Celestial Hierarchy - Chapter 3
What is Hierarchy, and what the use of Hierarchy?
Hierarchy is... a holy order and knowledge and activity which, so far as is attainable, participates in the Divine...
The aim of Hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation to and union with God, ...to become like Him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating intently His most Divine Beauty. Also it moulds and perfects its participants in the holy image of God like bright and spotless mirrors which receive the Ray of the Supreme Deity…, and being mystically filled with the Gift of Light, it pours it forth again abundantly, according to the Divine Law, upon those below itself.....
Therefore he who speaks of Hierarchy implies a certain perfectly holy Order in the likeness of the First Divine Beauty, ministering the sacred mystery of its own illuminations in hierarchical order and wisdom...
For each of those who is allotted a place in the Divine Order finds his perfection in being uplifted, according to his capacity, towards the Divine Likeness.. he becomes, as the Scriptures say, a fellow-worker with God,... For the holy constitution of the Hierarchy ordains that some are purified, others purify; some are enlightened, others enlighten; some are perfected, others make perfect; for in this way the divine imitation will fit each one...
Thus each order in the hierarchical succession is guided to the divine co-operation, and brings into manifestation, through the Grace and Power of God, that which is naturally and supernaturally in the Godhead, and which is consummated by Him super-essentially, but is hierarchically manifested for man's imitation as far as is attainable, of the God-loving Celestial Intelligences.