The Physics of Angels. Rupert Sheldrake

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      Dionysius The Areopagite

      Dionysius lived in the sixth century, probably in Syria. For many centuries he was wrongly identified with Dionysius the Areopagite, converted by St. Paul in Athens (Acts 17.34). He is more correctly called Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, and is also known as Pseudo-Denys. This confusion gave his writings great authority up to the sixteenth century, and his influence on Orthodox and Western theology has been enormous.

      Deeply influenced by the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus (A.D. 411-485), he combines Neoplatonism with Christianity in his four principal books, The Celestial Hierarchies, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, Divine Names, and Mystical Theology. It is in his Celestial Hierarchies that he discusses at length the nine orders of angels as mediators from God to humankind, and it is from that book, which has been so influential in Christian angelology, that most of the following passages are taken. He has been called a “moderate Monophysite” in his theology, Monophysitism being the heretical doctrine that denies the human side of Christ at the Incarnation. But at the Lateran Council of A.D. 649 his works were invoked to combat more extreme Monophysite thinkers, and this invocation of his work by a church council also helped embellish the doctrinal authority of his teachings. Because he elaborates at such length on the nine orders of angels that St. Paul only alludes to lightly, his angelology has greatly influenced Christian theology.

      The Multiplicity Of Angels

      The scriptural tradition respecting the angels gives their number as thousands and thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, multiplying and repeating the very highest numbers we have, thus clearly showing that the Orders of the Celestial Beings are innumerable for us; so many are the blessed Hosts of the Supermundane Intelligences, wholly surpassing the feeble and limited range of our material numbers.¹

      Matthew: Dionysius is putting his discussion of angels in the context of the vastness of the cosmos and talking about the numbers being innumerable to us. Centuries later Meister Eckhart would say that the angels outnumber the grains of sand on the earth. So what we’re talking about here is a vast array, a vast challenge to our imaginations. Go beyond numbers as we know them—just keep adding zeros to get a sense of angelic numbers.

      Rupert: Since vast numbers are usually called astronomical, it brings to mind the obvious connection with the stars. We now recognize a cosmos full of innumerable galaxies, each containing billions of stars. When we look at the night sky we see only the stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way being the main part of it. Insofar as angels are connected with the stars, then this would, literally, give us an astronomical number of angels.

      Matthew: Astronomical numbers and astronomical beings.

      Rupert: Yes. And if we also think of angels being connected with all the different kinds of being in nature, then we have to consider the millions of biological species on this earth, and probably on billions of other planets around other stars and in other galaxies. And then these planets themselves are organisms, as is our planet, Gaia. The vast numbers of forms of organization in nature dwarf our imagination, just as Dionysius says the numbers of angels do.

      Matthew: It seems appropriate in that context to turn to one of Dionysius’s favorite themes, hierarchy. In fact, he seems to have invented the word itself in his book with the title The Celestial Hierarchies.

      Hierachies, Fields, And Light

      Hierarchy is, in my opinion, a holy order and knowledge and activity which, so far as is attainable, participates in the divine likeness, and is lifted up to the illuminations given it from God, and correspondingly towards the imitation of God.

      Now the beauty of God, being unific, good, and the source of all perfection, is wholly free from dissimilarity, and bestows its own light upon each according to his merit; and in the most divine mysteries perfects them in accordance with the unchangeable fashioning of those who are being perfected harmoniously to itself.

      The aim of hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation to and union with God, and by taking him as leader in all holy wisdom, to become like him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating intently his most divine beauty. Also it moulds and perfects its participants in the holy image of God like bright and spotless mirrors which receive the ray of the supreme Deity which is the source of light; and being mystically filled with the gift of light, it pours it forth again abundantly, according to the divine law, upon those below itself. For it is not lawful for those who impart or participate in the holy mysteries to overpass the bounds of its sacred laws; nor must they deviate from them if they seek to behold, as far as is allowed, that deific splendour, and to be transformed into the likeness of those divine intelligences.

      Therefore he who speaks of hierarchy implies a certain perfectly holy order in the likeness of the first divine beauty, ministering the sacred mystery of its own illuminations in hierarchical order and wisdom, being in due measure conformed to its own principle.

      For each of those who is allotted a place in the divine order finds his perfection in being uplifted, according to his capacity, towards the divine likeness; and what is still more divine, he becomes, as the scriptures say, a fellow-worker with God, and shows forth the divine activity revealed as far as possible in himself. For the holy constitution of the hierarchy ordains that some are purified, others purify; some are enlightened, others enlighten; some are perfected, others make perfect; for in this way the divine imitation will fit each one.²

      Rupert: What Dionysius says here is related to the Neoplatonic conception of emanations from the One, the source from which things flow out. The idea of a chain of being was very important in the ancient world and remained a common theme in literature right up until modern times. There is a source of being and then every grade of being below that, becoming more and more dimmed the farther the descent into matter. That seems to me the Neoplatonic background of Dionysius’s thinking. Would you agree?

      Matthew: Yes. And I find that difficult to deal with today. The idea of everything emanating from a source is fine; that’s certainly the image I get from the creation СКАЧАТЬ