; nor do they look to opinion, upon which the multitude irrationally congratulate themselves, but, after the Divine example, by distinguishing the good or evil as it is in itself, they are Divine images of the most supremely Divine sweetness, which, having the truly sweet within itself, is not turned to the anomalously seeming of the multitude, moulding Its genuineness to the true images of Itself.

Section II.

Come, then, since we have viewed the exterior comeliness of the entirely beautiful ministration, let us now look away to its more godly beauty (whilst itself, by itself, has uncovered the veils), gazing upon its blessed radiance, shedding its bright beams openly around, and filling us with the fragrance unveiled to the contemplators. For the visible consecration of the Muron is neither uncommunicated in, or unseen by those who surround the Hierarch, but, on the contrary, by passing through to them, and fixing the contemplation above the many, is reverently covered by them, and by Hierarchical direction kept from the multitude.

For the splendour of things all holy, by shedding its light clearly and without symbol to men inspired, as being congenial to the thing contemplated, and perfuming their contemplating perceptions without; concealment, advances not yet in the same way to the inferior, but by them as deep contemplators of the thing contemplated is concealed under the enigmas of the wings, without ostentation, so that it may not be defiled by the dissimilar; through which sacred enigmas the well-ordered Ranks of the subordinate are conducted to the degree of holiness compatible with their powers.

Section III.

The holy consecration, then, which we are now extolling, is, as I said, of the perfecting rank and capacity of the Hierarchical functions. Wherefore our Divine Leaders arranged the same, as being of the same rank and effect as the holy perfecting of the Synaxis, with the same figures, for the most part, and with mystical regulations and lections. And you may see in like manner the Hierarch bearing forward the sweet perfume from the more holy place into the sacred precincts beyond, and teaching, by the return to the same, that the participation in things Divine comes to all holy persons, according to fitness, and is undiminished and altogether unmoved and stands unchangeably in its identity, as beseems Divine fixity. In the same way the Psalms and readings of the Oracles nurse the imperfect to a life-bringing adoption of sons, and form a religious inclination in those who are possessed with accursed spirits, and dispel the opposing fear and effeminacy from those possessed by a spirit of unmanliness; shewing to them, according to their capacity, the highest pinnacle of the Godlike habit and power, by aid of which they will, the rather, scare away the opposing forces, and will take the lead in healing others; and, following the example of God, they will, whilst unmoved from their own proper gifts, not only be active against those opposing fears, but will themselves give activity to others; and they also impart a religious habit to those who have changed from the worse to a religious mind, so that they should not be again enslaved by evil, and purify completely those who need to become altogether pure; and they lead the holy to the Divine likenesses, and contemplations and communions belonging to themselves, and so establish those who are entirely holy, in blessed and intelligible visions, fulfilling their uniform likeness of the One, and making them one.

Section IV.

What, then, shall I say further? Is it not those Ranks already mentioned, which are not entirely pure, that the present consecrating service excludes without distinction, in the same way as the Synaxis, so that it is viewed by the holy alone, in figures, and is contemplated and ministered, by the perfectly holy alone, immediately, through hierarchical directions? Now it is superfluous, as I think, to run over, by the same statements, these things already so often mentioned, and not to pass to the next, viewing the Hierarch, devoutly holding the Divine Muron veiled under twelve wings, and ministering the altogether holy consecration upon it. Let us then affirm that the composition of the Muron is a composition of sweet-smelling materials, which has in itself abundantly fragrant qualities, of which (composition) those who partake become perfumed in proportion to the degree to which they partake of its sweet savour. Now we are persuaded that the most supremely Divine Jesus is superessentially of good savour, filling the contemplative part of ourselves by bequests of Divine sweetness for contemplation. For if the reception of the sensible odours make to feel joyous, and nourishes, with much sweetness, the sensitive organs of our nostrils, —if at least they be sound and well apportioned to the sweet savour—in the same way any one might 116 say that our contemplative faculties, being soundly disposed as regards the subjection to the worse, in the strength of the distinguishing faculty implanted in us by nature, receive the supremely Divine fragrance, and are filled with a holy comfort and most Divine nourishment, in accordance with Divinely fixed proportions, and the correlative turning of the mind towards the Divine Being. Wherefore, the symbolical composition of the Muron, as expressing in form things that are formless, depicts to us Jesus Himself, as a well-spring of the wealth of the Divine sweet receptions, distributing, in degrees supremely Divine, for the most Godlike of the contemplators, the most Divine perfumes; upon which the Minds, joyfully refreshed, and filled with the holy receptions, indulge in a feast of spiritual contemplation, by the entrance of the sweet bequests into their contemplative part, as beseems a Divine participation.

Section V.

Now it is evident, as I think, that the distribution of the fontal perfume to the Beings above ourselves, who are more Divine, is, as it were, nearer, and manifests and distributes itself more to the transparent and wholesome mental condition of their receptive faculty, overflowing ungrudgingly and entering in many fashions; but as regards the subordinate contemplators, which are not so receptive, piously concealing the highest vision and participation, it is distributed in a supremely Divine proportion, in fragrance corresponding to the recipients. Amongst the holy Beings, then, who are above us, the superior order of the Seraphim is represented under the figure of the twelve wings, established and fixed around Jesus, casting itself upon the most blessed contemplations of Him, as far as permissible, and filled reverently with the contemplated truth distributed in most pure receptions, and, to speak after the manner of men, crying aloud, with never silent lips, the frequent Hymn of Praise; for the sacred knowledge of the supermundane minds is both untiring, and possesses the Divine love without intermission, and is at the same time superior to all baseness and forgetfulness. Hence, as I think, that phrase, “unceasing cry,” suggests their perpetual and persistent science and conception of things Divine, with full concord and thanksgiving.

Section VI.

Now we have, as I think, sufficiently contemplated, in the description of the super-heavenly Hierarchy, the incorporeal properties of the Seraphim, Divinely described in the Scriptures under sensible figures explanatory of the contemplated Beings, and we have made them evident to thy contemplating eyes. Nevertheless, since now also they who stand reverently around the Hierarch, reflect the highest Order, on a small scale, we will now view with most immaterial visions their most Godlike splendour.

Section VII.

Their numberless faces then, and many feet, manifest, as I think, their property of viewing the most Divine illuminations from many sides, and their conception of the good things of God as ever active and abundantly receptive; and the sixfold arrangement of the wings, of which the Scripture speaks, does not, I think, denote, as seems to some, a sacred number, but that of the highest Essence and Order around God; the first and middle and last of its contemplative and Godlike powers are altogether elevating, free, and supermundane. Hence the most holy wisdom of the Oracles, when reverently describing the formation of the wings, places the wings around their heads, and middle, and feet; suggesting their complete covering with wings, and their manifold faculty of leading to the Really Being.

Section VIII.

Now if they cover their faces and their feet, and fly by their middle wings only, bear this reverently in mind, that the Order, so far exalted above the highest beings, is circumspect respecting the more lofty and deep of its conceptions, and raises itself, in due proportion, by its middle wings, to the vision of God, by placing its own proper life under the Divine yokes, and by these is reverently directed to the judgment of itself.

Section IX.

And, as regards the statement of Holy Scripture, that “one cried out to the other,” that shews, I think, that they impart to each other ungrudgingly their own visions of God. And this we should deem worthy of religious recollection, that the Hebrew word in the Holy Scriptures names the most holy Beings of the Seraphim by an explanatory epithet, from their glowing and seething in a Divine and ever-moving life.

Section X.

Since, then, as those who understand Hebrew say, the most Divine Seraphim were named by the Word of God, “Kindling” and “Heating,” by a name expressive of their essential condition, they possess, according to the symbolical imagery of the Divine Muron, most elevating powers, which call it to manifestation and distribution of most exhilarating perfumes. For the Being, sweet beyond conception, loves to be moved by the glowing and most pure minds into manifestation, and imparts Its most Divine inspirations, in cheerful distributions, to those who thus supermundanely call It forth. Thus the most Divine Order of supercelestial Beings did not fail to recognize the most supremely Divine Jesus, when He descended for the purpose of being sanctified; but recognizes, reverently, Him lowering Himself in our belongings, through Divine and inexpressible goodness; and when viewing Him sanctified, in a manner befitting man, by the Father and Himself and the Holy Spirit, recognized its own supreme Head as being essentially unchanged, in whatever He may do as supreme God. Hence the tradition of the sacred symbols places the Seraphim near the Divine Muron, when it is being consecrated, recognizing and describing the Christ as unchanged, in our complete manhood in very truth. And what is still more divine is, that it uses the Divine Muron for the consecration of every thing sacred, distinctly shewing, according to the Logion, the Sanctified Sanctifying, as always being the same with Himself throughout the whole supremely Divine sanctification. Wherefore also the consecrating gift and grace of the Divine Birth in God is completed in the most Divine perfectings of the Muron. Whence, as I think, the Hierarch pouring the Muron upon the purifying font in cruciform injections, brings to view, for contemplative eyes, the Lord Jesus descending even to death itself through the cross, for our Birth in God, benevolently drawing up, from the old gulping of the destructive death, by the same Divine and resistless descent, those, who, according to the mysterious saying, “are baptized into His death,” and renewing them to a godly and eternal existence.

Section XI.

But further, the perfecting unction of the Muron gives to him who has been initiated in the most sacred initiation of the Birth in God, the abiding of the supremely Divine Spirit; the sacred imagery of the symbols, portraying, as I think, the most Divine Spirit abundantly supplied by Him, Who, for our sakes, has been sanctified as man by the supremely Divine Spirit, in an unaltered condition of His essential Godhead.

Section XII.

And bear this also hierarchically in mind, that the Law of the most pure initiation completes the sacred consecration of the Divine Altar, by the all pure effusions of the most holy Muron. And the supercelestial and superessential contemplation is source and essence, and perfecting power, of all our deifying holiness. For if our most Divine Altar is Jesus—the supremely Divine sanctifying of the Godly Minds —in Whom, according to the Logion, “being sanctified and mystically offered as a whole burnt-offering, we have the access,” let us gaze with supermundane eyes upon the most Divine Altar itself (in which things being perfected, are perfected and sanctified), being perfected from the most Divine Muron itself; for the altogether most holy Jesus sanctifies Himself on our behalf, and fills us full of every sanctification, since the things consecrated upon them pass fraternally afterwards in their beneficent effects to us, as children of God. Hence, as I think, the Divine Leaders of our Hierarchy, in conformity with a Hierarchical conception divinely transmitted, name this altogether august ministration “consecration of Muron,” from “being consecrated thoroughly,” as one might say, “consecration of God,” extolling its divine consecrating work in each sense. For both the being sanctified for our sakes, as becomes Man, and the consecrating all things as supreme God, and the sanctifying things being consecrated, is “consecration of Him.” As for the sacred song of the inspiration of the God-rapt Prophets, it is called by those who know Hebrew, the “Praise of God,” or “Praise ye the Lord,” for since every divine manifestation and work of God is reverently portrayed in the varied composition of the Hierarchical symbols, it is not unfitting to mention the Divinely moved song of the Prophets; for it teaches at once, distinctly and reverently, that the beneficent works of the Divine Goodness are worthy of devout praise. 123

CAPUT V.

I. Concerning sacerdotal Consecrations.

Section I.

Such, then, is the most Divine perfecting work of the Muron But it may be opportune, after these Divine ministrations, to set forth the sacerdotal Orders and elections themselves, and their powers, and operations, and consecrations, and the triad of the superior ranks under them; in order that the arrangement of our Hierarchy may be demonstrated, as entirely rejecting and excluding the disordered, the unregulated, and the confused; and, at the same time, choosing and manifesting the regulated and ordered, and well-established, in the gradations of the sacred Ranks within it. Now we have well shewn, as I think, in the Hierarchies already extolled by us, the threefold division of every Hierarchy, when we affirmed that our sacred tradition holds, that every Hierarchical transaction is divided into the most Divine Mystic Rites, and the inspired experts and teachers of them, and those who are being religiously initiated by them.

Section II.

Thus the most holy Hierarchy of the supercelestial Beings has, for its initiation, its own possible and most immaterial conception of God and things Divine, and the complete likeness to God, and a persistent habit of imitating God, as far as permissible. And its illuminators, and leaders to this sacred consecration, are the very first Beings around God. For these generously and proportionately transmit to the subordinate sacred Ranks the ever deifying notions given to them, by the self-perfect Godhead and the wise-making Divine Minds. Now the Ranks, who are subordinate to the first Beings, are, and are truly called, the initiated Orders, as being religiously conducted, through those, to the deifying illumination of the Godhead. And after this,—the heavenly and supermundane Hierarchy,—the Godhead gave the Hierarchy under the Law, imparting its most holy gifts, for the benefit of our race, to them (as being children according to the Logion), by faint images of the true, and copies far from the Archetypes, and enigmas hard to understand, and types having the contemplation enveloped within, as an analogous light not easily discerned, so as not to wound weak, eyes by the light shed upon them. Now to this Hierarchy under the Law, the elevation to spiritual worship is an initiation. Now the men religiously instructed for that holy tabernacle by Moses,—the first initiated and leader of the Hierarchs under the Law,—were conductors; in reference to which holy tabernacle,—when describing for purposes of instruction the Hierarchy under the Law,—he called all the sacred services of the Law an image of the type shewn to him in Mount Sinai. But “initiated” are those who are being conducted to a more perfect revelation of the symbols of the Law, in proportion to their capacity. Now the Word of God calls our Hierarchy the more perfect revelation, naming it a fulfilment of that, and a holy inheritance. It is both heavenly and legal, like the mean between extremes, common to the one, by intellectual contemplations, and to the other, because it is variegated by sensible signs; and, through these, reverently conduces to the Divine Being. And it has likewise a threefold division of the Hierarchy, which is divided into the most holy ministrations of the Mystic Rites, and into the Godlike ministers of holy things, and those who are being conducted by them, according to their capacity, to things holy.

And each of the three divisions of our Hierarchy, comformably to that of the Law, and the Hierarchy, more divine than ours, is arranged as first and middle and last in power; consulting both reverent proportion, and well-ordered and concordant fellowship of all things in harmonious rank.

Section III.

The most holy ministration, then, of the Mystic Rites has, as first Godlike power, the holy cleansing of the uninitiated; and as middle, the enlightening instruction of the purified; and as last, and summary of the former, the perfecting of those instructed in science of their proper instructions; and the order of the Ministers, in the first power, cleanses the uninitiated through the Mystic Rites; and in the second, conducts to light the purified; and in the last and highest of the Ministering Powers, makes perfect those who have participated in the Divine light, by the scientific completions of the illuminations contemplated. And of the Initiated, the first power is that being purified; and the middle is that being enlightened, after the cleansing, and which contemplates certain holy things; and the last and more divine than the others, is that enlightened in the perfecting science of the holy enlightenment of which it has become a contemplator. Let, then, the threefold power of the holy service of the Mystic Rites be extolled, since the Birth in God is exhibited in the Oracles as a purification and enlightening illumination, and the Rite of the Synaxis and the Muron, as a perfecting knowledge and science of the works of God, through which the unifying elevation to the Godhead and most blessed communion is reverently perfected. And now let us explain next the sacerdotal Order, which is divided into a purifying and illuminating and perfecting discipline.

Section IV.

This, then, is the all-sacred Law of the Godhead, that, through the first, the second are conducted to Its most Divine splendour. Do we not see the material substances of the elements, first approaching, by preference, things which are more congenial to them, and, through these, diffusing their own energy to other things? Naturally, then, the Head and Foundation of all good order, invisible and visible, causes the deifying rays to approach the more Godlike first, and through them, as being more transparent Minds, and more properly adapted for reception and transmission of Light, transmits light and manifestations to the subordinate, in proportions suitable to them.

It is, then, the function of these, the first contemplators of God, to exhibit ungrudgingly to those second, in proportion to their capacity, the Divine visions reverently gazed upon by themselves, and to reveal the things relating to the Hierarchy (since they have been abundantly instructed with a perfecting science in all matters relating to their own Hierarchy, and have received the effectual power of instruction), and to impart sacred gifts according to fitness, since they scientifically and wholly participate in sacerdotal perfection.

Section V.

The Divine Rank of the Hierarchs, then, is the first of the God-contemplative Ranks; and it is, at the same time, highest and lowest; inasmuch as every Order of our Hierarchy is summed up and fulfilled in it. For, as we see every Hierarchy terminated in the Lord Jesus, so we see each terminated in its own inspired Hierarch. Now the power of the Hierarchical Rank permeates the whole sacred body, and through every one of the sacred Ranks performs the mysteries of its proper Hierarchy. But, pre-eminently, to it, rather than to the other Ranks, the Divine institution assigned the more Divine ministrations. For these are the perfecting images of the supremely Divine Power, completing all the most Divine symbols and all the sacred orderings. For though some of the worshipful symbols are consecrated by the Priests, yet never will the Priest effect the holy Birth in God without the most Divine Muron; nor will he consecrate the mysteries of the Divine Communion, unless the communicating symbols have been placed upon the most Divine Altar; and neither will he be Priest himself, unless he has been elected to this by the Hierarchical consecrations. Hence the Divine Institution uniquely assigned the dedication of the Hierarchical Ranks, and the consecration of the Divine Muron and the sacred completion of the Altar, to the perfecting powers of the inspired Hierarchs.

Section VI.

It is, then, the Hierarchical Rank which, full of the perfecting power, pre-eminently completes the perfecting functions of the Hierarchy, and reveals lucidly the sciences of the holy mysteries, and teaches their proportionate and sacred conditions and powers. But the illuminating Rank of the Priests conducts those, who are being initiated under the Rank of, the inspired Hierarchs, to the Divine visions of the Mystic Rites, and in co-operation with it, ministers its proper ministrations. Whatever then this Rank may do, by shewing the works of God, through the most holy symbols, and perfecting those who draw nigh in the Divine contemplations, and communion of the holy rites, it yet refers those, who crave the science of the religious services contemplated, to the Hierarch. And the Rank of the Leitourgoi (which is purifying and separates the unfit, previous to the approach to the ministrations of the Priests), thoroughly purifies those who are drawing nigh, by making them entirely pure from opposing passions, and suitable for the sanctifying vision and communion. Hence, during the service of the Birth in God, the Leitourgoi strip him who draws nigh of his old clothing, yea further, even take off his sandals, and make him stand towards the west for renunciation; and again, they lead him back to the east (for they are of the purifying rank and power), enjoining on those who approach to entirely cast away the surroundings of their former life, and shewing the darkness of their former conduct, and teaching those, who have said farewell to the lightless, to transfer their allegiance to the luminous. The Leitourgical Order, then, is purifying, by leading those who have been purified to the bright ministrations of the Priests, both by thoroughly purifying the uninitiated and by bringing to birth, by the purifying illuminations and teachings of the Oracles, and further, by sending 130away from the Priests the unholy, without respect of persons. Wherefore also the Hierarchical institution places it at the holy gates, suggesting that the approach of those who draw nigh to holy things should be in altogether complete purification, and entrusting the approach to their reverent vision and communion to the purifying powers, and admitting them, through these, without spot.

Section VII.

We have shewn, then, that the Rank of the Hierarchs is consecrating and perfecting, that of the Priests, illuminating and conducting to the light; and that of the Leitourgoi purifying and discriminating; that is to say, the Hierarchical Rank is appointed not only to perfect, but also at the same time, to enlighten and to purify, and has within itself the purifying sciences of the power of the Priests together with the illuminating. For the inferior Ranks cannot cross to the superior functions, and, besides this, it is not permitted to them to take in hand such quackery as that. Now the more Divine Orders know also, together with their own, the sacred sciences subordinate to their own perfection. Nevertheless, since the sacerdotal orderings of the well-arranged and unconfused order of the Divine operations are images of Divine operations, they were arranged in Hierarchical distinctions, shewing in themselves the illuminations marshalled into the first, and middle, and last, sacred operations and Ranks; manifesting, as I said, in themselves the well-ordered and unconfused character of the Divine operations. For since the Godhead first cleanses the minds which He may enter, then enlightens, and, when enlightened, perfects them to a Godlike perfection; naturally the Hierarchical of the Divine images divides itself into well-defined Ranks and powers, shewing clearly the supremely Divine operation firmly established, without confusion, in most hallowed and unmixed Ranks. But, since we have spoken, as attainable to us, of the sacerdotal Ranks and elections, and their powers and operations, let us now contemplate their most holy consecrations as well as we can.

II. Mysterion of Sacerdotal Consecrations.

The Hierarch, then, being led to the Hierarchical consecration, after he has bent both his knees before the Altar, has upon his head the God-transmitted oracles, and the Hierarchical hand, and in this manner is consecrated by the Hierarch, who ordains him by the altogether most holy invocations. And the Priest, after he has bent both his knees before the Divine Altar, has the Hierarchical right hand upon his head, and in this manner is dedicated by the Hierarch, who ordains him with hallowing invocations. And the Leitourgos, after he has bent one of two knees before the Divine Altar, has upon his head the right hand of the Hierarch who ordains him, being completed by him with the initiating invocations of the Leitourgoi. Upon each of them the cruciform seal is impressed, by the ordaining Hierarch, and, in each case, a sacred proclamation of name takes place, and a perfecting salutation, since every sacerdotal person present, and the Hierarch who ordained, salute him who has been enrolled to any of the aforenamed sacerdotal Ranks.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

These things, then, are common both to the Hierarchs, and Priests, and Leitourgoi, in their sacerdotal consecrations,—the conducting to the Divine Altar and kneeling,—the imposition of the Hierarchical hand,—the cruciform seal,—the announcement of name,—the completing salutation.

And special and select for the Hierarchs is the imposition of the Oracles upon the head, since the subordinate Ranks have not this; and for the Priests the bending of both knees, since the consecration of the Leitourgoi has not this; for the Leitourgoi, as has been said, bend the one of two knees only.

Section II.

The conducting then to the Divine Altar, and kneeling, suggests to all those who are being sacerdotally ordained, that their own life is entirely placed under God, as source of consecration, and that their whole intellectual self, all pure and hallowed, approaches to Him, and that it is of one likeness, and, as far as possible, meet for the supremely Divine and altogether most holy, both Victim and Altar, which purifies, sacerdotally, the Godlike Minds.

Section III.

And the imposition of the Hierarchical hand signifies at once the consecrating protection, by which, as holy children, they are paternally tended, which bequeaths to them a sacerdotal condition and power, and drives away their adverse powers, and teaches, at the same time also, to perform the sacerdotal operations, as those who, having been consecrated, are acting under God, and have Him as Leader of their own operations in every respect.

Section IV.

And the cruciform seal manifests the inaction of all the impulses of the flesh, and the God-imitated life looking away unflinchingly to the manly most Divine life of Jesus, Who came even to Cross and death with a supremely Divine sinlessness, and stamped those who so live with the cruciform image of His own sinlessness as of the same likeness.

Section V.

And the Hierarch calls aloud the name of the consecrations and of those consecrated, the mystery denoting that the God-beloved consecrator is manifestor of the supremely Divine choice,—not of his own accord or by his own favour leading those who are ordained to the sacerdotal consecration, but being moved by God to all the Hierarchical dedications. Thus Moses, the consecrator under the Law, does not lead even Aaron, his brother, to sacerdotal consecration, though thinking him both beloved of God and fit for the priesthood, until moved by God to this, he in submission to God, Head of consecration, completed by Hierarchical rites the sacerdotal consecration. But even our supremely Divine and first Consecrator (for the most philanthropic Jesus, for our sake, became even this), did “not glorify Himself,” as the Logia say, but He Who said to Him, “Thou art Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Wherefore also whilst Himself leading the disciples to sacerdotal consecration, although being as God chief Consecrator, nevertheless He refers the Hierarchical completion of the work of consecration to His altogether most Holy Father, and the supremely Divine Spirit, by admonishing the disciples, as the Oracles say, not to depart from Jerusalem, but to “await the promise of the Father, which ye heard of Me, that ye shall be baptized in Holy Ghost.” And indeed, the Coryphaeus of the disciples himself, with the ten, of the same rank and Hierarchy with himself, when he proceeded to the sacerdotal consecration of the twelfth of the disciples, piously left the selection to the Godhead, saying, “Shew whom Thou hast chosen,” and received him, who was divinely designated by the Divine lot, into the Hierarchical number of the sacred twelve. Now concerning the Divine lot, which fell as a Divine intimation upon Matthias, others have expressed another view, not clearly, as I think, but I will express my own sentiment. For it seems to me that the Oracles name “lot “ a certain supremely Divine gift, pointing out to that Hierarchical Choir him who was designated by the Divine election; more particularly, because the Divine Hierarch must not perform the sacerdotal acts of his own motion, but, under God, moving him to do them as prescribed by the Hierarchy and Heaven.

Section VI.

Now the salutation, for the completion of the sacerdotal consecration, has a religious significance. For all the members of the sacerdotal Ranks present, as well as the Hierarch himself who has consecrated them, salute the ordained. For when, by sacerdotal habits and powers, and by Divine call and dedication, a religious mind has attained to sacerdotal completion, he is dearly loved by the most holy Orders of the same rank, being conducted to a most Godlike comeliness, loving the minds similar to himself, and religiously loved by them in return. Hence it is that the mutual sacerdotal salutation is religiously performed, proclaiming the religious communion of minds of like character, and their loveable benignity towards each other, as keeping, throughout, by sacerdotal training, their most Godlike comeliness.

Section VII

These things, as I said, are common to the whole sacerdotal consecration. The Hierarch, however, as a distinctive mark, has the Oracles most reverently placed upon his head. For since the perfecting power and science of the whole Priesthood is bequeathed to the inspired Hierarchs, by the supremely Divine and perfecting goodness, naturally are placed upon the heads of the Hierarchs the Divinely transmitted Oracles, which set forth comprehensively and scientifically every teaching of God, work of God, manifestation of God, sacred word, sacred work, in one word, all the Divine and sacred works and words bequeathed to our Hierarchy by the beneficent Godhead; since the Godlike Hierarch, having participated entirely in the whole Hierarchical power, will not only be illuminated, in the true and God-transmitted science of all the sacred words and works committed to the Hierarchy, but will also transmit them to others in Hierarchical proportions, and will perfect Hierarchically in most Divine kinds of knowledge and the highest mystical, instructions, all the most perfecting functions of the whole Hierarchy. And the distinctive feature of the ordination of Priests, as contrasted with the ordering of the Leitourgoi, is the bending of the two knees, as that bends only the one, and is ordained in this Hierarchical fashion.

Section VIII.

The bending then denotes the subordinate introduction of the conductor, who places under God that which is reverently introduced. And since, as we have often said, the three Orders of the consecrators, through the three most holy Mystic Rites and powers, preside over the three ranks of those initiated, and minister their saving introduction under the Divine yokes, naturally the order of Leitourgoi as only purifying, ministers the one introduction of those who are being purified, by placing it under the Divine Altar, since in it the minds being purified, are supermundanely hallowed. And the Priests bend both their knees, since those who are religiously brought nigh by them have not only been purified, but have been ministerially perfected into a contemplative habit and power of a life thoroughly cleansed by their most luminous, ministrations through instruction. And the Hierarchy bending both his knees, has upon his head the God-transmitted Oracles, leading, through his office of Hierarch, those who have been purified by the Leitourgic power, and enlightened by the ministerial, to the science of the holy things contemplated by them in proportion to their capacities, and through this science perfecting those who are brought nigh, into the most complete holiness of which they are capable. 138

CAPUT VI.

I. Concerning the Ranks of the Initiated.

Section I.

These, then, are the sacerdotal Ranks and elections, their powers, and operations, and consecrations. We must next explain the triad of the Ranks being initiated under them. We affirm then that the multitudes, of whom we have already made mention, who are dismissed from the ministrations and consecrations, are Ranks under purification; since one is being yet moulded and fashioned by the Leitourgoi through the obstetric Oracles to a living birth; and another is yet to be called back to the holy life, from which it had departed, by the hortatory teaching of the good Oracles; and another, as being yet terrorized, through want of manliness, by opposing fears, and being fortified by the strengthening Oracles; and another, as being yet led back from the worse to holy efforts; and another as having been led back, indeed, but not yet having a chaste fixedness in more Godlike and tranquil habits. For these are the Orders under purification, by the nursing and purifying power of the Leitourgoi. These, the Leitourgoi perfect, by their sacred powers, for the purpose of their being brought, after their complete cleansing, to the enlightening contemplation and participation in the most luminous ministrations. 139

Section II.

And a middle rank is the contemplative, which participates in certain Divine Offices in all purity, according to its capacity, which is assigned to the Priests for its enlightenment.

For it is evident, in my opinion, that, that having been cleansed from all unholy impurity, and having acquired the pure and unmoved steadfastness of its own mind, is led back, ministerially, to the contemplative habit and power, and communicates the most Divine symbols, according to its capability, filled with every holy joy in their contemplations and communions, mounting gradually to the Divine love of their science, through their elevating powers. This, I affirm, is the rank of the holy people, as having passed through complete purification, and deemed worthy, as far as is lawful, both of the reverent vision, and participation of the most luminous Mystic Rites.

Section III.

Now the rank, higher than all the initiated, is the sacred Order of the Monks, which, by reason of an entirely purified purification, through complete power and perfect chastity of its own operations, has attained to intellectual contemplation and communion in every ministration which it is lawful for it to contemplate, and is conducted by the most perfecting powers of the Hierarchs, and taught by their inspired illuminations and hierarchical traditions the ministrations of the Mystic Rites, contemplated, according to its capacity, and elevated by their sacred science, to the most perfecting perfection of which it is capable. Hence our Divine leaders have deemed them worthy of sacred appellations, some, indeed, calling them “Therapeutae,” and others “Monks,” from the pure service and fervid devotion to the true God, and from the undivided and single life, as it were unifying them, in the sacred enfoldings of things divided, into a God-like Monad, and God-loving perfection. Wherefore the Divine institution accorded them a consecrating grace, and deemed them worthy of a certain hallowing invocation—not hierarchical—for that is confined to the sacerdotal orders alone, but ministrative, as being ministered, by the pious Priests, by the hierarchial consecration in the second degree.

II. Mysterion on Monastic Consecration.

The Priest then stands before the Divine Altar, religiously pronouncing the invocation for Monks. The ordinand stands behind the Priest, neither bending both knees, nor one of them, nor having upon his head the Divinely-transmitted Oracles, but only standing near the Priest, who pronounces over him the mystical invocation. When the Priest has finished this, he approaches the ordinand, and asks him first, if he bids farewell to all the distracted—not lives only, but also imaginations. Then he sets before him the most perfect life, testifying that it is his bounden duty to surpass the ordinary life. When the ordinand has promised steadfastly all these things, the Priest, after he has sealed him with the sign of the Cross, crops his hair, after an invocation to the threefold Subsistence of the Divine Beatitude, and when he has stripped off all his clothing, he covers him with different, and when, with all the holy men present, he has saluted him, he finishes by making him partaker of the supremely Divine Mysteries.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

The fact that he bends neither knee, nor has upon his head the Divinely-transmitted Oracles, but stands by the Priest, who pronounces the invocation, signifies, that the monastic Rank is not for leading others, but stands by itself, in a monastic and holy state, following the sacerdotal Ranks, and readily conducted by them, as a follower, to the Divine science of sacred things, according to its capacity.

Section II.

And the renunciation of the divided, not only lives, but even imaginations, shews the most perfect love of wisdom in the Monks, which exercises itself in science of the unifying commandments. For it is, as I said, not of the middle Rank of the initiated, but of the higher than all.

Section III.

Therefore many of the things, which are done without reproach by the middle Rank, are forbidden in every way to the single Monks,—inasmuch as they are under obligation to be unified to the One, and to be collected to a sacred Monad, and to be transformed to the sacerdotal life, as far as lawful, as possessing an affinity to it in many things, and as being nearer to it than the other Ranks of the initiated. Now the sealing with the sign of the Cross, as we have already said, denotes the inaction of almost all the desires of the flesh. And the cropping of the hair shews the pure and unpretentious life, which does not beautify the darkness within the mind, by overlarding it with smeared pretence, but that it by itself is being led, not by human attractions but by single and monastic, to the highest likeness of God.

Section IV.

The casting aside of the former clothing, and the taking a different, is intended to shew the transition from a middle religious life to the more perfect; just as, during the holy Birth from God, the exchange of the clothing denoted the elevation of a thoroughly purified life, to a contemplative and enlightened condition. And even if now also the Priest, and all the religious present, salute the man ordained, understand from this the holy fellowship of the Godlike, who lovingly congratulate each other in a Divine rejoicing.

Section V.

Last of all, the Priest calls the ordained to the supremely Divine Communion, shewing religiously that the ordained, if he would really attain to the monastic and single elevation, will not merely contemplate the sacred mysteries within them, nor come to the communion of the most holy symbols, after the fashion of the middle Rank, but, with a Divine knowledge of the holy things received by him, will come to the reception of the supremely Divine Communion, in a manner different from that of the holy people. Wherefore, the Communion of the most holy Eucharist is also given to the sacerdotal Orders, in their consecrating dedications, by the Hierarch who consecrated them, at the end of their most holy sanctifications, not only because the reception of the supremely Divine Mysteries is the consummation of each Hierarchical reception, but because all the sacred Orders, according to their capacity, partake of the self-same common and most godly gifts, for their own elevation and perfection in deification. We conclude, then, that the holy Mystic Rites are, purification, and illumination, and consecration. The Leitourgoi are a purifying rank, the Priests an illuminating, and the Godlike Hierarchs a consecrating. But the holy people is a contemplative Order. That which does not participate in the sacred contemplation and communion, is a Rank being purified, as still under course of purification. The holy people is a contemplative Rank, and that of the single Monks is a perfected Rank. For thus our Hierarchy, reverently arranged in Ranks fixed by God, is like the Heavenly Hierarchies, preserving, so far as man can do, its God-imitated and Godlike characteristics.

Section VI.

But thou wilt say that the Ranks undergoing purification utterly fall short of the Heavenly Hierarchies (for it is neither permitted nor true to say that any heavenly Ordering is defiled), yea, I would altogether affirm myself, that they are entirely without blemish, and possess a perfect purity above this world, unless I had completely fallen away from a religious mind. For if any of them should have become captive to evil, and have fallen from the heavenly and undefiled harmony of the divine Minds, he would be brought to the gloomy fall of the rebellious multitudes. But one may reverently say with regard to the Heavenly Hierarchy, that the illuminating from God in things hitherto unknown is a purification to the subordinate Beings, leading them to a more perfect science of the supremely Divine kinds of knowledge, and purifying them as far as possible from the ignorance of those things of which they had not hitherto the science, conducted, as they are, by the first and more Divine Beings to the higher and more luminous splendours of the visions of God: and so there are Ranks being illuminated and perfected, and purifying and illuminating and perfecting, after the example of the Heavenly Hierarchy; since the highest and more Divine Beings purify the subordinate, holy, and reverent Orders, from all ignorance (in ranks and proportions of the Heavenly Hierarchies), and filling them with the most Divine illuminatings, and perfecting in the most pure science of the supremely Divine conceptions. For we have already said, and the Oracles divinely demonstrate, that all the heavenly Orders are not the same, in all the sacred sciences of the God-contemplating visions; but the first, from G.od immediately, and, through these, again from God, the subordinate are illuminated, in proportion to their powers, with the most luminous glories of the supremely Divine ray.

CAPUT VII.

I. Concerning things performed over those fallen asleep.

Section I.

These things having been defined, I think it necessary also to describe the things religiously performed by us over those who have fallen asleep. For neither is this also the same between the holy and the unholy; but, as the form of life of each is different, so also, when approaching death, those who have led a religious life, by looking steadfastly to the unfailing promises of the Godhead (inasmuch as they have observed their proof, in the resurrection proclaimed by it), come to the goal of death, with firm and unfailing hope, in godly rejoicing, knowing that at the end of holy contests their condition will be altogether in a perfect and endless life and safety, through their future entire resurrection. For the holy souls, which may possibly fall during this present life to a change for the worse, in the regeneration, will have the most Godlike transition to an unchangeable condition. Now, the pure bodies which are enrolled together as yoke-fellows and companions of the holy souls, and have fought together within their Divine struggles in the unchanged steadfastness of their souls throughout the divine life, will jointly receive their own resurrection; for, having been united with the holy souls to which they were united in this present life, by having become members of Christ, they will receive in return the Godlike and imperishable immortality, and blessed repose. In this respect then the sleep of the holy is in comfort and unshaken hopes, as it attains the goal of the Divine contests.

Section II.

Now, amongst the profane, some illogically think to go to a non-existence; others that the bodily blending with their proper souls will be severed once for all, as unsuitable to them in a Divine life and blessed lots, not considering nor being sufficiently instructed in Divine science, that our most Godlike life in Christ has already begun. But others assign to souls union with other bodies, committing, as I think, this injustice to them, that, after (bodies) have laboured together with the godly souls, and have reached the goal of their most Divine course, they relentlessly deprive them of their righteous retributions. And others (I do not know how they have strayed to conceptions of such earthly tendency) say, that the most holy and blessed repose promised to the devout is similar to our life in this world, and unlawfully reject, for those who are equal to the Angels, nourishments appropriate to another kind of life. None of the most religious men, however, will ever fall into such errors as these; but, knowing that their whole selves will receive the Christ-like inheritance, when they have come to the goal of this present life, they see more clearly their road to incorruption already become nearer, and extol the gifts of the Godhead, and are filled with a Divine satisfaction, no longer fearing the fall to a worse condition, but knowing well that they will hold firmly and everlastingly the good things already acquired. Those, however, who are full of blemishes, and unholy stains, even though they have attained to some initiation, yet, of their own accord, have, to their own destruction, rejected this from their mind, and have rashly followed their destructive lusts, to them when they have come to the end of their life here, the Divine regulation of the Oracles will no longer appear as before, a subject of scorn, but, when they have looked with different eyes upon the pleasures of their passions destroyed, and when they have pronounced blessed the holy life from which they thoughtlessly fell away, they are, piteously and against their will, separated from this present life, conducted to no holy hope, by reason of their shameful life.

Section III.

Now, whilst none of these attain the repose of the holy men, he himself, when coming to the end of his own struggles, is filled with a holy consolation, and with much satisfaction enters the path of the holy regeneration. The familiar friends, however, of him who has fallen asleep, as befits their divine familiarity and fellowship, pronounce him blessed, whoever he is, as having reached the desired end crowned with victory, and they send up odes of thanksgiving to the Author of victory, praying also that they may reach the same inheritance. Then they take him and bring him to the Hierarch, as to a bequest of holy crowns; and he right gladly receives him, and performs the things fixed by reverend men, to be performed over those who have piously fallen asleep.

II. Mysterion over those who have religiously fallen asleep.

The Divine Hierarch collects the reverend Choir, and if the person who has fallen asleep were of the sacerdotal rank, he lays him down before the Divine Altar, and begins with the prayer and thanksgiving to God; but if he belonged to the rank of the chaste Monks, or the holy people, he lays him down near the hallowed sanctuary, before the sacerdotal entrance. Then the Hierarch finishes the prayer of thanksgiving to God; and next, the Leitourgoi, after reading the unfailing promises concerning our holy resurrection, contained in the Divine Oracles, reverently chant the odes of the same teaching and power, from the Oracles of the Psalter. Then the first Leitourgos dismisses the catechumens, and calls aloud the names of the holy people, who have already fallen asleep; amongst whom he deems the man, who has just terminated his life, worthy of mention in the same rank, and urges all to seek the blessed consummation in Christ; then the Divine Hierarch advances, and offers a most holy prayer over him, and after the prayer both the Hierarch himself salutes the defunct, and after him, all who are present. When all have saluted, the Hierarch pours the oil upon the fallen asleep, and when he has offered the holy prayer for all, he places the body in a worthy chamber, with other holy bodies of the same rank.

III. Contemplation.

Section I.

Now, if the profane should see or hear that these things are done by us, they will, I suppose, split with laughter, and commiserate us on our, folly. But 150there is no need to wonder at this. For, as the Oracles say, “If they will not believe, neither shall they understand.” And as for us, who have contemplated the spiritual meaning of the things done, whilst Jesus leads us to the light, let us say, that, not without reason, does the Hierarch conduct to, and place the man fallen asleep, in the place of the same rank; for it shews reverently, that, in the regeneration, all will be in those chosen inheritances, for which they have chosen their own life here. For example, if any one led a Godlike and most holy life here, so far as the imitation of God is attainable by man, he will be, in the age to come, in divine and blessed inheritances; but if he led a life inferior to the divine likeness in the highest degree, but, nevertheless, a holy life, even this man will receive the holy and similar retributions. The Hierarch, having given thanks for this Divine righteousness, offers a sacred prayer, and extols the worshipful Godhead, as subjugating the unjust and tyrannical power against us all, and conducting us back to our own most just possessions (or judgments).

Section II.

Now, the Chants and Readings of the supremely Divine promises are explanatory of the most blessed inheritances, to which those, who have attained a Divine perfection, shall be eternally appointed, and descriptive of him who has religiously fallen asleep, and stimulative of those, who are still living, to the same perfection.

Section III.

Observe, however, that not all the ranks under purification are customarily dismissed, but only the catechumens are expelled from the holy places, for this class is entirely uninitiated in every holy Rite, and is not permitted to view any of the religious celebrations, great or small, inasmuch as it has not participated in the faculty of contemplating the holy mysteries, through the Birth from God, which is Source and gift of light. The rest, however, of the ranks under purification, have already been under instruction in sacred tradition; but, as they have foolishly returned to an evil course it is incumbent to complete their proper elevation in advance, and they are reasonably dismissed from the supremely Divine contemplations and communions, as in holy symbols; for they will be injured, by partaking of them unholily, and will come to a greater contempt of the Divine Mysteries and themselves.

Section IV.

Naturally, however, they are present at the things now done, being clearly taught by seeing both the fearlessness of death amongst us, and the last honour of the saints extolled from the unfailing Oracles, and that the sufferings threatened to the unholy 152 like themselves will be endless; for it will perhaps be profitable for them to have seen him, who has religiously finished his course, reverently proclaimed by the public proclamation of the Leitourgoi, as being certainly companion of the Saints for ever. And, perchance, even they will come to the like aspiration, and will be taught from the science of the Liturgy, that the consummation in Christ is blessed indeed.

Section V.

Then the Divine Hierarch, advancing, offers a holy prayer over the man fallen asleep. After the prayer, both the Hierarch himself salutes him, and next all who are present. Now the prayer beseeches the supremely Divine Goodness to remit to the man fallen asleep all the failings committed by reason of human infirmity, and to transfer him in light and land of living, into the bosom of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob: in a place where grief and sorrow and sighing are no more. It is evident, then, as I think, that these, the rewards of the pious, are most blessed. For what can be equal to an immortality entirely without grief and luminous with light. Especially if all the promises which pass man’s understanding, and which are signified to us by signs adapted to our capacity, fall short, in their description, of their actual truth. For we must remember that the Logion is true, that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” “Bosoms” of the blessed Patriarchs, and of all the other pious men, are, in my judgment, the most divine and blessed inheritances, which await all godly men, in that consummation which grows not old, and is full of blessedness.

Section VI.

But thou mayst, perhaps, say that these things are correctly affirmed by us, indeed, but want to know for what reason the Hierarch beseeches the supremely Divine Goodness, for the remission of the faults committed by the man fallen asleep, and his most glorious inheritance, amongst godly men of the same rank. For, if every one shall receive, by the Divine justice, equivalents for what he has done in the present life, whether it be good or different, and the man fallen asleep has finished his own activities in this present life, from what prayer offered by the Hierarch will he be transferred to another inheritance, than that due to and equivalent for his life here? Now, well do I know, following the Oracles, that each one will have the inheritance equivalent; for the Lord says, he has closed respecting him, and each one shall receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good, or whether it be bad.” Yea, the sure traditions of the Oracles teach us that the prayers, even of the just, avail only for those who are worthy of pious prayers during this present life, let alone (by no means) after death. What forsooth did Saul gain from Samuel? and what did the intercession of the Prophet profit the people of the Hebrews? For, as if any one, when the sun is shedding its own splendour upon unblemished eyes, seeks to enjoy the solar splendour by obliterating his own powers of vision; so does he cling to impossible and extravagant expectations, who beseeches the intercessions of holy men, and, by driving away the holy efforts natural to the same, plays truant from the most luminous and beneficent commandments, through heedlessness of the Divine gifts.

Nevertheless, according to the Oracles, I affirm that the intercessions of the pious are, in every respect, profitable in this present life, after the following fashion. If any one, longing for holy gifts, and having a religious disposition for their reception, as recognizing his own insufficiency, approaches some pious man, and should prevail upon him to become his fellow-helper, and fellow-suppliant, he will be benefitted in every respect, thereby, with a benefit superior to all; for he will attain the most Divine gifts he prays for, since the supremely Divine Goodness assists him, as well as his pious 155 judgment of himself, and his reverence for devout men, and his praiseworthy craving for the religious requests requested, and his brotherly and Godlike disposition. For this has been firmly fixed by the supremely Divine decrees, that the Divine gifts are given, in an order most befitting God, to those who are meet to receive them, through those who are meet to distribute them.

If any one, then, should despise this sacred regulation, and betaking himself to a wretched self-conceit, should deem himself sufficient for the supremely Divine Converse, and look down upon pious men, and if he should further request requests, unworthy of God, and not holy, and if he should have his aspiration for things divine not sustained, and correlative to himself, he will fail in his ignorant request, through his own fault. Now, with reference to the prayer mentioned, which the Hierarch prays over the man fallen asleep, we think it necessary to mention the tradition which has come to us from our inspired leaders. The Divine Hierarch, as the Oracles say, is interpreter of the supremely Divine awards; for he is messenger of the Lord God Omnipotent. He has learned then, from the God-transmitted Oracles, that to those who have passed their life piously, the most bright and divine life is given in return, according to their due, by the most just balances, the Divine Love towards man overlooking, through its goodness, the stains which have come to them through human infirmity, since no one, as the Oracles say, is pure from blemish.

Section VII.

Now, the Hierarch knew these things to have been promised by the infallible Oracles; and he asks, that these things may come to pass, and that the righteous returns be given to those who have lived piously, whilst being moulded beneficently to the Divine imitation, he beseeches gifts for others, as favours to himself; and, whilst knowing that the promises will be unfailing, he makes known clearly to those present, that the things asked by him, according to a holy law, will be entirely realized for those who have been perfected in a Divine life. For the Hierarch, the expounder of the supremely Divine Justice, would never seek things, which were not most pleasing to the Almighty God, and divinely promised to be given by Him. Wherefore, he does not offer these prayers over the unholy fallen asleep, not only because in this he would deviate from his office of expounder, and would presumptuously arrogate, on his own authority, a function of the Hierarchy, without being moved by the Supreme Legislator, but because he would both fail to obtain his abominable prayer, and he, not unnaturally, would hear from the just Oracle, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” Therefore, the Divine Hierarch beseeches things divinely promised, and dear to God, and which will, in every respect, be given, demonstrating both his own likeness to the good loving God, and declaring explicitly the gifts which will be received by the devout. Thus, the Hierarchs have discriminating powers, as interpreters of the Divine Awards, not as though the All-Wise Deity, to put it mildly, were slavishly following their irrational impulses, but, as though they, as expounders of God, were separating, by the motion of the Divine Spirit, those who have already been judged by God, according to due. For “receive,” he says, “the Holy Spirit, whose faults ye may have remitted, they are remitted; whose ye may have retained, they are retained.” And to him who was illuminated with the Divine revelations of the most Holy Father, the Oracles say, “Whatsoever thou shalt have bound upon the earth, shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever thou shalt have loosed on earth, shall be loosed in the heavens,” inasmuch as he, and every Hierarch like him, according to the revelations of the Father’s awards through him, receives those dear to God, and rejects those without God, as announcing and interpreting the Divine Will. Further, as the Oracles affirm, he uttered that sacred and divine confession, not as self-moved, nor as though flesh and blood had revealed it, but moved by God Who revealed to him the spiritual meaning of Divine things. The inspired Hierarchs then must so exercise their separations and all their Hierarchical powers as the Godhead, the Supreme Initiator, may move them; and the others must so cling to the Hierarchs as moved by God, in what they may do hierarchically, “For he who despiseth you,” He says, “despiseth Me.”

Section VIII.

Let us now proceed to that, which follows the prayer mentioned. When the Hierarch has finished it, he first salutes the fallen asleep, and next, all who are present; for dear and honoured by all Godlike men is he who has been perfected in a Divine life. After the salutation, the Hierarch pours the oil upon the man fallen asleep. And remember, that during the sacred Birth from God, before the most Divine Baptism, a first participation of a holy symbol is given to the man initiated—the oil of Chrism—after the entire removal of the former clothing; and now, at the conclusion of all, the Oil is poured upon the man fallen asleep. Then indeed the anointing with the Oil summoned the initiated to the holy contests; and now the Oil poured upon him shews the fallen asleep to have struggled, and to have been made perfect, throughout those same contests.

Section IX.

When the Hierarch has finished these things, he places the body in an honourable chamber, with other holy bodies of the same rank. For if, in soul and body, the man fallen asleep passed a life dear to God, there will be honoured, with the devout soul, the body also, which contended with it throughout the devout struggles. Hence the Divine justice gives to it, together with its own body, the retributive inheritances, as companion and participator in the devout, or the contrary, life. Wherefore, the Divine institution of sacred rites bequeaths the supremely Divine participations to them both—to the soul, indeed, in pure contemplation and in science of the things being done, and to the body, by sanctifying the whole man, as in a figure with the most Divine Muron, and the most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, sanctifying the whole man, and announcing, by purifications of the whole man, that his resurrection will be most complete.

Section X.

Now, as regards the consecrating” invocations, it is not permitted to explain them in writing, nor may we bring their mysterious meaning, or the powers from God working in them, from secrecy to publicity; but, as our sacred tradition holds, by learning these, through quiet instructions, and being perfected to a more Godlike condition and elevation, through Divine love and religious exercises, thou wilt be borne by the consecrating enlightenment to their highest science. 160

Section XI.

Now the fact that even children, not yet able to understand the things Divine, become recipients of the holy Birth in God, and of the most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, seems, as you say, to the profane, a fit subject for reasonable laughter, if the Hierarchs teach things Divine to those not able to hear, and vainly transmit the sacred traditions to those who do not understand. And this is still more laughable—that others, on their behalf, repeat the abjurations and the sacred compacts. But thy Hierarchical judgment must not be too hard upon those who are led astray, but, persuasively, and for the purpose of leading them to the light, reply affectionately to the objections alleged by them, bringing forward this fact, in accordance with sacred rule, that not all things Divine are comprehended in our knowledge, but many of the things, unknown by us, have causes beseeming God, unknown to us indeed, but well known to the Ranks above us. Many things also escape even the most exalted Beings, and are known distinctly by the All-Wise and Wise-making Godhead alone. Further, also, concerning this, we affirm the same things which our Godlike initiators conveyed to us, after initiations from the early tradition. For they say, what is also a fact, that infants, being brought up according to a Divine institution, will attain a religious disposition, exempt from every error, and inexperienced in an unholy-life. When our Divine leaders came to this conclusion, it was determined to admit infants upon the following conditions, viz.: that the natural parents of the child presented, should transfer the child to some one of the initiated,—a good teacher of children in Divine things,—and that the child should lead the rest of his life under him, as under a godfather and sponsor, for his religious safe-keeping. The Hierarch then requires him, when he has promised to bring up the child according to the religious life, to pronounce the renunciations and the religious professions, not, as they would jokingly say, by instructing one instead of another in Divine things; for he does not say this, “that on behalf of this child I make, myself, the renunciations and the sacred professions,” but, that the child is set apart and enlisted; i.e. I promise to persuade the child, when he has come to a religious mind, through my godly instructions, to bid adieu wholly to things contrary, and to profess and perform the Divine professions. There is here, then, nothing absurd, in my judgment, provided the child is brought up as beseems a godlike training, in having a guide and religious surety, who implants in him a disposition for Divine things, and keeps him inexperienced in things contrary.

The Hierarch imparts to the child the sacred, symbols, in order that he may be nourished by them, and may not have any other life but that which always contemplates Divine things; and in religious progress become partaker of them and have a religious disposition in these matters, and be devoutly brought up by his Godlike surety. So great, my son, and so beautiful, are the uniform visions of our Hierarchy, which have been presented to my view; and from others, perhaps, more contemplative minds, these things have been viewed, not only more clearly, but also more divinely. And to thee, as I fancy, more brilliant and more divine beauties will shine forth, by using the foregoing stepping-stones to a higher ray. Impart then, my friend, thyself also, to me, more perfect enlightenment, and shew to mine eyes the more comely and uniform beauties that thou mayst have been able to see, for I am confident that, by what has been said, I shall strike the sparks of the Divine Fire stored up in thee.

Thanks be to God.

JOHN PARKER.

All Saints’ Day,

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