A HOMILY FOR THE FEAST OF THE HOLY ARCHANGEL MICHAEL AND THE OTHER BODILESS POWERS
About the Teaching of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite Regarding the Celestial Hosts
(Nov. 8/21)
Brothers and sisters!
When the Holy Apostle Paul preached in the city of Athens, he converted a man who later became a saint and a Father of the Church. This was Dionysius the Areopagite, so called after the Areopagus, the square beneath the Acropolis, where, as the holy Evangelist Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles, All the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.[1] Saint Dionysius, a pagan philosopher, was among those who frequented the Areopagus, where he would discuss religious and philosophical questions with other learned men, prior to his conversion by the teaching and miracles of the Apostle Paul. After this Dionysius turned his mind, which before had been filled with dark and vain arguments, and theories of the wise men of this world, to Christ, the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.[2] According to the testimony of other Holy Fathers, Saint Dionysius left behind a number of writings, all of them most sublime in character and full of apostolic grace and wisdom. Among them is the treatise entitled The Celestial Hierarchies, which is the foundational text detailing the Church’s teaching concerning the angelic orders which we glorify today. In this book, Saint Dionysius relates not only what the Lord revealed to him personally, but also things told him by the holy Apostle Paul, who was taken up into the third Heaven and there beheld the various angelic orders.
Our holy father Dionysius explains that the heavenly powers are divided into nine ranks and grouped into three hierarchies, each containing three of the ranks. These hierarchies form, as it were, a chain linking the supracelestial God to lowly man. Each rank of bodiless powers receives divine illumination, insight, and knowledge, and participates in the energies of God through the medium of the rank above it. The seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, burning with the flame of the Divinity, convey the unquenchable and changeless fire of the Trinity to the next grouping of celestial spirits below them, the middle hierarchy composed of dominions, virtues, and powers, who in turn brilliantly irradiate the lowest hierarchy, that of the principalities, archangels, and angels. These in turn illumine the noetic faculties of the being that links the spiritual world with the physical, namely man, and especially those men who have cleansed themselves and renewed the clarity of the divine image within themselves, the saints. The final medium reflecting God’s glory channeled through the descending celestial hierarchies from the Most High God to the believer is the special guardian angel assigned to each individual Orthodox Christian.
Besides this, Saint Dionysius explains the various symbolic physical attributes the Holy Scriptures ascribe to the bodiless ones. Although the powers of Heaven are by nature incorporeal and formless, they are often likened to fire, since fire imparts a transformative power to everything near it, as do the angelic hosts. Fire, like the angels, revives with its vivifying heat and illuminates with resplendent brightness. Again, like the angels, fire is pure, changeless, uplifting, penetrative, ever moving, ever self-moved, and incomprehensible. It mysteriously increases itself and manifests its majestic power in accordance with the nature of the substance receiving it. It is mighty and flies uncontrollably heavenwards. Therefore, says our holy father Dionysius, “Those wise in the things of God have portrayed the celestial beings under the figure of fire, thus proclaiming their likeness to the Divinity and their imitation of Him, according to the measure of their power.” For as the prophet David proclaims, He maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.[3] Likewise, Saint Dionysius explains why the authors of Scripture invest the angelic powers with the likeness of men. “Man,” he writes, possesses “powers of intellect and aspiration, and the power of guiding and governing. Man, although least in sense perception in comparison with irrational creatures, yet rules over them all through the preeminence of his intellect, the supremacy of his rational knowledge, and the intrinsic freedom of his unconquerable soul.” In these ways, man closely resembles the angels, who are superior not only to brute beasts, but also to the whole of the material creation. Furthermore, the Holy Father teaches that the senses and the parts of the body are “fitting symbols of the qualities of the celestial powers.” Therefore, the angels, when they appear to men, take on a form similar to that of men, so that from their assumed bodily appearance and faculties we might apprehend their inherent spiritual qualities. He likens the human power of sight to the angelic capability of receiving divine illuminations; our power of distinguishing odors to the angels’ ability to recognize and distinguish between multifarious and fragrant divine influences; our power of hearing to their receptivity to divine inspiration; our power of taste to their highly developed capacity for accepting spiritual nourishment; and our power of touch to their keen ability to distinguish what is of advantage from what is harmful.
According to Saint Dionysius, human eyes, with which the angelic powers are manifest to men, represent their ceaseless contemplation of the God they behold; their youthfulness – eternal vigor which never ages or grows feeble; their shoulders, arms, and hands – power and ability to accomplish whatsoever God wills. The angels’ feet signify motion and their swiftness to advance towards everything divine; the lightness of their wings shows that they are altogether celestial, and unhampered in their ascent to the heavenly heights; and their shining and fiery appearance reveals the fact that they reflect the brilliance of the Most Holy Trinity. Their clothing in the robes of priestly ministers betokens their roles as intercessors for us and guides to mystical meditations; their rods symbolize their God-given authority and participation in the ordering of all things; and their spears and swords – their sharp power of discrimination. They are called winds since they are true reflections of the Godhead Which mysteriously and all-powerfully sweeps over creation, moving and generating nature. Note in this connection that, in Greek, the same word, “pneuma,” serves for “wind” and “spirit.”
Various colors are associated with the angels: white, because of their luminosity; red, because of their fiery character; yellow, because of the pure golden quality of their exalted nature; and green, because of their eternal youth and vigor. The angels appear in connection with rivers and wheels and chariots: with rivers of flames, to denote the divine streams which perpetually and super-abundantly irradiate them; with chariots, to symbolize that they are yoked together with the other angels of the same order, as are horses in a team; and with winged wheels, to show that they endlessly roll forward, as it were, advancing on a straight and direct path to God.
This, dear brothers and sisters, is a sample of the attributes our holy father Dionysius ascribes to the celestial hosts, as well as the meaning of the seeming physical characteristics with which the bodiless ones appear to men.
The Holy Church, in the divine services for this day and in her various prayers to the angels, echoes Saint Dionysius’ truly exalted reflections and seeks to lead our thoughts upwards towards the celestial abodes the angels inhabit. May the illumination which the bodiless powers provide grant us a glimpse into the heavenly realm, and may their intercessions and those of our holy father Dionysius assist us in raising up our earthbound minds ever more frequently to the reality of things lofty and divine. Amen.
[1] Acts 17:21
[2] John 1:9
[3] Ps. 103:5
