A Hierarchical pattern of the angelic world and its eschatological relationship with man in the patristic literature

Abstract

Against a background of the Patristic tradition, the author addresses the issue whether, eschatologically speaking, Man can enter the celestial hierarchy, and, by so doing, replenish the number of those angels who have fallen away, and become like them if not by nature, then in the mode of their living. In fact, the matter under investigation can be briefly formulated like this: can Man turn into an Angel? There is introduced a concept of “cross­hierarchical interaction” which helps describe the process of merging the heavenly and earthly hierarchies. There are examples from the Holy Fathers’ works written in the period from the second until the fourteenth century. The author has come to the conclusion that in the most, but a few, cases there is a positive attitude to this issue in the Patristic Ascetics and Eschatology.