The Celestial Hierarchy — Chapter Iv

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

The meaning of the name Angels'.

Since, in my opinion, the nature of a hierarchy has been adequately

defined, we must proceed to render honour to the Angelic Hierarchy,

intently gazing with supermundane sight upon the holy imagery of it in

the Scriptures, that we may be uplifted in the highest degree to their

divine purity through that mystical representation, and may praise the

Origin of all hierarchical knowledge with a veneration worthy of the

things of God, and with devout thanksgiving.

In the first place this truth must be declared, that the superessential

Deity, having through His Goodness established the essential

subsistence of all, brought all things into being. For it is the very

nature of that God which is the Supreme Cause of all to call all things

to participation in Itself in proportion to the capacity and nature of

each.

Wherefore all things share in that Providence which streams forth from

the superessential Deific Source of all; for they would not be unless

they had come into existence through participation in the Essential

Principle of all things.

All inanimate things participate in It through their being; for the to

be' of all things is the Divinity above Being Itself, the true Life.

Living things participate in Its life-giving Power above all life;

rational things participate in Its self-perfect and pre-eminently

perfect Wisdom above all reason and intellect.

It is manifest, therefore, that those Natures which are around the

Godhead have participated of It in manifold ways. On this account the

holy ranks of the Celestial Beings are present with and participate in

the Divine Principle in a degree far surpassing all those things which

merely exist, and irrational living creatures, and rational human

beings. For moulding themselves intelligibly to the imitation of God,

and looking in a supermundane way to the Likeness of the Supreme Deity,

and longing to form the intellectual appearance of It, they naturally

have more abundant communion with Him, and with unremitting activity

they tend eternally up the steep, as far as is permitted, through the

ardour of their unwearying divine love, and they receive the Primal

Radiance in a pure and immaterial manner, adapting themselves to this

in a life wholly intellectual.

Such, therefore, are they who participate first, and in an all-various

manner, in Deity, and reveal first, and in many ways, the Divine

Mysteries. Wherefore they, above all, are pre-eminently worthy of the

name Angel because they first receive the Divine Light, and through

them are transmitted to us the revelations which are above us.

It is thus that the Law (as it is written in the Scriptures) was given

to us by Angels and, both before and after the days of the Law, Angels

guided our illustrious forefathers to God, either by declaring to them

what they should do and leading them from error and an evil life to the

straight path of truth, or by making known to them the Divine Law,