The Celestial Hierarchy — Chapter Xiii

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

The reason why the prophet Isaiah is said to have been purified by the

Seraphim.

Let us now deal to the best of our ability with the question why the

Seraph is said to have been sent to one of the prophets. For someone

may feel doubt or uncertainty as to why one of the beings of the

highest rank is mentioned as cleansing the prophet, instead of one of

the lower ranks of Angels.

Some, indeed, say that according to the description already given of

the inter-relation of all the Intelligences, the passage does not refer

to one of the first of the Intelligences nearest to God, as having come

to purify the hierarch, but that one of those Angels who are our

guardians was called by the same name as the Seraphim because of his

sacred function of purifying the prophet, for the reason that the

remission of sins and the regeneration of him who was purified to

obedience to God was accomplished through fire. And they say also that

the passage simply says one of the Seraphim, not of those established

around God, but of the purifying powers which preside over us.

But another suggested to me a solution of the problem by no means

unlikely, for he said that the great Angel, whoever he may have been,

who fashioned this vision for the purpose of instructing the prophet in

divine matters, referred his own office of purification first to God,

and after God to that first Hierarchy. And is not this statement true?

For he who said this said that the Divine First Power goes forth

visiting all things, and irresistibly penetrates all things, and yet is

invisible to all, not only as superessentially transcending all things,

but also because It transmits Its Providential Energies in a hidden way

through all things. Moreover, It is revealed to all Intellectual

Natures in due proportion, and bestows the radiance of Its Light upon

the most exalted beings through whom, as leaders, It is imparted to the

lower choirs in order according to their power of divine contemplation;

or to speak in more simple terms, by way of illustration (for although

natural things do not truly resemble God, who transcends all, yet they

are more easily seen by us), the light of the sun passes readily

through the first matter, for this is more transparent, and by means of

this it displays more brightly its own brilliance; but when it falls

upon some denser material it is shed forth again less brightly because

the material which is illuminated is not adapted for the transmission

of light, and after this it is little by little diminished until it

hardly passes through at all. Similarly, the heat of fire imparts

itself more readily to that which is more adapted to receive it, being

yielding and conductive to its likeness; but upon substances of

opposite nature which are resistant to it, either no effect at all or

only a slight trace of the action of the fire appears; and what is

more, when fire is applied to materials of opposite nature through the

use of other subs