Tag Archives: st paul

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

“A similar, though less elaborate nine-fold celestial hierarchy was proposed by Pope Gregory I in his Gospel Homilies and in his Moralia on Job by collecting the Old Testament and Pauline references to angelic orders and arranging them by logical inference.

We speak of nine orders of Angels, because we know, by the testimony of Holy Scripture, that there are the following: Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominations, Thrones, Cherumbim and Seraphim. Nearly every page of Scripture is witness to the fact that there are Angels and Archangels. The prophetic books, as has been noted often, speak of Cherubim and Seraphim. Four more orders are enumerated by Paul the Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, when he says, ‘Above every Principality and Power and Virtue and Domination.’ And again writing to the Colossians, he says, ‘Whether Thrones, or Powers, or Principalities, or Dominations.’ When, then, we add the Thrones to those he mentions to the Ephesians, there are five orders, to which are to be added Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, certainly making nine orders of Angels in all.

Homily XXIV — Pope St. Gregory I” [via]

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

“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.” [via]

 


St. Denis

 

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

“St Paul’s usage of the term Thrones in this context indicates that it must have had meaning within then-current metaphysics. Though it is possible that the context of Colossians is an entirely mundane and political one, thones, and even dominions, principalities, and so on have been interpreted by subsequent Christian theologians in an almost entirely metaphysical way.” [via]

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

“It seems probable that this earlier genre of angelical classification is the source of Paul’s reference in Colossians.

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

Colossians 1:16 (KJV)

It is from this reference by St. Paul that all subsequent Christian theological discussions on the subject base their authority.” [via]

 


St. Paul preaching on the Areopagus

 

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“As that great authority and initiate of the Mysteries, St. Paul, taught, we can only attain to the Master’s resurrection by ‘being made conformable unto His death’, and we ‘must die with Him if we are to be raised like Him’ and it is in virtue of that conformity, in virtue of being individually made to imitate the Grand Master in His death, that we are made worthy of certain ‘points of fellowship’ with Him: for the ‘five points of fellowship’ of the third degree are the five wounds of Christ.” [via]

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“It is, of course, common knowledge that great secret systems of the Mysteries (referred to in, our lectures as ‘noble orders of architecture,’ i.e., of soul-building) existed in the East, in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, amongst the Hebrews, amongst Mahommedans and amongst Christians; even among uncivilized African races they are to be found. All the great teachers of humanity, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Moses, Aristotle, Virgil, the author of the Homeric poems, and the great Greek tragedians, along with St. John, St. Paul and innumerable other great names—were initiates of the Sacred Mysteries.” [via]