Angels Ascending and Descending

Et dormiens vidit scalam subnixam, innitentem coelo, et angelos Dei ascendentes et descendentes. Porro scala Christus est, qui dixit: Ego sum via. Per hanc ascendunt, et descendunt angeli, in quibus significati sunt evangelistae, et praedicatores Christi. Ascendentes utique, cum ad intelligendam ejus supereminentissimam divinitatem excedunt universam creaturam, ut eum inveniant in principio verbum, Deum apud Deum, per quem facta sunt omnia. Descendentes autem, ut eum inveniant factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, ut eos qui sub lege erant redimeret. In illa enim scala a terra usque in coelum, a carne usque ad spiritum, carnales proficiendo, velut ascendendo, spirituales fiunt; ad quos lacte nutriendos etiam ipsi spirituales descendunt quodammodo, cum eis non possunt loqui, quasi spiritualibus, sed quasi carnalibus. Ipse est sursum in capite suo; ipse deorsum in corpore suo, quod est Ecclesia. Ipsum ergo scalam intelligimus, quia ipse dixit: Ego sum via. Ad ipsum ergo ascenditur, ut in excelsis intelligatur. Et ad ipsum descenditur, ut in membris suis parvulus nutriatur. Et per illum se erigunt, ut eum sublimiter spectent. Per ipsum etiam se humiliant, ut eum sublimiter ac temperanter annuntient. Sanctus Isidorus Hispalensis, Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum Seu Quaestiones In Vetus Testamentum, In Genesin, Caput XXIV Source: Migne PL 83.258a-d

And sleeping he saw a ladder set on the earth, and the top of it touched heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending. 1 The ladder is Christ who said, 'I am the way,' 2 By this angels ascend and descend, in which are signified the evangelists and the preachers of Christ. They ascend when they bring every creature to the understanding of His supereminent Divinity, so that they find Him to be the Word in the Beginning, God with God, through whom all things were made. 3 And they descend so that they find Him born of a woman, under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law. 4 For in that ladder stretching from earth to heaven is the advance from the flesh to the spirit, when a carnal people advance on its ascent and becomes spiritual, and the spiritual descent is to those who are nourished on milk, when they cannot be spoken to as spiritual people but only as carnal people. 5 He is above as the head and He is below as the body, which is the Church. 6 We understand Him, then, as the ladder, because He said, 'I am the way.' And therefore to Him there is ascent in the understanding of high things. And in Him there is descent so that in His members the little one is nourished. And through Him they rise so that they look on Him sublimely, and indeed through Him they are lowered so that they preach sublimely and temperately. Saint Isidore of Seville, Expositions of Sacred Mysteries or Questions on the Old Testament, On Genesis, Chapter 24 1 Gen 28.12 2 Jn 14.16 3 Jn 1.1-3 4 Gal 4.4-5 5 1 Cor 3.2 6 Colos 1.18