Hierarch

“ One must consider, then, that the Hierarchy is akin, and in every respect like, to the first Beings, who are established after the Godhead, who gave them Being, and who are marshalled, as it were, in Its very vestibule, who surpass every unseen and seen created power. ”

“ Hierarchs, who had penetrated deeper and deeper the mysteries of infinity, and by longed-tried obedience, and faithfulness, and love had won the glorious privilege of commune with the Ineffable Majesty of the Supreme. Even to the young seraph, commencing his heavenly career, satisfied to labour and to love, till he should pass through the intermediate ranks, and rising higher and higher in angelic intellect, and the beatified nature of his tasks at length attain the archangelic goal. ”

“ A landed aristocracy, thus founded, might be indefinitely enlarged and thus afford not merely society for the lonely summits of the hierarchy, but a comfortable intercalation as the seat of the throne, removed by one stratum from the restless foundation elements. ”

“ They forced the hierarchy to recognize the existence of something higher without it and above it, and also to learn to respect the right of men to form their own opinions and to give utterance to them. ”

“ The organisation of the host and of its units does not follow the lines of the feudal hierarchy. The King is a rallying-point, giving rise to a delusive sense of unity of direction; chance and the love of fighting accomplish the rest. ”

“ A dignified and venerable hierarchy, an august and powerful27 monarch, a court of gay and luxurious nobles, all lost their grace, because the eyes of men were suddenly caught and appalled by the awful phantom, which was yet so real, of a perishing nation. ”

“ For, to such an extent has the superessential harmony of all things provided for the religious order and the regulated conduct of each of the rational and intellectual beings, that each rank of the Hierarchies, has been placed in sacred order, and we observe every Hierarchy distributed into first, and middle, and last Powers. ”

“ It was natural that hierarchs and monarchs whose births were announced by stars, or whose deaths were announced by comets, should regard themselves as far above the common herd, and be so regarded by mankind; that passive obedience should thus be strengthened, and that the most monstrous assumptions of authority by such men should be considered simply as manifestations of the divine will. ”

“ Now we have well shewn, as I think, in the Hierarchies already extolled by us, the threefold division of every Hierarchy, when we affirmed that our sacred tradition holds, that every Hierarchical transaction is divided into the most Divine Mystic Rites, and the inspired experts and teachers of them, and those who are being religiously initiated by them. ”

“ In the history of our forefathers, we recognise three political beasts, feeding at different periods upon their lives, liberties and properties. Those called hierarchical and feudal aristocracy, to say the worst of them, are now the instruments of the third. ”

“ In the earlier stages of the development of humanity the great Officials of the Hierarchy are provided from outside, from other and more highly evolved parts of the system, but as soon as men can be trained to the necessary level of power and wisdom these offices are held by them. ”

“ The Fathers and many of the early rulers of the great countries were special representatives of the Spiritual Hierarchy which at later stages in the history of the world sent forth its emissaries to become world-teachers, empire-makers, legislators, warriors and inventors, each speaking the Word that the world then had need of. ”

“ A reformer in the deepest sense, he accepted Church and hierarchy as they existed, and never dreamed of resisting them. Everything that the sixteenth century called into question is to be found in his writings. ”

“ Like a huge net the rule of priests was spread over mankind, and all men, with their spiritual and secular interests, were caught in this net. The system was called a hierarchy, that is, a holy government. ”

“ To feed a Monarch, and begem a crown,
They build before high heaven a narrowing wall
And the great purpose of Creation spoil.
Not on, and upward, is the trend, but down;
The Race can rise but with the rise of all. ”

“ Proclaiming through the living and the dead,—
'The Monarch saith that his great empire's worth
Is set on Laon and Laone's head;
He who but one yet living here can lead,
Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,
Shall be the kingdom's heir—a glorious meed! ”

“ Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good offices: you may be the heir to wealth and a distinguished name; I may seem to you but an unknown and undignified priest; but the authority of the Almighty can raise up, from the sheepfold and the cotter's shed, a power, which, as the organ of His own, can trample upon sceptres and dictate to the supremacy of kings. ”

“ For there is a chain of government that runs down from God, the Supreme Monarch, whose bright and piercing eyes look through all that he has made, to the lowest degree of the creation; and there are presidential angels of empires and kingdoms, and such as under them have the tutelage of private families; and, lastly, every man's particular guardian genius. ”

“ Such a sovereign without a crown, or the title of king, with his favorites and his instigators about him, may not be a less dangerous animal, than the monarch whose brow is decorated by the splendor of a diadem. ”

“ We conclude, then, that the holy Mystic Rites are, purification, and illumination, and consecration. The Leitourgoi are a purifying rank, the Priests an illuminating, and the Godlike Hierarchs a consecrating. But the holy people is a contemplative Order. ”

“ The only other walk of active life which was open to him was the practice of the law. Through that lay the approach to wealth, to fame, to office, to the council-chamber of the monarch—it may be to the very throne itself. ”

“ We have now only to show what capacities and talents must be possessed by the true Ruler,—by what estimate of his calling, and what mode of practising it, he proves that he looks upon it as sacred.
He who undertakes to guide his Age and order its constitution, must be exalted above it,—must not merely possess an historical knowledge of it, but must thoroughly understand and comprehend it. The Ruler possesses, in the first place, a living and comprehensive idea of that relation of human life which he undertakes to superintend;—he knows what is its essential nature, meaning, and purpose. ”

“ You know, I do not take much interest in public affairs, and I fear it has grieved you [Pg 323] that my inclinations have been so alien to what my position as heir to the throne required. But I am not unacquainted with the principles of the constitution of the Empire. I will not pretend that I have studied them from a statesman's point of view. They have absorbed my attention in the course of my favourite study of human character. ”

“ A great and potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice ”

“ Far more lofty than any title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent of nobility straight from the hand of the "King of kings," that seems to give to the mortal something of the authority of the immortal, and to crown the head of the priest with the diadem that belongs to those who are "kings and priests unto God." ”

“ If there be one intellect vastly superior to any others, the constitution of the state will soon become a monarchy; if there be more than one or two greatly above the rest, you will have an aristocracy, and the natural order, as far as I have seen in the world, will be the monarch representing the highest intellect and most powerful will; an aristocracy representing those next in mental powers ”

“ The geologist, in those tables of stone which form his records, finds no example of dynasties once passed away again returning. There has been no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to have glorified man for its inhabitant; but it is to be the dynasty—"the kingdom"—not of glorified man made in the image of God, but of God himself in the form of man. ”

“ All power, whether spiritual or temporal, is originally derived from the Supreme Monarch of the world, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords. Since, therefore, every Power, whether it be supreme or subordinate, does primarily and originally derive all its authority from above, surely the gift of God ought to be used to His honour and glory. ”

“ The nobles were divided into princes, prelates, barons of the kingdom, and magnates, whose rights, though in some trifling respects different, were yet so much akin as to permit their being treated as political equals. Next to them, yet claiming the essential privileges of nobility, came the king's chief retainers, with the holders of fiefs under the princes and prelates, and the principal retainers of the magnates; and finally, a humbler class followed, who, corresponding to our territorial but untitled aristocracy, are now content to bear the appellation of eidelmen, or gentry. ”

“ “You see,” said my Teacher, “how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understand them at all, he accepts them as his own—for he cannot conceive of any other except himself—and plumes himself upon the variety of ‘Its Thought’ as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction.” ”

“ If you cannot afford to have a nobility, let it die away: grant, as in England, the title of noble to one of a family, and let all the rest be commoners; that is to say, distinguished by no personal privilege whatsoever from the lowest classes of the people. ”

“ As the state is an aristocracy, its most important spiritual function is the production of aristocrats; each noble family transmits the full power of its blood only to a single person—the oldest son; of the highest form, the royal, only one is supposed to be born in a generation, only one who receives and transmits in full the blood royal.
As the nobility are the blossom of the state, great pains must be taken with the education of those persons born of patrician or wealthy families. ”

“ Royal houses resemble those Indian fig-trees, each branch of which, bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself. Each branch may become a dynasty. On the sole condition that it shall bend down to the people. ”

“ When He speaks of nobility, He simply means an election made, and an office or a title conferred, on the principle of superiority of intellect, or nobleness of action, or of capacity to act. And when this election, with its titles, dignities, and estates, includes the unborn posterity of a chosen man, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it is with a view of the noble spirits of the eternal world coming through their lineage, and being taught in the commandments of God. ”

“ That I am a servant it is most true, that as I am head and governor of all the people in my dominion who are my natural vassals and subjects, considering them in numbers and distinct ranks: so, if we will take the whole people as one body and mass, then, as the head is ordained for the body and not the body for the head, so must a righteous king know himself to be ordained for his people and not his people for him. ”

“ I believe in the institution of hereditary monarchy as a divine idea, imparted to mankind, and answering to true and healthy instincts implanted in them—like in kind, if differing in degree, to the institution of a priesthood or clergy. ”

“ There are always plenty of heirs or usurpers to take a throne when it is empty. If I want a kingdom, I must build up one for myself, and that is just what I will do. I will gather together my subjects as I go along. The first person I meet shall be my chief councilor of state, the second shall be head of the army, the third shall be admiral of the navy, the next shall be chief treasurer, and then I will collect subjects of various classes. ”

“ There are viceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and a hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal archangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck, where there ain’t any titles. Do you know what a prince of the blood is, on earth? ”

“ As the good sovereign on the throne, apparently isolated and seemingly detached and unconcerned, is yet the source, the fountain-head, the central sanctum of authority and the sole stay and the supreme strength of the realm, even so the supreme Lord is seated in the inner core of all created beings ”

“ Glancing backwards, we find that the feudal order of the Middle Ages, with its graduated authority—vested in the hands of successive orders of agricultural and military chiefs, subordinated in their turn to one supreme chief, the Sovereign of the realm—had gradually become absorbed in an absolute monarchy. ”

“ Succeeding to so fair a patrimony as that of a mighty kingdom, where little or no opposition had been made for some reigns to the will of the sovereign; to a kingdom too, securely settled in the possession of its favoured religion, which had occasioned all the dangers, and produced all the condescension, of the preceding princes; bringing, besides, with him to the succession, an undisputed title and the additional splendor of another crown ”