The Celestial Hierarchy — Chapter Xii

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

Why the Hierarchs among men are called Angels.

Those who earnestly study the holy Scriptures sometimes ask, If the

lowest ranks do not possess to the full the powers of those above them,

why is our Hierarch called in the holy Word the Angel of the Omnipotent

Lord?'

This, however, does not contradict what has been already defined. For

we say that the lowest choirs do not possess the integral and

pre-eminent power of the higher Orders, since they receive it

partially, in the measure of their capacity, in accordance with the one

harmonious and binding fellowship of all things.

For example, the choir of the holy Cherubim participates in higher

wisdom and knowledge, whilst the Orders below them are themselves also

partakers of wisdom and knowledge, but more partially, and in a lower

degree proportioned to their capacity. For the universal participation

in wisdom and knowledge is shared by all the Divine Intelligences, but

the degree of participation, whether immediate and first, or second and

inferior, is not common, but is determined for each by its own rank.

This also may be rightly said of all the Divine Intelligences, that

even as the first possess in the highest degree the holy

characteristics of the Orders below them, so the lowest possess the

powers of the higher, not in equal measure, but in a subordinate

degree.

Therefore I do not think it unreasonable that the Scriptures should

call our hierarchs Angels, since they participate according to their

own power in the interpretative characteristic of the Angels, and

uplift themselves, as far as is possible to man, into an assimilation

to the Angels as revealers of truth.

You will find, moreover, that the Word of God not only calls these

Celestial Beings above us Gods, but also gives this name to saintly men

amongst us, and to those men who, in the highest degree, are lovers of

God; although the First and Unmanifest God superessentially transcends

all things, being enthroned above all, and therefore none of the beings

or things which are can truly be said to be wholly like Him, save in so

far as those intellectual and rational beings who are wholly turned

towards union with Him, as far as is in their power, and who, uplifting

themselves perpetually, as far as possible, to the Divine Radiance, in

the imitation of God (if it be lawful so to speak) with all their

powers, are thought worthy of the same divine name.

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