Hierarchy: is the sacred order of angels and clergy a ladder of participation in God, or a sanctified structure of rank and exclusion?

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite answers

Hierarchy is not rank, and that is where your question goes astray. I define it as a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated as far as attainable to the likeness of God and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, for the sake of the Divine imitation.¹ It is an order because each being has its place, a science because each knows God as far as that place allows, and an operation because each passes on what it has received.

Its purpose is neither government nor distinction. It is assimilation and union with God, as far as attainable, with Him as Leader of all religious science and operation.² Hear what the order does with the light. The Beauty of God is free from any dissimilarity and imparts its own light to each according to fitness.³ Those who are ranked are made divine images, mirrors most luminous and without flaw, filled with the entrusted radiance and spreading it again, ungrudgingly, to those after them.²

Nothing is hoarded. The law of the order is that some are purified and others purify, some are enlightened and others enlighten, some are perfected and others perfect, and so the Divine imitation fits each one.² The higher overflow, in proportion to their own overflowing light, toward those worthy of enlightenment.⁴ A higher rank is a more luminous channel, not a wall.

And the Source of all of it is Jesus Himself, who illuminates the blessed Beings above us, assimilates them to His own Light, folds together our many diversities, and perfects us into a uniform and divine life.⁵ The Church below is built in the likeness of the heavens. The Leitourgoi are a purifying rank, the Priests an illuminating, the Hierarchs a consecrating; the holy people contemplate, and the monks are the perfected rank.⁶

Yet the gift at the summit is given to all alike according to capacity. The Communion of the Eucharist is the consummation of every hierarchical reception, and all the sacred Orders partake, each as it can, of the same common and most godly gifts for their elevation and perfection in deification.⁶ Those who are still being purified are not shut out by malice.

They are a rank under course of purification, still on the road.⁶ There is exclusion in the order, and I do not hide it. I tell Timothy to guard the holy things from the profane multitude, for it is not lawful to cast the intelligible pearls to swine.⁷ But the guard is for the sake of those who receive, as a jewel is kept from hands that would break it.

And the order has its own severity toward itself: no one may practise anything beyond the sacred regulations of his own proper function.² The measure is capacity and light, never office taken for its own sake.

The position in brief

Hierarchy is not rank but a sacred order, knowledge and activity, by which every being is made like God as far as it can and passes on to those below what it has received from above: the higher purify, illumine and perfect, and the lower are purified, illumined and perfected.⁸⁹ Nearness to God is not a place but a capacity to receive Him. No one may seize a function that is not his, and a monk may not judge the priest; yet a priest who does not illumine has fallen from the priestly order. The end of every rank is likeness and union with God, and its law is love, as Carpus learned.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Sources

Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation.
The Celestial Hierarchy
The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimilation and union, as far as attainable, with God, having Him Leader of all religious science and operation
The Celestial Hierarchy
Now the God-becoming Beauty, as simple, as good, as source of initiation, is altogether free from any dissimilarity, and imparts its own proper light to each according to their fitness
The Celestial Hierarchy
those who illuminate, as being more luminous intelligences, whose function it is to receive and to impart light... should overflow, in proportion to their own overflowing light, towards those who are worthy of enlightenment
The Celestial Hierarchy
Jesus Himself— the most supremely Divine Mind and superessential, the Source and Essence, and most supremely Divine Power of every Hierarchy and Sanctification and Divine operation — illuminates the blessed Beings who are superior to us
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
all the sacred Orders, according to their capacity, partake of the self-same common and most godly gifts, for their own elevation and perfection in deification. We conclude, then, that the holy Mystic Rites are, purification, and illumination, and consecration.
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
guard them closely from the profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not lawful, as the Oracles say, to cast to swine the unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of the intelligible pearls.
The Celestial Hierarchy
But the holy people is a contemplative Order. That which does not participate in the sacred contemplation and communion, is a Rank being purified, as still under course of purification. The holy people is a contemplative Rank, and that of the single Monks is a perfected Rank.
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
And now let us explain next the sacerdotal Order, which is divided into a purifying and illuminating and perfecting discipline. Section IV. This, then, is the all-sacred Law of the Godhead, that, through the first, the second are conducted to Its most Divine splendour.
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
And even if now also the Priest, and all the religious present, salute the man ordained, understand from this the holy fellowship of the Godlike who lovingly congratulate each other in a Divine rejoicing. Section V.
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Let these things suffice to have been said on account of the material and incongruous descriptions of the holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is necessary to define what we think the Hierarchy is in itself, and what benefit those who possess a Hierarchy derive from the same. But let Christ lead the discourse— if it be lawful to me to say— He Who is mine,— the Inspiration of all Hierarchical revelation.
The Celestial Hierarchy
Now the God-becoming Beauty, as simple, as good, as source of initiation, is altogether free from any dissimilarity, and imparts its own proper light to each according to their fitness, and perfects in most Divine initiation, as becomes the undeviating moulding of those who are being initiated harmoniously to itself. Section II.
The Celestial Hierarchy

Where the argument is made

Celestial Hierarchy III.1-2, "Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God," with the rule that some are purified and others purify, some are enlightened and others enlighten, some are perfected and others perfect
VI-IX on the three triads of angels
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy I on the purpose of hierarchy and V-VI on the orders of clergy and of the initiated, with the purified orders kept from the sight of the mysteries
Letter VIII to Demophilus in full, on the monk who drove out a priest, the rule that nearness to God is "according to God-receptive aptitude," the priest who does not illuminate who has fallen from the priestly rank, and the vision of Carpus

How the argument was received

The word and the idea the corpus gave the Church, used for centuries to sanctify church order and read now, by most, as rank sanctified; the texts make every rank a mediation of light, not of power.