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WorkPseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

Baptism, the Eucharist, the holy oil, ordination, monastic vows and burial, read one by one as the church's copy of the angels' ranks.

by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite93 passages held

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Original title
Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἱεραρχίας
First published
(aged 25)
Original language
Greek

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Overview

The baptism, the Eucharist and the consecration of holy oil that this treatise describes are not the rites of first-century Athens, where its author claims to stand. Andrew Louth, a historian of early Christian thought, places them in the churches of Syria; the rite of the muron, the perfumed oil, is missing from most other early Christian accounts. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, writing around 500 as Paul's Athenian convert, here turns from the angels of The Celestial Hierarchy to the church on earth, which he treats as their counterpart. He counts three orders of clergy — bishops (he calls them hierarchs), priests and deacons — and three of the laity: monks, the holy people, and those still being purified, meaning catechumens, the possessed and penitents. Six rites follow, from baptism to the burial of the dead, each in the same three steps: what the rite is for, what is done, and what it means. The rites, Dionysius argues, are the way divine light reaches people who cannot yet take it in directly, and each order passes on what it has received to the order below. The book closes with a reply to those who laughed at baptising infants, who cannot yet answer for themselves. Maximus the Confessor, the seventh-century monk and theologian, built his own commentary on the liturgy, the Mystagogy, on it. A thousand years after the writing, its ranks became an argument about authority. At the Leipzig debate of 1519 Johann Eck, Luther's Catholic opponent, cited the corpus for the pope's supremacy, and in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church the following year Luther wrote Dionysius off as more Platonist than Christian.

Key concepts

What does deification mean in this book?

Becoming like God and united with him, as far as a creature can. Dionysius names this the goal of every hierarchy: its rites and ranks exist only to draw people into likeness and union with God. It does not mean turning into a second God. It means being so filled with divine light that one shares in it and passes it on, the way a clear mirror takes in light and sheds it further.

Who is the 'hierarch' in these rites?

The bishop, the head of a local church and the one who performs or presides over every rite. Dionysius uses the word hierarch, leader of sacred things, because the bishop stands to his church as the top rank of angels stands to the ranks below: he receives the light first and is responsible for handing it on. Priests illuminate and deacons purify, both under him.

What is the synaxis?

The gathering of the church for communion, the rite later called the Eucharist or the liturgy. Synaxis means coming together, and Dionysius calls it the rite of rites, because every other one is completed by it. Psalms and readings are sung, those not yet baptised leave, bread and cup are uncovered and shared, and the many who take part are drawn into one.

What is the muron?

The perfumed oil the bishop consecrates and uses to seal the newly baptised and to bless altars. The word is Greek for ointment. Dionysius reads its fragrance as an image of Jesus, whose goodness spreads to everyone near him in proportion to how much they take in. During its consecration it is kept veiled under twelve wings, a sign that its meaning is hidden from those not ready for it.

Who are those 'being purified'?

The lowest order of the laity, who are not yet allowed to watch the central rites. Dionysius counts three groups in it: catechumens preparing for baptism, the possessed, and penitents who have fallen away and are returning. They hear the readings and are then sent out before the sacred acts. Their exclusion is not a punishment but a measure: light is given as each person can bear it.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

The church as the angels' counterpart

What is a church for, if not to run itself? Dionysius answers that its whole order exists to make people like God, as far as they can bear it, and to pass that on.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite builds the church on earth to the pattern of the angels: three orders of clergy, bishops, priests and deacons, and three of the laity, monks, the holy people, and those still being cleansed. Each rank does for the one below what the angels do, purifying, illuminating, perfecting. The goal of the whole order is likeness and union with God as far as attainable, which later readers called deification. Authority on this view is a duty to hand on light, and a minister who has not received it has nothing to give.

  • hierarchy
  • religious hierarchy
  • religious authority
  • clergy
  • ordination
  • divine illumination
  • deification
  • contemplation
  • esoteric knowledge
  • virtue

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Rites that teach by being done

Why does a faith about a God beyond images lean so heavily on oil, water, bread and incense? Dionysius answers that people with bodies are led to God through things they can see and touch.

Six rites, baptism, the gathering for communion, the consecration of perfumed oil, ordination, the making of a monk and burial, are each taken in three steps: what the rite is for, what is done, and what it means. Nothing is incidental. The candidate turns to the west to renounce evil and then to the east; the bishop carries incense out through the whole church and back to the altar; the oil is kept veiled under twelve wings. The book ends by defending infant baptism against those who laughed at it.

  • ritual
  • sacraments
  • baptism
  • eucharist
  • initiation
  • religious initiation
  • purification
  • ritual symbolism
  • worship
  • prayer

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A death the church can bless

What does a good death look like, and what can the living still do for the dead? The last rite answers with oil, a prayer, and a promise for the body as well as the soul.

The holy, Dionysius writes, go to death in joyful hope, because they know the whole person will rise. The body that shared the soul's struggles will share its honour, so the corpse is anointed with the same oil that once called the candidate to the contest at baptism, now as a sign that the contest is won. The bishop prays for forgiveness only over those who lived a holy life, since he may ask only for what God has promised. The rite thus teaches the living how to look at their own end.

  • death
  • funeral rites
  • afterlife
  • resurrection
  • body and soul
  • divine justice
  • salvation
  • religious symbolism

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Within this work

passages held
93
distinct concepts
169
by passages held, corpus-wide
#515

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “hierarchy” and “ritual”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 19 pairings. 83 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
hierarchyritual5
contemplationhierarchy3
contemplationpurification3
purificationritual3
hierarchypurification2
hierarchyreligious authority2
religious authorityritual2
contemplationinitiation1
contemplationsacraments1
eucharisthierarchy1
eucharistritual1
eucharistsacraments1
hierarchyinitiation1
hierarchysacraments1
initiationpurification1
initiationritual1
initiationsacraments1
purificationsacraments1
religious authoritysacraments1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 500 The Celestial Hierarchy (Περὶ τῆς οὐρανίας ἱεραρχίας)

    The heavenly half of a pair: the order of the angels, which The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy then follows down into the church. In the manuscripts it stands first among the treatises; Hugh of Saint-Victor, the Paris theologian, wrote a commentary on it in the twelfth century.

     EN
  2. 500 The Divine Names (Περὶ θείων ὀνομάτων)

    By the corpus's own cross-references it is the first of the surviving theological treatises: The Mystical Theology names it among the works written before it. It is also the longest work in the corpus, written around 500 under the name of Paul's Athenian convert.

     EN
  3. 500 The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς ἱεραρχίας) you are here EN
  4. 500 The Letters (Ἐπιστολαί)

    The corpus ends on ten letters, from a few lines to many pages, addressed in that persona to Gaius, Dorotheus, Sopatros, Polycarp, Demophilus, Titus and John. Here the apostolic-age fiction is carried furthest.

     EN
  5. 500 The Mystical Theology (Περὶ μυστικῆς θεολογίας)

    The shortest of the four treatises, a few pages long, and the source of the language of darkness and unknowing that later mystics took up, from the Rhineland preachers to John of the Cross.

     EN
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