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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
Then he was initiated into the godlike powers of the most holy Seraphim themselves, their sacred appellation signifying “the fiery”—concerning which we shall speak a little later, expounding, so far as is attainable for us, the elevations of the fiery power toward the godlike; and into the sixfold sacred fashioning of the wings, [signifying] the absolute and highest stretching upward toward the divine, in first, in middle, in last conceptions.
But the sacred theologian, beholding their innumerable feet and many faces, and that by the wings they distinguished the contemplation beneath the feet and that above the faces, and the ever-movement in the middle wings, was led up to the intelligible knowledge of the things seen—there being manifested to him the many-passaged and many-beholding power of the highest intelligences, and their sacred reverence, which they possess supercosmically against the presumptuous and rash and unattainable searching into things higher and deeper, and the unceasing and high-soaring ever-movement, in commensurateness, of their God-imitating activities.
But moreover he was led into the mystery of that divine and most precious hymnody, the angel who figured the vision imparting to the theologian, according to his power, of his own sacred knowledge.
It taught him this also: that purification is, for those who are in any way pure, the participation, so far as is attainable, of the divine clarity [purity] of the Source of consecration.
And this, performed by the Godhead itself through exalted causes upon all the sacred intelligences in superessential hiddenness, is somehow more manifest to the powers around it, as the highest, and reveals and imparts itself more; but in the case of the second, or the last, or our own intellectual powers, just as each stands apart from it according to its godlikeness, so it draws together its manifest illumination toward the unitary unknowableness of its own hiddenness.
And it illumines the second beings, in each case, through the first; and, to speak briefly, it is led primarily from the hidden to the manifest through the first powers.
This, then, the theologian was taught by the angel who gave him light: that purification and all the divine activities, shining forth through the first beings, are imparted to all the rest, according to the proportion of each toward the deifying participations.
For as God purifies all by being the cause of all purification—or rather (for I shall use a closely similar example), just as our hierarch, purifying or illumining through his ministers or priests, is himself said to purify and illumine, the orders consecrated through him ascribing to him their own sacred activities—so too the angel who performs the purification of the theologian ascribes his own purifying knowledge and power to God as cause, but to the Seraph as the first-working hierarch; as one might say, with angelic reverence, teaching the one purified by him: “The principle of the purification performed upon you by me is the exalted Being and Maker and Cause, he who both brought the first beings into being and contains them in their establishment around himself, keeping them unchanging and unfallen, and moves them also toward the first participations of his own providential activities (for this, said the one who taught me these things, is what the sending of the Seraph manifests); but the hierarch and leader after God is the ordering of the foremost beings, from whom I was God-imitatingly initiated into purifying.”
“This one, then, is he who purifies you through me, through whom the Cause and Maker of all purification brought forth from the hidden, even unto us, his own providential activities.”
It would belong to your intellectual and discerning knowledge either to be freed from the perplexity by one of the two stated causes and to honor it before the other, as having what is likely and reasonable and perhaps also the truth; or, of yourself, to discover something more akin to the truly true, or to learn it from another—God, of course, granting the word, and angels procuring it—and to disclose to us lovers of angels a more translucent and, if it could be, a more lovable contemplation for me as well.
And this too is worthy, as I think, of intellectual attention: that the tradition of the Scriptures concerning the angels says that they are “thousands of thousands” and “myriads of myriads,” turning back upon themselves and multiplying the highest of the numbers we have, and through these clearly manifesting that the ranks of the heavenly beings are innumerable for us.
For many are the blessed hosts of the supercosmic intelligences, surpassing the weak and contracted commensurateness of our material numbers, and determined only by their own supercosmic and heavenly intellection and knowledge—the knowledge bestowed upon them most blessedly by the divine, infinitely-knowing wisdom-making, which is the superessentially existing Source and being-making and connective power and all-encompassing consummation of all beings together.
Come now, finally, if it seems good, let us rest our intellectual eye from the strain, befitting angels, of the unitary and lofty contemplations, and descend to the divisible and many-parted breadth of the multiform variety of the angelic fashionings; and then again let us bend back analytically from them, as from images, toward the simplicity of the heavenly intelligences.
…it being already understood beforehand that the clarifyings of the sacredly figured images sometimes manifest the same orderings of the heavenly beings as hierarchizing, and again as being hierarchized; and the last as hierarchizing, and the first as being hierarchized; and the same, as has been said, as possessing first and middle and last powers—no absurd account being introduced according to such a manner of the unfoldings.
For if we were to say that some are hierarchized by the former, and then that those very former ones, who hierarchize, are again themselves hierarchized by the last—being hierarchized by those very ones who are hierarchized—the thing would truly be an absurdity and full of much confusion.
But if we say that the same ones both hierarchize and are hierarchized—yet no longer the same by the same, but each one being hierarchized by the former and hierarchizing the last—one would not unreasonably say that the sacredly fashioned formings in the Scriptures can sometimes be properly and truly attached to first and middle and last powers; and that the turning back uplifted toward what is above, and the unswerving revolving about themselves as guardians of their own powers, and the being in participation of providential power by the communal procession toward the second things, will fit, without falsehood, all the heavenly beings—to some in a higher and total manner, as has often been said, to others partially and in a lower manner.
But we must begin the discourse and inquire, in the first clarifying of the figures, for what cause theology is found, beyond almost all others, honoring the fiery sacred imagery.
For you will find it fashioning not only fiery wheels, but also enkindled living creatures, and men flashing like fire, and placing about the heavenly beings themselves heaps of coals of fire, and rivers flaming with a fire of unrestrained rushing.
But it also says the Thrones are fiery, and it manifests by their very appellation that the highest Seraphim themselves are “enkindlers,” and it assigns to them the property and activity of fire; and altogether, above and below, it especially honors the fiery figuration.
For the sacred theologians often depict the superessential and formless Being in fire, as having many images, if it is lawful to say so, of the divine property, as in visible things.
For perceptible fire is, so to speak, in all things, and passes unmixed through all, and is exalted above all; and being at once all-shining and yet as it were hidden, unknown in itself when there is no matter set before it in which to manifest its own activity; unrestrained and uncontemplated, self-mastering of all, and altering toward its own activity the things in which it comes to be; imparting itself to all that in any way draw near; renewing by its vivifying warmth, illumining with its unveiled illuminations; unconquerable, unmixed, distinguishing, unalterable; upward-moving, sharp-passing, lofty, enduring no servile abasement; ever-moving, self-moving, moving others; comprehending, incomprehensible, needing no other, secretly increasing itself and manifesting its own greatness toward the materials that receive it; active, powerful, present to all invisibly, overlooked, seeming not to be, yet, by friction as by a kind of seeking, suddenly appearing in a connatural and proper way, and again flying off incomprehensibly; undiminished in all its most blessed impartings of itself.
Knowing this, then, the divinely wise fashion the heavenly beings from fire, manifesting their godlikeness and, so far as is attainable, their imitation of God.
But they also depict them in human form, on account of the intellectual faculty and the having of the visual powers directed upward, and the straight and upright character of the shape, and the by-nature ruling and governing character, and the being least in the senses, as compared with the remaining powers of the irrational animals, yet master of all by the surpassing power of the mind, and by the dominion of rational knowledge, and by the by-nature unenslaved and unconquerable character of the soul.
And it is possible, as I think, also to find, with respect to each part of our bodily multiplicity, harmonious images of the heavenly powers, saying that the visual powers manifest the most translucent looking-up toward the divine lights, and again the soft and moist and unresisting—rather, sharply-moving and pure and openly impassible—reception of the divine illuminations; that the discerning powers of the nostrils [signify] the being able, so far as attainable, to receive the imparting of the supra-mental fragrance, and to discern in knowledge what is not such, and wholly to avoid it; that the powers of the ears [signify] the participatory and knowing reception of the divine inspiration; the powers of taste, the filling with the intelligible nourishment and the receiving of the divine and nourishing streams; the powers of touch, the discerning in knowledge of what is beneficial or harmful; the eyelids and the eyebrows, the guarding of the God-beholding conceptions; the youthful and vigorous prime of life, the ever-flourishing vital power; the teeth, the dividing of the imparted nourishing perfection (for each intellectual being divides and multiplies the unitary conception bestowed upon it by the more divine, with providential power, toward the uplifting proportion of the more deficient); the shoulders and arms and again the hands, the productive and active and effective; the heart, in turn, being a symbol of the godlike life that scatters its own vital power, in a good-formed manner, into the things provided for; the breast, again, manifesting the indomitable and the guarding, as over the heart that lies beneath, of the life-giving distribution; the back, the holding-together of all the life-generating powers; and the feet, the moving and swift and nimble character of the ever-movement that journeys toward the divine.
For the wing manifests the uplifting swiftness, and the heavenly, and the path-making toward what is above, and the being exalted, by the upward bearing, above everything earth-cleaving; and the lightness of the wings, the being in no way earthward, but wholly, unmixedly and weightlessly, led up toward the lofty; and the bare and unshod, the unbound and easily-loosed and unrestrained, and the being purified of the addition of external things, and the assimilation, so far as attainable, to the divine simplicity.
But since again the simple and “manifold” wisdom both clothes the unclad and gives them certain implements to carry, come, let us also unfold, so far as is possible for us, the sacred coverings and instruments of the heavenly intelligences.
…and that which is dedicated to the whole life; and the girdles, the guarding of their generative powers, and the having their gathering disposition coiled unitarily into itself, and revolving about itself in a circle, in good order, with unfallen selfsameness; and the staves, in turn, the royal and ruling, and the bringing of all things to completion by a straight way; and the spears and the axes, the dividing of the dissimilar and the sharp and active and effective character of the discerning powers; and the geometric and builders’ implements, the founding and building and perfecting, and whatever else belongs to the uplifting and converting providence over the second things.
And there are times when the instruments fashioned for the holy angels are symbols of the divine judgments upon us—some signifying corrective instruction or punishing justice; others, deliverance from peril, or the end of chastisement, or the recovery of former well-being, or the addition of other gifts, small or great, perceptible or intelligible. And altogether the discerning mind would not be at a loss to fit the apparent things properly to the unapparent.
And that they are also named “winds” manifests their swift and almost timeless flight, penetrating over nearly all things, and the conveying movement from above to the things below and again from the things below toward what is above—the movement that stretches up the second things toward the higher height, and moves the first things toward the communal and providential procession over the lower things.
For this too has an image and figure of the divine activity (as has been demonstrated by us at greater length in the Symbolic Theology, in the clarifying according to the four elements), by reason of its nature’s moving and life-generating character, and its sharp and unrestrained passage, and the unknown to us and invisible hiddenness of its moving principles and consummations.
But theology also fashions about them the form of a cloud, signifying through this that the sacred intelligences are supercosmically filled with the hidden light, and receive the first-manifest light-manifestation without ostentation, and convey this ungrudgingly to the second things in a second-manifest and proportionate manner; and moreover that the generative and life-giving and increase-bringing and perfecting [power] inheres in them, according to the intelligible rain-bearing that summons the receptive bosom, with fattening showers, toward vital birth-pangs.
And if theology also clothes the heavenly beings in the form of bronze and amber (electrum) and many-colored stones: the amber, as at once gold-like and silver-like, manifests the incorruptible (as in gold) and inexhaustible and undiminished and undefiled clarity, and the bright (as in silver) and light-like and heavenly radiance; to the bronze, according to the principles rendered, must be assigned either the fiery or the gold-like; and the many-colored forms of the stones must be held to manifest—either, as white, the light-like; or, as red, the fiery; or, as yellow, the gold-like; or, as green, the youthful and vigorous; and for each form you will find an uplifting clarifying of the figurative images.
But since I think these things have been sufficiently said by us, so far as we have power, we must pass on to the sacred unfolding of the sacredly figured beast-form of the heavenly intelligences.
…[the lion-form signifies] the robust and indomitable, and the being assimilated, so far as it has power, to the hiddenness of the unutterable Godhead by the veiling of the intellectual footprints, and by the mystically unostentatious concealment of its uplifting journey toward it under divine illumination; and the [form] of the ox, the strong and the vigorous, and the opening wide of the intellectual furrows for the reception of the heavenly and generative showers; and the horns, the guarding and indomitable; and the [form] of the eagle, the royal and high-soaring and swift-flying, and the sharp and watchful and nimble and resourceful toward the power-bestowing nourishment, and the being able, by the robust upward-stretchings of the visual powers, to behold without hindrance, straight and unswervingly, toward the ungrudging and many-shining ray of the divine sun-emission; and the [form] of horses, the obedient and tractable—white horses signifying the bright and most akin to the divine light; dark horses, the hidden; red, the fiery and effective; and dappled, mixed of white and black, the connecting, by the conveying power, of the extremes, and the joining of the first to the second and the second to the first in a converting or providential manner.
But, did we not aim at the due measure of the discourse, we would not unreasonably have fitted also the particular properties of the said animals, and all their bodily formations, to the heavenly powers, according to the dissimilar similarities: their incensive part to the intellectual courage, of which anger is the last echo; their desire, in turn, to the divine love; and, to speak summarily, leading up all the senses and the many-partedness of the irrational animals to the immaterial conceptions and unitary powers of the heavenly beings.
But for the prudent, not only these things suffice, but also the clarifying of a single unfitting image [suffices] for the similar elucidation of the things alike to it.
For the fiery rivers signify the divine channels furnishing to them an ungrudging and unfailing inflow, and nourishing them with life-giving fruitfulness; and the chariots, the conjoining communion of those of equal rank; and the wheels, being winged, yet proceeding forward unturning and unswerving, signify the power of their journeying activity along a straight and upright way—all their intellectual track being guided supercosmically along the same unswerving and straight-cut path.
For the fiery and godlike wheels have their revolvings in the ever-moving movement about the same Good; and their revelations in the manifestation of the hidden things, and in the leading up of the earth-bound, and in the down-conveying transmission of the lofty illuminations to the lower things.
For they are wholly incapable of receiving our passion-ridden pleasure; but they are said to rejoice together with God over the finding of the lost, according to the godlike ease and the good-formed and ungrudging gladness over the providence and salvation of those turning to God, and that ineffable well-being in which sacred men too have often come to be in participation, according to the deifying visitations of the divine illuminations.
Let so much, then, be said by me concerning the sacred fashionings—falling short of the precise revelation of them, yet contributing, as I think, to our not remaining lowly among the figurative imaginings.
But if you should also say this, that we have not made mention of all the angelic powers or activities or images in the Scriptures in due order, we shall answer the truth: that of some we were ignorant of the supercosmic knowledge, and rather are ourselves in need of another to give us light concerning them; and others, as being of like power with the things spoken of, we have passed over, both having provided for the due measure of the discourse, and having honored with silence the hiddenness that is above us.