Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Translation: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, Vol. II · Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th–early 6th c.) · source: sacred-texts.com / chr/dio (mirror of James Parker & Co., London, 1899)
Seven caputs on the earthly hierarchy that mirrors the heavenly one — the threefold structure of bishop, priest, deacon, and the threefold mysteries (baptism, eucharist, anointing) that conduct the soul through purification, illumination, and union. Companion to On the Heavenly Hierarchy. Greek title Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἱεραρχίας.
Source context· Greco-Christian stream · Greco-Latin cultural age
- Stream
- Greco-Christian
- Cultural age
- Greco-Latin (4th post-Atlantean cultural age)
- Composed
- c. 500 CE
- Soul-faculty
- Intellectual Soul — the work systematizes received mystery wisdom into doctrinal and liturgical form, characteristic of the Intellectual Soul epoch's drive to capture living spiritual perception in rational-theological structure.
What this work carries
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy transmits late Neoplatonic theurgy and the Pauline doctrine of spiritual hierarchies into a Christian liturgical framework. It preserves an initiatory schema — purification, illumination, union — traceable to the Eleusinian and Neoplatonic mystery traditions. The threefold sacramental structure encodes a graduated path of soul-transformation drawn from pre-Christian mystery wisdom.
Language frame
Written in Greek under the pseudonymous authority of Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34), the text employs the Neoplatonic technical vocabulary of henosis, theoria, and hierarchia. Its form is liturgical-theological commentary in seven caputs, structurally dependent on the companion treatise On the Heavenly Hierarchy.
Steiner’s engagement
- GA 93, 1905-10-21Steiner notes that two works — On the Heavenly Hierarchy and On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — appeared under the name of Dionysius at the end of the fifth century in Syria and were later translated from Greek into Latin.
- GA 93a, 1905-10-08Steiner affirms that the content of these writings was not composed in the sixth century but derives from genuine earlier teaching, maintaining that scholarly dismissal of the historical Dionysius misses the authentic spiritual transmission behind the text.
- GA 96, 1907-03-25Steiner identifies On the Heavenly and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies as appearing in Syria at the end of the fifth century and notes their transmission into Western scholasticism via John Scotus Eriugena's ninth-century Latin translation.
- GA 97, 1906-02-11Steiner lists On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy among the Dionysian corpus alongside On Divine Names, On Mystical Theology, and the ten epistles, treating this body of work as a unified spiritual teaching.
- GA 68a, 1906-11-27Steiner characterizes the Pseudo-Dionysian writings as the first written transmission of Pauline teachings, locating their significance in the spiritual content they carry rather than in questions of historical authorship.
- GA 204, 1921-04-15Steiner observes that what has come down under the name of the Areopagite represents a spiritual teaching that had already moved away from the living etheric-astronomical knowledge of the older mysteries, explaining the scholarly designation 'Pseudo-Dionysius.'
- GA 197, 1920-03-09Steiner references the Dionysian hierarchical writings in the context of the transformation of ancient Roman structures into Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy, treating them as a formative document of European Christian civilization.
Cross-tradition congruence
- Neoplatonic theurgy (Iamblichus, Proclus)The triadic movement of purification, illumination, and union in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy displays cross-tradition congruence with the Iamblichean theurgic schema in which ritual acts mediate the soul's ascent through graduated ontological levels toward the One.
- Vedantic adhikara (graduated qualification)The Dionysian principle that bishop, priest, and deacon each initiate souls at the level appropriate to their spiritual development shows cross-tradition congruence with the Vedantic doctrine of adhikara, in which teachers transmit knowledge only at the degree the student can receive.
- Kabbalistic Seder hishtalshelut (chain of emanation)The Dionysian earthly hierarchy as a mirror of the heavenly hierarchy — each lower rank receiving and transmitting light from the rank above — shows cross-tradition congruence with the Kabbalistic chain of worlds in which each olam reflects and steps down the divine influx from Ein Sof.
- 1Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput I — I. What is the tradition of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Opens with the relation of the earthly hierarchy to the celestial: the earthly imitates the heavenly. The transmitted tradition; the role of Hierotheus, the master Dionysius credits as his teacher; the threefold work of every hierarchy (purification, illumination, perfection).
1,648 words - 2Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput II — II. Mystery (rite) of Illumination — baptism
The first sacramental rite expounded: Photismós — Illumination, i.e., Baptism. The catechumenate, the renunciations, the threefold immersion, the chrism. Each gesture of the rite read as bearing its hidden theological signification.
3,114 words - 3Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput III — III. Mystery (rite) of the Synaxis — Eucharist
The second rite: Synaxis — the assembly that is the Eucharist. Dionysius's mystical exposition of the eucharistic liturgy known to him — the procession, the incensation, the kiss of peace, the readings, the fraction, the communion. The central mystery of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
5,233 words - 4Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput IV — IV. Mystery (rite) of the Holy Myron (consecration of chrism)
The third rite: the consecration of the Holy Myron — the sacred chrism. The aromatic oils blended, consecrated, applied; the mystical signification of the perfume that fills the church; the myron as bearer of the divine fragrance through all the sacramental life.
2,913 words - 5Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput V — V. Sacred orders: hierarchs, priests, deacons
The threefold rank of the clerical hierarchy: Hierarchs (bishops), Priests, Deacons. Each rank corresponds in office (perfection, illumination, purification) to one of the triads of the celestial hierarchy. The chapter that lays down the doctrinal foundation of the threefold ordained ministry.
3,378 words - 6Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput VI — VI. The orders of those being perfected: monks, lay-faithful, catechumens
The threefold rank of those being perfected: monks (the perfected lay-state), the lay-faithful (in the middle), the orders being purified (catechumens, energumens, penitents). Symmetrical to the threefold ordained hierarchy: nine ranks in total, three by three.
1,690 words - 7Ecclesiastical Hierarchy — Caput VII — VII. The rite at the falling-asleep — funeral liturgy
The funeral rite for one who has fallen asleep in the faith. Dionysius reads the prayers, the kissing of the deceased, the anointing, the burial — the closing rite of the ecclesiastical hierarchy as the sacramental accompaniment of the soul's passing to its eternal hierarchy above.
4,126 words
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