the angels into three hierarchies, each
subdivided into three orders, as under:--

_First Hierarchy_.--Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;

_Second Hierarchy_.--Dominions, Powers, and Authorities (or Virtues);

_Third Hierarchy_.--Principalities, Archangels, and Angels,--

and this classification was adopted by AGRIPPA and others.
Pseudo-DIONYSIUS explains the names of these orders as follows: "... the
holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling
or burning; and that of the Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream
of wisdom.... The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent
Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling
inferiority, and their super-mundane tendency towards higher things;...
and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable
Highest, with the whole force of their powers.... The explanatory
name of the Holy Lordships (Dominions) denotes a certain unslavish
elevation... superior to every kind of cringing slavery, indomitable
to every subserviency, and elevated above every dissimularity, ever
aspiring to the true Lordship and source of Lordship.... The appellation
of the Holy Powers denotes a certain courageous and unflinching
virility... vigorously conducted to the Divine imitation, not forsaking
the Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly
looking to the super-essential and powerful-making power, and becoming
a powerlike image of this, as far as is attainable....The appellation of
the Holy Authorities... denotes the beautiful and unconfused good
order, with regard to Divine receptions, and the discipline of the
super-mundane and intellectual authority... conducted indomitably,
with good order towards Divine things.... (And the appellation) of the
Heavenly Principalities manifests their princely and leading function,
after the Divine example...."(1) There is a certain grandeur in these
views, and if we may be permitted to understand by the orders of the
hierarchy, "discrete" degrees (to use SWEDENBORG'S term) of spiritual
reality--stages in spiritual involution,--we may see in them a certain
truth as well. As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man
has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical
hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the
lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings
that white magic pretended to evoke. But the p