Greco-Christian stream·Dionysius the Areopagite·On the Heavenly Hierarchy·On the Heavenly Hierarchy — Caput VI
VI. The first order of the heavenly Beings
The nine orders of celestial beings introduced. The number nine: triads of three. The first triad — Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones — closest to the divine and most directly receptive of the divine illumination.
Source context
- Theme
- Exegesis of Isaiah's six-winged Seraphim as symbolic bearers of the highest hierarchical fire and purification
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Hebrew prophetic tradition (Isaiah 6)Isaiah 6:1–7 furnishes the primary scriptural type that Caput VI interprets: the Seraphim with six wings, their cry of thrice-holy sanctity, and their act of purifying the prophet's lips constitute the text Pseudo-Dionysius reads as disclosing the nature of the first and highest angelic order.
- Neoplatonic henologyPseudo-Dionysius maps the Seraphim's fiery, unceasing circular motion around the One onto Proclus's account of the highest henadic circle, identifying their perpetual movement as participation in the divine self-reversion that constitutes the summit of the hierarchical procession.
- Rabbinic angelology (Merkabah literature)Cross-tradition congruence appears between Pseudo-Dionysius's Seraphim exegesis and Merkabah texts such as the Hekhalot Rabbati, which describe the same Isaianic Seraphim as fiery beings of the throne-chariot whose wings veil the divine presence, pointing to a shared late-antique interpretive milieu.
On the Heavenly Hierarchy — Caput VI
CAPUT VI.
Which is the first Order of the Heavenly Beings? which the middle? and which the last?
How many, and of what sort, are the Orders of the supercelestial Beings, and how the Hierarchies are classified amongst themselves, I affirm, the deifying Author of their consecration alone distinctly knows; and further, that they know their own proper powers and illuminations, and their sacred and supermundane regularity. For it is impossible that we should know the mysteries of the supercelestial Minds and their most holy perfections, except, some one might say, so far as the Godhead has revealed to us, through them, as knowing perfectly their own condition. We, then, will utter nothing as from ourselves, but whatever angelic visions have been gazed upon by the holy Prophets of God, we, as initiated in these, will set forth as best we can. The Word of God has designated the whole Heavenly Beings as nine, by appellations, which shew their functions. These our Divine Initiator divides into three threefold Orders. He also says that that which is always around God is first and is declared by tradition to be united closely and immediately, to Him, before all the rest. For he says that the teaching of the Holy Oracles declares, that the most Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged hosts, named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim, are established immediately p. 24 around God, with a nearness superior to all. This threefold order, then, our illustrious Guide spoke of as one, and of equal rank, and really first Hierarchy, than which there is not another more Godlike or immediately nearer to the earliest illuminations of the Godhead. But he says, that which is composed of the Authorities, and Lordships, and Powers is second; and, as respects the lowest of the Heavenly Hierarchies, the Order of the Angels and Archangels and Principalities is third.
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