St Dionysius the Areopagite The Celestial Hierarchy

Translated by John Parker

St Dionysius the Areopagite Resources Online and in Print

28 Pages

CAPUT I. 

To my Fellow Presbyter Timothy.[1] Dionysius the Presbyter.

That every divine illumination, whilst going forth lovingly to the objects of its forethought under various forms, remains simplex. Nor is this all. It also unifies the things illuminated.

Section I.

"Every good gift[2] and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights."

Further also, every procession of illuminating light, proceeding from the Father, whilst visiting us as a gift of goodness, restores us again gradually as an unifying power, and turns us to the oneness of our conducting Father, and to a deifying simplicity. For [3] [ ] all things are from Him, and to Him, as said the Sacred Word.

Section II.

Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, "which lighteth[4] every man coming into the world," "through [5] Whom we have access to the Father," Source of Light, let us aspire, as far as is attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our fathers in the most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze, as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Minds manifested by them symbolically for our instruction. And when we have received, with immaterial and unflinching mental [6] eyes, the gift of Light, primal and super-primal, of the supremely Divine Father, which manifests to us the most blessed Hierarchies of the Angels in types and symbols, let us then, from it, be elevated to its simple splendour [7]. For it never loses its own unique inwardness, but multiplied and going forth, as becomes its goodness, for an elevating and unifying blending of the objects of its care, remains firmly and solitarily centred within itself in its unmoved sameness; and raises, according to their capacity, those who lawfully aspire to it, and makes them one, after the example of its own unifying Oneness. For it is not possible that the supremely Divine Ray should otherwise illuminate us, except so far as it is enveloped, for the purpose of instruction, in variegated sacred veils, and arranged naturally and appropriately, for such as we are, by paternal forethought.

1.  [a] I Pet. v. 1. 

2.  [b] James i. 17.   

3.  [c] Rom. xi. 36.

4.  [d] John i. 9

5.  [e] Rom. v. 2.   

6.  [f] Syr. Doc. p. 61, Clark.

7.  [g ] Plato Rep. 6, 7-11, 121-126. Read Allegory of Cave.

Next Page of St Dionysius - Celestial Hierarchy

St Dionysius the Areopagite Home Page / Works ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/dionysius-areopagite/celestial-hierarchy.asp