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

“In both St. Denis and in the Hermetica the philosophers and theologians of the Renaissance would find seemingly ancient authority for the correlation of their Neoplatonic speculations to Judeo-Christian angelology and metaphysics, speculations that would lead directly to the magical revival of the late Renaissance and the works of Ficino, Della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Cornelius Agrippa, Giordano Bruno and of course the angel magick of John Dee.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “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.”
  2. “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.”
  3. “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”
  4. Fraternal Lodge men in Masks
  5. “In any case, this passage of Paul’s is the principle reason for the elaborate development attributed to St. Denis or Pseudo-Dionysus, in his Celestial Hierarchy and in passing as a matter of introduction in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Conversely, the work of Pseudo-Dionysus is concerned with putting Judeo-Christian angelology in the context of Platonic metaphysics and cosmology.”