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Translated by John Parker
St Dionysius the Areopagite Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 8
Section V.
Yet it is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities thoroughly opposed, nor that a man who has had a certain fellowship with the One should have divided lives, if he clings to the firm participation in the One; but he must be resistless and resolute, as regards all separations from the uniform. This it is which the teaching of the symbols reverently and enigmatically intimates, by stripping the proselyte, as it were, of his former life, and discarding to the very utmost the habits within that life, makes him stand naked and barefoot, looking away towards the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion of his hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness, and breathes out, as it were, the habit of dissimilarity which he had acquired, and professes the entire renunciation of everything contrary to the Divine likeness. When the man has thus become invincible and separate from evil, it turns him towards the east, declaring clearly that his position and recovery will be purely in the Divine Light, in the complete separation from baseness; and receiving his sacred promises of entire consort with the One, since he has become uniform through love of the truth. Yet it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual acquire the unchangeableness of the Godlike habit, by continuous and persistent struggles towards one, and by the entire destruction and annihilation of things contrary. For it is necessary that a man should not only depart from every kind of baseness, but he must be also bravely obdurate and ever fearless against the baneful submission to it. Nor must he, at any time, become remiss in his sacred love of the truth, but with all his power persistently and perpetually be elevated towards it, always religiously pursuing his upward course, to the more perfect mysteries of the Godhead.
Section VI.
Now you may see the distinct illustrations of these things in the religious rites performed by the Hier-arch. For the Godlike Hierarch starts with the holy anointing, and the Priests under him complete the Divine service of the Chrism, summoning in type the man initiated to the holy contests, within which he is placed under Christ as Umpire: since, as God, He is Institutor of the awards of contest, and as wise, He placed its laws, and as generous, the prizes suitable to the victors. And this is yet more Divine, since as good, He devotedly entered the lists with them, contending, on behalf of their freedom and victory, for their power over death [ ] and destruction, he who is being initiated will enter the contests, as those of God, rejoicing, and abides by the regulations of the Wise, and contends according to them, without transgression holding fast the hope of the beautiful rewards, as being enrolled under a good Lord and Leader of the awards: and when after following in the Divine footsteps of the first of athletes, through goodness, he has overthrown, in his struggles after the Divine example, the energies and impulses opposed to his deification, he dies with Christ----to speak mystically ----to sin, in Baptism.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/dionysius-areopagite/ecclesiastical-hierarchy.asp?pg=8
