The Celestial Hierarchy — Chapter Ii

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

That Divine and Celestial matters are fittingly revealed even through

unlike symbols

I consider, then, that in the first place we must explain our

conception of the purpose of each Hierarchy and the good conferred by

each upon its followers; secondly we must celebrate the Celestial

Hierarchies as they are revealed in the Scriptures; and finally we must

say under what holy figures the descriptions in the sacred writings

portray those Celestial Orders, and to what kind of purity we ought to

be guided through those forms lest we, like the many, should impiously

suppose that those Celestial and Divine Intelligences are many-footed

or many-faced beings, or formed with the brutishness of oxen, or the

savageness of lions, or the curved beaks of eagles, or the feathers of

birds, or should imagine that they are some kind of fiery wheels above

the heavens, or material thrones upon which the Supreme Deity may

recline, or many-coloured horses, or commanders of armies, or whatever

else of symbolic description has been given to us in the various sacred

images of the Scriptures. Theology, in its sacred utterances concerning

the formless Intelligences, does indeed use poetic symbolism, having

regard to our intelligence, as has been said, and providing a means of

ascent fitting and natural to it by framing the sacred Scriptures in a

manner designed for our upliftment.

An image of angels

Angel With Moon, from 12th c. Greek ms.

But someone may prefer to regard the Divine Orders as pure and

ineffable in their own natures, and beyond our power of vision, and may

consider that the imagery of the Celestial Intelligences in the

Scriptures does not really represent them, and is like a crude

dramatization of the celestial names: and he may say that the

theologians, in depicting wholly incorporeal natures under bodily forms

should, as far as possible, make use of fitting and related images, and

represent them by the most exalted, incorporeal and spiritual

substances amongst ourselves, and should not endue the Celestial and

Godlike Principles with a multitude of low and earthly forms. For the

one would contribute in a higher degree to our ascent by dissociating

incongruous images from the descriptions of Supermundane Natures, while

the other impiously outrages the Divine Powers, and leads our minds

into error when we dwell upon such unholy compositions. For we might

even think that the supercelestial regions are filled with herds of

lions and horses, and re-echo with roaring songs of praise, and contain

flocks of birds and other creatures, and the lower forms of matter, and

whatever other absurd, spurious, passion-arousing and unlike forms the

Scriptures use in describing their resemblances.

Nevertheless, I think that the investigation of the truth shows the

most holy wisdom of the Scriptures in the representations of the

Celestial Intelligences which makes the most perfect provision in each

case, so that neither is dishonour don