An Historical Summary of Angelic Hierarchies from Part VII: The “Seven” Thrones in In Operibus Sigillo Dei Aemeth by David Richard Jones.

“Again, it is not our purpose to elaborate the somewhat complicated history and understanding of these texts and their authorship, but it should be understood that until the 16th C. these texts were attributed to Dionysus the Areopagite (Acts 17), otherwise known as St. Denys, though scholarship has determined definitively that they are the work of a 4-5th C. Neoplatonic follower of Proclus.” [via]

 


St. Denis

 

Consider also:

  1. “As we have noted, these terms came with a metaphysical connotation from a prior sectarian Hebrew apocalyptic context. It is also possible that these terms had similar meaning in the context of the Middle Platonic cosmology and theurgy that was familiar to Paul’s Hellenistic audience, and about the development of which we unfortunately know little, but which was to come to fruition in the Chaldean Oracles and the works of Iamblichus and Proclus.”
  2. Although scholarly opinion differs as to its date of composition and origin, the earliest form of this text can be traced to what is now referred to as that Aramaic Levi Document. And though the text of The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is clearly a compilation by an early Christian author (circa 2C C.E.), it is now known with certainty to have been derived from pre-Christian, and probably sectarian Jewish sources.”
  3. “Thus for these three movements there are three movers. Moreover, the whole of this heaven moves and revolves with the epicycle from east to west once every day. Whether this movement derives from some intellect or from the pull of the Primum Mobile, only God knows, for it seems to me presumptuous to reach a conclusion on this point.”
  4. “Dee would certainly have known of the famous first translation into Latin by the Neoplatonist and suspected heretic, Johannes Scotus Erigena/Eriugena, (c. 815-877), but it seems unlikely that he was aware of Eriugena’s rather controversial commentaries. These commentaries were not rediscovered until 1681 along with the condemned De division nature.”
  5. “These days, which abide in the interior light, may be taken for the angelic spirits, and the months, for their orders and dignities. For every single spirit, in that he shines, is a ‘day,’ but as they are distinguished by certain set dignities, so that there are some that are Thrones, some Dominions, some Principalities, and some Powers, according to this distribution of ranks, they are entitled ‘months.’ Moralia I:I:iv — Pope St. Gregory I”