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Just as the wise Ecclesiastes, with the great and clear eye of the soul, looked beyond the origin of things seen and flowing, and became as it were in a vision of the things truly made and brought into being: What is that which has come to be? The very thing that shall be; and what is that which has been made? The very thing, he says, that shall be made—that is, having made mention of the first things and the last things, as being the same and truly existent, but having made no mention at all, in that place, of the middle things that pass away. For after he had gone forth, as was possible, in a manner most befitting a teacher of great natural endowment, concerning the nature of certain living creatures and stones, and, to speak simply, indefinitely concerning many of the things contemplated among existing things, he adds to these: "For a steep word plays in forms of every kind, judging as it wills a world that is here and there." Perhaps, then, just as he himself says in the discourse on holy Pentecost, when treating of the Godhead and created nature, "So long as each of the two remains in its own state—the one of exaltation, the other of lowliness—the goodness is unmixed and the love of man is unshared, and a great and impassable gulf stands in the midst, not the gulf that separated the rich man from Lazarus and from the desirable bosoms of Abraham, but one that separates all created and flowing nature from the unbegotten and steadfast nature." With this the great Dionysius the Areopagite, the spokesman of God, also sets forth things closely resembling and like, saying:

But this too must be said boldly in defense of the truth: that the very Cause of all things, by the good and beautiful love of all things, through the excess of his loving goodness, goes outside of himself, in his providences toward all beings, and is, as it were, charmed by goodness and love and desire, and from being above all things and all things and beyond all things he is led down to what is in all things, by a transcendent ecstatic power that departs from himself. Perhaps, then, as I said, from these things too it is possible for us, in such a sense, to unfold the meaning of the saying, "For a steep Word plays," which was briefly rendered, as they say: Just as parents (to use examples from our own experience for

—the outline of things beyond us—providing for their children occasions to shake off sluggishness by way of condescension, they seem, through accommodation, to pursue childish play, so to speak to play at knucklebones, and to accommodate themselves to them with dice, or also by setting before them flowers of many colors and garments of many dyes, charms for the senses, they led them away or struck them with wonder, since children for a time have no other occupation, but shortly afterward their parents hand them over to schools, and then impart to them more perfect reason and their own affairs; so, it says, perhaps the teacher speaks of the God over all through the things said: through the for a time historical nature of visible creatures, now casting us, as it were, mere children into amazement or even leading us on through the sight and knowledge of them, then letting into us the contemplation of the more spiritual reasons within them, and finally leading us on to the more mystical knowledge of himself, as far as it is attainable, through theology—the knowledge that is utterly pure of all variety and composition in form and quality and shape and quantity, in multitude and bulk, in the preliminary lessons, as toward the goal of contemplation—which the God-bearing Gregory called "playing," and the God-bearing Dionysius "being charmed" and "standing outside oneself.

For in truth, when compared side by side and set in juxtaposition with the things that truly and genuinely exist, and that will appear hereafter, the things present and visible seem to be a plaything, and even further removed than that. For compared with the truth of the truly divine and archetypal realities, the ordered arrangement of present and visible things will be thought not to exist at all by those deemed worthy to contain, as far as possible, the whole beauty of divine loveliness—just as a plaything, compared with something true and real, is held to be not existent at all. RH 178. ANOTHER CONTEMPLATION ON THE SAME. Another contemplation on the same.

Perhaps also because the material things we take in hand are unstable, carrying and being carried now one way, now another, and have no firm foundation—except for the first principle by which they are borne wisely and providentially and themselves bear—and because they are thought to be held by us, yet they escape more than they are held, and because we who endure their being held rather push them away from ourselves, as it were, and can neither hold nor be held at all, since the only stable limit of their nature is to flow away and never stand still—for this reason they were reasonably called a plaything of God by the Teacher, as though through these things he were leading us on to the things that truly are and are never shaken. RH 179. ANOTHER CONTEMPLATION ON THE SAME. Another contemplation on the same.

If we ourselves too, following the prevailing sequence of our nature at present—being born now in likeness to the rest of the living creatures on earth, then becoming children, then, when youth has reached the wrinkle of old age like a swift-fading flower, going to die and being transferred to another life—have been called "a plaything of God" by this God-bearing teacher, it is not outside the realm of likelihood. For compared with the future archetype of the divine and true life, the present life is a plaything, and whatever else is more unsubstantial than this. He shows this more clearly in the funeral oration for Caesarius, speaking as follows: "Such is our life, brothers, the things of the living are temporary; such is the plaything on earth: to come into being when we were not, and when we have come to be, to be dissolved; we are a dream that does not stand, a phantom that is not held, the flight of a passing bird, a ship on the sea leaving no trace, dust, vapor, morning dew, a flower that grows in season and in season is loosed; man—his days are like grass, like the flower of the field, so shall he blossom forth—well did the divine David philosophize about our weakness." EPILOGUE These things, most blessed ones, concerning the words of our great Father and teacher Gregory, the most divine, about which you were at a loss and commanded me to speak—I have said according to my ability. Rightly yielding to your nod, I spoke as one conjecturing, not as one pronouncing definitively.

For our mind does not reach the great and lofty thought of the God-bearing teacher, since it is still struck by many darts of the passions according to its will, by whose wounds it rejoices rather to be pricked than to be cleansed by the graces of the virtues, having acquired, through long habit of evil, a sin-loving disposition. And if what I have said appears to you to have some account worthy of the subject, and not to fall entirely short of the truth, thanks be to God, who enlightened the lowly and earth-bound mind (that he might work this wonder too) and granted a measure of discourse suited to tracing out the measure of the things understood, both for you who have set this task and for those who have accomplished the whole with the help of your prayers. "But if I have not spoken rightly or perfectly, and have wandered from the truth either wholly or in part" (for here too I bring before you the great Dionysius, the God-inspired, as an advocate), "it would be for your love of humanity to correct one who is involuntarily ignorant, and to teach one who needs to learn, and to assist one who does not have sufficient strength, and to heal one who does not wish to be sick, so that, along with your other good deeds—or rather before the others—you may offer to God as a precious dedication and an offering more venerable than every sacrifice your love of humanity, to him who is glorified in heaven and on earth by all creation, and who demands from us only one sacrifice: love of humanity toward one another." SCHOLIA ON THE WORKS OF SAINT DIONYSIUS: PROLOGUE. The nobility, and the distinction in wealth, of the great Dionysius, and the very council of the Athenians, in which he was chosen to deliberate, make this clear.

For this man was one of the Areopagites, as the divine Luke made clear, recording the sacred acts of the holy apostles. For having said that the most holy apostle Paul, when he had come to Athens and had conversed with certain of the philosophers of Epicurus and indeed of those from the Stoa, and had proclaimed the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, both the resurrection of the dead and the universal judgment, was seized by the unphilosophical (for they were not truly philosophers), and was led to the Areopagus, and having spoken publicly, immediately won some and brought them over to the light of truth, he adds: And so Paul went out from among them; but certain men, having clung to him, believed, among whom were also Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman by the name of Damaris, and others with them. I therefore do not idly hear that of all those who believed at that time through the divine Paul, only the excellent Dionysius was named by the God-bearing writer, his rank also being added; for he says "Areopagite." But I suggest rather that it was because of his surpassing wisdom and because of his blameless and distinguished conduct among the Athenians that he was mentioned together with his household. But one must know, as I said before, that it was not for every man to belong to the council of the Areopagus, but only those who were foremost among the Athenians in family, wealth, and upright life.

And in this respect those who were distinguished were serving as members of the council of the Areopagus; for from the nine archons appointed at Athens, the Areopagites had to be constituted as judges, as Androtion says in the second book of his Atthides. Later the council of the Areopagus became larger, that is, consisting of fifty-one more illustrious men, though from the Eupatrids, as Philochorus records in the third book of the same Atthides. The court of the Areopagus was outside the city, called so (according to what the Athenians relate in myth) from the court that was established at the very height of the hill in the city, between Poseidon and Ares. For Poseidon brought a suit against Ares among the Athenians in that place, according to the ancient myths, claiming that his own son Halirrhothius had been slain by Ares, and from this that hill was called the Areopagus after Ares. The Areopagites therefore judged nearly all offenses and transgressions of the law, as Androtion says in the first book, and Philochorus in the second and third of the Atthides. For this reason, as the truth-loving Luke recorded, the lovers of the wisdom made foolish by God dragged the most divine Paul, as a proclaimer of new divinities, to the council of the Areopagus.

But at that time, while serving as a councillor among the Areopagites, as a most unwavering judge, the great Dionysius cast an unerring vote for the truth according to the Spirit-bearer Paul, and after bidding a long farewell to the foolish solemnity of the Areopagites, he immediately clung to the light, having understood the true and all-overseeing judge, Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son and Word of God the Father, whom Paul proclaimed. For even though the Romans were then in power, they nevertheless left Athens and Lacedaemonia autonomous; hence even among the Athenians the affairs of the Areopagites were still administered as a constitution. And all the doctrines of salvation are accomplished through Paul, the most excellent, and Dionysius is instructed in a teaching manner by the greatest Hierotheus, as he himself says; then Dionysius is appointed bishop of those who believed at Athens by Paul the Christ-bearer, according to what is recorded in the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions. Dionysius, an ancient bishop of the Corinthians, also makes mention of the Areopagite, and Polycarp in his letter to the Athenians. And it is a thing to marvel at, the orthodoxy and great learning of this holy Dionysius, who was truly led through much knowledge of the blameless traditions of the Church, and to behold the spurious doctrines among the philosophers of the Greeks translated toward the truth. For it is more a matter for pity and shared grief over the heedlessness of those who are careless examiners of sound education, because they measure by their own ignorance also the much-learned good order of later men.

Such people, when they encounter the writings of certain authors and perhaps do not follow the thought of what is said, are immediately carried away to indiscriminate slander of the writer, although they are completely unable to set straight and refute the taunts that they themselves utter. They ought to turn their anger against themselves and rather be distressed that, not having been diligent, they did not themselves understand the things that have been raised up concerning knowledge; or, to speak the truth, that not having become fond of learning in the presence of those who are competent in such matters, they were not released from their perplexities. But some dare to revile the divine Dionysius as belonging to heresies, being altogether ignorant even of the things of the heretics. For otherwise, comparing from each of the things that have been condemned among those who hold heresies, they would have discerned that the doctrines of these men stand far apart from the base ones, as far as light from darkness. For what could they say concerning the things that are theologized in him about the alone-worshipped Trinity? What concerning the one Jesus Christ of this all-blessed Trinity, the only-begotten God the Word, who willed to become perfectly human? Did he not pass through a rational soul and a body earthly like ours, and all the other things that have been set down among the orthodox teachers? And what could anyone justly find fault with concerning intelligible and intellectual and sensible things, or concerning our universal resurrection that will come to be with a body like ours and with our soul, and concerning the judgments of that time, of the just and of those who are not such? For, to speak summarily, our salvation looks to these things, which it is not right to go through at length, since the explanation in the scholia marks them all out in due season.

Yes, they say, but Eusebius of Pamphilus did not write his own treatises, and neither did Origen. To these we must say that Eusebius omitted very many works that did not come into his own hands; for he does not claim to have gathered absolutely all of them, but rather he acknowledges that there were books beyond number that had in no way come to him; and I could have mentioned many that he did not possess, and these from his own country, such as those of Hymenaeus and Narcissus who served as priests in Jerusalem. At any rate, I myself have encountered some of Hymenaeus's works. Moreover, he did not record the labors of Pantaenus, nor those of Clement of Rome, except only two letters, nor those of very many others. For Origen, I do not know if he mentioned all, but he barely mentioned four. A certain Roman deacon, Peter by name, related to me that all the works of the divine Dionysius are preserved, dedicated in the sacred library at Rome. He writes most of them to the thrice-blessed Timothy, the disciple of the holy apostle Paul, bishop of the Ephesians, who, as is likely, was suffering troubles at the hands of those who presided over the Ionian philosophy at Ephesus, and who inquired of him, as one knowledgeable in external philosophy, so that he might strive all the more; and this is nothing unreasonable, since the God-loving apostle Paul also used the sayings of the Greeks, perhaps hearing them from those with him who were experienced in Greek philosophy. This also establishes that these writings of Dionysius are genuinely his.

For his unstudied mention of the sayings of the men who flourished at the same time as himself, whom the divine epistles of the apostles also mention, proves the unsophisticated character of his writings, and most of all the extreme soundness of his doctrines. But since some say that the treatise is not the holy man's but one of later generations, they must necessarily place in his work certain forbidden and absurd things, falsely attributing to him such claims as that he was with the apostles and wrote letters to those with whom he never associated in their own time, nor did he write. And also to fabricate a prophecy to the apostle John when he was in exile, that he would return again to the land of Asia and teach the customary things—this belongs to a man who marvel-mongers and madly hunts after the reputation of a prophet.

And also that he says that at the very time of the saving Passion, while he was at Heliopolis with Apollophanes, he observed and philosophized together about the solar eclipse, as though it had then occurred neither by nature nor according to custom; and that he says he was present with the apostles at the carrying-forth of the relic of the divine holy Mother of God Mary, and cites passages of Hierotheus his own teacher from the funeral orations composed for her; and that letters and discourses are fabricated as having been uttered to the disciples of the apostles—of how great an absurdity and condemnation, even for an ordinary man, let alone for a man raised to such a height in character and knowledge, and in transcending all things perceptible, and in being united to the intelligible beauties, and through them, as far as attainable, to God!

Exegetical commentaries, as detailed as possible, were needed for the interpretation of his great learning; nevertheless, more summarily, as the book had room, I have set down in scholia what seemed to me, trusting in God, in accordance with the discourses set out in order below, which have for the time being happened to come into my hands. It should be known that certain of the philosophers outside the faith, and especially Proclus, have often used the theorems of the blessed Dionysius, and even his bare expressions themselves; and from this one may form the suspicion that the older philosophers in Athens, appropriating his treatises, as he records in the present book, concealed them, so that they might appear to be the fathers of his divine oracles; and by the dispensation of God the present treatise has now come to light for the refutation of their vainglory and fraud. And that it is customary for them to appropriate what is ours, the divine Basil teaches in his exposition of "In the beginning was the Word," speaking thus on that very phrase: "I know that many of those outside the Word of truth, who think great things of themselves for worldly wisdom, have admired these things and dared to include them in their own compositions; for the devil is a thief, and steals our things to tell them to his own spokesmen." Thus he. But since Numenius the Pythagorean plainly says, "What else is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?" no one can deny it, since he is not ours but of the opponents, as Eusebius also, who presided over Caesarea in Palestine, testifies, saying: "Not only now, but even before the coming of Christ, it was customary for those outside the wisdom to steal what is ours.

ON THE EXPLANATION OF THE INSCRIPTION OF THE WORK ON THE HEAVENLY HIERARCHY, "Hierarchy": Since the inscription contains "hierarchy," he is accustomed to call bishops "hierarchs." It must be understood, then, that a hierarchy is the principle, and as it were the care, of the ordering of the sacred things themselves, and a hierarch is one who rules over and cares for and provides for the sacred things—not, indeed, those of the priests, but the one who orders the sacred things and the constitution both of them and of the church and of the mysteries, not, however, the high priest. This explanation the great Dionysius himself also sets out below in the discourse On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.

The presbyter: Note that the name of "presbyter" also signifies the bishop, since the bishop is also a presbyter; and this is made clear also in the Acts of the holy apostles, where the holy apostle Paul is appointed to the churches of Asia.

ON CHAPTER 1

§ 1. Every good gift: Note that the blessed Dionysius has made use of the catholic epistle of Saint James; for the saying is from there; and that it had already been published.

For this too is from him: he theologizes these things about the Son. § 2. Handed down from the fathers: here he means the fathers who handed down the doctrine to him, not his natural parents; for he was from the Greeks, as the Acts of the holy apostles show, and he himself indeed in the letter to Saint Polycarp and in the ninth chapter of On the Heavenly Hierarchy. Symbolically: for he does not speak physiologically, but through certain symbols and images.

1. Understandings: The philosophers among the Greeks too call the intellectual, that is, the angelic, powers "noes"; since each of them is wholly intellect, and has its entire essence as a living intellect, substantiated into its own form; they are called "noes" because the inflection was made for the sake of euphony; for it ought to have been, from ho nous, tou nou, the plural hoi noi, but for the sake of euphony it has come from another nominative singular, hoi noes; for this is a custom of the Attic writers, who say "Aristophane" and "Sokrate" instead of hoi Aristophaneis and hoi Sokrateis. There are also those who say hoi nooi, as from ho noos, tou noou; and Scripture also calls them by this name, as in Isaiah: "The great intellect, the ruler of Babylon," that is, the devil; according to the Ionians, then, nous, noos, noes, as chrous, chroos, hoi chroes; for the inflection is Ionic. Supra-archic: God is supra-archic, as above every principality and as a thearchic light, as the principle of those called gods—I mean angels and righteous men. 2. Of profundity: he calls profundity hiddenness; for it is unknown to all who are outside it.

3. "Fusion": Note the fusion; and why the divine, being one, is multiplied.

"Veils": He calls "veils" the things said bodily about God in the Scriptures, such as the names of human limbs, or of certain powers. Note that while in the flesh we behold the immaterial and incorporeal; and this is what the veils in the tabernacle indicated more clearly, as he hints here. "Naturally": in the sense of "of the same nature," "akin."

§ 3. "The initiatrix": Among the philosophers of the Greeks, "initiation" (teletē) is the transmission of the mysteries, inasmuch as it perfects the one being initiated and is perfective of those who approach such things. "Initiatrix," then, is the sacred institution, the divine establishing and arrangement of our dispensation of the sacred mysteries, having its beginning from God through the apostles of these perfective goods; for the divine apostle Paul calls the initiated "perfect," saying: "As many of us, then, as are perfect, let us think this."

"Supramundane": "Supramundane" must be understood not sensibly but intelligibly, and beyond the world that is ours. Note what he means by "figures" and "formative compositions," that is, images, which he sets out next. "Of formations": Note that he calls the mystical traditions here "formative," which he unfolds in the discourse On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; and this must be understood in a manner befitting God. "Of formations" is to be referred to "formative," and "simple and unformed" to "composition." "Material": He calls "material guidance" the being led up through things called material to the understanding of things beyond sense.

Visible beauties: He calls "visible beauties" the adornments of the sacred houses, and "detailed instructions" the readings of the holy Scriptures; and "orders of adornments" the ranks of the priests. Note that the visible beauties are images of the invisible adornments, as the Apostle also makes clear in the Epistle to the Hebrews, contemplating the things concerning the tabernacle, and Moses hearing, "Make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain."

Detailed instructions: Detailed instructions are the teachings that come through visible things and through matters—broader demonstrations of intelligible realities that present themselves to the thoughts in a unified and collective manner.

States: There, "states" are the divine realities that order things; and a state is a permanent quality. But here, ecclesiastical orders also represent states, insofar as they are incorporeal; for states belong to incorporeal beings. It should be noted that the priestly initiation accomplished among us humans is an imitation of the heavenly hierarchy. Supramundanely: "Supramundanely" must be understood not sensibly, but intelligibly and beyond the world that is ours.

In sacred writings: that is, in the words composed about them in a sacred manner in the Scriptures.

May He lead us up: It should be noted how we are led up to theologies, and that Christ leads us up.

Summits: Nothing has been named by this blessed man in a random way, but learnedly and properly, with piety. Since, then, he said that the sacred order among us is accomplished through material symbols and processions and formations, to the extent of the type attainable by us, being also an imitation of the sacred order among the angels, he has reasonably called the sacred manifestation among them a "summit." For those who have devoted themselves to these matters are accustomed to call the "summit" of each essence its purest part, and that from which the essence depends immediately—that is, directly. For example, the summit of the soul is its purest intellect, and the summit of love is the ardent love of those who have ascended and are most divine. And so the summit of the hierarchy and mystical order among us is its purest part, from which it is suspended, and that which tends near to incorporeality. Therefore the most undefiled symbol among us, the summit of the unformed and simple and incorporeal mysteries, to which the hierarchy, being joined, mounts as it were upon the sacred manifestation among humans; and through the images it leads up to the pure visions of the intelligible rite, which is reasonably called the summit of the bodily and material things here.

On Chapter 2, §1. a. Manifestation: He calls the declaration a manifestation; and it is clear that it is the declaration through symbols and types, which he also called figures; and simplicity is the immateriality of nature.

b. For he knew that in hymning the sacred minds in the heavens, as he himself says according to the Scripture, he necessarily had to speak about beast-shaped animals and eagles and the other things to which the divine Scriptures liken the archangelic powers; for he says: "lest we too, like the many, impiously suppose that the ranks of the many-faced and many-footed beings in the heavens have no explanation"; these, then, he has chosen to clarify according to the manifestation of the sacred oracles. Artlessly: greatly, or in every way, or truly, or simply.

c. Poetic: That the Scripture also used certain poetic figures for the guidance of the human mind, but as being unable to receive the teaching of greater things; for the heavenly symbols are like the things imagined by the poets, as this sacred man says (and understand poets to mean either those admired among the Greeks, such as Homer, Hesiod, and those after them), or poetic, as it were formative, sketches. For the wise condescension of God, knowing our mind to be weak and unsuited to a loftier contemplation, fashioned for it a connatural elevation, and thus brought the archangelic orders into the open, not clarifying them as they are in truth, but as we are able to comprehend; therefore imagine nothing incongruous among the heavenly things. §2. Combinations: He calls combinations the aforementioned figures and shapings.

In themselves: "In themselves," that is, as they possess a nature, he says, they are unknown to us and remain unobservable.

Abrupt: "Abrupt," I think, he means the strange and, as it were, cut off from customary things—the path and formation; therefore he also calls it a tabernacle, clarifying that the recorded forms of the holy angels are not true; for they are not in truth such as the sacred Scripture hands them down, but [this is] so that we may attain to their majesty. But the divine Dionysius himself attempts to bring together the things said about them and to show that it is possible through unfolding to understand the angelic orders in this way, as has been said. Partially immaterial: "Partially immaterial," that is, in part; for they are not wholly immaterial. But he calls "heaven" and the things in heaven, such as the stars, transcendent essences; for their most finely divided and single-substance nature is somehow near to immateriality. Godlike: He calls the intelligible essences "godlike simplicities"; for they are immaterial essences and altogether uncompounded, not being a mixture and combination of the elements; for bodies are from these, but those are incorporeal.

Enizanon: Settling in and causing to remain. Leontion: These forms of the divine and holy cherubim were also recorded by the divine Ezekiel and by the inspired John in the Apocalypse. Esmon: An esmos is a completed multitude. And "of birds" — that is, of bird-like form and from birds. Of animals: He calls "animals" others, such as horses, mules, and the like, and less honorable materials, such as thrones as if from wood, and wheels, and swords from iron, like the sword drawn against Balaam, and the one David saw, as is said in the Books of Kingdoms, the second book, and chariots as if wooden. Passible: He says "passible" because the lion-form signifies something spirited, and the calf-form the desiring part, which are passions and great ones. And he calls "likenesses" the assimilative conjectures; therefore Ezekiel says that he saw a likeness of the throne, and a likeness of a lion, which indicates the fictive imagination of things that seem to appear; wherefore it is also said here, "dissimilar likenesses"; for the prophet does not see all as alike, but some in one way, others in another; but they are also wholly dissimilar to those whom they seem to be like; for they have nothing truly of a lion or a calf or the rest. But what the dissimilar means, you will find in what follows. But the: By way of defense.

1. That neither to the divine things: He promises through his own interpretation to demonstrate each point, so that neither the heavenly things may seem to be insulted, nor we be sunk into lowly abasements regarding the living creatures spoken of among the angels.

2. With good reason have been set forth: Why are types symbols of the untypified, and forms of the formless? He says this here.

Of the unshaped: In place of "of the formless."

3. Immediately: That is, not through intermediate types, but suddenly and at the first impulse; and "they extend" is the same as "they set before" and "they set forth."

4. Formations: Note that incorporeal beings are formless; when, then, you hear concerning the supersubstantial one, "who being in the form of God," understand the exact likeness to his own Father; for this is what the image of the invisible God also declares, and "he who has seen me has seen the Father." Thus also Saint Basil interprets it in his discourse to his own brother concerning the difference of essence and hypostasis. § 3. That twofold is the sacred: That the divine is hymned in two ways: either as like all things—for all things subsist in him—or as unlike—for he is nothing of all things.

Through dissimilar things: That the types are formed both through similar and through dissimilar things; and how they are formed, he says as follows.

Sometimes as reason: God is said to be reason and mind in a certain respect, in the passage "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" and in "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying," and the like. But he speaks of rationality in the case of God, not because he wishes to show that God is rational, as partaking of reason (for this is what it would indicate), but because he is rationality itself, being wholly reason. And they speak of substance in the case of God when they say, "I am the one who is, and the one who is has sent me; you are the same" — for from "to be" and "the one who is" comes "the one who is," and the derivative "substance," that is, existence.

And life: That neither life, nor light, nor mind, nor substance is said of God properly, but by way of causality; for he is also beyond these and not such as these. Invisible itself: That the things said of God by way of negation, such as invisible, infinite, and the like, are dissimilar; for they show not what God is, but what God is not — as also Gregory the Theologian.

Unintelligible: He says "unintelligible," not "foolish," but "not understood by anyone"; and God is indefinite, as falling under no definition, but being himself the definition of all things and defining all things in himself, he does not fall under a definition; because definitions are composed from affirmations, but affirmations are unsuitable in the case of God, as being false; for God is beyond these, as not being substance, but beyond substance. The negations: He says that not only in the case of God, but also in the case of all divine things, that is, in the case of all things intelligible after God, the negations are true and the affirmations unsuitable. Now affirmations are unsuitable when we call either God or the intellectual powers life or light; for neither is there such a life as to live through inhalation and exhalation, nor is the light that which appears and makes the things before us visible, but something higher than these. But the negations made through privations are in a way more appropriate in the case of intelligible things; for we say that they are invisible, and that they do not fall under sight, and we understand; but what the very thing that does not appear is, the argument seems neither to busy itself with nor to set forth; and yet "life" and "light" seem to signify what it is, and these do not at all reveal what God is. They honor, then: Observe how well he has defended why the heavenly beings, that is, the images, have mention of living creatures; for just as God who is over all has nothing in all things of the same kind, and for this reason naturally nothing among all things is declarative of him, but henceforth we theologize by another method, saying what God is not, which he calls through dissimilar things, so also in the case of the heavenly powers, which are after God, artistically

The theologians did this, likening them to none of the intelligible things, but taking their resemblance from sensible things, which he calls dishonorable, doing this to their honor, so that their imitation might be fictitious and not true. For if the one called lion-shaped and many-footed and many-winged is also rational and immaterial, how is it not clear that he has transcended in a supramundane way material things and the things understood among us?

For into the more honorable: Behold, another reasoning, on account of which Scripture used such likenesses concerning the heavenly beings. For if it had used more honorable images, saying that the divine powers are golden in appearance or flashing, those who heard would certainly have been persuaded, receiving credibility from the things more honorable among men. But now it has inserted incongruous and shameful images, so that, knowing precisely that such things are not so, we might seek the truth of the things that are. Harmlessly: For the so-called flames of fire, divine essences, are not burning but life-giving.

Shameful: For how is it not shameful that the symbols of intelligible things come from material things? Spectacles: Spectacles are so called because they are seen with wonder. And indeed, anger. That the spirited movement is not simply full of irrationality, but in the case of irrational nature. One should read the last discourse of the book, which he spoke concerning the vision of the holy cherubim; for there all these things have been thoroughly exercised at length.

Not even one of existing things: Note that no existing thing is deprived of participation in the beautiful; one should note, then, what is understood by anger in the case of irrational beings, and what in the case of rational beings, and what desire is in each.

Rationality: One should note that he speaks of rationality even in the case of angels; and "implacable," that is, unyielding and not slackened.

Desire: That the desire of intelligible things is an unrestrained love toward God, which he calls immateriality.

Because of the unmixed: He calls "unmixed" that which is pure and has devoted itself to nothing else; for he who has been gripped by divine love is wholly his own, and is stretched out toward the beloved alone, hindered by no transient and bodily reason. And when we say that irrationality exists in incorporeal essences, we do not insult them with mindlessness by saying, through the leonine forms and the calf-like and the bird-like, as in the case of the eagle, that types and symbols of irrational things are fitting for the heavenly orders, but mystically we signify the difference of their rational nature from ours.

For we represent the rational [principle] through the instrumental [organ] of the tongue and through vocal forms, striking the air with the dialectical [faculty], and the word passing from us into the ears of the hearers, from body to body, as the divine Basil also says in his discourse On "Give Heed to Thyself"; but there it is not so, but being in incorporeality and passing into one another and withdrawing from one another, beholding one another's thoughts more clearly than any word, they converse with one another as it were, imparting the word to one another through silence.

Aversion: instead of a turning away.

1. Transitional: Our spoken word is transitional, as passing from the one speaking to the one hearing; and corporeal, in contrast to the internal [word]; for this is neither corporeal nor transitional. 2. Matter: He calls "most dishonorable matter" all bodily nature, which has been ordered by God into various kinds, both animate and inanimate and the rest; and "intelligible

comeliness" the things said about God, of which we find moderate and faint images in existing things, such as simply to be, to live, to perceive, and the like. 3. That matter too received its existence from God, no wise argument will contradict; and it bears in itself proofs that it has been produced and ordered by God; for every ordering from matter has certain faint and shadowy echoes of intelligible things; for just as intelligible things are fit for the reception, as far as attainable, of the providential processions from God, and being living are given life by God who is above all life, and have powers effective for beneficence, and a certain supercosmic motion;

Thus all material things together and individually are able to receive the providence of God in a manner suited to themselves, being fitly disposed, and to be given life and to become life, as in the words, "Let the earth bring forth a living soul," and again, "Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls." But they also [receive] beneficent powers for those who breathe from the earth, as the benefits through plants and minerals make clear, and material things have a movement appropriate [to them] that proceeds into generation and corruption, and they receive the order imposed and to be imposed by God. But they are also naturally illuminated by the presence of noetic powers, as in the case of the angel who flashed lightning at the Lord's resurrection and illuminated the surrounding air. Matter has these things by being acted upon, not indeed as noetic things by acting; therefore these are said to have them as a last echo. What a last echo is I will make clear in chapter 4 of the work On the Divine Names. And from the same [work]: Note that he does not call all matter noetic; therefore the stars too are soulless, for they do not have intellect. Even if he speaks of the same names, they are not understood in the same way; but they are both defined and understood in relation to the natural property of the subject.

§ 5. "Divinely originating": That is, the concepts concerning God. "Of the precious things that appear": Note which things he calls precious, such as the sun and the stars, and which middling, fire and water, and which last, as myrrh, and which dishonorable, as wild beasts and worms; and that in the case of God both the bestial symbols and those from matter have been spoken, and the precious and the middling and the dishonorable. "Sun": The prophet Malachi names him the sun of righteousness, and the divine Peter in his catholic epistle, "until the daystar arise in your hearts," and what follows; for this is the morning star. And Moses says, "in the bush a fire not burning," that is, illuminating without harm. And Jeremiah calls him water: "they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water," and others other things; and the Lord, "rivers from his belly shall flow of living water"; and Solomon in the Song of Songs says myrrh: "myrrh poured out is your name." And among the twelve prophets, Hosea and Micah list the things said here as beasts in their prophecies concerning God, and David calls him a worm: "I am a worm and not a man," either from the person of the Lord or he compared him to a worm, as one not born from seed, as we are, but without seed, as worms, which are not brought forth from seed, but from earth or from decay; for the phrase, "I am a worm and not a man," is spoken as from the person of God made flesh, even if it is not to be taken according to the divinity, but according to the lowly appearance of the flesh. He calls the prophets "God-wise spokesmen." For he had already set forth certain statues beforehand in the discourse On the Divine Names.

Of the statues: Which statues are meant to be stored up in it has been shown in the opening of the ninth chapter of the discourse On the Divine Names. Of echoes: He calls the last of God's echoes in creation those things which he said were more dishonorable than the material adornments. But how these are called the last echo will be stated by us more fully in the discourse On the Divine Names, in the fourth chapter.

If not the shapeless: Understand the shapeless as the beast-shaped and brutish, which Scripture says concerning the angels; and "of the manifesting" means of the making-visible, that is, of that which brings to light.

Angel-like: Rightly he did not call the typical depictions, which he also mentioned before, angelic, but angel-like; for the images of the angels themselves as they are were not painted, but they suggest a certain indication of the form of incorporeal beings, as he himself explained.

To set apart: He is accustomed to say "to set apart" concerning things that are distinctly defined and made clear. We think: "We think" is to be understood in common; so that it would be, we think that there is a hierarchy, and we think that certain things can profit, that is, be able to benefit the hierarchs through the sacred rites.

But you, O child: One must inquire how the great Dionysius calls the divine Timothy a child. For either, as I think, since he was advanced in years beyond him and excelled in philosophy, so as even to be questioned first by him, as the writings at hand make clear—for even though the holy Timothy believed before the divine Dionysius, as the Acts of the holy apostles shows, nevertheless the great Dionysius was more capable in secular learning—or he calls him a child as imitating the Lord who says, "Children, do you have anything to eat?"; or because they called those who practice guilelessness according to God "children," as Papias also shows in the first book of the Expositions of the Lord's Oracles, and Clement of Alexandria in the Paedagogue.

Of the multitude: To "multitude" he has added "of one form"; for it unifies the holy things, but the profane things and those belonging to sin it multiplies into many by division. This, then, he now calls a multitude, the one that is, so to speak, profane.

On Chapter 3, "There is indeed a hierarchy": The definition of hierarchy.

"As is attainable": As is possible.

Telesarchic: that is, perfecting.

"Unmixed" is altogether: likeness and equality and identity, the one and the unifying, inasmuch as it is called simple and unmixed and uncompounded; but unlike and unequal and otherness and mixed and in change they call that which is prior to matter. The one, then, would be understood as God.

Thiasotai: A thiasos is properly the choir. But thiasotai here he means those who are occupied with divine things. Most brightly shining, bright, and spotless, undefiled.

To act. These things, I think, make clear that no one enrolled in the priestly rank should do anything greater than his own order, but should only perform and hand on by teaching what belongs to his own dignity, and not attempt things beyond his dignity; for example, presbyters are to teach and to bring the gift, but not to ordain; deacons are to teach, but not to baptize—for they will not give the Holy Spirit, as neither did Philip the deacon in the Acts of the holy apostles—nor to offer, and so on in order; but also those being perfected are to do only what is fitting, so that what is said by the divine Paul may be well kept: "Let each remain in the rank in which he was called.

Telesarchia: that is, of perfecting.

Orders: for there must be both the difference and the transcendence of orders, and the scientific character.

The perfection of those allotted: Note what the perfection of hierarchs is, and how they are co-workers of God according to the divine Apostle. Divine energy: that is, the works of God and Himself working, making wise, perfecting, and the like, working in those being educated according to their capacity.

Since order: Note the order and the result of hierarchy, and that those who approach must first be purified by the teaching of the divisive comminglings of sin; then be illumined by the knowledge of the divinely inspired Scriptures in the doctrines concerning the knowledge of God, and then be perfected by the bath of regeneration.

That some be illumined. Note that illumination is before baptism. The divine blessedness purifies, illumines, perfects, teaching, leading up, deifying.

The divine blessedness: purification,

illumination,

perfection.

Of divine blessedness, some are hierarchs and some are being hierarchically guided; some purify, some illuminate, some are purified, some are illuminated, some are perfected. They perfect. Nous: he used the Ionic form—ho nous, tou noos, hoi noes; for the Attic speakers say ho nous, tou nou, and in the plural hoi noi, ton non, and noisi. § 3. Purifying: here he speaks about the hierarchs themselves, having said the preceding things about those being hierarchically guided, and he also indicates the orders—and how the purifying ones are ranked below, being as it were exorcists; the illuminating ones are ranked above in teaching, such as presbyters and deacons; and the perfecting ones, who fill with the Holy Spirit through baptism, such as bishops. He says these things also below in the discourse On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Naturally and supernaturally present: that the things pertaining to salvation, being illuminating, are present naturally and supernaturally. And he well clarified the order of ecclesiastical sacred ministry—namely, that those approaching divine baptism should first be renounced while being purified, then be illuminated by the teaching of the presbyters appointed for this, and that the purifying ones should be such as are worthy to impart holiness to others, and thus finally the bishops baptize; for he calls them perfecting ones. This order must be preserved.

ON CHAPTER 4, § 1. "For communion": Note the reasoning by which God brought all things into being, so that each might share in his goodness proportionally; for this is what "many mansions in the Father's house" means; for each will share in his goodness according to his own work; thus Titus also says in his discourses Against the Manichaeans.

"Of beings": Here he indicates all things in creation collectively by the name of beings, both intelligible and visible, all things; for God made all things out of nothing, and for this reason alone, that they might enjoy his goodness. And they enjoy it through providence, as each is disposed; for the providence of God is the beginning of the substance of beings.

"All things therefore that are": That all beings partake of the providence of God; for neither is there among beings that which does not partake of God; so that evil is without substance, since it does not partake of God, appearing as it does by the privation of habit. But not itself, existing in substance primordially; thus we spoke broadly above in the appropriate chapter. Of beings, either they are without life, or living, or intelligent or rational, which he calls only what he calls irrationally incorporeal, as also corporeal things, which being, such as heavens, live, such as irrational heavenly things; he calls according to us.

And earth, living things.

"For it would not be": In these words he calls the divine things "existing," that is, the Holy Trinity, which, being the creator and beginning—that is, the cause—of created things, is said to be participated in by those very things that came into being from it. "The inanimate things," then: Because even inanimate things participate in God's providence by the very fact of existing; and inanimate things are, for example, stones and all things that do not proceed into generation. "Living things of the same": By a common [principle], in the case of each of the things added, one must understand beforehand the ways through which it participates in providence. "The holy [powers]," then: Note concerning the order of the whole, that the essences of the powers above are different; but he calls "existing" only those things that he called inanimate. "In a noetic manner, toward the imitation of God": Observe that the noetic powers too participate in the good by free choice in a greater degree, as desiring it greatly; for he says, "forming themselves," which is a matter of free choice. Therefore the statement is false that says the devil fell from the heavens; for he turned to evil of himself. "Closely attached" is instead of "united.

Of existing things, some are irrational, as the living creatures, some of which are perceptible—namely, stones and the rest of the insensible things, as plants—and some are rational; and of these, some are irrational, sharing in no vital [principle], while others are embodied and participate by way of activities;

and the incorporeal and those above us, [and] us.

And in participation in many ways: for their essences are a living mind. Note that all intelligible things participate primarily in God. And revelatory, that is, declaratory, of the angelic name: Note what an angel properly is, and that he says they hold the first rank; and further, how we are initiated through angels, and how the law was given through them, and that angels led our fathers both before the law and after the law up to the divine.

Renowned: Glorious. And what is to be done, as in the case of Joshua son of Nun and Gideon and others; and toward the straight road from an unholy life, as in the case of Cornelius the centurion; for he was the first transferred from the unbelieving nations; and sacred ranks, as in the case of Daniel, "ten thousand times ten thousand," and the cherubim of Ezekiel, and the seraphim of Isaiah appeared. And sub-cosmic visions, as in the case of Paul caught up to the third heaven, and in the Revelation of the divine John. § 3. Immediately: That is, without the ministry of angels.

As to what it actually is: Observe how he explains the saying that states, "No one has ever seen God," which I consider most true, and knowing that there are scriptural sayings stating that God was seen by men—as in the case of Adam, as in paradise, and in the case of Abraham, at the oak of Mamre, and when they were journeying to Sodom; and to Moses on the mountain, even if he is said to have seen the back parts; and he says that no one has seen or will see the hidden thing of God itself, which is His essence, or even something higher, because no one is able or will be able to comprehend and express what God is. But if there have also been theophanies to certain of the saints, understand that each was deemed worthy of some vision proportionate to his own faith, which manifested the Divine to him, through which he received the illumination of the divine knowledges coming to him. As in form: I think he means the transfiguration, or the miracle on Mount Sinai as fire.

Theophany: He says that it is a theophany not because God shows and displays what He actually is—for this is impossible—but because the saints are deemed worthy of divine illumination through certain sacred visions proportionate to them, which he says come about through angels.

Legislation: Note that even the law is a prefiguration of another divine legislation, that is, of the divine incarnation according to Christ; and that the first legislation was given through angels, holy Stephen also makes clear when he says: "who received the law by the dispositions of angels, and did not keep it." It: That is, the legislation.

Through the first: Note how through the first, that is, those who have ascended, the second things (instead of the subordinate things) are led up to God, and concerning the angelic orders.

Supersubstantial: He called the supersubstantial hierarchy the origin of their order and its creative cause, § 4. Gabriel: Note that the angels are the first to be initiated into the things concerning the incarnation, as the events concerning the most divine Gabriel make clear, who learned the things concerning holy John; and who announced to the Virgin that the God Logos would be conceived by the Holy Spirit and become flesh.

Manly: The manly divine working is the incarnation of Christ, according to which, being God in flesh, he performed the divine works. Observe also how, having here called Jesus a "manly divine working," and by saying "manly" indicating that he became a perfect man, and by "divine working" that he is both God and man, the same having performed the divine signs, he says shortly afterward that he is immutable; for he remained also what he always was. And see that other point again, how he says that the divine-princely mystery of the ineffable divine formation took place in the holy Theotokos Mary. And he calls it divine formation, indicating that God was formed, in that he became man, as the saying goes, "The Logos became flesh.

Theandric, because God, who is the cause and beginning of those called gods—both angels and righteous men—was the mystery of the incarnation, whom he pre-named God Jesus.

And Mary: Note these things against the Nestorians; but not all angels were entrusted with the mystery of the economy; since, when the Lord was taken up after the passion, there were some who said, "Who is this King of glory?" For the question displays ignorance. Note against the Nestorians and the Acephali, that he says Jesus is the supersubstantial cause, inasmuch as he is the maker of all things; and that he says he was begotten without change according to us; yet these are not the same and one nature, even if the same one is the two; and that he is both lawgiver and under the law, and that he himself as

man was ordered through angels, both in the withdrawal into Egypt and in the return from it, and that he is himself the creator of the angels also. So that one and the same Christ in two natures accomplished the great mystery of the economy; for it is said: "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." Behold two forms; for what he says here, he does not leap away from—this is the "he did not consider it robbery," that is, he did not deem it unworthy as a man to obey even angels, but he obediently submits to the representations of God and the Father through angels; for he himself this same one appointed that the human race be governed.

Unchangeably: For he was not changed in his divine nature. (He does not depart: For the things appointed, that is, foreordained, by him, he himself took up in the last times and showed to be in himself. And concerning the angel: That the chapter of the angel who strengthened the Lord, which is found in Luke, is also mentioned by the great Dionysius, and that it was handed down to him and to the holy Timothy by the apostle Paul rather unwritten, more secretly in mystery; for Luke wrote down his preaching; and this is made clear, that he received it as in a mystery from his saying, "made manifest in our sacred traditions." Note also the other interpretation, which says that the phrase in Isaiah, "angel of great counsel," is fitting, he says, for the child born in his flesh to be called, and why he was called angel, because they announced to us the counsel of the Father; for having saved us through his own passion, he showed that the Father was also of this counsel; for neither was he called angel as though he were subordinate to the Father; this is against the Arians. Do not receive the chapter of the angel who strengthened him contrary to the interpretation of holy Scripture; for this ought to be understood with reference to the flesh; for elsewhere too the Gospel says, after the temptations, that angels came and ministered to him; and that he grew weary from the journey and that he was hungry; for all these things show that he took up a perfect man with his sufferings. But someone will say, where was there need of an angel when the divinity was present? We say, then, that God works most wonders through angels; and all divine Scripture says this.

Manifestative: According to what was said by him to the Father, "I have manifested your name to men."

ON CHAPTER 5 ( The heavenly essences: Why is it that, when the Church says that all the holy angels are of one essence, the divine Dionysius names many powers? The great Dionysius, then, the bishop of Alexandria, the one from among the rhetoricians, in the scholia which he made on the blessed Dionysius his namesake, says thus: that the wisdom outside [the Church] is accustomed to call every invisible nature "unbegotten," and likewise the hypostases "essences"; and from this, he says, such expressions have been spoken by the holy Dionysius in accordance with those outside [the Church], by catachresis. Manifestation: That is, the manifestation, or clarification. They name: He says that the last of the intelligible orders is properly called "angels," but those that have surpassed [them] are [called] otherwise, some of which he also names; and in the following chapter he mystically recalls the nine ranks; but now he says completely that the higher orders know what the lower have been initiated into through illumination, and they also know other things unknown to those below them; but even if this is so, nevertheless all the intelligible orders are sometimes called "angels" by a generic name. And he says also why, as in the one hundred and second psalm: "Bless the

Lord, all his angels," and in the one hundred and third: "who makes his angels spirits," and so on. But the statement does not convert: for things subordinate are not named by the designation of things superior, and because the subordinate powers are initiated into the mysteries through the superior powers. "Concluding": that is, the last order of the angelic ranks. And we say: Someone might ask: These orders of heavenly beings—the superior, the lower, and those still further below—came to be so that one is higher and another lower? And we say that God created all noetic things self-determining; for if man, being from earthly clay and a soul, became self-determining, how much more were the noetic powers, which have nothing earthly or heavy, created self-determining? For this the divine Scripture also sets forth, saying that the devil fell voluntarily from the angelic order; and this same divine man, two leaves earlier, concerning the angelic powers: that, noetically imprinting themselves upon the imitation of God and striving supercosmically toward the divine-principial likeness and desiring to form their noetic form—from all of which it is shown that the noetic powers are self-choosing and self-determining. Reasonably, then, he says that each is illumined with divine understandings in proportion to its own longing for the good; for this reason they are also called orders, as the longing in them being, as it were, by degrees. For this reason, he says, here it is not reasonable to name the last order seraphim or thrones. And note why all the ranks are called angels:

because the angels in the strict sense lead holy men up to the divine splendors known to them.

But just as this: that is, the order of the angels. Those according to us: the sacred Dionysius, filled with these most contemplative mysteries, reveals, saying that the last order, the one called angels, pedagogically guides the hierarchs of the Churches among men by the hand toward the ascent to God, and the higher orders initiate the lower order—this one, our pedagogue—and those successively above them, as being subordinate. Of the one allotting: that is, of the last, I mean the order of the angels. Note that he holds that the names of all nine orders are common, of each order, because they are commonly illumined from the Godlike form unto the light-giving from God, even if not equally. It is possible, he says, commonly to name all the intellectual and incorporeal orders, and in another way as well, that is, according to the Godlike form, which is according to likeness to God, insofar as it is attainable by each of them; so that all the supramundane orders are called Godlike, and all of them have another communion, the gift of the most luminous illumination from God, even if the illumination is given more or less according to what each can attain. But in the discourse On the Divine Names he says that only the divine ones are called the order-leaders of every order. Properties: note how he calls the analogies of each order properties. ON THE CHAPTER § 1.

Only precisely: That God alone, who also deifies them, knows them precisely and their liturgies, and they too know themselves and their own. For we know nothing precisely of what pertains to them, except what we have been taught from the divine Scripture.

Nine: Note that there are nine divine orders of the intelligible beings. § 2. Hieroteleut: He customarily calls the hieroteleut either the most divine apostle Paul or Saint Hierotheus, as was said in the discourse On the Divine Names; but now I think he means no one other than Saint Paul; for it was no one else but he who reached as far as the third heaven and was initiated into the things concerning these.

First triadic order.

Thrones, cherubim, seraphim.

Closely: Concerning the first of the sacred orders that draws near to God. (Most holy: This first triadic and God-like order can be grasped by one who contemplates with understanding and in a manner worthy of God, both from Ezekiel, who speaks first of a throne, upon which God was seen, and then immediately after, the divine cherubim; and in Isaiah, the most holy seraphim standing in a circle and beholding God. And these things reveal their lot above all others, highest before God; and these things are clarified in nearly similar fashion also in the Revelation of Saint John, the apostle, evangelist, and theologian. Immediately: It is said immediately because there is no other order before it. Note also that he says the thrones, that is, the many-eyed and many-winged cherubim and seraphim, are higher than all the powers and than the one triadic hierarchy. The renowned: He hints at Saint Paul.

Of the Authorities: He enumerates the two consecutive triadic holy orders of the intelligible powers from below to above; for first are the dominions, then next the powers, then the authorities. But he, having placed the authorities first, took the dominions as middle, and of the third liturgical triad the principalities are first, then thereafter the archangels, and finally the angels. Now therefore he did not mention them in this way in the following chapter, but taking them from below to above he named them. The Apostle indeed mentions some of the angelic orders both in the Epistle to the Romans and in that to the Ephesians, but he does not set forth this order. The great Dionysius makes clear that the divine Apostle handed these things down to the saints in mystery.

ON CHAPTER 7 § 1. Again the inscription ascends from below to the higher things (for the third are the seraphim, the second the cherubim, and the first the thrones. He has therefore inscribed it in reverse order.

Appellation: Note that every name of the sacred things contains the signification of the order's own proper activity, as the interpretations of the names of the holy seraphim and cherubim make clear, since there is no other order before it. Of Theophanies: For they work upon the first, the first theophanies being wrought in them.

By "manifestatory": instead of "interpretive" and "representative." By "godlike": since he calls the states on the divine minds godlike, one must not suppose that the great Dionysius says these intelligible virtues accrue as an accident, as even in our own case, as one thing in another subject, as it were a quality accruing; for accident and subject are banished from there, since all composition and the formlessness of matter are excluded from there. For if it were one thing in another, as an accident in a subject, that essence would not live by itself, nor could it be deified by itself as far as attainable, because of the mere order preserved as one thing in another. The states, then, spoken of in them are essentialized, not however as an accident in a subject, because of their immateriality. Hence the great Dionysius, below in the discourse On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, in the fourth chapter, says that the states in them are essential.

By "states": Note that the divine powers possess the godlike by state. And a state is a permanent quality.

From this, then, it is made clear that they are self-determining, acquiring the virtues by habit. Ammonius of Adrianople sets this forth more fully in his discourses written against Origen, in his work On the Resurrection. "Most high": why are they called thrones?

"Footstool": instead of "the base toward the lowly." Note what the purpose of every hierarchy is.

"Abasement": he indicates that the thrones are a certain highest nature, ranked immediately after God by him, paying no attention to material things, as is signified by their having nothing of a footstool abasement—that is, yielding—and of a downward inclination, but rather the upward-moving toward God, attending in an upward-tending manner. And well did he add "supramundanely," instead of "incorporeally and immaterially and intelligibly," that is, "intellectually"; for lest you suppose the ascent to be a bodily journey, he added "immaterially."

"God-bearing": note that he also called the order of the holy thrones "god-bearing," as bearing God, who rests upon them intelligibly. Observe, then, since the blessed Basil of Cappadocia called the flesh "god-bearing," one must consider how this is said. But the flesh of the Lord himself is united to God the Word himself in essence and in person, wherefore he is also said by the Fathers to bear flesh and to have put on flesh; what absurdity, then, if his flesh too is called god-bearing, as bearing God the Word in an inseparable union, since it is both called and truly is his flesh in the proper sense?

These, having God within themselves by grace, and being bearers of God in an ineffable word and a thought beyond understanding, are themselves for this reason called bearers of God, because the first powers partake first of God, and thus impart to the lesser ones the illumination that came upon them.

§ 2. To the first: The reading according to transcendence must be understood thus: one must consider that the hierarchy homogeneous with them in all respects belongs to the first essences, while the rest are through the intermediate.

(Of the Invisible: Note that these first three orders are greater than every invisible and visible power. Having come to be: That is, created.

Of phantasies: That they are incapable of receiving any phantasy involving matter and are unmixed with any diminution, because not only are the divine powers themselves freed from stains and defilements, but they are also free from all deficiency and do not know at all any lessening toward the worse. Understand this, however, not that they are immutable by nature, but that, being self-determining, through their exceedingly great longing for the good they inclined toward the divine and so remained, having as it were a habit of immovability. For God alone is immutable by nature; but these, if they had been created thus, the devil would not have fallen. But all these too are of one and equal rank; for the good that is from nature has no step downward.

4. Self-moved: This saint says that their motion is self-moved, as being unalterable and immutable, and likewise having it so. And the motions in them are the ceaseless activities concerning thoughts; for they are unceasing intellects. And note the immutability according to godly love, and read the fourth chapter of the discourse On the Divine Names, and the eighth chapter of the present discourse. 5. Contemplative: Note how these holy orders are called contemplative, and that they do not acquire the knowledge of God through symbols or speculations of Scripture, as we do.

6. Beholders of things intelligible: Beholders are those who oversee the mysteries; and these things are revealed to the saints through the sensible things said symbolically about God, which it is not possible to conceive in the case of the powers above. Contemplations: Note the threefold contemplation mentioned, instead of the one Godhead in three persons.

(Of Jesus: He calls communion with Jesus the participation in the glory and the ineffable splendor of the body of Christ; for with the flesh he sits with the Father. In images: But the phrase "in images," they stamp the likeness, though it ought to be said "stamping," let no one suppose it a solecism, as though the great Dionysius were ignorant, but let him know precisely that this too he says as one truly Athenian and very Attic. For it is characteristic of Attic writers to join masculine participles with feminine nouns, as Homer also does when Iris says from Zeus to Hera and Athena: No longer on your chariots, struck by the thunderbolt, did you two come back to Olympus.)

For it was necessary to say "struck" in the feminine dual instead of "struck" in the masculine dual, since the masculine is dual. And this, they say, the comic poets also do, using the feminine for the neuter, as the masculine for the feminine—both Plato and Euripides in the Bacchae: "Flashing with running eyelids"; for one would not call the eyelid "running." And in the Orestes: "With maddening rabid fits."

Note on "god-working": that the likeness to the Lord Jesus is god-working, that is, it works gods of those who are made like; and how these orders are made like Christ directly and without symbols, having received this from Him Himself. Note on "first-working": that these powers are also first-created, and they possess the virtues of the Lord Jesus Christ as powers. Note on "perfected": how these divine powers are said to be perfected.

"Analytic": he means the science of varieties, the interpretive and clarifying explanation of the intricate sacred tradition, which even the subordinate orders need, as he says next, and much more so humans; for without explanations that analyze the manifold wisdom of the holy contemplations, it is not possible to understand them, neither for us nor for those that have surpassed the first three orders. Hence he says that of the subordinate orders, the first of each hierarchizes only, and no other power does; but over the hierarchy of these highest orders, God alone hierarchizes, and no other power.

Being hierarchically ordered: That is, being initiated. This, then: Scriptural proofs of what has been said. § 3. To be taught thoroughly: Note "to be taught thoroughly," for it shows that they are not such by nature.

But the ones higher than all: For since they are above all and have nothing superior to them, as far as other powers are concerned, reasonably they alone are first initiated into divine knowledge by God himself, as being higher. Into the heavens: Note against the Basilians, that is the Nestorians, that Jesus Christ, taken up as man, is himself the Lord of all things intelligible and the King of glory, as those being initiated learn from those who say, "Lift up your gates, you rulers," and who ask, "Who is this King of glory?" and again hear, "The Lord of hosts" and what follows. And against the Acephali and Eutychianists, that, even if he is Lord of hosts, yet he is flesh and manifest man, so that the next principalities are astonished at the strange thing.

Divine workings: He rightly called the economy for our sake "divine working," for all the things done in the economy of the Lord were truly works of God: the holy birth and healings, the signs at the passion, and the resurrection. For I say: But the words, "For I speak of righteousness and judgment of salvation," are Isaiah's; and observe how he has understood these things. And I marvel: The saying must be composed thus: I marvel how the first ones, as those in the middle, reverently aspire to the divine illuminations.

Mid-heaven: He called them "mid-heaven," as not flying up to the very summit of height, but reaching the middle; and "to question" means to say, "Who is this that comes from Edom?"

They ask: Observe with how much fear and reverence the highest of all orders, as being middle and not first, ask one another, first the things in Isaiah, "Who is this that comes from Edom, his garments red from Bozrah?" and then, as if permitted by God, they say to him: "Why are your garments red?"

Of all-holy purification: Note how he says that the divine orders are purified and illuminated and perfected.

Of the purification: Note what the purification is in the case of the intellects, and what the ignorance is. Of boundless light: "Boundless" means great and much. It is perfected: Note how these divine orders are purified and illuminated and perfected.

By habit: By habit knowledge is the abiding and irremovable apprehension of the illumined knowledge.

Encircling": Since he says that these first ranks of angels stand and dance in a circle immediately around God, it must be clarified how they both stand and move, as in a dance in a circle around God. And for the present he has taken his starting point from Isaiah, who says, "And seraphim stood around him; six wings to each one," and so on; and he adds, "and with two they flew." For how could those who stood be flying around in a circle? And it must be understood thus: every intellect that has shone forth from God, the cause of all things, since it shone forth from the one who created it, is said to move around him as around a center, this motion being not spatial but intellectual and living. And the circular motion of an intellect is of this kind: everything that understands either understands as being an intellect, or as partaking of intellect. The one that is an intellect understands primarily, while that which partakes of intellect understands secondarily. In this respect, then, insofar as it understands as being an intellect, it may be said to move; and this motion is conceived as circular insofar as, turning back and coming to be around itself, it will thus understand itself and the one before it, from whom it shone forth. As therefore it was projected by God's will, it will be around him—that is, around the desire and love of God—as around a center. For secondary things are not united to those before them, but what comes to be resembles a kind of dance; for begotten things, desiring to be in their own proper place, look intently around the one who begets them. That which is turned by understanding toward those before it introduces the notion of circular motion.

Since God is everywhere, those who follow him everywhere and always understand his will rejoice in this and dance in a circle around him, as it were, in gladness. It is said, then, that the mind is in itself and hastens toward itself; what is in itself also reveals immortality and has stability. For in respect of being—that is, of being immortally—it is understood to stand; but in respect of hastening toward itself, it is moved, not wishing to be dispersed in any way into thoughts outside itself and material. In respect of being self-moved, then, it does not stand but is moved; in respect of its essence, which always remains the same, it has stability, not motion. There is, then, by nature in each of the minds an impulse, the striving toward God and the circular dance around him as around a center, like the circle's relation to the point—that is, the center—from which it was constituted. For each of beings, by natural necessity, dances the dance around God, desiring being by virtue of its being. In this way, then, all things are around the King of all, and all things are for his sake, and he is the cause of all good things. But what he said—that the first ranks dance immediately around God, as having nothing before them—indicates that the second and third ranks, that is, the sensible things, dance in a corresponding way around God through the mediation of those before them, as has been said.

The intelligible realities: The intelligible realities are forms and distinctive properties of differentiated existences, but in incorporeality, and the incorporeal do not need a place in order to be separated, as all bodies do; for where there is a body, there is also the place that is going to contain bodies without conflict. As a lamp: These things are from Ezekiel.

From his place. How should one understand place in relation to God, when Scripture everywhere says that the Divine is unbounded, and that "heaven is his throne, and the earth a footstool for his feet"; and again: "he has set the valleys in a balance and the earth in a handful"; and again: "if I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to Hades, you are present." What place, then, did Ezekiel conceive for God? We say that God illuminates the things that seem perplexing to us for those who seek him with wholehearted movement; for the divine Scripture says: "if anyone keeps my commandments, I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him." So then both the intelligible powers and the souls of the saints and of all who keep the commandments might reasonably be called the place of God and his rest; for elsewhere it says: "my Spirit has rested upon them.

In the chapters on the Divine Hymns: Note that another treatise of his, On the Divine Hymns, has also been composed.

The divine places: What is the place of God.

Places of the divine rule: The saying, "What house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest," shows that this is not said about something perceptible, but about these divine meanings; or also thus: God wished to signify that the Divine is uncircumscribed. And otherwise: that in the very ones who hear there was no place of rest for God because of their unbelief, as the Lord says in the Gospels: "But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." It is a unit: Not only, he says, does the thrice-holy hymn and the voice from his place glorifying God declare that it has been granted also to the lower orders to know and hymn God, but it signifies something else besides these things; and the text declares this which says: and indeed we say that God is a three-personed henad and monad, and that he provides for all things, having grasped all things without holding from the first even to the last of the earth, that is, not holding them by a bodily grasp, but by divine providence superessentially. And that he is a henad and monad, Evagrius the impious also says this in the second century, third chapter: He is a monad, since the Divine is simple and indivisible; for this reason a monad; for a monad, to speak arithmetically, is simple and incomposite; and a henad for this reason, since the Holy Trinity is naturally united to itself, and unites all who draw near to it, according to what is said in the Gospel, "that they may be one, just as we are one.

Ascheton: He calls "ascheton" the providence and encompassing of God that is wholly transcendent and unconnected to the things it sustains. On Chapter 8.

Dynata: Most powerful.

Eponymias: That their eponymy signifies what their particular property is. The middle triadic order: Dominions, Powers, Authorities. Adouloton: That every noetic power is inexorably disposed toward the worse. § 2. As an inexorable dominion: Here he piously mocks the error of the Greek philosophers, who named certain three inexorable powers, which came into existence from certain other three powers before them—not, however, as lights from God, created in their own particular way. And they say that these inexorable ones are subordinate to the noetic powers that project them, restraining and as it were opposing and holding back those before them and themselves, so as not to fall into matter, and weaker in this respect than those that project them, insofar as they need that which holds them so as to remain unfallen. These things, then, are theirs in summary; but the great Dionysius wisely says all the opposite to them; for he says that they came to subsist from God by creation, whose likeness they also have in dominion, just as we who were created according to the likeness. And he says that they have the inexorable quality against every submission by the principle of dominion, cutting and as it were dividing and not allowing the desire for sensible things to prevail—not, however, restraining those before them. And sensible and bodily things he calls servility and illiberality and vain opinion.

Douloποιίας" instead of "douloprepeia," since they do not permit the things that truly are to be understood, but drag them down from their inflexible steadfastness to the subjugation of vanities. And again he calls "dissimilarity" the material things, as never remaining in sameness but always changing. Dominions: he called the Godhead "dominion," because it is the beginning and cause of all lordship.

They do not forsake: Note how everywhere he says that the transcendent powers impart their own things to those after them and empower the powers that are subject to them; and we know that it is written that an angel strengthened Daniel, and others; and, greater than all, even our Lord Jesus Christ himself, inasmuch as he was also man, as is set forth in the Gospel according to Luke. Good order: These things must be joined to what was said above; for I think "to declare" is understood in common.

Assimilated: That the intellectual powers also impart of their authority as much as is lawful for them, as being angels, to those after them. For it is purified: How and through whom the middle orders are purified and illuminated and perfected; and that Scripture holds that one angel transmits the divine symbols to another.

Through the middle: That the perfections that come through intermediaries are dimmer than those wrought by God in the first instance, which are first. The one said to be "through another": According to what is set down in the prophets Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezekiel.

Being dimmed: He said "being dimmed," not because of its own weakness, but because of the lowliness of those who receive it; for this is what "a seconding of perfection" makes clear, that is, that secondary things are perfected more dimly. The skilled: Note that priests handed these things down to the great Dionysius; and he called the first divine powers "self-appearing," since they receive the divine illuminations from themselves; for the remaining powers do not receive the divine gifts of knowledge through themselves, but through those ranked above them.

Of the priestly: Note that it is a priestly tradition to know about the order of the intellects.

Illuminations: A proof of what was said, that secondary things are initiated by the first, from the prophet Zechariah.

Untamed: Unsubdued.

Having given over: Concerning those handed over to the Babylonian. By every means: Observe that God contrives all things for the turning back of those who have gone astray.

He brought back gently: Understand "gently" in place of "philanthropically" or "altogether and greatly."

For common: That by a common name all the intellectual powers are called angels.

(Of those placed below: Of those subordinate, secondary. Going before. Going before perhaps of the prophet; perhaps before the greater angel came to him.

Then from him the divine: He wishes to show this, that even in the angelic orders the first announce the will of God to the second. And "with fruit" in place of "altogether" is from Ezekiel.

To answer: The Lord spoke well in the prophet Ezekiel, so that the sinners be separated from the righteous; for this is also shown to have been done in the Gospels, when he divided the sheep from the goats. Behold, in this too the Old Testament is in harmony with the New.

Who the full-length: Concerning the one who has put on the full-length tunic. Note that for the angel commanded to place the mark, the tunic was full-length and a belt about the waist, a form fitting a priest; but for the other angels a battle-axe in their hands, which indicates a certain punitive power, so that from this we understand that the form of the angels is also shaped with a view to what is to be accomplished, which we ought to understand concerning the seraphim and cherubim and the other powers, that they have their form according to their own order; for those who say the thrice-holy hymn are shaped with many faces, the account indicating that their hymn is unceasing and great; so also understand concerning the things that follow.

The sign on the foreheads: Note that he foretold the divine prefiguration from that, namely that the faithful place the life-giving seal on their forehead and are preserved from the destroyer; but then angels in the form of priests were commanded to do this to the innocent; for the belt and the long robe make clear the priestly dignity of the priests' attire; but now we too, the faithful, imprinting the seal of the cross on our forehead, escape the enemy; behold, here is another likeness of the Old to the New. Note also that these are the three triadic orders of the intellectual powers: the first triad, thrones, then cherubim, then seraphim; the second triad, dominions, powers, authorities; these are also called the middle ones; the third triad, principalities, archangels, angels; and by a common name all are angels. Of good order: Concerning the good order of the second compared to the higher. The most divine Gabriel: Note that Gabriel too is not of the higher powers, but of the lower.

On the Hierarchy: Note that what is done in the Church today is an imitation of the heavenly mystical hierarchy; for the priests place the seal of the life-giving cross upon those who come to the mystery, so that they may be separated from the unbelievers and may escape the enemy; and besides, order is preserved in the holy Church; for what the subdeacon is permitted to do, those of lower rank do not do, and what the presbyter does, the deacon does not do; and to speak simply, each has the liturgy proper to him; but by a common name all are called clergy and ministers, as also the angels. From this one must understand how it was said to the divine Stephen: "who received the law by the dispositions of angels, and did not keep it." On Chapter 9 § 1. His supersubstantial order: The very order of the principalities reveals the supersubstantial order of the originating origin itself. (§ 2. Of the archangels: Concerning the archangelic world, and what it signifies. Hierarchy: Note the universal principle, that every hierarchy has first, middle, and last powers, that is, the three triadic orders. Most holy: Variant reading, and most sacred. How the divine archangels also share with those before them and those after them.

According to the last: That the last order of angels is also the one that encircles the world. The last triadic order.

Principalities, Archangels, Angels.

And rather toward: That the last order of the heavenly powers is more worthy to be called angels, as being near to humans, through which humans are also initiated into the divine mysteries.

For the highest: That the first triad exercises hierarchy over the second, and the second over the third; and the third over the priests among humans, and they oversee what is accomplished by them.

In a more hidden manner: How some hierarchies are more hidden, others more manifest. Over human hierarchies: Who among us preside hierarchically. Note the proof from Daniel, that is, that the last order presides over the hierarchy that is among us.

And indeed also the: The "that it may be in order" is understood in common, so that the arrangement may be, and indeed that what is from God may also be in order, and so on. But if someone should say: How, when good angels preside over the nations, did Israel alone know God? For each nation has an angel allotted to it, as the Jews have Michael, whom he also calls of the last order of the holy angels.

That [the phrase] "of the angels" [means]: He says that such a thing is not due to the cause of the angels who preside over them, but due to their own self-determining inclination toward what is not fitting. On "self-love": Note that each person is himself the cause of both the good and the evil; and "self-love" and "self-will," taken in parallel, indicate self-pleasing. And this is testified: Not that God chose Israel only, but that Israel alone wished to follow God; for thus also the interpretation of the word signifies, "a mind seeing God"; thus we ought to understand what is said in the song of Moses, "He became a portion of the Lord, a measured cord of Jacob," which signifies Israel; for God does not love Israel only, as the Apostle also showed in many places, saying, "Is God not also of the nations? Yes, also of the nations, since God is one," but Israel was the first to go after God, since later, having fallen away, it too was driven away; for humans, having self-determination, when they wish, make God be with them. On "to have suffered": That Israel itself also fell away. On "life": That man is self-determining.

Of sights: What the father says here can also be seen happening in the case of the light of the sun—it makes its own diffusion through transparent materials, but through denser ones not in the same way, but either entirely without diffusion or faintly. Therefore, what the difference of the material effects here, the inequality of the self-determining inclination effects in the case of the divine illumination. Of unlikeness: That is, the perversion of the eyes of the mind. (Or makes it entirely without participation: Observe how he says that we ourselves are the causes of receiving the divine illumination—either receiving a little or much of it, or receiving none of it at all, whenever we become resistant to it, as it were hard, that is, stony. For the Lord himself says in the Gospels: "God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones"; for what is hard and impossible for us is possible for God.

We turned away: Note, especially from this, that he silences the untimely and indiscriminate ignorance of certain people who dare to claim that these divine writings are by Apollinarius, not inferring the man's antiquity from the persons he mentions, but saying that the name of Dionysius is falsely ascribed; nor [noting] that he said he was now converted from idolatry, although Apollinarius was not from such people.

On "ready for all": That God, being good by nature, offers himself ready to all to partake of his holiness and to have the soul enlightened; what remains is what is up to us—namely, how we say we partake of his knowledge, so that our free will may be shown. For God is not the cause of evils, which is separation from him. And this arrangement: since not even over the other nations did certain foreign gods preside, but there is one principle of all; and so the rest, through intermediaries; and that over the other nations too one principle of God ruled, and then through their own angels exercising hierarchical rule.

Melchizedek: Note the things concerning Melchizedek, that he was a hierarch, and by the guidance through angels came to know the truly existing God; and he said "following" because of free choice, and not by compulsion.

(§ 4. To Pharaoh: Note that he says the visions in sleep came to Pharaoh and to Nebuchadnezzar by angels, and their manifestations, that is, interpretations.

Servants: Joseph of the Egyptians, and Daniel of the Babylonians, the angels presiding over these nations revealing the visions by the counsel of God.

By allotment: Note the interpretation of the words of the Song of Moses: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he divided the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel the cord of his inheritance." For one must not think, he says, that the nations were divided among other gods or angels; for it was not by allotment that Israel fell to God and the others to other angels individually, in such a way that they do not minister to God in anything else—for example, so to speak, that this nation is his, or that the angel of the nation does not devote himself to something else in relation to God. But neither did God receive this nation and each of the angels his own nation on equal terms or in opposition, as is said in Isaiah, that the devil said within himself that he had the mountains to the north, that is, the nations, and opposed God and was like the Most High. For all things are servants of God, and he himself rules over all, but he prefers those who know him, and for this reason he himself is also said to rule over them, even if they have an angel set over them, as Israel has Michael. And how is God said to be the ruler of all, and by way of exception the God of Israel, and Israel his? And we say that God is the God of all, but of those who draw near to him and him

It is said that he is God rightly of those who worship him alone; but the rest, revering idols, make other gods for themselves.

He became the portion of the Lord: He interprets well the phrase "Israel became the portion of the Lord." It was fitting, then, if Israel alone knew God, that he alone should be overseen by the Lord and by his angels; but even in this the measureless and inscrutable mercy of God is shown, because even for those who seem not to be of his portion he set forth a proper angel as guardian of the nation; "for he makes his sun rise on the just and the unjust." And again: "he who does not will the death of the sinner, but that he turn back and live." But you will say: And how is it that those who had angels given by God to oversee and lead them apostatized from the living God and worshiped idols? We say that all necessity has been driven out from those who look to God, and free choice has been brought in instead; if anyone, then, chooses to be with God, he is guarded by the angel and is ordered; for "the Lord," it says, "knows the way of the just"; and again: "I was younger, and indeed I have grown old, and I have not seen a just man forsaken"; but if anyone chooses the opposite, he is not compelled by the angel to do this or that; for this life is rather brutish and not of free choice. Indeed, also concerning Israel it says that it sinned and made a calf: "for," it says, "you thrust away the knowledge of God, and you went after your heart," that is, you preferred your own will.

Concerning Michael: that Israel also, even if he became the portion of the Lord, nevertheless they too had Michael as their own angel.

(Voluntarily: He says this because of free will and the absence of compulsion. ON CHAPTER 10 § 1. Of the supreme principality: The supreme principality is the leader and cause of their perfection.

In a more hidden manner: Note that here he clearly shows for what reason the orders of the heavenly powers are thus, so that one is higher, one middle, and one last; for he says that because of the higher order, which is thrones, seraphim, and cherubim, that being illumined by the divine knowledge itself, because they stretch out immediately toward it and have nothing preceding, thus by the supreme principality itself they are purified and enlightened and perfected; for if it had been created so as to be first, it would have needed neither purification nor illumination, having been formed so as also to be worthy of the first order. Moreover, observe what this divine man says shortly after, that it is more hidden because it is more intelligible and more simplifying; for from these things one can better grasp their self-determination; for if it had not simplified itself and thought more than the lower orders, it would not have drawn near to God; but having drawn near to God voluntarily, it is purified and enlightened and perfected better, that is, it performs the perfect things, instead of the things pertaining to God; and I think the Scripture hints at this: "Draw near to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be put to shame"; understand thus also concerning the successive powers, that each according to its own proportion sees God;)

He says this more clearly also at the end of this chapter.

§ 2. Revealers: That all the angels reveal to those of lower rank the lights brought to them from those before them. The term "revealers" must be understood as applying in common; and he speaks of those moved by God concerning the first order of the seraphim.

Seraphim: Why does the divine hymn say that the seraphim cried one to another? Because the first announce the divine mysteries to the second. § 3. Not unreasonably: For from the simpler initiations, which the Apostle called the drinking of milk, ascending to the middle ones, and from these to the greater, that is, the food of the perfect, he reveals the last order and power. But it is also possible to understand the things pertaining to the place in another way, and to call first the upward stretching toward what lies above, middle the turning and convolution about it, and last that which leads to what is lower, which is rather to be understood in the case of the angels.

Both first and middle: Note that the mind of each of us has first, middle, and last orders for understanding the things concerning God—these three orders; it must be understood thus, that every mind has substance, according to which it is first; then also power, according to which, doing what is its own, it is pious. These things he clarifies also in the following chapter. Hence from this it can be clearly and incontrovertibly grasped that what we wrote a little before is true; for behold how he speaks. Each heavenly and human mind has first, middle, and last ascents, according to which each comes to participate in the divine and hierarchical illuminations.

First, because he said that the rank of humans and of the powers above is equal, and we know no human—neither prophet nor righteous man—who made his own excuse a reason for drawing near to God. For see what he says—the one who reached as far as the third heaven—: "I buffet my body and enslave it, lest, after preaching to others, I myself should become disqualified." Then he clearly states here both the free will of the angels and the impulse of their own motion. And so that no one of the very contentious should strive in dispute, he says, as it were in conclusion, that nothing is without need and self-perfect, that is, perfect of itself, except God alone; so that angels and humans have need of progress and perfection. On Chapter 11. § 1. For it cannot be said as in the case of the angels: for the powers are of the second and middle triad, ranked after the dominions; so that it is not because they are the last that all the orders were called powers, as in the case of the angels. Of the last: That the higher orders possess the things of the last, but the things of the higher orders do not possess the last; thus it was also said above, since the first possess the illumination wholly, but the last partially, as he says in what follows. Thus also in the Church one may find it: for the priest can perform all the functions of those below him, such as deacons and those after them, but the deacon is not permitted to perform those of the priests; for that our hierarchy imitates the heavenly order, we said above. And well did he add "wholly," for they partake partially. And the arrangement is from "for it cannot be said" until it must be joined and made the beginning of the difficulty. § 2.

We say: How are all called powers? For the last rank is that of principalities and archangels and angels; and yet even they are sometimes called powers.

Into substance and power: One must speak by way of example: to call the nature of fire its substance, its illuminating quality its power, and the effect of the power its activity—that is, to illuminate and to burn. Or let us call the heavenly powers: "Powers" is an equivocal name; for thus is called both the particular rank—that is, the second of the middle triadic order—and in common all the ranks, as having a certain power.

To those below: "Us" must be understood as applying in common. Note how above he says that the angelic orders are divided into three—into substance, power, and activity—but here he states the reason why all are called powers. They also have in excess: He seems somehow to say here that the angelic orders were arranged creatively according to worth, but he does not make this clear; for above, in the preceding chapter, he plainly states their desire and understanding, saying that they are causes of the rank above them—indeed, he said that they are purified, illuminated, and perfected. It is therefore possible, having undertaken to speak piously, to say that God, foreknowing the movement of their desire, also brought forth their ranks as worthy of them, from which one could not say that they are able to fall, because they acquired a certain habit toward the good through their exceedingly holy will; but the angels—that is, the last orders—perhaps admit of being turned even toward the worse.

He called them "world-encircling," from which I think the devil too once was before he fell; and if anyone knows these things more perfectly, I ask to learn. Note how the angelic orders were brought forth creatively in order. ON CHAPTER 12 (§ 1. It is asked: How our priests are called angels. § 2. a. For we say that of the whole: Note that even if the last ranks fall short of the wholeness of the powers above, nevertheless they too partake of partial wisdom and knowledge.

b. But those of those under them: What is the whole wisdom and participation, and what is the partial; and "according to one's own power" here must be understood as the power of free choice. c. It is determined: Note that "it is determined" does not signify some fate and inescapable necessity, as many are accustomed to say, but "it is determined" instead of "it is appointed" according to some determined proportion of power—of the intellect, perhaps—beyond which one must not think.

§ 3. d. You will find: How both the angels are called gods by a common name and God-loving men, according to "I said: You are gods." Exceptional: How and which and in what respect they have been deemed worthy of the divine names. ON CHAPTER 13 § 1. The seraphim: Note "the seraphim" with masculine declension. For one might raise a difficulty: since what has been said seems to present a contradiction; for he said before this that the lower ranks are initiated by those above them, yet not by the highest, for example the third rank by the middle, and the middle by the one above all. These things were sought out and variously resolved. § 2. a. Of sins that have been spoken: That it is not possible to be initiated into divine things unless first there be forgiveness of sins.

For "seraphim" is interpreted as "burning," that is, "warming."

§ 3. 2. "But you are exceedingly": Note that "you are exceedingly" is not said entirely by way of comparison with the moderate; for example, "exceedingly" is not said to be absurd in such a way that we should think it is altogether absurd, but moderately absurd; rather it is also used in place of the positive, that is, it does not seem to me to be absurd, as he piously declares in the philosophical custom, but it is also used in place of "in no way," as if he were saying, "in no way absurd." 3. "Having molded": Note that he says the divine visions of the prophets—the angels standing over them, molding them—bring them into the imagination of the things that seem to be seen; for they saw riddles and symbols, not naked realities and essences.

"Upon God": You see that the angels who initiate the revelations made the prophets thus: leading them primarily to God, who is properly the cause of all things; and secondarily to the first minds after God, who by position and in a God-like manner rule the hierarchy that leads to God. These things he teaches in sequence.

And through all things: Note that the providence of God extends secretly to all, and that a lower angel is named "seraphim" homonymously. Proportionately: That is, according to the measure of the capacity of those who receive, he extends the illuminations. According to each one's: How the divine illuminations are distributed more brightly to some and more dimly to others, he clarifies by example. Of the sun: This example was also set forth above; and he calls glass and the like "first matter," just as he calls houses and caves and similar things "denser." Otherwise: (first matter is the fine and airy and pure. Again the heat of fire: He rightly likens fire to God; for Scripture says, "Our God is a consuming fire," and that its heat warms but burns; so too God enlightens those who approach him, but burns the unbelieving, those who do not approach and draw near to him in faith. But toward the resistant: That is, diamond and water. Natural: He calls sensible and visible things "natural." But one must know that in intelligible things, the virtues are not accidental, as with us, but God is living virtue and self-perfect and in need of nothing, because he is essentially established superessentially and goes forth communicatively into the things that have come to be from it as from a cause—the intelligible things that have existed; so God is the source of living virtue and of deifying, as far as attainable, those who partake; but nevertheless he goes forth providentially into the intelligible things given being by him, and does not lose being the summit and perfection of intellects in this respect.

The minds, then, do not possess virtue accidentally, as we do—prudence from practice, that is, or from learning, or justice, or temperance through self-control, or courage from the soundness of body and sinews. For virtue is not in them as one thing in another; rather, their own proper activity and their unceasing stretching out toward God and toward themselves—this is what is God-imitating in them, virtue. Yet order nonetheless preserves the relation of one thing in another, as in "your soul lives in me," meaning the imparting of teaching. But the accidental is in a subject, which is not the case there; for those things are incomposite and immaterial, and their forms are lives, not as in matter. This is what the one who wrote in the margin understood. Keep in mind my notes, those three leaves back; for here too the striving cooperates with my understanding; and the Fathers understood it thus, and he himself seems to hold the angels' self-determination, as you will find shortly after. Ordering: That is, God.

It is therefore in all: Note that God is the essence of light, and virtue by nature, and virtue by position.

They are led: Note that, after God, the highest minds are the beginning of every virtue, through whom first we have the illumination of God.

Fiery property: Note that by property the highest minds are fiery. Thrones: He well interprets what the thrones of the heavenly beings are—to have the understanding concerning God opened; and he calls "thrones" the property that was declared by allotment to be the beginning of the holy thrones.

Of those subordinated: Concerning the ranks that have descended below, how through the first they partake of divine things.

The things said: He came to the explanation of what is set before us. He was saying, then: Concerning the one who spoke, he says that it was not the seraphim that appeared to Isaiah, but one of the lower angels; for he contends for this opinion, which he sets forth a little before at the beginning of the chapter, where he says, "but another, not very unreasonable," and the things that follow.

As in symbols: Since he sees the seraphim with six wings. And established around God: For the oracle has it that "he stood round about him." (He was learning, then: Observe what Isaiah was learning, whom he calls a theologian—that the Divine is unknown even to the highest powers, and that nothing of existing things is like him. But we said that existing things in the book before this are the intelligible and sensible; and the prophet is initiated into these after being purified of his own sins, concerning which we will speak a little later.

Seraphim was initiated: What was he initiated into through the seraphim. Names: The interpretation of "seraphim."

Wings: What the wings signify.

"To the Divine in the first": For he said above, at the end of the tenth chapter, that every heavenly and human mind has first, middle, and last ranks. With good reason, then, he said that the power has six wings, so that with the two it covers the faces, with the middle ones the feet, and with the rest it flies around the Divine—which he himself called the highest ascent. Note also what the many-footed and many-faced nature of the seraphim is, and why certain parts are covered. "Sixfold": Note how he interprets the six wings of the holy seraphim. "Of things seen": That is, of the things beheld by the prophet. "Of the higher": Through covering the faces; of the deeper, through covering the feet; and through the middle ones, the mean. And "a most precious hymn": The "Holy, holy, holy"—and it signifies that even an angel, in proportion to his own power, receives the divine illumination, and himself imparts it to the prophets, as far as they can contain it, not as much as he himself knows. "That it is a purification": What purification is, and how it comes about in things intelligible from God.

This itself": that is, purification or participation. "With exalted": For human purification is not such as it is, nor is it such among incorporeal beings.

"Concerning it": concerning the divine principle itself, that is, concerning God. "It reveals": that is, purification.

"But among the second": One must observe that he says every incorporeal power differs not moderately in the Godlike; for the highest intellects possess the Godlike greatly, but the rest possess it diminished, insofar as their order also requires, down to the last; and our souls possess it more than even the last; since our soul falls far short of all the intellects. And so the divine illumination is contemplated as somehow more gathered and contracted in proportion to the, as it were, extension in length of the distance of nearness to God, the divine illumination itself, as it were, gathering its own manifestation toward its own unitary and simple unknowability; for God is unknowable not through a variety of reasonings unknown to us, but through a certain unitary immortality, once and for all incomprehensible in relation to our faculties. "Fierily": Note that fiery quality belongs to the seraphim, and how, when an angel purifies, the seraphim are said to purify, and before these, God.

Or priests: Note that priests are subordinate to the hierarch; and that illuminating is one thing and purifying another; and that minister is one thing and priest another; and when priests purify or illuminate, the hierarch is said to do it. Preserving them unturning: That God, who is likewise the creator of all intelligible beings, himself both holds together and preserves the first essences toward unturning and immutability; and they must be understood as unturning in respect of that according to which they are, for instance toward the immortal, toward the life according to which they are essenced into being light; for in these things God holds and preserves them both as immutably essenced and as not turning toward alien desires, inasmuch as they are also self-determining. For to stretch out toward him belongs to their noetic free choice, but to persist always in this belongs to God's assistance; for all things need God's help. He who taught me these things: Note that the great Dionysius learned these things from another.

Hierarch: Note that after God the leaders and the highest orders. I was initiated in a Godlike manner: The characterization of the angel, as if the angel who purifies Isaiah said these things to him concerning the seraphim. Or from himself. The hyperbaton of the sentence, which is rendered after many things, must be construed thus: but it would be [the part] of your noetic knowledge either to receive this cause, or to discover it from itself, or to learn it from another and reveal it rather to itself; if indeed it is possible also for me likewise to reveal a lover's contemplation concerning angels. And to honor is instead of to prefer. Note that the angels procure for us the gifts of God.

Proxenounton: Observe that when God gives us speech in the opening of our mouth, angels act as proxenoi, clearly interceding on our behalf. ON CHAPTER 14 "A thousand": These things are said in Daniel.

"The weak and contracted": He called the number of men in comparison with that of the angels a "weak symmetry"; for it is also said by a certain other, namely Didymus the blind: "The ninety-nine sheep are the angels, and the one that was lost is us, the men."

(Gnostically: Note that he says that even the angels themselves know the definitions gnostically, not discursively—as it were, how great is the number of the heavenly essences—having been illuminated in this too by God. ON CHAPTER 15 § 1. "Angel-befitting": As a linen cloth, as a coal. "Purifications": He calls "purifications" the explanatory interpretations, through which the symbols are purified of the apparent incongruities in what is said. "For if indeed": For above he said that the higher powers hierarchize those after them, and the middle ones the last, and the last ones the hierarchs among men. For he did not say that the same order both rules the one after it and is ruled by them, but he said thus: that the first order rules, while it is itself ruled by those before it; and so it must be understood in what follows as well.)

For if to be hierarchically ordered: What he means is this, that if we were to say that the first ranks exercise hierarchy over the last, and then again that the last ranks themselves exercise hierarchy over the first ranks, by which they are also hierarchically ordered, it would be an absurd thing.

Not unreasonably? He says it is not absurd to attribute the images in the oracles of Scripture to all the heavenly powers, so that all, so to speak, are lofty and salvific and noetic, even if not equally, but some more eminently and others more subordinately.

And the phrase "toward the height": Higher and more eminent. § 2. One must begin and inquire: Note why in the angelic types fire is especially not taken up, and why Scripture speaks of the things around the heavens as fiery for the most part. And that the seraphim are called "burners." (Being burners: the interpretation of "seraphim." For the sacred: Why God too was contemplated as fire. For perceptible fire: a wonderful natural philosophy concerning fire. We see fire scattered throughout the whole, but unmixedly, that is, not mingling with the things in which it exists. And it passes through all things, that is, it does not, like water, make its mixture with the earth manifest; so too fire, burning up the whole and consuming it; but it is set apart, that is, it surpasses all the elements by way of exception, in respect of its active power; and he calls it unknown and hidden, as existing in certain materials but not appearing without friction or without matter receptive of its activity, being shown in this respect also to be uncontainable and invisible.

Likewise, one must contemplate the remaining properties of fire, which this Father, by pious elevation and understanding, applied to God and to the angelic natures. Note also why the Lord God was often contemplated as fire, and in what respect the likeness of fire to God consists. Unmastered, unmixed, discerning: note the expression of perceptible fire, that is, its praise; for it distinguishes materials, such as lead from silver, and dissolves adhesions. Unchangeable, in that it is not possible, while the underlying subject remains—that is, the very substance of fire—for it to change in its affections, such as to become round or cone-shaped, which one finds in earthly things, or to suffer the things of air, such as to be corrupted by exhalations or thickened, or even to receive changes as water does.

Of diminution: for it never proceeds downward. Self-moved: likewise, being moved.

Without need: because fire is without need of another, although it needs some underlying subject in order to be kindled; but this is not what he means, but rather that fire is not mixed with another element, nor blended, as water is with earth; therefore some have also called it single-substantial among the elements.

§ 3. "In human form": Why the angels are also molded in human form. And "according to sense": Note the difference between the sensible faculty of irrational animals and the sensitive faculty of rational beings—I mean us. For irrational animals are entirely sense, through which they also subsist as beings without intellect; but in us the sensitive faculty is small, for we do not subsist through it, but through the intellective faculty; whence even after death we still are, being a rational soul. But in the case of the angels there is not even the smallest trace of the senses, but what is according to us is a coarse place; and he calls man "least according to sense," not as though the other animals had more senses, but more active and sharper ones. And this he takes as a riddle: that the angels indeed used our sensory organs, but surpass them greatly by the abundance of their intellective power—just as man also, by the superiority of his intellect and by reason, rules over irrational nature.

"The optical faculties": What the eyes signify of things intelligible, and what the olfactory organs, that is, the nostrils, and what the ears, and what taste, and what touch, which he calls the tactile faculty, and what the eyelids and the eyebrows, and what youth, and what the teeth, and what the shoulders and the

The arms, which he calls forearms, and what the breast is, and what the back and the feet are, and what the lightness of the wings is, and so on.

But the things of the nostrils: In these the peculiar property of the bodily eye is treated physically; but by way of elevation these things change, just as do those of the other human members, into the contemplation of the natural powers in the angels. And of nourishing channels: Understand the channel as the insuperable effusion of wisdom, according to what is said, "I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh," and so on. For divine knowledge passes from God through the intelligible powers to divine men according to the proportion of each. Things of one form: By the reception of understanding.

By providential power: Every intelligible power, he says, multiplies the divine knowledge that comes to it, that is, makes it clear so as to be understood by us, interpreting the things seen, as you will find in Daniel, when the angel interpreted to him the dream that he saw.

And the heart: The heart is comprehended by us as, so to speak, a center that has first received life, since according to the divine Basil the heart is first created; then as from a center the whole body is molded, so that this life extends everywhere into the body; for whether the innate heat gives life to the body, or the spirit, or the blood, the heart is the source of all these. Therefore it seemed to some that the whole vital principle is gathered together and, as it were, established here first and foremost, although it is everywhere in the body and is not confined by place, nor circumscribed in place, nor held together by the body.

Thus, then, also in the case of the invisible orders, whether they providentially minister in the whole or according to kind; for they must be understood as it were in the middle and in the place of the heart, and as established as a center of fountain-like life; although they are without parts and not circumscribed by place or part in a bodily way, those things which they have been appointed by God to providentially maintain.

And the guarding: Compose the saying thus: The guarding of the life-giving distribution; then as in the case of the underlying heart. Therefore also "with wings under": Why are the feet of the angels winged, (to show the self-moved and the upward-straining toward the divine, and the uncommunicated with earthly things, insofar as there is no passionate element in them, since angels have also been seen on earth.

Lightness of wings: What the light wings are.

And "cleansing": Of the addition of external things, such as foods and garments, by which our affairs are held together.

"Manifold wisdom": The manifold wisdom of God. This saying is apostolic; and why did the divine man call it manifold? Although we accept "variegated" in the sense of a malefactor; and besides, here the great Dionysius called it both simple and manifold; and the two seem contrary. We say, then, that he called it "simple wisdom" in order to indicate the incomposite nature of God and that which needs no duplicity of any kind; for God is not wise from learning, but is wisdom itself; and "manifold," because it is transformed into many forms of knowledge on account of the weakness of those who are illumined; for he is a great high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. Or also thus:

The wisdom of God is called simple in relation to the economy, because as God he created all things, and in the righteous of that time he displayed his own power without concealment, as in the case of Moses and Abraham and those after them; but when he was working out the mystery of the economy, it would reasonably be called manifold. For having become man, and having been made under the law, and having suffered, and having been found among the dead, thus through flesh and the weakness that is in it he triumphed over every enemy, and conquered Hades, granting resurrection to those guarded there; this is the manifoldness of his wisdom, that through weakness he prevailed over those who seemed strong. (In general: And in the discourse On the Divine Names, in the fourth chapter, it was explained at length what is intelligible and what is intellectual; but now the great Dionysius himself makes it clear; for the intelligible is that which is understood, which is reasonably said to be illumined by the light; and the intellectual is the very thing that understands, being illumined, and to speak briefly, the transcendent essences are intelligible, while the subordinate ones are intellectual, and the understanding is subordinate to the intelligible. The divine nature illumines intelligibly, while the angelic nature is illumined intellectually.)

Priestly: What the priestly garment in Ezekiel and Daniel means. Their gathered habit: We have said above what a habit is in the case of incorporeal beings. And read in the seventh chapter: "the gathered and undispersed state of the thoughts; through these the Father indicates concerning the divine illuminations, and the identity of his own abiding in the good God, being drawn together through all things." Of unlike things: that is, of material things.

§ 5. Geometrical: Concerning geometrical vessels in Ezekiel and Zechariah. Corrective: As the sword in Kings, and the sickle in Zechariah the prophet.

§ 6. Winds: I think he is recalling the passage in David, "who walks upon the wings of the winds," perhaps indicating the ascension of Christ; since also in what follows the Father says that they are wrapped about by the form of a cloud, because it has been said: "a cloud received him from their eyes." Without time: He reasonably said "without time"; for in the case of sensible things, things that come to be in time are properly also slower; but in the case of incorporeal and intelligible things, they are accomplished without time and eternally and without delay; so one ought not to name time in the case of intelligible things. Making: Instead of breathing or flying.

From above: The “from above” toward things below, as in the case of Jacob’s ladder. Aerial: Note that he calls the wind an aerial spirit. Windy. Another contemplation of the naming of the winds. In symbolic theology. Note also another treatise of his not in circulation; and he calls a four-element purification the anagogical allegory of the four elements; but the symbols, as it seems, he unfolded there rather by contemplation of the four elements. And note how he interprets “The Spirit blows where it wills” through what follows; for he says, “you do not know where it comes from and where it goes.” Supercosmically filled: For just as the cloud summons the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of the earth, according to what is said, “he who summons the water of the sea and pours it out upon all the face of the earth,” so too the intellects, receiving their own knowledge, like clouds spread it out upon those inferior to them.

Without ostentation:

“Without ostentation,” he says, that is, in a mingled manner.

For the light in the cloud is not to be cast away.

Rain-bearing: He contemplates in another way what the clouds signify; and going further down, he says what the amber and bronze and the various colors and forms of beasts signify in the case of angels.

Receptacle: He has called the bosom a receptacle—the earth that receives the rains, and through them brings forth its own fruits. § 7. But since these things: Concerning the beast-shaped types. (§ 8. Tracks: Note from this the nature of the lion; for they say that, wishing to escape the hunters, as it walks it obliterates its own tracks with its tail, so that they may not be known; whence it is also said concerning God: “In the sea is your way, and your paths in many waters, and your tracks shall not be known”; for just as a way is not preserved in waters, nor the tracks of a lion, so neither are the goings of God. Ingenious: For the eagle is the sharpest-sighted of animals. For the account says that eagles thus distinguish the genuine offspring from the bastard ones: if they gaze unblinkingly at the sun, they are genuine; but if not, they are cast out of the nest as bastard; so then also the one who is not able to gaze purely at the sun of righteousness is found to be a bastard of his knowledge.

And the white ones: Note what the white, dark-blue, red, and mixed horses mean; but the dissimilar likeness we have fully explained above in the second chapter of this book.

“The one directly”: The phrase “toward the power” must be joined [to it]; the rest [is said] in between. In another sense: Another contemplation concerning the wheels. Gelgel: Note what gelgel means in the prophet Ezekiel. Of joy: How the heavenly things, and God Himself, are said to rejoice. Passionate: He calls human pleasure passionate, as consisting in the passible changeableness concerning the body.

Facility: The name “facility” is applied to those who do not wish to labor but have chosen to live in different ways; the word signifies what is easy and not toilsome; here, however, it indicates the blessed, passionless, and untroubled state. In another sense, he calls facility the ease and mental comfort in rest with impassibility; analogously, then, it must be understood also of angels. Good-passion: He said “good-passion” as having taken it from our own [usage]; it signifies having well-being throughout, and the painless condition.

Holy men: These things cannot be understood as they are, except by those deemed worthy of such perfection, of the sort that men ought indeed to be, as this holy priest says, so as to be deemed worthy even of divine illuminations in the knowledge of beings and in the pure upward stretching toward God; for from such illuminations the mind, being deified, thereafter, having come to be as it were in a state of ease, comes to possess the angelic pleasure and the freedom from disturbance that is in them, in accordance with which the mind, thereafter taking its ease, having come to be as it were in a state of ease, in the salvation of those being saved, impassibly, as far as is possible, imitates God, who wills all men to be saved, having enjoyed the God-working visitations of God, that is, those that make and produce gods. And he calls "God-working visitations" those that make and produce gods.

That of those the supermundane: Note that one who is ignorant ought not to be ashamed in the things he does not know, but to confess his ignorance, and not to answer at random about things he does not know. And one should know that the distinguishing marks which the saints had while they were still Greeks, these after turning to Christ they also inscribed upon themselves without shame. For behold, this man also calls himself a member of the Areopagus, and the divine Justin in his discourse To the Greeks inscribed it as "of Justin the Philosopher." ON THE CHAPTER 1 OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY (§ 1. 1. God-working: He says "God-working" of that which is energized by God, that is, given to men, and that the hierarchy among Christians makes and produces gods.

From the Traditions: That he received the hierarchical science from tradition. 2. You shall not proclaim abroad: That is, you shall not make the divine and mystical things manifest to all the uninitiated in a playful and irreverent manner, making them a cause of laughter. 3. But to the sacred alone: That one must not reveal the holy things to the profane, nor cast the pearls to the swine.

4. The most divine-ruling mind: It should be noted against the Nestorians that "mind" is also said of God; and of sanctification, that is, of purity unto holiness. 5. According to power: Of the intellectual essences themselves and of things intelligible according to power; for Jesus does not act according to his own power, for he is infinite in power, inasmuch as he is also God. 6. He contracts: The interpretation of these things is in the fifth chapter of On the Divine Names.

7. Many diversities: I think many diversities are spoken of (the manifold cares of fleshly desires, which the Lord forbids; and the uniform and divine life is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which the Lord indicated when he said in the prayer, "that they may be one"; and to have the soul thus disposed he called a sacred habit, which is especially fitting for those who are consecrated.

And of the knowledge of the visions: That is, the scientific comprehension of the words and teachings concerning God; for the things of the sacred initiations are not [attained] up to the bare hearing or utterance of the oracles, but by the following of the mind and the understanding of the things hymned; for thus also those who are according to God are first consecrated to him, and then in this way they procure such things for others; they are perfected, and again they perfect.

§ 2. It is of angels: That he now speaks of the nine orders, which he previously named in the discourse On the Divine Hierarchy.

And all that is now hymned: What is the power of every hierarchy. Both the hierarch himself: That is, the bishop. And those who are below: Concerning advancements.

That those below follow: Presbyters.

But the one: A comparison of the heavenly and the perceptible hierarchy. Of perceptible symbols: The perceptible symbols are the mysteries indicated in what follows; that is, baptism, or illumination; the synaxis, that is, the mystery of communion, and the rest.

One thing is: God, clearly.

Not in a unified way: Instead of "in a single form" and "according to one and the same manner." (Of things intelligible: It should be noted that the compilation made by him concerning intelligible and sensible things has not been found among us. More expansively: Instead of "more broadly."

§ 3. 1. There is indeed a hierarchy: A hierarchy is, he says, as our venerable tradition sets forth, the things contemplated or spoken of universally concerning the matters at hand, that is, the underlying sacred things, or also the things performed. For he calls "summarization" the comprehensive inclusion of the whole, just as we also call "recapitulation" the repeating in brief of what has been said before.

2. Most universal: Universal things are the more inclusive. He says, then, that since, for instance, every order is called a hierarchy, the hierarchy is the more archetypal and more generic summarization of every hierarchy; for example, of the hierarchy—that is, the order—of presbyters, the bishop is the hierarchy, being obliged to know, purify, illuminate, and perfect; of the hierarchy of deacons, the archdeacon is the hierarchy, who is obliged to know the liturgical activities; and so on in order for the remaining orders.

3. Summary: The summary of sacred things is the knowledge of every priestly order.

4. The beginning of this: What is the beginning of hierarchy, and concerning the Trinity. 5. Intelligible: Note that the Holy Trinity has as intelligible the knowable of its own existence, as we now say its own essence, this alone knows. The rational: Note that angels and humans are rational essences. And she not otherwise: Salvation, clearly.

And deification: What is deification.

Of hierarchy: What is the end of every hierarchy, and of what sort the hierarch must pursue. Note also that he says the end, that is the goal, of every hierarchy, both the angelic and that among humans, is the love toward God and things divine, and the things listed thereafter. And "in a unified manner performed as sacred rites" indicates looking wholly and in a single manner toward such worship. § 4. Supercosmic: Note how God moves the intelligible powers, and how we are illumined.

For not from outside: Humans receive true knowledge from outside, that is, from the contemplation of creation and from teachings of doctrine and other such things, but angels are illumined from within their own noetic power, and the divine will is impressed upon them, that is, they are formed toward the imitation of God and toward the knowledge of beings insofar as they are beings.

Intelligibly: It must be understood how the illuminations of God move the divine minds from within, and not from without; for he said that God illumines them intelligibly. Since that which understands is intelligible, and that which is understood is intelligible, and the understood is food and, as it were, the constitution of that which understands, reasonably God, since the incorporeal beings are intelligible, himself being intelligible and understood by them, insofar as they can attain, having become within, himself illumines, while the mind understands and is nourished. Of divisible symbols: Here he calls the manifold teachings of Scripture symbols, especially those that introduce the contemplation of the divine nature and of the intelligible essences through symbolic words; but sometimes they are also corrective of practice, as the legal precepts, led into moral allegory; and much more the celebrations of the mysteries are contemplated in symbols and types. Essence: Note what is the essence of our hierarchy, and what are the divine oracles.

Of hieroteleasts: He calls the apostles hieroteleasts, whom he has also called leaders; and theological tablets, the books of the Old and the New; and immaterial initiation, the knowledge of the meanings of Scripture that came to the apostles from the Spirit, which he also called the bodily word, from which initiation the teachings of the New also were constituted; and he said the illumination of the Spirit that arises in the governing part is neighbor to the heavenly hierarchy. From mind to mind: Observe the things through the medium of word, and that the mystical things were handed down through the unwritten word. And "of those who handed down" must be understood in common.

He called them sacred symbols because of the mysteries set forth thereafter, which he also deems worthy of anagogical contemplation. By perceptible images: On images.

The condensed meaning: Behold clearly what is condensed. By unwritten initiations: Note that the divine things have also been handed down to us by unwritten initiations.

A certain symbolic character? That the hierarchy among men is symbolic and derived from perceptible things; that is, we do not encounter the divine realities themselves nakedly, but through symbols that are accomplished, such as the cup of blessing, as the Apostle says, and the bread which we break, and the rest.

With unveiled face: That is, known, and of what realities and mysteries they are indicative.

You shall not impart to another: That the mystical things must be spoken of securely. ON CHAPTER 2 § 1. a. Of this: Namely, of the assimilation and union with God. b. What then is the beginning: The beginning, he says, and the preparation of the way for intimacy with God and for the heavenly inheritance is the divine baptism; for "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he shall not see the kingdom of God." Hence the inner man is formed toward a better and saving state, and toward the pursuit of the words and realities according to God. c. That toward the [contemplation] of others: He says that three things are needed for the beginning of the commandments: the reception of the divine oracles, the instruction of the divine faith, and the regeneration through divine baptism. Well then has he shown that the most honorable and excellent motion of the mind is the love of God.

And that our divine creation is a kind of beginning of the love of God, that is, the regeneration through baptism, according to which we begin to be divinely; for the creation from seed, even if it is from God who creates, is nevertheless natural, whereas the creation from baptism is divine; for it is not from bloods, nor from the will of a man. Just as, therefore, in natural generation one must first exist unto being, and then act in ways that befit one, and undergo experiences—for instance, humans their own proper experiences, and irrational animals likewise those that are fitting—so too in the divine regeneration of baptism one must first exist for God, and then act in His love and the rest unto good living. For as the renowned one says—he means the blessed Hierotheus, as he often indicated in the preceding discourses.

The very first motion: What is the preeminent motion of the mind. That of being divinely: That is, the regeneration through baptism. Most ineffable: That is, being remolded and regenerated through baptism, as he makes clear in what follows.