“forces” (“The angels have two forces [ duplicem vim], the contemplative, which
assists God, and the administrative, which is concerned with us: the contempla-
tive force, or assistive, is more noble than the one concerned with us,” Philip the
Chancellor, Summa de bono, vol. 1, Chapter “De bono gratie,” §“De bono gratie
in angelis,” q. 2, p. 384). And Bonaventure summarizes the fundamental division
in the nature of angels with the image of Jacob’s ladder:
Angelic operations can be reduced to two: the contemplative operation and
the administrative [ . . . ] And it is through these two that the angelic spirits
and their operations can be distinguished. The contemplative consists in an
ascent to the highest things; the administrative in the descent to human ones.
The two encounter one another on the ladder on which the angels climb and
descend [ . . . ] ( De div. II, De sanctis angelis I, coll. 2)
In The Banquet (Book II, Chapter 4, p. 49), Dante distinguishes in the same way
between two “blessednesses” in the nature of angels, the contemplative blessed-
ness with which the angels see and glorify the face of God, and the “blessedness”
of “governing the world,” which corresponds in men to “active (that is, civil) life.”
Of the two functions it is the second—the administrative, where the angels
collaborate in the divine government of the world (for this reason Bonaventure
calls it opus gubernationis)—which attracts most of the medieval theologians’
attention. It defines the vocation of angels to such an extent that Ambrose was
able to write that, whereas men are created “in the image” (of God), the angels
are created “ad ministerium” ( Explanatio super Psalmos, 17, 13).
Following these premises, beginning with the quaestio 106, Aquinas’s treatise
De gubernatione mundi becomes a treatise on angelology, which takes up more
than half of the entire book and consti tutes the broadest treatment that the
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“ Angelic Doctor” has dedicated to this theme. Having answered in the affir-
mative to the questions of whether the world in general is governed, and if it is
governed by God, Aquinas confronts the problem, decisive from the point of
view of the ministerial function of angels, “Whether all things are governed by
God immediately” ( Summa Theologiae, I, q. 103, a. 6, ad 3, p. 25). Against those
who claim that God can govern everything alone, without the need of interme-
diaries, and that it is not possible that he has need of ministers, as a rex terrenus, Aquinas maintains instead that a government is all the more perfect if it makes
use of intermediaries for its execution.
Since the carrying out of government is for the sake of bringing the governed
to their perfection, the form of governing will be better which communicates a
higher perfection to the governed. Now there is more excellence in a thing’s being
both good in itself and a cause of good in others, than in its simply being good in
itself. Consequently, God governs things in such a way that he establishes some
beings as causes over the governing of others [ . . . ] That a king have ministers
of his reign is not an indication only of limitation but also of majesty, since the
panopoly of ministers displays the king’s power. (Ibid., p. 27)
Bonaventure is even more explicit in this regard: if God, like all sovereigns,
could do alone what he makes the angels do, he, in truth, needs the angels “so
that in the ministry and in the operations a congruous and fitting order is con-
served [ ut salvetur in ministerio et actionibus decens et congruus ordo]” ( In quatuor libros sententiarum, Book 2, Commentarius 10, art. 1, q. 1, ad. 1).
Having thus established the necessity and ministerial character of angels,
in the subsequent seven Questions Aquinas painstakingly analyzes and de-
scribes the modes of their reciprocal illumination, their complex hierarchical
relations, the nature of their language, the order and hierarchies of the fallen
angels, the dominion of angels over corporeal beings and the modes of their
action with regard to man, the ministry and missions of angels and, finally, the
nature of the custodian angels.
Central to all these analyses are the concepts of hierarchy, ministry, and order.
Even before confronting them thematically in a close reading of The Celestial
Hierarchy by Dionysius the Aeropagite, Aquinas discusses them indirectly and
allows them to emerge in each Question, showing a veritable hierarchical obses-
sion that concerns both the angelic and human ministries. Thus, with regard to
illumination, he excludes the possibility that a lesser angel might be able to illu-
minate one higher in the hierarchy (whereas, in an exception to the usual paral-
lelism that Aquinas establishes between the celestial and earthly hierarchies, in
the case of the ecclesiastical hierarchy it is possible that those beneath can teach
508
HOMO SACER II, 4
their superiors). In the section on the language of angels ( Summa Theologiae, I,
q. 107, a. 2, pp. 111–113), Aquinas treats the problem of whether a lesser angel can
speak to one who is higher in the hierarchy with extreme seriousness (the answer
is positive but not without reservations). In discussing the government of corpo-
real creatures by angels, the hierarchical principle of the offices and ministries of
the angels is raised to a universal law that also includes civil hierarchies:
It is commonly found in human affairs, as well as in nature, that a particular power
is controlled and governed by a universal one as, for example, the bailiff ’s power is
controlled by the power of the king. Among the angels also, as stated before, the
higher angels [ . . . ] are above the lower ones [ . . . ] (Ibid., I, q. 110, a. 1, p. 5)
The general division of angels into two great classes or categories is reaffirmed by
Aquinas when he compares paradise to a royal court, which appears to be some-
what similar to a Kafkaesque castle, in which the functionaries are ordered by rank
in accordance to the greater or lesser distance between them and the sovereign:
Angels are represented as being present and as administering by analogy with
those who attend [ famulantur] upon a king. Some remain always present to the
king and hear his commands directly. And there are others (for example, those
in charge of the provincial administration) to whom the royal commands are
announced by those present to the king. These latter are said to be ministers but
not to be present. (Ibid., I, q. 112, a. 3, p. 43)
The caesura between assistants and administrators (that is, between contempla-
tion and government) cuts through each angel, which is divided between the
two poles that are constitutive of the angelic function, which is at once admin-
istrative and mysteric:
We must therefore note that all angels see the divine essence directly, and in this
respect all those who minister are also said to be “present to God.” Thus Gregory
says, those sent on an external ministry for the sake of our salvation can be present
to God always and see the face of the Father. Nevertheless, not all the angels are capable of apprehending the hidden secrets
of the divine mysteries in the same
clear light of the divine essence, but only the higher angels through whom these
secrets are made known to the lower ones. (Ibid.)
א The problem of whether the administering angels are more or less numerous than
the assisting ones and, more generally, the problem of the number of angels was a subject
upon which opinion differed. Aquinas summarizes this as follows:
Gregory says that there are more angels ministering than remain present because
he understands the text, Thousands of thousands ministered to him, not in a mul-
tiplicative sense but in the partitive sense as though it meant thousands out of
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
509
thousands. Thus the number of ministering angels is indefinite and this signifies
that it goes beyond any finite number. The number of those present, however,
is finite since it is added, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand were present
to him [ . . . ] This view accounts for the number of angelic orders, since six
minister and three remain present. However, Dionysius declares that the angelic
population exceeds every population of material things, so that, just as the higher
bodies immeasurably transcend the lower bodies in greatness, the higher beings of
non-material nature transcend all the things of material nature [ . . . ] But since
it is written [by Dionysius] ten thousand times a hundred thousand, those present
are said to be many more than those on ministry [ . . . ] {Such figures should
not however be taken literally, as though the angels were so many but no more;
their number is much greater inasmuch as it exceeds every material multitude.}
(Ibid., I, q. 112, a. 4, ad 2, pp. 45–47)
The prevalence of the glorious-contemplative aspect over the administrative (or vice versa) is translated here immediately into a numerical excess. In any case, it is interesting to note that the first time that we see the idea of a multitudo or of an infinite mass of rational living beings, it does not refer to men but to citizens of the celestial city; and yet, it is not a case of a formless mass but of a multitude that is perfectly and hierarchically ordered.
6.4. The introduction of the theme of hierarchy into angelology—and even
the invention of the very term “hierarchy”—is the work of an apocryphal au-
thor whose gesture is one of the most tenacious mystifications in the history of
Christian literature, and it is still waiting to be uncovered. The ambiguity that
has marked its reception, especially in the Latin West since the ninth century, has
led to the confusion of what is in truth a sacralization of ecclesiastical hierarchy
(and, perhaps, every hierarchy) with a mystical theology. And yet a reading that
has freed itself from the screen of the tralatitious interpretation leaves us in no
doubt as to the strategy of the apocryphal author, who wrote a Celestial Hierarchy
soon after his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy: it is a case, on the one hand, of placing the angels in a hierarchy, arranging their ranks according to a rigidly bureaucratic
order and, on the other hand, of angelifying the ecclesiastical hierarchies, by dis-
tributing them according to an essentially sacred gradation. In other words, it is
a case of transforming the mysterium into a ministerium and the ministerium into a mysterium, following a contiguity whose meaning in medieval Christian culture
Kantorowicz had already made the object of study (Kantorowicz 2005, p. 195).
The very invention of the term “hierarchia” (which is a specific contribu-
tion of the apocryphal author, whose vocabulary is otherwise heavily dependent
upon Proclus) is clear-sighted. As Aquinas rightly notes, it does not mean “sacred
order” but “sacred power” (“sacer principatus, qui dicitur hierarchia”: Summa
510
HOMO SACER II, 4
Theologiae, I, q. 108, a. 1, 3, p. 121). In fact, the central idea that runs throughout the Dionysian corpus is that what is sacred and divine is hierarchically ordered,
and its barely disguised strategy aims—through the obsessive repetition of a
triadic schema that descends from the Trinity, via the angelic triarchies, to the
earthly hierarchy—at the sacralization of power.
The parallelism between celestial hierarchy and earthly hierarchy is, after all,
already announced in the opening of the treatise on angels and repeated more than
once in the text; it is then taken up almost in the same terms in the Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy. “Power, which loves men and introduces us to mystery,” writes the Pseu-
do-Dionysius, “reveals the celestial hierarchies to us and establishes our hierarchy
in such a way that it is linked to their ministry [ sylleitourgon] through the resemblance with its celestial form” ( Celestial Hierarchy, 124a, p. 16). “For thus our hierarchy,” repeats the treatise on the earthly hierarchy, “reverently arranged in ranks
fixed by God, is like the Celestial hierarchies, preserving, so far as man can do, its
Godlike characteristics and Divine imitation” ( Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 536d, p. 88).
In both treatises, however, the hierarchy is in itself the principle that brings
about the work of salvation and deification: the “Divinity [ . . . ] bequeathed the
Hierarchy for the salvation and deification of all rational and intelligent beings”
(ibid., 376b, p. 52). Hierarchy is essentially the activity of government, which as
such implies an “operation” ( energeia), a “knowledge” ( epistēmē ), and an “order”
( taxis) ( Celestial Hierarchy, 164d, p. 21; see Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 372a, p. 50: hierarchy as theourgikē epistēmē ). And its origin and its archetype is the Trinitarian economy: “The origin of this hierarchy is the Triad—the Fountain of Life,
the Essence of Goodness, the One Cause of things that be—from which all
being and good come to things [ . . . ] it is the real salvation of Beings through
its rational design” (ibid., 373c, p. 52). For this reason—that is, insofar as it is
a “Divine imitation” ( Celestial Hierarchy, 164d, p. 21) and a “likeness of God”
(ibid., 165a), the hierarchy (whether it be earthly or celestial) is essentially triadic.
It gives the cadence to the internal articulation of that divine government of
the world that, via two characteristic terms (the first invented and the second
derived from Proclus), the apocryphal author defines as thearchia (divine power
or government, a concept that is more powerful than the modern “theocracy”)
and diakosmēsis (ordered arrangement, oikonomia).
א The hierarchy (the “sacred power”) of the Pseudo-Dionysius is in this sense an
unfolding of the concept of diakosmēsis in Proclus (see Elements of Theology, prop. 144
and 151). Diakosmeō means “to govern by ordering” (or “to order by governing”); in the same way, in the concept of “hierarchy” it is impossible to distinguish between “ordered
arrangement” and “government.”
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6.5. At this point the strategy of the apocryphal author begins to reveal itself.
The intricate mystagogical framework and initiatory vocabulary, drawn from
Neoplatonism, are given their meaning and real function by an apparatus that is
ultimately governmental. Thearchia, whose triadic manifestation is the hierarchi-
cal government of the world, is ineffable, unnameable, and suprasubstantial; it
is the invisible p
rinciple of power. The providential oikonomia is fully translated into a hierarchy, into a “sacred power” that penetrates and traverses the divine
as well as the human world, from the celestial principalities to the nations and
peoples of the earth:
For the Angels, as we have already previously said, complete the whole series of
celestial minds, as being the last Order of the heavenly Beings, who possess the
Angelic characteristic. Yea, rather, they are more properly named Angels by us
than those of higher degree. Especially because their Hierarchy is occupied in
making known, and is more particularly concerned with the things of the world.
For the very highest Order, as being placed in the first rank near the Hidden
One, we must consider as directing in spiritual things in a more hidden fashion
than the Order itself. But the second Order, which is composed of the holy
Lordships and Powers and Authorities, directs the Hierarchy of the Principalities
and Archangels and Angels more clearly indeed than the first Hierarchy, but more
hiddenly than the Order after it. We must bear in mind that the more revealing
Order of the Principalities, Archangels, and Angels presides through each other
over the Hierarchies among men, in order that the instruction, and conversion,
and communion, and union with God may be in due order, and, in short, that
the procession from God vouchsafed in a manner becoming His goodness to all
the Hierarchies, and passing to all in common, may be in a most sacred regularity.
Hence, the sacred scripture has assigned our Hierarchy to Angels, naming the
distinguished Michael the Archon of the Jewish people and others over other
peoples. For the Most High established borders of nations according to the
number of Angels of God. ( Celestial Hierarchy, 260a–b, pp. 34–35)
This is absolutely clear in the most theologically dense treatise, on The Divine
Names. Toward the end of the book, when analyzing the names that express
God’s sovereignty (Saint of saints, King of kings, Ruling still and eternally, Lord
of lords, God of gods), the apocryphal author defines regality ( basileia) as the
“appointment [ dianemēsis] of all bound [ horos], order [ kosmos], law [ thesmos] and rank [ taxis]” ( The Divine Names, 969b, p. 86). It is an original definition that, in contrast with the traditional ones (the Aristotelian, the Judeo-Christian, or the
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