Here is a wonderful description of angels from the anonymous Syrian monk who is now called “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.”
The angel is an image of God…
… a manifestation of the hidden light…
… a mirror, pure, bright, untarnished, unspotted, receiving, if one may say so, the full loveliness of the divine goodness and purely enlightening within itself as far as possible the goodness of the silence in the inner sanctuaries.
This is from the treatise The Divine Names, as translated by Colm Luibheid (from Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works published by Paulist Press). It would have been written sometime around the year AD 500.
Pseudo-Dionysius was one of the most important Christian mystics of the first millennium. While much of his writing is densely philosophical, passage after passage shimmers with contemplative insight. Like Meister Eckhart or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Pseudo-Dionysius is not an “easy” read — but certainly a rewarding one.
Enjoy reading this blog?
Click here to become a patron.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In