activity, assimilated as far as possible to the godlike, and elevated to the imitation of God proportionately to the Divine illuminations conceded to it,” the author proceeds to enumerate the nine orders of the heavenly host, which are subdivided again into hierarchies or triads, in descending order, thus: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. These all exist for the common object of raising men through ascending stages of purification and illumination to perfection. The ecclesiastical or earthly hierarchy is the counterpart of the other. In it the first or highest triad is formed by baptism, communion and chrism. The second triad consists of the three orders of the ministry, bishop or hierarch, priest and minister or deacon (ἱεράρχης, ἱερεύς, λειτουργός); this is the earliest known instance in which the title hierarch is applied to a bishop. The third or lowest triad is made up of monks, “initiated” and catechumens. To Dionysius may be traced, through Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic writers of the intervening period, the definition of the term usually given by Roman Catholic writers—“coëtus seu ordo praesidum et sacrorum ministrorum ad regendam ecclesiam gignendamque in hominibus sanctitatem divinitus institutus”[1]—although it immediately rests upon the authority of the sixth canon of the twenty-third session of the council of Trent, in which anathema is pronounced upon all who deny the existence within the Catholic Church of a hierarchy instituted by divine appointment, and consisting of bishops, priests and ministers.[2] (See Order, Holy).
HIERATIC, priestly or sacred (Gr. ἱερατικός, ἱερός, sacred),
a term particularly applied to a style of ancient Egyptian writing,
which is a simplified cursive form of hieroglyphic. The name
was first given by Champollion (see Egypt, § Language).
HIERAX, or Hieracas, a learned ascetic who flourished
about the end of the 3rd century at Leontopolis in Egypt,
where he lived to the age of ninety, supporting himself by
calligraphy and devoting his leisure to scientific and literary
pursuits, especially to the study of the Bible. He was the author
of Biblical commentaries both in Greek and Coptic, and is
said to have composed many hymns. He became leader of
the so-called sect of the Hieracites, an ascetic society from
which married persons were excluded, and of which one of
the leading tenets was that only the celibate could enter the
kingdom of heaven. He asserted that the suppression of the sexual
impulse was emphatically the new revelation brought by the
Logos, and appealed to 1 Cor. vii., Heb. xii. 14, and Matt.
xix. 12, xxv. 21. Hierax may be called the connecting link
between Origen and the Coptic monks. A man of deep learning
and prodigious memory, he seems to have developed Origen’s
Christology in the direction of Athanasius. He held that
the Son was a torch lighted at the torch of the Father, that
Father and Son are a bipartite light. He repudiated the ideas
of a bodily resurrection and a material paradise, and on the
ground of 2 Tim. ii. 5 questioned the salvation of even baptized
infants, “for without knowledge no conflict, without conflict
no reward.” In his insistence on virginity as the specifically
Christian virtue he set up the great theme of the church of the
4th and 5th centuries.
HIERO (strictly Hieron), the name of two rulers of
Syracuse.
Hiero I. was the brother of Gelo, and tyrant of Syracuse from 478 to 467/6 B.C. During his reign he greatly increased the power of Syracuse. He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, peopled Catana (which he renamed Aetna) with Dorians, concluded an alliance with Acragas (Agrigentum), and espoused the cause of the Locrians against Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium. His most important achievement was the defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae (474), by which he saved the Greeks of Campania. A bronze helmet (now in the British Museum), with an inscription commemorating the event, was dedicated at Olympia. Though despotic in his rule Hiero was a liberal patron of literature. He died at Catana in 467.
See Diod. Sic. xi. 38-67; Xenophon, Hiero, 6. 2; E. Lübbert, Syrakus zur Zeit des Gelon und Hieron (1875); for his coins see Numismatics (section Sicily).
Hiero II., tyrant of Syracuse from 270 to 216 B.C., was the illegitimate son of a Syracusan noble, Hierocles, who claimed descent from Gelo. On the departure of Pyrrhus from Sicily (275) the Syracusan army and citizens appointed him commander of the troops. He materially strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the leading citizen. In the meantime, the Mamertines, a body of Campanian mercenaries who had been employed by Agathocles, had seized the stronghold of Messana, whence they harassed the Syracusans. They were finally defeated in a pitched battle near Mylae by Hiero, who was only prevented from capturing Messana by Carthaginian interference. His grateful countrymen then chose him king (270). In 264 he again returned to the attack, and the Mamertines called in the aid of Rome. Hiero at once joined the Punic leader Hanno, who had recently landed in Sicily; but being defeated by the consul Appius Claudius, he withdrew to Syracuse. Pressed by the Roman forces, in 263 he was compelled to conclude a treaty with Rome, by which he was to rule over the south-east of Sicily and the eastern coast as far as Tauromenium (Polybius i. 8-16; Zonaras viii. 9). From this time till his death in 216 he remained loyal to the Romans, and frequently assisted them with men and provisions during the Punic wars (Livy xxi. 49-51, xxii. 37, xxiii. 21). He kept up a powerful fleet for defensive purposes, and employed his famous kinsman Archimedes in the construction of those engines that, at a later date, played so important a part during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans.
A picture of the prosperity of Syracuse during his rule is given in the sixteenth idyll of Theocritus, his favourite poet. See Diod. Sic. xxii. 24–xxvi. 24; Polybius i. 8–vii. 7; Justin xxiii. 4.
HIEROCLES, proconsul of Bithynia and Alexandria, lived
during the reign of Diocletian (A.D. 284–305). He is said to
have been the instigator of the fierce persecution of the Christians
under Galerius in 303. He was the author of a work (not
extant) entitled λόγοι φιλαλήθεις πρὸς τοὺς Χριστιανούς in two
books, in which he endeavoured to persuade the Christians
that their sacred books were full of contradictions, and that
in moral influence and miraculous power Christ was inferior to
Apollonius of Tyana. Our knowledge of this treatise is derived
from Lactantius (Instit. div. v. 2) and Eusebius, who wrote a
refutation entitled Ἀντιῤῥητικὸς πρὸς τὰ Ἱεροκλέους.
HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA, Neoplatonist writer,
flourished c. A.D. 430. He studied under the celebrated Neoplatonist
Plutarch at Athens, and taught for some years in his
native city. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria
and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he
gave such offence by his religious opinions that he was thrown
into prison and cruelly flogged. The only complete work of his
which has been preserved is the commentary on the Carmina
Aurea of Pythagoras. It enjoyed a great reputation in middle
age and Renaissance times, and there are numerous translations
in various European languages. Several other writings, especially
one on providence and fate, a consolatory treatise dedicated
to his patron Olympiodorus of Thebes, author of ἱστορικοὶ λόγοι, are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobaeus.
The collection of some 260 witticisms (ἀστεῖα) called Φιλόγελως
(ed. A. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869), attributed to Hierocles and
Philagrius, has no connexion with Hierocles of Alexandria, but
is probably a compilation of later date, founded on two older
collections. It is now agreed that the fragments of the Elements
of Ethics (Ἠθικὴ στοιχείωσις) preserved in Stobaeus are from
a work by a Stoic named Hierocles, contemporary of Epictetus,
who has been identified with the “Hierocles Stoicus vir sanctus
et gravis” in Aulus Gellius (ix. 5. 8). This theory is confirmed
by the discovery of a papyrus (ed. H. von Arnim in Berliner
Klassikertexte, iv. 1906; see also C. Prächter, Hierokles der
Stoiker, 1901).
