(d) De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, V, 3. (MSG, 3:504.)
The most holy consecration of initiation has as the godlike power or activity the expiatory purification of the imperfect, as the second the illuminating consecration of the purified, and as the last, which also includes the other two, the perfecting of the consecrated in the knowledge of the consecrations that belong to them.…
5. The divine order of the hierarch[209] is the first under the God-beholding orders; it is the highest and also the last, for in it every other order of our hierarchy ends and is completed.[210] For we see that every hierarchy ends in Jesus, and so each one ends in the God-filled hierarchs.
6. The hierarchical order, which is filled full of the perfecting power, performs especially the consecrations of the hierarchy, imparts by revelation the knowledge of the sacred things, and teaches the conditions and powers appropriate to them. The order of priests which leads to light leads to the divine beholding of the sacred mysteries all those who have been initiated by the divine order of the hierarchs and with that order performs its proper sacred functions. In what it does it displays the divine working through the most holy symbols [i.e., sacraments] and makes those who approach beholders and participants in the most holy mysteries, sending on to the hierarch those who desire the knowledge of those sacred rites which are seen. The order of the liturges [or deacons] is that which cleanses and separates the unlike [pg 564] before they come to the sacred rites of the priests, purifies those who approach that it may render them pure from all that is opposing and unworthy of beholding and participating in the sacred mysteries.
(e) De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, I, 3. (MSG, 3:373.)
The sacraments.
The mysteries or sacraments, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, are six in number: baptism, the eucharist, anointing or confirmation, the consecration of priests, the consecration of monks,[211] and the consecration of the dead. These he discusses in chs. 2-7 of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.
Salvation can in no other way come about than that the saved are deified. The deification is the highest possible resemblance to God and union with Him. The common aim of all the hierarchy is the love which hangs upon God and things divine, which fills with a divine spirit and works in godlike fashion; and before this is the complete and never retreating flight from that which is opposed to it, the knowledge of being as being, the vision and knowledge of the holy truth, the divinely inspired participation in the homogeneous perfection of the One himself, so far as man can come to that, the enjoyment of the holy contemplation, which spiritually nourishes and deifies every one who strives for it.