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

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 orderliness by the good order of the ruling powers. <2> The order of the holy archangels is of the same rank as the celestial principalities; for there is, as I said, one hierarchy and arrangement of them and of the angels. But since there is no hierarchy that does not have first, middle, and last powers, the holy order of archangels participates communicatively in the hierarchical mean of the extremes. For it communicates with the most holy principalities and with the holy angels, with the former because it is turned principially toward the super-essential principle and is formed in its likeness as far as possible and unifies the angels according to its well-ordered, and arranged, and invisible leaderships, with the latter because it is of the interpretative order, receiving hierarchically the deifying illuminations through the first powers and announcing them in a goodly manner to the angels and revealing them to us through the angels according to the sacred proportion of each of those divinely illuminated. For the angels, as we have already said, fulfillingly complete all the arrangements of the celestial minds, possessing the angelic property in the last place among the celestial beings and are more properly called angels by us than the preceding ones inasmuch as their hierarchy is more manifest and more related to the world. For the highest arrangement, as has been said, since it is first in rank in approaching the hidden one, must be thought to hierarchize the second in a hidden manner, and the second, which is completed by the holy Dominions and Powers and Authorities, to lead the hierarchy of the Principalities and Archangels and Angels, more manifestly than the first hierarchy, but more hiddenly than the one after it, and the revealing arrangement of Principalities and Archangels and Angels to preside over the human hierarchies through each other, so that there might be in order the leading up to God and turning back and communion and union and indeed also the procession from God, given in a manner befitting goodness to all hierarchies and coming communicatively with most sacred good order. Hence theology has assigned our hierarchy to angels, naming Michael as ruler of the Jewish people and others of other nations. For the most high "set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God." <3> But if someone should say: And how was the Hebrew people alone led up to the deifying illuminations? one must answer that one should not blame the direct oversight of the angels for the straying of the other nations to non-existent gods, but that they themselves, by their own inclinations, had fallen away from the direct leading up to the divine, through self-love and willfulness and the worship analogous to what seemed to them god-befitting. It is testified that the Hebrew people themselves also suffered this. For it says, "You have rejected the knowledge of God" and "you have gone after your own heart." For we do not have a compelled life, nor through the free will of those provided for are the divine lights of the providential illumination blunted, but the unlikeness of the intellectual visions either makes the superabundant light-giving of the paternal goodness entirely unparticipated and uncommunicated because of their resistance, or makes the participations different, small or great, dim or bright, of the one and simple and ever-constant and super-extended fountain-ray. Since indeed also of the other nations,

ἀρχικῶς ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ τὸ πρὸς αὐτὴν ἐκείνην ὡς δυνατὸν ἀποτυποῦσθαι τὴν ἀρχοποιὸν ἀρχὴν ἀναφαίνειν τε τὴν ὑπερούσιον αὐτῆς ταξιαρχίαν τῇ τῶν ἀρχικῶν εὐκοσμίᾳ δυνάμεων. <2> Ἡ δὲ τῶν ἁγίων ἀρχαγγέλων ὁμοταγὴς μέν ἐστι ταῖς οὐρανίαις ἀρχαῖς· ἔστι γὰρ αὐτῶν τε καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων ὡς ἔφην ἱεραρχία μία καὶ διακόσμησις. Πλὴν ἐπείπερ οὐκ ἔστιν ἱεραρχία μὴ καὶ πρώτας καὶ μέσας καὶ τελευταίας δυνάμεις ἔχουσα, ἡ τῶν ἀρχαγγέλων ἁγία τάξις κοινω νικῶς τῇ ἱεραρχικῇ μεσότητι τῶν ἄκρων ἀντιλαμβάνεται. Ταῖς τε γὰρ ἁγιωτάταις ἀρχαῖς κοινωνεῖ καὶ τοῖς ἁγίοις ἀγγέλοις, ταῖς μὲν ὅτι πρὸς τὴν ὑπερούσιον ἀρχὴν ἀρχικῶς ἐπέστραπται καὶ πρὸς αὐτὴν ὡς ἐφικτὸν ἀποτυποῦται καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους ἑνοποιεῖ κατὰ τὰς εὐκόσμους αὐτῆς καὶ τεταγμένας καὶ ἀοράτους ἡγεμονίας, τοῖς δὲ ὅτι καὶ τῆς ὑποφητικῆς ἐστι τάξεως, τὰς θεαρχικὰς ἐλλάμψεις ἱεραρχικῶς διὰ τῶν πρώτων δυνάμεων ὑποδεχομένη καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτὰς ἀγαθοειδῶς ἀγγέλλουσα καὶ δι' ἀγγέλων ἡμῖν ἀναφαίνουσα κατὰ τὴν ἱερὰν ἑκάστου τῶν θείως ἐλλαμ πομένων ἀναλογίαν. Oἱ γὰρ ἄγγελοι, καθὼς ἤδη προειρήκαμεν, συμπληρωτικῶς ἀποπερατοῦσιν τὰς ὅλας τῶν οὐρανίων νοῶν διακοσμή σεις, κατὰ τὸ τελευταῖον ὡς ἐν οὐρανίαις οὐσίαις ἔχοντες τὴν ἀγγελικὴν ἰδιότητα καὶ μᾶλλον πρὸς ἡμῶν ἄγγελοι παρὰ τοὺς προτέρους οἰκειό τερον ὀνομαζόμενοι ὅσῳ καὶ περὶ τὸ ἐμφανέστερον αὐτοῖς ἐστιν ἡ ἱεραρχία καὶ μᾶλλον περικόσμιος. Τὴν μὲν γὰρ ὑπερτάτην ὡς εἴρηται διακόσμησιν ὡς τῷ κρυφίῳ πρωτοταγῶς πλησιάζουσαν κρυφιοειδῶς οἰητέον ἱεραρ χεῖν τῆς δευτέρας, τὴν δὲ δευτέραν, ἣ συμπληροῦται πρὸς τῶν ἁγίων κυριοτήτων καὶ δυνάμεων καὶ ἐξουσιῶν, τῆς τῶν ἀρχῶν καὶ ἀρχαγγέλων καὶ ἀγγέλων ἱεραρχίας ἡγεῖσθαι, τῆς πρώτης μὲν ἱεραρχίας ἐμφανέστερον, τῆς δὲ μετ' αὐτὴν κρυφιοειδέστερον, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἀρχῶν καὶ ἀρχαγγέλων καὶ ἀγγέλων ἐκφαντορικὴν διακόσμησιν ταῖς ἀνθρωπίναις ἱεραρχίαις δι' ἀλλήλων ἐπιστατεῖν, ἵν' ᾖ κατὰ τάξιν ἡ πρὸς θεὸν ἀναγωγὴ καὶ ἐπι στροφὴ καὶ κοινωνία καὶ ἕνωσις καὶ μὴν καὶ ἡ παρὰ θεοῦ πάσαις ταῖς ἱεραρχίαις ἀγαθοπρεπῶς ἐνδιδομένη καὶ κοινωνικῶς ἐπιφοιτῶσα μετ' εὐκοσμίας ἱερωτάτης πρόοδος. Ἔνθεν ἡ θεολογία τὴν καθ' ἡμᾶς ἱεραρχίαν ἀγγέλοις ἀπονενέμηκεν, ἄρχοντα τοῦ Ἰουδαίων λαοῦ τὸν Μιχαὴλ ὀνο μάζουσα καὶ ἄλλους ἐθνῶν ἑτέρων. «Ἔστησε» γὰρ ὁ ὕψιστος «ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ.» <3> Eἰ δέ τις φαίη· καὶ πῶς ὁ τῶν Ἑβραίων λαὸς ἀνήγετο μόνος ἐπὶ τὰς θεαρχικὰς ἐλλάμψεις; ἀποκριτέον ὅτι μὴ τὰς τῶν ἀγγέλων εὐθείας ἐπιστασίας αἰτιάσασθαι χρὴ τῆς τῶν ἑτέρων ἐθνῶν ἐπὶ τοὺς οὐκ ὄντας θεοὺς ἀποπλανήσεως, ἀλλ' αὐτοὺς ἐκείνους οἰκείαις ·οπαῖς ἐκ τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ θεῖον εὐθείας ἀναγωγῆς ἀποπεπτωκότας τῇ φιλαυτίᾳ καὶ αὐθαδείᾳ καὶ τῇ τῶν αὐτοῖς δοκούντων θεοπρεπῶν ἀναλόγῳ σεβασμιότητι. Τοῦτο μαρτυρεῖται καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ τῶν Ἑβραίων λαὸς πεπονθέναι. «Ἐπίγνωσιν» γὰρ θεοῦ φησιν «ἀπώσω» καὶ ὀπίσω τῆς καρδίας σου ἐπορεύθης. Oὐδὲ γὰρ ἠναγκασμένην ἔχομεν ζωὴν οὐδὲ διὰ τὴν τῶν προνοουμένων αὐτεξ ουσιότητα τὰ θεῖα φῶτα τῆς προνοητικῆς ἐλλάμψεως ἀπαμβλύνεται, ἀλλ' ἡ τῶν νοερῶν ὄψεων ἀνομοιότης τὴν ὑπερπλήρη τῆς πατρικῆς ἀγαθότητος φωτοδοσίαν ἢ παντελῶς ἀμέθεκτον ποιεῖ καὶ πρὸς τὴν αὐτῶν ἀντιτυπίαν ἀδιάδοτον ἢ τὰς μετουσίας ποιεῖ διαφόρους, μικρὰς ἢ μεγάλας, ἀμυδρὰς ἢ φανὰς τῆς μιᾶς καὶ ἁπλῆς καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἐχούσης καὶ ὑπερηπλωμένης πηγαίας ἀκτῖνος. Ἐπεὶ ὅτι γε καὶ τῶν ἑτέρων ἐθνῶν,