The Celestial Hierarchy

Let us now deal to the best of our ability with the question why the Seraph is said to have been sent to one of the prophets. For someone may feel doubt or uncertainty as to why one of the beings of the highest rank is mentioned as cleansing the prophet, instead of one of the lower ranks of Angels.

Some, indeed, say that according to the description already given of the inter-relation of all the Intelligences, the passage does not refer to one of the first of the Intelligences nearest to God, as having come to purify the hierarch, but that one of those Angels who are our guardians was called by the same name as the Seraphim because of his sacred function of purifying the prophet, for the reason that the remission of sins and the regeneration of him who was purified to obedience to God was accomplished through fire. And they say also that the passage simply says one of the Seraphim, not of those established around God, but of the purifying powers which preside over us.

But another suggested to me a solution of the problem by no means unlikely, for he said that the great Angel, whoever he may have been, who fashioned this vision for the purpose of instructing the prophet in divine matters, referred his own office of purification first to God, and after God to that first Hierarchy. And is not this statement true? For he who said this said that the Divine First Power goes forth visiting all things, and irresistibly penetrates all things, and yet is invisible to all, not only as superessentially transcending all things, but also because It transmits Its Providential Energies in a hidden way through all things. Moreover, It is revealed to all Intellectual Natures in due proportion, and bestows the radiance of Its Light upon the most exalted beings through whom, as leaders, It is imparted to the lower choirs in order according to their power of divine contemplation; or to speak in more simple terms, by way of illustration (for although natural things do not truly resemble God, who transcends all, yet they are more easily seen by us), the light of the sun passes readily through the first matter, for this is more transparent, and by means of this it displays more brightly its own brilliance; but when it falls upon some denser material it is shed forth again less brightly because the material which is illuminated is not adapted for the transmission of light, and after this it is little by little diminished until it hardly passes through at all. Similarly, the heat of fire imparts itself more readily to that which is more adapted to receive it, being yielding and conductive to its likeness; but upon substances of opposite nature which are resistant to it, either no effect at all or only a slight trace of the action of the fire appears; and what is more, when fire is applied to materials of opposite nature through the use of other substances receptive to it the fire first heats the material which is easily made hot, and through it, heats proportionately the water or other substance which does not so easily become hot.

Thus, according to the same law of the material order, the Fount of all order, visible and invisible, supernaturally shows forth the glory of Its own radiance in all-blessed outpourings of first manifestation to the highest beings, and through them those below them participate in the Divine Ray. For since these have the highest knowledge of God, and desire pre-eminently the Divine Goodness, they are thought worthy to become first workers, as far as can be attained, of the imitation of the Divine Power and Energy, and beneficently uplift those below them, as far as is in their power, to the same imitation by shedding abundantly upon them the splendour which has come upon themselves; while these, in turn, impart their light to lower choirs. And thus, throughout the whole Hierarchy, the higher impart that which they receive to the lower, and through the Divine Providence all are granted participation in the Divine Light in the measure of their receptivity.

There is, therefore, one Source of Light for everything which is illuminated, namely, God, who by His Nature, truly and rightly, is the Essence of Light, and Cause of being and of vision. But it is ordained that in imitation of God each of the higher ranks of beings is the source in turn for the one which follows it; since the Divine Rays are passed through it to the other. Therefore the beings of all the Angelic ranks naturally consider the highest Order of the Celestial Intelligences as the source, after God, of all holy knowledge and imitation of God, because through them the Light of the Supreme God is imparted to all and to us. On this account they refer all holy works, in imitation of God, to God as the Ultimate Cause, but to the first Divine Intelligences as the first regulators and transmitters of Divine Energies.

Therefore the first Order of the holy Angels possesses above all others the characteristic of fire, and the abundant participation of Divine Wisdom, and the possession of the highest knowledge of the Divine Illuminations, and the characteristic of Thrones which symbolizes openness to the reception of God. The lower Orders of the Celestial Beings participate also in these fiery, wise and God-receptive Powers, but in a lower degree, and as looking to those above them who, being thought worthy of the primary imitation of God, uplift them, as far as possible, into the likeness of God.

These holy characteristics in which the secondary natures are granted participation through the first, they ascribe to those very Intelligences, after God, as Hierarchs.

He who gave this explanation used to say that the vision was shown to the prophet by one of those holy and blessed Angels who preside over us, by whose enlightening guidance he was raised to that intellectual contemplation in which he beheld the most exalted Beings (to speak in symbols) established under God, with God and around God; and their super-princely Leader, ineffably uplifted above them all, established in the midst of the supremely exalted Powers.

The prophet, therefore, learned from these visions that, according to every superessential excellence, the divine One subsists in incomparable pre-eminence, excelling all visible and invisible powers, above and exempt from all; and that He bears no likeness even to those first-subsisting Beings; and moreover that He is the Principle and Cause of all being, and the Immutable Foundation of the abiding stability of things that are, from which the most exalted Powers have both their being and their well-being. Then he was instructed that the Divine Powers of the holy Scriptures, whose sacred name means ‘The Fiery Ones’, and of which we shall soon speak, as far as we can, led the upliftment of the fiery power towards the Divine Likeness.

When the holy prophet saw in the sacred vision of the sixfold wings the most high and absolute upliftment to the Divine in first, middle and last Intelligences, and beheld their many feet and many faces, and perceived that their eyes and their feet were covered by their wings, and that the middle wings were in ceaseless movement, he was guided to the intelligible knowledge of that which was seen through the revelation to him of the farreaching and far-seeing power of the most exalted Intelligences, and of their holy awe which they have in a supermundane manner in the bold and persistent and unending search into higher and deeper Mysteries, and the perfect harmony of their ceaseless activity in imitation of God, and their perpetual upward soaring to the heights.

Moreover, he also learned that divine and most glorious song of praise; for the Angel who fashioned the vision gave, as far as possible, his own holy knowledge to the prophet. He also taught him that every participation in the Divine Light and Purity, as far as this may be attained, is a purification, even to the most pure. Having its source in the Most High God, it proceeds from the most exalted Causes in a superessential and hidden manner, traversing the whole of the Divine Intelligences, and yet it shows itself more clearly, and imparts itself more fully to the most exalted Powers around God.

But as to the secondary or last intellectual powers, or our own powers, in proportion as each is further from the Divine Likeness, so the Divine Ray enfolds Its most brilliant light within Its own ineffable and hidden Unity. Moreover, It illuminates the second Orders severally through the first, and in short, It comes forth originally into manifestation from the Unmanifest through the first Powers.

The prophet was taught by the Angel who was leading him to light that the divine purification, and all the other divine activities shining forth through the First Beings, are imparted to all the others in the measure of the fitness of each for the divine participations.

Wherefore he reasonably assigned to the Seraphim, after God, the characteristic of imparting purification by fire. And there is nothing unreasonable in the representation of the Seraph as purifying the prophet; for just as God Himself, the cause of every purification, purifies all, or rather (to use a more familar illustration), just as our hierarch, when purifying or enlightening through his priests or ministers, may himself be said to purify and illuminate, because

…those orders which he has consecrated refer their sacred activities to him, so also the Angel who purifies the prophet refers his own purifying power and knowledge to God as its origin, but to the Seraph as the first working Hierarch—as though saying with angelic reverence when instructing him who was being purified: ‘There is an exempt Source and Essence and Creator and Cause of the purification effected in you by me, He who brings into being the First Beings, and holds them established round Himself, and preserves their changeless stability, and guides them towards the first participations in His own Providential Energies.’ (For this, so he said who taught me, shows the mission of the Seraph.) ‘But the Hierarch and Leader, after God, the first Order of the first Beings, by whom I was taught to perform the divine purifications, is that which purifies thee through me; and through it the Cause and Creator of all purification brought forth His Providential Energies to us from the hidden depths.’

Thus he taught me, and I in turn impart it to thee. It is for thy intellectual and discriminating skill either to accept one of the two reasons given as a solution of the difficulty, and prefer that to the other as probable and reasonable and perhaps true, or to find from thyself something more akin to the real truth, or learn from another (God indeed giving the word, and Angels directing it), and then to reveal to us who love the Angels a clearer, and to me more welcome view, if such should be possible.