On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

we are judged, and it is true, that we have not made mention of all the things which are found in the Holy Scriptures said about the angels; we answer that which is the case, that some of the things which we have omitted surpass our comprehension, and we do not even have knowledge of them, but rather have need of another teacher to learn them; whereas other things are equivalent to those already recounted, and for this reason we have omitted them, that we might keep the measure of our discourse, and honor with silence that secret which escapes our comprehension and knowledge.

OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, AMONG THE SAINTS, CONCERNING THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY

CHAPTER I.

TO SYMPRESBYTER TIMOTHEUS, DIONYSIUS THE PRESBYTER.

What is the tradition of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and what is its purpose.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

1. Describing the ecclesiastical hierarchy, he admonishes that the sacred mysteries of the Christian religion should not be revealed to the profane, but are to be explained to the baptized, according to the capacity and measure of each, as clearly as can be done by those to whom, in the Church, the office both of teaching and administering the sacraments has been entrusted, who in this world imitate the angels. II. Since in the prior book he described the angelic hierarchy, he says that our hierarchy agrees with it in that the inferior are instructed by the superior toward perfection and are led to God: but they differ in this, that they are illuminated in a more simple and spiritual manner; but we, since we consist of soul and body, and cannot immediately attend to spiritual things, are raised up to spiritual contemplations through sensible images and figures, whence we also participate in God unequally. III. He defines what hierarchy is in general, and what this our hierarchy is, namely that it is the dispensation of all sacred things, the principle of which is the Most Holy Trinity: the end, union with God. IV. But, that God has provided for each hierarchy a manner suitable to us as well as to the angels, to them indeed a more spiritual one, to us however a more material one; since its substance is Scriptures and traditions, which propose to us sacred things in symbols and figures. V. He shows why our sacraments of the hierarchy are delivered under sensible symbols; because, forsooth, this is more suitable to our condition, and contributes to the veneration of sacred things, lest they be contemned by the profane.

§ I.

That our hierarchy, O most sacred of holy sons, is a function of the knowledge, and operation, and perfection that is divinely implanted and deifying, derived from the

supermundane and most sacred oracles, must be shown to those who have been initiated into this duty by hierarchical mysteries and traditions. But take heed ^A that you do not profane the Holy of Holies; rather, revere the hidden things of God, and honor them with mental and invisible knowledge, keeping them inaccessible and untouchable to the uninitiated, while communicating sacred things to the holy alone, with a certain holy clarity, as is right. For so has theology handed down to us who are its devotees, and Jesus himself (the most archetypal Mind, and superessential, the principle and essence of all hierarchy, and of holiness, and of deification, and the most archetypal power) shines upon these blessed natures—which are much more excellent than we—both more clearly and more intellectually, and He fashions them ^B toward His own light, as far as possible. And to our love that is stretched toward Him—and which stretches us—He gathers together the many differences, and perfecting them into a uniform and divine life, and habit, and operation, He grants the power of the divine priesthood. By this power, as we draw near to the holy function of the priesthood, we ourselves become closer to those natures that are above us, through an imitation, as far as possible, of the stability and firmness of their own holy state. And thus, looking up to the blessed and archetypal light of Jesus, and contemplating it with a holy rite—insofar as it is lawful to behold it—and being illuminated by the knowledge of the visions, according to the mystical science, we shall be able to become consecrated and consecrating, light-formed and deifying, perfected and perfectors.

§ II. As for what the hierarchy of angels and archangels ^C is, and of the supermundane principalities and powers, and virtues and dominations, and the divine thrones or the natures equal to the thrones—which theology hands down as being closely and always near to God and with God, calling them by the Hebrew name Cherubim and Seraphim—if you examine what has been written by us concerning the holy orders and distinctions of those blessed minds, you will find that, in these, we have celebrated their holy order, not indeed according to their desert, but according to our strength, and as the theology of the most sacred Scriptures ^D has explained it. Yet it is necessary to say this: that that hierarchy, and every holy order which is now celebrated by us, has one and the same power throughout the whole of its hierarchical administration, that the hierarch himself, according to the reason of his state, and dignity, and order, may be initiated into divine things and united to God, and may impart to those under him, according to the dignity of each, the holy deification that arises in him from God.

^A. Thus, just as those who are subordinate follow their superiors, so too do they also promote those below them toward what lies ahead; those who have already advanced may, according to their ability, provide leadership to others, and through this divine and hierarchical harmony, each, according to his capacity, truly becomes a participant in the essentially beautiful, wise, and good ^B.

As for the higher natures and orders, of which I have already made a holy mention, they are incorporeal, and their hierarchy is intellectual and supermundane; but our own hierarchy we see being multiplied, proportional to us, by a variety of sensible symbols 80, through which we are hierarchically led upward to the uniform divinization in the measure of our capacity, and to God and divine virtue. They, as minds, understand according to what is permitted to them; we, however, are led upward as far as possible by sensible images to divine contemplations. ^C And to speak truly, there is one thing which all who are deiform desire, yet they are not participants in that which is absolutely one and the same in a uniform manner, but as the divine balance distributes the portion to each according to merit.

But these matters have been discussed more exhaustively in the treatise concerning the intelligible and the sensible; now, however, I shall attempt to speak, as far as possible, concerning our hierarchy, its origin and essence, invoking Jesus, the beginning and the consummation of all hierarchies. ^D § III.

Every hierarchy according to our holy tradition 82 is the total order of the sacred things subjected to it, or the most universal summary of those things belonging to this or that hierarchy. Our own hierarchy, then, is called and is the comprehensive practice of all the sacred things within it, through which the divine hierarch, being initiated, possesses the participation of all the most sacred things pertaining to him, as he is the namesake of the hierarchy. For just as he who names "hierarchy" has signified the entire sacred arrangement collectively; so too he who says "hierarch" signifies that divinely inspired and divine man, who is knowledgeable in all sacred wisdom, in whom all the hierarchy pertaining to him is clearly perfected and known. The beginning of this hierarchy is the Fount of Life, the Essence of Goodness, the one Cause of all things, the Trinity, from which both being and well-being come to existing things through goodness. And to this blessedness which is superessential to all, the Trinity that truly is, in a way indeed incomprehensible to us but most known to Itself, the rational salvation of those who are under us 84 and who are above us is a matter of will; but it cannot come to pass in any other way, unless

they be deified. Moreover, this deification is a certain assimilation and union to God, as far as is possible. The common goal of every sacred order is the continuous love of God and divine things, which is divinely implanted and furthered by union with Him. Prior to this is the total and irrevocable flight from things contrary to God, the knowledge of things as they truly are, the vision and science of sacred truth, the divine participation in the simple perfection of Him who is supremely simple, and the enjoyment of that contemplation which spiritually nourishes and deifies everyone who aspires toward it.

§ IV.

We say, therefore, that the principal blessedness of God, which is the Godhead by nature, is the principle of deification, from which those who are to be deified receive their deification through divine goodness, which has granted the sacred order for the salvation and deification of all rational and intellectual essences. ^B And to those dwelling above in blessed repose, it has imparted this in a more immaterial and intellectual way (for God does not move them toward divine things from without, but by an intelligible reason, and from within, by irradiating their most divine will with a pure and liquid illumination). To us, however, that which was granted to them simply and collectively has been bestowed, according to our capacity, through divinely transmitted oracles, by means of a variety and multitude of divisible symbols. For the substance of our hierarchy consists of the divinely transmitted oracles.

We call those oracles most venerable which have been delivered to us in holy Scriptures and theological books by our inspired initiators; and indeed, those which our ^C masters have been taught by the same holy men through a more subtle intuition, already akin to the heavenly hierarchy, passing from mind to mind through the medium of the word—though bodily, yet immaterially—without being committed to writing. Nor did these divinely inspired leaders of our sacred order pass on these monuments for the common good of the sacred order in open intellects, but transmitted them in certain sacred symbols; for not every priest, nor is the knowledge of all things, as the oracles say, for everyone.

§ V.

Necessarily, therefore, the first leaders of our sacred order, being filled with the sacred gift from the supersubstantial Godhead, and sent by the divine goodness to transmit that same gift to those who come after, ^D and because they themselves, as divine men, intensely desired the advancement and deification of those who follow them, fashioned the supercelestial things by means of sensible images, and the things collected in unity by means of variety and distinction and multitude; and likewise the divine things by means of human, and the immaterial by means of material, and the supersubstantial things by means of things of our own order, transmitting them in the most sacred oracles through both written and unwritten instructions, according to the sacred institutions given to us.

^A And not merely on account of the non-initiated, to whom it is not even permitted to touch the symbols, but because, as I said, our hierarchy is symbolic and, in a manner proportioned to us, has need of sensible signs for our more divine leading up from them to the intelligible. Yet, the reasons for these symbols are manifest to the divine initiators, whom it is not permitted to bring forth to those who are still being perfected, knowing as they do that the legislators of sacred things have ordained the hierarchy with stable and undistorted orders of ministries, and with sacred distributions proportioned to the merit of each as is fitting. Wherefore, ^B being persuaded by your own sacred professions (for to recall them is holy), that you will not communicate any hierarchical sacred discourse that is set above all to another, except to those who are like-minded with you, the God-like initiators; and that you will persuade them to confess, according to the hierarchical law, that they touch what is pure in a pure manner, and that they communicate only in divine things to the holy, and in those that perfect the perfect, and in the most holy things to the saints, and in other hierarchical matters—to you, too, have I transmitted this divine gift.

Annotations of Corderius

§ 1. Note first those sublime formulas of speech by which he describes our hierarchy or sacred order, saying it is *the entheou*, that is, of God-implanted or in-breathed, and *theias*, divine, and *theourgikes*, deifying (since through the sacraments, which are functions of the order, we are made partakers of the divine nature, through the medium of the sanctifying grace which they confer), *epistemes*, scientific, and *epiphoeseos* (for it must be translated as 'afflation' rather than 'operation,' since the sacred orders are conferred through the insufflation and donation of the Holy Spirit—hence they are called *energoumenoi*, those who are moved by some spirit, whether for good, as happens in the orders when the Holy Spirit is received, who as the principal agent operates sanctification through the priests conferring the sacraments; or for evil, as happens in the possessed, who are agitated by a demon, and in whom the demon acts rather than they themselves) and *teleioseos*, perfection or consecration, and so on. See above in the general observations the first, second, and third.

Note second also, what divine and sublime names he gives to Christ, saying: *Iesous ho thearchikotatos nous*, Jesus the divinity-transcending, or most divine and superessential or supernatural mind; for He far surpasses the dignity of all divinity and substance or nature conceivable by us: *Arche*, the beginning and essence of all sacred, holy order and of the divine function, and most divine power. For Christ, being God-man, is the author and head of the Church, and the institutor of the sacraments, into which He infused the power of sanctifying, and in which, as the principal agent, He himself operates, as theologians teach with St. Thomas, Part III, quest. 64, art. 2. For the institution of the sacraments pertains to the office of the Priesthood of Christ, who as both God and man operates the interior effect of the sacrament; as God, indeed, by the power of authority; but as man, by the power of excellent ministry. The power of authority is that which is entirely independent and belongs to God alone: but the power of excellence consists in this, that Christ, for instance, could first institute the sacraments; second, that by His merits He conferred all their power upon them; third, that in His name the sacraments are consecrated and called Christ’s, and the ministers only act in His place; fourth, that even without the sacraments He could confer grace. See more in the divine Thomas, cited above, art. 3.

Note third, how beautifully he describes the virtue of the sacrament of order, saying: *Quin et intento in eum amori nostro frequentes admiscet varietates*, in Greek *heterotetas*, that is, diversities: for we are not sanctified in a simple way like the angels, but through various ceremonies and rites of the sacraments, which are conferred under signs and symbols. And he adds that, besides the sanctifying grace, a certain habitual virtue of the sacrament of order is conferred upon priests, by which they are disposed to administer the sacraments holily. Hence is confirmed the opinion of theologians in Part III, q. 62, art. 2, who teach that, besides habitual grace and virtues and gifts, individual sacraments confer a certain special help, ordained to obtain the proper end of that sacrament, so that, for example, baptism, besides the habitual gifts of grace, confers also a special help to preserve the new life, and to receive other sacraments properly; confirmation to profess the faith; the eucharist to grow in charity; order to perform the sacraments, or to properly discharge the functions of each order, and so of the others. For since the sacraments are ordained toward various effects and functions, they also confer diverse helps toward those effects.

§ 2. Note, from what he says: "one seeks one thing, yet it is not in the same way to all parts," it is clear that every difference of participation exists from the difference of the participants, and

^A that they become large or small participations due to the different capacity of those participating, as he taught above in the ninth chapter of the *Celestial Hierarchy*, and again below in chapter 2 of *The Divine Names*.

Note the description of the beginning and end of our hierarchy, which, he says, is the Blessed Trinity, who is the fountain of life, both natural and spiritual, and the essence of goodness; for His essence is uncreated goodness, which provides essence to created goodness—it is the one cause of all things, namely, the efficient, final, and exemplary cause, from which, through the redundancy of goodness—because it is not good only for itself, but communicates its goodness to all—it imparts both being and well-being to things. Now to this divinity-transcending blessedness: for God infinitely surpasses all things, as that to which nothing is similar or equal. It is called blessedness because it consists in the enjoyment of Him. ^B 159 To the Triune Unity and individual Trinity, truly existing—being from Himself and not from another, in a way indeed incomprehensible to us because He exceeds the reach of every creature, though most known to Himself as He who alone knows Himself adequately—the salvation of the rational creature is in His desires, both ours and those of the heavenly minds, for as far as it depends on Him, He desires all to be saved; nevertheless, this salvation can only reach those who are saved if they are already deified. For unless one is born again, one cannot see the kingdom of God. This deification, which takes place through sanctifying grace, is a certain assimilation and union with God, insofar as this is possible, since it is a certain participation in divinity, according to that word: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God." Moreover, the scope common to every sacred order is love toward God and divine things, which is divinely inscribed and consummated through His union; in Greek it is ἱεροπρεπῶς τε καὶ ἑνωτικῶς ἱερουργουμένη, "divinely and unitively performed." For the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And whatever is prior to this is the total and irrevocable flight from those things that oppose it, according to the word: "Fear God, and depart from evil." The knowledge of things as they are—namely, the ideas in which the blessed see many things as God reveals them, and know them in their quiddity. The vision and science of holy truth, which is God, who is the primary truth. The divine participation of the simple perfection, which includes every perfection and excludes every imperfection, of Him who is supremely simple, that is, God. In Greek it is, ^C ἡ τῆς ἐνοειδοῦς τελειώσεως ἔνθεος μέθεξις, αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἑνὸς ὡς ἐφικτόν, that is, the divine participation in uniform perfection of Him who, as far as possible, is one. I have preferred in the version to use terms already customary in theology, calling that uniform perfection in God "simple perfection," as theologians commonly call it now. The enjoyment of intuition, or intuitive enjoyment, in which formal blessedness consists, which refreshes every one of its contemplators in a spiritual way and deifies them.

§ IV. "We say, therefore, the principal blessedness of God, etc." Where note that God is the supreme principle and head both of our hierarchy and the angelic one. Whence Saint Thomas in Part 1, Question 103, Article 1, teaches that, on the part of the principle, namely the one God, all angels and rational creatures belong to one hierarchy; but on the part of the ordered multitude, they exist separately, namely one of men and three of angels. However, it is manifest that humans perceive divine illuminations in a different way than angels: for angels perceive them with intelligible purity, while humans perceive them under the similitude of sensible things, as was declared in chapter 1 of the *Celestial Hierarchy*; and therefore it is necessary that the human hierarchy be distinguished from the angelic. As to why and how the angelic hierarchies are distinguished, it was said in the previous book, especially in chapters 6 and following.

Furthermore, whether after the day of judgment there will be another hierarchy of men in heaven distinct from the angelic, theologians debate; but the Divine Thomas, in *Sentences*, dist. 9, q. 1, art. 1, proves beautifully from Saint Dionysius that men are to be gathered into the angelic orders in the homeland. For just as he says our hierarchy—or Church—is related to the celestial, so the hierarchy of the old law is related to ours. Whence, just as the old hierarchy was a path to ours and signified it, and for this reason, when the new arrived, the old was assumed into it and into its orders; so too our hierarchy is a path to the celestial and a sign of it: wherefore in the homeland there will not be another hierarchy of men and angels, but one and the same, and men will be distributed into the orders of angels (21).

Ibidem: "The substance of our hierarchy are the divinely transmitted oracles, etc." From this is derived a beautiful and irrefragable argument against the heretics of our time, who derogate much from ecclesiastical traditions, while they refuse to believe in them unless they are expressed in the Scriptures, contendingly and ignorantly: that Scripture alone is the true norm of faith and morals; when yet St. Dionysius, the disciple of Paul and a contemporary and companion of the apostles, here expressly teaches that apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, which are not written, are of the same authority as the written word of God, and that the Church must be directed by them, no less than through the Scriptures, since they pertain equally to the substance of our hierarchy; indeed, that traditions are in a certain way more noble, as being more spiritual and more conformable to the regime of the celestial hierarchies. See Bellarmine, tom. 1, on these things.

When he says that our hierarchy is conveniently led to God by sensible symbols; he confirms the appropriateness of the institution of the sacraments. For although God could have instituted spiritual signs, e.g., an act of the mind or a movement of the will, to sanctify men, so that sanctification might be conferred upon a man piously thinking or believing through such an act, yet another way is more convenient to the nature of humans, that they be led from sensible things to the knowledge of spiritual realities. Hence the principal reason for the institution of the sacraments seems to have been that it is difficult for man to attend to spiritual things and to dispose himself perfectly for grace, and to perform supernatural works, and to merit eternal life; whence it was necessary to assist him with certain 160 external ceremonies and remedies, by which, without great labor, he might obtain grace *ex opere operato*; otherwise, very few would have been saved. Since therefore all our justice and sanctification depend on the merits of Christ, who has been made for us wisdom, justice, and sanctification, it was necessary that those merits be applied to us in a certain sure way: but they could not be applied more conveniently than through external elements and sacred ceremonies, which at once might signify to us the passion and mysteries of Christ, as the sacraments do; wherefore Christ instituted them, that His own merit might be applied to us, and He assigned to the sacraments themselves a certain measure of His merits, which are thus applied to us through the sacraments as if they were our own, such that the Apostle says we put on Christ through baptism. But with this application of merits made, by the pact of God and the institution of Christ, grace is conferred upon us divinely: whence the sacraments are a cause of grace, not as naked signs, upon whose exhibition God confers grace, but as things containing and applying to us the price of the blood of Christ as effectively as if that merit or price were our own; and just as money contains the price of a thing, so they contain the price of grace.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (22)

After the celestial hierarchy, he treats also of our own hierarchy, which he does not call earthly; for although it is administered on earth, its scope and end are celestial, since it leads man to the imitation of God, no ^A less than that entity leads the divine and celestial powers. For to purify, to illuminate, and to perfect belongs primarily and properly to God; secondarily, to the angels; and in a third respect, to men themselves. For these are the three operations of the hierarchy. While these are performed among the superior essences—even if they are mysteries, as the most sublime works of God—nevertheless, they are not mysteries in relation to one another; for all are holy and initiated by the grace of God, even if one excels another according to the measure ^B of the order or the power that exists there. But those things which are performed among us are called mysteries, for not all are pure, nor are they all initiated. Hence, while among the former all of these things exist—even if they are purified, illuminated, and perfected by parts—among us, they do not exist for all, but for some, just as God says through the prophet: *My mystery is for me and for my own* (Isa. xxiv, 16), calling his own, certainly, the priests or the initiated.

He therefore sets forth the doctrine of the proposed chapters in a twofold manner. First, he explains how the mystery of the chapter is performed, and afterwards he delivers this through a certain contemplation. For example, there is an exposition of the mystery of illumination, then its contemplation follows; similarly, an exposition of the mystery of synaxis, then its contemplation. For since we also are twofold, visible according to the body and intelligible according to the soul, our hierarchy is also twofold: sensible, through the symbols which are presented; and intelligible, through contemplation. ^C Contemplation is the immediate application of the mind, stripped of the senses, to those things which are proposed. Thus, the symbols of such a hierarchy are mysteries to those who are strangers to the Church and uninitiated; but contemplation, as the highest knowledge and that which has need of faith, might also be called a mystery, just as the Apostle says: *I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed* (I Cor. xv, 51). Yet, he calls only the symbols mysteries with regard to the uninitiated, as has been said; but he calls their anagoges "contemplations," since they guide the mind to contemplate the things themselves as they are, even if they are indicated ^D otherwise through symbols. For he who has been initiated and has entered within the holy tabernacle ought, with an unveiled face, to contemplate the things of the faith with faith.

§ 1. That our hierarchy, although it is called "our" hierarchy, is nonetheless also divine in itself, no less as

the celestial hierarchy, and is ^A in-breathed by God, according to the participation of those divine things, and according to that sacred science and operation, making its participants divine and perfecting them, must be demonstrated from the most sacred Scriptures; not, however, to all men, but only to those who, through the apostolic traditions, have been deemed worthy of such mystic instruction. But you, O holy son, observe, whether according to the new custom or according to the order of teaching (for teachers are fathers), that you do not ridiculously and irreverently manifest such mysteries to the uninitiated, who would make a mockery of divine and mystical things; but honor them, as is right, with silence. And if at any time there should be need to communicate such things, do not share them with the unrefined; but with the holy, and that in a sacred manner and with sacred illumination, by no means lingering upon the types, but illustrating the things that cannot be seen: for so they were handed down even to us who have turned to divine things, or who celebrate the divine ^B together as colleagues. And even God himself, who is Mind, transcending that divinity, who exists as the cause of all holiness and divine operation (since hierarchy is science and operation; it refers holiness to science, but divine operation to efficacy or action), shines more manifestly and more intelligibly upon the celestial powers (for we also understand, but not as they do), which he also informs according to his own light, so that they, in turn, may illuminate others, according to the power of their spiritual and intellectual natures, but not according to the power of God himself; for God is of infinite power. He also reduces our many variations, and the multiform cares of carnal desires which the Lord forbids, to a uniform and divine life, so ^C that we should seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice. That state, by which the soul is thus disposed, he called a sacred habit, which is most of all suitable to the priests. Therefore, receiving power from him, we advance to the function of hierarchy: and in this way we approach the holy angels, and by their help looking up to the divine light, and thence being illuminated by the science of the knowledge of the spectacles (for he calls doctrines concerning God "spectacles," which do not come from the mere hearing of words, or the pronunciation of sacred doctrines), we shall be able to become, as ^D those who have experienced the beautiful things therein, consecrated—that is, pure, and light-formed, and perfect; and indeed, as those who possess this same habit, and are capable of communicating the same to others, we become consecrators, and workers of light—that is, illuminators, and perfecters; for these are the three parts of the hierarchy.

§ 11. Since this discourse acknowledges two hierarchies, according to the participation in the most divine essence of all the hierarchy of God, the Father wishes here to declare what is common to them and what is proper, wherefore he says: What the celestial hierarchy is, you will find elsewhere, where, though not according to its dignity, yet according to our manly effort, it has been discussed; in which Treatise we say this one thing is worth noting, that while in

^A the book of the *Celestial Hierarchy* we said that among those, the order of the Thrones is more sublime than the others. But it should be weighed from these instances whether we ought rightly to have asserted this order to be more sublime, and not that of the Seraphim; for here, beginning from the lowest dispensations, he ended at the Seraphim. But, however that may be, let that which is more ancient prevail. Nevertheless, the holy man says this much, establishing what is common to every hierarchy, that every hierarchy has one power. It defines, therefore, the hierarchy, partly according to its own nature—for the perfection of an angel is one thing, and that of a man another—and partly according to the proportion and order proper to each; for in heavenly things, the brightness of the superior order is one, and that of the inferior is another; and in earthly things, the order of bishops is one, and that of presbyters another. That the hierarch should therefore be brought to perfection ^B and communicate to those beneath him the illumination granted to him from God, and again that those beneath should follow those who are superior, and be leaders of those who are lesser—this is the power common to every hierarchy. It is not, however, the case that every hierarchy is not also unique, in that the heavenly one is of incorporeal and intelligible beings toward us (for even they are intellectual toward God), and for this reason their hierarchy also is intelligible and supramundane; but ours, through sensible symbols—namely baptism, the *synaxis*, communion, and the rest—is varied and multiplied. For in as much as anyone is led toward the one singular [goal], he attains to understanding; and in as much as he proceeds to sensible things, he is multiplied by the sensible things that he perceives. ^C Again, there is another difference between the two, that they, as minds, understand God and divine virtue, in so far as it is permitted them to understand; but we are led to God from sensible signs, those, I mean, which are consecrated in the Church. And to speak the truth, that which all desire is one; yet for the time being, with regard to the scope of the two hierarchies, all who are "form-like"—that is, those who are united according to an intellectual operation—are uniform. For just as we are united as we are led upward, so also the divine angels are united as they are led toward divine conceptions. For while the object of desire is one, those who desire it are not affected in a uniform way or according to one and the same mode, but each according to his own dignity. But these things have been said elsewhere; now, however, I shall endeavor to set forth our hierarchy, and its cause and essence (which is that most divine power), having invoked the Savior Jesus. ^D

§ III. A hierarchy is, as our venerable tradition sets forth, that which is universally looked upon or spoken of concerning the sacred matters set before us. For by "summing up" he means an inclusion of the whole, just as we call it a "recapitulation" to take up in a few words that which has been said before; for he will possess the knowledge of all those under him—both of the presbyters, and of the deacons, and of the rest—and for this reason he is called a "hierarch," and this is to be considered from the analogy of the hierarchy. As, therefore, this [hierarchy] throughout and in all sacred [matters]...

is spoken of, so he who names a hierarch signifies a man endowed with every sacred knowledge, in whom the hierarchy which is in him is clearly recognized. For unless he himself were thoroughly and in all things expert, neither would the knowledge of the hierarchy itself be operative. Let no one, therefore, say: "And who is so perfect?" For the Father did not propose to speak of this or that hierarch, but of the hierarch simply, who ought to possess his own characteristics without lacking [anything]; just as if one were to speak simply of a grammarian, he would have to recount those things which the perfect grammarian requires, for otherwise grammar would limp if it were not demonstrated what it itself finally is. The beginning of this hierarchy is the holy and blessed Trinity, which truly is, and which alone knows itself, as having the notion of its own existence. ^B Its will, however, is the salvation of rational angels and men; and its [effect] is the deification of those being saved. For just as with other things we say to be saved from fear, that is, to attain security; and to be saved from slaughter, that is, to attain life; and to be saved from disease, that is, to be made whole: so also in the matters proposed, to be saved from alienation from God is to be joined to God, and this is deification. But the all-encompassing assimilation and union with God, which is the terminus and end of all hierarchy, is the love toward God: which also is consummated unitively according to the divine and unique simplicity, according to which God is all-encompassing love (and not for one indeed and not for another, but being one desirable thing, [He] nonetheless possesses the desires toward Himself as diverse according to the merit and zeal of those desiring), and which is prior to this, an all-encompassing withdrawal from opposites. For unless we have been thoroughly cleansed from every material and utterly sordid pleasure, the love of the truly Good will not be in us. But when we have departed from opposites, then we will know things themselves as they are by nature; namely, that these present things are temporary, but those that are there are eternal, nor will we be deceived about the appearance of the good; since that is not the knowledge of things as they are; for then we approach the Truth itself, and participate in uniform perfection. Furthermore, what is uniformness? It is when, clearly, we are led from these ^C sensible and laborious things to the divine simplicity, which is the food of the blessed vision, as it nourishes the mind by the thing intellectually apprehended, as we have said elsewhere. And this is that divine and supermundane table in the Gospels.

§ IV. We say, therefore, that God gave the hierarchy for the salvation and deification of those who participate in it, and to the angels indeed in a more spiritual way and one more removed from matter, but to us through symbols; for men derive true knowledge externally from the contemplation of creation, and from doctrinal words, and other symbols or signs; but the angels are illuminated from within according to their own spiritual power, and are marked by the divine will, that is, they are formed into the imitation of the divine, and into the notion of things as they are. For since the one who understands is [one thing] and that which is understood is [another], and food and a quasi-sustenance ^D of the one who understands is that which is understood, God, properly [so to speak], since cont.〗

^A when their minds are incorporeal, He Himself, as the Intelligent One, and as far as they are capable of receiving, becomes intelligible [to them] and illuminates them from within. What they possess, therefore, in a unified and compact manner, as immaterial beings, we receive under a multitude of divided symbols. And he calls the multiform doctrines of the Scriptures "divided symbols." If, therefore—as we said before—God is the essence of every hierarchy, yet the essence strictly and proximately belonging to our own are the oracles delivered by God, and more especially the most venerable doctrines of the apostles. For what God Himself is to the celestial hierarchy—uniting Himself to it immaterially as far as is possible for them, and bringing it to perfection—the Scriptures are to our hierarchy, through which we are led up to the divine simplicity. And likewise those traditions which, by an institution more removed from matter, through the instinct of the Holy Spirit, the apostles handed down mystically—handing down the knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures ^B to others, by word indeed, because they spoke through corporeal instruments, yet more immaterially, because it was by word alone and not in writing. They did not hand these things down in uncovered perceptions, but in certain sacred symbols, which are indeed celebrated in the holy Church, containing a meaning more sublime and more divine than what is apparent. This they have done, and they have not revealed the mysteries to all, because not everyone is holy, nor is the knowledge possessed by all: "For to you," says the Lord to the apostles and to the holy ones after them, "it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God." 166

§ V. Therefore, the holy apostles, themselves filled with the divine gift (for they were deified by their love for Him), and sent by the Goodness Itself to others—already having become gods themselves—not envying those who came after them such deification (for envy is alien to God ^C), understandably handed down to us the intelligible in terms of the sensible, the immaterial in terms of the material, and the divine in terms of human things, both in writing and unwritten; and this not only for the sake of the unholy (for what is common to us and to them, who are not even considered worthy of the bare symbols?), but also for another reason: namely, that the hierarchy is administered in a way suitable to us, who live by sense and have senses. For it is not possible for those who live by sense to encounter the divine realities in their naked form and to be intellectually united to them; for this reason we have been ordained to be initiated through symbols. ^D However, the reasons for these symbols are not revealed and known to all, but to the holy men to whom it is not permitted to divulge them to those who are still catechumens, knowing that they have properly ordained the hierarchy itself to our capacity, according to the stable and undistorted celestial order, in a manner proportioned to each. Wherefore, being persuaded by your own professions that you will not pass it on to another, except to those who are holy like yourself; and that you will also secure them to be such regarding divine things as you yourself promise to be regarding these—for this reason I pass on this gift to you.

CHAPTER II. I. Regarding those things which are brought to pass in illumination or baptism.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

We have said, then, in a holy way, that this is the purpose of our hierarchy: ^A to be assimilated and united, as far as potential allows, to our God. And we shall attain this, as the divine oracles teach, only by the love of the most venerable commandments and by sacred ministries. For “He who loves me,” He says, “will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will make our dwelling with him.” 1 What, then, is the beginning of the most holy observance of the most august commandments? It is that which most expeditiously fashions our psychic dispositions for the reception of other sacred discourses and ministries, and which paves for us the way to the enjoyment of supercelestial rest—the tradition, I say, of our most holy and most divine regeneration. For, as our renowned Preceptor says, the first movement of the mind toward things divine is the love of God; and the first progress of this holy love, in the most holy observance of the divine precepts, is the most ineffable creation of our divine state.

For since this divine state is a kind of divine birth, he could never understand, much less perform, anything of the things divinely transmitted, to whom this very state itself has not been divinely imparted. Or is it not true that even for us—to speak in a human manner—existence must first ^B be, and then one must act according to one's own sphere? For that which is in no way existent has neither motion nor substance at all; but that which exists in any way at all acts and suffers only those things which belong to its own nature and state. And this, I think, is clear.

But let us next contemplate the divine symbols of the divine generation. And let no uninitiated person come to the viewing; for it is neither safe for weak pupils to look upon the sun’s rays directly, nor is it harmless for us to attempt things above us; since that true legal hierarchy rejected Uzziah because he encroached upon sacred things ^C of which he was unworthy, and Korah, because he encroached upon sacred things beyond his station, and Nadab and Abihu because they misused their own offices in an unholy manner. 99

II. The Sacrament of Illumination, or Baptism.

^A § I. The hierarch, wishing that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth by assimilation to God, proclaims to all from the true Gospels that God Himself, out of His own natural goodness, has descended in supreme philanthropy to us who are earth-born, in order that by union with Himself He might, as fire does, conform what is united to Him to His own likeness, according to their capacity for deification. For "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

^B § II. Whoever desires truly to partake of these supra-mundane gifts and approaches one of those initiated into the mysteries, asks to be led by him to the hierarch, and promises to obey all the sacred requirements completely, and begs him not to refuse to take charge of both his admission and his whole life thereafter. Then, as for this man, who is indeed holy in his desire for salvation, but who balances the height of the matter against human frailty, a sudden horror and perplexity surround him; nevertheless, he finally consents benevolently to fulfill his request and, taking him, leads him to the one who bears the name of the hierarchy.

^C § III. He, with joy, receiving the two men as if he were carrying a sheep upon his shoulders, first gives praise and hymns, by means of intellectual thanksgiving and bodily worship, to the one Good-working Principle by whom those things which are called are called, and those things which are saved are saved.

§ IV. Then, assembling the entire sacred order into the sacred place, both to cooperate in and rejoice together at the man's salvation, and to give thanks to the divine goodness, he begins by chanting a certain hymn from the Scriptures together with the entire clergy of the Church; and after this, having kissed the sacred table,1 he approaches the man who is present and inquires what it is he seeks.

^D § V. And when he has in a God-beloved manner given his testimony, according to the instruction of the sponsor, regarding his former ungodliness, his ignorance of the true good,

^A and his desire through His holy intercession to attain to God and to divine things, the hierarch bears witness to him of the total turning that is required to be made toward the God who is all-perfect and immaculate. And having set forth for him the rule of divine living, and having asked if he will live according to it, upon his assent, he imposes his hand upon his head, and having signed him, he commands the priests to register the man and the sponsor.

When they have been registered, he offers a holy prayer. And when the whole Church has completed this with him, he unbinds him and strips him through the ministers. Then, placing him looking toward the west, ^B and thrusting his hands out in the opposite direction toward that quarter, he commands him to blow three times at Satan, and furthermore to confess the words of renunciation. And having provided him with the solemn words of renunciation three times, and he having pronounced them as many times in the prescribed words, he transfers him to the east, and commands him, looking toward heaven and uplifting his hands, to assent to Christ and to all the divinely-transmitted oracles.

§ VI. ^C And when he has done this, he again bears witness to him three times of the profession; and having himself confessed three times, he prays over him, blesses him, and lays his hand upon him. And while the ministers strip him completely, the priests bring the holy oil of unction. And the Pontiff, beginning the unction with a triple sign, entrusts the man to the priests to be anointed over his whole body; but he himself goes to the mother of adoption (that is to say, the font). And after he has sanctified its waters with holy invocations, ^D and has consecrated it with three cruciform pourings of the most sacred ointment, and with as many applications of the holy ointment while chanting the hymn of the divinely-inspired prophets, he commands the man to be brought. And a priest having proclaimed from the register both him and the sponsor, he who is to be initiated is led by the hands of the priests into the water to the hand of the pontiff. Standing above, as the priests declare the name of the candidate according to the waters toward the pontiff, he immerses him three times, invoking over this threefold immersion and emersion the three Persons of the divine blessedness. Then the other priests, receiving him, entrust him to the sponsor and guide of his admission; and when, together with him, they have clothed the initiated one in a suitable garment, they lead him back to the pontiff. And he, signing the man with the divinely-wrought ointment, declares him at last to be a participant of the most holy Eucharist.

^A Having accomplished these things, he is moved from the progression toward the second stage, again being drawn upward to the contemplation of the primary realities, so that at no time or in any manner does he busy himself with anything foreign to his proper state, but is always and perpetually being transformed from divine things to divine things by the leadings of the divine Spirit.

III. Contemplation

[§ I.] This initiation into divine generation in sacred symbols contains nothing indecorous or profane, nor even sensible figures, but rather—in a manner worthy of God—it depicts the enigmas of contemplation within natural mirrors adapted to the capacity of human beings. For what could be seen to be lacking in it, given that even the rationale of the mysteries is suppressed in a more divine silence, when by divine institution it sufficiently proves the holiness of life of the one approaching, and through a life upright and divine, announces to him more corporally, by the natural purification of water, the cleansing of all evil together? So that, even if the symbolic tradition of the initiations had nothing more divine than this, it would not, in my opinion, be devoid of sanctity, since it both introduces the discipline of living rightly and naturally suggests, by the total cleansing of the body with water, the complete purification of a life previously spent in vice.

[§ II.] Yet let this be an introductory spiritual guidance for the uninitiated, distinguishing—as is right—the sacred and unifying sacraments from the promiscuous multitude and adjusting the harmonious ascent to the individual orders. We, however, having looked upward by sacred ascents toward the principles of the sacraments, and having been sacredly initiated into them, shall perceive what essences these types are, and of what hidden realities they are the images. For as it has been clearly set forth in the treatise *On Intelligible and Sensible Things*, the sensible sacraments are likenesses of the intelligibles, to which they provide a guiding hand and pave the way; while the intelligibles are the principle and knowledge of the sensible sacraments.

[§ III.] We say, therefore, that the goodness of the divine beatitude, always existing in the same way and after the same manner, has abundantly expanded the beneficent rays of its own light unto all mental eyes. And so, if the free will of those endowed with a spontaneous mind—

^A having closed itself through love of evil against the powers naturally implanted in it for receiving illumination—is cut off from the light which is present to it, the light does not withdraw, but shines upon it even while it winks, and encounters it with goodness as it turns away. Or, if one who is endowed with but a moderate faculty of vision should overleap the limits and rashly dare to gaze upon rays that transcend its own sight, the light will indeed do nothing alien to its own nature; but the individual, by applying itself imperfectly to perfect things, will not attain to what is foreign, and will fail of its own purpose through insolently vaunting its own mediocrity. Nevertheless, as I have said, the divine light is always laid open to the mental eyes in a beneficent manner; and it is always within their power to apprehend it, for it is present and ever most ready for the communication of its own gifts in a manner worthy of God. ^B In imitation of this, the divine hierarch is chosen, who clearly unfolds the lucid rays of divine instruction upon all, and is most ready in a godly manner to illuminate him who approaches him; not using any reproach nor employing any dire imprecation due to a former defection or intemperance, but, following the example of God, he always shines forth pontifically upon those who approach him with his own illuminations, with beauty and order, and according to the capacity of each for holy things.

§ IV.

But since the divine Numen is the principle of holy discipline, ^C whereby holy minds arrive at the knowledge of themselves, whoever has recurred to the light implanted by nature, in the beginning, he himself shall see who he is, and by the accession of this light he shall receive a sacred gift. But he who has rightly considered his own state with unswerving eyes will eliminate the hidden shadows of his own ignorance; yet, being as yet a stranger to the most perfect union and participation of God, he will not of his own accord be attracted by the desire of it, but will gradually be led upwards, first from his own proper self to higher things, and from these to the most high, and, already perfected in order, he will be raised in a holy manner to the principal height of God. ^D The proof of this beautiful and holy order is the modesty of the one who approaches, and the knowledge of the things regarding himself, having found the high priest as the guide of his way and a sponsor. Being thus led, the divine beatitude admits him to the participation of itself, and communicates its own light to him, as a kind of sign, making him intimate to God, and a sharer of the divine gifts, and of the holy order; of which the sacred token is the seal given to the one who approaches by the high priest, and the saving enrollment of the priests, which gathers him among those to be saved, and assigns him, along with his sponsor, to the holy records, as one to be led to the life-giving truth.

^A He is a sincere lover and companion of the divine leader, while the other is a guide who never strays from the divinely delivered instructions which he is to follow.

§ V.

Furthermore, it is not possible to participate in things that are utterly contrary to one another, nor can one who has established any communion with the One have divided lives, if he prefers the stable participation of the One. Rather, he must be exempt and free from all the divisions of uniformity. This is what the delivery of the symbols ^B sacredly hints at, when it strips the one approaching of his former life, as it were, and unclothes him even of his final affections, sets him naked and unshod, looking toward the west. By the rejection of his hands, he renounces communion with dark malice, and, as if exhaling the state of dissimilarity that has come upon him, he makes a total renunciation of things contrary to the deiform state. Having thus become completely exempt and uncommuned, it leads him to the east, announcing that his state and perspective in the divine light will be pure, through the complete flight from malice; and it welcomes his holy professions of total orientation toward the One, having himself become uniform in his affection. But it is clear, I think, to those skilled in hierarchical principles, that it is by constant, intense striving toward the One, and by the total mortification and abolition of contraries, that ^C spiritual things obtain the immutability of the deiform state. For one must not only withdraw from all malice, but also be virginally steadfast and fearless, always resisting that ruinous remission which leads to the very thing one has renounced; nor should one ever cease from the holy love of the truth, but rather, as far as one’s power allows, one must continuously and eternally stretch oneself toward it, always sacredly managing one’s affairs for the more perfect elevation toward the Godhead.

§ VI.

You may see the accurate images of these things in those things which are administered hierarchically. For the deiform high priest begins the holy unction, and the priests under him complete the sacred rite of chrism, ^D calling the initiate to the holy contests, in which he is placed under Christ as the judge of the games. For since He is God, He is the creator of the games; since He is wise, He has laid down the laws for them; and since He is good, He has prepared prizes befitting the victors. And what is more divine still, since He has been good among the combatants, He stands as the sacramental worker for their freedom and vic-

^Dtory; ^A by subduing the empire of death and corruption, he rejoices in the contests, as one who is initiated into divine things, and he will ascend, and he will persist in the ordinances of the wise one, and in accordance with them he will contend inviolably, being firmly supported by the hope of illustrious prizes, being stationed under the Lord and leader who is the good dispenser of the contests. And having embarked upon the divine tracks of the first of the athletes, he will, because of his goodness, by means of God-imitating contests throw down the energies and essences that are contrary to his deification, and he will die together with Christ, to speak mystically, to sin through baptism.

§ VII.

^B And consider with me with understanding how the sacred things involve their own proper signs. For since death among us is not, as it pleases some, the annihilation of the substance, but the separation of the joined parts, taking us away into what is hidden from us, bringing the soul, as if deprived of a perpetual body, into a state of invisibility, and the body, as if hidden in the earth, having fallen into some other of the bodily transmutations, being vanished from the human form; not improperly is this total covering by water accepted as an image of death and of the invisible burial. Therefore, the symbolic discipline leads the one being sacredly baptized in the three immersions in the water to imitate the divine burial of three days and three nights of Jesus the Author of life, insofar as imitation of Him is granted to men, in whom, according to the mystical and secret tradition of the Scripture, the prince of this world found nothing.

§ VIII.

^C Next, they clothe the initiated one in light-like garments: for by the manly and God-like emptying of perverse affections, and by the intention of the soul toward the one, that which lacked ornament is adorned, and that which was deformed is made beautiful, as it shines with a totally illustrious life. Finally, that consummating anointing of the ointment perfumes the one who is initiated with the sweetness of fragrance; for the sacred initiation of divine generation joins those that are initiated to the divine Spirit. But I yield the spiritual and perfecting ^D descent of Him who brings this spiritual sweetness of fragrance, since it is utterly ineffable, to be recognized spiritually by those who are considered worthy, according to their mind, of the holy and deifying communion of the divine Spirit. And in the end of all things, the hierarch calls the initiated one to the most sacred Eucharist, and transmits to him the communion of the mysteries that have the power of perfection.

174 Corderius’ Annotations

^A Note that this chapter, along with those that follow, is divided into three parts: the first of which contains the instruction regarding those things that are treated in the mystery which is explained therein; the second exhibits the rite of the mystery itself; the third, which he calls Contemplation, provides a mystical exposition of the mystery itself and its ceremonies.

Regarding the title, observe that baptism is called *phōtismos*, that is, illumination, the reason for which appellation he renders in the following chapter: *Epeidē prōtou phōtos metadidōsi, kai pasōn estin archē tōn theiōn phōtagōgiōn.* Because, he says, it confers the first light and exists as the principle of all divine illuminations. It is also called illumination, in Heb. vi, 4: *Who were once illuminated.* And in Heb. x, 32: *In which, being illuminated, you sustained a great struggle.* The Fathers also call baptism by many other names, as Nazianzen in his *Oration on Baptism*, and Clement of Alexandria in *Paedagogus* book 1, cap. 6, and others, whom Vasquez cites and explains, vol. II, in III p., disp. 140, cap. 1. Its most powerful names are: The Laver of Regeneration, because man, born corporally, is regenerated by baptism to Christ spiritually through primary grace; the sacrament of faith, because it is truly received to profess the faith; the seal, because it imprints a character distinct from the infidels; anointing, because it anoints the soul with grace; illumination, because it confers the light of faith. Whoever wishes for more, let him see in Vasquez at the place cited above.

Part I. *For when this divine status, etc.* Saint Thomas nicely proves from this passage in IV *Sent.*, distinct. 4, quest. 1, that the baptismal character has the mode of a power, saying: "As in everything existing in any nature there are certain proper operations, so it is also in the spiritual life of the regenerate. But wherever there are proper operations, there must be proper principles for those operations. Whence, just as in other things there are natural powers for proper operations, so also those reborn into spiritual life have certain powers, according to which they can perform those works. Which powers are similar to those virtues by which the sacraments have effectiveness embedded in them: because just as sacraments cause grace instrumentally, so those receiving the character perform divine things through ministry. But the minister is like an instrument of the one to whom he ministers. Whence the philosopher says that a servant is like an animated tool; and therefore the virtue of the sacrament, as much as the minister, as much as the character, is instrumental." And that such a ^B power is a character is evident, if one carefully considers the words of Dionysius, from whom the first tradition of the character came to us. Assigning the ministry of a certain rite that existed in the primitive Church when adults were being baptized, he says, "The Pontiff laid his hand upon him who was approaching baptism, and signed him with the sign of the cross, and commanded him to be inscribed among the names of the Christians, so that from then on he might be admitted to divine things with the others"; and he adds that divine blessedness receives such a one (that is, to spiritual life) into its participation, and he partakes of its own light, like a certain sign, rendering him intimate to God, and a sharer of divine gifts, and of the sacred order; of which the seal given by the high priest to the one approaching is the sacred token, etc. It is clear, indeed, that by this sign he signifies and intends nothing other than that which makes him a participant in divine operations. Whence this sign is nothing other than a certain power for hierarchical actions, which are the administrations and receptions of the sacraments: and of other things belonging to the faithful, for the proper exercise of which operations he needs the habit of grace, just as other powers need habits. See more in the same place in D. Thomas art. 2, where he examines whether the definition which is attributed to Dionysius regarding the character is well assigned, *et seqq.*

Part II, §I. *The high priest of sacred things, etc.* One must note here the distinguished order of justification. For the first step toward conversion is the preaching of the Gospel, since *faith comes by hearing*. For *how will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?* (Rom. x, 14).

§II. Note the most ancient custom of the Church of employing a sponsor in baptism, whom the common people call a godfather or susceptor, so called because he receives him from the hand of the baptizer, as if into his own faith and care, to be educated in faith and morals. But this obligation to instruct him ceases when the baptized person has been once sufficiently instructed. Thus commonly the theologians in III p., quest. 67, art. 7, etc. Observe also here the twelve ceremonies accustomed to be used in baptism.

The first was that by which those to be baptized gave their names, from which they were called *competentes*. For there were two types of catechumens: one group of those who heard exhortations but had not yet requested baptism, and therefore were only called hearers or *audientes*, regarding whom see Cyprian, epist. 17, lib. 1; the other genus was of those who had already requested baptism, and were called *competentes*, and after they were admitted ^C they were called *electi*. Dionysius, however, here §5, does not deal with this inscription of the name, but with that which occurred when they were already being led to baptism itself.

The second ceremony was the scrutiny or examination, of which Dionysius also makes mention here §4, while, namely, the Pontiff approaches the man, and inquires what he has come to request, etc.

The third was the renunciation, of which he treats in §5 and 6. Where note that it was customary for it to be done three times.

The fourth was the profession of faith, of which he treats ibid. §6, in the end, and §7.

The fifth was the sign of the cross impressed on the forehead of the person to be baptized, by laying a hand upon him as he transmits there §7.

The sixth was the exorcism, which Vasquez well notes here is not expressed by Dionysius in §6 by that insufflation which the catechumen himself did, but is understood by the prayer which the Pontiff himself performs. For, as Simeon, Bishop of Thessalonica, says in his book *On the Mysteries of the Church*, explaining the ceremonies of baptism, the second prayer is an exorcism repelling the devil, etc.

The seventh was the anointing, of which he treats ibid. §7.

The eighth was the blessing and consecration of the water, of which he treats ibid. §7.

The ninth was the triple immersion under the invocation of the most holy Trinity, ibid. §7, whence it is confirmed that in the time of Dionysius, and indeed of the apostles, of whom he was a contemporary, baptism was not practiced in the name of Christ alone, as some wish, but that the express invocation of the three divine Persons was always required.

The tenth, the imposition of the white garment, of which §8.

The eleventh, the anointing with chrism, ibid. §8.

The twelfth was that by which the pontiff declared him capable of the Eucharist or even communicated him, ibid. §8. Where observe that, just as manna was given to the Hebrews after the crossing of the Red Sea, now ^D

the Eucharist is given to Christians after sins are already blotted out, so that by baptism we may be cleansed from evil, but by the Eucharist we may be confirmed in good. For just as manna was food for this people in the wilderness, by the virtue of which they arrived at the promised land; so the Eucharist leads the Christian people through the sojourn of the present life to the fatherland of paradise. Whence it is also rightly called a viaticum, because it supplies spiritual strengths, lest we fail on the journey. For just as to the sons of Israel after the crossing of the Red Sea manna was not lacking until they arrived at the promised land; so too to those reborn through baptism the Eucharist under its species does not fail, until we gaze upon God in the fatherland face to face.

These and other ceremonies accustomed to be used in baptism are beautifully and mystically explained by Albinus Flaccus Alcuin in his book *On Divine Offices*, where he deals with the Sabbath of Holy Easter. First, he says, let the pagan become a catechumen; approaching baptism, let him renounce the evil spirit and all its damnable pomps: he is also breathed upon so that, the devil having been put to flight, an entrance may be prepared for Christ the Lord: he is exorcised, that is, the evil spirit is adjured to depart and withdraw, giving place to the true Lord. The catechumen, or hearer, receives salt, so that his putrid and flowing sins may be cleansed by the gift of divine wisdom, the salt. Then the faith of the Apostolic Symbol is delivered to him, so that the house, being empty and abandoned by its former inhabitant, may be adorned by faith and prepared as a dwelling for the Lord. Let examinations be made, so that it may be explored repeatedly whether, after the renunciation of Satan, he has fixed the sacred words of the given faith rooted in his heart. The nostrils also are touched, so that as long as he draws breath through his nostrils, he may endure in the received faith. The chest too is anointed with the same oil, so that by the sign of the holy cross the entrance may be closed to the devil; the shoulders also are signed, so that he may be fortified on all sides. Likewise, in the anointing of the breast, the firmness of faith and the perseverance of good works is signed. Then he is baptized by a triple immersion in the Holy Trinity. And rightly is man, who was created in the image of the Holy Trinity, renewed to the same image through the invocation of the Holy Trinity; and he who in the third degree of sin, that is, by consent, fell into death, is raised up a third time, that he may rise from the font through grace to life. Then he is clothed in white garments, on account of the grace of regeneration and the chastity of life, and the beauty of angelic splendor. Then the head is anointed with sacred chrism, and is covered with a mystical veil, so that he may understand that he bears the dignity of the kingdom and priesthood, according to the Apostle: *You are a chosen race, royal, priestly*, offering yourselves to the living God as a holy host, and one pleasing to God. Thus he is confirmed by the body and blood of the Lord, so that he may be a member of that Head who suffered for him and rose again. Lastly, through the imposition of hands by the high priest, he receives the Spirit of sevenfold grace, so that he may be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to preach to others, he who was gifted with eternal life by grace in baptism.

Part I. Note that under the beginning of the contemplation, in the very words of St. Dionysius, the doctrine of the theologians is confirmed, who teach that the sacrament of baptism, from the institution of Christ, or *ex opere operato*, produces the holiness of life; for he says: 176 *Ti gar an parein diamantanousa...* [For what deficiency could be seen in him, the reason being suppressed even by the more divine silence of the mysteries, when by divine institution it sufficiently proves the integrity of the life of the one approaching, which it works so holily, and through a good and divine life declares to him, naturally and more corporeally, the purgation of all malice at once by natural cleansing with water.] Wherein it is signified first that baptism confers grace from the institution of God, which theologians call *ex opere operato*; because it is not from the work of the human operator, nor because it is the work of man, but because it is the work of God instituted by God and granted to man for his sanctification. Secondly, it is insinuated that although water has a certain analogy for signifying spiritual cleansing; yet it is not sufficiently determined and complete unless a divine institution were to approach, from which it has the power to sanctify, because it is not from the invocation of men, or the merit of the one receiving it. For water, or ablution, in itself is indeterminate for signifying this or that, and can be used for this or that purpose, e.g., for cleanliness, refreshment, etc. But with the form of words approaching, from the institution of Christ it is determined to signify the washing of the soul; for without the word, water by itself has no power of cleansing spiritually; just as matter without form has no power of acting, but conceives it through form.

§ II. Note from St. Dionysius, that it is also confirmed here that there is a certain internal form of the sacraments, when he says: *Hemeis de, anabasein hierais...* [But we, looking up to the sacred ascents to the principles of the things being performed, and having been sacredly initiated into these, shall know of what characters they are the impressions, and of what invisible things they are the images: for the things that are sensibly holy are icons of the intelligible, and a guiding and path to them; but the intelligible things are the principle and science of the things hierarchical according to sense.] We indeed, when contemplating the principles of the sacraments with sacred ascents, having perceived the same through sacred inspiration, shall know of what characters they are the representations, and of what hidden things they exist as images. Since sensible sacraments are likenesses of the intelligible, to which they provide guidance and pave the way; while the intelligible are the principle and science of the sensible sacraments. By which words he signifies that, beyond the sensible or external form, there is a certain other internal form, intelligible or spiritual, with respect to which whatever is sensible in the sacrament, both words and things, are matter. And this internal form is the signification of the sacrament itself, and its effective and spiritual virtue; both because it is from divine institution and deputation, and because the thing signified is spiritual. Similarly, the operative virtue is merely spiritual, namely that divine assistance itself, intimately present to the sacraments, operating in them and through them: or according to others, it is the obediential power, which is in things and words, and is invisible, since it consists in a certain order of the creature to God. Thus, according to Dionysius, every sacrament is constituted not only from matter and sensible form, but also from sensible nature and spiritual or intelligible form. Just as man does not consist only of prime matter and the form of flesh, bone, and the rest, but also of this whole, namely flesh, bone, and the rest as matter, and the rational soul as form, just as the new man consists of nature and grace. Saint Augustine calls the external form "that which is said," and the "passing sound"; but the internal and spiritual, he calls "that which is believed," and the "permanent virtue."

Note in the same place, according to Dionysius, that the principles of the sacraments are to be contemplated, insinuating through these that our sacraments not only signify sanctifying grace, but also the cause of sanctification itself and its end. And first indeed, they signify in a certain and special way the very...

internal sanctification of the soul; for example, baptism signifies grace by way of a cleansing of the soul, and in respect to this, they are called demonstrative signs. Secondly, they signify the efficient or meritorious cause from which they have their power; for every effect signifies its cause, and this is the passion of Christ, and this is in a certain way the principal [element] in the sacraments. For they were not established so much to signify that we are sanctified, as to signify to us by whose virtue and merit we are sanctified, and in respect to this, they are called commemorative signs. Thirdly, they also signify the end of this sanctification, which is eternal life, as baptism signifies that absolute and complete purity which will be in heaven, and the Eucharist (as chap. 1 of the Celestial Hierarchy taught) the participation in divine fruition; and in respect to this, they are called prognostic signs.

^B § III. He teaches how God, from His own side, clearly expands the light of grace to all, yet it does not profit those who either do not admit it or reject it. We have examples of this in him who closes his eyes against the light, when God nonetheless makes His sun rise upon the good and the bad. Likewise in him who does not extend his hand to the benefactor; because God, as much as in Him lies, gives abundantly to all. Likewise in him who surrounds his house with thorns, so that the friend may not enter, while he himself is always standing at the door and knocking. See St. Thomas I, II, q. 112 and 113 and the scholastics there.

§ IV. He describes here the order of justification in adults, to which (just as St. Thomas also, following him, I, II, quæst. 112, art. 5), requires a movement of the free will, not only by which his mind might approach justice through desire and love, but also by which it might recede from sin through hatred. For since the justification of the ungodly is a certain movement, by which the human mind is moved from a state of sin to a state of justice, it is fitting that the human mind should comport itself toward both extremes of the movement of the free will, just as a body physically moved by some mover comports itself toward two termini of movement. ^C It is manifest, however, in the local movement of bodies, that a body in motion recedes from the terminus *a quo* and approaches the terminus *ad quem*: whence it is fitting that the human mind, while it is being justified, should recede from sin through the movement of the free will and approach justice. Recess and access in the movement of the free will is accepted according to detestation and desire: for St. Augustine says, tract. 46 in John (explaining that: *But the hireling flees*), affections are our movements of the soul: joy is the diffusion of the soul; fear is the flight of the soul. You advance in spirit when you desire; you flee in spirit when you fear. It is necessary, therefore, in the justification of the ungodly, that there be a twofold movement of the free will, one indeed by which he might tend toward God through desire, and another by which he might detest sin.

§ V et VI. He explains mystically the laying aside of the garment, and the exorcisms, by which the laying aside of the life formerly lived in sins is insinuated. For whoever, says St. Thomas, in p. III, q. 71, art. 2, wisely proposes to do some work, first removes the impediments to his work. Whence it is said: *Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow upon thorns*. The devil is an enemy of human salvation, which is acquired for man through baptism, and he has some power over man from this very fact that he is subjected to original sin, or even actual. Whence, fittingly, demons are expelled before baptism by exorcisms, so that they may not impede a man's salvation; which very expulsion the exsufflation signifies. Blessing, moreover, with the imposition of hands, precludes the expelled one from the path so that he cannot return. Salt, moreover, placed in the mouth, and the anointing of the nostrils and ears with spittle, signify the reception of doctrine; faith as regards the ears, and approbation as regards the nostrils, and confession as regards the mouth. The anointing with oil, however, signifies the aptitude of man to fight against demons; as § 7, this holy Dionysius declares. See more concerning these in the divine Thomas in the article cited above and following.

§ VII. He explains mystically what immersion and emersion signify. St. Thomas argues, however, in p. III, q. 66, articles 7 and 8, whether immersion, and that a triple one, be necessary for baptism; and he answers that, since in baptism water is assumed for the cleansing of the body, baptism can be given not only by immersion, but also by sprinkling or pouring of water, and it can also lawfully be performed by a single or triple immersion. For in itself, the washing of water is required for baptism, which is of the necessity of the sacrament; but the mode of washing is accidentally related to the sacrament. Whence St. Gregory, lib. 1, epist. 41, writing to Leander, says: It can in no wise be reprehensible to immerse an infant in baptism either three times or once, since in three immersions the Trinity of Persons, and in one the singularity of the Divinity can be designated. Likewise, by a single immersion is signified the unity of Christ’s death, but by a triple, the three days of his burial. However, for diverse reasons, according to the ordination of the Church, at one time one mode has been instituted, at another time another. For because, from the beginning of the nascent Church, some thought wrongly about the Trinity, esteeming Christ to be a mere man, and not to be called the Son of God and God except for his merit, which was principally in his death; therefore, they did not baptize in the name of the Trinity, but in commemoration of the death of Christ, and with a single immersion. Which was reprobated in the Church. Whence in can. 49 of the apostles, it is read: If any presbyter or bishop does not celebrate the one mystery with triple immersion, but immerses only once in baptism (which is said by some to be given in the death of the Lord), let him be deposed: for the Lord did not say to us: Baptize in my death, but: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. ^D Afterward, on account of the error of some who rebaptized, it was decreed in the Council of Toledo that there should be one single immersion. But that cause ceasing, a triple immersion is commonly observed in baptism.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (23)

PART I. He distributes every chapter of the mystery into three certain reasons. First indeed, he treats of the chapter itself, how and for what purpose it profits us; next, he explains how the mystery is consecrated by the hierarch; thirdly, he subjoins the contemplation. Since, therefore, according to this lower and carnal generation, it is natural for it to happen that we first receive being and then afterwards do something; the same

happens also in the divine regeneration: for this reason, he treats first of divine baptism. It has been said, therefore, that the goal of our hierarchy is assimilation to God; but this is not to be attained otherwise than through the love of God, as the divine and evangelical oracles also convey. Since, therefore, such love consists in the keeping of the divine commandments, it seeks a leader for so holy a work, that is to say, for the holy performance of the divine commandments, and it finds no other than that regeneration ^B by water and the Spirit. For the divine baptism is the beginning and the path-making of adoption by God and of the heavenly inheritance. For, "Unless," he says, "one is born of water and the Spirit, he shall not see the kingdom of God." Whence the outer man is fashioned toward a better and salutary state, and toward the instruction of the words and works of God. But how does divine baptism fashion our natural habits or affections? It assuredly implants in our makeup a certain formative power: of desiring, but toward heavenly goods; of moving, but toward every good work; of reasoning or thinking, but toward those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard; of craving, but toward better things; of being angry, but against the enemy of our salvation, and so on for the rest. For rightly did the renowned Hierotheus say that the first and most excellent movement of the mind is the love of God. The beginning, as it were, of this love is our divine creation, which is performed through baptism, ^C according to which we initiate a divine state: for our creation which is from seed, although it is from God as the Creator, is nonetheless natural, but that which arises from baptism is divine. "For it is not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh." Just as, therefore, in the natural birth it is necessary first to exist in the nature of things, and then in turn both to act and to be affected, humans indeed doing what is proper to them, and brutes in turn what is conducive to them; so also in the divine regeneration of baptism, it is necessary first to exist to God, and then to operate His love, and the other things that pertain to a good life. For of that which is not at all, there is not even movement; but that which in any way is, or which only subsists, will operate altogether those things which are suitable to it, so that it may exist in such or such a way—for example, a human, who simply has come into the nature of things. How then can one, ^D not yet having operated anything, come to be such a thing—for example, just, by doing justice; or such another thing, by doing some other thing? But since we are about to behold the symbols of divine baptism, let no profane person approach the spectacle of the things mentioned; for it is not safe for those having weak eyes to gaze upon the rays which the sun shoots—for that is what is meant by "sun-fashioned"—when even in the shadows of the Law (which he also calls a hierarchy), Uzziah, having offered incense before God, was struck with leprosy; and Korah was swallowed up, for laying claim to sacred rites that did not belong to him; and Nadab and

Abihu, having offered strange fire, were in like manner consumed by strange fire.

II. Mystery.

§ I. The hierarch, having become like God, and desiring that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, unceasingly proclaims the Gospels: that God, moved by His own goodness, being always propitious to us, deigned to come even to us and to take on flesh. And just as fire makes iron, which is cold and black, like unto itself by union with it, so also does God render those who are united to Him by faith like unto Himself, according to the aptitude of each for deification, as the beloved one who reclined upon the breast declared in the divine Gospels; and indeed the priest proclaims these things and like things daily. ^A

§ II. Furthermore, he who of his own free will, and not constrained by any necessity, desires the participation of supermundane things, seeks a sponsor, and having found one, persuades him to lead the way for him to the hierarch; he himself promises to follow, even as it is said in the Law: "We will hear the voice of the Lord in all things." But he, having first heard the sponsorship, and contemplating on the one hand the sublimity of the matter, and on the other hand the changeableness of men, shudders and recoils, considering the difficulty of the matter (observe, however, how he also, since he is a faithful man, loves the salvation of his neighbor, just as the hierarch does, in accordance with his likeness to God; yet, in accordance with the likeness to the good God who receives all, he promises to fulfill the request, and together with him approaches ^B the hierarch).

§ III. Now he, with joy, as if taking the lost sheep upon his shoulders, welcomes these men, I mean the sponsor and the one approaching, and gives thanks to God with both spiritual and bodily worship. But how does he receive the one who approaches from both? Because the sponsor offers him, but he himself presents and entrusts himself, so that the dedication is of both.

§ IV. Then he summons the entire clergy (for so he calls the sacred order) so that they may cooperate and rejoice together, and he chants a hymn from the divine oracles. Note, moreover, that it is possible to offer a hymn to God from the entire holy Scripture, and not from the Psalter alone; or perhaps the ode of Mary, the sister of Moses: "Let us sing unto the Lord"; or the thirty-third Psalm, or a part of it: "Come unto him, and be enlightened." And after this, kissing the sacred ^C altar, he goes out, and inquires in order to learn from him for what purpose he has come.

§ V. When he, according to the instruction of the sponsor, has lamented that former life of his which was devoid of God, and requests to become a partaker of God through him, he testifies to him what the mode of the approach ought to be, namely, total and from the whole soul and altogether perfect, since He to whom he is approaching is also completely perfect and immu-

immaculatus, and which would not be free from blame. But following this, once he has thoroughly instructed him how he ought to live his life and what conduct he should adopt, and has questioned him, after the other's pledge, he then lays his hand upon his head and commands the priests and deacons subordinate to him to inscribe in the sacred registers the names both of the one approaching and of the sponsor. This, I believe, is the book of the living. ^A

§ VI. Then, having completed the prayer over him along with the others, he strips him—of his garment, that is, and not all of his clothing—and, after placing him toward the west, he bids him thrice to exhale against Satan and to profess the renunciation, the bishop himself also testifying thrice that "you do this." Then he brings him to the east and bids him consent to God, having also witnessed to him there by a threefold profession of faith.

§ VII. Therefore, this prayer having been performed, the ministers strip him completely, so that he may be anointed with the sacred oil. While the priests are anointing him, the Pontiff proceeds to the mother of adoption, that is, the baptistery, and having blessed the water there and recited the sacred hymn of the Holy Spirit (which Holy Spirit is the inspiration of the divine prophets), he receives the man. ^B He does not, however, call it "the sacred hymn of the divine prophets," for not all the prophets recited one and the same song. It is the twenty-eighth Psalm: *The voice of the Lord is upon the waters*, and the *Alleluia*. Once all these things have been duly performed over him, having anointed him with the sacred oil, he makes him a participant in the immortal mysteries. One ought not to be surprised if this holy Father recounts certain things that are different from the order now accepted in the churches; for it is likely that these things were appropriate for that state of the times, while now they are done more accurately. ^C

§ VIII. With these things finished, the hierarch turns again to the first contemplation or mystical prayer, that is to say, to the sacrifice of the Mass; for it is not fitting that he should attend to anything alien to his own institutions. This discourse declares that the bishop, who holds the person of the God of all, just as God ever remains in His own one and same state, and firmly fixed in Himself and never departing from Himself, for the sake of the salvation of all, by the progressions of His providence, extends the illuminations of His goodness to all things, and is present to all while departing in no way from His own stability—so too the bishop, in imitation of God, ^D symbolically and as far as he is able, while remaining in his own station, that is, in the ecclesiastical principate, proceeds by providence and philanthropy to things of a secondary order. And, having fulfilled the administration of these secondary things, he returns again to the altar, symbolically declaring that, having been moved by providence for the sake of the secondary, and having performed the divine things there, he returns from the divine things conferred upon the newly-baptized to the divine institution, so that it may appear that he is led and brought back by the Holy Spirit.

III. Contemplation. § I. This, therefore, is the sacrament of our regenera-

- ^A tion, which, even while one attends to the sensible image, no one would call profane or unseemly; for it also contains tokens of a more sublime contemplation. Nor is it altogether alien to natural and human reasoning; for even if that sublime method of contemplation were passed over in silence, yet it could be investigated sensibly, in what manner it might appear to err, since it effects the cleansing of the one who approaches from all malice, not by the persuasion of human wisdom, but by divine words, washing him with the natural cleansing of water. Which, even if it had nothing more sublime (which, however, is not the case), would by no means be devoid of all holiness, both on account of the discipline of a virtuous life and on account of the natural cleansing of water.

§ II. ^B Let this, however, be a certain introductory spiritual initiation for the imperfect, which distinguishes the uniform from the promiscuous and profane. He calls divine things "uniform," as being sublime and apprehended by the mind alone. He says, as it were, that although not all are perfect, but many are imperfect, they nevertheless have a certain anagogical elevation congruent to their own capacity, by which they may be distinguished from the entirely profane and those who mock baptism. For since not all grasp the contemplations, it is necessary for us also to accommodate the interpretations to the hearers, so that they, too, according to their own measure, may be conveniently led to the power of the understandings; while we, establishing sacred ascents in our heart, may recognize the characters of which such things are the effigies.

§ III. ^C Furthermore, he approaches the contemplation: and since he is about to show that the hierarch announces salvation to all in accordance with the likeness of God, he begins to speak what is fitting concerning God. He says, therefore, how the goodness of God bountifully spreads forth the rays of its own light upon all mental eyes. Since, therefore, every rational being is possessed of free will, if any rational substance, because of such free will, either completely abandons the divine light, being a lover of malice, or certainly, despising the secondary measure of illumination granted to it, attempts to transgress it, it is ^D clearly detached, and deservedly fails also of the measure granted to it, while the divine light itself remains unchanged. For just as to be joined signifies to be coapted, so also to be detached signifies to have fallen from conformity and congruence. Sometimes, however, the word also signifies to be suspended; in this place, however, it is accepted in the former signification. The light, therefore, shines upon it even while it is squinting, and does not depart; nor does the light do anything other than what is proper to light, even if the mind approaches it imperfectly. The divine light, therefore, is benignly laid open to the mental eyes, and it is permitted to them to receive the light whenever they wish. In the likeness of this, the bishop also spreads forth the rays of his teaching both to those who are fit to receive them and to those who are not, using no hatred or unholy resentment on account of their prior apostasy or intemperance. These things he says on account of what was said above; for he was saying that there are two evils of rational beings due to their own free will.

Either one abandons the divine light, or one thinks beyond one's own measure and seeks what is not appropriate. ^A

§ IV. Again, since the divine power is the origin of holy order, according to which the angels also know themselves and do not leap forward in disorder to things that are not fitting, the first gift one receives from the divine teaching is to know oneself, so that one may keep what is written in the Law: "Attend to thyself" (1 Tim. iv, 16), as the Great Basil also said: For insofar as one recurs to the light appropriate to one's nature, that is, to what can be contemplated or known, one imitates the angels who know themselves. He who has looked upon himself with eyes free from passion will flee the deepest places of ignorance, but he will not do so by himself; rather, through a guide and sponsor, he will desire the divine participation. And by means of the teaching he will proceed to the knowledge of himself through himself to his own first principle; and through this, to that which is prior to it; and through that, he will be led up to the most primal. This is signified by the modesty and reverence of the one approaching, and by his approach to the sponsor, upon whom the seal is indeed impressed as a sign of the portion of the inheritance in Christ, and an inscription is made for the good memory both of himself and of the sponsor: of himself, as a true lover of good things; of the sponsor, as an unerring guide. ^B

§ V. Next, he speaks of the laying aside of garments. For since it is not possible for anyone to be a participant in those things which are strictly opposite—namely, health and disease, sin and virtue, ignorance and the knowledge of God—because the one who takes hold of both would happen to have a divided life, it follows that he who is being transferred to the second life must be free and have no attachment to the former life; and therefore, he who is being brought forward stands naked. Furthermore, since he must be absolved even of the final and lesser attachments of the former life, he is stripped of the garments even to the lowest part of the whole body—the feet. He looks toward the west, that dark place, and casts out the dark malice, and breathes out from himself the habit of malice that has been implanted in him, and casts it from his own heart. ^C And in this way, having made a total renunciation, he is brought toward the east and confesses the rising of the Sun of righteousness and the total turning toward the One; again, because it is manifest that he who is being initiated must be in exertion and strife in order to obtain immutability. "Turn away from evil," he says, "and do good" (Ps. cxviii, 1); and again, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk" (Ps. cxviii, 1). For the good does not know how to stand still, nor is it easy to restrain divine love. ^D

§ VI. See how, through the anointing of oil, the initiated one is led to the contests, having been placed under Christ as the trainer. This construction is by hyperbaton: he will gladly take up the contests, inasmuch as they are divine. But in between, since he has called the Lord...

^A our God, he shows how He is the trainer, how the legislator, how the giver of beautiful and immortal crowns, and how He is also a fellow-contestant, as it were, a coach. Jesus Christ, then, as God (and note this passage against the Nestorians), establishes the prize, for He who is supreme and powerful acts as the prize-setter; as wise, He acts as legislator, for it belongs to the-wise man to frame laws, such that if the one contending happens to conquer in this way, he will thus obtain the crown, but if not, he will not receive the reward; as beautiful, He beautifies the prizes; for "that which God hath prepared for them that love Him, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man." As good, He helps and acts as fellow-contestant, for He is the one who says: "Take courage, I have overcome the world." From the beginning, then, it must be said that he who is under Christ the trainer will strip for divine contests, under the legislator will abide by the laws of the wise, under the beautiful will certainly possess the beautiful prizes, and under the good, being helped, he will not be defeated. For standing in the footsteps of the first of athletes, Jesus Christ our Lord, who for His own goodness alone struggled against the power of death, having overthrown the powers and existences apostate to Him against deification, he dies with Christ through the triple immersion, which has the form of the three-day burial of the Lord. He calls "powers" the sins and the passionate desires, and "existences" the natures of the demons which are the active causes of these; for evil actions are not seen as having an existence of their own. ^B § VII. And understand for me those sacred things, what an affinity they have toward these symbols. For since death among us is not a total annihilation, according to the opinion of others who said that the soul was mortal and that man was to be corrupted unto being in no wise, but is a separation of the soul from the body, leading the soul into the unseen (according to ^C this also "Hades" is said, that is, the unseen departure of the soul from the body), and sending the body into the earth or destroying it through some other of the bodily changes. Understand by "changes" the transformations of the body into worms and other small creatures; for this reason the total covering by the water signifies such a perpetual death of both the soul and the body. And since the Life-Originating Jesus remained in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights, through the three immersions the three nights are signified; and through the three emersions, the three days. § VIII. Next, the initiate is clothed in light-like garments, on account of his freedom from passion and filth, and because of his accordance with the one light, through which the filthy, disordered, and formless life—as if it were unsightly (for neither does [the text continues]) ^D

for he says that he who is altogether without form is adorned by baptism, and receives the form of light, and he who is initiated is shown to be a child of light. And the perfecting anointing of the ointment makes him who is initiated fragrant; for by baptism he is united to the principal Spirit of God; and there is also a certain ineffable fragrant outpouring of the Spirit, according to which the apostles are called the "sweet savor of Christ" [b II Cor. ii, 15], and according to which those everywhere who are deemed worthy of the divine Spirit, and united to Him through purity, perceive His presence. For this is also signified by the fragrant sweetness which they received in tongues, or the prophetic gift which they had, or the working of healings, or whatever else they performed that was above the condition of man. ^A

CHAPTER III.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

But come, since we have made mention of this, it would be a sacrilege if, passing it by, I were to praise any other of the hierarchical functions before this; for, according to the opinion of our renowned instructor, it exists as the sacrament of sacraments, and it is necessary that the interpreter of its sacred description, according to the Scriptures and divine and hierarchical knowledge, should be led through the principal Spirit of God to its sacred contemplation. ^C

Therefore, let us first see holily for what reason that which is common to the other principal sacraments is, by way of excellence, attributed to this one above the others, namely, that it is uniquely called "communion" and "synaxis," when every sacrament gathers our divided lives into a uniform deification, and through the deiform joining together of those who are scattered, communicates and unites with that One. We say, therefore, that from the participations in the other hierarchical symbols, consummation is attained through the divine and perfecting gifts of this one. For it is almost impossible for any hierarchical rite to be perfected unless the most divine Eucharist, at the beginning of any consecration, effects the union of the one being initiated with that One, and through the divinely transmitted gift of the perfecting [mysteries]

^A confer upon him divine communion. Wherefore, if any of the hierarchical consecrations remains imperfect, as long as it does not accomplish our union and communion with that One—in that very respect it fails to perfect, losing its power to perfect. But the end and head of all [these rites] is to make him who is being initiated a participant in the chiefest of God's mysteries; therefore, the pontifical science has, with full right, devised for it a name derived from the truth of the matters themselves. Thus, also, we celebrate the sacred initiation of divine regeneration by the name derived from the effect of the illumination, because it imparts the first light and is the beginning of all divine illuminations. For although it is common to other hierarchical functions to make those who are initiated partakers of sacred light, nevertheless ^B this is that which first imparted it to me, and through its more primary light I receive the illumination to contemplate the other sacred things as well. Having established these matters thus, let us consider and contemplate, in hierarchical fashion, each exact rite and the significance of this most holy sacrament.

II. The Mystery of the Synaxis, or Communion

The Pontiff, about to celebrate the sacred prayer at the altar of God, beginning with the incense of the same, circles the entire ambit of the choir; until, returning again to the divine altar, he begins the sacred melody of the psalms, with the entire ecclesiastical order chanting the sacred psalmody along with him. Afterward, through the ministers, the reading of the Holy Scriptures is consecutively recited; ^C when this is finished, the catechumens are excluded from the sacred enclosure, and with them the possessed and the penitents, leaving behind those who are worthy of the vision and communion of divine things. As for the ministers, some stand near the closed doors of the temple, while others perform some other task belonging to their own order. But those who hold the first places in the order of ministers, together with the priests, place the sacred bread and the cup of blessing upon the divine altar, after the common hymnology of the whole fullness of the Church has been finished. To this the divine Pontiff performs the sacred prayer and proclaims the holy peace to all; and while all embrace one another, the mystical recitation of the sacred volumes is finished. Then, the hands of the Pontiff and of the priests having been washed with water, the Pontiff stands in the midst of the divine altar, ^D with only the first among the ministers standing around him, together with the priests. Furthermore, when the Pontiff has praised the most holy gifts of God, he consecrates the most divine mysteries, which, once celebrated, he brings into view under the sacred symbols set forth; and having shown the gifts of the divine operations, he himself approaches the most holy communion of them, and then invites the others. And finally, having received and given divine communion, he concludes the sacred [rite]

^A in thanksgiving; and while the people gaze only upon the divine symbols, he himself is always led by the divine Spirit, through blessed and spiritual contemplations, hierarchically to the most holy primordial mysteries in the purity of the divine state.

III. Contemplation.

[§ I.] Come then, noble son, now that the figures have been set forth in order and holiness, I shall declare the deiform truth of the primary realities to those who are still being initiated, in order to excite their souls appropriately, lest that diverse and holy composition of symbols appear to them insipid ^B (useless), exhibiting nothing but its exterior apparatus. For the most holy chants of the Oracles and the readings suggest to them the discipline of a virtuous life, and, preceding this, the total purification from corrupt wickedness; but the most divine, common, and peaceful participation in the one and the same bread and cup prescribes to them, as if they were fellow-nurtured, a divine conformity of morals, and introduces the most holy commemoration of this most divine and arch-symbolic supper of these mysteries; of which even the very author of the symbols most justly excludes him who had not frequented the sacred supper with him either holily or with a concordant mind; teaching at the same time that a holy and God-pleasing approach to divine things renders those who thus approach participants also of the divine likeness.

[§ II.] But leaving these things aside, which are elegantly depicted at the very vestibules of the sanctuaries and are sufficient for the contemplation of the uninitiated, we shall progress from the effects to the causes; then, with Jesus shedding light, we shall behold our sacred synaxis and the corresponding contemplation of spiritual things, which shines forth clearly the blessed beauty of the primary realities. But do you, O most divine and holy sacrament, revealing the symbolic wrappings of riddles laid around you, manifest yourself clearly to us, and fill our mental gazes with singular and open light.

[§ III.] Therefore, I deem that we must penetrate into the most holy [mysteries], ^D so that, having spiritually uncovered the intellectual [meaning] of the first of the images, we may gaze upon its deiform beauty, and in a truly divine manner see the hierarch [process] from the divine altar to the extremities of the temple with the sweetness of...

those who go toward it, and again reverting in a perfecting manner to it. For that Godhead which is above all, even if in divine goodness it proceeds to the communion of the holy things of those who partake of it, yet it in no way departs from the ^B immobile station and foundation of its own essence; but it shines forth to all who bear the divine likeness in proportion to the capacity of each, remaining truly in itself, and not at all moved from its own identity. In the same way, the divine sacrament of the synaxis, even if it has a unitary, simple, and gathered beginning, is kindly multiplied into the sacred variety of symbols, and reaches as far as every part ^C of the divine iconography; yet it is subsequently gathered in a unitary way from these into its own unity, and unites those who are sacredly led toward it. Indeed, in the same deiform manner, the divine hierarch, even if he kindly derives the unitary knowledge of his own hierarchy to those who are subject [to him], using the multitude of sacred riddles; yet again, as one absolute and unconstrained by inferior things, he reverts ^D undiminished to his own principle, and having made his own intellectual entry into the One, he sees clearly the unitary reasons of the things being performed, making the end of his kindly progression toward the things below a more divine reversion toward the first things.

§ IV. The sacred chanting of the psalms, which is conjoined as substantial to almost all the ^C hierarchical mysteries, was by no means to be separated from that which is most sacred of all. For every sacred and hallowed scripture either [expounds] the substance of things and their arrangement founded by God, or [expounds] the legal hierarchy and polity, or the distributions and possessions of the inheritances of the divine people, or the prudence of sacred judges or wise kings or divine ^D priests, or the unshaken philosophy in endurance of ancient men amidst the variety and multitude of their trials, or wise precepts for things to be done, or songs of divine loves and deiform images, or the prophetic pre-announcements of things to come, or the manly theurgic operations of Jesus, or the divinely-transmitted and God-imitating lives and sacred doctrines of His disciples, or the hidden and mystical vision of the beloved and divine disciple, or the supermundane theology of Jesus; [it] expounded these to those suited for deification, and rooted them in the sacred and deiform ascents of the mysteries. And the sacred writing of the divine songs, having as its aim to hymn all the theologies and theurgies, and to praise the sacred discourses and sacred operations of divine men, makes a catholic song and narration of the divine works, toward every hierarchical

^A reception and transmission of the rite, imparting a fitting disposition to those who divinely celebrate it.

§ V. When, therefore, that hymnody which encompasses all sacred things has harmoniously disposed the states of our ^B souls for the things about to be performed shortly, and has, by the agreement of the divine songs, ordained concord toward the divine, toward themselves, and toward each other, as in one concordant sacred dance, those things which are compressed and more overshadowed in the intellectual psalmody are expanded through more numerous and clearer images and explications in the holiest readings of the scriptural compositions. In these, the contemplator of sacred things will perceive a uniform and singular conspiracy, as if moved by one and the same principal Spirit of God; whence, rightly and deservedly, the New Testament is proclaimed in the world after that more ancient tradition, with the divine and hierarchical order, in my opinion, declaring by this that the Old Testament predicted things to come, while the New itself has exhibited the divine works of Jesus; and that the former depicted the truth as if in certain images, while the latter demonstrated it as present, since the effect of this one has verified the truth of the former’s predictions, and the operation of divine discourses is the supreme divinity.

§ VI. Indeed, those who are entirely ignorant of these sacraments do not even see the images, for they impudently reject the salutary discipline of divine generation, and ^C ruinously object to the sacred oracles: "I do not wish to know thy ways." Furthermore, the custom of the holy hierarchy allows catechumens, the possessed, and those who are under penance to hear the sacred psalmody and the reading of the holy Scriptures, but it does not summon them to the sacrifices and spectacles which follow thereafter, but only to the perfect eyes of the perfect. For that deiform, sacred order is full of holy justice, and it healthfully grants to each the participation in divine things that is fitting according to each one's merit, and in due time, according to the capacity and measure of each, it ^D sacredly concedes it. To the catechumens, indeed, the last rank is assigned, because they are devoid of and ignorant of every hierarchical perfection, and have not yet attained a divine state through divine birth, but are still being brought to birth by paternal oracles and are being fashioned by life-giving forms

^A to move toward that blessed procession which begins from divine birth and is the first light. Just as, then, children born in the flesh, if they are born imperfect and unformed, deprived of the midwife's care, drop before their time as miscarriages and abortions, and are destined to fall to the earth devoid of birth and the light of life—nor would any sane person, looking at what is visible, say they were brought into the light, having been delivered from the darkness of the womb (for the medical art, which is the skillful mistress of bodies, would say that light acts upon those things that are capable of receiving light)—so too, the all-wise science of sacred things first nurtures them with the introductory, form-giving, and life-creating food of the oracles. Once it has brought their state to perfection for divine regeneration, it then safely bestows upon them in order the communion of the enlightening and perfecting ^B gifts. At present, however, it separates the perfect from the imperfect, having care both for the seemliness of the sacred rites and for the education and life of the catechumens, according to the deiform constitution of the hierarchical order.

§ VII.

The crowd of the possessed is indeed impure, yet it occupies a place higher than the level of the catechumens. For I would not judge as equal to the entirely uninitiated, who are utterly cut off from the divine rites, that person who has partaken of some of the most sacred mysteries, even if he is still entangled in contrary enticements or disturbances. Indeed, even for them the sight and communion ^C of the most sacred things is withdrawn, and with good reason. For if it is true, as the altogether divine man holds, that the one who is worthy of communion in divine things—lifted to the summit of deiformity according to his measure by the most perfect and perfecting deifications—will not care for the things of the flesh except for the necessity of nature, and that only in passing, but will be a temple and a follower of the principal Spirit of God in that most sublime deification that befits him, establishing and placing the like within the like: surely whoever is of such a kind will never be harassed by contrary imaginations or terrors. Rather, he will laugh at them, and he will overcome, drive away, and pursue those that approach, and he will act rather than suffer, and by the impassability and steadfastness of his own state, he will show himself ^D a physician also to others for such vexations. But I think—or rather I know clearly—that the most pure judgment of the sacred orders considers those to be held by a most detestable siege before these others, who, abandoning the deiform life, agree in their thoughts and characters with destructive demons, turning away from those things that truly correspond to existence, and are immortally to be possessed, and are eternally sweet, because of a supreme and self-destructive folly; while those who cling to things of the earth and to the most pitiful change, and to things that are destroyed and

corrupting—those pleasures which are neither real nor truly existing, but are merely apparent and unstable feelings—they desire and pursue. These first, then, and more appropriately than any others, should be warded off by the minister's voice of separation; for it is not right that they should partake of any other holy thing, beyond the teaching of the Oracles of God, by the instruction of which they may be converted to a better fruit. ^A For if that super-mundane celebration of the divine mysteries repels even those who are repentant—though they were once participants in it—and admits no one who is not most holy; nay, further, if it proclaims, "To those who because of their imperfection do not rise to the pinnacle of deification, I remain invisible and incommunicable" (for this most pure voice keeps away even those who cannot be united with those who worthily communicate in the most divine things), then by much stronger reason it will be that the multitude ^B who are agitated by passions will be unholy and alienated from all vision and communion of the sacred rites. Since they have become outside the divine temple and the holy liturgy which is set above them, these include those who have not been initiated or perfected in the sacraments, and in addition to them, those who have apostatized from a holy life; and following these, those who easily waver out of cowardice at the terrors and phantasms of the adversaries, as they have not arrived, through intense and unwavering aspiration toward divine things, at the immovable and active state of deification; then, in addition to them, those who have indeed renounced the contrary life, but who have not yet been purified by divine and most pure love from the visions of it; and after them, those who are not entirely uniform and—to use the phrase of the Law—not entirely immaculate and uncontaminated. ^C Then, finally, the holy ministers of the sacred rites and the diligent observers, contemplating the most sacred sacrifice with holy ritual, celebrate with a general hymn of praise the beneficent and munificent Principle, from whom the saving sacraments have been exhibited to us, which complete that most holy deification of the initiated. Some, however, call this hymn a song of praise, others a symbol of religion, and others—in my opinion, more divinely—call it the "hierarchical eucharist," or sacred primary thanksgiving, as it encompasses the holy gifts which have flowed down to us from God. For to me, the rationale of all the celebrated divine operations seems to have been directed toward us, ^D having beneficially sustained our substance and life, and having fashioned our deiform portion according to archetypal beauties, and having established us in the participation of a more divine state and anagogy; then, having seen the destitution of divine gifts which had arisen in us through negligence, having restored us to our ancient state by restorative goods, and by the complete assumption of our nature having wrought the most perfect communication of His own goods, and by this having bestowed upon us communion with God and with divine things.

§ VIII. ^A In this way, then, the divine-principle benevolence being holily praised, the divine bread is set forth covered, and the chalice of blessing. And the most divine greeting or kiss is celebrated, as well as the mystical and supermundial recitation of the holy tablets. For those who are at variance within themselves cannot come together to the One, nor partake of the peaceful union of the One. If, indeed, being illuminated by the contemplation and knowledge of the One, we were united unto the uniform and divine gathering, we would not suffer ourselves to fall away into divided desires, from which arise material and passion-filled enmities against those who are of the same nature. This, then, I believe, this uniform and indivisible manner of life, the holy rite of peace ordains, establishing the like in the like, and separating the divine and singular visions from ^B the divided ones.

§ IX. Further, the recitation of the holy tablets, which follows the peace, proclaims those who have lived holily and have arrived immutably at the perfection of a virtuous life; exhorting and guiding us—by imitating them—to that most blessed state and deiform rest, while celebrating them as living, for, as theology teaches, they are by no means dead, but have migrated from death to a most divine life. Observe, moreover, that they are included in the holy memorials, not as if to declare that, in the manner of men, a divine memory resides in that part of the memory which receives visual impressions, but, as one might say, appropriate to God, according to the precious and immutable knowledge of perfect and deiform things which is in God. For "the Lord knew those who were His," as the oracles say; and, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," with the death of the saints being spoken of in place of the perfection in holiness. And consider this holily also: that upon the holy symbols being placed on the divine altar, through which Christ is signified and partaken of, there is immediately present the enrollment of the saints, ^C which shows forth their inseparable union and supermundial and holy conjunction with Him.

§ X. These things having been celebrated according to the ordained rite, the high priest, standing before the most holy ^D symbols, washes his hands with water together with the venerable order of priests.

^A For he who is washed, as the oracles attest, has no need of any other thing than the washing of the extremities, that is, the outermost parts of himself, through which he attains the highest purification, and in an all-pure condition of deiformity, while proceeding charitably toward what follows, he will be unencumbered and free, being entirely uniform and unitively turned back to the One, making his conversion unblemished and undefiled, as one who preserves the fullness and integrity of his deiform state. The holy bath, as we have said, existed in the legal hierarchy; but now the washing of the hands of the high priest and the priests signifies the same thing. For those who approach the most holy sacrifice must be purged even of the outermost phantasms of the soul, and so, through likeness, approach as nearly as they can; for thus will they be illuminated by the divine apparitions, as the supermundane rays send forth their splendor more clearly and abundantly into the mirrors of like-natured beings, who are more whole and transparent. ^B Now the washing of the high priest and the priests, which is applied to the tips and outermost parts of the fingers, occurs before these most holy symbols, as if before Christ, who gazes upon all our most hidden thoughts, and whose judgment is defined by his all-seeing scrutinies and most just and impartial determinations; thus the high priest is united to divine things, and having hymned the sacred theurgies, he performs the most divine acts and brings into view what has been hymned.

§ XI.

What we conceive to be the divine operations toward us must next be explained to the best of our ability. For it is not within my power to praise all of them, nor even to clearly discern them and hand them on to others; but what is praised and celebrated by the divine high priests in accordance with the oracles, these things we shall declare, as far as we are able, having invoked the assistance of hierarchical inspiration. ^C Human nature, having from the beginning foolishly slipped away from the divine goods, was overtaken by a life subject to passions and by the lot of corruptible death; for that ruinous desertion of the true Good and the transgression of the holy law in paradise delivered him who, enticed by the blandishing and hostile deceptions of the adversary, shook off the vital yoke—it delivered him, according to his own inclinations which are opposed to divine goods, into the contraries of the divine goods, whence he wretchedly exchanged the eternal for the mortal; and he who had received his origin from a corruptible generation, toward

the end worthy of his beginning, hastened—no, not so, but having voluntarily fallen away from the divine and uplifting life, he was borne toward the opposite extremity, the most varied alteration. Wandering and having turned aside from the straight path leading to the Truly Existing God, and becoming subject to the destructive and malevolent multitudes, he was unaware that he was paying cult not to gods nor to friends, but to hostile foes; and as they, in their cruelty, abused him according to their own merciless nature, he had fallen miserably into the danger of non-existence and ruin. ^A But the most infinite philanthropy of the Thearchic goodness did not discard our providence in a manner befitting its goodness; but, having truly become a partaker of all things concerning us without sin, and having been united to our lowliness, while remaining in the unmixed and unharmed state of its own properties—a state which is in every way unconfused and inviolate—it gave us, as fellow-kind, participation in itself, and declared us partakers of its own goods. Having, according to the secret tradition, shattered the empire of the apostate multitude which held sway over us, not by force, as though prevailing by power, but, according to the mystical oracle handed down to us, in judgment and justice. ^B Beneficently it transformed our state into the contrary: for it filled the unilluminated part of our mind with felicitous and most divine light, and adorned our formless state with God-like beauties; and the dwelling-place of our soul—the essence and nature of ourselves which had almost fallen and crumbled—it liberated from the vilest passions and harmful pollutions in perfect salvation, showing us a supermundane anagoge and a God-inspired life in our holy imitations of it, as far as possible.

§ XII.

But how could this God-mimicry ^C come to be in us, if the memory of the most holy theurgies were not always renewed by the hierarchical sacred discourses and ritual acts? This, therefore, we do, as the oracles say, for the remembrance of Him. Hence the divine hierarch, having stood at the divine altar, praises the aforementioned holy theurgies of Jesus, our most divine providence, which, for the salvation of our race, by the good pleasure of the most holy Father in the Holy Spirit, according to the oracle, He accomplished. ^D Having praised their venerable and intelligible contemplation, and having beheld it with intellectual eyes, he proceeds to their symbolic ritual, and this he does according to divine tradition: whence, reverently and at the same time hierarchically, after the holy hymns concerning the theurgies, he makes a defense for the ritual which is above him, first crying out holily to Him, "You have said: Do this in my remembrance."

^A Having then asked to become worthy of this God-imitating sacred ritual, and to perform the divine acts through assimilation to Christ himself, and to distribute them most purely, and for those who are to be participants in the holy mysteries to partake of them worthily and holily, he celebrates those most divine mysteries. And when they are already consecrated, he sets them forth to be seen in a sacred rite under the proposed symbols; for by uncovering the hidden and undivided bread, and dividing it into many parts, and by distributing the unity of the cup to all, he symbolically multiplies the unity ^B and distributes it, performing in these the most holy liturgy. For the one and simple and hidden Jesus, the most God-ruling Word, has, through the incarnation for our sake, proceeded in goodness and philanthropy toward the composite and the visible without change, and has beneficently brought about our unitive communion with Himself, uniting our lowly state with His most divine excellencies, so that we ourselves, as members to a body, might harmonize through the identity of His same immaculate and divine life, lest, being deadened by corruptible passions, we become discordant and unjoined and lifeless in relation to those divine and most healthy members.ers. For it is necessary for us, if we aspire to communion with Him, to contemplate His most divine life in the flesh, and, by imitating His holy sinlessness, to strive toward a God-formed and immaculate state; for in this way, in accordance with what is fitting for us, He will communicate His likeness.

§ XIII.

The hierarch signifies these things in the actions which are performed sacredly, while bringing the covered gifts into the open, and dividing their unity into many parts, and through the supreme union of the distributed things with those who receive them, he renders those who communicate partakers of them. For he describes in these things, in a sensible manner, while bringing into view Jesus Christ—our spiritual life ^D as if in an image—as He who, out of that hiddenness of the Godhead, through the perfect and unconfused incarnation for our sake, benevolently put on our form, and from the natural one proceeded without change to our divisibility, and through this beneficent clemency invited the human race to participation in Himself and His own goods, provided that we be conjoined to His most divine life, imitating it as much as lies in our power; for thus we shall truly become partakers of God and of divine things.

§ XIV.

Finally, having partaken of and distributed the most divine communion, together with the holy fullness of the whole Church—

for the participation in the distribution precedes the mystical distribution, and the receiving of the mysteries precedes it; for this is the general order and arrangement of divine things, that the sacred initiator must first himself partake of, and be satisfied with, those gifts which are through him to be divinely distributed to others, and only then distribute them to the others. Wherefore, they who ^A brazenly misuse the divine teachings before they have attained the way of life and state of being corresponding to them are sacrilegious and altogether estranged from the sacred institution. For just as, in the case of solar coruscations, the thinner and more transparent substances, being first filled with the inflowing radiance, transfer in a solar manner the light that overflows them in every way to those things that come after them, ^B so also must no one presume to be a leader of others in divine things who has not himself become, in every state of being, most godlike and has not been proven suitable for this by divine inspiration and judgment.

§ XV. ^B In these things the entire order of priests, gathered hierarchically and having partaken of the most divine mysteries, ends with an act of thanksgiving, having recognized, according to their capacity, and praised the benefits of the divine works. For those who are devoid of and ignorant of divine things would by no means turn to thanksgiving, even though those most divine gifts are by their own nature most worthy of all thanksgiving. But, as I said, because they are unwilling to look upon the divine gifts, due to their inclination toward worse things, they remain ungrateful for the infinite graces of the divine works. ^C *Taste*, say the oracles, *and see*; for those who are initiated into the sacred instruction of divine things will recognize their most generous graces, and by contemplating their most divine loftiness and magnitude in the holy communion, they will gratefully praise the supercelestial good works of the Godhead.

ADNOTATIONS OF CORDERIUS. Note that the first part of this chapter calls the sacrament of the Eucharist the "sacrament of sacraments," which is the same as the "most excellent sacrament," just as, for example, the most sacred place is called the "Holy of Holies," and the most excellent song, the "Song of Songs." It is rightly so called, both because it contains Christ the Lord himself, the founder and sanctifier of all the sacraments, from whom the other sacraments have all their sanctifying power, and by whose virtue they operate whatever they operate; and also because, as the same Dionysius says, hardly any sacrament of the hierarchical order, or episcopal office, is performed without this sacrament. Whence, with St. Thomas in part III, question 65, article 5, it must be said that, speaking simply, the sacrament of the Eucharist is the most excellent among the other sacraments. Which is indeed apparent in three ways. First, from that which is contained in it; for in the sacrament of the Eucharist Christ himself is contained substantially, whereas in other sacraments a certain instrumental power, participated from Christ, is contained. Nevertheless, it is always...

true that what is per essence is superior to that which is per participation. Secondly, this appears from the order of the sacraments to one another; for all other sacraments seem to be ordered to this sacrament as to an end; for it is manifest that the sacrament of Order is ordered to the consecration of the Eucharist, while the sacrament of Baptism is ordered to the reception of the Eucharist, in which also someone is perfected through Confirmation, so that he may not fear to withdraw himself from such a sacrament. Furthermore, by Penance and Extreme Unction, a man is prepared to receive the body of Christ worthily. Matrimony also, at least by its signification, touches upon this sacrament, insofar as it signifies the conjunction of Christ and the Church, whose unity is figured by the sacrament of the Eucharist. Thirdly, this appears from the rite of the sacraments: for almost all the sacraments, as Dionysius says, are consummated in the Eucharist. Hence, those recently ordained communicate, and also the baptized, if they be adults. The comparison of other sacraments to one another can be multiple; for in the way of necessity, Baptism is the most important of the sacraments; but in the way of perfection, the sacrament of Order; the sacrament of Confirmation holds a middle way; but the sacrament of Penance and Extreme Unction are of a lower degree than the aforementioned sacraments, because they are ordered to Christian life not per se, but per accidens, namely, as a remedy for an intervening defect; among which, however, Extreme Unction corresponds to Penance, just as Confirmation does to Baptism, in such a way that Penance is of greater necessity, but Extreme Unction of greater perfection.

The eleventh part deals with the rite of this sacrament, or the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in which the venerable sacrament is consecrated and confected. Where note first, that five principal parts of this sacrifice are assigned: the first is that of the catechumens up to the oblation of bread and wine; the second is the very oblation of bread and wine; the third is the consecration, by which bread and wine are converted by the power of the words of Christ into his body and blood; the fourth is the oblation of the body and blood of Christ; the fifth is the consumption of the sacred host itself, or communion. He does not, however, make mention of the breaking of the host over the chalice, nor of the commixtion of both. But which of these parts or actions pertain to the essence of the sacrifice, doctors in D. Thomas, Part III, Question 83, hold in different ways. The more common and truer view seems to be that which holds that the sacrifice consists primarily in the consecration. First, because our sacrifice is offered in the person of Christ; but there is no action in the whole Liturgy which is done more in the person of Christ than the consecration, therefore it consists primarily in it. Second, because our sacrifice ought to represent the sacrifice of the cross, which representation is made through the consecration while the body and blood, so far as is from the power of the words, are set separately as the body and blood of the slain victim. How this is done, see learnedly and clearly explained by Lessius, Book XII, *De perfectionibus divinis*, chap. 13. But whoever desires more on this matter, let him read Gabriel Vasquez in Part III, Disputation 222.

Note second, that the consecration is not performed by certain prayers, as some Greeks wish, but by the sole words of the Lord, as was defined in the Council of Florence and at Trent, sess. 13, c. 3. First, because Christ neither said nor ordered to be said those prayers by which they think the sacrament is confected; for neither does Scripture have them, nor is it established by tradition that they must be said. For in the Latin liturgy, which the common opinion holds to have been that of Saint Peter and Clement, those prayers are not held, unless before the words of the Lord, and not after; and in the Ethiopian liturgy they are not found. Add, that those words of Christ, *This is my body*, would be false if the consecration had been made beforehand by those preceding prayers. Second, because since this sacrament is most sublime, it was not fitting that it should be made except by the words of God. Add that if the consecration were made by those prayers, its effect would be uncertain, since those prayers are not always granted. But if Extreme Unction is performed by deprecatory words, there exists nevertheless a promise by which it is promised that this deprecation will be heard at least as to the principal effect, James v, but no such promise exists concerning those Eucharistic prayers in which they themselves place the consecration. Third, because the priest consecrates in the person of Christ, and not in the person of the minister; therefore in the consecration he ought not to use deprecatory words, for this is only for ministers, but authoritative words, namely as Christ, whose person he sustains. Hence it comes about that while in all other sacraments the priest speaks as a minister of Christ, either by way of exercising the act, as in Baptism, Confirmation, and Penance; or by way of commanding, as in Order; or by way of supplicating, as in Extreme Unction; in this sacrament, however, he does not speak as a minister of Christ, but as if he himself were Christ; or, as Chrysostom says, Christ speaks invisibly through his mouth, which the Council of Trent also says, sess. 21, c. 2. This is confirmed also by this passage of Dionysius, because where, having dismissed the catechumens, and the oblation of bread and chalice having been made, he said the pontiff performs the holy prayer, and after the kiss of peace, and the washing of the fingers, and the hymnology, then at last he says he consecrates the most divine mysteries, manifestly placing the consecration after the sacred prayers, as distinct from those prayers.

Furthermore, to the argument of the Greeks, one must respond that by those prayers it is petitioned, not that the Holy Spirit simply make the bread the body of Christ, but that he make the body of Christ for the priest and the other communicants; that is, it is petitioned that grace be given to those who communicate to communicate worthily, so that they may be able to obtain the effect of the sacrament. For he who eats unworthily, to him it is not the body of Christ, but poison, for he eats judgment unto himself. In this sense the Greeks themselves responded in the last session of the Council of Florence. Concerning the ceremonies of the Mass, see William Durand, Book IV of the *Rationale divinorum officiorum*, who explains them at length.

In the part of this chapter which contains contemplation, § 1, he says that holy communion is a peaceful participation, etc., because certainly it is a symbol of peace, and Christ, who is received in it, is the prince and God of peace and love, whose, according to the Psalmist, his place has been made in peace; whence, says Dionysius, with most deserved right he excludes him who had not frequented the holy supper with him either holily or with a concordant mind. Hence is confirmed the Catholic opinion which teaches that he who communicates with the consciousness of mortal sin sins gravely, since it is food for the living, not the dead; because this sacrament was not instituted for the remission of sins, but for spiritual nourishment; but only one who lives spiritually can receive it. Add that he who approaches with the consciousness of mortal sin, insofar as it depends on him, renders false the signification of this sacrament; for he signifies that he who receives is of the mystical body of Christ, which is the society of the saints adhering to Christ by faith and charity. Hence also below § 6 and 7, he teaches that catechumens and energumens along with sinners are kept away from this holy communion as unworthy. For in the Greek liturgies the deacon used to cry out: Τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις, that is, holy things to the holy, and those words having been uttered, the catechumens, energumens, and notorious sinners were expelled, as also the holy Chrysostom testifies, homil. 61, to the people of Antioch, and Justin, Apology I. Indeed, they were not even permitted to see...

the sacred Eucharist before they had received the sacrament of baptism, as St. Augustine ^A clearly relates in Tractate XI on John, where he explains those words of Christ: "But Jesus did not trust himself to them." Hence, that part of the celebration or sacrifice which is from the Introit to the Offertory, when the catechumens were dismissed, is called the Mass of the Catechumens. Hence the Fourth Council of Carthage says: "Let the bishop prohibit no one, neither heretic nor Jew, from entering the church as far as the Mass of the Catechumens, and hearing the word of God," since the Gospel and the lessons were recited in the presence of the catechumens. Whence St. Augustine, in Sermon 257, *De tempore*, says: "Behold, after the sermon the Mass of the Catechumens takes place." However, after the Offertory and at the time of the consecration or communion, it was forbidden for the catechumens to be present at the divine services.

Note here the difference between this sacrament and baptism; for as to baptism, although it is not permitted to approach with the affection for mortal sin, it is nevertheless permitted to approach it with a consciousness of mortal sin. For we approach baptism precisely so that all deadly sins, even those of which we are conscious, may be wiped away. Whence baptism of itself deletes mortal sin, because it was instituted for this purpose and is received to this end. The case is different with the Eucharist, which was not instituted for this purpose, nor is it received for that reason, but rather to increase the grace already found. For he who approaches the sacred synaxis ought to be in a state of grace, or at least prudently believe himself to be in a state of grace.

From this, one may further briefly collect the effects of the venerable Eucharist. The first of these is, by its very institution, to increase grace of itself; the second is to confer it per accidens, namely, if it finds someone without an affection for mortal sin, who has applied sufficient diligence in examining himself, yet is in some hidden sin; or if someone, conscious of sin, while lacking the means of a confessor, and being under the necessity of communicating or celebrating, prudently judges himself to be contrite when he is only attrite; for to such a one it confers the grace of justification ex opere operato as well. The third effect is to preserve one from the fall into sin, partly by increasing the habit of charity, whereby it renders us more robust and inclined toward divine things; partly by protecting us from snares and diminishing the *fomes* (kindling) of sin; and partly by forestalling us with holy inspirations, by which we are fortified against temptations; for of all these aids, the Eucharist is the cause which is necessary for preserving the spiritual life. The fourth effect is spiritual delight; for it excites us to the joy of the spirit. The fifth is the glorious resurrection of bodies. For the glorious body of Christ, which is consumed in it, once joined to our body, leaves in it as it were a certain seed of glorious resurrection. The sixth effect, finally, is that it also profits others by way of impetration and satisfaction.

Note, however, that a single reception of the Eucharist does not sufficiently provide all these effects together and for the whole of life; wherefore it must be iterated more frequently, as Dionysius says here below in § 12, stating that this divine likeness, into which we are fashioned through holy communion, does not persist within us in the least unless it is constantly renewed by these sacred mysteries. The same must also be said of the Eucharist insofar as it is a sacrifice, which for that reason is offered daily in the Church in commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross, the efficacy of which must be applied to us by divine institution through the sacraments and through the Eucharistic sacrifice. For although Christ, by the unique offering of himself, insofar as it rests on his part, and in the divine preparation, brought the human race to perfection—because he merited for men the remission of sins, justice, and glorification—yet the daily sacrifice of the Eucharist is not superfluous, but necessary; since by it some portion of the virtue of the sacrifice of the cross is applied to us, the oblation of which was so pleasing and acceptable to God that He is prepared to grant to all men, because of it, the remission of sins, justice, and eternal life, to whom its virtue might be applied through the means instituted by Christ. And in this way it is said that through the oblation of the cross the remission of all the sins of the whole world was accomplished, that is, in the preparation of divine favor; because a sufficient price was offered by Christ, on account of which God is prepared to remit all the sins of the world, if it be duly applied to men. And thus a new oblation is not required, by which a new price might be acquired, yet the oblation of the constant sacrifice is necessary, by which the price of Christ's cross is applied to us.

Note also from § XII and XI, that the sacrifice of the Eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and honor, because it is the most excellent worship of God. For we can honor God with no higher thing than the worthy oblation of this sacrifice, both because it is the most excellent of all God's gifts, and because by it we protest that He is the primary source of our salvation and the author of all supernatural goods; and most especially because this act is the act of Christ as the principal priest. It is also Eucharistic, because through it we give thanks to God for all benefits conferred from the beginning of the world, and especially for the redemption through Christ's death, and for all the aids of our salvation which have come to us from his death. It is, moreover, propitiatory or expiatory of sins, and impetratory of God's benefits, as Lessius elegantly shows in lib. XII *De perf. divinis*, c. 14. For more, he who wishes may consult the scholastics in part. IV, quest. 85.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (24)

^A Excellent, that we have made mention of this rite, namely the Synaxis, (this same he also calls communion, because it communicates the mysteries to all who are worthy), which it is not permitted to pass over, or to celebrate another sacrament before it, (for the illustrious Hierotheus even called it the sacrament of sacraments), it is appropriate, before the others, to describe it hierographically, that is, by a sacred description of those things which are performed in it openly, and then to be led to the contemplation of each part. And first we inquire as to this, what the common element is, and [whether it exists] also for the other...

sacraments, which should be appropriated to this one, so that it is properly called communion and synaxis, seeing that every sacrament, whether you speak of baptism or orders, also possesses this, that it assembles and leads to communion and union. For in every sacrament these things are conferred upon those who are initiated, for example in baptism; for such a sacrament gathers the divided life of man—that is to say, the secular life, which is distracted into many things—into a uniform deification, and according to this it could be called a synaxis. And again, in such a collection of divided and secular motions toward the One—that is to say, toward God—it grants communion; and thus it might not undeservedly be called communion. Why, then, does the present sacrament claim such names properly for itself? We say that the perfection ^B of those sacraments exists from the gifts of this one; for it is not permitted to perform any hierarchic sacrament unless the most divine Eucharist works the conjunction with the One, that is, with God; for this is the primary thing that is celebrated in each. If, therefore, every single sacrament, deprived of these mysteries, is imperfect and cannot properly be called a sacrament, nor can it join or couple [the faithful] with that One, it is deservedly attributed to this one alone, as its proper title, the name of "synaxis." Furthermore, "synaxis" is by no means to be understood as a congregation of people, as some in this present time interpret the word, but as a conjunction and communion with God. One might also find the same thing in the sacrament of divine baptism; for although other sacraments also illuminate, yet to this one the name of "illumination" was properly ^C applied, because it is the beginning of all divine illuminations. For unless one has been initiated by divine baptism and has been deemed worthy of its illumination, he cannot become a participant in any other illumination. Having said these things, let us first observe the consecration of this sacrament itself—namely, how the mystery of the synaxis is celebrated—and afterwards we shall examine the matters of contemplation.

II. The Mystery of the Synaxis

The hierarch, having performed a sacred prayer ^D within the sanctuary (I mean the entrance itself, I suppose, the blessed one), and beginning from the very censing of it, circles the entire ambit of the temple; then, returning again to the divine altar, he begins the chanting of the psalms together with the others. Next, through the lectors (for he calls these "liturgs") the reading of the divine Scriptures—that is, of the Prophecies, the Apostle, and the divine Gospel—is recited; which being finished, the catechumens are excluded, and before them the energumens, who are naturally infested by demons, and the penitents; but those who are worthy remain. Furthermore, of the liturgs, I mean the subdeacons, some indeed guard the doors, while others perform some other task; but those who are primary, namely the deacons, together with the priests, place the sacred bread and the cup of blessing upon the divine altar, and then the common hymnology is proffered; for they had even then some document and of faith

^A To these the pontiff, having performed a prayer, proclaims peace, saying clearly: "Peace to all." And immediately, as they greet one another, the sacred tablets are read. And after they have washed, the hierarch, standing in the midst, has those chosen ones from among the ministers standing by him, and having sung, he performs the most divine sacraments, and brings before their eyes the things that have been celebrated, declaring them to be symbols of Christ, in that after the supper, having taken bread, and what follows; and that, "Do this in my remembrance." He points them out, that is, he lifts them up at that time, when the all-holy gifts are revealed after the prayers, though they remain covered until the time of participation. After these things, he himself partakes, and invites the others. But having partaken and distributed, he concludes with thanksgiving. And while many look only to the divine symbols, as they are unable to conceive of anything higher, ^B the hierarch himself is led up to the prototypes themselves, namely the very precious body and blood of the Lord, believing that even the things set forth have been changed into those by the holy and all-working Spirit.

III. Contemplation.

§ I. Passing now to the contemplation of the things celebrated in the synaxis, just as he did in the sacrament of illumination, he guided those who were still uninitiated through a sensible variety of symbols; so here too he does this for the guidance of those who are still being perfected and are not yet perfect, in a harmonious way, that is, one befitting the power of their own state. He calls it "a variety and composition" on account of the symbols. For since contemplation ^C is simple and single, the symbols are fittingly a variety and composition; for those who pay attention to the symbols do not possess the single and simple knowledge, but one leads in this way, another in that, and one relates the allegories in one way, another in another, as he wills. There are some, indeed, who, remaining caught up in the symbols, interpret the things above themselves according to those symbols, and falsely opine; according to which falsehood they are also divided and multiplied. Here, therefore, the Father says that not even this varied composition through symbols is senseless to those being initiated, and merely as appearing to the senses; for the readings of the Scriptures, even where they might not have an anagogical meaning, teach the discipline of a virtuous life and the purging of wickedness. Now the common and participation in the same bread and cup enjoins a conformity of behavior; ^D for the living together and having the same manner of life also brings to memory the Lord's supper, which he also calls an "archisymbol," as if it were of basic communion. For a "symposium" is called a common banquet and supper, and that which is contributed to the common stake, whence also that which is given is a "symbol," and the one who does not contribute is "asymbolos," imperfect or useless; according to which even the very author of the symbols (whether of the communion, that is, or of the things contributed to the common stake; for whatever might be contributed is a creation of God) very justly renders void and excludes from it Judas, who did not holily partake of the supper. For having distributed the mystical bread and the cup even to him, he [reserved] the mysteries only for his disciples, after that one had gone out from the supper,

Why, then, does he deprive Judas of the divine mysteries, although he supped with him? ^A It is by all means to teach us that it is not sufficient to be corporally present and to sup together—for this is not equivalent to communion—but it is necessary to be present according to the mind. For that which is a true approach according to a state, as it were by knowledge—that is, to be thus disposed in one's intentions and to enter through faith according to the mind—this constitutes true communion. Which was not the case for Judas at that time, though he was present bodily and supped with him, for Judas was unworthy of these things. Why was he given them as one unworthy?

^B II. But these things, as I said, have been spoken more sensibly for those who are still imperfect and cannot ascend from thence to the height of contemplation, for their guidance and for the instruction appropriate to them. We, however, leaving outside the entrance, shall enter into the contemplation itself, passing from the effects to the causes—that is, from the things visibly performed to the invisible and mystical things, which are the causes and archetypes of those which fall under the senses. Those are termed effects which have from elsewhere the cause of their being in any way. Or he calls these "causes," which in a certain way look towards the ultimate Good, and for the sake of which, and keeping them in sight, we perform these effects, and indeed do so for their sake. But oh, most divine and sacrosanct sacrament! For it speaks to the soul as to a living being, and with good reason, just as that great theologian Gregory also says: "But, oh, passover, great and holy!" For our passover, as is this holy sacrament, is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, ^C to whom the holy one addresses his discourse, that he may reveal the coverings and fill [the soul] with unitary light and has a word for the holy [to reveal the hidden].

III. Since, therefore, we have entered, we must strip off the first of the images. He calls "images" the likenesses of mystical things, as we have also explained more fully in the *Divine Names*. He has called the mystery of the *synaxis* the first of these, whose intelligible sense—that is, that which is signified by contemplation—he professes to strip bare. Since, then, the bishop is a type of God, let us see how he begins to offer incense from the altar to the extremities of the temple, and returns again to the divine altar of God. The goodness of God, therefore, proceeds from itself to all things that are ruled by providence, but ^D it does not, because of these, ever depart from its own essential station—the secret of which essence is signified by that inaccessible altar to which the bishop returns. In this manner, then, the sacrament of the *synaxis* is ordered, for the method of upward leading (*anagoge*) here is twofold. And this is the first: that even though the divine sacrament of the *synaxis* has a unitary, simple, and concentrated beginning, yet it is multiplied for the variety of the symbols; and then, in a uniform manner, it is gathered back from these into its own unity, and unifies those who approach it holily. The second method is that the divine hierarch, even if he uses symbols and, because of the providence for those who have taken a lower place, is multiplied from his unitary knowledge, nonetheless, as one altogether absolute,

and not communicating with those of a lower order, he returns to his own principle; and, having made an intelligent entry into the One, he intellectually perceives the essential reasons of the things being consecrated, making the return to the first things the end of the progression into the second.

§ IV. Here he says what consonant psalmody signifies. Observe, indeed, the word

consubstantial

§ V. All these things sacred writing has rooted together with the holy sacraments; for nothing is performed entirely in silence, except by divine hymns and psalms. The scope of the psalms, then, is to praise God and the men who were dear to God, having a power that is evocative and comprehensive of such things, which, he says, is necessarily employed in all things that are performed hierarchically, in that it produces a lasting memory in those who sing of the things that are sung, and harmoniously disposes our psychic states for the mysteries to be celebrated a little later. Take also the consonance of psalmody for the purpose of learning the concord that is with God, with one another, and with oneself. When, therefore, these things are done, and hymnology has well-disposed our souls and gathered them into concord, as if by a single and harmonious dance, it has harmonized our ineffable, intellectual psalmody (which he calls both "concise" and "overshadowed": the former, as being intellectual and unitary; the latter, as being invisible and hidden)—

^A it unfolds through many images, (for the image of the psalmody is one thing, and the image of the reading is another;) thus, such hymnology is widened even through the readings. Again, in these readings, he who looks with his mind will see how all things have been ordered well and as they ought, according to the inspiration and impulse of the divine and life-creating Spirit. For those of the Old Testament are read first, then those of the New—the former because it spoke of Christ, and the latter because it brought Him to completion; the former wrote in images, while the latter plainly demonstrated the truth; the former might be called "theology" (or "discourse about God"), and the latter "theurgy" (or "work of God"), because it showed God Himself in the flesh.

§ VI. ^B Those who are utterly outside these sacred readings 207 and spiritual trumpets do not even behold the images themselves: for they have once and for all shut their eyes to the light of salvation and they raise objections against God who calls them, saying, "I do not desire to know Thy ways." But he takes up the trumpets either because of the spiritual warfare which the faithful have against the adversary, or because of that congregation of the people at Sinai according to the order of dignity; for the last of them used to hear the voices and the trumpets. Now the sacred ordinance permits these three orders—that of the catechumens, that of those troubled by spirits, and that of the penitents—to hear the reading, but bars them from the subsequent mysteries. Indeed, even the order of their standing has been ^C arranged with justice; and the last order is allotted to the catechumens, inasmuch as they have not yet been initiated into any sacrament and have not yet been perfectly born according to God. For just as happens in bodily things—since no one would say that imperfect fetuses or abortions have been brought into the light, because they have fallen out of the mother’s womb incomplete (for the natural scientist and physician would say that light does not operate upon them, since by nature [light] is designed to operate upon those things that are capable of receiving light)—in the same way, the matter stands regarding spiritual things: for the catechumens are still being formed by the Oracles and have not yet received a perfect form; they will be brought to perfection when they have been regenerated by divine baptism. But then, as being capable of receiving the light, the lights of the divine mysteries will shine upon them; now, however, they are kept at a distance, as the hierarchy and the sacred order provide, so that these things may not be made manifest to just anyone, even to the catechumens, who, at the appropriate time, when they are reborn through baptism, will receive the spiritual life and the divine lights. Thus, the order of the catechumens is the last.

§ VII. ^D Those who are agitated by unclean spirits are of the second and previous order, that is, the superior one. For this order is second with respect to the catechumens, yet it is superior, since these have been initiated and are by no means devoid of the sacrament, as are those others, although divine communion is withdrawn from them as well, entangled as they are by bodily allurements or by passions and the disturbances of pleasures; and he confirms that this order is rightly situated by arguing from the contrary. For if it is true, he says, that what is according to God...

^A renders a man such that he will act in no way regarding the things of the flesh beyond what is strictly necessary by nature—that is, eating, drinking, and sleeping, and even these only incidentally—but will instead be in all things a temple and a follower of the Spirit, it is manifest that a man of such a kind, being united to God, will in no way be acted upon by an unclean spirit. Rather, he will laugh at it, overcome it, pursue it, and inflict more upon it than he will suffer from it; nay, he will even show himself to be a spiritual physician to others. Moreover, I know with greater precision that the most sincere judgment of the sacred orders considers those who dissolve themselves in sloth to be more truly possessed by demons than those who succumb to spirits; for such men have abandoned the things that truly are for the sake of the most shameful pleasure and a happiness that is not really present in foreign things, though it seems to be. ^B He calls things "foreign" that pertain to sin, for sin is not natural. Or he says "foreign" are the things of the world, because they are not properly the own property of anyone, but pass from some to others; or because our way of life is not at all founded in these, but looks toward another life for the sake of which we were born. Therefore, on this account, these people will be separated from communion more strictly than those who are afflicted by spirits; for it is not permitted for them to participate in any other sacred thing than the reading of the Scriptures, so that through these they might be turned back to the things from which they fell. All these things have been said by the holy man concerning those who are subject to passions and still remain unrepentant, as if he were constructing an argument from the greater case. For he says: If the celebration of the divine mysteries repels even those who are in the very state of repentance, not admitting them because they are not entirely holy—proclaiming, as it were, that I am invisible and incommunicable to all who are not worthy of communion—then how much more will those who are still unrepentant be excluded from it? ^C When, therefore, the catechumens who have not yet been initiated into the sacred rites are excluded from the divine temple, and also those who are subject to passions and have fallen away from the divine life, and in addition those who are troubled by spirits and suffer this punishment—having no excuse in the fact that they undergo these things against their will, for they themselves gave themselves over to the unclean spirits, lacking intensity toward divine things and firmness—then together with these are also those who have indeed repented of their own faults and have renounced the contrary life, but who have not yet been perfectly purified. After these are those who are not entirely blameless and unblemished, just as in the Law a lamb was sought for sacrifice; I believe he means by these those who do not excel in the priesthood. For these do not stand entirely outside, but stand only outside the altar, excluded from the sacred contemplation by the veils that are spread out in between. Then at last the most holy spectators, contemplating, sing a catholic hymn, which is sung either as if by all, or as if offered on behalf of universal grace. Some call this hymn a hymnology, others a symbol of religion; ^D others, more divinely, call it a hierarchical thanksgiving, as it is comprehensive of all the thanksgiving for all the good things that have come to us from God. For it contains the sacred gifts that have reached us from God, and the reason for everyone was rightly called "thanksgiving," because everything was transacted for the sake of our salvation. And indeed...

we were first created by the good God and formed into deiformity by primeval beauties. He calls "primeval" those things which are contemplated in the divine nature, of which God granted participation to men according to their capacity and manner. And in Paradise, we were elevated in a more divine way to heavenly things. Then, since we were cast out of those good things through lack of attention, He deigned to recall us to our original state by restorative goods—and he calls these goods "restorative," because when we were sinners, we were saved and adorned by grace—and by an all-encompassing assumption, I mean of perfect humanity, He made us participants in His own goods. This is what the great Gregory also says: "He assumed the worse, that He might give the better." ^A

§ VIII. Note, moreover, how summary he is in covering the whole of the sacred hymnody, according to which, once God's loving-kindness has been praised and the gifts presented and covered, the greeting is performed, and the recital of the tablets. ^B Now the greeting signifies how those who were divided, either within themselves or with others, are to be brought to that unified state through holy communion. The greeting therefore signifies being joined to one another. But how with oneself? Because, of course, each person is united with himself and is carried toward one impulse—namely, brotherly accord. For unless one gathers oneself into unity to conceive such an impulse, one will never express it. These things are done because it is not fitting that those who are joined together in the gathering within the sacred altar should again relapse into divided desires, from which, in every way, perturbed enmities against nature are stirred up. He speaks of "equals" as being humans toward humans. That which is "according to nature" is the good; for every human good is according to nature, just as evil is against nature. Or indeed, he calls an "equal" a person of the same nature, that is, one's neighbor. ^C

§ IX. Therefore, the greeting establishes this unified life, placing the like in the like, and separating divine and unified things from partial and human ones. And thus, for these reasons, the greeting takes place; the recital of the tablets, however, proclaims those who have lived holily, and furthermore, it stirs up the living to a similar emulation. For we do not hold the saints as if they were dead, but as living a better and eternal life. He draws this from Solomon, who says: "The just live forever," and from the holy Gospels: "He who believes in me, even if he dies, shall live." ^D Therefore, we not only make mention of the saints, but we also entrust them to the memory of God. After this, he also describes how the divine remembrance occurs: for what is said in the prophets, "to remember before the Lord," does not mean

^A not that the memory of God is renewed in the memorial phantasy, which is what happens in us, tied as we are to the flesh; but the memory of God is rightly called the knowledge of God, by which He knows those who are perfect, having become deiform in Him through a life illustrious in virtues, and having been deemed worthy of that irreproachable knowledge concerning them, just as the divine oracles also testify: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," not in so far as it is simply death and the separation of the soul from the body, but in so far as divine men are perfected in holiness; just as we speak of a "precious chain," not because it possesses value in itself, but because it was put on for the sake of piety upon the one who preaches piety. And that fact, too, manifests the indissoluble union of the saints with Christ, that when the precious gifts are set forth, the proclamation of the names takes place ^B immediately and without separation.

§ X. These things having been done, the hierarch stands before the sacred symbols and washes his hands, and all the priests with him. The reading of this arrangement involves a hyperbaton, or transposition, because he who is washed has no need of the washing of other parts, save for the extremities and the outer parts; from which washing, having attained a state of purity, he will make his turning toward God unblemished. ^C The sacred laver spoken of in the Law and this present washing of the hands declare this; for this is what is being hinted at. For just as the Law had a laver, so here the washing of the hands takes place. And the holy man brings in the washing of the hands, because from this the most extreme purification of the extremities is also signified; for the hands are the extremities or outer parts of the body. For this reason he also says that he who is washed will be "free," that is, unencumbered, as one not held by any inferior conduct or preoccupation. For if even the ultimate phantasies of the soul are purified, they will possess clearer theophanies, as they emit—that is, send forth—their own splendor into the brightness of the mirrors that are, by grace, of a like nature. He calls the souls of the saints "mirrors," as they are receptive of the divine light and capable of being made like to the higher lot. Speaking in the Attic style, as an Athenian, he constructed the phrase saying "emitting their own splendor," just as he did in the 7th chapter of the *Celestial Hierarchy*, according to that ^D "Renowned Hippodamia" and "the snake of Pholoës." But why does the washing of the priests take place before the sacred symbols? It is because before Christ, who gazes upon all human thoughts, that supreme purification is brought to completion by His most perspicuous scrutinies and by His most exact and incorruptible judgments; for in this way the hierarch, united to divine things, performs the most divine rites. What then are the divine operations toward us that we speak of (namely, the providences of Jesus Christ our Lord toward us, which, for the salvation of our race, He accomplished by the good pleasure of the Father in the Holy Spirit), let us say hereafter according to our power concerning those which one

are celebrated by the divinely-inspired hierarchs when they offer the unbloody sacrifice, in so far as it is possible for us. ^A

§ XI. Human nature, having fallen from Paradise at the beginning, was delivered unto death; for, consequently, the transgression delivered our first father, who had been goaded away from the divine will by the deceits of error, unto those things which are contrary to divine goods—namely, to death and corruption—by his own propensities. And what is meant by “by his own propensities”? Since, in fact, we draw the origin of our constitution from the earth (for our body consists of it), we deservedly had after the transgression an end also consistent with our origin, being resolved into the earth, since it was said: “Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return.” Thus, either that which is brought in is added on account of “own propensities,” or it is understood as “free and spontaneous,” and that which is brought in is again understood in the same way. Observe, however, how he says: “From life which tended toward the things above”; for “anagogic” (not upward-leading) life is also called that which is wanton and uninstructed, having a wicked course—but here he speaks of that which seeks the things above and having turned toward God. Hence, when nature had strayed from the straight path to God, it did not notice that it was serving not gods and friends, but hostile enemies, by whom it was cruelly abused ^B according to their own mercilessness—(for what evil did they not inflict?)—it had fallen into the danger of destruction, which he also calls non-existence, meaning spiritual death. Our God, therefore, through His own infinite goodness, did not refuse His providential care; for it was the very Word of God who, having taken upon Himself our nature without sin, indeed remaining entirely what He was without mutilation, and not falling away from His own state (here he does not call state some inherent quality, but His own natural permanence and constitution), granted us fellowship with Himself, and dissolved the power of the apostate force against us (which he also calls a multitude, not entirely on account of number, but because it had fallen most remotely from the One and the God who is above the one), not by the power of divinity, but in judgment and justice. For since we had been delivered to death on account of sin, the Lord Himself was found sinless, and justly became superior to death. And just as from one, the first Adam, the harm came upon all, ^C likewise from one also, the second Adam, our Savior Jesus Christ, salvation passed to all. Hence, He also transformed our nature, filling with light that which was dark, and adorning that which was devoid of form and beauty, the body—the dwelling of the soul—freeing it from all corrupting defilement; and He showed us the way of ascent to Him, according to that assimilation to Him which is possible.

§ XII. But how else could this divine imitation take place, unless those sacraments were always being renewed? “For this do,” He says, “in my ^D remembrance.” Observe [then] that in these matters [the initiate's] entire mind is embraced by the...

saint through the mystical prayer. Then the divine hierarch, having praised the providences of our Savior Jesus Christ, which He accomplished by the good pleasure of the Father in the Holy Spirit, and having beheld with uplifted eyes the intelligible contemplation, proceeds to the symbolic liturgy, that is to say, the bread and the cup. And explaining how he does this also according to the divine tradition, he speaks, excusing himself and crying out to Him: “For You have said, ‘Do this in my remembrance.’” Then, having asked to be made worthy both of the communion and of the distribution, he brings into view the objects he has celebrated, revealing that bread which is undivided, and distributing it into many portions. From there, he also distributes the unity of the cup to all, doing this also according to a certain mystical reason; for the One and Simple [Word] of the most godlike Word proceeded without change in His incarnation into composition and visibility, ^B uniting our humble nature to His own most divine excellencies. For thus are we also united to Him, if we are joined together as members according to the same identity of the undefiled and blessed life; and may we not suffer what a dead part of a body suffers when it is joined to a living one. For just as that [dead part] becomes altogether unfitting, unjoined, and lifeless, even so, if we are thus dead, we shall never be joined to the living Christ; for it is necessary, if we desire communion, to set our gaze upon His most divine life, and thus by our assimilation to it, to ascend to the deiform state, the communion of the likeness having been harmoniously bestowed upon us.

§ XIII. ^C These things the hierarch signifies through the rites being performed, revealing and dividing and distributing the communion; for he depicts sensibly in the symbols our intelligible life, our Lord Jesus Christ, who from that hidden divine [source], clearly the immutable Godhead, was fashioned in the whole and true and perfect incarnation from our nature, and came forth to our divisible, that is, material nature—without change from that which is one by nature, that is, from His own Godhead—and calls our human lowliness to the participation of His own goods, provided we also appear fit for assimilation to Him as far as possible.

§ XIV. From here, the hierarch, having communicated and distributed, concludes with thanksgiving. And first he communicates, and thus he distributes; because one must first be in the participation and fullness of the goods, and only then distribute; first to be illuminated, and thus to illuminate. Wherefore we also conclude this, ^D that they act wickedly who, not being taught by God, presume to teach. For as it happens with the solar rays and glass, that the glass, or horn, or other transparent objects first receive the light, and only then transmit the light to other things; thus also in the case of...

as candidates; so too in the divine light, the teacher himself must first be luminous, in order subsequently to lead others to illumination by his teaching. For how could he be approved as fit before the divine inspiration and judgment? The Lacedaemonians used the term ^A *harmostes* (aptator/governor) for the one appointed by them to govern the cities subject to them, because he fitted those subject to him to live according to law. Whence also the Athenians similarly called those who directed others to live well *harmostae*. Wherefore he also here calls the head of the Church a *harmostes*.

§ XV. Furthermore, in these [matters] the entire adornment of the sacred rites (by adornment he means all the orders of the Church) concludes with thanksgiving, having received the most divine mysteries, recognizing and praising this grace; for those who do not recognize it do not give thanks at all, even though by their own nature those gifts are worthy of every thanksgiving. But, as I was saying before, those who, on account of their propensity for worse things, are unwilling to attend to such great gifts, those remain ungrateful for those infinite graces. He does not say this, however, to mean that if they had willed it, they would have attained it; but [he means] that they were unwilling even to catch the first glimpse of the light of instruction; whence it happens that they are deprived of those gifts, and are frustrated of every other benefit and the grace of the good Spirit. "Taste," he says, "and see." Whence those who have tasted, viewing the magnitude of the participation, and weighing what they have received, clearly do not cease from giving thanks at any time.

CAPUT IV.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

I. ^D Tanta sunt et tam præclara sanctissimæ synaxeos spectacula spiritalia, quæ nostri cum uno illo, uti sæpe diximus, communionem atque conjunctionem præcipuo quodam ritu sacro perficiunt; verumtamen est et alia huic coordinata consecratio, quam unguenti mysterium præceptores nostri appellant. Hujus itaque partibus juxta sacras imagines ordine perspectis, hoc modo per easdem ad illud ejus unum hierarchicis contemplationibus evehemur.

II. Mystery of the consecration of the ointment.

^A In the same way as in the synaxis, the orders of those who are not yet perfect are dismissed, once there has preceded, as is well known, the sacred procession through the entire temple with the fragrance of perfume, and the sacred chanting of the psalms, and the reading of the most divine Oracles. Then the hierarch, having taken the ointment, places it upon the divine altar, covered by twelve sacred wings, while all shout ^B with a most holy voice the sacred melody of the divinely inspired prophets; and having completed the prayer performed over it, he uses it in the most holy of the consecrations dedicated to him for almost every hierarchical performance.

III. Contemplation.

The introductory elevation of this perfecting ritual, through those things performed in a sacred manner with the divine ointment, signifies, I believe, that the sanctity and fragrance of the mind ^B must be veiled by holy men; since holy men are divinely commanded not to display, for vain glory, the beautiful and fragrant likenesses of the hidden God which are according to virtue. For the hidden and transcendent, fragrant fair-forms of God are immaculate, and they appear intellectually only to those who are intellectual, desiring that those who are according to virtue in their souls should possess incorruptible images. For the indelible likeness of deiform virtue, having ^C been well imitated, looking toward that intelligible and fragrant beauty, so forms and molds itself toward the most beautiful archetype. And as in the case of sensible images, if the painter looks steadfastly toward the archetypal form, not being drawn away to anything else of visible things nor divided in any way, he will, in a manner of speaking, duplicate that very one who is being painted, and will show the truth in the likeness, and the archetype in the image, and each in the other, apart from the difference of essence; ^D so for those who love beauty, in the mental painters, the intent and constant contemplation of the fragrant and hidden beauty will grant the unerring and most deiform image. With good reason, then, the divine painters, by turning their intellectual part immutably toward that super-essential, fragrant, and intelligible beauty, do nothing of the God-mimicking virtues within them to be seen, according to the scripture, by men; but they sacredly contemplate, as in an image, in the divine ointment, the most sacred mysteries of the Church veiled. For this reason they themselves, sacredly veiling the holy and most deiform excellence according to virtue within their God-mimicking and God-written mind, look only toward the archetypal intelligence; for they are not invisible merely to the unlike,

nor are they drawn down to the sight of them. Wherefore, ^A as is fitting for them, they do not love those things which are seen at random, but that which is truly just and good; nor do they regard that glory which is irrationally and commonly proclaimed as blessed, but, judging good and evil for themselves in imitation of God, they become certain divine images of divine-ruling fragrance, which, possessing in itself the truly fragrant, does not turn away toward that which seems unlike to the many, impressing what is unfeigned upon its true images. And yet they themselves are not dragged down to the sight of those others, nor do they love the things that merely seem beautiful and just, but rather they desire the things that truly are; they do not look to the glory that is irrationally lauded by the multitude, but, judging for themselves what is good or worse in a God-mimicking way, they are divine statues of that most divine-ruling fragrance, which, having in itself the truly fragrant, does not turn toward that which appears unlike to the many, but imprints its unfeigned character upon its true images. ^B

§ II. Come now, since we have looked upon the outward beauty of the entire holy rite, let us look upon its more divine beauty, having removed the veils so that we may contemplate it in itself, clearly vibrating that blessed radiance, and filling us with that fragrance of odor which has been explored by spiritual men. For this visible ointment is not incommunicable or unseeable to those who attend the hierarch; on the contrary, while it reaches even to them, and stays that contemplation which surpasses the capacity of the multitude, it is reverently covered by them, and is separated from the crowd by hierarchical right. For that ray of the most sacred things, while it shines purely and immediately upon divine men as though they were intelligent, and openly imbues their spiritual conceptions with the good odor, does not proceed in the same way to what crawls upon the ground, but by them—as spectators of the secrets of spiritual things—it is shrouded without display, lest it be violated by any of the unlike, under winged wrappings; by which sacred symbols the excellent orders of those beneath are led upward, according to their capacity, to the holy analogy of those things. ^C

§ III. This, then, as I have said, is the sacrosanct mystery now being praised by us, of such order and virtue that it consummates the hierarchical functions; for which reason our divine instructors have also described it, as being of the same order and operation as the sacrosanct sacrament of the synaxis, for the most part by the same images, and by mystical distinctions and sacred words. And one may see the hierarch himself in the same way diffusing the sweetness of the odor from the more divine place to the following holy places, and, by his return to the same place, teaching how participation in divine things, while it is communicated to all holy things according to the merit of each, stands nonetheless in itself neither diminished nor moved from its place, in the property of the divine foundation, without any immutation of itself. ^D Likewise, again, the songs and readings of the Oracles bring to birth those who are not yet perfected.

to a life-giving adoption, and they promote the holy conversion of those who are miserably active, and they take away the contrary fear and seduction from those who are acting cowardly, in order to show forth to them, proportionally, the highest peak of the deiform habit and power; according to which they will rather strike terror into the contrary powers, and shall stand in charge of the healing of others, being themselves, by the imitation of God, established in their own proper goods, and possessing efficacy not only against the contrary terrors, but also bestowing it upon others: but to those who have returned from iniquities to a holy mind, they bring in a certain holy habit, lest they be captured again by iniquity; but as for those to whom anything is lacking for absolute purity, they utterly cleanse them; and they lead the holy ones to the divine images, and to the contemplation and communion of them; and they feast the most holy, ^B filling up that which is of the form of unity in them by blessed and intelligible spectacles, and making them unified.

§ IV.

What then? Does the present sacred ritual, which is now being celebrated, indiscriminately dismiss those orders which are not wholly pure, of whom we have already made mention, in the same manner as occurs in the synaxis, and which is discerned only in the holy images 100', and is immediately beheld and performed by the most holy men alone in the hierarchic anagogies? But since these things have been said by us many times already, I consider it superfluous to repeat them in the same words, but rather, passing on to the things that follow, let us see the hierarch covered with twelve wings, holding the divine ointment and performing ^C the most holy perfection over it. Let us say, therefore, that the composition of the ointment is a certain collection of fragrant materials, possessing within itself abundantly fragrant qualities, the participants of which are perfumed according to the proportion of the quantity of the participation of the fragrant thing which they have. We are confident, indeed, that the most God-like Jesus is super-substantially fragrant, filling our intellectual part with divine pleasure through intelligible distributions. For if the perception of sensible fragrant things makes one well-disposed, and nourishes with much pleasure the discriminative faculty of our sense of smell, provided it be harmless and in a suitable symmetry with the fragrant thing, one might analogously say that our intellectual powers, if they have not been corrupted by any inclination toward evil, through a certain natural vigor of judgment, and according to the theurgic measures and the suitable ^D conversion of the mind toward the Divine, come to be in perception of the God-like fragrance and in holy well-pleasedness

and satiated with the most divine nourishment. Therefore, that mystical composition of the ointment, as in a configuration of things without configuration, depicts for us Jesus himself as being the abundant fountain from which the sweetness of divine odors is drawn, while by God-principled proportions He infuses those most divine spirits into minds that are most God-like; being sweetly affected by these, and full of sacred perceptions, they enjoy spiritual nourishment, while these fragrant distributions by divine bounty enter into the spiritual portion of the soul. ^B

§ V.

I consider it, however, to be clear that for the essences higher than us, as being more divine, the distribution of the fountain-like fragrance exists in a certain way more closely, and more does it reveal and distribute itself to their most transparent part, and, overflowing abundantly to those capable of that power of reception which is according to the mind, and entering multiply; but to the lower ones, and those who are not equally capable, by reverently contracting that supreme contemplation and communion, it derives the participation of the same by drops accommodated to their capacity, by a certain divine proportion. The order of the Seraphim, therefore, which transcends those holy essences that are more excellent than us beyond measure, is signified in the twelve wings, standing around Jesus and placed near Him, free for His most blessed contemplations, as far as is permitted, and holily filled with the spiritual distribution in the most holy receptacles, and, that I may speak in a sensible manner, proclaiming with unceasing voice that much-sung praise of God; for the sacred knowledge of the celestial spirits is both indefatigable and possesses an indeficient divine love; and it exists superior to all malice and forgetfulness; whence that unceasing cry, in my judgment, designates their eternal and immutable knowledge and understanding of divine things, with all tension and thanksgiving. ^C

§ VI.

We have indeed, I think, well contemplated in the descriptions of the celestial hierarchies the incorporeal properties of the Seraphim, depicted in the holy Scriptures by sensible figures by which they express intelligible things, and we have exhibited them to your spiritual eyes; but since even now those who reverently attend the pontiff represent that same most sublime distinction to us briefly, let us again, with immaterial eyes, contemplate their most God-like splendor. ^D

^A Now, their infinite faces and many feet signify, as I think, the power and property of their multi-visionary nature regarding the most divine illuminations, and the ever-moving and manifold pursuit of divine goods. As for a six-fold position of wings, which the Scriptures mention, I do not believe it denotes a sacred number, as has pleased some, but rather that the powers themselves of that supreme essence which exists around God—the first, the middle, and the last of its intellectual and God-like potencies—are entirely spiritual, deiform, aspiring to things above, and essentially free and supramundane. For this reason, the most holy wisdom of the Scriptures, while depicting the figure of the wings, attaches feathers to their faces, middle bodies, and feet, to insinuate that they are entirely winged and carried upward with all their might toward that which truly exists.

^B § VIII. But if they cover their faces and feet and fly only with their middle wings, understand, as in a sacred manner, that so refined an order of the supreme essences is reverent toward those things that are higher and deeper than they can attain by understanding, and that by their middle wings they are moderately raised toward the contemplation of God, subjecting their own life to the divine scales, and being holily promoted by them toward the knowledge of themselves.

§ IX. ^C Moreover, what is said in the Scriptures, "One called to another," seems to me to signify that they share their God-seeing visions and understandings with one another without envy. And this is also worthy of sacred remembrance: that in the holy Scriptures, those most holy natures are quite significantly called by the Hebrew name "Seraphim," which, in truth, means that they are ignited through their divine and ever-mobile life, and that they burn beyond measure.

§ X. ^D If, therefore, as the interpreters of Hebrew names affirm, those most divine Seraphim are named by the Scripture as "incinerators" and "warmers," a name that expresses their natural state, then certainly, according to symbolic representation, they possess those powers of the divine ointment, which move upward toward the expression of the same, and incite the distribution of more effective vapors. For that essence, whose sweet odor surpasses the mind, desires to be invited by fiery and purest minds toward its own manifestation, and imparts its most divine inspirations in all-blessed distributions to those who thus, in a supramundane manner, invoke it. Therefore, the most divine of the super-celestial essences...

^A in their order did not lack knowledge that the most God-ruling Jesus had descended for the purpose of sanctification; but rather, knowing that He, because of His divine and ineffable goodness, had holily humbled Himself to our estate, and perceiving Him—even Him—being sanctified in a human manner by the Father and the Spirit, it recognized its own Principle, finding Him unchanging in His essence in those things which He accomplished divinely. Whence the tradition of the sacred symbols, while the divine unguent is being consecrated, sets the Seraphim in place, knowing and depicting Christ as remaining unchanged in His total assumption of our human nature for the sake of truth. And more divinely still, that it uses the divine unguent for the consecration of every sacred rite, clearly indicating, according to the Oracle, that He who sanctifies the one being sanctified is, as always, the same to Himself in every operation of divine benevolence. Wherefore also the gift and grace of the divine generation ^B is consummated in the most divine perfectings of the unguent. Whence, as I suppose, the hierarch, by pouring the unguent in the form of a cross into the cleansing font, brings before the contemplative eyes the fact that Jesus, even until death upon the cross, having been plunged on behalf of our generation, by that very divine and insuperable descent into His death, has graciously rescued those baptized according to the secret oracle from the ancient downfall of corruptible death, and has renewed them toward a divine and eternal existence.

§ XL

But indeed, to him who has been initiated into the most holy rite of divine generation, that consummating anointing bestows the influx of the divine Spirit; the sacred painting ^C of the symbols, as I think, setting before our eyes how the most divine Spirit is granted by Him who, on our account, in a human manner, was sanctified by the God-ruling Spirit, yet remained in the unchanging state of His essential divinity.

§ XII

Observe this also holily, that the law of the most sacred mysteries accomplishes the consecration of the divine altar too by the purest aspersions of the most sacred unguent. For this divine operation is super-celestial and supersubstantial, the beginning ^D and essence and perfective power of all the sanctification divinely granted to us. For if Jesus, who is our most divine altar, is the God-ruling self-dedication of the divine minds, in whom, according to the Scripture, being sanctified and mystically consumed like a whole burnt offering, we obtain access, let us behold with supramundane eyes that most divine altar (in which

those things that are to be initiated are consecrated and ^A sanctified) as initiated by the most divine ointment itself. For the most holy Jesus sanctifies Himself for our sake, and fills us with every holiness, while those things which are wrought in Him by dispensation flow down to us beneficially, as to those born of God. Whence, as I think, according to the hierarchical mind which is delivered by God, those divine leaders of our hierarchy call this most venerable sacred rite a perfection of ointment, from the thing that is ^B truly perfected; as one might say, the perfection of God, celebrating its divine perfection in both senses. For it is His ^C perfection, both that He is sanctified in a manner befitting humanity for our sake, and that He mystically perfects and sanctifies all things that are perfected. And that holy song of the God-inspired prophets, as those who know the language of the Hebrews say, signifies the praise of God, or "Praise the Lord." Since, therefore, every sacred theophany and mystical action is depicted in the varied composition of the hierarchical symbols, it is not ^D unfitting to remember the God-moved hymnody of the prophets; for it teaches, piously and at the same time in a manner befitting sacred things, that the God-ruling acts of goodness are worthy of sacred praises.

CORDERIUS' ANNOTATIONS. Note first, in the first part of this chapter, that the mystery of the ointment or chrism is said to be coordinated with the mystery of the synaxis, since it cannot be consecrated except during the solemnity of the Mass; but in the Church it has become the custom that this consecration be celebrated on the fifth day of Holy Week, the reason and rite for which see in William Durandus in the *Rationale Divinorum Officiorum*, lib. vi, cap. 74.

Note second, that in the Church three kinds of oil are then consecrated. The first is the oil of the catechumens, in whose exorcism the devil is commanded to depart from the catechumen, who is still considered dead until he is baptized. The second is the oil of chrism, which denotes those who are already alive, and is applied to the baptized, and in the sacraments of confirmation and ordination, and in other consecrations. The third is the oil of the sick, which provides a remedy for those already afflicted; and since pain follows sickness, hence in its consecration the bishop prays that virtue be granted to this oil, to drive away all pain and every sickness, according to that text of James v, 14: "Is any one among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed any sins, they will be forgiven him." For those who wish for more, let them consult William Durandus in the place cited above, and Alcuin in his book *De Divinis Officiis*, and Amalarius in various places, especially in the office of the fifth day of Holy Week.

In the eleventh part, he hands down the rite of blessing the ointment, to which ceremonies nearly on a par with the consecration of the Eucharist are applied. Whence Cyril of Jerusalem, in his 3rd Mystagogical Catechesis, exaggerates this consecration so much that he seems to compare it with the consecration of the Eucharist; but the comparison is to be taken by way of a certain similarity or proportion, not equality. Yet, in some respect, this blessing or consecration might seem more worthy, in that episcopal authority is necessary for it; so that without it, nothing is done in this mystery, for it pertains to the power of the episcopal order, nor does a simple priest have it by virtue of his order. Whether, however, the bishop can commit this to a simple priest is debated by theologians in the third part of St. Thomas, quæst. 72, art. 4, and it seems more probable that he cannot. See Suarez, part II, q. 72, art. 4, disp. 33, sect. 2.

Furthermore, the use of this ointment or sacred chrism (as Dionysius teaches here also at the end of the mystery) is very varied in the Church; but it is most solemn and essential in the sacrament of confirmation, for which it is the necessary matter, as St. Thomas teaches in the third part, quæst. 72, art. 3, and as the theologians agree with him. The crown of the head is also anointed with chrism on infants and catechumens after they have been baptized, which ceremony was used in the primitive Church, as appears from St. Dionysius above, cap. II, part I, § 9, and part II, § 9. Altars also, and chalices, and other sacred vessels are anointed with chrism when they are blessed, following the example of the ancient blessing, according to which the altar, the tabernacle, and its vessels were anointed by the command of God, Exod. xxx.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (25)

^A Tanta sunt spectacula spiritalia sacrae synaxeos. Note, however, that he calls only the liturgy the *synaxis*, according to which those who are worthy communicate in the divine mysteries; for it receives its name from this, not because it gathers the people, as someone might think, but because of that communion with the One, according to which we are joined to the Savior Christ as members to the head. Yet there is also another sacrament akin to it, that of the ointment: for this too is fashioned by divine consecration. Therefore, having observed its parts, according to the order of each, as indeed this thing and that thing and the other thing are fashioned (which he also calls images), we are thus raised to that unity of its, namely, the intelligible and spiritual. But by no means, since he calls that spiritual thing one, does he call the sensible images parts, as being more sensible, according to which our knowledge is divided, and not the parts which are performed concerning the individual sacraments, as we were saying above.

II. Mystery.

As we were saying regarding the *synaxis*, that the bishop incenses the entire church, beginning from the altar and ending at the altar, and that the chants and readings are recited, and the dismissal of the catechumens takes place; ^B even so, note that he calls only the liturgy the *synaxis*, according to which the worthy share in the divine mysteries; for it receives its name from this, not because the people are gathered together, as one might think, but because of the communion toward the One, according to which we, as members, are gathered unto the head, Christ the Savior. But this also is performed in the divine sacred ministry. Therefore, having examined its parts in the order of each—how this, namely, is performed, and this, and this (for these he also calls images)—we shall thus be raised to the one of it, that is, the intelligible and spiritual. But perhaps, since he calls the intelligible one, he says the sensible images are parts as being more perceptible, according to which our knowledge is divided, and not the parts which are the individual things of the ritual, as we were saying above. Just as we were saying in the *synaxis*, that the bishop incenses the entire church, beginning from the altar and ending at the altar,

^A and the dismissal of the catechumens occurs, in the same way these things are performed here as well. Then, the hierarch, taking the ointment, places it upon the divine altar, covered with twelve sacred wings as if with feathers, while all shout the Alleluia (for he calls this a song of the inspiration of the all-holy Spirit among the prophets), and having completed the prayer over it, he thereafter uses it for almost every hierarchic consecration.

III. Contemplation.

§ 1. Just as he was doing before, and first proposed the introductory anagoge for the instruction of those who are still being initiated and cannot be led up to a higher contemplation, so he does here as well. This ^B veiling of the divine ointment, he says, according to the introductory anagoge, signifies, I believe, that every fragrant mental action must be veiled; for this anagoge commands that the spiritual fragrances and the similitudes of the hidden God should not be displayed for the sake of empty glory. For they are pure from the world, and those divine and fragrant beauties appear only to spiritual men, and they require men who are uniform, not those who live according to the flesh, but those who bear incorruptible images in their hidden souls, provided that what bears the image of God remains immaculate; for that circumscribed simulacrum of deiform virtue will not have [its character] otherwise unless it has been duly imitated and has fashioned itself toward that very spiritual and fragrant beauty. For just as with sensible images, if a painter looks steadfastly ^C toward the archetypal beauty without being distracted hither and thither, he will accurately express what he is imitating (for this is what it means to "replicate"—for he will make something else like it, except for the difference of substance, since the former is truly animate and the latter a work expressed to the life), so too, for spiritual painters, a steadfast contemplation toward the archetypal and fragrant beauty will bestow an infallible likeness. Rightly, therefore, the holy painters, while expressing their own spiritual image without looking back, will not attend to extraneous deception. They will keep the divine ointment veiled as an image of the orders of the Church, so that they do not display every good work for the empty glory of men; and therefore, whatever is sacred in virtue, they hide within the mind, looking only toward the primary understanding, just as the ointment is covered. For they are not ^D merely unobservable to the multitude, whom he also calls unequal and dissimilar—for those who are equal will share virtue with each other and will not be harmed by one another, since both seek the divine glory and not that of men. Thus, they are not only unobservable to the multitude, but they themselves also do not desire to see them, not because they do not care for them, but because they do not seek to receive any benefit from them; whence, consequently, they do not love those things that are for show,

^A but they turn back—that is, they do not care, in a vainglorious manner, about those who sometimes do not accept their judgments; for they do not seek to have glory among men.

^B § II. Since we have set forth the introductory contemplation, he says, come now, let us look to its more divine and higher beauty, and, having removed the veils, let us contemplate the intelligible radiance itself, and be filled with the fragrance proceeding from it. For it is not the case that, because the preparation of the ointment is not visible to the multitude, it is therefore also not visible to the hierarch and those who are with him; rather, while the contemplation of it excels in them, they hide it as something precious and exceeding the capacity of the common people, and set it apart from the multitude. Often, indeed, in the book *On the Divine Names*, we have explained what is intelligible and what is intelligent. This, therefore, he says here also, that to those who are holy and around the bishop—as being akin to the intelligible light (for these are sons of the day and children of light)—God reveals the mystery of contemplation, not through the teaching of another, but by Himself illuminating them. Wherefore, no veil surrounds them regarding the divine ointment; but with unveiled face, according to the Apostle, they contemplate the mysteries; while for those who are not perfect, there is a need for symbols. Therefore, they are the ones who cover the ointment with sacred wings, and set it apart from the multitude. He calls the bishops "speculators" (viewers), since even among the pagan Greeks those who were appointed by all to inquire of God concerning future events, to offer sacrifices on their behalf, and to render God propitious for them, were called *theoroi*. ^C He calls the imperfect among the people "dissimilar"—for this is his custom. For he says that the sacrament does not proceed to the priests just as it does to the multitude, presented and hidden; but by them, on account of the multitude, it is concealed, so that they, too, may be led upward through enigmas, according to their own capacity and state.

§ III. This sacred consecration, therefore, is also one of the hierarchic orders and powers; and for this reason, it is of the same nature as the sacrament of the synaxis. For here, too, you may see the high priest beginning the incensation from the altar, and going around, and ending again at the same place, teaching by this rite ^D that the divine participation which flows forth to all remains undiminished in itself, and departs in nothing from its own identity. Similarly, the psalmodies and readings are also performed, which both act as midwives to the imperfect, and draw back those who are possessed by spirits, and repel the hostile pressure (for he calls the dread and allurements of sins by this name), revealing to them and teaching how they shall prevail over the adversaries, so that they may appear as healers in imitation of God to others; and they shall not only have the power in themselves against the contrary dread and fear, but shall also grant strength to others who are converting and repenting, so that they may not be subdued again, to those who are still in need of the all-pure (whom we called the laity above),

^A they perfectly cleanse, and finally feed the holy; and it is for this reason that both the singing of psalms and the readings commonly take place.

§ IV. But the phrase "What then? Does not this also..." should be read interrogatively, so that the "Yes, entirely" may be brought in; for he says, "What then? Does not this ceremony also, in accordance with the ceremony of the synaxis, send away the impure and is it witnessed only by the all-holy ones?" And this, of course, is so. He spoke purely, as if he were saying: "For this reason it sends away those who are not pure, so that it may be celebrated in a pure manner by those who are pure." These things have been stated by us many times, and it is superfluous, I think, to speak of them again, unless we see the hierarch, as he stands there, clearly showing how he holds the all-holy myron covered by his wings. We say, therefore, that the composition of the myron is gathered from the most fragrant substances, of which those who partake are perfumed in proportion to their participation. For the most divine Jesus, whose name is "poured-out myron" [Cant. 1, 2], as being super-essentially fragrant, fills those who partake of him with divine pleasure. For if the perception of sensible fragrances makes us feel well, provided only that we have a healthy sense of smell, one might say by analogy that our intellectual faculties, and the discerning part of the soul, also perceive the sweetness of the divine fragrance, provided they are in an uncorrupted state. The composition of the myron, then, portrays for us the formless Lord Christ in a form, the source of fragrance, which bestows divine emanations upon deiform souls, upon which the minds—taking pleasure—use this fragrance as intellectual nourishment.

§ V. Having spoken of "minds," using the word universally for both angels and ourselves, he already also makes the distinction that, in their case, it [the divine influx] is infused in a multiplied way, as the heavenly powers are closest [to God] and are more capable of such divine participation; but to humans, who are not equally capable, it is distributed according to proportion—for this is what "is distributed in symmetry" means. And the order of the heavenly powers which so greatly exceeds all others (observe, indeed, how he says here that the seraphim are superior to all) is signified by the twelve wings. Yet, someone might object here that Scripture does not attribute twelve, but only six wings to each, since the prophet says: "Six wings to one, and six wings to one" [Isa. VI, 2], and he spoke of the two together. This, then, is the supreme order of the holy seraphim, which, established near God, unceasingly proclaims the unsilenceable hymn of divine praise. Explaining what "unsilenceable" means, he adds: "For holy knowledge is tireless, and has divine love that is indeficient, and it is superior to all malice and forgetfulness; so that it never becomes silent, neither voluntarily through malice, nor involuntarily through forgetfulness." Well did he join "intellection" to "knowledge"; for an accurate understanding of anything creates knowledge of it.

[VI] Regarding the holy Seraphim, and how those depicted in the Scriptures are revealed intellectually, we have treated in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*. However, since those who stand near the high priest and protect the holy ointment represent the same arrangement, let us say something briefly about them.

[VII] Their diverse faces—one human, another bovine, another leonine, another aquiline, and others appearing in different ways—declare the manifold power of their vision; for every vision occurs through some revelation of the countenance. Their many feet denote their perpetual motion and the power of divine knowledge that penetrates many things; for the fact that they know many things comes about through their feet. I do not think that the composition of six wings demonstrates a number [because this number is perfect, as consisting of its own parts—for three, and two, and one, are again six, which are a half, a third, and a sixth, as it seemed to others; and we ourselves have stated this to be the explanation in the book *On the Celestial Hierarchy*], but that the six are divided into three dualities. For even in all the heavenly powers acting in concert, and again in each rank, there are first, middle, and last [entities]; for this reason six wings are placed around them, so that their power of being led upwards might be signified by the double wings, for one is not sufficient. Furthermore, this indicates that the first, middle, and last of their spiritual powers are led to God Himself and are loosed from earthly things—for this is what the word "absolute" (*apoluta*) declares; not that the six wings themselves are loosed, but that they are loosed from earthly, creeping things. And so, in order that the divine Scripture might imply that they are fully winged, it attaches wings above, below, and in the middle.

[VIII] But why are the upper and lower wings folded, while the middle ones are extended? Because that order is reverent toward higher and deeper things, not seeking what is higher nor investigating what is deeper, but seeking only what is middle and proportionate, it is carried upward, submitting its own life to divine justice and directing its affairs according to it.

[IX] That one cries to another signifies the abundant communication of their intellections.

^C [X] Since, moreover, in the Hebrew tongue they are interpreted as "incensers" and "those who warm," from this is signified their power of lifting upward through the spiritual distribution of the ointment; for all fragrance, dissolved by the heat of fire, produces vapors. For the supreme and fragrant Nature loves to be stirred by the fiery and most pure minds toward the diffusion of its own intellectual inspiration, where it even makes them participants in the joy over one sinner who repents. By no means, therefore, were the angels ignorant that Jesus Himself, who sanctifies, was indeed at one time sanctified in His human nature when He was baptized. Note, however, the accuracy of the words, and how He preserved the distinction of the flesh. For Jesus, who as God sanctifies all things, as man was also sanctified by the

^A Father and by Himself, since He is also God, and by the Holy Spirit; for the heavenly orders know their own principle, that is, their author and creator, Jesus. Even if He is sanctified, He nevertheless possesses an immutable nature in His essence, for He is God. For they understand Him reverently, in that He became man; for the word "condescending" signifies the one who became man. And if He is sanctified, He is sanctified according to His humanity; for this reason it is added: "And the precious ointment, which is the symbol of the Lord Christ, is sanctified, and the Seraphim stand around it." He said "unchanged," either because He was made like us in all things, according to our nature, without sin, or because He did not undergo any change or shadow of variation in His divinity when He assumed the human. And what is more divine is that the hierarchy employs the divine ointment for every holy consecration, clearly demonstrating that Jesus, who is sanctified, is the One who sanctifies. Therefore, the grace of baptism (for this is the generation according to God) is perfected by the ointment being poured in the form of a cross into the baptismal font by the hierarch, who perceives mentally that the mental ointment is the Lord Himself, submerged even unto death; for the font signifies death, and He, by His invincible descent—in which He could not be overcome by death—drew to Himself those who were baptized into His death. He calls this a hidden mystery, because the rationale of baptism in Christ was hidden from the multitude.

§ XI. Furthermore, the anointing with the ointment also grants the participant of baptism the influx of the Spirit, ^C as it is indicated from this, since the Holy Spirit descends through the anointing of the ointment. And the ointment is Christ, because from Him, who was also sanctified in a human manner by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is bestowed as His own. Just as when we hear of the substantial habits of the angels, we do not intuit them as qualities coming from without by accident, we must think this all the more in the case of God; for we do not accept a habit as an accidental quality, but as an essential habit of divinity, which naturally possesses from itself all things that are of goodness, since indeed the very deity here is not the essence itself of God, but a certain manifestation of His essence.

§ XII. Consider again another thing, that we also consecrate the divine altar itself with that precious ointment. This contemplation is sublime ^D and supernatural, and is the source of all sanctification and a power that brings to perfection, because that most divine altar is our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom every divine mind is sanctified. "For then," says David (Ps. L, 21), "we shall lay young bulls upon your altar," meaning by this the divine minds. For just as the bull was sanctified in ancient times, so too are the divine minds sanctified to God, in whom we have access, being completely consumed mystically like a whole burnt offering; for "bringing near" is said of living sacrifices, in which all things are sanctified. How is such an altar...

is in which all things are sanctified. By what reasoning is this altar itself sanctified by the divine ointment? It is certainly manifest that, just as He is baptized for our sake—though He Himself is in no way defiled, but rather cleanses us from our stains—and suffers and dies for our sake—though He Himself had not sinned, but rather delivers us from sin—so also He sanctifies Himself for our sake, namely the ointment, ^A the altar; and subsequently such a sanctification passes to us, who have become kin to Him through divine baptism. For this reason they call just such a rite, and the consecration of the ointment, by the thing itself; for previously we spoke of the mystery of baptism and the mystery of the synaxis, but here the mystery of the consecration of the ointment. If, therefore, we were to say "mystery of the ointment," we would be saying "mystery of Christ," for Christ is the ointment; but we say "mystery of the consecration of the ointment," just as if someone were to say "mystery of the consecration of God." Since "consecration" is said both of the one consecrating and of what is consecrated, we accept this term in both senses: both for that which is consecrated by us in the human manner, and for that which sanctifies all things that are consecrated. Furthermore, that sacred melody of the divine inspiration of the Spirit in the prophets, the *Alleluia*, those who are skilled in Hebrew say signifies the praise of God. Therefore, in every completed consecration, it is not unreasonable to remember God. And this is what he says, because the *Alleluia* is chanted in the consecration of the ointment. ^B

CAPUT V

^C

1. Concerning the ecclesiastical orders, the powers, and their perfections.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

The first part of this chapter shows: I. How well-ordered our hierarchy is. II. What the consecration of spiritual beings is, and to whom the legal hierarchy was given, and for what reason, and where it was given: and he says that our hierarchy is mid-way between the legal and the celestial. III. That there are three functions of the hierarchy, namely to purify, to illuminate, to perfect. IV. That the lower orders are led to God by the higher. V. That the pontiff is first in the hierarchical order, and that all sacred power is derived from him to the lower [orders]. VI. What the hand of pontiffs, priests, and deacons is. VII. That superiors have the faculties of their inferiors, and can exercise their functions, but not the contrary. The second part provides the rite of consecrating a bishop, a priest, and a deacon. The third part proposes the contemplation, in which he explains: I. What is common to each order, and what is particular. II. What is meant by the approach to the altar and the genuflection. III. What is the imposition of hands. IV. What is the signing of the cross. V. What is the proclamation of names, and how no one is to be promoted to sacred things unless elected by God. VI. What the kiss of peace implies. VII. Why a book of Scripture is placed on the head of the pontiff. VIII. What is meant by genuflection, whether of one or both knees.

§ 1. ^D This indeed is the most divine consecration of the ointment: it is now the time, after these divine operations, to set forth the sacred orders themselves, and their distributions, and powers, and actions and perfections, and the three greater orders which are contained under them, so that the description of our hierarchy may be shown, separating and casting away whatever is unordered and incommensurate and confused, without any mixture with it, and exhibiting beauty and order and majesty in the proportions of its holy orders. And indeed the threefold division of all hierarchy...

in those hierarchies which we have already celebrated, we have, I think, rightly set forth, saying that our holy tradition has the whole priestly task divided into the most divine ^A mysteries, and into those who grasp and communicate them to others, and into those who by them are holily initiated.

§ II.

Therefore, the most holy hierarchy of the supercelestial essences has for its consecration that intelligence which is most removed from matter, by which they know themselves and God, and a state of deiformity which is whole and, as far as possible, God-imitating. But the light-givers and leaders to this holy perfection are those first substances which reside around God; for these, according to the capacity of each, kindly and proportionally transmit to the inferior holy orders the deifying ^B knowledges ever imparted to them by that self-perfecting Godhead of the wise-making divine minds. And those distributions which are subject to the first substances are, as though being holily led up through them to the deifying illumination of the Godhead, truly called initiated orders. After that heavenly and supercosmic hierarchy, the Godhead, benevolently bringing forth its most holy gifts into our midst, bestowed on those who were babes, as the Scripture testifies, the hierarchy according to the law, having the truth in dim images and ^C models far removed from the archetypes, and in hard-to-be-seen enigmas, and in types which did not have the contemplation concealed in them clearly distinguished, pouring forth light proportioned to them, as if to weak eyes, harmlessly. Now this hierarchy according to the law had as its mystery the leading up to the spiritual worship. And the guides toward this were those who were holily instructed in the rite of that holy tabernacle by Moses, the first of the high priests of the law and leader; who, for the sake of the institution of the hierarchy ^D of the law, describing everything which was holily performed according to the law to the image and imitation of the exemplar which had been shown to him on Mount Sinai, summoned those who, by the legal symbols, were being led according to their capacity to a more perfect initiation. And holy Scripture calls our hierarchy a more perfect initiation, naming it the consummation and holy end of that one. It is, moreover, both heavenly and legal through a certain communion of its intermediate condition, whereby it partakes of the extremes—with that one, indeed, in spiritual contemplations, but with this one in the variety of sensible signs, through which it is also led to the divine. And it has likewise a threefold distribution of the sacred order, inasmuch as it is divided into the most holy

^A mysteries and their officiants, and into those who by them are promoted to the sacred rites congruent to each. And any of the three divisions of our hierarchy is established as first, middle, and extreme, according to the likeness of the legal hierarchy and of that which is more divine than ours, supported by the power of a holy proportion, of a most beautiful order, and of a fellowship that connects all things.

§ III. The most holy consecration of the mysteries has, therefore, a first deiform power, whereby it cleanses the profane with sacred rites; a middle power, whereby it initiates those who are already cleansed by illuminating them; and, finally, a third power, the highest of the preceding, whereby it consummates and perfects those initiated into the sacred rites with the knowledge of their proper consecrations. ^B Furthermore, the distinction of the sacred ministers, by the first power, cleanses the profane through the mysteries; by the middle power, it illuminates those who have been cleansed; and by the last and highest power of the sacred ministers, it perfects those who have become participants of the divine light with the perfect knowledge of the contemplations they have seen. The power of those who are being initiated is, first, that which is being cleansed; second, that which, after cleansing, is illuminated and admitted to the sight of certain sacraments; and, finally, that which is more divine than the others, which is illuminated with the consummating knowledge of the sacred rites which it receives. A triple power of the holy consecration of the mysteries has ^C thus been celebrated, since we have shown from the Scriptures that the sacred regeneration of God is at once a cleansing and an illuminating splendor; and that the mystery of the Synaxis and the ointment is a cognition and knowledge that consummates the divine work, through which a holy leading up to the divine source and a most blissful communion is accomplished. Now, however, the priestly order must be set forth in turn, being divided into the cleansing, the illuminating, and the perfecting order.

§ IV. This indeed is the law of the most holy and supreme Deity, that through the first, the things that follow be led up to its most divine light. Do we not also see the sensible substances of the elements first approach the things more akin to them, and through those ^D then derive their efficacy to others? Fittingly, therefore, the beginning and seat of all invisible and visible distinction allows its deific rays to reach those who are more deiform, and through them, as through more transparent spirits, and ones more apt for participating in and transmitting the light, it shines upon and appears to the inferior ones according to their capacity. It is, therefore, the office of those who are first to contemplate God, to show forth to those who follow, without envy, and in proportion to the measure of each, the things they have contemplatively beheld in a holy manner.

^A And to initiate those who have been well instructed in all the divine matters of the hierarchy according to them, into the mysteries of the sacred order with a perfecting knowledge, and to have received the perfecting power to initiate; and to distribute according to merit the sacred things to those who have participated in the sacerdotal perfection through knowledge and in their entirety.

§ V.

The divine order of the hierarchs is first among the orders that behold God, and it is at the same time the highest and the ultimate one, for in it every distinction of our hierarchy is perfected and fulfilled. ^B For just as we see every hierarchy terminating in Jesus, so we see each one terminating in its own divine hierarch. The power of the hierarchic order permeates all the sacred totalities, and through all the sacred orders it acts out the mysteries of its own hierarchy; but the divine law has assigned to it alone, in distinction from the other orders, the performance of the more divine functions; for these are the perfecting images of the divine power, bringing to completion all the most divine symbols and all the sacred arrangements. For although some of the venerable symbols are performed by the priests, yet the priest will never accomplish the sacred divine birth without the most divine chrism, nor will he celebrate the mysteries of the divine communion unless the symbols of communion have been placed upon the most divine altar; indeed, he will not even be a priest unless he has been promoted to this lot through the hierarchic initiations. ^C Wherefore the divine law has uniquely attributed to the perfecting powers of the divine hierarchs the sanctification of the hierarchic orders, the consecration of the divine chrism, and the sacred ministry of the altar.

§ VI.

^D There is, therefore, the order of the pontificate or episcopate, which, supported by perfecting virtue, preeminently performs all the duties of the sacred order, and by interpreting, hands down the sacred disciplines, and teaches what sacred dispositions and powers are appropriate to them. The order of the priests, which illuminates, leads those who have been initiated to the contemplation of the sacred mysteries, being subject to the order of the divine hierarchs, with whom it celebrates its own proper functions, and in those things which it does, it shows forth the divine works through most holy signs and sacraments, and makes those who approach spectators, and admits them into the fellowship and communion of the holy mysteries, but to the hierarch...

^A he sends back those who seek the discipline of the mysteries they have seen. But the order of ministers or deacons is that which purifies and discerns things unlike, before they come to the holy rites of the priests; it also lustrates those approaching, so that it may render them immune to contrary things, and worthy of the spectacle and communion of the holy mysteries. Therefore, in the divine holy regeneration, the deacons strip him who approaches it of his ancient garment, and also unshoe him, and place him toward the west for the sake of renunciation, and again lead him toward the east (for they are of the purgative order and power), exhorting those who approach to cast off entirely the garments of their former life, and showing them the darkness of their previous manner of living, and instructing them, having renounced those things that are lightless, to be transferred to those things that illuminate. The order of deacons, therefore, is expiatory, leading those who have been purified to the excellent holy rites of the ^B priests, and it purifies the imperfect, whom it also cherishes with the purifying illuminations of the oracles and with teachings; and moreover, it keeps the profane away from the priests, for which reason it is set by pontifical institution over the holy doors, so that it may be signified that the access of those who come to the holy things must be purified in every way by illuminations, since the office of introducing them to the sight and communion of the holy things is committed to expiatory powers, by whom others, who are cleansed from every worldly stain, are admitted.

§ VII. It has been demonstrated, therefore, to us that the order of the hierarchs has the power of perfecting, and in fact does perfect; but that the order of the priests has the power of illuminating, and does illuminate; but that the ministers possess the faculty of purifying and discerning. For the pontifical order has the power not only of perfecting, but also of illuminating and simultaneously purifying; and the power of the priests, besides the faculty of ^C illuminating, also contains the science of purifying: yet the inferior [orders] can by no means pass over into the functions of the superiors, wherefore it would be a wickedness for them to descend to such audacity. But the virtues which are more divine, besides their proper faculties, also contain by their perfection the holy sciences of the inferior [orders]. However, since the ecclesiastical descriptions are images of divine actions, because they exhibit in themselves certain and fixed illustrations of the ordered and distinct divine actions, they are distributed in the hierarchic distinctions into first, middle, and last holy functions and orders, because, as I said, they exhibit in themselves the order and distinction of divine actions. For since that supreme Deity first purifies the ^D minds into which it insinuates itself, and then illuminates, and after being illuminated

leads them finally to a certain deiform perfection, the priestly order, which presides over divine images, rightly divides itself into ^A diverse ranks and powers; clearly demonstrating that those chief divine actions consistently and distinctly consist in most holy and pure orders. But since we have explained, as far as we are able, the priestly orders and duties, and their powers and actions, let us also consider, as far as we can, their most sacred consecrations.

II. The Mystery of Priestly Consecrations.

The Hierarch, when being led to the hierarchal consecration, having bent both knees before the altar, ^B has upon his head the God-given Scriptures and the hierarchal hand, and in this way he is perfected by the hierarch performing the rite, through the most holy invocations. The priest, having bent both knees before the divine altar, has upon his head the hierarchal right hand, and in this way is sanctified by the hierarch performing the rite, through the sanctifying invocations. The minister, having bent one of his knees before the ^C divine altar, has upon his head the right hand of the hierarch performing the rite, being perfected by him through the invocations appropriate to the consecration of ministers. And to each of them is impressed the sign of the cross by the consecrating hierarch, and for each one a sacred proclamation is made, and a perfecting greeting follows, as every priestly person present—along with the consecrating hierarch—greets him who has been co-opted into any of the said sacred orders.

III. Contemplation.

§ 1. Common to hierarchs, priests, and ministers, when they are being consecrated, are the approach to the divine altar and the bending of the knees, the imposition of the hierarchal hand, the signing with the cross, the proclamation, and the perfecting greeting; but special and ^D particular to the bishops is the imposition of the Scriptures upon the head, which the lower orders do not have; and to the priests, the genuflection of both feet, which the consecration of ministers lacks; for the ministers, as will be understood, bend one knee only.

§ II.

Therefore, that access to the divine altar and the bending of the knees signifies to all those being initiated into the sacred orders that their own life is to be thoroughly subjected to God, the author of consecration, and that their own intellectual integrity is to be offered up completely pure, cleansed, and uniform, so that, as far as it is possible, it may be worthy of the divine temple and of His altar, who in a holier way consecrates deiform minds.

^A The imposition of the pontiff's hand, at the same time, signifies the hierarchical protection by which, as if they were holy sons, he cherishes them with paternal affection, bestowing upon them the state and virtue of the sacred order, and driving far away from them the opposing powers. At the same time, it teaches those who are consecrated to perform all the sacred functions of the order as those who perform them under God, and who have Him as the guide of their actions in everything.

§ IV.

Furthermore, the sign of the cross designates the cessation of all carnal appetites at once, and the imitation of the divine life, while they steadfastly look to the manly and most divine life of Jesus, which proceeded even to the cross and death with supreme and divine impeccability; and it marks those who live piously, as being of a similar form, with the cruciform image of His own impeccability. ^B

§ V.

The pontiff proclaims the holy promulgation of the ordinations and of those being initiated, as the mystery declares, that the God-loving consecrator is the interpreter of the divine election, and that he does not promote those who are initiated to the sacred order by his own private grace, but that he is moved by God in all hierarchical ordinations. In this way Moses, when he was the donor of the legal ceremonies, did not promote his own brother Aaron—however dear to God and worthy of the priesthood he was—to the sacerdotal order before he was divinely excited to this, and under the supreme consecrator, God, he performed the sacerdotal consecration pontifically. ^C Furthermore, that divine and first donor of our order (for the most benevolent Jesus took upon Himself this office for our sake) did not glorify Himself, as the oracles testify, but He who spoke to Him: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Therefore, even He, while promoting His disciples to the order of priest, although as God He existed as the author of the consecration, yet at the same time He referred the princely and chief office of the sacrosanct consecration to His most holy Father and the Spirit of God, commanding the disciples, as the oracles testify, not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, which, He says, you heard through my mouth; for you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, the prince of the apostles, together with the decade equal in rank and pontifical status to himself, having arrived at the hierarchical ^D consecration of the twelfth of the disciples, piously left the election to the Godhead, saying, "Show him whom you have chosen," and the one under the divine

^A lot was canonically numbered with the holy hierarchical twelve. Regarding that divine lot which divinely fell to Matthias, others have spoken of it in ways that—in my judgment—are not holy, but I shall state my own understanding. For it seems to me that the Scriptures name the divine office itself a "lot," which revealed to that hierarchical choir the one who had been shown forth by divine election; except that the divine hierarch must not perform hieratic consecrations by his own impulse, but must perform them hierarchically and celestially, moved by God.

§ VI. ^B Now, that greeting which is used at the end of sacred ordinations conveys something sacred. For all who are present, being of the sacred orders—as well as the hierarch himself who has performed the consecration—greet the one who has been consecrated. For when a holy mind, through hieratic dispositions and powers, and by divine calling and holiness, has arrived at the consecration of a sacred order, it then becomes lovable to the orders of its own rank and the most sacred orders, having been brought to a most deiform beauty; it loves minds like itself, and is holily loved in return by them. Hence, that holy mutual greeting is celebrated among the sacred orders, signifying the holy communion of minds of equal rank, and the loving joy ^C in one another, inasmuch as it preserves in its entirety the most deiform beauty of the sacred order.

§ VII. These things, then, as I have said, are common to the whole collation of sacred orders. But the hierarch has that preëminent, most sacred imposition of the Oracles upon his head. For since the perfecting power and knowledge of every sacred order is granted to the God-inspired hierarchs by the archetypal and principal goodness of the Godhead, it is fitting that the divinely transmitted Oracles should be placed upon the heads of the hierarchs, which contain and ^D skillfully set forth all theology, and the manifestation of God as well as His operation, and the sacred word and action; in a word, all the divine and sacred works and words which have been granted to our sacred order by the beneficent divine principle, so that the deiform hierarch may existingly participate in every hierarchical power, and will not only perceive the true and divinely transmitted knowledge of all the sacred primary Oracles and operations through their manifestation, but will also bestow it upon others, according to the capacity of each one for sacred things, and will perform the consecrations in most divine knowledge and most exalted elevations, hierarchically.

^A And for the priests, the inclination of both knees is exceptional, compared with the liturgical order, since the latter bows one knee, and is perfected in this hierarchical posture.

§ VIII The bowing signifies the submissive approach of him who approaches, offering to God that which is holily brought forward. Since, however, as we have often said, the three orders of sacred ministers preside through three most holy rites and powers over the three ranks of those being initiated, and perform their saving approach under the divine yoke, the liturgical order, being solely cleansing, rightly performs the single approach of those being cleansed, placing them under the divine altar, so that within it the minds of those being cleansed may be consecrated in a super-cosmic manner. The priests, however, bow both knees, since those who are holily brought forward by them have not only been cleansed, but have also been perfected in a contemplative state and priestly power by their most radiant and anagogical sacred ministrations, through which their life has been thoroughly purified. The Hierarch, bowing both knees, has upon his head the divinely-transmitted oracles, and, by his pontifical office, leads forward those who have been cleansed by the liturgical power and illuminated by the sacred ministration, toward the knowledge of the sacred things they have beheld—proportioned to their capacity—and through this ^B he perfects those being brought forward into their complete dedication to God.

CORDERIUS' ANNOTATIONS

The first part of § I affirms that the entire hierarchical system is divided into divine mysteries or sacred rites, and into those who possess and communicate them to others, and those who are initiated by them. Whence in the Supplement to the Third Part of St. Thomas, q. 51, art. 1, it is inferred that some are those exercising hierarchical actions, and some are only recipients, who are the laity. Whence the administration of no sacrament belongs to the laity by office; but that they can baptize in a case of necessity is done by divine dispensation, so that no one should lack the faculty of spiritual regeneration.

§ II. Where he says: *For those who were infants*, he alludes to the Epistle to the Hebrews, where St. Paul calls those who had received the legal rites of Moses "babes" [m]. That law, he says, was accommodated to their capacity, and led them by shadows and figures to Christ, according to what the Apostle says: "The law was our pedagogue in Christ" [n]. "For in two ways," says St. Thomas (1-2, q. 98, art. 3), "did it ordain men unto Christ. In one way, by bearing witness to Christ, whence He Himself says: 'It is necessary that all things that are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me, should be fulfilled' [o]; and John v: 'If you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also: for he wrote of me' [p]. In another way, by way of a certain disposition; while it reclaimed men from the worship of idolatry and concluded them under the worship of the one God, by whom the human race was to be saved through Christ. Whence the Apostle says: 'But before the faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which was to be revealed' [q]."

Note, however, that Dionysius here distinguishes a triple state of men. The first is that of the Old Law, the second that of the New Law, the third is the state of glory or of the fatherland. But just as the first state is figurative and imperfect with respect to the state of the Gospel, so this latter state is figurative and imperfect with respect to the state of the fatherland, upon the arrival of which, the former is evacuated.

Ibidem: "And the sacred Scripture calls our discipline of mysteries the 'more perfect' hierarchy," etc. "For the new law," says St. Thomas (1-2, q. 107, art. 2), "is compared to the old, as the perfect to the imperfect. But every perfect thing fulfills that which is lacking to the imperfect; and according to this the new law fulfills the old law, in that it supplies that which was lacking to the old law." See more in the holy Thomas in the cited place.

^C § IV. This law is indeed the sacrosanct law of the highest Deity, so that through the first things that follow, they may be brought to His most divine light. From this place, Saint Thomas, 1st part, q. 106, art. 5, in the body of the article, concludes that the lower angels never illuminate the higher, but are always illuminated by them. The reason for this is that an order is contained within an order, just as a cause is contained within a cause. Therefore, just as one cause is ordered to another (namely, the second to the first), so too is one order to another. It should be noted in the same place that the ecclesiastical hierarchy indeed imitates the celestial hierarchy in some way, but it does not perfectly attain its likeness. For in the celestial hierarchy, the whole principle of order is from proximity to God, and therefore 241 those who are closer to God are also higher in rank and clearer in knowledge; and for this reason, the superiors are never illuminated by the inferiors: but in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, sometimes those who are closer to God through holiness are of the lowest rank and not eminent in knowledge, while some are eminent in knowledge in one respect and deficient in another; and for this reason, superiors can be taught by inferiors.

Note 1, § 5 and following, that the distinction of the sacred orders—as well as their number, difference, and subordination—is described by Saint Dionysius, which descends from the Supreme Pontiff. This subordination is confirmed by Clement, in the Apostolic Constitutions, book eight, chapter forty-six. For, he says, if there were no law established, and no distinction of orders, it would be enough for those affected by one name to perform all those ministries; but since we have learned from God the order of things, we have assigned and attributed to bishops the things that pertain to the headship of the priesthood, to presbyters those that pertain to the priesthood, and then to deacons those that pertain to ministering to both, so that the things that pertain to religion may be done purely and chastely. For it is not permitted for a deacon to offer sacrifice, or to baptize, or to perform a blessing, whether small or great, nor for a presbyter to perform the ordinations of clerics. For it is not permitted to invert the order, etc., as Clement says there and Dionysius here at § 7 more broadly declares. Wherefore Turrianus rightly infers in the same place that, since the holy apostles learned from the Lord, as apostolic doctrine testifies, that there are and are called 'Αρχιερεῖς (*Archiepeis*), that is, presiding officers or princes of the priesthood, no reasoning of a new name can bring it about that there is not in the Church a priesthood of rank which belongs to the bishops, and of priests, who are presbyters, over whom the bishops preside. Therefore, although our innovators confuse names to deceive and invent new accounts of names, they will never be able to change things and the differences between things.

Note 2, in the same place, that only three duties of a bishop are reviewed, namely the conferring of orders, the consecration of oil, and the blessing of the altar, whereas in the *Roman Pontifical* six offices or functions are attributed to the bishop with these words: "It is the duty of a bishop to judge, interpret, consecrate, ordain, offer, and baptize." Dionysius certainly wanted to review here only those duties of the bishop which are proper to him and not shared with any other order: for to interpret, to offer, and to baptize belongs also to priests by virtue of their office; to whom, in the Pontifical, five functions are assigned, namely to offer, to bless, to preside, to preach, and to baptize. See more on these in Vasquez in the third part, disp. 256, cap. 10.

In the second part, it should be noted that in the consecration of a bishop, Dionysius requires three things: the imposition of hands, the imposition of the Book of the Gospels, and the form of consecration. Theologians dispute whether that imposition of the Book of the Gospels is the matter of the sacrament, like the imposition of the hand of the pontiff. But Vasquez well shows that, although this ceremony has been accustomed to be used in the consecration of bishops since the time of the apostles, it is nonetheless not the matter of the consecration of bishops; because the matter must be applied by the same one by whom the form can be uttered as a legitimate minister; but the Book of the Gospels is placed on the shoulders or the neck of the one to be consecrated, not by the consecrating bishops, but by one of the chaplains, as is said in the rubric of the Pontifical, and in ancient times it was done by deacons (as Clement expressly relates, lib. VIII of the Constitutions, at the end of the third chapter), who are not ministers of ordination, nor can they utter the form: wherefore it cannot be the matter. And although in the Council of Carthage IV, can. 2, it is commanded that two bishops hold the book of the Gospels, and the others impose their hands, yet since the opposite is in use in the Roman Church, and Clement has handed it down, it is concluded that it clearly does not pertain to the essence of ordination that the book be held by bishops. But it is manifest that the matter must be applied by a legitimate minister, and indeed by him from whom the form must be uttered; as the cited Vasquez well discusses, 257, cap. 2, and disputation 138, cap. 4. Although Clement in the place cited and Dionysius ^D mention this ceremony, neither of them says it is the matter of the consecration of a bishop, nor that power is handed down through it, but they mention it just as other ceremonies are.

In the third part, § V, where he says: "In this manner Moses," etc., he alludes to that passage in Exodus xxix, 4: "And Aaron and his sons you shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of testimony. And when you have washed the father with his sons with water, you shall clothe Aaron with his garments, that is, the linen and the tunic, and with the ephod and the breastplate, which you shall bind with a belt. And you shall place the turban on his head, and the holy plate upon the turban, and the oil of anointing you shall pour upon his head: and thus he shall be consecrated," etc. Whence the ancient rite of consecrating priests is clear.

The same. "And he whom the divine lot had designated," etc. Thus in Numbers chap. xvii, we understand that the tribes of Israel gave their staffs to the lots, so that the one chosen by God might be declared priest. But the lot fell upon Aaron, whose staff alone had blossomed with swelling buds. So too Gideon sought the divine lot, saying: 242 "If you save Israel by my hand as you promised, I will put this fleece of wool on the floor: if there be dew on the fleece only, and on all the ground drought, I shall know that by my hand, as you promised, you shall liberate Israel," etc. In the same way in the third book of Kings, chap. xviii, lots were cast by the prophet Elijah, that it might be known whether he or the priests of Baal were the true prophets of God, and the true priests.

It should be noted that there are three kinds of lots. For some are divisive, as when it is inquired through them what is to be assigned to each, whether it be possessed property, or honor, or punishment, or some other function. Others are consultative, as when divine counsel is sought through lots, so that it may be known in a doubtful matter what is to be done. Others are divinatory, as when inquiry is made through them about future events. Lots are considered illicit then, of whatever kind they may be, when one acts in human affairs (as Aquinas says, 2-2, q. 95, a. 8, and in the work *On Lots*) thinking that the effect of the lot is according to the disposition of demons or the ingestion of demons: for this is superstition. Also when one expects an event from fortune; which is the vice of vanity. Also when, even if one expects the event from God, there is still an absence of necessity: for this is tempting God. Also when due reverence is not applied, or when divine oracles are turned to earthly business. Finally, when one uses a lot without discernment and a special divine instinct in ecclesiastical elections. And these are what are forbidden in the chapter *Ecclesia*, *De sortilegiis*. However, since the lots which were divinely instituted by the apostles in the first chapter of Acts, and by God in a singular manner [Jud. vi, 36] are strongly to be approved by Dionysius.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (26)

§ I. These things have been said concerning the divine and mystical ointment; but it would now be time after these things to set forth the priestly orders and the distributions. He uses this word ^A because every ecclesiastical order has its own ecclesiastical ministries allotted to it in a certain way, which it cannot bypass. It is permissible to take the "powers" (virtutes) and "actions" in one and the same sense, since they mean the same thing: for they ought to be described doctrinally as obtaining the force and efficacy of cleansing and illuminating. For we are first able (possess power), and then we perform. It is also permitted to distinguish them otherwise, and to take "powers" for spiritual gifts and merits; and "actions" for ministries; but it is manifest that we shall take "perfections" for the constitutions or ^B ordinations. For thus in our own hierarchy, too, whatever is uncompounded and unadorned will be purely set aside, but the orderly and adorned will be manifested. Since, therefore, there is a threefold distinction in every hierarchy, as I think I have already clearly indicated: for every hierarchical function is divided into the initiations themselves, the mystagogues, and those who are being initiated.

§ II. Therefore, the celestial hierarchy has, for its initiation, the most immaterial understanding of divine things, and, as far as can be given, a state of divine imitation; for the mystagogues, it has those first essences: for these beneficially derive divine gifts to the lower ones; but the lower powers are those which are initiated and consecrated. After that celestial one, the goodness of God, constituting this hierarchy of ours, since we were infants, granted the legal hierarchy, shedding upon our weaker eyes the light proportioned to them through certain obscure images, which did not have an understanding easy to discern. But since he said that ^C every hierarchy has an initiation, and mystagogues, and the initiated, when coming to the legal cult, he wishes to show such a triad. Initiation, therefore, for this [legal hierarchy] is the passage from types to spiritual worship, just as the Theologian Gregory also asserts; but the guides (mystagogues) to this—that is, the ones who were initiated by Moses, the first mystagogue and leader, into that tabernacle not made by hands, according to which, in describing that legal hierarchy, he called those legal things figures or images—they listened, for he heard: "You shall make everything according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain*." Those being prepared for initiation, then, would be those who are led up from this to a more perfect ^D initiation, which the Scriptures call the completion of the first and a holy end, according...

* Exod. xxv, 40.

^A to those who are brought over from this to a more perfect discipline, which they call the fulfillment of the primary lot, according to which even the Lord is called the fulfiller of the Law, and not a destroyer. Just as a painter, who often adds colors to the shadow of an image, would be said to fulfill it and by no means to destroy it. If, indeed, we must believe Paul, writing to the Hebrews, there is something midway between that celestial and the legal worship: our hierarchy, which shares with the celestial in that it uses spiritual contemplations, and with the legal in that it is varied, as that one is, by sensible signs.

§ III. This hierarchy itself also has the triple nature of hierarchical distinction, being divided into the mysteries, into the ministers of divine mysteries and priests, and thirdly into those who by them are promoted toward holy things. Each of these functions is again divided triply. The first of the initiations is ^B purification; the second is the illumination of those who have been purified; and the third is the perfection that completes the former ones. Again, the ordering of the sacred ministers first purifies, then illuminates, and then perfects. Deacons purify, priests illuminate, and bishops perfect. Of those being initiated, the first are purified through catechesis, the second are illuminated through baptism, and the third are perfected, receiving the perfecting knowledge of those things which they observed in the illumination, becoming partakers of the divine Eucharist. The triple nature of the sacred ministry of the initiations is therefore celebrated; for divine baptism has been shown to be both purification and illumination, whereas participation in the communion and the rite of the chrism are tokens of the perfecting knowledge and understanding by which the divine communion is ^C holily celebrated.

§ IV. But now we must speak of the ecclesiastical order, and how this too is divided in a threefold way: into purification, into illumination, and into perfection; this law is most holy for every hierarchy, that the second be led up through the first. For do we not see this in these sensible and visible things? (for it calls these elements) as it is permitted to see in glass, which receives the sun and thus illuminates; and in fire, which first attaches itself to matter that can be easily burned, and through it even ignites natures less apt to receive it. For this reason, also, of every good order, whether you speak of the celestial or our own, the principle and seat imparts its own divine rays to the first ranks, so that the divine rays may come, and through them also shine upon those that are ^D subordinate.

§ V. It belongs to these first ones to share without envy with the second ones those things of which they themselves are partakers. And so the divine order of pontiffs is both the first and the supreme and the last: first, because from it that which is proper is given to the others; last, because in it every ecclesiastical order ends. For just as every hierarchy is completed in our Savior Jesus Christ, as he who is the primary hierarch; so also every hierarchy is referred to its own proper hierarch, as one who through the ranks under him acts upon all.

^A For he bestows the power to perform these things (for he calls all the ranks "perfections," as he explains immediately afterward). Yet, for the time being, the sanctification of the myron [oil], the consecration of the altar, and the ordination of the priesthood ^B are reserved exclusively for the hierarch for his own performance, and not through the ministry of others, since he has called these the "perfective images" of the divine power: for these are the things that perfect all the most divine symbols. For if there were no myron, if there were no altar, if there were no high priest, nothing of sacramental office would be performed. Then, as if someone were raising an objection—namely, how baptism can be performed by priests—he says that not even this does the presbyter perform perfectly; for there will be a need for the high priest to anoint the baptized person with the myron; for this, indeed, was the ancient custom. And how shall the divine communion take place if there is no altar? And where will there be a priest if the bishop has not ordained him? Rightly, therefore, did we say that these three mysteries are perfective powers, and that they have been assigned to the high priest singularly—that is, particularly and once for all—and not in a certain sense or partially.

§ VI. Since he has divided the ecclesiastical order into the perfective, the illuminative, and the purgative, he now imparts what is proper to each order. ^C Accordingly, the episcopal order possesses the perfective power, both perfecting and being perfected, and conferring the disciplines, the dispositions, and the virtues of the sacred mysteries. The order of the priests, or presbyters, holds the illuminative office, leading those who are being initiated by the hand toward the contemplation of sacred things, and while he himself performs the sacred rites and manifests the works of divinity through the hands of the priests—yet he sends those who are gripped by the desire to attain the knowledge of divine things to the hierarch. The order of the ministers, that is to say the deacons, is purgative and discerning of good and bad—whether of persons or of things; for they distinguish both the persons of those approaching and the powers of the things, which are good and which are inferior. ^D Whence they are also those who strip off the old garment, which bears the symbol of the old malice; and they are the ones who unbind, and station, and lead the one approaching for baptism; for all these things belong to the purgative power and order. For they instruct them so that, having renounced the lusterless, they may be led down into the illuminating things. Thus he leads the purified, purifies the imperfect, fosters them with instructions, separates the sacred from the profane, and guards the gates. For the deacons held the gates then, but now the subdeacons hold them. The ecclesiastical law therefore sets the deacons over the gates, hinting what kind of entrance to the sacred things there shall be and for what kind of person, and entrusting to the purgative powers—to the deacons themselves, I say—the office of introducing them to the contemplation of the sacred things, and through them receiving those whom they themselves have judged worthy of the contemplation of the sacred things. In summary, repeating all things, he says that the high priest perfects, the priest illuminates, and the deacon

^A cleanses and discriminates between the believer and the unbeliever, the worthy and the unworthy—a function which specifically belongs to the subdeacons. Meanwhile, the bishop may also perform the duties of those who are subordinate to him, but the priests may not perform those of the bishops; and from this it should be noted that no one ought to presume to attempt higher tasks. For the higher powers also possess the functions of the lesser, and the bishop is able to do all things; but since the hierarchical arrangements are images of divine operations, the orderly and unconfused nature of things is demonstrated even in these. And he explains how these matters of ours also take place according to a divine order. Indeed, since that supreme Deity, to the minds into which He insinuates Himself—whether angelic or human—first cleanses, then illuminates, and finally perfects, this order is always inviolate and observed in all things, nor is it ever inverted or transmuted into another state. For how will he be illuminated who has not been cleansed? And how will he be perfected who has not been illuminated? For this reason, our hierarchy, having learned that this order is unchangeable, divides itself into distinct ranks and powers; and, keeping the greater function to itself, it has committed the task of illuminating and cleansing to the others according to their respective order. But since enough has been said regarding these matters, come, let us contemplate their most sacred ^B consecrations.

II. Mysterium. The hierarch, or bishop, when he is led forward to be ordained, bending both knees, has upon his head the divine and sacred Gospels and the hand of the consecrator, and he is perfected through the most holy prayers. The priest also himself bends both knees, and has the right hand of the consecrator upon his head, and thus he too is sanctified by the sanctifying prayers. The deacon, however, bending one of his knees, has the right hand of the consecrator upon his head, and he is perfected also by the invocations of the ministers—that is to say, by the so-called petitions—while the hierarch’s prayers also concur from without. It is common to all three to be ordained in front of the holy altar, the sign of the cross, the naming of the name, and the final kiss of perfection. Observe ^C that he says all who are in the sanctuary are to salute the one being ordained.

III. Contemplatio. § I. Entering upon the contemplation of the things being performed, he first enumerates those things which are common to all three and those proper to each. Common, then, are the ordination at the altar, the sign of the cross, the naming of the name, and the final salute. Proper to the hierarchs is the imposition of the holy Gospel; to the priests, it is the bending of both feet; to the ministers, it is the bending of one.

§ II. We say, therefore, first concerning the common bringing to the holy ^D altar and the prostration: for it signifies that all these men offer their own lives entirely to God, the Author of consecration, and that they ought, as far as possible, to be of like form to that most holy altar, to Christ the Savior and Lord, who consecrates those who resemble Him in their minds.

§ III. Now, the laying on of the hand signifies, on the one hand, the divine protection which paternally shields those who approach Him as children; and, on the other, it teaches those who have been consecrated that they ought to perform their own service as though acting under God; for the hand is a symbol of action. ^B § IV. Furthermore, the sign of the cross signifies the cessation of all carnal passions and the imitation of the divine life of Him who came even unto the cross and death. The hierarch proclaims the name of the one being ordained for the reason that the heaven-loved initiator merely manifests the divine election, in that he has chosen him not out of favoritism, but moved by God; for this promulgation is the manifestation of the divine will.

§ V. In this way, too, the legal initiator Moses did not choose his own brother Aaron, even though he knew him to be worthy of the ministry, until he was moved by God to do so. And why do I speak of him? The first initiator Himself, the life-giving Jesus, cries to the Father: "Father, glorify Thy Son," receiving thereby a kind of confirmation, even though He was God and Lord, and was known to be in true glory together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And if we believe that the words spoken by the prophets are the words of God, as indeed they are, and are spoken by God—that phrase, "Thou art a priest forever," and what follows, we shall by no means say belongs to David, but to the God over all; and it is understood as being from the Father, bearing witness to the Son concerning His eternal priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. ^C And He did not, of His own accord, ordain the disciples, though He was God, but promised that He would send them the Holy Spirit from the Father. Moreover, the chief of the apostles himself, together with the company of the disciples, when he was about to complete the twelve, did not ordain whomsoever he wished of his own accord, but said: "Show whom Thou hast chosen"; and he received him whom the Holy Spirit had shown—I mean Matthias. Regarding the divine lot mentioned in the Acts, others have offered various explanations, though as yet they have not piously interpreted those equal lots, which were often cast, as even the Greeks used to do, according to the passage in Homer where "Gerenian horseman Nestor cast the lots." But I say that the lot was some sign of revelation or of the action of the all-holy Spirit falling upon the one being chosen by lot. Whence also, concerning Iscariot, the greatest Peter says: "He received with us the lot of this ministry," ^D although the lot commonly used in the world was not employed by the Lord when He chose the apostles. Nevertheless, we return to the point and say that the hierarch must make his elections moved by the all-holy Spirit.

§ VI. And all, including the initiator himself, salute the one who has been ordained; for since in this way the holy mind, by divine calling and ecclesiastical in-

endowed with virtues arrives at the priesthood (and note, that just as the mind is first illuminated by divine gifts, so does it also first receive consecration, as a certain divine and superhuman gift), it is lovable to its peers, both loving and loved; for from this is signified the communion and the mutual joy of those who are equal, as being of similar nature; for like rejoices in like.

§ VII. The holy Gospel is placed upon him who is being consecrated as bishop; because all power and knowledge is given to him, and there surround him the contents of every holy word and deed, inasmuch as he shall fully partake of the whole of the hierarchic power, and not only shall he be illuminated in himself, but shall also impart such gifts to others.

§ VIII. What then is the meaning of the fact that while the bishop, bending both knees, nevertheless has the divine Gospel on his head, the priest also bends both knees, but the deacon only one? I say collectively, that since there are three perfecting powers—the purifying, the illuminating, and the perfecting—the deacon possesses the one, the priest both this and the illuminating, and the bishop along with these the perfecting. Therefore the deacon, as having only the purifying, bends one knee; the priest, as one who holds with it the illuminating, bends both knees; the hierarch, however, bends both knees as one who is purifying and illuminating; furthermore, since he is also perfecting, and performs the perfection from the divine Gospels, for this reason the holy Gospel is also placed upon him. But generally, the bowing of the knees signifies that, although they are leaders—one in purifying, another in purifying and simultaneously illuminating, and another in these and simultaneously perfecting—yet they are subject to God, and they subject to Him the one who is being brought forward.

CAPUT VI. OF THE ORDERS WHICH ARE INITIATED.

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER.

§ I. ^DThese, then, are the sacred orders and their distributions, and their powers and operations and consecrations: it remains to describe the threefold class of the orders being initiated. We say, therefore, that those orders which are purified are

^A the throngs of those separated from sacred functions and consecrations, of whom we have already made mention: some of whom are indeed kept back from the sacred rites because they are still being nurtured and formed by the ministers with life-giving, obstetric words; others, because they are being called back to the holiness of life from which they fell by the exhortatory instruction of good discourses; others, because they are still cowardly terrified by contrary fears and are being strengthened by powerful addresses; others, because they are still being brought over from perverse works to sacred actions; others, because they have indeed been brought over, but have not yet attained constancy in divine and immutable knowledge. For these are the orders which are purified by the ministerial labor and cleansing power; the ministers, by their own sacred virtues, advance them to this end, that, having been perfectly cleansed, they may be brought to the illuminating contemplation of—and communion with—the most brilliant sacrificial rites.

§ II. The middle order is that which rejoices in the sight of certain sacred things and exists, according to its capacity, as a participant in them in all purity, to which order, for the sake of receiving light, the care of the priests has been committed. For it is clear, I think, that one who has been cleansed from every unhallowed stain and has attained a chaste and immovable seat for his own mind, is advanced by the labors of the priests toward the science of contemplation and virtue, and ^C participates in those most divine sacraments to which it is permitted for them to have access, in whose contemplations and communions he is filled with all sacred joy and is winged upward, according to his capacity, by their anagogic powers toward a divine love of their knowledge. This order of the holy laity, therefore, I call the one which, having passed through every expiation, has arrived at the point where it is deemed worthy, as far as is lawful, of the sight of and communion with the most holy and excellent sacraments.

§ III. The highest order, however, of all those being perfected is the sacred order of the monks, since it is purified of all guilt, with the whole of its power and with the total holiness of its actions, and has become a spectator and participant of every mystery which it is lawful for it to behold. It is committed to the perfecting order of the pontiffs, by whose divine illuminations and pontifical instructions it is taught the consecrations of the sacred mysteries pertaining to it, and is raised from their sacred knowledge toward the most perfect perfection according to its capacity. Hence our holy preceptors have pursued them with divine appellations; some calling them therapeutæ, or worshippers, others monks, from their sincere emulation of God [in their]

^A undivided and unified life, as this unites them in the holy contractions of things that are divided, into a godlike unity and God-loving perfection. For this reason, the holy legislation has granted them the perfecting grace, and has deemed them worthy of a certain sanctifying invocation, not of a hierarchical nature (for that occurs only for the priestly orders), but of a sacred ministering nature, which is performed secondarily in the hierarchical initiation by holy priests.

II. The Mystery of Monastic Consecration

The priest stands before the divine altar, piously reciting the monastic invocation. But he who is being initiated stands behind the priest, ^B bending neither both knees, nor one of them, nor having upon his head the divinely-transmitted Scriptures, but only stands by the priest who is reciting the mystical invocation over him. When the priest has finished this, approaching the initiate, he asks him first whether he renounces all divided lives, not only deeds, but also imaginations. ^C Then he unfolds to him the most perfect life, testifying that he must transcend the intermediate life. When he who is being initiated has readily professed all these things, the priest, having signed him with the cross-shaped mark, tonsures him, invoking the triple hypostasis of the divine beatitude, and stripping off all his clothes, he clothes him in another, and with the other holy men who are present, saluting him, he makes him a participant in the divine mysteries.

III. Contemplation

That he bends neither knee, nor has the divinely-transmitted Scriptures upon his head, but stands by the priest reciting the invocation, declares that the monastic order is not one that leads others, but one that remains within itself in a solitary and holy station, following the priestly orders, and being led easily by them, as a follower, to the divine knowledge of the sacred things that pertain to it. ^D § II.

The renunciation of not only divided lives, but even of imaginations, declares that most perfect philosophy of the monks, which is fashioned in the knowledge of the unifying commandments. For it is, as I said, not of the middle order of those who are initiated by baptism, but higher than all orders. Therefore, many things that are performed without reproach by the middle order are entirely forbidden to these singular monks, since they must be joined with the One, and be linked with the sacred monad, and be fashioned according to the sacred life, just as [it is]

possesses a kinship with it in many respects, and approaches it more than the other orders of those being initiated. ^A

§ III.

The sign of the cross-like form, as has already been said by us, signifies the privation of all carnal desires. The tonsure of the hair indicates a life that is in no way feigned, nor curled with fictitious or artificial shapes—by which the deformity of the mind might be hidden—but one which, through itself, not by human ornaments, but by singular and unitive virtues, is raised up to divine conformity. ^B

§ IV.

The removal of the former garment, and the taking up of another, signifies the transition from the intermediate holy life to the more perfect one; just as in that divine regeneration the change of garment indicated the transfer and elevation of the life being cleansed to a contemplative and illuminating state. And if, even now, both the priest and all the holy men who are present embrace the one thus initiated, understand by this the holy fellowship of the deiform men, mutually congratulating one another with joy in divine love and gladness. ^C

§ V.

Finally, at the end of all things, the priest invites the initiated person to that primary communion of God, judging in a holy manner that he who has been initiated, if he has truly arrived at that singular monastic institution, will not be merely a spectator of the sacred things that pertain to him, nor will he approach the communion of the most holy sacraments only in the way that the intermediate order does; but, relying on the divine knowledge of those sacraments which he has received, he will be moved toward the participation of the divine communion in a different way than the holy people. For this reason, even to the sacred orders, at the end of their most holy consecration, the communion of the most divine Eucharist is given by the hierarch who consecrated them; not only because the perception of the divine mysteries is the sum of any hierarchical participation whatsoever, but also so that all the sacred orders may exist as participants, according to their capacity, of that most divine gift which is communicated, for the promotion and perfection of their own deification. It is concluded, therefore, by us, that the holy initiations are purification, and illumination, and perfection; and that the ministers are the cleansing order, the priests the illuminating, and finally the deiform hierarchs the perfecting. ^D Now, the order which is being cleansed is deprived of the sacred vision and communion, because it is still being cleansed. The contemplative order is the holy people. The perfected order is that of the singular monks. For thus the hierarchy among us, with the divinely-handed-down orders, is sacredly...

^A arranged, conformable to the celestial hierarchies, while it preserves according to its power the deiform marks and signs expressing God.

§ VI.

But you will object that in the celestial hierarchies there are no orders that are purified (for it is wrong and false to say that any celestial distinction is subject to wickedness); I myself, unless I were to wander entirely from the most holy mind, would affirm altogether that the celestial essences are entirely immaculate and possess every purity in a supramundane way. For if any one of them were to fall into vice, it would immediately fail from that celestial and most pure harmony of the divine minds, and would belong to the dark ruin of the apostate crowds. ^B Yet it is holy to admit that, in the celestial hierarchy, the illumination of things hitherto unknown acts as a kind of purification for the lower natures, whereby they are both brought to a more perfect knowledge of divine things and are, in a way, purged of the ignorance of those things of which they had hitherto lacked knowledge, being promoted from the first and more divine essences to the more sublime and clearer illuminations of divine manifestations; ^C thus, those orders which are illuminated and perfected are, in accordance with the celestial hierarchy, also themselves purifiers, illuminators, and perfecters; just as natures which are supreme and more divine than the rest purify their subordinate sacred and celestial arrangements from all ignorance (by modes suitable, of course, to those celestial hierarchies), fill them with most divine illuminations, and perfect them with the clearest knowledge of divine understandings. For it has already been said by us, and proclaimed by the divine oracles, that not all the celestial configurations are the same, nor equal in all these sacred sciences of divine illuminations; but that the first are illuminated directly from God, and the lower ones again through them from God, in proportion to their own ^D measure and capacity, by the most lucid splendors of the divine ray.

CORDERIUS’ ANNOTATIONS.

Part one, § I. We say, therefore, those orders which are purified, etc. Note, that catechumens, sinners, those possessed by spirits, and penitents, as was declared in the chapter above, are barred from the sacred rites until they have been sufficiently purified by the deacons. For (as S. Thomas teaches from this passage of Dionysius, part III, question 64, art. 1, ad 1, and quest. 67, art. 1), the office of purifying—that is, casting out the unclean and disposing the faithful through admonitions so that they might then be illuminated by the priests and worthily receive the sacraments—pertained to the deacons.

§ II. But the middle order, etc. He means the order of the laity, who have been initiated only by baptism: for these are the middle between the catechumens who are being purified for baptism, and the communicants who are being perfected. He calls this order the holy and contemplative people; because, of course, it is admitted to the contemplation of divine symbols, since it is committed to the priests to be illuminated, so that it may become a participant—according to its capacity and dignity—in certain understandings, which even now happens through the priests in sermons and catholic teachings, which ought not to be too sublime, but accommodated to the capacity of the pious people, as this holy Dionysius commends. For not all things are to be revealed to the people, since neither Moses nor those seventy skilled in the arcane understanding of the law poured forth that secret understanding of the law to the common herd.

[alt-version omitted]

§ III. The most elevated order of all those being perfected is the holy order of the monks. Note: when Saint Dionysius says that the order of monks is higher than all other orders, he is not comparing it with deacons, who are the first to purify; nor with presbyters, who are the second and middle [order] and illuminate; and much less with bishops, who are the third and highest and perfect; but rather with the orders of those who are still being purified, among whom the first are the catechumens, who are purified for baptism through catechesis; the second are those in sin, who are purified through the doctrine of the holy Scriptures, so that they may depart from sin; the third are the possessed, who are purified by exorcisms, so that they may resist the devil and his terrors firmly; the fourth are the public penitents, who are purified so that they may not return to sin. Above all these orders, and indeed above those laymen who are illuminated by the teachings of the priests and perfected by the participation in the sacraments, the order of monks is more perfect; because, as they are monks, by reason of their monastic institution they have died to the world and have cruxified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences: whence, as being more perfect than laymen, they also occupy a more worthy place in the church, namely near the doors of the temple, a place next after those who are of the ecclesiastical order, as Saint Dionysius writes below in his Epistle to Demophilus the monk. ^A

Ibidem. *Others indeed [call them] Therapeutai or cultivators, others indeed monks, etc.* It should be noted that those who profess or cultivate the monastic life are accustomed to be called by the Greek Fathers by five names in particular, namely: *monachoi* (monks), *therapeutai* (cultivators of God or of their own soul); *askētai* (wrestlers or exercisers—a word which Basil uses, and he calls his discourses on monastic matters "ascetic"); *hikētai* (suppliants—namely, from their principal duty, which is to pray to God); *philosophoi* (philosophers—Saint Chrysostom calls them this, and Nilus, who gives the reason that it behooves them to despise temporal things and dedicate themselves wholly to wisdom).

Isidore, lib. VII *Etymol.*, cap. 13, and lib. II *De offic. eccles.*, cap. *De monachis*, establishes three kinds of them: namely, hermits, anchorites, and cenobites. But indeed, if we consider the Greek names, we shall find that hermits are the very same as anchorites, whence Isidore distinguishes the three kinds of monks in name rather than in reality and the institute of life. Therefore, Cassian, *Collat.* 18, cap. 4, discerns only two kinds of good monks, namely cenobites and anchorites. For a hermit is called one who lives solitarily, dwelling in deserts and solitudes; an anchorite, however, is one who withdraws into a solitude or some other desert place, separated and remote from men, for the sake of living. Wherefore only two kinds of monks are to be established, namely hermits—who are also, for the most part, the same as anchorites—and cenobites. Hermits, therefore, are, as we have said, those who live solitarily in mountains, fields, or other desert places; cenobites, however, are those who, aggregated into one place or convent, live together, and are so called from the community which they profess.

Moreover, although the word *monachus* in its primary notion designates a solitary, and consequently one who is a hermit or anchorite is the same [per se], yet by use and custom it began to be used more broadly, so that it is common to hermits and cenobites. But this Dionysius derives this name from the indivisible and singular life by which they are gathered to the deiform monad; whence the name "monk" properly belongs to those who are devoted to the contemplative life. For other religious who move among the people, and are helpers of bishops and pastors in preaching and in the administration of the sacraments—such as those whom we call Mendicants and Premonstratensians—are not monks, but "regulars," so called from a certain rule of life.

The second part describes the rite of monastic consecration: whence it is clear that from the very times of the apostles, whose disciple and contemporary Dionysius was, that state had been celebrated in the primitive Church, and did not take its origins in the fourth century after Christ's birth, as heretics contend, and begin partly by chance, as they say, and partly by error and perverse imitation; but rather, that this form of life was suggested by Christ the Lord Himself, among other counsels of salvation, by which men might more easily attain eternal life. For to the young man asking what he should do to obtain eternal life, after He had stated the observance of the commandments necessary for it, and the other did not labor over the keeping of them, seeing that he had kept all from his youth, He added: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, etc." From which words, according to Blessed Augustine, the perfection of the Christian religion is learned. From here, in the time of the apostles, religion began to be propagated by a multitude of believers: for "the heart and soul of the multitude of the believers was one, and not one of them said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but all things were common to them." For as many as were possessors of lands or houses, selling them, brought the prices of the things they sold, and laid them before the feet of the apostles. And lest anyone should object that no promise or vow intervened here, the rebuke of Saint Peter made to Ananias and Sapphira, because they had defrauded from the price of the land sold, argues to the contrary; for he said: "Why has Satan tempted your heart, to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to defraud about the price of the land? You have not lied to men, but to God." And immediately punishment of death was taken from both. Which certainly Peter would not have said, nor would God have afflicted them with such a horrible penalty, had not an obligation been interposed. Rightly, therefore, does Jerome say of that age at the cited place: "Such was the first Church of believers, as we now see monks to be." It is therefore sufficiently probable that monasteries existed in the times of the apostles: for we read of Saint Matthew, that he [consecrated] the king's daughter in Ethiopia; of Saint Paul, that he [consecrated] Thecla in Greece; of Saint Clement, that he consecrated Domitilla with many others to God. We also know that Saint Martha erected monasteries in Gaul; that Saint Mark instituted notable colleges of clerics in Alexandria; and other successors of the apostles elsewhere: just as the same [authors] clearly describe, along with the ceremonies and rites customarily applied to the consecration of persons and places—besides Dionysius—Philo Judaeus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and others, whom Suarez in his treatise *De religione*, Azor, Medina, and Platus cite. Whoever wishes for more about the religious state, let them look at the work of Saint Thomas, *2-2*, question 186, and his commentators.

PARAPHRASE OF PACHYMERES (27)

§ 1. About to enter into the mystery of monastic consecration, since monks also are one order of those being

consecrated, he recounts the three sacred orders, namely of bishops, priests, and deacons, to each of whom is assigned the virtue and operation appropriate [to them], that is, of purifying, illuminating, and perfecting; for unless they possessed the power, they would not be able to perform these acts. He speaks also of the orders of those being initiated, who are being purified, illuminated, and perfected; therefore, these are the crowds of catechumens, of those who are possessed, of the infirm, ^A and of those in repentance—for so one may call them with respect to the number of the innocent, since evil is more frequent and good more rare. Or rather, it must be said that because he calls those who draw near to God "uniform" as being united to the One, those who depart from that One are rightly called crowds or multitudes, and by how much further they are removed, by so much the more are they multiplied; although in number they are not extended, but are few and easily counted. Dividing, therefore, the orders of those being purified, he says that catechumens are fostered by the deacons and are shaped for the vital birth ^B through the laver; that those subject to passions are recalled through the reading of the oracles; that those vexed by contrary fears are strengthened; that those in repentance are turned away from worse things, and those not yet entirely purified receive this, so they may not relapse into worse. But the phrase "but not yet" must be distinguished, and the phrase "perfectly purified" must be supplied from without; for thus the sense will be more sound.

§ II. Having spoken of the orders being purified, which he said were fostered by the deacons and prepared for the reception of the light, he now treats also of the order of those being illuminated, which he calls the "middle" ^C—that is, between purification and perfection—and he calls it "contemplative," as being deemed worthy of divine contemplation and vision. He speaks of those in the holy people who are blameless and irreproachable; for these, having been purified, are entrusted to those who illuminate. For it is manifest that the order which has been purified of every stain, and has preserved the movement of the mind from every passion, is led up to the contemplative habit, and communicates with the symbols, both by contemplating and by participating in them, and by anagoge it is winged upward as much as is possible toward their divine love. For by as much as the symbols are unfolded and the secret is seen, ^D by so much does the participant burn with a certain divine and ineffable love. Having spoken of the orders being purified and of those being illuminated, since according to these is that of those who are being initiated: and there are many ways in which they are initiated, for both those being perfected by baptism, and those partaking of the divine mysteries, and those being vested with the priesthood, and those deemed worthy of the monastic state, are all under the order of those being initiated.

§ III. Having previously discussed the others, he now discourses on the monastic consummation, which he also calls "sublimer," not by way of comparison with those rites that are perfected solely by consecration—for where would be the power of baptism, where the eminent status of the priesthood, that this should be called "sublimer"? Not, therefore,

^A by comparison with those who are perfected [only] by consecration is it sublimer, but with respect to the rite of purification and with respect to the rite of illumination, this is sublimer. For this, since it has transcended the middle order—that is, that of those being illuminated—bears also the three properties within itself: purification, illumination, and perfection, as shall be explained further below. I do not say this with respect to the comparison of the persons being initiated; for those who are initiated by baptism are of the middle order, and are of the holy rank of the people to whom, indeed, many things are permitted—clearly, to engage in marriages, to perform military service, and to handle the business of life. Those, however, who are adorned with the priesthood—neither are they bound to abstain and refrain from all things; for priests are they who perfect others, and for this reason they perform many things. But those who live according to the monastic ^B discipline must be altogether dead, by crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires, and living only for God and for themselves: for this is the total purification and the complete purity of their own actions. I do not mean by this, however, as if the aim of holy men did not look to this; but since it is one thing to be initiated and another to be perfected or consecrated (for to be initiated is possible both through purification and through illumination, but to be perfected is by [that] perfection properly so-called alone), he prefers the monks to those who are simply initiated—that is, the purified and the illuminated; because both they themselves are initiated, being more excellent than the catechumens by purification, and furthermore they precede the order of those illuminated, which he also calls the middle [order], that is, of the laity. But since the name of initiation is more universal than the name of perfection, for this reason we cannot so rightly compare ^C the consecration of the monks with it. Yet because the order of the monks, on account of its complete holiness, comprises both purification and illumination, it is shown to have purification, through which it also obtains the property of the illuminated—nay, also of those who are perfected in spirit; of the illuminated, because, as far as is lawful, it becomes a participant in every sacred action through spiritual contemplation and communion; but of the perfected, because, by embracing the hierarchical virtues and being adorned with them, it is led according to capacity to the perfection of sacred knowledge: so that with good reason such a way of life has a sublime quality, since it comprises within itself the three orders of those being initiated. Hence our divine instructors have honored them with divine names, calling some "worshippers" and others "monks." Worshippers, indeed, as those who ^D sincerely worship the divine Power; monks, however, as those who aspire to an undivided and singular life, which, to be sure, unifies them and brings a uniform knowledge—for he calls this a "monad" (for knowledge is united, just as ignorance is a multitude of things distracted into many and diverse [parts]), and it unifies them in a certain way, while it perfects itself through the sacred collections of divided things. Furthermore, divided things are here called those symbols, as are the hood, the scapular, the hairshirt, and the like, each of which has a high and unified meaning—for this is also a folding or summation. Others, however, [call] divided [things] the life

which ^A pertains to this world, and collection, a perfect and complete withdrawal from these. Because of such perfection, this order is also held worthy of ecclesiastical consecration and the invocation of prayers; so that they do not merely clothe themselves in the habit by their own power, but this perfection into that [state] is brought about by priestly hands and divine invocation—yet not by the hands of bishops (for this occurs only in sacred ordinations), but by the hands of priests; and it is [a rite] secondary to the ecclesiastical consecration. Hence we note that, according to the word of the [holy] Father, a bishop ought not to confer the monastic habit, but only a priest.

II. The Mystery.

The priest, not the bishop, stands before the divine altar celebrating the prayer; and he who is being consecrated stands behind the priest, ^B not bending both knees like the priest, nor one knee like the deacon, nor, like the bishop, having the divine and holy Gospel upon his head; he merely stands near the priest who is reciting the mystical prayer over him. When that is finished, the priest approaches him and asks him first if he renounces all divided and various lives—namely, commerce, business, contracts, and similar things; and likewise all fantasies, so that he may not even think of these things, but, as if dead, may wish to abstain entirely from them all. Then he teaches [him] the precision of the monastic life, testifying that it is necessary for him to surpass by much the middle order of the laity. When he has duly professed these things, [the priest], having signed him with the sign of the cross in accordance with what is [venerable and] beyond inquiry, tonsures him in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and having stripped off his clothes, he vests him in a black garment, and having saluted him together with the other holy men who are present, he makes him a participant in the divine communion.

III. Contemplation.

§ I. Since the bending of the knees indicated the subjection of the person being brought forth, whether through one [illumination], that of purification, or through two, that of purification and illumination itself; and it signified that those who are subjecting themselves to God present the one being initiated to God, the Prince of initiation. Here, however, since he is not brought by anyone, but [comes] of his own accord from the middle life to a higher and more excellent life, and from a holy [state] to a holy [state], as the Father declares, the one being initiated does not bend either of his knees, for he stands in a holy and solitary order. Observe also another definition of the monastic order and what [the quality of] the monastic is in relation to the solitary. For we were saying before that, since one is brought from divided things—namely, from worldly passions—into a certain summation and a deiform unity, for this reason he obtained the designation of "monk." But now we also state this in another way: that he is led forth alone and of his own accord, and by himself he stands in a solitary manner, following the priest, insofar as

^A he is easily led toward the knowledge of sacred things. Whence the monastic [monachikon] may be said to refer properly to the order, and the solitary [monadikon] to the standing. It is a solitary standing, because he stands alone according to the monad; it is a monastic order, because he lives in a manner that is monkish, unified, and not twofold, or threefold, or manifold. For this is also signified by the black garment that is put on; for the other colors change easily into one another and all into black, whereas black can never be changed into another color.

^B § II. The renunciation of divided and secular lives, and moreover of imaginings, declares the most perfect philosophy; for by withdrawing from divided things, he is unified by the singular commandments of the Lord Christ. For he is not of the middle order of those being initiated, namely of the illuminated and the sacred laity: for the monk is forbidden to do many things, the capacity and authority for which the laity possess—such as marriage, and engaging in military service and commerce, and other things in which the layperson is not condemned. And note the saying, for it is useful against the Lampetians, or Massalians, or Adelphians—which is the same as saying Marcianists—who ordain only a three-year period for the appropriate sanctification, and after this think that all licentiousness is permitted, suffering from a passion they do not perceive. But monks, above others, ought to be formed toward the sacerdotal life, inasmuch as they have a greater affinity with this order than the other initiated persons, as we said above, ^C not by way of comparison with those initiated who have been initiated with the supreme consecration, that is, the perfect (for the perfect are those who are consummated through baptism, through anointing, through communion, through ordination), but with those who are being initiated, that is, those who are being purified, taught, and illuminated. For every person who is made perfect is initiated, but not every person who is initiated is also made perfect.

§ III. The cross-shaped sign, again, signifies the cessation of carnal desires; the tonsure, a life that is pure and not at all painted; for it is purified of superfluous things, and it is not permitted to assume artificial adornment, but rather a beauty that is most godlike, namely mental and unified.

§ IV. The garments suggest ways of living: the one that is put off is the former, lay one; the one that is put on is this more perfect and better one. ^D Just as also in baptism, that change of garment indicated that he who had been purified through instruction was being led into a state of contemplating and illuminating. The first stripping of the catechumens must be passed over here, as that exhibits the putting off of external filth and error, and for that reason it takes place at a distance and outside the sacred temple. As for the rest, recognize here that communion and divine joy signified by the kiss or embrace.

§ V. Finally, at the end, he who has already been perfected communicates, for even above the middle order (which is contemplative, so as to see...

the divine things, that is, the order of the holy people) such a person is; for he participates in both holy knowledge and, as far as is right, approaches sacerdotal science. Wherefore ^A we see also in the sacred orders, towards the end of the same most holy consecration, communion being given, not only because the perception of the divine mysteries is the sum of any hierarchical participation whatsoever, but also that the sacred orders might be participants of that very most divine gift which is communicated, according to their capacity, for their transmission to the things above. In this, moreover, it differs from the former, in that it says there that they communicate in these holy mysteries because this is the sum of their entire holy activity, so that without participation, it is perhaps impossible for their holy activity to be perfected. But here he says that communion happens for this reason: as a gift, that is, of their holy labor and divine service. According to these things, therefore, the perfected monk also communicates in the mysteries, either having the holy participation as a summary of all things pertaining to himself, or receiving the divine gift in return for the fact that he has embraced such a way of life. He gathers, therefore, that the rites are purgation, and illumination, and perfection; and that of the orders, one is the purgative, namely that of the deacons; another the illuminative, that of the priests; ^B and another the perfective, that of the bishops; and that those who are being perfected are those who are being purified, and further, those who are without part in communion and contemplation, that is, the catechumens; the contemplators are the people; the perfected are the monks. For thus our hierarchy is like the heavenly one, according to such triads, as it preserves traces of the god-likeness there within the realm of men.

§ VI. But you might say that, since our hierarchy is directed towards that one, there ought also to be in that place orders that are being purified; but they are not there, for it is not right to say that the heavenly arrangement is defiled. I, for my part, agree with such arguments, for they are entirely pure and undefiled; and if any were taken—namely, Satan and those with him—they fell away from the angelic order ^C and have remained in the dark fall. Others, however, taking the tenses of the pluperfect verb, "had fallen," and the imperfect, "was being carried," literally, and pondering the word "if" from without, thus interpret the ignorance of the statement, and after this, bring forward their own explanation for it. For if someone, he says, had been taken and had fallen away, he would have been carried down to the dark fall, as if they were saying: "That if anyone were to be taken, he would not receive purgation, but would be carried down to the fall, just as happened in the case of Satan, as being one who by nature could perhaps become such a person." Taking the meaning in this way, they interpret it by saying: "But no one of them after the fall of the demons was ever taken by vice; for this we have not learned from the divine Scripture, nor has any of the Theosophic Fathers said it." ^D Thus, the saint, they say, according to...