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

strong and indomitable, and that which assimilates itself, as far as possible, to the hiddenness of the ineffable Thearchy by the covering of its intelligible tracks and by the mystically un-paraded reserve of its upward course toward it, according to divine illumination; but that of the ox, the strong and vigorous, and the opening of the intellectual furrows for the reception of the heavenly and fertilizing showers, and the horns, the guarding and invincible; but that of the eagle, the royal and high-soaring and swift-flying, and the keen, sober, agile and resourceful for the strength-giving food, and the direct and unwavering contemplation of the bounteous and all-luminous ray of the divine sun-darting, in the robust upward-straining of its visual powers, without impediment; but that of the horses, the obedient and well-reined, and being white, the shining and as much as possible akin to the divine light, but being dark blue, the hidden, but red, the fiery and active, but mixed of white and black, that which connects the extremes through a traversing power, joining the first to the second and the second to the first, either in a returning or a providential manner. But if we were not aiming at due proportion in our discourse, we would have applied not inappropriately the particular properties of the said animals and all their bodily formations to the heavenly powers, according to the dissimilar similarities, their spiritedness to intelligible manliness, of which anger is the lowest echo, and again their desire to the divine love, and, to speak summarily, raising all the senses and multiple parts of irrational animals to the immaterial intellections and uniform powers of the heavenly substances. But for the prudent, not only these things suffice, but even the uplifting interpretation of a single dissimilar image for the similar elucidation of comparable things. 9 But we must also consider the mention of rivers and wheels and chariots joined to the heavenly substances. For the fiery rivers signify the divine channels which supply them with a bountiful and unfailing effusion and the life-giving nourishment of fecundity, the chariots, the unitive communion of those of the same order, the wheels, being winged, and proceeding forward without turning or deviation, the power of their progressive activity in a straight and direct path, the whole of their intellectual course being directed supercosmically upon the same undeviating and straight-cut track.

But it is also possible, according to another uplifting interpretation, to explain the iconography of the intellectual wheels. For they were called, as the Theologian says, Gelgel; and this, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies rollings and revelations. For the fiery and godlike wheels have their rollings in their ever-moving motion around the same Good, and their revelations in the manifestation of hidden things, and in the uplifting of lowly things, and in the downward conveyance of lofty illuminations to subordinate things.

There remains for us to explain the discourse concerning the joy of the heavenly orders. For they are altogether unreceptive of our impassioned pleasure, but they are said to rejoice with God at the finding of the lost, according to their godlike serenity, and the good-like and bounteous gladness at the providence and salvation of those who are turned to God, and that ineffable well-being, in which holy men have often participated during the theurgic visitations of divine illuminations.

·ωμαλέον καὶ ἀδάμαστον καὶ τὸ πρὸς τὴν κρυφιότητα τῆς ἀφθέγμονος θεαρχίας ὅση δύναμις ἀφομοιωτικὸν τῇ τῶν νοερῶν ἰχνῶν περικαλύψει καὶ τῇ μυστικῶς ἀνεκπομπεύτῳ περιστολῇ τῆς κατὰ θείαν ἔλλαμψιν ἐπ' αὐτὴν ἀνατατικῆς πορείας, τὴν δὲ τοῦ βοὸς τὸ ἰσχυρὸν καὶ ἀκμαῖον καὶ τοὺς νοεροὺς αὔλακας ἀνευρῦνον εἰς ὑποδοχὴν τῶν οὐρανίων καὶ γονι μοποιῶν ὄμβρων, καὶ τὰ κέρατα τὸ φρουρητικὸν καὶ ἀκράτητον, τὴν δὲ τοῦ ἀετοῦ τὸ βασιλικὸν καὶ ὑψίφορον καὶ ταχυπετὲς καὶ τὸ πρὸς τὴν δυναμοποιὸν τροφὴν ὀξὺ καὶ νῆφον καὶ ἐντρεχὲς καὶ εὐμήχανον καὶ τὸ πρὸς τὴν ἄφθονον καὶ πολύφωτον ἀκτῖνα τῆς θεαρχικῆς ἡλιοβολίας ἐν ταῖς τῶν ὀπτικῶν δυνάμεων εὐρώστοις ἀνατάσεσιν ἀνεμποδίστως κατ' εὐθὺ καὶ ἀκλινῶς θεωρητικόν, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἵππων τὸ εὐπειθὲς καὶ εὐ»νιον, καὶ λευκῶν μὲν ὄντων τὸ λαμπρὸν καὶ ὡς μάλιστα τοῦ θείου φωτὸς συγγενές, κυανῶν δὲ ὄντων τὸ κρύφιον, ἐρυθρῶν δὲ τὸ πυρῶδες καὶ δραστήριον, συμμίκτων δὲ πρὸς λευκοῦ καὶ μέλανος τὸ τῇ διαπορθμευτικῇ δυνάμει τῶν ἄκρων συνδετικὸν καὶ τὰ πρῶτα τοῖς δευτέροις καὶ τὰ δεύτερα τοῖς πρώτοις ἐπιστρεπτικῶς ἢ προνοητικῶς συνάπτον. Ἀλλ' εἰ μὴ τῆς τοῦ λόγου κατεστοχαζόμεθα συμμετρίας, καὶ τὰς κατὰ μέρος τῶν εἰρημένων ζῴων ἰδιότητας καὶ πάσας τὰς σωματικὰς αὐτῶν διαπλάσεις ἐφηρμόσαμεν ἂν οὐκ ἀπεικότως ταῖς οὐρανίαις δυνάμεσι κατὰ τὰς ἀνομοίους ὁμοιότητας, τὸ μὲν θυμοειδὲς αὐτῶν εἰς τὴν νοερὰν ἀνδρείαν ἧς ἐστιν ἔσχατον ὁ θυμὸς ἀπήχημα, τὴν δὲ αὖ ἐπιθυμίαν εἰς τὸν θεῖον ἔρωτα, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν πάσας τὰς τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων αἰσθήσεις τε καὶ πολυμερείας εἰς τὰς ἀΰλους τῶν οὐρανίων οὐσιῶν νοήσεις καὶ ἑνοειδεῖς δυνάμεις ἀνάγοντες. Ἀρκεῖ δὲ τοῖς ἐχέφροσιν οὐ ταῦτα μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ μιᾶς ἀπεμφαινούσης εἰκόνος ἀνακάθαρσις εἰς τὴν τῶν παραπλησίων ὁμοιότροπον διασάφησιν. <9> Ἐπισκεπτέον δὲ καὶ τὸ ποταμοὺς εἰρῆσθαι καὶ τροχοὺς καὶ ἅρματα συνημμένα ταῖς οὐρανίαις οὐσίαις. Oἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐμπύριοι ποταμοὶ σημαίνουσι τοὺς θεαρχικοὺς ὀχετοὺς ἄφθονον αὐταῖς καὶ ἀνέκλειπτον ἐπίρροιαν χορηγοῦντας καὶ ζωοποιοῦ θρεπτικοὺς γονιμότητος, τὰ δὲ ἅρματα τὴν συζευκτικὴν τῶν ὁμοταγῶν κοινωνίαν, οἱ δὲ τροχοὶ πτερωτοὶ μὲν ὄντες, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰ πρόσθεν ἀνεπι στρόφως καὶ ἀκλινῶς πορευόμενοι τὴν κατ' εὐθεῖαν καὶ ὄρθιον ὁδὸν τῆς πορευτικῆς αὐτῶν ἐνεργείας δύναμιν, ἐπὶ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀκλινῆ καὶ ἰθύτομον οἶμον ἁπάσης αὐτῶν τῆς νοερᾶς τροχιᾶς ὑπερκοσμίως ἰθυνομένης.

Ἔστι δὲ καὶ κατ' ἄλλην ἀναγωγὴν ἀνακαθᾶραι τὴν τῶν νοερῶν τροχῶν εἰκονογραφίαν. Ἐπεκλήθη γὰρ αὐτοῖς ὥς φησιν ὁ θεολόγος Γελγέλ· ἐμφαίνει δὲ τοῦτο καθ' ἑβραϊκὴν φωνὴν ἀνακυλισμοὺς καὶ ἀνα καλύψεις. Oἱ γὰρ ἐμπύριοι καὶ θεοειδεῖς τροχοὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀνακυλισμοὺς ἔχουσι τῇ περὶ τὸ ταὐτὸν ἀγαθὸν ἀειδινήτῳ κινήσει, τὰς ἀνακαλύψεις δὲ τῇ τῶν κρυφίων ἐκφαντορίᾳ καὶ τῇ τῶν περιπεζίων ἀναγωγῇ καὶ τῇ τῶν ὑψηλῶν ἐλλάμψεων εἰς τὰ ὑφειμένα καταγωγικῇ διαπορθμεύσει.

Λοιπὸς ἡμῖν εἰς διασάφησιν ὁ περὶ τῆς χαρᾶς τῶν οὐρανίων διακοσμή σεων λόγος. Καὶ γὰρ ἄδεκτοι παντελῶς εἰσι τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐμπαθοῦς ἡδονῆς, συγχαίρειν δὲ θεῷ λέγονται τῇ τῶν ἀπολωλότων εὑρέσει κατὰ τὴν θεοειδῆ ·ᾳστώνην καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τῇ προνοίᾳ καὶ σωτηρίᾳ τῶν ἐπὶ θεὸν ἐπιστρεφομένων ἀγαθοειδῆ καὶ ἄφθονον εὐφροσύνην καὶ τὴν εὐπάθειαν ἐκείνην τὴν ἄρρητον ἧς ἐν μεθέξει πολλάκις γεγόνασι καὶ ἄνδρες ἱεροὶ κατὰ τὰς θεουργοὺς τῶν θείων ἐλλάμψεων ἐπιφοιτήσεις.