The Complete Works of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite

ON THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY — CHAPTER II.

Ezekiel 1:7

Daniel 7:9

Zechariah 1:8; 2 Maccabees 3:25; Joshua 5:13

...lest we should sacrilegiously imagine that those heavenly and godlike intelligences original: "intelligentias." In this context, it refers to Angels, who were viewed as pure, bodiless minds. are many-footed or many-formed, or that they are shaped according to the bovine nature of oxen, or the wild nature of lions, or fashioned according to the appearance of an eagle’s curved beak, or the hairy plumage of birds. We must not imagine wheels of fire above the heavens, or material thrones whereon the "God of gods" might sit, or multicolored horses, or spear-bearing leaders of armies, or any other such things that have been handed down to us through the variety of explanatory signs within the symbolic original: "fictione quadam sacra." While the word "fiction" is used, it refers to a sacred "fashioning" or "symbolism" rather than a falsehood. language of the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, Poetic Theology A term used by Dionysius to describe how the Bible uses poetic imagery to convey divine truths. has holily made use of these symbols for minds that lack physical form, out of regard for our own intellect (as has been said), providing a way of transition that is natural to it, and shaping the anagogical original: "anagogicas." From the Greek, meaning "leading upward"; it refers to an interpretation that lifts the soul from physical things to spiritual ones. Holy Scriptures to suit that purpose.

Section 2.

The figures by which spiritual things are described are dissimilar to the things themselves.

He addresses the objection of those who think nobler figures should have been used.

But if someone believes that these sacred compositions should be accepted on the grounds that simple things—which are unknown and invisible to us in themselves—require such forms, they should certainly know that the depictions of holy minds in the Scriptures are "dissimilar" This is a key concept for Dionysius: a "dissimilar" image (like an ox representing an angel) is actually better than a "similar" one (like a beautiful man) because it prevents us from thinking the image is a literal portrait. representations. All this is, so to speak, a rough shadowing forth of Angelic names. There are those who say that when theologians come to the task of giving bodies to entirely incorporeal things, they ought to form and explain them through images that are "noble" and, as far as possible, related to the subject—using things that are among us most excellent, somewhat immaterial, and transcendent. They argue that one should by no means clothe heavenly and godlike simplicities in such lowly, earthly, and various forms. For this...