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Powers, Dominations, Virtues. The third, as more closely approximating to the world of man, if it may be so said, more often visited the atmosphere of earth, and were the immediate ministers of the Divine purposes. Yet the, so-called, Areopagite laboriously interprets into a spiritual meaning all the forms and attributes assigned in the sacred writings to the Celestial Messengers, to Angels and Archangels. They are of fiery nature. Fire possesses most properties of the Divinity, permeating everything, yet itself pure and unmingled: all manifesting, yet undiscernible till it has found matter to enkindle; irresistible, invisible, subduing everything to itself; vivifying, enlightening, renewing, and moving and keeping everything in motion; and so through a long list of qualities, classed and distinguished with exquisite Greek perspicuity. He proceeds to their human form, allegorising as he goes on, the members of the human body, their wings, their partial nakedness, their bright or their priestly raiment, their girdles, their wands, their spears, their axes, their measuring-cords, the winds, the clouds, the brass and tin, the choirs and hallelujahs, the hues of the different precious stones; the animal forms of the lion, the ox, the eagle, the horse; the colours of the symbolic horses; the streams, the chariots, the wheels, and finally, even the joy of the Angels. All this, which to the wise and more reflective seemed to interpret and to bestow a lofty significance on these images, taken in its letter-and so far only it reached the vulgar ear-gave reality, gave a kind of authority and conventional certainty to the whole Angelic Host as represented and described for the popu

All this was said to be derived bution, probably from some other from St. Paul. Gregory the Great source. (Lib. ii. Moralia) has another distri

1 Ch. xv.

lar worship. The existence of this regular Celestial Hierarchy became an admitted fact in the higher and more learned Theology; the Schoolmen reason upon it as on the Godhead itself: in its more distinct and material outline it became the vulgar belief. The separate and occasionally discernible Being and Nature of Seraphim and Cherubim, of Archangel and Angel, in that dim confusion of what was thought revealed in the Scripture, and what was sanctioned by the Church-of image and reality; this Oriental, half Magian, half Talmudic, but now Christianised theory, took its place, if with less positive authority, with hardly less questioned credibility, amid the rest of the faith.

But this, the proper, if it may be so said, most heavenly, was not the only Celestial Hierarchy. There was a Hierarchy below, reflecting that above; a mortal, a material Hierarchy: corporeal, as communicating divine light, purity, knowledge to corporeal Beings. The triple earthly Sacerdotal Order had its type in heaven, the Celestial Orders their antitype on earth. The triple and novene division ran throughout, and connected, assimilated, almost identified the mundane and supermundane Church. As there were three degrees of attainment, Light, Purity, Knowledge (or the divine vision), so there were three Orders of the Earthly Hierarchy, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; three Sacraments, Baptism, the Eucharist, the Holy Chrism; three classes, the Baptised, the Communicants, the Monks. How sublime, how exalting, how welcome to the Sacerdotalism of the West this lofty doctrine! The Hierarchy. Celestial Hierarchy were as themselves; themselves were formed and organised after the pattern of the great Orders in heaven. The whole worship of Man, in which they administered, was an echo of that above;

Celestial

it represented, as in a mirror, the angelic or superangelic worship in the Empyrean. All its splendour, its lights, its incense, were but the material symbols; adumbrations of the immaterial, condescending to human thought, embodying in things cognisable to the senses of man the adoration of the Beings close to the throne of God.*

The unanswerable proof, were other wanting, of the Greek origin of the Celestial Hierarchy is, that in the Hierarchical system there is no place for the Pope, nor even-this perhaps might seem more extraordinary to the Gallic Clergy-for the Metropolitan. It recognises only the triple rank of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Jesus to the earthly Hierarchy is as the higher Primal Godhead, as the Trinity, to the Celestial Hierarchy. He is the Thearchic Intelligence, the supersubstantial Being." From him are communicated, through the Hierarchy, Purity, Light, Knowledge. He is the Primal Hierarch, that imparts his gifts to men; from him and through him men become partakers in the Divinity. The Sacraments are the channels through which these graces, Purification, Illumination, Perfection, are distributed to the chosen. Each Hierarchical Order has its special function, its special gifts. Baptism is by the Deacon, the Eucharist by the Priest, the Holy Chrism by the Bishop. What the Celestial Hierarchy are to the whole material universe the Hierarchy of the Clergy are to the souls of men; the trans

* Ἐπεὶ μηδὲ δυνατὸν ἐστιν τῷ καθ ̓ ἡμᾶς νοΐ, πρὸς τὴν ἀΰλον ἐκείνην ἀνατεθῆναι τῶν οὐρανίων Ἱεραρχιῶν μίμησίν τε καὶ θεωρίαν, εἰ μὴ τῇ κατ ̓ αὐτὸν ὑλαία χειραγωγίᾳ χρήσαιτο τὰ μὲν φαινόμενα κάλλη τῆς

ἀφανοῦς εὐπρεπείας ἀπεικονίσματα λογιζόμενος, καὶ τὰς αἰσθητὰς εὐωδίας ἐκτυπώματα τῆς νοητῆς διαδοσέως, καὶ τῆς αὔλου φωτοδοσίας εἴκονα τὰ ὑλικὰ φώτα.—Lib. i. c. i. p. 3.

m

Θεαρχικώτατος νοῦς, ὑπερουσίας.

mittants, the sole transmittants, of those graces and blessings which emanate from Christ as their primal fountain.

Demonology.

Still, however, as of old," angelic apparitions were rare and unfrequent in comparison with the demoniacal possessions, the demoniacal temptations and interferences. Fear was more quick, sensitive, ever-awake, than wonder, devotion, or love. Men might in their profound meditations imagine this orderly and disciplined Hierarchy far up in the remote Heavens. The visitations to earth might be of higher or lower ministers, according to the dignity of the occasion or the holiness of the Saint. The Seraphim might flash light on the eye, or touch with fire the lip of the Seer; the Cherubim might make their celestial harmonies heard; the Archangel might sweep down on his terrible wings on God's mission of wrath; the Angel descend on his more noiseless mission of love. The air might teem with these watchful Beings, brooding with their protecting care over the Saints, the Virgins, the meek and lowly Christians. They might be in perpetual contest for the souls of men with their eternal antagonists the Devils. But the Angelology was but dim and indistinct to the dreadful ever-present Demonology; their name, the Spirits of Air, might seem as if the atmosphere immediately around this world was their inalienable, almost exclusive domain.

So long as Paganism was the antagonist of Christianity, the Devil, or rather the Devils, took the names of Heathen Deities: to St. Martin of Tours, they were Jove, Mercury, Venus, or Minerva. They wore the form

• Spenser's beautiful and well-known lines express the common feeling.

and the attributes of those rejected and degraded Gods, no doubt familiar to most by their statues, perhaps by heathen poetry-the statues not yet destroyed by neglect or by Christian Iconoclasm, the poetry, which yet sounded to the Christian ear profane, idolatrous, hateful. At a later period the Heathen Deities have sunk into the obscure protectors of certain odious vices. Among the charges against Pope Boniface VIII. is the invocation of Venus and other Pagan demons, for success in gambling and other licentious occupations. So, too, in the conversion of the Germans, the Teutonic Gods became Demons. The usual form of recantation of heathenism was, "Dost thou renounce the Devils? Dost thou renounce Thonar, Woden, Saxnote?" "Odin take you," is still the equivalent in some Northern tongues to "the Devil take you."

But neither did the Greek Mythology, nor did that of the Germans, offer any conception like that of the later Jewish and the Christian Antagonist of God. Satan had no prototype in either. The German Teufel (Devil) is no more than the Greek Diabolus. The word is used by Ulphilas; and in that primitive translation Satan retains his proper name. But as in Greek and Roman

66

P "Nam interdum in Jovis personam, | Divine forgiveness at the Day of plerumque Mercurii, persæpe etiam se Judgement, on his ceasing to persecute, Veneris ac Minervæ transfiguratum and his repentance of his sins. Ego vultibus offerebat."-Sulp. Sever. Vit. tibi vero confisus in Domino, Christi S. Mat. cxxiii. Martin was endowed misericordiam polliceor." The heterowith a singular faculty of discerning dox charity of St. Martin did not meet the Devil. 'Diabolum vero tam con- the same aversion as the heterodox spicabilem et subjectum oculis habebat, theology of Origen. ut sive se in propriâ substantiâ contineret, sive in diversas figuras spiritualesque nequitias transtulisset, qualibet ab eo sub imagine videretur." Once Martin promised the Devil the

VOL. IX.

9 See vol. iii. p. 267.

Grimm. Mythologie, p. 568. Mark iii. 23. John xiii. 27. Edit. Zahn.

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