and stably established and receptive of the visitation of the Godhead in all passionlessness and immateriality, and God-bearing, and servingly opened to the divine receptions. <2> This is the explanation of their names according to us; but we must say what we think their hierarchy to be. For I think it has already been sufficiently stated by us that the purpose of all hierarchy is to be unswervingly dependent on God-imitating godlikeness, and that every hierarchical transaction is divided into a sacred participation and imparting of unmixed purification and divine light and perfecting knowledge. But now I pray to speak worthily of the highest minds, how the hierarchy among them is revealed through the oracles. To the first substances, which are established after their substance-creating Godhead and are ranked as it were in its vestibules, having transcended all invisible and visible created power, we must consider the hierarchy to be proper to them and in every way uniform. We must then consider them pure, not as freed from unholy stains and defilements, nor as unreceptive of material fantasies, but as unmixedly higher than all abatement and every inferior sacred thing in their supreme purity, established above all the most godlike powers, and unswervingly cleaving to their own ever-moving and self-moving rank according to that which is immutably God-loving, and knowing no diminution at all towards what is worse, but having always an unfallen and immovable, most unmixed establishment of their own godlike property; and again contemplative, not as spectators of sensible or intelligible symbols, nor as led up to the divine by the diversity of sacredly written contemplation, but as being filled with a light higher than all immaterial knowledge, and filled, as is lawful, with the contemplation of the super-essential and thrice-manifest beauty which is beauty-making and archetypal, and likewise deemed worthy of communion with Jesus, not in sacredly-formed images that represent formatively the divine likeness, but as truly drawing near to him in a primary participation of the knowledge of his divine works of light, and indeed that the God-imitating has been supremely granted to them, and they share, as far as is attainable to them, in primary power in his divine and philanthropic virtues; and likewise perfected, not as illumined with the analytic knowledge of sacred diversity, but as filled with a primary and preeminent deification according to the supreme knowledge of the divine works, as is among angels. For not through other holy substances, but being hierarchically ordered by the Godhead Itself, in being immediately directed towards It in the power and rank that surpasses all, they are established towards the all-holy and in every way unswerving, and are brought to contemplation of the immaterial and intelligible comeliness, as is lawful, and are initiated into the scientific principles of the divine works as being first and near to God, being supremely ordered into a hierarchy by the very Source of perfection. <3> Theologians therefore clearly declare this, that the subordinate orders of the heavenly substances are taught the divine sciences in an orderly manner by the transcendent ones, but that the highest of all are illumined in their initiations, as is lawful, by the Godhead Itself. For they introduce some of them as being sacredly initiated by the former ones that he who was taken up into heaven in human fashion is "Lord of the heavenly powers" and "King of glory," while others are questioning Jesus himself and learning the science of his divine work on our behalf, and

καὶ εὐσταθῶς ἱδρυμένον καὶ τῆς θεαρχικῆς ἐπιφοιτήσεως ἐν ἀπαθείᾳ πάσῃ καὶ ἀϋλίᾳ δεκτικὸν καὶ τὸ θεοφόρον καὶ θεραπευτικῶς ἐπὶ τὰς θείας ὑποδοχὰς ἀναπεπταμένον. <2> Aὕτη μὲν ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων αὐτῶν ὡς καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐκφαντορία· λεκτέον δὲ τίνα τὴν ἱεραρχίαν αὐτῶν οἰόμεθα. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἁπάσης ἱεραρχίας σκοπὸν τῆς θεομιμήτου θεοειδείας ἐξηρτημένον ἀρρεπῶς εἶναι καὶ τὸ διαιρεῖσθαι πᾶσαν ἱεραρχικὴν πραγματείαν εἰς μετοχὴν ἱερὰν καὶ μετά δοσιν καθάρσεως ἀμιγοῦς καὶ θείου φωτὸς καὶ τελεστικῆς ἐπιστήμης ἀρκούντως ἤδη πρὸς ἡμῶν εἰρῆσθαι νομίζω. Νῦν δὲ εἰπεῖν ἀξίως εὔχομαι τῶν ὑπερτάτων νοῶν πῶς ἡ κατ' αὐτοὺς ἱεραρχία διὰ τῶν λογίων ἐκφαίνεται. Ταῖς πρώταις οὐσίαις, αἳ μετὰ τὴν οὐσιοποιὸν αὐτῶν θεαρχίαν ἱδρυμέναι καὶ οἷον ἐν προθύροις αὐτῆς τεταγμέναι πάσης εἰσὶν ἀοράτου καὶ ὁρατῆς ὑπερβεβηκυῖαι γεγονυίας δυνάμεως, οἰκείαν οἰητέον εἶναι καὶ κατὰ πᾶν ὁμοειδῆ τὴν ἱεραρχίαν. Καθαρὰς μὲν οὖν αὐτὰς ἡγητέον οὐχ ὡς ἀνιέρων κηλίδων καὶ μολυσμῶν ἠλευθερωμένας οὐδ' ὡς προσύλων ἀνεπιδέκτους φαντασιῶν, ἀλλ' ὡς πάσης ὑφέσεως ἀμιγῶς ὑψηλοτέρας καὶ παντὸς ὑποβεβηκότος ἱεροῦ κατὰ τὴν ὑπερτάτην ἁγνότητα πάσαις ταῖς θεοειδεστάταις δυνάμεσιν ὑπεριδρυμένας καὶ τῆς οἰκείας ἀεικινήτου καὶ ταὐτοκινήτου κατὰ τὸ φιλοθέως ἄτρεπτον τάξεως ἀρρεπῶς ἀντ εχομένας καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τὰ χείρω κατά τι μείωσιν οὐδ' ὅλως εἰδυίας ἀλλ' ἄπτωτον ἀεὶ καὶ ἀμετακίνητον ἔχουσας τὴν τῆς οἰκείας θεοειδοῦς ἰδιότη τος ἀμιγεστάτην ἵδρυσιν· θεωρητικὰς δὲ αὖθις οὐχ ὡς αἰσθητῶν συμ βόλων ἢ νοερῶν θεωροὺς οὐδὲ ὡς τῇ ποικιλίᾳ τῆς ἱερογραφικῆς θεωρίας ἐπὶ τὸ θεῖον ἀναγομένας, ἀλλ' ὡς πάσης ἀΰλου γνώσεως ὑψηλοτέρου φωτὸς ἀποπληρουμένας καὶ τῆς τοῦ καλλοποιοῦ καὶ ἀρχικοῦ κάλλους ὑπερουσίου καὶ τριφανοῦς θεωρίας ὡς θεμιτὸν ἀναπιμπλαμένας, τῆς δὲ Ἰησοῦ κοινωνίας ὡσαύτως ἠξιωμένας οὐκ ἐν εἰκόσιν ἱεροπλάστοις μορφω τικῶς ἀποτυποῦσι τὴν θεουργικὴν ὁμοίωσιν, ἀλλ' ὡς ἀληθῶς αὐτῷ πλησιαζούσας ἐν πρώτῃ μετουσίᾳ τῆς γνώσεως τῶν θεουργικῶν αὐτοῦ φώτων καὶ μὴν ὅτι τὸ θεομίμητον αὐταῖς ὑπερτάτως δεδώρηται καὶ κοινωνοῦσι κατὰ τὸ αὐταῖς ἐφικτὸν ἐν πρωτουργῷ δυνάμει ταῖς θεουρ γικαῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ φιλανθρώποις ἀρεταῖς· τετελεσμένας δὲ ὡσαύτως οὐχ ὡς ποικιλίας ἱερᾶς ἀναλυτικὴν ἐπιστήμην ἐλλαμπομένας, ἀλλ' ὡς πρώτης καὶ ὑπερεχούσης θεώσεως ἀποπληρουμένας κατὰ τὴν ὑπερτάτην ὡς ἐν ἀγγέλοις τῶν θεουργιῶν ἐπιστήμην. Oὐ γὰρ δι' ἄλλων ἁγίων οὐσιῶν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς θεαρχίας ἱεραρχούμεναι τῷ ἐπ' αὐτὴν ἀμέσως ἀνατείνεσθαι τῇ πάντων ὑπερεχούσῃ δυνάμει καὶ τάξει καὶ πρὸς τὸ πάναγνον καὶ κατὰ πᾶν ἀρρεπὲς ἱδρύονται καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἄϋλον καὶ νοητὴν εὐπρέπειαν ὡς θεμιτὸν εἰς θεωρίαν προσάγονται καὶ τοὺς τῶν θεουργιῶν ἐπιστημονικοὺς λόγους ὡς πρῶται καὶ περὶ θεὸν οὖσαι μυ οῦνται πρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς τελεταρχίας ὑπερτάτως ἱεραρχούμεναι. <3> Τοῦτο γοῦν οἱ θεολόγοι σαφῶς δηλοῦσι τὸ τὰς μὲν ὑφειμένας τῶν οὐρανίων οὐσιῶν διακοσμήσεις πρὸς τῶν ὑπερβεβηκυιῶν εὐκόσμως ἐκ διδάσκεσθαι τὰς θεουργικὰς ἐπιστήμας, τὰς δὲ πασῶν ὑψηλοτέρας ὑπ' αὐτῆς τῆς θεαρχίας ὡς θεμιτὸν τὰς μυήσεις ἐλλάμπεσθαι. Τινὰς μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν εἰσάγουσι πρὸς τῶν προτέρων ἱερῶς μυουμένας τὸ «Κύριον εἶναι τῶν οὐρανίων δυνάμεων» καὶ «Βασιλέα τῆς δόξης» τὸν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνθρωποπρεπῶς ἀναληφθέντα, τινὰς δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν Ἰησοῦν διαπορούσας καὶ τῆς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν αὐτοῦ θεουργίας τὴν ἐπιστήμην μαθητιώσας καὶ