Far Above All Rule and Authority

I will deal briefly with the second passage which my brother tells me has been marked for blame, because the complaint is extremely trivial and bears its slanderous character on its face. The passage is the one in which Paul declares that God “made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in the one to come.” After stating various explanations that have been given, I came to the offices of God’s ministers and spoke of the principalities and powers, the virtues and dominions. And I add: [a] “They must surely have others who are subject to them, who are under their power and serve them, and are strengthened by their authority. And this distribution of offices will exist not only in the present world but in the world to come, so that each one will rise or fall from one step of advancement and honor to another, some ascending and some descending, and will come in turn under each of these powers, virtues, principalities, and dominions.”

I then went on to describe the various divine offices and ministries by comparison with the palace of an earthly king, which I described in full. And I added: “Can we suppose that God, the Lord of lords and King of kings, is content with a single order of servants? We speak of an archangel because there are other angels of whom he is chief; and in the same way nothing would be said of principalities, powers, and dominions unless it were implied that there were others of lower rank.”

But suppose he thinks I became a follower of Origen because in my explanation I mentioned these advancements and honors, these ascents and descents, these increases and decreases. Then I must point out that to say, as Origen does, that angels and cherubim and seraphim are turned into demons and men, is a very different thing from saying that the angels themselves have various offices assigned to them. That is a teaching not at odds with the teaching of the church. Among men there are various degrees of dignity, marked out by different kinds of work. The bishop, the presbyter, and the other grades of the church each have their own order, while all of them are still men. In the same way we may believe that, while all the angels keep the dignity of angels, there are various degrees of rank among them, without imagining that angels are changed into men, or that men are remade into angels.