The Celestial Hierarchy — Chapter I

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

To my fellow-presbyter Timothy, Dionysius the Presbyter

That every divine illumination, while going forth with love in various

ways to the objects of its forethought, remains one. Nor is this all:

it also unifies the things illuminated.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down

from the Father of Lights.' [[[James 1.17]]]

Moreover, every divine procession of radiance from the Father, while

constantly bounteously flowing to us, fills us anew as though with a

unifying power, by recalling us to things above, and leading us to the

unity of the Shepherding Father and to the Divine One. For from Him and

into Him are all things, as is written in the holy Word.

Calling then upon Jesus, the Light of the Father, the Real and True,

Which lights every man that comes into the world, by whom we have

access to the Father,' the Origin of Light, let us raise our thought,

according to our power, to the illumination of the most sacred

doctrines handed down by the Fathers, and also as far as we may let us

contemplate the Hierarchies of the Celestial Intelligences revealed to

us by them in symbols for our upliftment:

An image of angels

A cherub, after an image ca. 400 A.D.

and admitting through the spiritual and unwavering eyes of the mind the

original and super-original gift of Light of the Father who is the

Source of Divinity, which shows to us images of the all-blessed

Hierarchies of the Angels in figurative symbols, let us through them

again strive upwards toward Its primal ray. For this Light can never be

deprived of Its own intrinsic unity, and although in goodness It

becomes manyness and proceeds into manifestation for the uplifting of

those creatures governed by Its providence, yet It abides eternally

within Itself in changeless sameness, firmly established in Its own

unity, and elevates to Itself, according to their capacity, those who

turn towards It, uniting them in accordance with Its own unity. For by

that first divine ray we can be enlighted only insofar as It is hidden

by all-various holy veils for our upliftment, and fittingly tempered to

our natures by the Providence of the Father.

Wherefore that first institution of the sacred rites, judging it worthy

of a supermundane copy of the Celestial Hierarchies, gave us our most

holy hierarchy, and described that spiritual Hierarchy in material

terms and in various compositions of forms so that we might be led,

each according to his capacity, from the most holy imagery to formless,

unific, elevative principles and assimilations. For the mind can by no

means be directed to the spiritual presentation and contemplation of

the Celestial Hierarchies unless it use the material guidance suited to

it, accounting those beauties which are seen to be images of the hidden

beauty, the sweet incense a symbol of spiritual dispensations, and the

earthly lights a figure of the immaterial enlightenment. Similarly the

details of the sacred teaching correspo