DIONYSIUS THE PRESBYTER TO TIMOTHY THE FELLOW-PRESBYTER

 ...ous Intelligences he described in the sacredly-written compositions of the Oracles, so that he might lead us up through the sensible to the intelli

 anagogical interpretations, which propose to us the formations possible for us of the formless and supernatural visions, but that this also is most fi

 to be entirely deprived of participation in the beautiful, if indeed, as the truth of the oracles says, All things are very good. <4> It is possible

 they veil the “Holy of Holies” and honor the dissimilar sacred representations, so that neither are the divine things easily accessible to the profane

 to be led up by analogy to the imitation of God and, what is the most divine thing of all, as the oracles say, to become a “fellow worker with God” an

 beings and irrationally living things and we rational beings have come to be in participation of the divine bestowal. For, intelligibly impressing the

 The things divinely promised to the forefather David have been fulfilled, while another announced the good news to the shepherds as those who had been

 their own powers and illuminations and their own sacred and supermundane good order. For it is impossible for us to know the mysteries of the super-ce

 and stably established and receptive of the visitation of the Godhead in all passionlessness and immateriality, and God-bearing, and servingly opened

 that Jesus himself initiates them immediately and first-givingly reveals to them his philanthropic good-working. For “I,” he says, “speak righteousnes

 below the earth extending its most good providence over all beings, as the super-princely principle and cause of every essence, and embracing all thin

 being led up to the super-essential principle of all things, and becoming partakers of the initiating purifications and illuminations and perfections,

 to lead principially and to be formed as much as possible in the likeness of that very principle-making principle and to reveal its super-essential or

 from which we also have looked up to the infinite and ungrudging sea of the divine light, opened readily to all for participation, over which no forei

 is led up. <2> And all are revealers and messengers of those before them, the most senior ones of God the Mover, and correspondingly the rest of those

 <ΧII.> <1> This also is inquired into by those who love to contemplate the intelligible oracles: for if the last ranks are unparticipant in the entire

 he has assigned the primary hierarchy. And is this statement perhaps true? For he who said this said that the Thearchic power, proceeding to all thing

 they do participate, but in a subordinate manner, looking to the first orders and through them, as those primarily deemed worthy of imitating God, are

 has reasonably ascribed the property to the Seraphim, after God. It is not at all strange, therefore, if the Seraph is said to purify the theologian.

 it having been previously understood that the clarifications of the sacredly-formed images sometimes show the same orders of the celestial essences hi

 of operations. Indeed, the divinely wise, knowing this, form the celestial substances out of fire, showing their God-like and, as far as possible, God

 and that which is dedicated to the whole of life, and the girdles, the guarding of their generative powers and that their unifying disposition is turn

 strong and indomitable, and that which assimilates itself, as far as possible, to the hiddenness of the ineffable Thearchy by the covering of its inte

 Let this much be said by me also concerning the sacred formations, falling short of their precise manifestation, but contributing, as I think, so that

below the earth extending its most good providence over all beings, as the super-princely principle and cause of every essence, and embracing all things super-essentially with an irresistible grasp. <VIII.> <1> But now we must proceed to the middle order of the celestial minds, contemplating as far as possible with supermundane eyes those Dominions, and the truly powerful visions of the divine Authorities and Powers. For indeed the name of each of the essences above us reveals their God-imitating properties of the Godlike. Now I think the revealing name of the holy Dominions signifies a certain unslavish and free uplifting from all groveling subservience, in no way whatsoever inclining to any of the tyrannical dissimilarities, itself, as befits freedom, as a relentless lordship set above all demeaning servitude, unyielding to any submission and removed from all dissimilarity, unceasingly aspiring to the true Lordship and sovereignty, and, as far as possible, shaping both itself and those after it in a good-like manner to its own lordly semblance, turned not to any of the things that seem random but wholly turned toward that which truly Is, and always becoming a partaker of the lordly God-likeness according to its capacity; and that of the holy Powers, a certain virile and unshakable courage in all its Godlike energies, not weakly failing in the reception of the thearchic illuminations imparted to it, powerfully ascending to the God-imitating, not abandoning its Godlike motion through lack of manliness, but steadfastly looking to the superessential and power-making Power, and becoming a power-like image of this, as far as possible, and being powerfully turned towards it as the archetypal Power, and proceeding to those of the second rank as a bestower of power and in a Godlike manner; and that of the holy Authorities, of the same rank as the divine Dominions and Powers, the well-ordered and unconfused good order concerning the divine receptions, and the ordered nature of the supermundane and intellectual authority, not tyrannically misusing its authoritative powers for worse things but being irresistibly and with good order led up to the divine things and leading up those after it in a good-like manner, and being assimilated, as is right, to the authority-making source of authority and causing this to shine forth, as much as possible, upon the angels in the well-ordered ranks of its own authoritative power. Having these Godlike properties, the middle order of the celestial minds is purified and illuminated and perfected, in the manner which has been described, by the thearchic illuminations imparted to it in a secondary way through the first hierarchical order and transmitted through that medium in a second manifestation. <2> Certainly, we shall take the tradition which is said to pass from one angel to another as a symbol of the perfection accomplished from afar, and through its progress being dimmed into a secondary perfection. For just as the experts in our sacred rites say that the self-manifest fulfillments of the divine things are more perfect than the participations of divine visions through others, so, I think, also, of the angelic orders the immediate participation of those who are first raised up to God is more distinct than that of those perfected through a medium. Wherefore also, by our sacred tradition, the first minds are named perfecting and light-bringing and purifying powers of those subordinate, as through

χάτων τῆς γῆς διεῖσα τὴν ἀγαθωτάτην αὐτῆς ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ ὄντα πρόνοιαν ὡς πάσης οὐσίας ὑπεράρχιος ἀρχὴ καὶ αἰτία καὶ πάντων ὑπερουσίως ἀσχέτῳ συνοχῇ περιδεδραγμένη. <VIII.> <1> Μετιτέον δὲ νῦν ἡμῖν ἐπὶ τὴν μέσην τῶν οὐρανίων νοῶν διακόσμη σιν τὰς κυριότητας ἐκείνας ὑπερκοσμίοις ὀφθαλμοῖς ὡς ἐφικτὸν ἐποπτεύ ουσι καὶ τὰ ὄντως δυνατὰ θεάματα τῶν θείων ἐξουσιῶν καὶ δυνάμεων. Καὶ γὰρ ἑκάστη τῶν ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς οὐσιῶν ἐπωνυμία τὰς θεομιμήτους αὐτῶν ἐμφαίνει τοῦ θεοειδοῦς ἰδιότητας. Τῶν μὲν οὖν ἁγίων κυριοτήτων τὴν ἐκφαντορικὴν ὀνομασίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν ἀδούλωτόν τινα καὶ πάσης ὑπο πεζίας ὑφέσεως ἐλευθέραν ἀναγωγὴν οὐδεμιᾷ τῶν τυραννικῶν ἀνομοιο τήτων οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ καθόλου κατακλινομένην, αὐτὴν ἐλευθεροπρεπῶς ὡς ἀμείλικτον κυριότητα πάσης μειωτικῆς δουλοποιίας ὑπερκειμένην, ἀνένδοτον ὑφέσει πάσῃ καὶ ἐξῃρημένην ἁπάσης ἀνομοιότητος, τῆς ὄντως κυριότητος καὶ κυριαρχίας ἀκαταλήκτως ἐφιεμένην καὶ πρὸς τὴν αὐτῆς κυρίαν ἐμφέρειαν ὡς ἐφικτὸν ἑαυτήν τε καὶ τὰ μετ' αὐτὴν ἀγαθοειδῶς διαπλάττουσαν, πρὸς οὐδὲν τῶν εἰκῇ δοκούντων, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸ κυρίως ὂν ὁλικῶς ἐπεστραμμένην καὶ κυριαρχικῆς ἀεὶ θεοειδείας ἐν μετουσίᾳ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν αὐτῇ γινομένην· τὴν δὲ τῶν ἁγίων δυνάμεων ἀρρενωπόν τινα καὶ ἀκατάσειστον ἀνδρείαν εἰς πάσας τὰς κατ' αὐτὴν θεοειδεῖς ἐνεργείας, πρὸς μηδεμίαν ὑποδοχὴν τῶν ἐνδιδομένων αὐτῇ θεαρχικῶν ἐλλάμψεων ἀδρανῶς ἐξασθενοῦσαν, δυνατῶς ἐπὶ τὸ θεομίμητον ἀναγο μένην οὐκ ἀπολείπουσαν ἑαυτῆς ἀνανδρίᾳ τὴν θεοειδῆ κίνησιν ἀλλ' ἀρρεπῶς ἀφορῶσαν εἰς τὴν ὑπερούσιον καὶ δυναμοποιὸν δύναμιν καὶ ταύτης εἰκόνα δυναμοειδῆ κατὰ τὸ ἐφικτὸν γινομένην καὶ πρὸς μὲν αὐτὴν ὡς ἀρχιδύναμον δυνατῶς ἐπεστραμμένην, πρὸς δὲ τὰ δεύτερα δυναμο δότως καὶ θεοειδῶς προϊοῦσαν· τὴν δὲ τῶν ἁγίων ἐξουσιῶν, τὴν ὁμοταγῆ τῶν θείων κυριοτήτων καὶ δυνάμεων, τὴν εὔκοσμον καὶ ἀσύμφυρτον περὶ τὰς θείας ὑποδοχὰς εὐταξίαν καὶ τὸ τεταγμένον τῆς ὑπερκοσμίου καὶ νοερᾶς ἐξουσιότητος οὐ τυραννικῶς ἐπὶ τὰ χείρω ταῖς ἐξουσιαστικαῖς δυνάμεσιν ἀποκεχρημένης ἀλλ' ἀκρατήτως ἐπὶ τὰ θεῖα μετ' εὐταξίας ἀναγομένης τε καὶ τὰ μετ' αὐτὴν ἀγαθοειδῶς ἀναγούσης, καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἐξουσιοποιὸν ἐξουσιαρχίαν ὡς θεμιτὸν ἀφομοιουμένης καὶ ταύτην ὡς δυνατὸν ἀγγέλοις ἀναλαμπούσης ἐν ταῖς κατ' αὐτὴν εὐκόσμοις τάξεσι τῆς ἐξουσιαστικῆς δυνάμεως. Ταύτας ἔχουσα τὰς θεοειδεῖς ἰδιότητας ἡ μέση τῶν οὐρανίων νοῶν διακόσμησις καθαίρεται μὲν καὶ φωτίζεται καὶ τελεσιουργεῖται καθ' ὃν εἴρηται τρόπον ὑπὸ τῶν θεαρχικῶν ἐλλάμψεων ἐνδιδομένων αὐτῇ δευτέρως διὰ τῆς πρώτης ἱεραρχικῆς διακοσμήσεως καὶ διὰ μέσης ἐκείνης δευτεροφανῶς διαπορθμευομένων. <2> Ἀμέλει τὴν δι' ἄλλου λεγομένην φοιτᾶν εἰς ἄλλον ἄγγελον ἀκοὴν σύμβολον ποιησόμεθα τῆς πόρρωθεν ἐπιτελουμένης καὶ διὰ τὴν πρόοδον ἀμυδρουμένης εἰς δευτέρωσιν τελειώσεως. Ὡς γὰρ οἱ δεινοὶ περὶ τὰς ἱερὰς ἡμῶν τελετάς φασι τὰς αὐτοφανεῖς τῶν θείων ἀποπληρώσεις τῶν δι' ἑτέρων θεοπτικῶν μεθέξεων εἶναι τελεωτέρας, οὕτως οἶμαι καὶ τῶν ἀγ γελικῶν τάξεων τὴν ἄμεσον μετουσίαν τῶν πρώτως ἐπὶ θεὸν ἀνατεινο μένων ἐναργεστέραν εἶναι τῶν διὰ μεσότητος ἀποτελουμένων. ∆ιὸ καὶ πρὸς τῆς ἡμῶν ἱερατικῆς παραδόσεως τελεστικαὶ καὶ φωτουργοὶ καὶ καθαρτικαὶ δυνάμεις οἱ πρῶτοι νόες ὀνομάζονται τῶν ὑφειμένων ὡς δι'