The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite/On the Heavenly Hierarchy/Caput X

by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

A Repetition and Summary of the Angelic discipline.

Section I

  We have concluded, then, that the most reverend Order of the Minds
  around God, ministered by the perfecting illumination through its
  immediate elevation to it, is purified, and illuminated, and perfected
  by a gift of light from the Godhead, more hidden and more
  manifest--more hidden, indeed, as being more intelligible, and more
  simplifying, and more unifying; more manifest, as being a first gift
  and a first manifestation, and more complete, and more affused to it as
  transparent. And from this (Order) again, in due degree, the second,
  and from the second, the third, and from the third, our Hierarchy, is
  reverently conducted to the super-original Origin and End of all good
  order, according to the self-same law of well-ordered regularity, in
  Divine harmony and proportion.

Section II

  Now all Angels are interpreters of those above them, the most reverend,
  indeed, of God, Who moves them, and the rest, in due degree, of those
  who have been moved by God. For, to such an extent has the
  superessential harmony of all things provided for the religious order
  and the regulated conduct of each of the rational and intellectual
  beings, that each rank of the Hierarchies, has been placed in sacred
  order, and we observe every Hierarchy distributed into first, and
  middle, and last Powers. But to speak accurately, He distinguished each
  Division itself, by the same Divine harmonies; wherefore the
  theologians say that the most Divine Seraphim cry one to another,
  indicating distinctly, as I think by this, that the first impart their
  knowledge of divine things to the second.

Section III

  I might add this not inappropriately, that each heavenly and human mind
  has within itself its own special first, and middle, and last ranks,
  and powers, manifested severally in due degree, for the aforesaid
  particular mystical meanings of the Hierarchical illuminations,
  according to which, each one participates-, so far as is lawful and
  attainable to him, in the most spotless purification, the most copious
  light, the pre-eminent perfection. For there is nothing that is
  self-perfect, or absolutely without need of perfecting, except the
  really Self-perfect and preeminently Perfect.