Pursuing Eudaimonia

Pursuing Eudaimonia
LIVERPOOL HOPE UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ETHICS SERIES

SERIES EDITOR: DR. DAVID TOREVELL
SERIES DEPUTY EDITOR: DR. JACQUI MILLER
VOLUME ONE:
ENGAGING RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Editors: Joy Schmack, Matthew Thompson and David Torevell with Camilla Cole
VOLUME TWO:
RESERVOIRS OF HOPE: SUSTAINING SPIRITUALITY IN SCHOOL LEADERS
Author: Alan Flintham
VOLUME THREE:
LITERATURE AND ETHICS: FROM THE GREEN KNIGHT TO THE DARK KNIGHT
Editors: Steve Brie and William T. Rossiter
VOLUME FOUR:
POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION
Editor: Neil Ferguson
VOLUME FIVE:
FROM CRITIQUE TO ACTION:
THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL WORLD
Editors: David Weir and Nabil Sultan
VOLUME SIX:
A LIFE OF ETHICS AND PERFORMANCE
Editors: John Matthews and David Torevell
VOLUME SEVEN:
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: EDUCATION FOR A HUMANE SOCIETY
Editors: Feng Su and Bart McGettrick
VOLUME EIGHT:
CATHOLIC EDUCATION: UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES, LOCALLY APPLIED
Editor: Andrew B. Morris
VOLUME NINE
GENDERING CHRISTIAN ETHICS
Editor: Jenny Daggers
VOLUME TEN
PURSUING EUDAIMONIA:
RE-APPROPRIATING THE GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS
OF THE CHRISTIAN APOPHATIC TRADITION
Author: Brendan Cook
Pursuing Eudaimonia:
Re-appropriating the Greek Philosophical
Foundations of the Christian Apophatic
Tradition
By
Brendan Cook
Pursuing Eudaimonia:
Re-appropriating the Greek Philosophical Foundations of the Christian Apophatic Tradition,
by Brendan Cook
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2013 by Brendan Cook
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-4224-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4224-2

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Chapter outline 4
Methodology: Lectio divina 7
1 Human development today: Why think differently? 13

Rationale and Christian context 13
The Greek vision of eudaimonia 20
Voices of challenge (by discipline) 28
The philosophical foundations of the Enlghtenment legacy 51
The constructive (post)modern context: other solutions to
the problematic 61
2 The philosophical pursuit of the fullest human flourishing in

classical thought 69
Readings of the Platonic coprus and later Platonic philosophy 69
Mapping lectio divina 70
The experience of aporia as precursor of negative theology:
the Socratic pursuit of Wisdom as a spiritual way of life 74
Erotic desire for ultimate beauty characterised by aporia 80
The genealogy of Eros 84
The veracity of the Socratic claim of ignorance 86
3 Pursuing eudaimonia: Retrieving the Greek philosophical

foundations of the Christian apophatic tradition 92
The genesis of the apophatic tradition:
the rise to power of Logos 94
Parmenides’ idea of one reality: the emerging philosophical
foundations of the apophatic tradition 101
Two signs intersecting with Plato’s contemplative ideal
foreshadowing the development of the apophatic tradition 103
The inspiratio of Apollo’s theia mania 103
Parmenides’ poetic account of the goddess Night’s
revelation of two ways of inquiry 109
vi Table of Contents
Plato’s contemplative priority: establishing the philosophical

foundations of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition 112
Heightening of religious sensibilities and doubts about
Logos: Middle Platonism and the first exponents of
negative theology 122
The apophatic ‘genuine article’ of Neoplatonism 124
4 The Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition 133

The emergence of the via negativa 136
Philo: marrying Plato with Jewish Biblical faith 138
Clement of Alexandria, the first Christian theologian to
develop negative theology 148
Gregory of Nyssa, the theologian of darkness and of the
soul’s perpetual progress 153
The ecstasy of self-transcending deifying union: the summit
of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Mystical Theology 170
Conclusion 191
Affirming my concluding hypothesis: Wittgenstein seeks
recourse to ‘negative’ thinking 196
Ancient Greek philosophy timeline 201
Notes 203
Bibliography 238
Index 249
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this book has been a major and demanding project
for which I am indebted to many people. It originates from my doctoral
thesis which articulates the ancient ‘negative’ reasoning as a spiritual way
of life central to my ongoing pursuit of happiness. Since my youth I have
appreciated this fundamental endeavour as amongst those things which the
human will is incapable of not willing. Allied with this appreciation was that
also of its frustration by the way many people learn and are taught how to
think or reason. Therefore, as philosophical and theological autobiography,
it articulates my resistance to this prevailing wisdom. It also reveals the
development of an alternative goal of my pursuit of happiness which comes
into view through inward change and regeneration. I remain deeply grateful
to my dear wife Jacqueline for her long suffering love and support. This
work speaks volumes about her intelligence and good faith, as it does also
of my sons Dominic and Sebastian. I also dedicate this work to the memory
of my mother whose courageous faith and moral character sets a lasting ex-
ample. Throughout the journey of my life whose heart this work expresses, I
continue to be inspired and sustained by the friendship of the Jericho Bene-
dictines who never fail to lead by example. Writing up my work at Trochrig
in Ayrshire under the gaze of Robert Boyd DD (1578–1627) illustrates the
point. I am especially grateful to my supervisor Dr David Torevell whose
encouragement, support and guidance, including numerous proofreadings
of my work, has proved invaluable in its completion. I am also in debt to
Professor David Brown for his suggestions during the writing of this thesis.
I also thank Dr Andrew Holden for helping to give my work a final polish
and James Proctor for his meticulous review of my referencing.
Fortitudo mentis
(Courage to see things as they are)

INTRODUCTION
PURSUING EUDAIMONIA:
RE-APPROPRIATING THE GREEK PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN APOPHATIC
TRADITION
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
(Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776)
This most famous political declaration, representing the hopes and desires
of both those who govern and those governed, carries profound philosophi-
cal and theological thinking stretching back into antiquity which is now lost
to many. Thomas Jefferson did not coin the phrase the ‘pursuit of happiness’
but took it from his intellectual heroes who were mostly English; foremost
of them was John Locke who used the phrase in his Essay Concerning
Human Understanding.1 In turn, Locke’s understanding, says Hamilton,
invoked ‘Greek and Roman ethics in which eudaimonia (perfect happiness)
is linked to arête, the Greek word for ‘virtue’ or ‘excellence’.2 This claimed
that through the correct philosophical training of the soul in harmony with
the natural order, excellence would be achieved, and thereby eudaimonia or
the fullest human happiness or flourishing. However, this classical philo-
sophical and theological pursuit of human development, central to that of
the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition, has largely given way to reason’s
modern autonomous and instrumental form. Ironically, Locke’s Essay con-
tributes to this thinking which has undoubtedly proved successful to human
development, seen outwardly in scientific and technological progress,
tied to greater material production and consumption. But this modern
understanding and way of thinking, as my thesis will suggest, is proving
2 Pursuing Eudaimonia
problematic for the cultivation of the inner human landscape. This contrasts
with the ancient pursuit of eudaimonia through an internal ascetical move-
ment of harmony with the natural order of the world. Of the experience of
Socrates, Jaeger notes:
man cannot reach this harmony with Being through the cultivation and sat-
isfaction of his own senses and his bodily nature . . . but only through com-
plete mastery over himself in accordance with the law he finds by searching
his own soul . . . the realm . . . most wholly his own . . . Socrates added to
. . . Greek eudaemonism a new power to resist external nature and destiny in
their increasingly dangerous threats against human liberty.3
Consequently, the promise of liberty in expressing the deeper currents

of human passion and desire enshrined in the American Declaration of
Independence is increasingly frustrated. The modern dichotomy between
inner and outer human development resulting from this difference in
thinking is further illustrated by Hadot’s claim that ‘ancients . . . at least
hoped to accede to it in certain privileged moments, and wisdom was the
transcendent norm which guided their action’.4
This thesis seeks to redress this problematic dichotomy by advancing
the argument for the recovery of reason’s ancient exercise as philo-sophia
(the love of wisdom) as a spiritual way of life, drawing particularly from
the work of the classical scholars Werner Jaeger,5 Pierre Hadot6 and Joseph
Pieper.7 I argue further that such a recovery will be made more effective by
retrieving the Greek philosophical foundations of the Christian apophatic
tradition. Articulating this recovery of reason’s ancient ‘negative’ exercise
directed specifically towards the summit of apophatic ascent, offers a rich
vision and sure path in the pursuit of the fullest inner human development.
This requires understanding of this ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory as
simultaneously the pursuit of eudaimonia. There was no complete separation
of the two, as discussion will show. Greek philosophy was the way of life
in the pursuit of eudaimonia which became fully realized at the summit of
Christian apophatic ascent. It is impossible to fully appreciate the Christian
apophatic tradition without thoroughly investigating the intricacies of its
ancient philosophical heritage. The aim of this appreciation in the light of
Christian revelation is the rediscovery of valuable insights from ancient
elements of the universal experience of pursuing human development.
These are contrasted with modern forms of reason. The re-emergence of
the apophatic tradition is also discussed within the context of constructive
postmodernity and in light of other solutions (for example, liberation and
feminist theology), offered to the problematic identified. This clarifies key
Introduction 3
voices of challenge and solutions to the issue of the Enlightenment legacy

discussed in Chapter One. This pursuit of human development within a
Christian ‘qualified dualism’8 is shown to be rooted in the convergence of
reason’s ‘negative’ exercise (logos) with an embodied Biblical tradition
(Word).
I have chosen throughout both historical and contemporary dialogue
partners. These stretch from antiquity into the present along a continuous
historical line of philosophical and theological thinking. I read these texts
through the lens of lectio divina as my chosen methodology allied with an
imaginative and literary reading of the Platonic corpus. Drawing on these
methods of reading, I chart the broad historical scope of the thesis. My
dialogue partners include the modern philosophers Zygmunt Bauman,9
Ernst Gellner,10 Charles Taylor,11 Alasdair MacIntyre,12 Joseph Pieper13 and
the work of Ilse N. Bulhof and Laurens Ten Kate.14 Their identification of
problems in the development of modern thinking suggests that instrumental
reason is increasingly frustrating the deeper currents of human passion and
desire; hence, I make the case for offering a vibrant alternative. I then chart
the ancient historical development of the ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory.
This retrieval aims to encourage both reason’s ‘negative’ exercise and to
suggest its suitability for the purpose. The scholars from which I draw are
Raoul Mortley,15 Richard T. Wallis16 and Pauliina Remes,17 coupled with the
works of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and
Proclus. In charting the assimilation of this Greek intellectual trajectory
within the Christian tradition, I also draw from the work of theologians
Andrew Louth,18 Janet P. Williams,19 Mary-Jane Rubenstein,20 Vladimir
Lossky,21 William Riordan,22 Jean Daniélou23 and Norman Russell.24 I also
interrogate the writings of those who developed the Christian apophatic
tradition itself: Clement of Alexandria,25 Gregory of Nyssa26 and Pseudo-
Dionysius.27
Finally, I demonstrate how this ‘negative’ movement culminates
‘suddenly’28 in the self-transcending ‘ecstatic’ blooming of intelligence
which accompanies the collapse of reason and language, witnessed most
clearly in Pseudo-Dionysius’ Mystical Theology. In turn, the universal
hopes, passions and desires expressed in the modern American Declaration
of Independence are offered their ancient philosophical and theological
foundations.
Chapter Outline
Chapter One begins outlining the rationale for retrieving the Greek philo-
sophical foundations of the Christian apophatic tradition. This aims to
encourage a more effective pursuit of inner human development by re-
appropriating reason’s ancient ‘negative’ exercise as a spiritual way of life
in the pursuit of eudaimonia, culminating in the summit of the Christian
apophatic ascent. The chapter therefore begins by elucidating this work’s
Christian context prior to its fuller treatment in Chapter Four. This requires
a thorough investigation into the intricacies of the apophatic tradition’s
philosophical heritage whose highpoint was realized in the Christian Bibli-
cal tradition. The culmination of this trajectory is revealed to be that of a
Christian ‘qualified dualism’29 characterized by epistemic and existential
tension heightened to breaking point. My discussion of the Greek vision of
eudaimonia shows how this was central to the development of the Graeco-
Christian apophatic tradition and to notions of spiritual wholeness. Discus-
sion of contemporary voices of challenge to the Enlightenment legacy of the
problematic of autonomous and instrumental reason follows. Challenging
thinking about human development today these voices are drawn from the
areas of philosophy, theology, spirituality, psychology (transpersonal) and
education. I next chart the development of the philosophical foundations
of modern reason in contrast to its ancient apophatic form. In conclusion, I
situate this work’s apophatic solution to the problematic of modern reason
within the context of a constructive postmodernism and in so doing discuss
other alternative solutions, for example, liberation and feminist theology.
Chapter Two begins by outlining my approach to reading the Platonic
Corpus and later Platonic philosophy. This is guided by the theologian and
classics scholar David Brown. Complementing this approach, I also trans-
late my methodology into a clear step-by-step mapping along the lines of
the proposed lectio divina framework. I then begin this retrieval by examin-
ing Socrates’ pursuit of wisdom characterized by aporia as the precursor
to negative theology. Discussion of this aporatic pursuit is done in relation
to the mythological understanding of the genealogy of Greek Eros as de-
scribed in The Symposium. From this genealogy, I retrieve the example of
the aporatic pursuit of inner human development of Penia, the mother of
Eros, which illustrates the kind of emphasis this thesis aims to encourage.
This is contrasted with the father Poros, which I argue, like much modern
thinking, is characterized by euporia. The chapter concludes with a dis-
cussion of the veracity of Socrates’ claims about the ignorance of wisdom
Introduction 5
without which, the value of his aporatic pursuit (as a precursor to negative
theology) is severely undermined.
Chapter Three begins by tracing the development of the Greek
philosophical foundations of the Christian apophatic tradition from their
genesis in the rise of logos. Allied with this I next consider Heraclitus’
view of reality which maintained that the only constant in the cosmos
was change itself contrasting that of Parmenides’ idea of One unified
unchanging reality. This begins establishing an inward aporatic trajectory of
human development characterized by heightening epistemic and existential
tension. Discussion follows of two signs intersecting with this pursuit of
wisdom tied with growing doubts over the power of reason (logos) being
set before One unified reality. These are of Parmenides’ poetic account of
the goddess Night’s revelation of two ways of inquiry and of the inspiratio
of Apollo’s theia mania.30 Next my discussion moves to Plato establishing
this ‘negative’ contemplative trajectory within the Western philosophical
tradition through his dialogue The Parmenides. I show how he does this by
accepting, with modifications, Parmenides’ idea of One unchanging reality
over that of Heraclitus’ view. Discussion of The Parmenides centres on its
articulation of the doubts concerning the power of logos and language when
attempting to comprehend the One. In contrast to this emerging Platonic
contemplative trajectory, I briefly discuss Aristotle’s practical priority
(phronesis) and his theory of abstraction (aphaeresis) used by the early
exponents of negative theology. This divergence from Plato’s contemplative
priority I offer as antecedent to the present-day marginalization of reason’s
broader conceptual vision of human development. I next discuss this
philosophical heritage of the apophatic tradition reaching the zenith of its
pursuit of eudaimonia in the ecstatic ‘blooming’ of intelligence in Plotinus
and Proclus. I illustrate further this experiential zenith of heightening
epistemic and existential tension and religious sensibility, with discussion
of Hilary Armstrong’s view of it as the apophatic ‘genuine article’31 of
Neoplatonism. I conclude the chapter by discussing the transit of this erotic
Greek pursuit of eudaimonia rising to be met by the descent of Christian
agape.32
Chapter Four takes up discussion of this transit into the Christian
apophatic tradition, and constituting the convergence of Greek ‘negative’
reason (logos) with Biblical faith (Word). Analysis of this assimilation of
the pursuit of eudaimonia begins in Middle Platonism with Philo. This
will show that, unlike his pagan counterparts, he is the first to transpose
the Jewish Biblical God onto the heightening of religious reading of
Plato’s thought, particularly The Parmenides. Discussion of the develop-
ment of this Biblical trajectory continues through Christian philosophers

and theologians beginning with Clement of Alexandria. Allied with
wrestling the radical heightening epistemic and existential tension of
these developments, I argue that Clement also begins to illustrate this
accommodation of pagan philosophy in Christian tradition. I make this
evident in his use of Aristotle’s theory of aphaeresis to produce his dues
philosophorum (conception of simple unity), freeing his conception of
God from anthropomorphic accretions. I show that while maintaining the
crucial epistemic and existential trajectory of Greek apophasis, Clement
also reveals the radically unbridgeable limitations logos and language face
before Christian revelation. This, I maintain, marked the beginning of the
Christian radicalization of the Platonic contemplative ideal, whose beating
heart in both the Greek and Christian disciple remained the deepest human
desire for the True, Good and Beautiful, witnessed in the theology of the
Christian ‘Father’.33 Discussion next moves to Gregory of Nyssa, who
illustrates starkly the limitations of logos and language by confronting them
with the idea of their total collapse within the darkness of divine infinity.
This I discuss through his idea of epektasis, which consisted of the soul’s
perpetual progress within divine infinity, radically modifying the Platonic
view that perfection in union with the One was incompatible with change.
More importantly, this view is shown providing new theoretical foundations
for the idea and psychology of self-transcendence with profound existential
ramifications, therefore introducing a whole new synthesis of negative
theology influencing the later Pseudo-Dionysius. I argue that Gregory’s new
thinking about human development as ‘standing still and moving’ offers the
stability of ‘negative’ thinking affecting eternal moral change for the better.
This leads to discussion of this developing ‘negative’ Christian intellectual
trajectory and new theoretical thinking about self-transcendence, in the
‘hypernegation’ of the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius. This entails
Gregory’s idea of the soul developed further by going outside itself in a
genuine ecstasy of self-transcendence involving the total collapse of reason
and language. Upon ‘suddenly’ reaching this breaking point of radically
heightened epistemic and existential tension and religious sensibility, the
reader has been made aware of the whole enterprise and scope of this work.
Modern minds can rediscover valuable ‘insights’ from ancient elements of
the universal experience of pursuing human development drawn from this
appreciation of the apophatic tradition’s ancient philosophical heritage.
Introduction 7
Methodology: Lectio Divina

The choice of my methodology for this thesis is primarily lectio divina (di-
vine reading). This also complements my imaginative and literary approach
to reading the Platonic corpus and later Platonic philosophy. Discussion
of this precedes that of mapping the lectio divina framework across each
chapter along the lines proposed by Funk at the beginning of Chapter Two.
Lectio divina is one of Christianity’s most ancient practices in its approach
to contemplation, whereby the art of prayerful and meditative repetition of
a Biblical text becomes an experience of union with God. This method of
reading aims to realize the fullest human development by drawing wisdom
from its textual wells which ultimately lies beyond the grasp of reason and
language. In this work, historical wisdom literature includes Greek philo-
sophical and theological texts. Funk’s own experience of using lectio divina
says much about my choice of it as my methodology:
Lectio divina is a sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While scripture

is the classic revelation of encounter with God, the text could be from other
sources like a personal event from the book of life, or an experience from
the book of nature . . .
• We listen to the literal voice of the text and study with our logical
minds.
• We meditate on the symbolic voice of the text with our intuitive senses
(aesthetical).
• We heed the moral voice . . . We comply with this inner voice
– through our daily decisions and through the discipline of discern-
ment.
• We receive the mystical voice with our spiritual senses.
Each of these voices is distinct and is mediated through the revelatory text.
Our part in this encounter is to listen, meditate, heed with discrimination
and receive. 34
These points reveal this method’s suitability for this work. The reader is
likewise encouraged to listen and heed the voice of this text with a discrimi-
nating ‘negative’ reasoning, thereby being receptive to the gift of alternative
wisdom to that produced by modern thinking.
The origins of lectio divina lie in the characteristic practice of the time of
the veneration of the Torah described by Philo of Alexandria and practised
by Jewish monastics in Egypt and Palestine. Leaders of the early Church,
such as Jerome, likewise strongly recommended the practice of lectio di-

vina, suggesting that ‘ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ’
(Commentary on Isaiah, Prol.: PL 24, 17). Cyprian of Carthage writes:
‘Be constant as well in Prayer as in Reading; now speak with God, now let
God speak with you, let Him instruct you in His precepts, let Him direct
you’ (Letter to Donatus (1) 14–15). As part of the developing apophasis of
the Alexandrian and Cappadocian Christian tradition, lectio divina became
fully developed within its monastic expression beginning in the Egyptian
desert. Dysinger writes:
But it was in early Christian monasticism that the practice of lectio divina
reached its full flower. Faithful to the traditions of St. Basil and the Egyptian
monastics of the desert (seen in the writings of Evagros Pontikos, then trans-
mitted through his disciple John Cassian to Benedict in the west), St. Ben-
edict encouraged his monks to reserve the best hours of each day for lectio
divina, a form of prayer that he, unlike some of his predecessors, regarded
as a contemplative joy rather than an ascetical burden.35
In the Middle Ages, the monastic art of lectio divina became systematized
most notably in the Ladder of Monks by Guigo II, Prior of the Grande Char-
treuse.36 As a scheme, this was a useful pedagogical tool for learning. Impor-
tantly, this was not only concerned with the truths of one’s relationship with
God revealed in the scriptures. Inextricably tied with learning these truths,
this process also maintained the Delphic injunction to ‘know thyself’ in the
pursuit of wisdom which I discuss in Chapters Two and Three. This type of
holistic learning process is encouraged in the four stages traditionally as-
sociated with lectio divina which I map across the work at the beginning of
Chapters Two, Three and Four. The first two are of particular relevance to
my retrieval of this ancient pedagogical method. Foster writes:
The pattern implied a process by which the person took the words of scrip-
ture from his ears or eyes into his mind (reading or lectio), repeated them to
himself and chewed them over (meditatio), and as they began to be digested,
he responded to them in prayer (oratio), which initiated a movement of
prayer beyond the words to God himself who had spoken with these words,
a freer spontaneous moment of adoration (contemplatio).37
Lectio divina was also chosen as a methodology to facilitate the primary

aim of this thesis of encouraging inward change and regeneration through
‘negative’ reasoning and offering a radical alternative to that of its modern
autonomous and instrumental forms. Lectio divina also represents a
Introduction 9
historical and intellectual trajectory of unparalleled achievement rooted

in Greek spiritual exercise or philosophical therapeutics evident in Plato’s
contemplative ideal central to the development of the Graeco-Christian
apophatic tradition itself. Practised by the major schools of antiquity in
the pursuit of eudaimonia which I discuss in Chapter One, this therapeutic
philosophical process consisted of reading (anagnosis), the other name for
reading and meditations (meletai), central to which was listening (akroasis)
and attention (prosoche). While Platonic reading material remained
profoundly influential, it became secondary to scripture in the Christian
tradition. However, tellingly, Dysinger observes that lectio is ‘a method of
reading that is radically different from what is taught in modern schools’.38
Its goal is ‘taking a text in, allowing it to literally become part of the self
. . . not to master a text, to mine it for information, but rather to be touched,
to be formed by it . . . an ability to read gently and attentively, inwardly
listening “with the ear of the heart”’.39
My retrieval and application of this holistic method of reading, rooted
in ancient philosophical and theological tradition, finds support from the
educationalist John Sullivan’s work with university students:
I seek to retrieve valuable insights about reading drawn from some earlier
theological and spiritual traditions, suggesting that these valuable insights
have applicability beyond their original settings and beyond the reading of
religious texts. I hope, by contrasting a more . . . holistic approach to reading,
one that engages the reader more comprehensively and makes greater
demands . . . to show the limitations of a consumerist and instrumental
approach . . . that encourages students to interrogate a text for useful data
they can deploy without being changed in the process.40
Clearly, the heart of this method, which made great demands on the writer
of this thesis, is learning to listen ‘inwardly’ to the texts in a different way
than is normally encouraged by other methodologies which seek the ob-
jectivity of empirical sense-datum. Supporting this approach, Williams
comments: ‘one must investigate a “foreign” tradition, not by applying
the somewhat discredited model of a detached critical consideration’.41
Pseudo-Dionysius repeatedly illustrates the point that progress along the via
negativa would be lost to ‘those who seek it from the outside only’.42 Lectio
divina facilitated both a critical and existential approach in the reading for
and writing of this thesis, as it fully accords with the historical ‘negative’
intellectual trajectory that is retrieved. Importantly, then, likewise concern-
ing my method of reading this ancient convergence of faith and reason in
the pursuit of eudaimonia Riordan writes: ‘For Pseudo-Dionysius: “being”
determines method, and not the reverse’.43 This approach also finds support
in the shared conviction of Jean-Luc Marion and Hans Urs von Balthasar,
which according to Jones is ‘that one can (and should) “listen” to these his-
torically distant sources. Marion’s purpose is not to “explicate” Dionysius,
but to allow him “to instruct us”’.44 Foster comments about lectio divina
facilitating listening ‘with the ear of the heart’ to the ‘instruction’ from the
chosen texts: ‘To listen we have to open ourselves to someone else and let
the speaker set the tone and agenda. Listening puts us in a relationship with
the speaker, and learning to listen . . . rather than just to read . . . is the best
way to learn . . . It means learning to tune in to a different level of mean-
ing.’45 In turn, irrespective of the setting and texts read, it is beyond dispute
that the encouragement of lectio divina to tune into a ‘different level of their
meaning’ stirred the deeper currents of inner human development. Echoing
this, the Jesuit priest Stanley writes of The Rule of St. Benedict:
Among the principal Lenten observances listed in chapter XLIX we find

oratio cum fletibus, lectio et compunction cordis (prayer with tears, lectio,
and compunction of heart). The stress upon affectivity is instructive; in par-
ticular, St. Benedict’s use of the ancient Latin medical term compunction
in conjunction with lectio . . . would appear to presuppose as an essential
component of this exercise that affectus inspirationis divinae gratiae (deep
feeling inspired by divine grace).46
Thus, this method facilitates the stirring of deep feelings, which becomes
evident in this work’s empowerment of a ‘feminine consciousness’ (later
discussed), and which are necessary for a change in thinking that impacts on
the way a person lives their life. Accordingly, by employing the pedagogi-
cal method of lectio divina, Benedict in his Rule ‘offered to everyone who
cares to hear . . . the invitation . . . to undertake a radical change of direction
in our lives, and a new way of living them’.47 Illustrating this point further,
Agnew writes of what is described as transformative reading:
Perseverance with this art allows new valuable insights to emerge, shifts of
consciousness to occur . . . a ‘wisdom moment’ when the reader is spoken to
and experiences being personally addressed. Words now become bearers-of-
wisdom as they sweep us up into a kind of sea-change, adjusting attitudes,
expanding awareness and readjusting certain landmarks on the landscape of
our lives.48
Pike makes an important observation about affectivity which in turn shifts

consciousness and changes thinking which lectio divina facilitates in this
Introduction 11
work: ‘Reading is an essentially “religious” activity, not necessarily in the

sense that it is related to an established religion, but because it is value-
laden and cannot be separated from the beliefs and values of readers and
writers.’49 Furthermore, this means that the methodology becomes a form
of philosophical, theological and intellectual autobiography. The choice of
methodology, therefore, expresses the intellectual and personal integrity of
the whole enterprise of this work in rediscovering valuable insights from
ancient elements of the universal experience of pursuing human develop-
ment.
Discussion will also show that this method, like the work it produced, is
rooted in a historical ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory of impeccable pedi-
gree, resulting in a ‘blooming of intelligence’ much modern thinking cannot
achieve. Stanley notes that while
lectio divina is not ‘scientific study,’ it most assuredly was never intended
to be cultivated in any spirit of anti-intellectualism. To be specific, it cannot
be expected to flourish in a mind-set dominated by biblical fundamentalism,
that misguided refusal to employ man’s God-given spirit of inquiry . . . The
long and imposing intellectual tradition which is an integral part of the Ben-
edictine heritage must surely derive its inspiration from the man who was
author of The Holy Rule.50
The historian Henry Chadwick also, speaking of Benedict prescribing

substantial hours of the day devoted to work, confirms that an imposing
intellectual tradition is strongly associated with lectio divina. It was aimed
at preserving his monks from idleness that would frustrate their primary
goal of living in God’s presence and getting to heaven. He argues that
Benedict ‘did not foresee the astonishing achievements of medieval and
modern Benedictine scholars in the field of education and research’.51
Zeller’s artistic observations draw the same conclusion:
If the painter Spinello Aretino six times shows St. Benedict either holding or
reading a book, it is not because the artist’s imagination failed to find any-
thing better to put instead. Since Aretino is to the Dialogues what Giotto is
to the life of St. Francis, we can assume that he has caught, in his Florentine
murals, the authentic spirit of St. Benedict. The wonder-worker, the father,
the judge, the man of prayer – he is there as each – and, as suggested, the
reader and student.52
Schneiders can be further seen supporting my choice of methodology:

the patristic-monastic theory of scriptural exegesis, allied with modern

scholarly sophistication, offers a way to practice the study . . . by extension,
of other theological or spiritual texts – in terms of the ultimate purpose of
application and transformation.53
I include here philosophical texts central to the development of the Graeco-

Christian apophatic tradition and those supporting reason’s autonomous and
instrumental form. Therefore, lectio divina allied with modern scholarly
sophistication was a suitable methodology for my work. This amounted
to facilitating the retrieval of a historical ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory
expressing the pursuit of eudaimonia, and becomes fully realized in the
contemplative surrender of all discursive reasoning and analysis. I chose it
then to resist the underlying urge of modern thinking to comprehensively
‘explain’ apophatic language. This choice of lectio divina as an appropriate
methodology is succinctly summarized by the theologian Martin Laird:
There is a tendency among scholars to reduce apophatic theology to liter-

ary strategies. While these literary aspects have been ably demonstrated to
characterize the apophatic genre . . . this trend in scholarship overlooks the
fact that the apophatic tradition also presumes a way of life. It is a simple life
that leads to the experience of silence, to ‘the experience of non-experience’
and not merely to an apophatic style of theological thinking.54
Complementing my literary and imaginative reading of the Platonic corpus,

I discuss my mapping of the lectio framework using Funk’s four categories
or stages at the beginning of Chapters Two, Three and Four. This will cor-
respond with tracing the development of the apophatic traditions’ ancient
philosophical heritage aligned with that of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia.
Appreciating this in the light of Christian revelation offers the rediscovery
of valuable insights from ancient elements of the universal experience of
pursuing human development. Applying this method across each chapter
therefore offers to take the reader on an inward journey of ‘negative’ dis-
course and reflection in the pursuit of the fullest inner human development.
Therefore, such reading through the lens of lectio divina reflects that of
the Graeco-Christian apophatic ascent itself. Moreover, the culmination of
tracing the development of this ancient philosophical heritage will confront
the reader with the prospect of an ecstatic and paradoxical climax in the
total collapse of reason and language made possible by the embodied rev-
elation of the divine Logos.
CHAPTER ONE
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TODAY:
WHY THINK DIFFERENTLY?
Well, then, isn’t it obvious too that when it’s a matter of justice or value
many people prefer the appearance to the reality, whether it’s a matter of
possession and action or of reputation; but that no one is satisfied to have
something that only appears to be good, but wants something that is, and has
no use here for appearance? (Plato, The Republic 5. 505, d)
Man does not possess wisdom; he only tends towards it and can feel love for
it. Yet this is already sufficiently meritorious. (Immanuel Kant )
Rationale and Christian Context
The rationale for this thesis is that of encouraging a more effective pursuit
of inner human development. It does this by re-appropriating reason’s
ancient ‘negative’ exercise as a spiritual way of life in the pursuit of eu-
daimonia culminating at the summit of the Christian apophatic ascent. This
makes an original contribution to knowledge by articulating my own and
moving forward other voices of challenge and their solutions to the Enlight-
enment legacy. I suggest it is impossible to fully appreciate the Christian
apophatic tradition without thoroughly investigating the intricacies of its
ancient philosophical heritage. This is to retrieve and rediscover valuable
insights from ancient philosophical elements in the universal pursuit of hu-
man development. This locates my argument within a Christian ‘qualified
dualism’ rooted in the convergence of reason’s ancient ‘negative’ exercise
(logos) and embodied Biblical tradition (Word). I focus on the notion of eu-
daimonia and conclude with a discussion of its Christian culmination with
the total collapse of reason and language at the summit of the apophatic
ascent. This accords with the Patristic tradition which insisted on the radical
distinction made between God’s uncreated divine nature and that of creation
ex nihilo. It is the central distinction at the heart of the Christian ‘qualified
dualism’ I argue for and corresponds to the theoretically irresolvable belief
that God works in history as both radically transcendent and immanent in
the incarnation of Christ.
This work draws substantially from the Greek philosophical exercise of

reason which flowered during its early Christian re-appropriation. This pro-
duced a rich and universal sense of logos seen in the opening verses of St.
John’s Gospel which is translated in the Hebrew Scriptures as dabhar, mean-
ing wisdom as a creative, divine energy. The ancient philosophical heritage
of this sense of logos will prove central to the development of the Christian
apophatic tradition. Thorough investigation will reveal that it amounts to the
Greek philosophical pursuit of wisdom or eudaimonia converging with the
mystery of the embodied divine Logos. It is a perennial task echoed in much
contemporary theology which Diarmuid O’Murchu describes as
an exploration of that wisdom which awakens and sustains the creative impulse
of life. Central to this inquiry is the ability to listen, to be open and receptive to
the life-giving energy of the divine logos . . . Increasingly in the cathedral of the
environment . . . our contemporaries are rediscovering a way into the realm of
the transcendent; they are discovering the sacred presence that stands behind the
natural world.55
I aim to provide a full appreciation of the Christian apophatic tradition

which is impossible without a thorough investigation of reason’s ancient
‘negative’ exercise and with it ‘awaken . . . the ability to listen, to be open
and receptive to the life-giving energy of the divine logos’. Moreover, this
trajectory will become fully realized in converging with the embodied
revelation of the divine logos in Christian tradition. Correspondingly, the
relevance of the renaissance of apophasis to contemporary forms of Chris-
tian spirituality concerns those, as Janet Williams argues,
which reintegrate the psychic and the corporeal, intellection and activity . . .
The apophatic tradition is not marginal to the Christian faith . . . the logic
of negation of negation is non-different from the logic of crucifixion and
resurrection, of spiritual discipleship in encounter with Scripture, liturgy,
sacraments and the traditions of ascesis, and the Chalcedonian definition of
the nature of the incarnate Lord.56
The importance of the Greek mind in understanding Christian apophasis
is particularly evident in the work of Pope Benedict XVI:
In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.
The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not
happen by chance . . . A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking
place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion . . .
The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek
Why Think Differently? 15
spirit . . . the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between

faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are devel-
opments consonant with the nature of faith itself.57
In a lecture entitled On Europe’s Crisis of Culture the then Cardinal Ratz-

inger indicated:
From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the
“Logos,” as the religion according to reason. In the first place, it has not iden-
tified its precursors in the other religions, but in that philosophical enlighten-
ment which has cleared the path of traditions to turn to the search of the truth
and towards the good, toward the one God, who is above all gods.58
The significance of this decisive encounter and convergence of faith and rea-
son for the birth and spread of Christianity understood as constituting the fun-
damental character of the apophatic tradition is also reflected by the Patristic
scholar Endre von Ivánka: ‘The phenomenon which characterizes the whole
of the first millennium of Christian theological thought . . . is the use of Pla-
tonism as the form for . . . philosophical expression and the framework of the
world-picture in terms of which the proclamation of revealed truths was made
– in other words, Christian Platonism.’ 59 The eminent classical scholar Père
Festugière echoes this thinking: ‘When the Fathers “think” their mysticism,
they Platonise. There is nothing original in the edifice.’60 I follow this rea-
soning in support of my view. Indeed, this is why I spend considerable time
investigating this ‘imprint of the Greek spirit’ in the pursuit of eudaimonia
which will culminate in the profound convergence of reason and faith ‘conso-
nant with the nature of faith itself.’ However, this endeavour to reconnect the
pursuit of human development today with the roots of its ancient ‘negative’
philosophical and theological understanding, does not mean a call to living in
the past. Importantly, therefore, as Casey argues:
If I seek answers from ancient wisdom it is only because my own experience

and that of my contemporaries has raised questions that indicate a need to
transcend the barriers of time and culture and to search more broadly. It is to
embrace the past as a resource toward more effective living in the present.
I am not advocating a return to the ways of antiquity. I am simply asserting
that there are elements of universal human experience that are overlooked
in our culture that can be rediscovered by paying attention to the valuable
insights of another time and situation.61
Thus, I use the apophatic tradition and its ancient philosophical heritage as
a ‘resource toward more effective living in the present’. This contemporary

priority is also reflected in my choice of methodology which emerged from
this ancient philosophical heritage. My view, therefore, is that this work
specifically meets a spiritual, cultural and political crisis afflicting West-
ern civilization and democratic culture at the present time. This is partly
caused by abandoning its ancient foundational ‘negative’ philosophical and
theological thinking which continues to offer ‘valuable insights’ concerning
the needs of inner human development. It is a view seen supported by the
philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate Marcello Pera and
the then Cardinal Ratzinger writing of the ‘current crisis of European civi-
lization’62 due to its abandonment of its spiritual roots. Echoing the scope
and aim of this work Marcello Pera faces the challenges of our particular
historical moment by stressing the historical and conceptual link between
Christianity and free society. He writes:
Gone are the days of the agora, where our Greek forefathers invoked the
gods. Today our public spaces must be as aseptic as hospital operating
rooms, uncontaminated by the germs of any ‘conception of the Good’.
States must be independent of religious creeds; politics must be a neutral
stance on religious values; societies must hold together without any refer-
ence to religious or ethical ties.63
This Christian context of my resistance against human development con-

ceived in the West as holding ‘together without any reference to’ its ancient
‘religious or ethical ties’ is also reflected in the contemporary theological
thinking of Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and
Graham Ward. 64 I also include other like minded theologians who reflect
the thinking of this movement. Like Radical Orthodoxy, this work too sees
theology expressing the inseparable relationship between faith and reason
rooted firmly in Christianity’s creedal statements, stepping back into the
public domain through consideration of its relation to the whole of hu-
man thought and action. This occupies the paradoxical theological domain
which Balthasar called the ‘suspended middle’ of the ‘natural desire for the
supernatural’, that between grace-imbued faith and natural understanding.
If this desire, acknowledged or otherwise, is central to every pursuit of hu-
man development, then this work is in accord with Radical Orthodoxy in
subjecting all knowledge to theological and philosophical qualification and
modification. Illustrating this accord Smith writes:
Our knowledge of things of this world can always be qualified by knowledge

of God as he is in himself (given by revelation), but equally, our knowledge
of God, since it is analogically mediated, is always and only given through

a shift in our understanding of the things of this world. Such an approach
implies a synthesis – but always an uneasy and possibly aporetic synthesis
– between theology and philosophy.65
As an aporetic synthesis of theology and philosophy whose epistemic and

existential heart maintains that all real knowledge involves some revelation
of the ‘no-thing’ of divine nature within the finite, this work largely reflects
Radical Orthodoxy’s position. Importantly, both understand that revelation
is not over or against reason/logos. I also show how revelation intensifies
human understanding which results in the intellect’s full blossoming or
illumination, bringing about inner transformation and regeneration. The
‘radical’ return to this vision (which I advance by the example of Pseudo-
Dionysius rather than St Augustine) that all real knowledge is divine illumi-
nation is central to my argument. Such insights, focused upon the ethical and
lived aspects of Christian doctrines, revive the idea of epektasis which I dis-
cuss in Chapter Four accommodating ‘an infinitely dynamic God who gives
ecstatically within the continuing project of Christianity to remain faithful to
its logos’.66 It is beyond the scope of this work except to point out this syn-
ergy with Radical Orthodoxy. Milbank, Pickstock and Ward suggest that
one is led to articulate a more incarnate, more participatory, more aesthetic,

more erotic, more socialized, even ‘more Platonic’ Christianity. The central
theological framework of radical orthodoxy is ‘participation’ as developed
by Plato and reworked by Christianity, because any alternative configuration
perforce reserves a territory independent of God.67
My work also strongly reflects Hadot’s position that ‘philosophy’ is a

virtuous way of life in pursuit of eudaimonia. I advance his recovery of this
ancient Greek notion by retrieving the Greek philosophical foundations of
the Christian apophatic tradition, to which Plato’s contemplative ideal was
central. Therefore, to understand this ancient Platonic philosophical trajec-
tory is to understand simultaneously the pursuit of eudaimonia. There was
no distinction between the two as discussion will show. Philosophy is the
way of life in the pursuit of eudaimonia. The pursuit of truth and self-fulfil-
ment for Greek thought and thinking generally cannot be divorced from the
pursuit of eudaimonia, or spiritual wholeness itself. This unified character-
istic of Greek philosophy indelibly imprinted itself upon the via negativa,
and with it the realization of new ecstatic heights of inner human develop-
ment. It is only the modern period which gave a category to the study of
philosophy and wrenched it from its moorings in actual human daily living.
Redressing this, I chart the development of an historical ‘negative’ intellec-

tual trajectory within a spiritual and religious framework whose highpoint
became realized in the Christian Biblical tradition.
It is an apophatic solution I offer, therefore, to the (post)modern malaise
about human flourishing which rests both within a Platonic/Neoplatonic
and Christian paradigm. It is crucial, however, to point out from the outset
that any claim or indication of dualism is not oppositional as in Gnostic
sects. The central distinction made between uncreated divine nature and
that which it creates ex nihilo is a relation of communion, not opposi-
tion. Discussion of Pseudo-Dionysius’ cosmic programme will reveal this
whereby the embodied Christ becomes an extension of the Father’s ecstasy
into creation, which is then ecstatically drawn back through Christ into the
darkness of the divine abyss. This Christian ‘qualified dualism’ rooted in the
distinction made between God’s nature and that of creation created ex nihilo
is guarded by the via negativa. Leroy Rouner writes:
From its biblical beginnings onwards . . . Christian thought reflects a quali-

fied dualism between God and creation, whereby an irreducible difference is
related through an indissoluble bond . . . A qualified dualism is philosophi-
cally required by the Christian affirmation that God works in history as both
transcendent (i.e. sui generis) and immanent (i.e. related to humankind in a
non-accidental way) in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.68
The point is that the Christian apophatic culmination of the pursuit of eudai-
monia escapes the problematic of a rigid Platonic and metaphysical dualism
whereby the relation between the material and intelligible becomes oppo-
sitional. Importantly, reflecting the thinking of the Fathers and the Scholas-
tics, it also avoids a facile retreat into what is a theoretically insurmountable
faith in both the simple unity of one God and creator. Quickening the pursuit
of eudaimonia, it does this by acknowledging and sharpening attempts to
clarify philosophically the relationship between duality and unity. St Augus-
tine similarly based his thinking on Plato and the distinction between ‘sensi-
ble’ and ‘supersensible’, while Aquinas interpreted the nous of Aristotle as
transcendence orientated to the God beyond the world and principle of all
reality. The point is that the constant tension of wrestling with the heighten-
ing of these epistemological and existential difficulties within the pursuit of
eudaimonia was foundational in directing it to the summit of apophatic ex-
perience. Crucially, then, for inner human development, apophasis clearly
displays the credentials of its Biblical faith in the One Lord of all creation.
The tension of constantly wrestling with this irresolvable epistemic and
existential condition will be revealed as being central in quickening the
pursuit of eudaimonia along its apophatic way. It is a ‘negative’ intellectual

and existential trajectory of human development which finds expression in
what Simons describes as
a contradiction between what is and what ought to be . . . which plagues all

human existence throughout its history . . . This existentially dualistic situ-
ation, tragic because combining salvation and doom, cannot be resolved by
any theoretical reflections. The believer can only hold out under it, in a hope
inspired by the initial experience of salvation, till the unimaginable mode of
salvation is realized definitively in actual truth.69
The existential ‘dualistic situation’ of ‘holding out under’ the theoretically

irresolvable contradiction between the happiness hoped for and that which
until ‘the unimaginable mode of salvation is realized definitively in actual
truth,’ perfectly expresses the trajectory of this work. Similarly, this exis-
tential ‘dualistic situation’ is evident in the ‘believer’ in modern thinking
about human development, but it is belief which ‘holds out’ without any
real hope of realizing its fullest satisfaction. This work’s encouragement of
an apophatic turn aims to shatter this instrumental way of thinking locked
within the external world and blind to any ‘unimaginable mode of salvation’.
Yet the culmination of such a postmodern turn in the pursuit of human devel-
opment along the via negativa remains possible only through the embodied
revelation of the divine logos proclaimed in the Gospels. This ‘transcendent
humanism’70 ensures that what is revealed to reason as True, Good and Beau-
tiful never becomes divorced from its embodied and loving expression while
also remaining radically Other to it. Evident in the via negativa, the need to
facilitate this understanding of human development which reaches beyond
the limits of doctrine and the consciousness of present life is reflected in the
concerns of Bede Griffith. Shirley Du Boulay writes that he was concerned
for the need of a monastic ideal to be lived communally outside the cloister:
Most important of all was that the members of these communities should
recognize a transcendent reality, which he regarded as the greatest need in
the world today: ‘Unless human life is centred on the awareness of a tran-
scendent reality which embraces all humanity and the whole universe and at
the same time transcends our present level of life and consciousness, there is
no hope for humanity as a whole . . . The aim of every community should be
to enable its members to realize this transcendent mystery in their lives and
communicate their experience to others.’71
My detailed investigation of the convergence of Greek ‘negative’

philosophical thinking with Biblical understandings of the revealed Logos

aims to assist others to ‘realize this transcendent mystery’ and ‘communi-
cate their experience to others’. The necessity of this goal of the via nega-
tiva in the authentic pursuit of human development, which ‘is at the same
time the truth of faith and of reason, both in the distinction and also in the
convergence of those two cognitive fields’,72 is clearly illustrated in Ben-
edict XVI’s encyclical Caritas In Veritate (Charity in Truth). I now move to
discussion of the ‘negative’ philosophical heritage of this view of ‘integral
human development’ within the Greek mind’s reasoning and understanding
of its pursuit of eudaimonia.
Human Development: The Greek Vision of Eudaimonia
Retrieving and rediscovering valuable insights into human development

from the ancient philosophical heritage of the Christian apophatic tradition
requires investigating what happiness (eudaimonia) originally meant in
ancient Greek philosophy. This means that to understand the ‘negative’ in-
tellectual trajectory traced by this work is to understand simultaneously the
pursuit of eudaimonia. There was no complete separation of the two. Greek
philosophy was the way of life in the pursuit of eudaimonia which became
fully realized at the summit of Christian apophatic ascent. The pursuit of
truth and self-fulfilment for Greek thought and thinking cannot be divorced
from the pursuit of eudaimonia, or spiritual wholeness itself. This explains
why I take as a key text Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life:
Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault.
I draw my understanding of eudaimonia from the four best documented
versions73 of the major Schools in antiquity: Platonism, Aristotelianism,
Stoicism and Epicureanism. Encompassing philosophy as a spiritual way of
life, these versions of eudaimonia did not seek its definitive conceptual defi-
nition and do not lend themselves easily to any. They did, however, under-
stand eudaimonia to be the widely agreed goal (telos) of human life. A term
that was inextricably associated with eudaimonia was that of arête (virtue
or excellence of character).74 Consequently, these Schools of philosophy
associated happiness not so much with feeling a certain way about how
one’s life was going, but rather with the behaviour resulting from one’s
cultivation of an excellent or virtuous character. This crucial linkage by
these Schools of happiness with virtue is called eudaimonism,75 and is based
on the principal Greek word for happiness, eudaimonia. Binding the pur-
suit of happiness with the cultivation of an excellent or virtuous character
framed within an overarching philosophical view of reality was central to

the development of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition. Contrasting
the two major historical approaches in the field of ethics, one ancient and
the other modern, Shear writes:
The first emphasizes the development of individual character, focusing on
what is involved, in theory and practice, in becoming a good and virtuous per-
son. The second emphasizes development of definitions, principles, and crite-
ria, and focuses on defining right and/or good actions, intentions, and states of
affairs . . . The first approach dominated in classical times, as exemplified in
the works of Plato and Aristotle. The second . . . has dominated modern West-
ern philosophical discussion of ethics for . . . several centuries.76
The first approach which dominated in antiquity and exemplified in the

works of Plato and Aristotle is increasingly being recognized as still
retaining relevance in the pursuit of happiness. Rowe writes that these texts,
which constitute the apophatic traditions’ ancient philosophical heritage I
draw insights from, are recognized as having
an immediate relevance and vivacity which belies their age . . . on the one
hand, modern valuable insights repeatedly give an extra dimension to our
understanding of Greek thought; on the other, Greek ideas retain the power
directly to shape, or at any rate to sharpen, contemporary reflections – and
not least in the sphere of ethics.77
The Schools of antiquity understood eudaimonia to be synonymous
with living well and required an excellent (arête) character which was
developed through practising the moral virtues. Therefore, the desire of
everyone to be truly happy required the development of an excellent (arête)
character through living virtuously. Representing the development of the
apophatic tradition’s ancient philosophical heritage, Striker writes: ‘Greek
ethical theories are . . . about the good life; their starting point is Socrates’
question in the Gorgias (472C-D) – how should we live to be happy? Greek
philosophers after Socrates assume that happiness or living well is an object
of desire for everyone.’78 Moreover, this ancient pursuit of eudaimonia
regarded ‘human excellence a good of the soul – not a material or bodily
good such as wealth or political power . . . happiness is not something
external, like wealth or political power, but an internal, psychological
good.’79 The moral theory of these ancient Schools is, therefore, agent
centred. Its focus is on the moral agent whereas its modern representation
is action centred.80 For example, these Schools were interested in what
constituted a just person, which was a notion that was not exhausted by
any account of the consequences of just actions or any principles for
determining if they are just or not. The person was compared to a craftsman
or physician whose actions within any given circumstance are not reducible
to a perfectly determining collection. Or, the just person’s way of thinking
and understanding of their pursuit of eudaimonia was not reducible to their
actions alone. In this pursuit it was the person’s character from which their
judgement and motivations came which was the unquantifiable focus. Thus,
the Schools were
interested in what constitutes, e.g. a just person. They are concerned about
the state of mind and character, the set of values, the attitudes to oneself and
to others, and the conception of one’s own place in the common life of a
community that belongs to just person’s simply insofar as they are just.81
Importantly, this concern represents the ‘state of being’82 ethical approach

of Plato’s contemplative ideal that becomes fully realized at the summit of
apophatic ascent.
The sharp distinction in focus and concern between the two major
historical approaches in ethics and the impact of this on human
development is now evident. My argument therefore, concerns itself
with the person’s mind and character, their values and attitudes to
oneself and to others and how these encourage or frustrate eudaimonia.
While the modern approach emphasizes the development of definitions
and principles which focus upon right or good actions, both aim to
encourage human development and cannot be viewed in isolation from
each other. However, as Shear writes, though these ‘two approaches are
. . . often intimately interrelated . . . they are readily distinguishable in
their overall emphasis’.83 One pursues happiness focusing upon inward
change and regeneration, the other focuses externally upon making the
correct decisions. These central ideas relating to the pursuit of eudaimonia
were put forward by Plato, and so constitute key aspects of the apophatic
tradition’s ancient philosophical heritage.
Subsequent chapters will reveal this Platonic understanding of
eudaimonia as an encouragement to turn inwards towards a pure spiritual
realm of ideas against which the world is viewed as being a mere copy.
Its accommodation to Christian revelation is evident in discussion of the
Christian intellectuals who developed the apophatic tradition for their own
purposes. Illustrating the point is the Christian affirmation that God works
in history as simultaneously transcendent and immanent in a non-accidental
way in the incarnation of Christ making a ‘qualified dualism’ essential. As
Hooft suggests: ‘This worldview comes down to us through our religious
traditions as well as through the writings of many philosophers, beginning’84

in ancient Greece. Before continuing discussion of these classical central
Platonic characteristics of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia and their
association with Aristotle, I will sketch briefly an outline of the Hellenistic
Schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism.85
The Stoics (333–261 BCE) tried to show that happiness was identical
with virtue and that this entailed conforming to the rational and eternal
ordering of the universe. And because the gods ruled nature with justice,
becoming attuned to it meant accepting stoically everything that was
ordained to happen. Disappointment would result from accepting things to
be other than they are ordained to be. Guided by reason, the virtuous pursuit
of eudaimonia entailed placing oneself under the tutelage of a transcendent
reality by controlling the passions. While following Aristotle’s theory of
virtue as being the perfection of the human function, their account of the
perfection or happiness of human nature and virtue is more complex: ‘It
includes accommodation to the nature of the universe. Virtue is the perfection
of human nature that makes it harmonious with the workings of fate, i.e.
with Zeus’s overall plan, regarded as the ineluctable cause of what happens
in the world at large.’86 Despite the Christian Fathers’ condemnation of the
pantheism of Stoicism which restricted God’s transcendence of creation,
Christianity would maintain elements from it. Faced with the external
world, both asserted an inner freedom and kinship with the divine order
of nature. The value they attached to asceticism in respect to controlling
the passions which could disturb the spiritual life clearly carried over into
Christian monastic tradition.
The philosophy of Epicurus (341–270 BC) was a complete and
interdependent system involving a view of the goal of human life
(eudaimonia) resulting from the absence of physical pain and mental
disturbance. It held an empiricist theory of knowledge with a description
of nature based on atomistic materialism and a naturalistic account of
evolution. Correspondingly, furthest removed from the Platonic and Stoic
traditions, Epicurus believed in a radical materialism which dispensed with
transcendent entities as the goal of eudaimonia. This disproved the soul’s
survival after death and any punishment in the afterlife. The unacknowledged
fear of death and punishment was the primary cause of anxiety and in turn
was the source of extreme and irrational desires. Eliminating these anxieties
and their corresponding irrational desires would leave people free to pursue
both physical and mental pleasures to which they are naturally drawn.
The importance of explaining how these anxieties and fears and irrational
desires arose in the first place is evident in their account of social evolution.
Aware that deeply ingrained habits of thought were not easily corrected,
Epicurus proposed various exercises to assist the novice.87
By the fourth century, the materialistic view of Epicurus reflects
something of Aristotle’s divergence from Plato’s contemplative priority.
It is where eudaimonia came to be understood as success secured in the
practical world of human affairs solely through a person’s own actions
and choices. However, as Vella comments, ‘This Greek term originally
meant to be favoured by the gods or to be blessed by the gods.’88 Despite
the material significance of eudaimonia becoming dominant during this
period, Plato maintained that it is the just man who is really happy. The
Platonic trajectory of eudaimonia was not secured externally but through
having a good daemon89 which in its original sense equated with divine
favour. This divine favour was not understood in the absolute monotheistic
sense as seen in Jewish and Christian traditions, but as pertaining within
one’s active relations with other people. The daemon itself was a kind of
guardian angel whom Plato identified with the soul. With this word, the
success or happiness of one’s active relations with other human beings
was always equated with divine assistance which lay beyond what reason
alone could secure. The true source of eudaimonia in the Platonic tradition
was located in the spiritual worth of one’s character or personality. In turn,
reason will search for knowledge of this inner worth residing ultimately
within the realm of Forms and the ultimate Form of Beauty or Goodness.
Being established here is philosophical thinking encouraging a ‘negative’
movement of inward change and regeneration away from the ever changing
data of sense experience. Revived by Plato, having a good daemon90 in this
pursuit of eudaimonia will remain viewed as something of a gift conferred
by the gods that will become fully realized at the summit of apophatic
ascent.
Thus far, the term eudaimonia with its religious root meaning has been
rendered to include the words happiness, success and flourishing. The
latter is preferred in this work while being used interchangeably with the
words ‘inner human development’. It is a preference that warrants some
explanation in relation to Aristotle’s notion of practical reason and success.
This diverges91 from Plato’s contemplative priority whose understanding
will make possible the full appreciation of the Christian apophatic tradition.
With Plato, Aristotle believed contemplation or speculative wisdom to be
the exercise of the highest virtue and according perfect happiness. So, like
Plato, Aristotle considered the contemplative life of the wise person or sage
who sought wisdom or knowledge for its own sake to be the highest human
excellence: ‘It follows that the activity of God, which is transcendent in
blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human

activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation
will be the greatest source of happiness’ Nicomachean Ethics (Bk 10.
1178b11–1179a6). Aristotle, however, regarded reason being focused
upon this pursuit of human excellence as the exception and not the rule of
human aspiration. He believed that human aspiration was set more towards
the practical fulfilment of the desire for eudaimonia, and accordingly he
became more focused on reason’s instrumental form. This view turned
Aristotle’s ethics into a science of the practical of which, according to Vella,
‘the only good that is relevant to Aristotle’s ethics is the good achievable
through action . . . the end for all we do.’92 Understandably he ‘is highly
critical of theoretical conceptions of the good espoused by Plato and his
followers’.93 This has established a gulf between Plato’s contemplative or
theoretical position and with it that of the apophatic pursuit of the fullest
human development reflected today.
Despite identifying the divergence between these Platonic and Aristo-
telian trajectories of human development, they are in accord in the view
that pursuing eudaimonia effectively is inextricably tied with the excellent
transformation of the whole character or person. Hamilton is thus able to
link eudaimonia
to arête, the Greek word for ‘virtue’ or ‘excellence’. In the Nicomachean

Ethics, Aristotle wrote: ‘the happy man lives well and does well’ . . . Happi-
ness is not, he argued, equivalent to wealth, honour, or pleasure. It is an end
in itself, not the means to an end. The philosophical lineage of happiness can
be traced from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.94
Importantly, this transformation of character was seen to be that which was

not easily reversed by external impediments such as wealth, honour, or
pleasure. Such excellence of a flourishing character gave some immunity
or stability against the transient nature of wealth, honour or pleasure and
became equated with an abiding and unchanging realm. The philosophical
lineage of this understanding of the ultimate source of eudaimonia which
passes into the apophatic tradition becomes clear in subsequent chapters.
Therefore, the choice of the term ‘flourishing’ is explained, denoting a more
constant and stable state of character rooted in knowledge (episteme) of the
Good. Vella comments that eudemonia is the ‘chief and final good . . . a
stable and lasting state of flourishing that is complete and self-sufficient and
that endures for a complete life’.95 This is unlike ‘character’, which is formed
by that which is ephemeral and transient and more associated with the word
‘happiness’. Many translators make this choice because ‘happiness’ in Eng-

lish can easily mean momentary or fleeting states of pleasure or satisfaction,
which were certainly not the aim of Plato or Aristotle’s view of eudaimo-
nia. Rowe writes that only Epicurus amongst ‘the major figures identifies
eudaimonia with pleasure; for all the rest it is in principle an open question
whether pleasure or enjoyment is even a part of the eudaimon life’.96 It was
not expectation of pleasure and avoiding suffering and pain which made
Socrates drink a fatal draft of poison: ‘And you know of course that most or-
dinary people think that pleasure is the good . . . Then what about those who
define good as pleasure? Is their confusion any less? Aren’t they compelled
to admit that there are bad pleasures?’ (Republic, 5. 505, b-c). Clearly, the
Greeks did not attribute the pursuit of eudaimonia merely to subjective feel-
ings of contentment and pleasure. It was more about the objective judgement
of reason or self-conscious inquiry concerning the source of such feelings.
The ancient pursuit of eudaimonia is best conceived, therefore, as move-
ment through philosophical contemplation towards a final goal which in
Plato and Aristotle both sustains and transcends reason. As Hadot notes,
this explains why ancient ‘philosophical theories . . . were . . . taken as the
objects of intellectual exercises, that is, of a practice of the contemplative
life which, in the last analysis, was itself nothing other than a spiritual exer-
cise’.97 Consequently, the aim of this philosophical ‘spiritual exercise’ as the
chief and final good of eudaimonia, went against the grain of what was and
what especially is now commonly accepted. Again Hadot notes:
all philosophical schools engaged their disciples upon a new way of life . . .
The practice of spiritual exercises implied a complete reversal of received
ideas . . . radical opposition explains the reaction of non-philosophers,
which ranged from mockery . . . to . . . outright hostility . . . to cause the
death of Socrates. The individual was to be torn away from his habits and
social prejudices, his way of life totally changed, and his way of looking at
the world radically metamorphosed.98
Ancient philosophy as a contemplative spiritual exercise produced charac-

ter that could stand back and challenge received thinking. The importance
of this Greek character in being able to receive and accommodate the rev-
elation of the divine Logos of Biblical tradition cannot be underestimated.
This is evident in the early Church struggling to articulate its understanding
with its own voice which emerged from ‘the truth of faith and of reason,
both in the distinction and also in the convergence of those two cognitive
fields’.99 Hadot rightly adds:
Already within Greek philosophy, the Logos, or divine pedagogue, had

been at work educating humanity, but Christianity itself, as the complete
revelation of the Logos, was the true philosophy which ‘teaches us to con-
duct ourselves so that we may resemble God, and to accept the divine plan
[oikonomia] as the guiding principle of all our education.’100
Arriving at this juncture in concluding discussion of the visions of eudaimo-

nia and its pursuit in the Greek philosophical Schools, it is unsurprising that it
will concern the enjoyment of a modern renaissance of its ethical thinking.
This wider apophatic perspective of human development therefore is
clearly lacking in the utilitarian thinkers following Mill, and those following
Kant orientated by duty. This renaissance of ancient ethical thinking which
expresses growing concerns about the social and political ramifications
of character formation has witnessed the important emergence of virtue
ethics thinking led by Alasdair MacIntyre101 whose argument in After
Virtue became seminal. The movement itself might be traced back to the
influential essay by Elizabeth Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.102
In it she argues that the two major modern traditions in Western moral
philosophy of Kantianism and utilitarianism have been greatly mistaken in
placing the foundations for morality in legalistic notions such as duty and
obligation. It posited that Christianity derives its ethical notions from the
Torah, but that the concept of what is morally right or wrong in a Christian
society had come to be identified purely with what is legal or not. Therefore
moral philosophers should dispense with the notion of moral obligation and
concentrate, like Aristotle and Plato, on virtue.103 Anscombe writes:
the concepts of obligation, and duty – moral obligation and moral duty, that
is to say – and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense
of ‘ought,’ ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible; because
they are survivals, or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception
of ethics which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful without
it. My third thesis is that the differences between the well-known European
writers on moral philosophy from Sedgwick to the present day are of little
importance.104
Following Anscombe’s lead, virtue ethics focuses increasingly upon

character formation. Pence writes that without some understanding of the
philosophical development of ancient ethical theory which was central to
its vision of eudaimonia ‘it is impossible to understand modern virtue the-
ory’.105 Moreover, from what can be described as a ‘character-orientated’ or
‘state of being’106 ethical approach of human development which dominated
in classical antiquity – but has yet to enter contemporary philosophical dis-

cussion of ethics in a serious way – two components can be distinguished.
An ‘external’ one seen in Aristotle emphasizing the development of habits
and dispositions which made ones actions good and was inspired by role-
models. And the ‘internal’ component that was central to the development
of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition. The maintenance of this ‘state
of being’ ethical approach and with it the closely associated experiences of
‘pure consciousness’ and ‘pure positive affect’107 or happiness is seen in re-
ligious traditions other than Christianity. The Bhagavad Gita (2:46) insists
that the ‘Brahmana, who realizes the ultimate reality (described in Vedas
and other scriptures), has the same use for all the Vedas, or say no use at all
of the Vedas.’ Zen Buddhism focuses upon enlightened states as the neces-
sary basis for action and life, which are attained entirely outside of words
and scriptures. Discussion now turns to contemporary voices from different
disciplines which also challenge the problematic of instrumental thinking
upon inner human development.
Human Development Today: Voices of Challenge
It is beyond the limits of this work other than to identify and outline the
significant commonalities of theme and argument of those different disci-
plines which support and converge with my argument concerning the Greek
pursuit of eudaimonia. I do this by focusing on a small sympathetic coali-
tion of thinkers from each discipline. Their thought also serves as evidence
suggesting that the modern pursuit of inner human development is increas-
ingly problematic.
Voices of challenge from Philosophy
Philosophical voices are central to my argument. They are heard throughout

this work which correspondingly seeks to advance their endeavours. They
also reflect the concerns and approach of Radical Orthodoxy discussed ear-
lier. Apart from the obvious ones from antiquity, particularly Parmenides,
Socrates, Plato, and Proclus, these voices are those of Pierre Hadot,108
Joseph Pieper109 and Werner Jaeger.110 Hadot identifies and analyses the
‘spiritual exercises’ used in ancient philosophy and of their pertinence for
philosophy and the pursuit of happiness today. Pieper’s book comprises of
two related essays. The first concerns the classic notion of leisure and what
we do when the cogs of daily life stop. The second introduces the classic an-
swer, what it means to philosophize and its relation to theology, illustrated
by Augustine writing that there is ‘no other reason for men to philosophize
but to be happy’.111 Pieper argues that the philosophical foundations of
Western society supporting the classic notion of leisure need to be recovered
by a world that has deteriorated into becoming one of ‘total work’. Werner
Jaeger’s three-volume work is an extensive analysis and reflection on the
cultural nature of education (paideia) in ancient Greece of which philosophy
was central. He hoped this would restore a decadent early twentieth-century
Europe to the values of its Hellenic origins. All three recover reason’s an-
cient exercise as philo-sophia as a spiritual way of life as offering valuable
insights into the pursuit of eudaimonia/happiness today. This work advances
these endeavours by directing them to the summit of apophatic ascent.
These endeavours also reflect signs recently of renewed interest in
Western philosophy outside university faculties. This partly illustrates
philosophy again addressing the broader requirements of human nature
other than that of providing stimulation for the ‘artists of reason’112 to
which it has been largely reduced. Borrowing Kant’s telling expression,
Hadot comments he ‘uses the phrase to designate philosophers interested
only in pure speculation. The idea of a philosophy reduced to its concep-
tual content.’113 This narrowed philosophy’s scope and the stimulation of
reason as a purely theoretical activity, which diminishing numbers of
university philosophy students ‘encounter every day in . . . university
courses and in textbooks at every level . . . Consciously or unconsciously,
our universities are heirs of the . . . Scholastic tradition.’114 However, this
diminishing vision of philosophy shows signs of shifting. An article in the
Guardian Education (20 November 2007) entitled, ‘I Think Therefore I
Earn’ comments: ‘Philosophy graduates are suddenly all the rage with
employers . . . Simon Blackburn, a professor at Cambridge University,
sees the improving career prospects of philosophy graduates as part of a
wider change of public perception.’ In the Independent (22 April 2012)
Russ Thorne writes in an article entitled ‘Far more than a witty remark’:
‘Studying philosophy equips you with an adaptable mind and vital life
skills.’ The popular success of the work of philosopher Alain de Botton115
supports this opinion, as does the success of that of Lou Marinoff116 in
support of the philosophical counselling movement. Importantly, this wid-
er change in public perception and need of philosophy indicates attempts
to reclaim something from the Western philosophical tradition more rep-
resentative of reason exercised as philo-sophia (the love of wisdom), and
closely related to a spiritual way of life. Its value in addressing what seem
to be enduring concerns for the modern mind, particularly in relation to

inner human development, is reflected by the comments of the classical
scholar Nussbaum:
Asking how to live is never, in the Greek traditions, a merely academic

exercise, nor philosophy a merely academic subject. It is prompted by real
human perplexities, and it must address these in the end . . . contemporary
moral philosophy has much to learn, if it wishes to move beyond the acad-
emy to take its place in the daily lives of human beings.117
Clearly, there is a suggestion here that modern thinking is found wanting

concerning those areas of human development less amenable to rational
control and quantification. The reclamation of ancient philosophy is seen
to be meeting a need which the prevailing intellectual zeitgeist of Western
society is failing to do, as the discussion of growing evidence will suggest.
As a more creative and conceptual use of reason with wider scope, ancient
philosophy treated individuals for what it was intended for, restoring a com-
prehensive and definitive view of human development. Nussbaum argues
that it still heals
human diseases, diseases produced by false beliefs. Its arguments are to the
soul as the doctor’s remedies are to the body. They can heal, and they are
to be evaluated in terms of their power to heal. As the medical art makes
progress on behalf of the suffering body, so philosophy for the soul in dis-
tress. Correctly understood, it is no less than the soul’s art of life (techne
biou).118
Featuring in this work, Socrates’ aporatic (serious perplexity or mental

impasse) pursuit of wisdom exemplifies this ‘art of living’ (techne biou) as
a therapeutic philosophical way of life. Moreover, much published material
reclaiming this therapeutic philosophical way of life identifies it as also being
a spiritual one.119 Pursuing eudaimonia, or meeting the person’s perennial
desire to pursue their fullest human flourishing, intellectually, spiritually
and physically was the original stimulus in the development of the Western
philosophical tradition. Witnessing the highest exercise of Greek cognitive
faculties saw this endeavour place reason at its heart. This would become
the Western world’s philosophical wisdom tradition from which the Graeco-
Christian apophatic tradition would emerge. The irresolvable heightening
of epistemic and existential tension at its heart produced a contemplative
trajectory of inner human development. Philosophy and spirituality became
inextricably tied together. Hadot writes:
The concern with individual destiny and spiritual progress . . . the call for
meditation, the invitation to seek . . . inner peace that all the schools, even
those of the sceptics, propose as the aim of philosophy, the feeling for the
seriousness and grandeur of existence – this seems to me to be what has nev-
er been surpassed in ancient philosophy and what always remains alive.120
Jaeger121 and Pieper similarly encourage the reclamation of philosophy with

the classic notion of leisure primarily as a way of life led by reason, incorpo-
rating spiritual exercises in the pursuit of inner human development. These
spiritual exercises were practised by the four major Schools of antiquity
to which I have already referred: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism and
Epicureanism. Thanks to Philo of Alexandria (discussed in Chapter Four),
two lists of these exercises survive, giving a complete view of Stoico-Pla-
tonic inspired philosophical therapeutics. Hadot lists them as: research
(zetesis), thorough investigation (skepsis), reading (anagnosis), listening
(akroasis), attention (prosoche), self-mastery (enkrateia), and indifference
to indifferent things.122 The other names are reading, meditations (meletai),
therapies of the passions (therapeiai can also mean acts of worship), re-
membrance of good things, self-mastery (enkrateia) and the accomplish-
ment of duties. Of central importance is Hadot’s insistence that much of the
material of Greek philosophical writings contain material that is spiritual in
origin, rejecting Rabbow’s123 claim that these exercises were simply moral
ones prior to the advent of Christian philosophy. This affirms my argu-
ment that in these texts lay the philosophical foundations from which the
apophatic tradition will emerge along with the breath of divine inspiratio
which formed their development. Unsurprisingly, from this eventual con-
vergence of faith and reason in the pursuit of eudaimonia, Hadot notes:
Under Alexandrian influence . . . the distant influence of Philo, and the more
immediate influence of . . . Clement of Alexandria, magnificently orches-
trated by the Cappadocians-certain philosophical spiritual techniques were
introduced into Christian spirituality. The result of this was that the Christian
ideal was described, and, in part, practiced, by borrowing models and vo-
cabulary from the Greek philosophical tradition. Thanks to its literary and
philosophical qualities, this tendency became dominant, and it was through
its agency that the heritage of ancient spiritual exercises was transmitted to
Christian spirituality.124
Prior to the Enlightenment philosophical reasoning and spiritual

exercise remained mutually beneficial not exclusive exercises. Hadot
argues that this separation began with mediaeval Scholasticism making
theology autonomous from philosophy and so emptying it of all its spiritual

exercises and reducing it to a purely theoretical activity.125 The result is that
it becomes relegated to being the handmaid of theology. Prior to this, writes
Grosch,
there existed in intellectual thought in general and in both philosophy and

theology in particular the recognition that some rational progress in meta-
physics, epistemology and morality could only be made if there was some
version of an all-encompassing spiritual attitude towards whatever inquiry
was being undertaken . . . taking two forms . . . the necessity of engaging in
some set of individual and collective spiritual exercises which would guide
both minds and bodies . . . a basic humility and reverence born out of reason,
because reason attempts to fathom the mysterious relationships that exist
between self and others.126
Before Scholasticism, progress in philosophical and theological thought

was believed to gain equal benefit when combined with spiritual exercise,
an attitude which Christianity borrowed from the Greek tradition. However,
during the Scholastic period, this holistic synthesis and process of inner
human development had its heart broken and theology and philosophy be-
came distinct. This gave birth to modern philosophy as a purely theoretical
activity, spirituality being regarded as the province only of theology and
religion. As the culmination of the pursuit of eudaimonia encouraged by
‘negative’ philo-sophia, the emergence of the apophatic tradition from the
convergence of faith and reason consonant with the nature of faith itself,
offers a rediscovery of this synthesis anew. With Hadot and Jaeger, Pieper
restates this vision as an educational (paideia) imperative concerning ‘the
whole human being, insofar as he is capax universi: “capable of the whole”,
able to comprehend the sum total of existing things’.127 This work shares
and advances the common themes and argument of these philosophical en-
deavours. Allied with those whose discussion follows, these aim to redirect
human concern and care for its inner landscape away from focus fixed large-
ly on the atomized representations of ‘existing things’ within a domain of
instrumental means. These philosophers reflect this work’s offer of an alter-
native ‘negative’ way of thinking about human development, re-orientating
others towards a broader vision and greater hope of inner fulfilment. So,
character which is formed by this ‘negative’ way of philosophical thinking
offers a solution to problems identified. Pieper makes the contrast clear in
character which is able to realize ‘something of the serenity of “not-being-
able-to-grasp,” of the recognition of the mysterious character of the world,
and the confidence of blind faith, which can let things go as they will’.128
One thing is certain, irrespective of the path chosen, the modern indi-
vidual is understood by these philosophers of antiquity equally, to have no
choice but to travel in this pursuit of inner human development. Pieper
writes:
‘Man desires happiness naturally and by necessity.’ ‘By nature the creature
endowed with reason wishes to be happy.’ ‘To desire to be happy is not a
matter of free choice.’ ‘The desire for the ultimate goal is not among the
things under our control.’ This last sentence introduces a new concept . . .
‘happiness’ is the name for the ultimate goal of human life . . . Before any
possibility of our own choice arises, we are already irrevocably ‘on the way.’
And the destination is called happiness . . . defined as the epitome of those
things which ‘the will is incapable of not willing.’129
Some of Kant’s thinking, too, illustrates well the immediate value of these
endeavours which support the rediscovery of an apophatic re-orientation
of the modern individual set towards wisdom which remains always not
yet: ‘Man does not possess wisdom; he only tends towards it and can feel
love for it. Yet this is already sufficiently meritorious.’130 My retrieval of the
apophatic tradition’s Greek philosophical foundations aims to encourage
such a meritorious turn towards wisdom. Reflecting Gregory of Nyssa’s
important idea of epektasis and its psychological consequences, this is at
odds with those philosophical foundations which encourage autonomous
and instrumental reason and which seeks to be ‘maistre et possesseur de la
nature’. The ancient concept of status viatoris (wanderer, walker, wayfarer,
pilgrim) further echoes this perpetual dynamic with its inherent heighten-
ing of epistemic and existential tension at its heart. Pieper writes of ‘the
significance of the concept of status viatoris. To exist as man means to be
“on the way” and therefore to be nonhappy.’131 Yet this retrieval of ancient
philosophical thinking supporting the via negativa is consonant with direct-
ing a different route of being ‘nonhappy’ but ‘on the way’ towards infinite
ecstatic satisfaction at the summit of apophatic ascent. That is, as long as a
person exists in the world, they at least will be characterized by an ontologi-
cal and inward quality of being perpetually ‘on the way towards the real
thing’.132 This re-orientation, which the significant commonalities of theme
and argument of these philosophers offers, is advanced by this work by set-
ting it towards the apophatic ‘real thing’ of inner human development. The
central purpose of this is revealed clearly in charting the development of
its Greek philosophical foundations expressing the pursuit of eudaimonia
constituting ‘no other reason for men to philosophize but to be happy’. It is
a trajectory necessitating a transcendent anthropology and humanism.
Voices of challenge from Theology
From identifying the significant commonalities of theme and argument of

these retrievals of an ancient philosophical vision of human development,
discussion naturally follows to that of their convergence with contemporary
theological voices of challenge. Again, central to this coalition of sympa-
thetic theological voices is their articulation of a conception of human na-
ture or anthropology at odds with that rooted solely in a natural explanation.
Their anthropological view sees the human person as being the locus where
the mystery of union with God is worked out. This is radically at odds with
an understanding of the locus of modern human development in relation
to the autonomous individual, asserting her/himself within a domain of
instrumental means. Key theologians who emphasize this point are Pope
Benedict XVI,133 Vladimir Lossky,134 Andrew Louth,135 Karl Rahner,136 Jean
Luc Marion137 and Janet Williams.138
The theology of Pope Benedict speaks of a ‘transcendent humanism’139
rooted in the ancient ‘truth of faith and of reason, both in the distinction and
also in the convergence of those two cognitive fields’140 and ‘consonant with
the nature of faith itself’.141 It concerns the unitive openness of the human
person to God as mystery, which is evoked in the pursuit of happiness by the
‘negative’ reason encouraged by this work.
Lossky also masterfully articulates the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy
from a full appreciation of its Greek philosophical foundations. It under-
stands theology as always experienced and, therefore, mystical. Perfectly
summarizing this anthropological stance, Lossky writes that ‘Union with
God is a mystery which is worked out in human persons.’142 This means
an aspect of human nature is analogous to the incomprehensible and tran-
scendent nature in which it is rooted and is an unavoidable characteristic of
human nature. It includes a sapiential participatory knowing understood by
the ancients as the knower, the knowing, and the known becoming one. This
transcendent openness of the person as the basis of significant experience
and action is clearly contrary to the self-determining cogito which closed
any such horizon. While the former is propelled by the ‘negative’ logic of
faith and hope seeking certainty through participation in the mystery, the
latter does so by placing ‘faith’ and hope in autonomous reason and in the
plain facts of sense-datum.
From two anthropologies, one rooted in transcendence and the other in
empiricism, two very different pursuits of human development emerge. A
comment by Lossky illustrates their profound dissimilarities: ‘The human
person cannot be expressed in concepts. It eludes all rational definitions,
indeed all description, for all the properties whereby it could be characterized
can be met with other individuals.’143 He reiterates the importance of these
ancient valuable insights as they inform our relationships with others today:
what is most dear to us in someone, what makes him himself, remains inde-
finable, for there is nothing in nature which properly pertains to the person,
which is always unique and incomparable. The man who is governed by his
nature and acts in the strength of his natural qualities, of his ‘character’, is
the least personal. He sets himself up as an individual, proprietor of his own
nature, which he pits against the natures of others and regards as his ‘me’,
thereby confusing person and nature . . . This confusion . . . has a special
name in the ascetic writings of the Eastern Church . . . in Russian, samost,
which can perhaps be best translated by the word egoism, or rather if we
may create a Latin barbarism ‘ipseity’.144
Lossky suggests humans develop in a way opposite to that rooted in ‘ipse-

ity’, where the individual is regarded as the proprietor of their own nature,
which they pit against that of others to form ‘me’. Pursuing the opposite
goal of realizing the ‘me’ of a ‘transcendent humanism’ is further reaffirmed
by the Orthodox voice of Louth in his influential articulation of Pseudo-Di-
onysius’ philosophical and theological synthesis.145
From within the Roman Catholic tradition, Rahner’s theology reflects
these major theological themes and characteristics of a ‘transcendent hu-
manism’, and their implications for human development. His transcendent
anthropology is clear, again reflecting this work’s re-appropriation of the
pursuit of eudaimonia. Rahner’s ‘negative’ definition of the human person
as ‘the question to which there is no answer’146 accurately illustrates this
convergence of theological thinking. His transcendental anthropology
helped, in no small degree, to return the mystical dimension to Catholic
theology. This understanding meant increased appreciation for the continual
and immediate encounter with God as mystery, thereby re-centring theology
in relation to the experience of the human person. According to Barnhart,
Rahner’s transcendent anthropology
seems most adequately to integrate this fundamental unitive level of the

person which corresponds to our Eastern turn and to the specifically con-
templative aspect of a sapiential theology. In this view, the transcendence
or unitive openness of the human person is the ground and basis of every
significant human experience and action.147
The title of Chapter Two of Foundations of Christian Faith, ‘Man in the

Presence of Absolute Mystery’, further reflects a common apophatic theme

rooted in a transcendent anthropology and humanism. In it Rahner argues
that we encounter the divine in a transcendental experience of God’s Holy
Mystery. Whenever we experience our limits of imagining, we then begin to
transcend them and thereby recognize the mystery and source of our exist-
ence whose origin and destiny are not yet clear.
In this vein of apophatic theological articulation of inner human devel-
opment Marion’s now famous publication of God without Being, shortly fol-
lowed by his theory of ‘saturated phenomena’, may be located. This theory
contended that ‘revelation’ is the ‘saturated phenomenon’ par excellence.
Inspired by his study of Christian Neoplatonic mystical theologians, it is the
idea that there are phenomena of such overwhelming ‘givenness’ or ‘over-
flowing fulfillment’ that the intentional acts aimed at these phenomena are
overrun, flooded or saturated. This has some bearing on my argument about
the ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory which eventually becomes ‘saturated’
beyond its own powers through the ‘revelation’ of ‘no-thing’ at the summit
of apophatic ascent. This ecstatic apophatic apex of self-transcending inner
human development qualifies as being an ‘overwhelming’ consequence of
the ‘revelation’ of the phenomena ‘par excellence’. This is because it is
understood as a phenomenon which
cannot be wholly contained within concepts that can be grasped by our un-
derstanding. It gives so much in intuition that there is always an excess left
over, which is beyond conceptualization. Thus, it is saturated with intuition
. . . the limit-case and paradigm of phenomenality . . . demonstrate that phe-
nomena are given on their own terms and without any restriction, rather than
being given within limits imposed upon them by a subject who somehow
constitutes them.148
Marion’s understanding of this ‘excess’ from ‘revelation’ which remains

‘beyond conceptualization’ explains why he casts a broader net than
that of just retrieving the linguistic and epistemological implications
of Pseudo-Dionysius’ thought. Jones writes: ‘Marion . . . clarifies the
anthropological implications of (Pseudo-Dionysius’) apophaticism in
order to emphasize that it entails an existential stance of the human per-
son vis-a-vis the divine.’149 Drawing these common theological themes
and arguments together which converge with those of this work, Janet
Williams also argues for a new understanding of apophatic theology. She
aims to integrate into the modern experience of human development and
its pursuit, new unimaginable apophatic insights lying beyond the usual
limits of doctrine and rational thought. To do this she also draws from the
‘negative’ way of Zen Buddhism as a means to integrate the conservation

of the traditional religious practices and beliefs of the via negativa with an
appeal to contemporary spirituality.
Voices of challenge from Spirituality
The appeal of these philosophical and theological voices that reflect a

‘negative’ way of inner human development is evident in contemporary
discussion related to the benefits of a contemplative consciousness. This
interest, conscious or not, is reflected in contemporary spiritualities and
psychology, particularly in the area of transpersonal psychology. It is inter-
est which also reflects the effectiveness of the resistance the via negativa
offers against a purely natural conception of human nature and satisfaction.
This is understandable, developing as it does from an understanding of hu-
man nature discussed earlier. Moreover, this ethical understanding aimed to
develop enlightened or pure states of consciousness as being the necessary
basis for action and life. These contemplative states of consciousness be-
come fully realized at the summit of apophatic ascent. Interest in apophasis
within contemporary discussion of spirituality is now discussed in the work
of Michael Sells, Martin Laird, and Bruno Barnhart. It focuses on themes
and argument which support thinking about the goal of pursuing human
happiness encouraged by this work.
Definitions of what is clearly a mystical experience150 as the apophatic
consummation of the pursuit of eudaimonia are beyond the scope of this
work. This should remain so, as the very nature of this ecstatic experiential
apex is characterized by the collapse of reason and language itself. This
makes definitions impossible and undesirable. Michael Sells offers a sus-
tained, critical account of how apophatic language works as a discourse
which embraces the impossibility of naming something that is ineffable by
continually turning back upon its own propositions and names. He draws
from the conventions, logic, and paradoxes it employs and the dilemmas
encountered in any attempt to analyze it, from a close interdisciplinary
study of its texts in Greek, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Despite
their wide-ranging differences in era, tradition, and theology, he reveals es-
sential common features in these writings which attempt to communicate to
the reader something of the nature of God, which cannot be encapsulated in
language. He opens up this rich apophatic heritage of mystical experience
for re-evaluation concerning its benefit to human development. Sells com-
ments:
Rather than pointing to an object, apophatic language attempts to evoke in

the reader an event that is – in its movement beyond structure of self and
other, subject and object – structurally analogous to the event of mystical
union . . . At the critical center of apophatic discourse – the moment of
mystical union – apophasis is ‘performed’ through a fusing of divine and
human referents.151
The focus here, on the convergence and fusing of divine and human
referents within a ‘negative’ contemplative pursuit of human development,
reflects interdisciplinary work on spirituality. Irrespective of whether its
ultimate goal is ever realized, the contemplative movement towards it is
re-evaluated by Sells by offering insight in this pursuit today. It is a con-
temporary contemplative movement whose heritage is rooted in antiquity
which postulates the ‘language of silence’ at its core. This offers greater
appreciation of these retrievals of the ‘negative’ way of inner human de-
velopment. Martin Laird also encourages the spiritual re-evaluation of this
‘negative’ way, particularly in Into the Silent Land.152 He anchors his ap-
proach to contemplation in the desert and Eastern traditions. Being ‘built
for contemplation’153 he argues we move into what he calls ‘the silent land’
where we ‘discover for ourselves who we truly are – that inmost self that is
known before it is formed . . . the discovery is going to be a manifestation
of the ineffable mystery of God’.154 Laird clearly favours the ‘negative’ way,
which this work aims to offer a full appreciation of by thoroughly investi-
gating the intricacies of the theologies of Clement of Alexandria, Gregory
of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius. He suggests the value of this rationale:
Certainly for the apophatic theologians of Late Antiquity and the Middle
Ages there could be no search for God who dwells in silence beyond the
grasp of image and concept, who has ‘made the darkness His dwelling place’
(Ps.17:11), apart from a lifestyle that could lead to such a goal; the theo-
logian likewise must enter this silence, likewise must enter this ineffable,
wordless region, this open country beyond word and image and concept.
Contemplative practice pertains directly to this way of life . . . Gregory of
Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus, and a host of others theologize out of
this context.155
This work advances a fuller appreciation of this overlooked contemplative way

of life from which Clement, Gregory, and Pseudo-Dionysius theologized.
Regarding a working definition of what this mystical apophatic culmina-
tion of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia might be, Finnegan makes useful
comments:
At the very least mysticism has to do with the human person facing the Other,
or the Other behind the other, in real life situations and within the power
complexities of culture and society . . . most agree that mysticism names an
immediate, direct, intuitive knowledge of God, or of ultimate reality attained
through personal religious experience.156
These comments are also helpful in understanding the sources of inspiration

and motivation not always recognized in the exercise of Greek cognitive
faculties. Their exercise received much enthusiasm from the inspiratio of di-
vine madness which, unsurprisingly, laid the philosophical foundations upon
which the Christian apophatic tradition emerged. Importantly, allied with this
understanding, the unknowing that forms consciousness which is character-
istic of the negative way (via negativa), is best described by Bruno Barnhart
as sapiential wisdom. He maintains that this sapiential consciousness is the
inner meaning of the Christian Mystery, the dense core of meaning and
energy in which all things are drawn together and held together and whose
gravitational centre is the ‘Christ-Mystery’. Moreover, echoing this work’s
scope, the Christian sapiential consciousness/wisdom which emerged from
this gravitational centre was expressed in its beginnings in the New Testa-
ment and Patristic tradition. And these expressions of the Christian ‘Mystery’
are revealed as emerging from the convergence of Greek logos/reason and
Biblical faith in its incarnate revelation. According to Barnhart:
Central to the experience of Christians was a new consciousness, a new

understanding. Jesus himself was the divine Wisdom come into the world,
a fullness of light now shared by the believer. Christian writers of the early
centuries, on the basis of the Johannine Prologue, developed a theological
vision centred in Christ as the divine Logos . . . This Logos was recognized
as the one key to penetrating the mysteries both of the cosmos and of the
Biblical history of salvation. In the Greek Patristic tradition, it is Jesus Christ
as Logos that illuminates the whole of reality.157
The new Christian sapiential wisdom or consciousness is impossible to

fully appreciate unless understood as the consummation of the Greek
pursuit of eudaimonia encouraged by ‘negative’ reason. This sapiential
contemplative consciousness/wisdom beginning in Greek Patristic tradition
and inextricably tied with the via negativa needs to be ‘reconceived with
a new breadth and vitality in the larger context of our world today – that
offers the best hope for a unifying . . . spiritual vision in our time’.158 Dis-
cerning the beginnings of a rebirth and renewal of a ‘radical’ sapiential or
contemplative consciousness, he describes it is a ‘participatory knowing: a
knowing that is personal, experiential, and tending toward union with that
which is known . . . and a corresponding personal commitment and way of
life’.159 He continues:
It differs from the objective and purely rational knowing of science, which
has become the epistemological standard in recent centuries . . . sapiential
knowing . . . is not purely objective but participatory . . . Here, in the lan-
guage of antiquity, the knower, the knowing, and the known are one . . .
Faith the fundamental mode of sapiential knowing is a knowing in darkness,
an affirmative cognition of mystery. What is known is ‘the mystery,’ and the
knowing is consequentially obscure even as it is certain.160
Within the Christian tradition, the main sapiential event was, of course,
divine wisdom or logos (reason) becoming one with human nature in the
‘Christ-Mystery’. Knowledge of this ‘Mystery’ remains paradoxically as
‘obscure even as it is certain’. However, especially in the Western Christian
tradition, foreshadowing secular modern thinking as its cultural offshoot,
reason quickly became deployed in confining and objectifying the mystery.
Consequently, retrieving the philosophical foundations of the apophatic tra-
dition will encourage and reinstate notions about the ‘mystery’ of the person
within secular society. This will also encourage and reinstate an argument
about participation in the essential Christian Mystery of faith in which the
via negativa plays out. Barnhart observes:
As soon as Christians have travelled some distance from the . . . original

event, they begin to objectify, to rationalize, to compartmentalize and in-
stitutionalize the mystery, and the result is always a reduction and division
of the original fullness. Christian wisdom is a way that leads back through
history, upstream toward the Source, but it too becomes a betrayal when it
pretends to contain the mystery, rather than awaking us to our participation
in the mystery.161
This small sympathetic coalition of spiritual thinkers continues to exhibit

the common thread of theme and argument supporting this work.
Voices of Challenge from Psychology (Transpersonal)
My discussion of this continuous rich philosophical, theological and

spiritual vein weighted towards rediscovering of the value of ‘unknowing’
in the cultivation of the inner human landscape continues with a brief look
at key voices from the study of psychology. These reflect renewed interest
and concerns about the modern mind adrift from such an apophatic vein
of thinking. Finnegan notes: ‘More importantly for our purposes, mystical
experiences may represent the simplest form of human consciousness,
a consideration of importance to theology, spirituality and psychology
alike.’162 Important voices include those of Alistair Hardy, Abraham
Maslow, Robert Kegan, Iain McGilchrist and Madeline Levine. An
important attempt to catalogue and explore religious experience was
undertaken by Alister Hardy. To do so he founded the Religious Experience
Research Unit in Manchester College, Oxford, and published the findings
of 3,000 of these experiences.163 The Unit continues to investigate the
nature and function of spiritual and religious experience at the University
of Wales, Lampeter. Hardy’s findings suggested that such experiences
are not uncommon. Their main characteristics will be revealed to echo
those at play in the development of the apophatic tradition. According to
Hardy, Williams writes, these ‘experiences revolve around the feelings of
a transcendent reality where “something other” is longed for, sensed, or
desired in a relationship . . . Certainly some of the experiences recorded
. . . testify that many people who have such experiences have been led to
fresh, creative perceptions that replace old, stagnant viewpoints.’164 This is
at odds with the deference shown by much modern thinking towards the
importance of considerations concerning human experience raised purely
by the bare empirical facts of sense-datum. It also leads to the fragmentation
of the ‘simplest form of human consciousness’ which evidence suggests
diminishes ‘fresh, creative perceptions’ which ‘replace old, stagnant
viewpoints’. Retrieving the tradition of ‘negative’ thinking offers to restore
a simpler form of human consciousness, and with it a fresh and more
creative holistic vision of human development. The importance of this
spiritual/religious re-visioning is clearly not lost to the study of psychology.
Discussion of the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius will provide a
rich resource for this.
A spiritual imperative is becoming increasingly prevalent in trans-
personal psychology which seeks to understand human experience and
conscious states that go beyond or transcend individuality or the self.
Beginning as humanistic psychology, it focuses particularly on higher
order experiences in spiritual liberation, creativity, meditation, prayer and
ritual which support these experiences. It seeks to place spiritual formation
and direction on a cross cultural and scientific footing. Studies have
developed concepts of universal imperatives intrinsic to human nature set
towards self-actualization, entailing mystical transformation. The humanist
Abraham Maslow argues that there is an ‘essential inner nature which is
instinctoid, intrinsic, given.’165 This is set towards peak experiences of self-

actualization, including mystical ones, from which derive ‘Being-values’.
These, say Merkur, include
truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness . . . transcendence, aliveness, unique-

ness, necessity, completion, justice, order, simplicity, richness, effortless-
ness, playfulness, and self-sufficiency . . . because self-actualized people
tend to have mystical peak experiences, Maslow . . . assumed . . . the
world’s mystical paths are techniques, among other matters, for self-ac-
tualization. 166
Jung also regarded religious or spiritual experiences as important

opportunities for the holistic transformation of the self.167 This
development in understanding from humanistic to transpersonal
psychology was described by Maslow as the first brave steps into The
Farthest Reaches of Human Nature.168 Building on Maslow’s thinking, the
transpersonal psychologist Michael Washburn169 states that integration is
an inherited destiny belonging to humankind as a whole and by nature all
persons yearn for transcendence of the ego. The work of another influential
transpersonal theorist, Ken Wilber,170 develops an all-embracing spiral
model of the development of human consciousness. As in the apophatic
tradition, Finnegan notes, Wilber views the spirit as ‘both the ground
and culmination of the whole’.171 Also, in his ‘system spirit refers to the
nada, the void, the invisible Tao, God’.172 These acknowledgements of
intrinsic human imperatives set towards transpersonal self-actualization,
offer some connection with this work’s apophatic contemplative
(theoria) emphasis. Merkur also argues that spiritual practices can act
as ‘adjuncts to psychotherapy. Meditations, visualizations, prayer, and
other spiritual practices were found to be useful in psychotherapy, for
example, in learning self-observation, in cultivating self-discipline, and
in building self-esteem.’173 These approaches in psychology I maintain
act as a complement and encouragement to the therapeutic application of
‘negative’ thinking, which in no small measure reflect the emergence of
the philosophical counselling movement. These correspondences between
transpersonal psychology and apophaticism are ultimately a response to
a perceived sense within the modern individual of an alienation from
familiarity and sense of ‘being at home’ with their inner landscape.
Philosophical developments causing this alienated thinking are discussed
shortly, but I note here this correspondence is evident in similarities
between the work of Merton and Jung. Woodcock writes:
One of the preoccupations which Merton shared with many contemporary

Christian and secular thinkers was the alienation of man from his true self.
Marx recognized the phenomenon, but blamed the capitalist system. Merton
saw the cause in a spiritual malaise that could be cured only by man’s reun-
ion with the divine spirit, and for him this meant a journey into the inner self
where the encounter with God that made man whole as a person, that made
him a ‘new man’, would ensue. There is a great deal in common between
such a concept and Jung’s idea of the process of individuation. ‘Individua-
tion,’ said Jung in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, ‘means becoming
a single, homogenous being and, in so far as “in-dividuality” embraces our
innermost, last and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s
own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood”
or “self-realization”.’174
These areas of correspondence between the apophatic tradition and modern

psychological theories of the self are also giving rise to the emergence of
new spiritualities orientated towards the individual self and their private
experiences as sources of authority, often at the expense of religious
traditions. Discussion will show the via negativa has been historically
firmly situated within church practice and tradition. Thereby it offers
protection against this ‘psychological’ privatization. The theologian King
warns: ‘This “psychologisation” of the religious has been an important step
in the unhinging of “the mystical” from its roots in the world’s religious
traditions, and its reformulation in terms of privatised and “custom-
made” spiritualities orientated towards the concerns of modern individual
consumers searching for meaning in a marketplace of religions.’175
Moving from the more explicit parallels between psychic transforma-
tion and apophaticism seen in transpersonal psychology, Robert Kegan in
his book In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life176 also
reflects these parallels in thinking. Using the metaphors of ‘curriculum’ and
‘school’, he reveals the many tasks and demands of modern living that cul-
ture imposes. These are, he suggests, incompatible with most adults’ ways
of knowing the world and he explores the implications of this. Kegan de-
scribes the complex demands of modern life. Harkins177 reviewing his work
argues that these demands now require ‘a higher order of consciousness
than most adults currently possess’. Clarifying In Over Our Heads’ criti-
cism of autonomous modern reason given over to its instrumental applica-
tion, Kegan himself says: ‘The expectations upon us . . . demand something
more than mere behaviour, the acquisition of specific skills, or the mastery
of particular knowledge. They make demands on our minds, on how we
know, on the complexity of our consciousness.’178 These arguments from a
constructive-developmental psychologist support my argument for encour-

aging an apophatic way of thinking when aiming to encourage what Kegan
describes as a fourth (‘Self-Authored’ or ‘Modern’ Mind) and especially
a fifth (‘Self-Transforming’ or ‘Postmodern’ Mind) order consciousness,
able to cope with the demands of modern living. Such consciousness of the
mind, he argues, is a transformation wrought by changing the very form of
it as a container. This enlarges it, making it better able to deal with multi-
ple demands and uncertainty, enabled first by stepping back and reflecting
upon them prior to decision making. The ancient exercise of reason will
profoundly aid the realization of such consciousness. Without this resource
of ‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking any hope that Kegan’s
analysis will produce such a transformation of consciousness in not just the
way the modern individual ‘behaves, not just the way he feels, but the way
he knows – not just what he knows but the way he knows’179 remain likely
to be frustrated. Kegan himself acknowledges that only a few adults achieve
the fourth order consciousness and even less the fifth, necessary to cope
adequately with the demands of daily living.
The psychologist Iain McGilchrist is similarly critical of the epistemic
and existential condition of modern Western society, locating the problem
in biological dysfunction that has developed in the brain. Again, reflect-
ing apophatic criticism of modern reason, he comments: ‘An increasingly
mechanistic, fragmented, decontextualised world, marked by unwarranted
optimism mixed with paranoia and a feeling of emptiness, has come about,
reflecting, I believe, the unopposed action of a dysfunctional left hemi-
sphere.’180 He argues that each hemisphere has a different but complemen-
tary perspective on the world. The right hemisphere apprehends the whole
and mediates new experiences, while the left provides focus. The problem,
however, results from the narrow focus of the left hemisphere which now
dominates. This narrow focus treats living things as mechanisms charac-
teristic of thinking which pervades modern science and economics placing
emphasis upon manipulation. As will be discussed, the autonomous cogito
impressively attempts to become the ‘maistre et possesseur de la Nature’181
instead of its apophatic contemplator. This view, maintains McGilchrist,
tends to dehumanize the world, imposing a bureaucratic mentality from
whose excesses we currently suffer as we strive to eliminate all risk in
favour of a certainty which does not exist outside mathematics. The sec-
ond part of McGilchrist’s book examines Western cultural history in terms
of a power struggle between left and right hemispheres in which the left
hemisphere is currently privileged. Of the development of this present
problematic biological situation impacting inner human development,

McGilchrist writes:
Eventually, however, his cleverest and most ambitious vizier, the one he
most trusted to do his work, began to see himself as the master, and used
his position to advance his own wealth and influence. He saw his master’s
temperance and forbearance as weakness, not wisdom, and on his mis-
sions on the master’s behalf, adopted his mantle as his own – the emissary
became contemptuous of his master. And so it came about that the master
was usurped, the people were duped, the domain became a tyranny; and
eventually it collapsed in ruins.182
An apophatic reading of this biological evidence shows that the left hemi-
sphere of the brain has now dethroned its right-sided master. Consequently,
what McGilchrist recognizes as an imbalance of biological power, equates
with my argument about how humanity has been duped by a tyrannical rea-
soning which increasingly diminishes inner human development.
The clinical psychologist Madeline Levine183 importantly identifies the
above problems, which frustrate real happiness, as resulting not just from
those suffering socio-economic disadvantage. If this were the case, it would
rightly warrant their alleviation primarily through socio-economic and
political solutions and not through apophatic philosophical and theological
thinking. However, Madeline Levine locates clear problems among young,
privileged Americans that are not disadvantaged in any way by the usual
culprits of financial hardship, the emotional damage of parental divorce,
school failure, or drug and alcohol abuse. This explains why her findings
came as a shock to the parents of these young people. Despite all the privi-
leges that modern Western society can afford, both materially and epistemo-
logically (private education), Levine writes:
Nevertheless, they complain bitterly of being too pressurised, misunder-

stood, anxious, angry, sad and empty. While at first they may not appear to
meet the strict criteria for a clinical diagnosis, they are certainly unhappy.
Most of these adolescents have great difficulty in articulating the cause of
their distress. There is a vagueness, both to their complaints and to the way
they present themselves. They describe ‘being at loose ends’ or ‘missing
something inside’ or ‘feeling unhappy for no particular reason’. While they
are aware that they lead lives of privilege, they take little pleasure from their
fortunate circumstances. They lack the enthusiasm typically seen in young
people.184
She describes this situation as the ‘paradox of privilege’ as these ‘new at

risk’ American children are seen to possess every advantage the modern
world can afford. But this is no paradox to an apophatic reading of the
situation. Despite having the best education money can buy, these young
Americans seem alienated from their deeper inner human needs and are un-
able to articulate their distress. In contrast, the apophatic language of silence
offers an invaluable psychological resource for articulating and expressing
the deeper needs of the inner human landscape.
Voices of challenge from Education
Within education there are voices which identify these problems and look to
remedy them by retrieving valuable insights from its ancient philosophical
and spiritual heritage. This work advances these initiatives by tracing the
development of the ‘negative’ philosophical and theological foundations of
Western educational endeavour. Moreover, this affords greater appreciation
of the priority these endeavours gave to the inner human pursuit of eudai-
monia. Only brief discussion is possible of the thought from a coalition of
educationalists sympathetic to the value of what might be called ‘contem-
plative pedagogies’. These are Victor Kazanjian, Parker Palmer and Arthur
Zajonc. These will converge with commonalities of theme and argument
from the other disciplines.
I now briefly trace the development of the philosophical foundations
supporting modern ‘instrumental’ educational endeavour which are treated
generally in more detail later. Essentially, with respect to thinking about hu-
man development, these modern endeavours illustrate the chasm which has
emerged between classical notions of the leisurely activity of contemplation
with those of the modern cogito seeking to grasp the world mechanistically
as a domain of instrumental means. Ostwald illustrates the point in his intro-
duction to the Nicomachean Ethics referring to ‘contemplation of nature in
its widest sense, in which man, as a detached spectator, simply investigates
and studies things as they are without desiring to change them’.185 View-
ing the philosophical life as superior to the contemporary world of ‘total
work’ Aristotle declares: ‘we do business in order that we may have leisure’
(Nicomachean Ethics BK X, 7. 1177 a20–25). Pieper notes:
What he says in a more literal translation would be: ‘We are not-at-leisure
in order to be-at-leisure.’ For the Greeks, ‘not-leisure’ was the word for the
world of everyday work; and not only to indicate its ‘hustle and bustle,’ but
the work itself. The Greek language had only this negative term for it . . . as
did Latin (neg-otium: ‘not-leisure’).186
In the world of ‘total work’ the tedium of a life of neg-otium or ‘not-leisure’

is unrelenting. Kant’s ‘Law of the Human Reason’ supported this by hold-
ing that the property of philosophical understanding is acquired through
intellectual labour and not through contemplative exercise. The result is
that there is nothing in this knowing which is not the fruit of an individual’s
own efforts; therefore there can be nothing contemplatively received. This
labour of ‘intellectual work’ makes knowledge subordinate or servile to rea-
son’s instrumental exercise. A truly liberal education in which knowledge
can be contemplatively received at leisure loses its value for the intellectual
and instrumental worker. Becoming unable to countenance the affirmative
cognition of mystery results in what Pieper describes as producing ‘“abso-
lute activity” (which Goethe said “makes one bankrupt, in the end”); the
hard quality of not-being-able-to-receive; a stoniness of heart, that will not
brook any resistance . . . expressed . . . in the following terrifying statement:
“Every action makes sense, even criminal acts . . . all passivity is sense-
less”.’187
Reduced largely to ‘being-subordinated-to-purpose’188 in the production
of the complete ‘functionary’,189 Western educational endeavours are re-
minded of their most urgent task: that of defending the foundations of West-
ern European culture which are becoming increasingly fragmented. These
classical notions of leisure used for contemplative philosophical reflection
upon the deeper currents of human need and development are the vital
source of contemporary ‘contemplative pedagogies’. Pieper continues:
When we consider the foundations of Western European culture . . . one

of these foundations is leisure. We can read it in the first chapter of Aristo-
tle’s Metaphysics. And the very history of the meaning of the word bears a
similar message. The Greek word for leisure . . . is the origin of Latin scola,
German Schule, English school. The name for the institutions of education
and learning mean ‘leisure’.190
Victor Kazanjian also observes the creation of a
chasm in higher education for decades between two realms of human un-
derstanding, the cognitive and the affective, from which is derived the twin
forms of educational philosophy: ‘instrumental education – in which learn-
ers acquire knowledge or skills that enable them to do particular tasks – and
transformational education – in which learners develop in important ways

as human beings.191
Kazanjian is Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at Wellesley College USA

and co-founder of the Education as Transformation project. This project
recognizes that the philosophies and practices of the world’s religious tra-
ditions have been formative in the establishment of various systems upon
which societies are organized, systems of law, governance and education.
However, in most colleges and universities the influence of these on the
formation of individual students has gone largely unrecognized by educa-
tors. Kazanjian aims to stimulate on-campus dialogues about the role of
spirituality in the educational process and through the Project seeks to
define a student’s religious and spiritual development as critical to their
intellectual development.
Kazanjian’s view of educating the whole person is clearly open to
recognizing the positive formative role which the apophatic tradition
might offer in educating people primarily for ‘careers’ as human beings.
Yet a modern instrumental model of educational philosophy is now rife
and disseminated throughout wider society focused on tangible external
forms of human development. Parker Palmer writes in To Know as We Are
Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, that this modern educational
way ‘neglects the inner reality of teacher and students for the sake of
a reality “out there”, the heart of the knowing self is never held up for
inspection, never given a chance to be known.’192 This has led to the ‘pain
of disconnection’193 from an engagement with their hearts. The problem is
that the culture and size of the institutions and settings where people teach
emphasise achieving grades and gaining marketable skills allied with the
pressure to ‘produce’. He maintains that this is a fundamental problem
threatening to ‘disconnect’ the way of life of the whole society from its
deeper inner human needs and values. He recounts the story of the white
commissioners of Virginia offering to educate the young men of American
Indians as part of a negotiated treaty. They declined the invitation because
they saw this as a threat to their way of understanding and more importantly,
their way of living. What they understood, says Palmer, was that ‘every way
of knowing becomes a way of living . . . every epistemology becomes an
ethic’.194 He goes on to say this was a more fundamental battle than one over
territory or resources since it was
about whose way of knowing would prevail as formative and shaping of the
lives of human beings . . . They knew that all forms of teaching and learning
are forms of spiritual formation, or deformation. And they were deeply

troubled by the kind of deformation that they knew this form of knowing,
teaching, and learning . . . would bring upon their heads.195
Palmer suggests that some educators are turning to the spiritual traditions
for some hope of ‘getting reconnected’196 with a more effective pursuit of
the fullest human development. He argues: ‘One of the most important
contributions our religious and spiritual traditions can make through
dialogue on our campuses is in the alternative epistemologies they offer
which are more capacious, more relational and more responsive than classic
objectivism.’197 He himself looks to an education that is prayerful and
transcendent, believing that it is only when both are present can authentic
and spontaneous relations flourish between ourselves and the world.
Some ‘who write about education often remind us that the root meaning
of “to educate” is “to draw out” and that the teacher’s task is not to fill
the students with facts but to evoke the truth the students hold within’.198
Evoking this ‘truth within’ is precisely what the spiritual tradition of the via
negativa promises to do. The retrieval of its ancient Greek philosophical
foundations will give greater appreciation of this human development.
Jaeger tellingly writes of the teaching of philosophy in Plato’s seventh
Letter: ‘he describes the process by which men come to apprehend good
(and that is the intention of all education in Plato) as an inward process
which comes to completion through long years of life and study in common
. . . It is a gradual transformation of their natures – what in The Republic he
calls conversion of the soul to reality.199 However, this inward process of the
Platonic conversion of the soul to ‘reality’, and central to the development
of the apophatic tradition, has long been eclipsed. Yet these philosophical
foundations of the most liberal of the ‘liberal arts’200 are again arising in the
thought of educators, who are losing heart with the pervasive instrumental
mentality supporting the ‘servile arts’.
It is a rise evident in Arthur Zajonc who co-authored with Palmer The
Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal.201 He is a professor of
physics and interdisciplinary studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
From here he directs the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
which supports appropriate inclusion of contemplative methods in higher
education. Out of this work and his long-standing meditative practice, he
authored Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes
Love.202 Like Palmer, Zajonc calls for the contemplative cultivation of a
similar quality of mind and values where knowing becomes loving. He
calls this an ‘epistemology of love’ as opposed to that which fragments and

separates. Zajonc speaks for a growing coalition of educationalists:
In recent years, my own interest and that of many academic colleagues has
grown to include the pedagogical significance of contemplation for higher
education . . . I am interested in developing a way of teaching that addresses
the whole student. I wish to ensure that students not only master a field of
knowledge and its analytical methods but also develop the capacity for close
observation, sustained attention, a mind that perceives relationships and can
even work with ambiguity . . . In my view, school and university education
have long emphasised analytical skills and brute facts while allowing stu-
dents basic attentional skills, their synthetic and creative capacities, to go
unaddressed.203
Discussion later will show this educational impoverishment to result from

an ideology of scientific empiricism which atomizes knowledge in the hope
of eliminating all ambiguity. This is unlike the ‘unknowing’ which results
from the conceptual apophatic vision of the inter-connected whole of real-
ity. Explication will also reveal this to be a creative and focused pursuit of
truly transformative knowledge. Paradoxically, it is one which quickens
along its apophatic way as the darkness of incomprehension deepens.
Zajonc writes of science:
I am calling for resituating it within a greater vision of what knowing and liv-
ing really are really all about. That re-imagination of knowing will have deep
consequences for education . . . that give a prominent place to contemplative
pedagogies. Indeed, I hope to convince you that contemplative practice can
become contemplative inquiry, which is the practice of an epistemology of
love. Such contemplative inquiry not only yields insight (veritas) but also
transforms the knower through his or her intimate (one could say loving)
participation in the subject of one’s contemplative attention.204
The goal of contemplative apophatic enquiry or pedagogy will reveal itself

as more than meeting the desire to transform the knower through intimate or
‘loving’ participation in the subject of their contemplative attention. Retriev-
ing this ‘negative’ trajectory of inner human development, therefore, offers a
resource for such educational endeavours. And it is one whose full realization
will be discussed later in the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.
This coalition of thinkers from these different disciplines clearly shows
sympathy with the significant themes and argument of this work. The com-
mon thread places value on rediscovering ways of thinking and living which
clearly reflect or have their roots in the ancient pursuit of eudaimonia from
which the apophatic tradition emerged. These voices are also all critical of
the present ways of thinking particularly about inner human development.
In summary, this common thread can be gathered together in an apprecia-
tion for an alternative and contemplative conception and vision of the hu-
man person and their development. This is encapsulated in Morgan arguing
that ‘the lack of esteem for the theoretic life in the cultures of western na-
tions is a major cause of the unhappiness apparent in modern life’.205
Human Development: The Philosophical Foundations

of the Enlightenment Legacy
Contrary to the ancient philosophical foundations of the Christian contem-
plative apophatic tradition are those ways of thinking which seek to master
and control the world which have given rise to the voices of challenge just
discussed. Or to use Pieper’s expression, this thinking is understood ‘to-be-
subordinated-to-purposes . . . essentially relatable to a “use that is reached
through activity”’.206 These trends were rooted in rationalism.207 To put it
bluntly, reason was preferred over sense experience as a source of knowl-
edge. However, its modern form was that of the refinement of Descartes’
rationalist method and ideas – a rationalism that also contributed to empiri-
cism becoming a major philosophical and scientific way of thinking. Along
with it an ethics of utilitarianism sprang up. The technological benefits af-
forded by the modern mind are self-evident, but similar progress dealing
with human desire and relationships with oneself and others has proved
more elusive and certainly more problematic.
Descartes’ belief that his renovation of philosophy would benefit
medicine and its treatment not only of the body but the mind, allied with
that of the ideology of scientific empiricism, unconsciously reflects much
modern thinking. ‘Were medicine to be refounded on proper philosophical
principles,’ he wrote, ‘we might free ourselves from innumerable diseases,
both of the body and the mind, and perhaps even from the infirmity of
old age.’208 However, while the treatment of the body certainly has made
massive strides, the modern mind remains vastly troubled. What is beyond
doubt, however, irrespective of debates concerning the merits or otherwise
associated with modern thinking, is the prominence of disengaged reason
throughout and beyond the Enlightenment. The philosopher Charles Taylor
notes ‘how all-pervasive it is, how much it envelops us, and how deeply we
are implicated in it: in a sense of self defined by the powers of disengaged
reason’.209 As the father of modern thought, Descartes’ influence in this is
clear. The philosopher Max Picard penetratingly describes this situation of

the modern individual as being that of The Flight From God:
There seems to be no men outside the Flight (existing) only in so far as he

shares in the Flight. A man lives; and, living, he flees. To live and to flee are
one. The individual exists in the first place as one who flees, and only after
this and upon reflection does he discover that there might also be that which
does not flee. The Flight is so much a part of himself that it seems to be the
rule and not the exception. When the Flight exists by itself and independ-
ently of man, one no longer asks why one flees. 210
Descartes’ ‘methodological doubt’, utilized by empirical philosophical

thinking supporting scientific endeavour, provided a congenial method of
rational enquiry for modern thinking and identity. For the first time in West-
ern thought, reason became free from subordination to a transcendental reg-
ister or vision imposing universal values. Prior to this, gaining knowledge
of the whole of reality or insight from a comprehensive cognitive vision
explained how one behaved in relation to everything’s proper value within
the true scheme of things. Most importantly, this knowledge, encouraged
by exercising reason as philo-sophia, meant the fullest human development
was effectively pursued. Descartes would free the modern individual from
being obliged to any such conceptual knowledge and with it the contempla-
tive encouragement of inner change and regeneration. For the first time, he
would make it philosophically possible to direct one’s cognitive faculties in
search of one’s own values and truths. With Descartes, notes Taylor, ‘The
hegemony of reason is defined no longer as that of a dominant vision but
rather in terms of a directing agency subordinating a functional domain.’211
The second of Descartes’ Rules for the Guidance of Our Mental Powers be-
gins explaining how this was achieved through his ‘methodological doubt’:
‘Only those objects should engage our attention, to the sure and indubitable
knowledge of which our mental powers seem to be adequate.’212
Despite this, the real sea change bringing about reason’s final autonomy
from any dominant contemplative vision was through what the Cartesian
method revealed was certain and indubitable truth. This revelation was
fundamental and once implanted into the modern mind would navigate
hitherto uncharted epistemic and existential waters. What was now the
only indubitable certainty was that the cogito was able to doubt everything
comprehensively. There would appear no more indubitable and certain truth
than this, as Descartes writes in the First Meditation:
I shall at last apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of
all my former opinions. In doing so, it will not be necessary for me to show
that they are one and all false; that is perhaps more than can be done. But
since reason has already persuaded me that I ought to withhold belief no less
carefully from things not entirely certain and indubitable than from those
which appear to me manifestly false, I shall be justified in setting all of them
aside, if in each case I can find any ground whatsoever for regarding them
as dubitable.213
Descartes, therefore, set about rejecting all his opinions if there was at least
some reason to doubt. This process of ‘methodological doubt’ concluded in
the rejection of every opinion but that of the certainty in doubt itself. The
real twist in this new truth was that it rooted reason’s search for the ultimate
ground of being in its own certainty in doubt. This meant, irrespective of
there being an ultimate ground of being or not, it had now been transferred
to that which alone was certain and indubitable. It was now the cogito’s
certainty in doubt itself. For the first time in Western thinking, the ultimate
foundation of indubitable and certain truth was transferred to human rea-
son. Replacing a static essentialism was a dynamic one, resulting from the
cogito doubting everything and, therefore, always in search of being. The
cogito could never be static because its essential ground was the certainty of
doubting everything. Reason was now autonomous from any ultimate ground
or Being, other than its own self-imposed certainty of doubt. Modern reason
could no longer pursue human progress with reference to any Other outside
that of its own self-imposed remit. Looking to the summit of the apophatic as-
cent would be tantamount to destroying truth and reality itself. Consequently,
the philosophers Bulhof and Kate note: ‘Reason represses God’s alterity by
including the Other in itself, and thus eliminates its own limits. Yet it collides
with its own limits, and is left embarrassed. Despite Descartes’ ambitions, a
discomfort remains amid the certainty of the “Cogito”.’214 My rediscovery
of valuable insights into human development from the ancient philosophical
heritage of the apophatic tradition seeks to explore the remaining discomfort
cast by the Other’s shadow. This is especially seen in those intangible areas of
human desire and relationships and is rooted in a transcendent anthropology
and humanism cognizance of the support of faith and hope.
The dynamic certainty in doubt of the cogito replaced all215 transcendent
registers and became itself the modern ultimate ground of being. Unsurpris-
ingly, this coup was fundamental to the thinking of the aptly named ‘Masters
of Suspicion’ of the Enlightenment of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Europe. Of these, the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said: ‘the task of the
modern age is the realization and humanization of God; the transformation
and dissolving of theology into anthropology’.216 The apophatic tradition
offers a different conception of human nature located within a transcendent

anthropology and humanism. The retrieval of apophatic texts in postmodern
debate discussed next (especially in their emphasis on the failure of this task
of reducing the Other to nature) suggests that this offer is no longer ‘unrea-
sonable’ or alien to some modern minds.
The modern rationalist movement also encouraged internalization in
search of moral resources, but always rooted in a natural anthropology,
which was drawn from the self’s autonomous assertion within the world.
Anticipating discussion of the apophatic traditions Greek philosophical
foundations, according to Taylor,
The internalization wrought by the modern age, of which Descartes’ formu-

lation was one of the most important and influential, is very different . . .
It does, in a very real sense, place the moral sources within us. Relative to
Plato . . . it brings about in each case a transposition by which we no longer
see ourselves as related to moral sources outside us.217
The two forms of reason with which I deal in this thesis – instrumental and
apophatic – are radically different. The first one is the elevation of the hu-
man cogito itself within its own self-imposed vision. Remaining beyond
its scope, the second is rooted in the Other still ‘embarrassingly’ casting its
shadow often experienced as the frustration of inner human development.
The types of thinking that these two sources of knowledge encourage and
the characters that they form are demonstrated, to some degree, in either the
consumer or the contemplator. Importantly, these illustrate how, as Palmer
puts it, ‘every way of knowing becomes a way of living’. Correspondingly,
the ethic of consumerism represents an epistemology rooted in Descartes’
autonomy of reason which will become allied with the datum of empiri-
cal fact. This means that many consumers have, as Bulhof and Kate argue,
become hostages:
The dominant value that grounds modern Western culture is the rational
control of the world. The bearers of this value are the humans with their
autonomous subjectivity: ‘maistres et possesseurs de la Nature’ (masters
and possessors of nature; Descartes218), who think of the world as their
autonomous creation. In many ways, modern culture can be regarded as
the result of a powerful self-affirmation of humanity that produces itself in
history, and as an impressive attempt by humanity to manage and control the
world rationally.219
According to Palmer:
History suggests two primary sources for our knowledge . . . One is curiosity
the other is control. The one corresponds to pure, speculative knowledge . . .
as an end in itself. The other corresponds to applied science, to knowledge
as a means to practical ends . . . Since many of the boxes we have opened
contained secrets that have given us more mastery over life, curiosity and
control are joined as the passion behind our knowing.220
The modern way of knowing is clearly an epistemology seeking manage-

ment and control of the world and is opposed to a contemplative apophatic
view which has no desire other than to accept the way things really are. The
important point is that the Cartesian way of knowing (seeking certainty in
objective knowledge allied to scientific empiricism) is directly related to
being a consumer. Zamano contends:
Over the years, the certainty of objective knowledge has provided me with
a false sense of security and control; in an effort to maintain these feelings,
I often have insulated myself from people and interactions that threatened
this certitude. On further reflection, I also think that the impulse to acquire
things comes from the same desire for certainty and a sense of security. The
palpability of objects, like the tangible aspects of objective knowledge, is
something we experience with certainty so we desire to have more.221
Morgan argues that contemplation or theoria can help people find a proper
perspective concerning the significance of the practical life in which many
are immersed in seeking the ‘palpability of objects’: ‘Theoria can restore
good praxis to its proper place in our affections, not only providing a new
outlet for aspirations but reminding us, by its own uselessness, that even on
the practical level the exercise of our rational nature can and should be its
own reward.’222 I argue that an alternative contemplative apophatic episte-
mology is the best way forward. The consolations and satisfactions offered
by ‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking have for too long been
restricted from view, under the tutelage of rational control and consumptive
activities. The philosophical foundations of this modern thinking are clearly
seen in Descartes’ Discourse on Method. Part Six contains his famous state-
ment making clear one of the major purposes of the new natural philosophy
or science which was to gain power over nature. He writes:
For my notions had made me see that it is possible to reach understandings

which are extremely useful for life, and that instead of the speculative phi-
losophy which is taught in the schools, we can find a practical philosophy
by which, through understanding the force and actions of fire, water, air,
stars, heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us as distinctly as
we understand the various crafts of our artisans, we could use them in the
same way for all applications for which they are appropriate and thus make
ourselves, as it were, the masters and possessors of nature.223
As the ‘maistres et possesseurs de la nature’, no longer did reason seek

human development through an enchanted speculative vision of the world
by the most virtuous and least consumptive human activity. Instead, it
now sought to subject the world to practical use through instrumental
control, thereby becoming its consumer. Descartes’ rational method, notes
Taylor, sought to ‘demystify the cosmos as a setter of ends by grasping
it mechanistically and functionally as a domain of possible means . . .
The new model of rational mastery which Descartes offers presents it as
a matter of instrumental control.’224 Importantly, the systematic rules and
methods of reasoning produced by Descartes were also taken up to de-
velop an empirical and scientific criterion of truth, which became a philo-
sophical cornerstone of modern thinking. According to the philosopher
Ernst Gellner, ‘Empiricism emerged from the refinement of Cartesian
rationalist ideas. The inner compulsions which Descartes wished to use as
arbiters of cognitive claims turned out to be the data of sense.’225 But other
ingredients were necessary as well as Descartes’ rationalist methodology
in establishing the ‘data of sense’ sitting in judgement upon other values,
philosophical and theological. These hinge on the recognition that prior
to this, there was seen to be nothing exceptional in knowing that a per-
son could learn from experience. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre
notes: ‘The empiricist conception of experience was unknown for most
of history . . . culminating in the barbarous neologism “sense-datum”.’226
Lonergan adds:
The contemporary notion of culture is empirical . . . However, this manner

of conceiving culture is relatively recent. Within less than one hundred years
it has replaced an older, classicist view that had flourished for over two mil-
lennia. On the older view culture was conceived not empirically but norma-
tively. It was the opposite of barbarism . . . It stressed not facts but values. It
could not but claim to be universalist.227
The reason why the contemporary notion of culture is empirical, says Gellner,
lies within two central points: ‘What made philosophical empiricism impor-
tant and revolutionary was the implicit addition of the phrase “men learn by
experience and in no other way”. And . . . an additional point: conceptual
package deals, complex visions, are a way of avoiding the real lesson of ex-
perience. So experience must be viewed atomistically.’228 Reason’s autonomy
was followed by the sense-datum of empirical facts which atomized human

experience. Both would sit magisterially in judgement on all human values
that were once used to interpret human experience. Prior to acquiring the
scientific name ‘sense-datum’, the common sense data of human experi-
ence, was understood to be the ordinary way of learning. Importantly, this
was open to further understanding and interpretation seen in the traditions of
Western philosophy and theology of which the apophatic tradition was a part.
But during modernity, these conceptual interpretations focused especially on
inner human development were stripped from view as human experience
was placed under the empirical microscope and atomized. The summit of
the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition now became a ‘conceptual pack-
age deal’, a ‘complex vision’229 unwantedly ‘imposing’ itself onto the naked
sense-datum of factual truth. Bulhof and Kate note: ‘Empiricism is thus not
only an antirationalist, but also an antimetaphysical tendency.’230 Most worry-
ing of all was the view that the imposition of such ‘conceptual package deals’,
were seen as avoiding the ‘real lessons of experience’. However, as evidence
presented suggests, the real lessons of life concerning the cultivation of the
inner human landscape are not furnished by bare empirical fact stripped of
conceptual interpretations of human behaviour. MacIntyre argues:
Perceivers without concepts, as Kant almost said, are blind . . . if all our
experience were to be characterised exclusively in terms of this bare
sensory type of description . . . we would be confronted with not only
an uninterpreted, but an uninterpretable world, with not merely a world
not yet comprehended by theory but with a world that could never be
comprehended by theory. A world of textures, shapes, smells, sensations,
sounds and nothing more invites no questions and gives no grounds for
furnishing any answers.231
Retrieving ‘negative’ philosophical and theological conceptual thinking is

crucial therefore. It asks questions aimed at revealing the blindness of the
bare facts of sense-datum alone. Reducing to Socratic aporia, the pervasive
ideology of scientific empirical thinking is a way forward. This is necessary
because, again as MacIntyre argues,
moderns – had stripped away interpretation and theory and confronted fact
and experience just as they are . . . proclaimed and named themselves the
Enlightenment, and . . . the medieval past by contrast as the Dark Ages . . .
This conceit of course was . . . the sign of an unacknowledged and unrec-
ognized transition from one stance of theoretical interpretation to another.
The Enlightenment is consequently the period par excellence in which most
intellectuals lack self knowledge . . . in which the blind acclaim their own
vision.232
Questions and answers weaving a rich ‘negative’ conceptual philosophical

and theological texture of values and meaning around human experience,
supporting its expression and development over centuries, became eradi-
cated from view. A new earth-bound vision focused on systematic rational
method and the stark facts of empirical sense-datum built upon a natural
anthropology, diminished humanity’s broader transcendent horizons. The
‘blind’ proclaiming this ‘vision’ were now ignorant of their ignorance. As
discussed in Chapter Two, this state, according to Socrates, is the greatest
evil as far as understanding is concerned. While Enlightenment empiricism
claimed to champion pure genuine human experience concealed under pre-
modern philosophical and theological conceptual interpretation, the reverse
was true. The hopes and desires of human experience and their pursuit of
satisfaction were, in fact, submitted to orderly and quantifiable methodolo-
gies borrowed from Descartes’ rationalism. Gellner notes:
They took for granted the orderly systematization of sensitivity. It was at
this point, in their tacit assumptions of symmetry and order in our proce-
dures, and not in the invocation of experience as such, that the real secret
of high powered modern knowledge is to be found. It was their rationalist,
methodical, orderly, puritan tacit assumptions, not their sensualist empiricist
slogans, which gave their doctrines their real power, their cutting edge.233
From these developments arose a contemporary Western society gov-

erned primarily by two core interrelated beliefs. These were first, the
power of pure reason able to be the ‘maistre et possesseur de la Nature’
and second, the deference given to scientific empirical ideology as the
criterion of truth. Moreover, concerning inner human development this
high-powered modern way of knowing as an objective epistemology
seeking the certainty of sense-datum can be described as the blind lead-
ing the blind. This has led to the formation of ceaselessly unsatisfied
consumers. As mentioned earlier, the desire for such certain knowledge
and the security it brings is the same impulse felt by acquiring new
things. Thus, the social theorist Zygmunt Bauman concludes with Gell-
ner that modernity has proved to be a failed romance with Puritanism,
attempting to methodologically and rationally order human passion and
desire. Moreover, in this attempt the Puritan diminished the wider hori-
zons of their satisfaction and in doing so became the consumer. Looking
backwards Bauman observes that
the failed romance with the Puritan . . . has turned into the consumer – in
every detail his opposite; a type guided by neither the ‘pleasure’ nor the
‘reality’ principle, but a ‘principle of comfort’ of sorts: a type who would
not stretch himself even in the name of pleasure, who would neither love
strongly nor hate passionately. Because the Puritan loomed large in intellec-
tuals’ plans and strategies for the better, rational society, the calling of this
particular bluff has been experienced by many contemporary intellectuals as
the most important event on the road from modernity to post-modernity.234
Consequently, the grand visions and explanations of human behaviour like

those offered by the apophatic tradition have disappeared. According to
MacIntyre,235 there have emerged three principal figures of the modern age
who deal with the consumer society. These are: (i) the bureaucratic manager,
(ii) the aesthete and (iii) the therapist. In the world of bare fact, the bureau-
cratic manager makes decisions, (not judgements because they require a
world of values) based on effectiveness, efficiency and expertise, serving
to retain power and authority. The aesthete is the sad modern consumer
of things whose desires are never satisfied. And the therapist, according
to Vardy and Grosch, keeps the ‘whole sorry cultural show on the road’.236
With these developments a new individual character was formed asserting
itself in a domain of instrumental means and the rational control of personal
satisfaction and human development. Gallagher claims that
a new sense of the individual entered Western culture . . . the develop-

ments in philosophy associated with Descartes, significant for the parallel
phenomena of rationalism and subjectivism. Intimately connected with this
rationalism is the Scientific Revolution with its stress on empirical criteria of
truth . . . From these precise beginnings modernity went on, in her interpre-
tation, to foster a new self-image of humanity – one rooted in the ‘principle
of utility’, and neglectful of larger horizons of personal action and creative
freedom.237
The modern character or identity is thus largely rooted in the ‘principle of

utility’ and is certainly neglectful of the larger horizons of personal action
and creative freedom offered by anything akin to the apophatic tradition.
However, the prominence of the therapist’s role in modern society suggests
that the modern mind is struggling to make comparable progress. Grosch’s
opinion is that, for MacIntyre, the contemporary cultural disaster results
from ‘the failure of philosophy to recognize the historical error of . . . sub-
scribing to the Enlightenment project of sacrificing almost everything to
the dictates of pure reason. Culture is now reaping the poor harvest sown
by philosophy in the eighteenth century.’238 MacIntyre and Grosch are not

alone in criticizing this poor harvest. Gellner, too, sees reason set against
passion which can only frustrate the development humanity most deeply de-
sires. This is not the logic and spirit of the erotic apophatic ascent of the soul
towards the self-transcending ecstasy of deifying union. Now, the pursuit of
human development is systematic, sober and orderly resulting in the welfare
state and the social worker. Similarly, Palmer argues that the modern way
of knowing has capped
the wellsprings of our passion to know. We have ignored the question of

origins because we imagine that knowledge begins as neutral stuff – ‘the
facts’ . . . The problem, we believe, is not how our knowledge arises but
how we use and apply those neutral facts. We think that knowledge itself
is passionless and purposeless. So our strategy for guiding its course is to
surround the facts with ethics, moral mandates meant to control the pas-
sions and purposes of those who use the facts . . . It is . . . employed in our
schools where the occasional course in values is offered as a supplement to
the standard factual fare.239
However, I shall show how the apophatic contemplative vision accommo-

dates the deepest expressions of human passion and desire associated with
the need to know. This is precisely because the tradition itself is drawn from
the wellsprings of humanity’s deepest desire to know the truth about values
and not simply those things associated with bare facts.
The invaluable insights from ancient philosophical elements in the
universal pursuit of human development which the transcendent horizons
of the apophatic tradition offer within the human person, defy the orderly
accounting of the bureaucratic manager and social worker. This is because
the transcendent anthropology of the human person in which their intimate,
hidden and highly personal constellations are rooted, makes them more than
just phenomena to be measured, predicted and quantified. The philosopher
Jean-Luc Marion writes astutely on this issue:
No phenomenon can be given to knowing, or be admitted into the limited

field of knowledge, if it does not accept being made into an object – in other
words, if it does not assume as its own the conditions of phenomenality
that the limits of our mind assign to it in advance . . . From that point on,
the phenomenon appears more than any object will ever appear . . . it is
withheld from any synthesis and from the least act that could constitute it
as an object. It escapes prediction because no quantity can predict its sum
from its parts. It bedazzles the gaze because its intensity does not recognize
any limit based on an absolute maximum that finite vision could tolerate. It
surges forth without equal, and so cannot be inscribed within an equivalent

relation with any anterior cause, substrate, or other substance.240
Accordingly, I maintain, the person remains a question that cannot be

answered because they are rooted in a divine nature that is incomprehensible.
What is ‘more’ than any object and defies reason’s mastery and control,
‘bedazzles’ all evidence drawn from fragmented facts. Marion continues
that we must acknowledge ‘the face of the other that imposes to me an
ever-renewed stream of intuition, challenging any attempt to master it’.241
This form of therapeutic ‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking
accommodating a person’s unquantifiable inner landscape is necessary
now more than ever. This is evident when Gellner compares the modern
conscious mind to a public relations department of a large turbulent firm
that is dominated by a secretive and divided management. Because of this,
the department has to content itself with issuing simplified accounts bearing
little relation to the real state of affairs. Gellner concludes: ‘Cartesian,
Humeian, and Kantian philosophy more or less correctly codified the
cognitive ethic of a new civilization. But as an account of the intimate
psychic life of its individual members, it is worthless.’242
These are serious criticisms of the modern way of thinking and the
‘ethic’ it produces. However, rediscovering valuable insights into human
development drawn from the apophatic traditions ancient philosophical
heritage offer a more creative exercise of reason and expansive view of the
inner human landscape. It is a conceptual re-visioning which aspires to be
more than the ‘ordinary psychological self’. Taylor would regard it as ‘an
attempt to uncover buried goods through re-articulation – and thereby to
make these sources again empower, to bring the air back again into the half-
collapsed lungs of the spirit’.243 Moreover, he sees such ‘hope . . . implicit
in Judaeo-Christian theism . . . in its central promise of a divine affirmation
of the human, more total than humans can ever attain unaided’.244 My
ensuing discussion will offer modern minds an alternative ‘negative’ way
of thinking as a re-articulation of the recovery of their deepest inner needs
and desires.
The Constructive (Post)modern Context: Other Solutions to the

Problematic
Clearly, Christian apophaticism is just one solution to some of the press-

ing personal and social problems confronting modern Western society. As I
have claimed, I want to offer this strong philosophical and spiritual heritage
as a way forward for a postmodern world which has seen the collapse of
metanarratives and the critique of modern reason. Recalling earlier discus-
sion of this apophatic contribution situated within the context of the demise
of faith and its relationship to reason, I now outline elements of constructive
(post)modern/colonial approaches which are sensitive to religion and the
spiritual. Armstrong’s comments are telling:
It is an enticing prospect. If Atheism was a product of modernity, now that

we are entering a ‘postmodern’ phase, will this too, like the modern God,
become a thing of the past? Will the growing appreciation of the limitations
of human knowledge – which is just as much a part of the contemporary
intellectual scene as atheistic certainty – give rise to a new kind of apophatic
theology?245
Significant liberation and feminist theologies which have sought to critique

modernity’s overemphasis upon instrumental reason offer new paths
of emancipation. My discussion is not an exhaustive analysis of post-
Enlightenment thinking or of these alternative solutions, but an outline
of their major contours. I am well aware of how postcolonial thinking is
critical of white, Eurocentric theological discourse but, as I have shown, my
retrieval of negative theology suggests that it is possible to go beyond such
categories. Therefore, this work remains distinct as a radical apophatic ‘state
of being’ ethical approach situated within a Christian ‘qualified dualism’. It
is a pursuit of human development that is rooted in the convergence of the
‘negative’ exercise of reason (logos) and the embodied revelation of Biblical
tradition (Word). And postmodern interest in it will reflect something of its
understanding of the fullest inner human development corresponding with
the collapse of reason and language ‘suddenly’246 in ‘an undivided and
absolute abandonment of oneself’ in the ecstasy of deifying union. 247
(Post)modernism, and its nihilistic extreme, does not consist in definitive
or stable propositions, but may be understood as an experience that seems
to both disrupt as well as guide modernity. (Post)modernism is, therefore,
generally described as an intellectual outlook arising after the collapse of
modernism, viewing the Cartesian notion of the sovereign autonomous
rational subject as an infant’s illusion of omnipotence. With religion pushed
increasingly to the margins of society, social scientists and philosophers
began deconstructing the metanarratives of science. They argued that reality
is still in some significant sense hidden from direct observation and common
sense. Science became criticized as logo-centric, and characterized by the
same inevitable urge as religion to find one central meaning for existence in
grand over-arching metanarratives.248
The first modern flush of optimism in the cogito’s power to be able to
master and control nature has reached a nihilistic halt in postmodernity.
Long accepted scientific pretensions have given way to acknowledging that
there remains an inability to name things adequately and growing doubt
if this is even possible. The poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal expresses this
(post)modern thinking: ‘My condition is, in brief, this: I have completely
lost the ability to think or say anything coherent about anything at all.’249
Nietzsche’s ‘death of God’ thesis is clearly seen as the ancestor of many
postmodern variants, in its central claim that absolute truth claims made by
the Enlightenment project are fragile. Soskice writes of Nietzsche’s thesis
that it ‘does not mean merely the end of theism but is, in a sense, the death
of any claim to absolute value . . . Postmodernist successors suggest that
the Enlightenment “project” itself, with its pretensions to objectivity and
universal truth, now stands in ruins. Man as privileged knower is dead.’250
However, paradoxically, such sentiments are creating favourable epistemic
and existential space within which the apophatic tradition might re-emerge,
along with other solutions. Such postmodern ‘reasoning’ and its wider
cultural experience, are giving rise to questions about ‘whether modern
humanity is sufficient unto itself, and whether in its claim to be able to live
without God and in its desire to exclude every dimension that transcends
its existence humanity is wandering into a dead end.’251 Bulhof and Kate
continue: ‘Contemporary thinkers, such as Adorno, Bakhtin, Bataille,
Derrida, Eco, Foucault, Levinas, Marion, Nancy, Taubes, and even Barth,
each in his own way feel a certain rapport with negative theology, but they
also wrestle with the problem of inheriting and adopting a tradition that can
no longer be presented as simply a copy of the past.’ 252 My thesis addresses
these very issues and concerns and offers a favourable space for one way
forward, resting upon a distinction between an intellectual, deconstructive
critique and a lived experience. Gallagher argues this important distinction,
while not completely separable, is best designated as ‘postmodernism’ and
‘postmodernity’; the former is
the more intellectual school of thinking associated with Lyotard or Derrida,

or even tracing its origins as far back as Nietzsche, and then to reserve
‘postmodernity’ for a wider cultural context that includes ways of life as well
as forms of thinking, and which can be viewed more as a ‘sensibility’, or as
‘postmodernity of the street’ . . . Both share questioning of the achievements
of modernity but whereas postmodernism seems to remain largely in
a mode of refutation, cultural postmodernity . . . goes beyond negative
critique and, in some instances, represents a search for liveable languages

beyond the narrowness of modernity. In short, there is a ‘deconstructive’
or even destructive element in the philosophies of postmodernism, whereas
postmodernity can be described as having two wings, one of existential
lostness and one of ‘reconstructive’ exploration of new frontiers.253
As modernity increasingly recognizes itself struggling to overcome ambi-

guity and a sense of ‘existential’ bewilderment accompanying it, there is
also the desire to explore new liveable frontiers and solutions. It is this latter
benign face of (post)modernism which has survived nihilistic contamina-
tion and shares concerns with the apophatic tradition. Williams writes that
if ‘apophasis is to declare kinship with postmodern thought . . . it cannot do
so tout court: there must be a denial of nihilistic postmodernism and those
readings of negative theologies which are affiliated thereto’.254 Ward sees
(post)modernity being open or receptive particularly to three theological and
ethical horizons, reflecting core elements within the apophatic tradition:
First, the role of the unsayable and unpreventable as it both constitutes and
ruptures all that is said and presented. Secondly, the self as divided, multiple,
or even abyssal, and therefore never self-enclosed but always open onto that
which transcends its own self-understanding (rather than simply being an
agent and a cogito). Thirdly, the movement of desire initiated and fostered by
the other, that which lies outside and for future possession, the other which is
also prior and cannot be gathered into the rational folds of present conscious-
ness.255
The unquantifiable ancient desire for eudaimonia and its apophatic

pursuit are manifest here, and ‘cannot be gathered into the rational folds
of present consciousness’. Because of this Bulhof and Kate also remind
us of the re-emergence of ‘negative theology’ at the present time viewing
the ‘“project” of modernity no longer as a glowing perspective, but as an
extremely risky challenge . . . characteristic of this critical undercurrent
in modern philosophy and literature that, in part, presupposes a creative
resumption of the heritage of negative theology’.256 The contemporary
social theorist Bauman’s observation that ‘Postmodernity can be seen . . . as
a re-enchantment of the world that modernity tried hard to disenchant’257 is
also an important one. Reason’s instrumental form might remain stubbornly
dominant and resistant to any such apophatic challenge, but the advent of
excessive consumerism is itself under threat and with it indications of a
desire for re-enchantment.
I will now outline the major contours of the solutions offered by
liberation and feminist theologies to the problematic of instrumental reason.

The major contemporary development of liberation theology arose out of
the experience of oppression and exploitation in South and Central America
in the 1960s and 1970s. Through it the word ‘liberation’ rather than the tra-
ditional notion of development came into common usage, arising from the
experience of the streets rather than from within intellectual circles. Its aim
was primarily about liberation from all forms of oppression that undermine
personal and planetary well-being in this world, rather than salvation in the
life to come. Liberation theology, therefore, starts with reflection on the re-
alities of human life and with an option for the poor as God’s favoured peo-
ple. This option is born of the scriptures which reveal the mystery of God
becoming incarnate in Christ amongst the poorest in a country under foreign
occupation. Like Christ, the poor are seen as a prophetic voice denouncing
oppression and injustice through the suffering of humanity. This largely
Catholic development of embodied theological focus or praxis of libera-
tion gave rise to base ecclesial communities whose struggles for liberation
incorporated personal and political dimensions.
Intimately linked with this emerging movement of liberation was that
of feminist theology arising in the 1960s out of the conviction that Chris-
tian thought and practice is inherently patriarchal and excludes women’s
experience. This situation was challenged most notably by Mary Daly and
Rosemary Radford Ruether in the United States and Kari Borresen and
Elizabeth Gossmann in Europe. They began challenging their churches to
be more inclusive of women’s experience and to be centred again around
praxis. Understandably, this is illustrated in both movements’ priority given
to activism in politics and through pressure groups within and outside the
Christian churches. Hogan writes:
Feminists drew on liberation theology’s conviction that Christianity neces-

sitates political involvement and work for the poor and oppressed groups
in which women form a major part. By the late 1970s this new synthesis
had evolved from being a branch of the women’s movement into a distinct
theological approach combining the political activism of feminism with a
critique of the Christian tradition.258
Situating itself within the context of (post)modernity, the kernel of this

distinct theological approach according to O’Murchu is the challenge
to rediscover ‘the feminine in men and women alike (also in the culture
generally)’.259 Despite diverging from my work’s aim of retrieving and
rediscovering valuable insights rooted in traditional theological reflection,
there remains a significant element of accord. In addressing the problematic
of instrumental ‘male’ reason this accord is evident in the retrieval and

rediscovery of the feminine voice and experience in human development.
Discussion will show this to constitute the heart of my argument’s
originality. This is evident in the heightening of the Platonic contemplative
priority of epistemic and existential tension which reaches breaking point at
the summit of apophatic ascent. My methodology, allied with the creative
and imaginative reading of the Platonic corpus I use to map developments
across each chapter of the via negativa’s ancient philosophical heritage, is
also key to rediscovering the feminine voice central to them. From the outset
these developments of the ‘negative’ pursuit of eudaimonia are aligned with
Penia the mother of Eros and not Poros the father.260
Feminist theology is fundamentally rooted in challenges against
patriarchy (the authoritarian male is set over against everything in life
which is to be conquered); androcentrism (the male takes precedence in all
relationships) and sexism (the defining and ordering of life by gender over
considerations of its social and cultural construction). These are understood
as interrelated aspects of the patriarchal will-to-power which no longer
serves people’s best interests or those of the cosmos.261 By trusting more
in an integrated understanding of personhood which give due regard to
embodiment rather than simply instrumental reason, women’s perception
of the emergence and unfolding of the whole of reality is viewed as being a
far more holistic solution to the issues which beset the contemporary world.
However, all forms of dualism qualified or otherwise, which pit emotion
against the intellect, the heart against the head, are seen as unacceptable and
harmful aspects of the patriarchal will-to-power which fragments the view
of life seen functioning as an organic whole. This means that feminist and
liberation theology is done, according to O’Murchu,
on the foundation stones of our experience. But it sharpens this orientation by

its quite deliberate choice to forego all dualisms . . . Life does not consist of
opposites, most of which are man-made constructs which empower the mas-
culine consciousness to conquer and subdue. Life is essentially one, where
opposites are better understood as complementary values. This outlook has
profound ramifications not merely for theology, but for all branches of con-
temporary wisdom and learning.262
This work will reveal an appreciation of the ‘profound ramifications’ of

empowering a feminine consciousness that resists the masculine seeking to
be ‘maister et possesseur de la nature’. However, the heightening epistemic
and existential tension central to this ‘negative’ pursuit of human devel-
opment mapped by my methodology does not ‘forgo all dualisms’. Quite
the reverse. As the apophatic ‘real thing’, it instead radically establishes

its ‘qualified’263 form as an irresolvable philosophical requirement of af-
firming that God works in history as both transcendent and immanent in
a non-accidental way in the incarnation of Christ. I argue, therefore, that
because of this and not despite it, apophasis profoundly reflects the central
concerns and aims of these contemporary forms of theology and spiritual-
ity. And it does so in the recovery of a holistic feminine voice which resists
the masculine seeking to master and control the deeper currents of human
development. Some feminists would be critical of this recovery, as it is
drawn from a conceptually flawed canon whose fundamental norms, like
reason and objectivity, might be termed male and Eurocentric.264 Yet they
constitute one of multiple readings in terms of on-going debate and major
disagreement over canonical figures. Charlotte Witt, writes, they are ‘in the
final analysis, disagreements within feminist philosophy over what feminism
is, and what its theoretical commitments should be, and what its core values
are.’265 Within this broad spectrum, I argue my work does find some common
purpose with these alternatives to the problematic, which as Williams writes
‘reintegrate the psychic and the corporeal, intellection and activity . . . ef-
fecting such an integration’. 266 However, importantly, and facilitated by my
methodology, unlike these other solutions it does so through ‘a negation of
the concept of God . . . as something dualistically transcendent to the world,
realizable only through a practice of death to the world’.267 Crucially, what
amounts to an irresolvable heightening of epistemic and existential tension
in the pursuit of the fullest human development is maintained by this work’s
apophatic priority, which ‘also avoids the trap of a one-sided negation which
would reduce the ultimate to the immanent and identify spirituality with
morality or aesthetics’.268
While encouraging the deeper reintegration of human experience, the
via negativa’s ‘qualified dualism’ never runs the risk of ‘reducing the ulti-
mate to the immanent’. Indeed, my retrieval of it radically maintains it by
re-establishing ‘no-nothing’ at the heart of authentic human development.
There have been notable other solutions offered to the problematic of in-
strumental reason, many of which are rooted in recapturing the importance
of the body to counter an over-insistence on modern forms of instrumental
reason, mentalism and cognitivism. The work of Shilling and Mellor269 for
example, on the sociology and epistemology of the body, is of particular
importance in this regard, but space does not allow me to investigate their
claims in any depth. However, my discussion of ‘qualified dualism’ dem-
onstrates how the body does not disappear but remains important within
the practices of negative theology. What these and liberation and feminist
theologies have in common is a drive to resist any dominance given to a

false or oppositional dualism, and to offer an alternative approach based on
a more holistic view of human nature. My thesis shares their concerns in
this regard.
CHAPTER TWO
THE PHILOSOPHICAL PURSUIT OF THE FULLEST
HUMAN FLOURISHING IN CLASSICAL THOUGHT
They would be very loath, I fancy, to admit the truth: which is that they are
being convicted of pretending to knowledge when they are entirely ignorant.
(Plato, Apology 23e, 24a-b)
A [person] of conscience is one who never acquires tolerance, well-being,

success, public standing, and approval on the part of prevailing opinion,
at the expense of truth. (Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on Newman’s
meaning)
Readings of the Platonic Corpus and Later Platonic

Philosophy
The development of Plato’s contemplative ideal is a central influence on
the Christian apophatic tradition. As subsequent chapters reveal, this con-
stitutes the foundations of its ancient philosophical heritage. But I first need
to outline the approach taken here to the reading of the Platonic corpus and
later Platonic philosophy. Complementing this approach, I will then begin
mapping my proposed methodology of the lectio divina framework across
this chapter as a clear step-by-step method along the lines proposed by
Funk. This will then be applied across subsequent chapters.
I pursue one particular avenue of reading and interpretation of Plato’s
dialogues focusing largely on The Symposium and The Parmenides. It is an
imaginative and literary avenue reflecting the methods of the ancient phi-
losophers and commentators who studied Plato and their attitudes to Plato’s
appropriation of Socrates. This reading follows through to a discussion of
the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus270 and its assimilation with the
embodied revelation of the divine Logos of Biblical tradition. Employing a
literary and imaginative approach remains true to the ancient philosophical
heritage of the Christian apophatic tradition itself. A comprehensive over-
view of the socio-historical location of Socratic and Platonic philosophy
is beyond the scope of this work.271 However, even with both approaches
taken together, Rutherford concludes: ‘Neither the origins nor the generic
status of the dialogue form can be firmly established: in the one case this is
a matter of lost evidence, in the other it reflects the genuine complexity of
Plato’s literary enterprise.’272
Clearly, irrespective of my choice of taking a literary and imaginative
avenue, no interpretation of the Platonic corpus can claim to be exhaustive. It
is generally accepted that Plato’s unusual combination of argumentative and
creative talents complicates any interpretative approach to his work, as does
his choice of Socrates as a major figure.273 Modern analytic philosophers, for
example, read Plato differently. However, taking a literary approach, Allen
provides an influential translation and commentary of The Parmenides in
what essentially is a metaphysical enquiry. But, he also writes: ‘The dia-
logue has not been exhausted. No interpretation can do that.’274 Rutherford
and Rowe also take an imaginative and literary approach in New Perspec-
tives on Plato, Modern and Ancient.275 This study brings together leading
philosophers and literary scholars. They investigate what are termed ‘new-
old’ approaches and their significance in creating distance from the standard
ways of reading Plato aimed at encouraging further exploration and innova-
tive engagement. Informed by currents in modern literary theory, they seek
to increase sensitivity towards interpreting the highly complex and elusive
set of texts of the Platonic corpus. These currents are reflected in my crea-
tive, literary and imaginative retrieval of key ancient philosophical texts. In
The Art of Plato, Rutherford writes: ‘No reading of Plato can be complete if
it neglects the artistry and versatility with which he uses a relatively novel,
and still developing, literary form.’276 Importantly, Rutherford also argues
that focusing on the dialogues’ literary style and interpretation, rhetoric,
irony, and imagery, complements any philosophical analysis of Plato. In
doing so, he draws connections between the dialogues and other genres and
styles of writing like the Greek tragedians and Thucydides. Unsurprisingly,
these interpretative considerations accord with the work of Pierre Hadot.277
Thus, my attempt to read Plato’s meaning in its full literary and philosophi-
cal integrity will remain partial and provisional at best. Equally, this applies
to those theological texts which assimilated Plato’s meaning while straining
towards ‘unknowing’ at the summit of the apophatic ascent.
Mapping Lectio Divina
Complementing my imaginative and literary reading of Plato and his pagan

interpreters, I will now begin translating my methodology of lectio divina
Human Flourishing in Classical Thought 71
into a clear step-by-step method. This means mapping the lectio framework
across each chapter using Funk’s four stages or categories. Recalling their
discussion in the Introduction this aims to immerse the reader in ‘a revela-
tory text’ which can be other than scripture,278 thus drawing wisdom from
these ancient ‘textual wells’ by listening inwardly ‘with the ear of the heart’
to a ‘different level of meaning’ at odds with those ‘discredited models of
a detached critical consideration’ which ‘seek to know . . . from the outside
only’.279 I will begin each chapter, therefore, by discussing how I mapped
the lectio framework across each using Funk’s four steps aimed at this ex-
plication of the central philosophical and theological texts used in each.
These steps or stages are the four voices of a text which correspond with the
four senses of the reader who hears or receives them. However, while they
are accepted as distinct for the purpose of mapping the lectio framework
across each chapter, they are not to be understood as being exclusively so.
Previous discussion stressed that the application of the framework of lectio,
meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio has never been viewed as a mechanical
procedure of separable and clearly defined stages. Neither, therefore, should
any stages or categories applied to it. Casey’s book, Sacred Reading: The
Ancient Art of Lectio Divina reiterates the point:
In particular this involves seeing lectio not only as a technique of prayer,

but also as preparation for contemplation. As a consequence there is a cer-
tain amount of overlap and ambiguity; much of what is said about reading
applies equally to prayer and contemplation, and vice versa.280
Funk makes it clear that applying her four categories onto this framework
is innovative.281 But, as a contemporary version of what would have been
learnt concerning the voices of a text in the fourth-century Alexandrian
School of Catechesis aimed at contemplative prayer, it is not incompatible
with tradition.282 Clearly, Benedict used lectio divina primarily to dispose
the monk towards being able to receive the gift of salvation. Importantly,
accepted by this work, this presupposed a willingness to be led and changed
by the voice of the text, as a disciple is by their master.
Hearing the literal voice mediated by the Platonic corpus
Discussion of this mapping of the first of Funk’s four steps corresponding

specifically with lectio has already been covered. Applying equally
throughout subsequent chapters, this concerns the logical mind or senses
of the reader specifically employed in studiously listening to the literal

voice of the Platonic corpus and later Platonic philosophy. Here, the logical
mind’s reading necessarily focuses upon current academic debate regarding
the interpretation and historical context of this corpus.283 Prior discussion
established that my reading corresponded closest to the imaginative and
literary approach. This stage of lectio is traditionally understood to reflect
how the words of scripture are taken from the eyes or ears into the mind.
Interestingly, according to Funk, this logical activity relates to the left brain
hemisphere whose problematic dominance I have illustrated previously in
Chapter One (p. 44) in the work of the psychologist McGilchrist.
Meditatio on hidden meaning/wisdom mediated by accounts of the life

of Socrates
Within the lectio divina framework, meditatio is mapped in each chapter

through Funk’s second step. Traditional understanding of meditatio sees the
mind engaged in repeatedly chewing over what it has taken in through the
eyes and ears during lectio. This produces the allegorical or symbolic voice
of the text that is grasped by the intuitive senses of the mind. This hidden
meaning or wisdom lies below the texts’ purely logical and literal interpre-
tation just discussed. In this chapter, these valuable insights begin emerg-
ing from their embodiment in the life of Socrates, thus attuning the reader
to their voice speaking of the development of the apophatic tradition’s
philosophical heritage. Drawing largely from The Symposium, the reader’s
intuitive senses chew over the paradox of his unrivalled erotic pursuit of
wisdom as an allegory of his constant state of aporia. Through meditatio the
intuitive senses hear this paradoxical Socratic allegorical voice beginning to
speak of the value in human development of ignorance and perplexity as the
precursor to negative theology.
Discerning the inner moral directing voice mediated by the

Symposium and Apology
The meditative pondering by the intuitive senses of the symbolic voice

mediated by accounts of Socrates’ aporatic pursuit of wisdom leads to
Funk’s third stage corresponding with oratio. Traditionally, the meditative
digestion of the sacred Biblical text is understood to lead to a response of
prayer (oratio) which in turn profoundly affects the person’s way of life.
It is a movement that further intensifies resistance against the creation by

instrumental reason of a growing dichotomy between inner and outer forms
of human development. Outwardly, the greater production and consumption
of material goods within a cult of personality overrides the necessary culti-
vation of the inner human landscape required for developing good character
and civil behaviour. Reflecting the need of the latter, Funk relates oratio to
discerning and heeding with one’s personal senses the inner moral directing
voice that is mediated by the text. Mapping this here focuses the reader’s
personal senses upon the inner call of the erotic pursuit of Beauty of Socrates
in The Symposium and The Apology. This inner directing voice mediated by
the text in the call of the Greek love of wisdom (philo-sophia) is heard, invit-
ing a moral and civil way of life. To begin understanding the demands of this
cultivation of mind and spirit is therefore simultaneously to understand the
pursuit in daily life of eudaimonia. Mapping oratio here sensitizes the reader
to this inner directing moral voice. Importantly, heeding this voice recon-
nects the reader with the deepest urgency of human nature with which it is
inextricably intertwined, that of pursuing eudaimonia. The voice is mediated
through the accounts of Socrates’ complete compliance with philosophy as
way of life in the pursuit of eudaimonia, making him choose death rather
than ‘living the unexamined life’ (Apology 38a). Importantly, this trajectory’s
inner moral directing voice as the precursor to that within the apophatic ascent
anticipates the self-transcendence of the personal senses which hear and heed
it. The daily life of Christian monastic tradition will especially typify the ac-
commodation of this inner moral directing voice.
The spiritual senses receive the mystical voice mediated by accounts of

Socrates’ aporatic pursuit of knowledge
Following this mapping corresponding with oratio is that of Funk’s fourth

stage corresponding with contemplatio. This is where the reader’s spiritual
senses receive the mystical voice mediated by the text: ‘The voice is
received by the spiritual senses. Just like our spiritual senses, we have eyes,
ears, touch receptors that “get” the message with wonderful proportion,
delight and surprise.’284 Traditionally within the lectio framework,
contemplatio is understood as a freer and spontaneous movement of prayer
and adoration beyond words and images of the experience of God himself.
Mapping this here understands that the anagogical mystical voice mediated
by the text will be received by the spiritual senses of the reader’s mind. This
voice will encourage a contemplative ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory that
will begin orientating the reader towards the summit of apophatic ascent
beyond words and images in Chapter Four. Beginning to anticipate this
apex of human development in this chapter, I map contemplatio through the
reader’s spiritual senses attending to the mystical voice mediated through
the paradoxical account of Socrates’ pursuit of certain knowledge while
claiming also to be wholly ignorant of it. This was a pursuit of certain
knowledge (episteme) or wisdom of the fullest human development. The
reader’s spiritual senses attune to the fact that such knowledge was the
property of the gods located in the Intelligible realm, and which blinded the
eyes of the prisoner escaping from the dim shadows of its reflections in the
Cave (Bk VII of The Republic). The mystical voice is heard giving some
paradoxical explanation of how Socrates was able to pursue such knowledge
while claiming to be totally ignorant of it. It also offers some account of his
intuitive ability to be able to reveal the absence of this knowledge through
his elenchus method in those who thought they possessed it. Speaking of
Socrates’ ignorance of divine knowledge of the fullest human development
anticipates the mystical voice again being heard at the summit of apophatic
ascent declaring that it will remain beyond reason’s grasp.
The Experience of Aporia as Precursor of Negative

Theology: the Socratic Pursuit of Wisdom as a Spiritual
Way of Life
Philosophical developments supporting the modern way of thinking which
attempts to manage and control the world rationally (discussed in Chapter
One) are now contrasted with Socrates’ thinking. Socrates happily recounts
to the Athenians the words addressed to him by the Oracle at Delphi: ‘The
wisest of you men is he who has realised, like Socrates, that in respect of
wisdom he is really worthless’ (Apology, 23b). Clearly, this insight from
reason’s exercise is different to that from its modern form made famous by
Descartes who declared that it would produce ‘maistres et possesseurs de la
Nature’. The explanation for this admission given by Socrates, central to his
pursuit of wisdom within a spiritual way of life, is evidence of this:
I still go about seeking and searching in obedience to the divine command,

if I think that anyone is wise, whether citizen or stranger; and when I decide
that he is not wise, I try to assist the god by proving that he is not. This oc-
cupation has kept me too busy to do much either in politics or in my own
affairs; in fact, my service to God has reduced me to extreme poverty. (Apol-

ogy, 23b-c)
The divine command transmitted through the Delphic Oracle is discussed

in detail in Chapter Three along with Parmenides’ poetic account of the god-
dess Night’s revelation of two Ways of Inquiry. These are understood as
important signs intersecting the Platonic contemplative tradition central to
the development of the apophatic tradition. Here is evidence of philosophi-
cal and theological thinking forming character representing a contemplative
pursuit of human development. This is reason developing philosophical and
theological values and meaning that its modern autonomous counterpart
has stripped from view in preference for the bare facts of empirical sense-
datum. While both are rational internalized ways of knowing, reason’s an-
cient exercise sought to transcend the person’s ego, not develop it through
its instrumental use rooted in empiricism. Socrates exclaimed:
I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and indicating
the truth for everyone that I meet. I shall go on saying, in my usual way:
‘My very good friend . . . are you not ashamed that you give your attention
to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and
honour, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the
perfection of your soul?’ . . . I spend all my time going about trying to per-
suade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your
bodies or for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls,
proclaiming as I go: ‘Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings
wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state.
(Apology 29d-30a)
The original word psyche is more consonant with Socrates’ understanding,

demanding of his followers intellectual and philosophic effort, rather than
religious which became associated later with the Christian usage of the
word ‘soul’. However, as my discussion continually shows, this effort or
care of the psyche or soul could not be disassociated from religious striving.
Importantly, the classical scholar Guthrie notes: ‘As Socrates understood it,
the effort that he demanded of his fellows was philosophic and intellectual
rather than religious, though the psyche did not lack religious associations
in and before his time.’285 With Socrates, therefore, notes Hadot, ‘Doing
philosophy no longer meant, as the Sophists had it, acquiring knowledge,
know-how . . . it meant questioning ourselves, because we have the feeling
that we are not what we ought to be. This was to be the defining role of the
philosopher – the person who desires wisdom.’286 And the wisdom that is
desired located finally at the summit of the Christian apophatic tradition, re-
veals itself as being unimaginably more incomprehensible than previously
conceived.
Importantly, in the Charmides,287 by contrast, Critias’ reaction towards
Socrates’ aporatic admission echoes many moderns, whose pursuit of
knowledge is enthused by its instrumental application supporting consump-
tive activity rather than divine sanction leading to contemplation. Fore-
shadowing the apophatic tradition, the Charmides is one of three canonical
dialogues of moral enquiry which ends in aporia. This experience of reason
encountering an insoluble problem or serious perplexity famously charac-
terized Socrates’ pursuit of wisdom. And it was Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi
who first reduced Socrates to aporia by declaring him to be the wisest man
in Athens, when Socrates knew he was not. Subsequently, unlike Critias, for
the rest of his life Socrates sought wisdom in others to check against this
claim and in doing so, reduced them to aporia: ‘I said to myself: “What is
the god saying, and what is his hidden meaning? I am only too conscious
that I have no claim to wisdom . . . He cannot be telling a lie; that would not
be right for him.” After puzzling about it for some time, I set myself at last
with considerable reluctance to check the truth of it’ (Apology, 21b).
The benefit seen here of aporia as the precursor to negative theology
echoes criticism of the dominance of reason’s Enlightenment form that
seeks to overcome all incomprehension. As discussed in Chapter One, with-
in the context of a constructive postmodernism, this criticism has resulted
in the re-emergence of negative theology in postmodern contexts. Burbules
argues that postmodern doubt is necessary for educational development as
it can
entail a high tolerance for difficulty, uncertainty, and error. Difficulty, in

this sense, is not simply the challenge of a problem to be overcome, but
sometimes the lingering difficulty of a problem never fully solved, a mystery
never fully untangled . . . Here difficulty, uncertainty, and error come to be
seen from the postmodern view, not as flawed states to be overcome, but as
ongoing conditions of the educational process itself.288
As a precursor to negative theology, Socratic aporia importantly represents

such an educational process. Ultimately, this is because the apophatic tra-
jectory is set towards knowledge of greatest value located at the summit of
its Christian ascent, a mystery that reason will never untangle; and indeed,
the person pursuing it remains a question that will never be answered. By
encouraging this distinctive rational movement, an epistemic and existential
capacity is encouraged for a participatory way of knowing within the dark-
ness of incomprehension. Crucially, arriving at the frustrating and impass-

able cognitive experience of aporia is not considered negatively as being the
same as a confused or vacusous state of mind. This is because the experience
of aporia forces itself upon one’s attention as a result of following a reasoned
train of thought, but one that has ultimately failed to go where expected and
is unable to progress further. Here is seen the developing heart of this ‘nega-
tive’ trajectory of human development as the irresolvable heightening of
epistemic and existential tension which reaches breaking point at the summit
of apophatic ascent. Drengson offers some useful observations:
We think of the world, and our place in it, in terms of what we know, and in
terms of what we think we know. Our libraries are filled with the fruits of
our ‘knowledge explosion’, but contain scant mention of our ignorance. Our
preoccupation with knowledge in both the abstract and the concrete often
prevents us from realizing ignorance close at hand, and this failure prevents
us from being aware of the open and unsettled character of much of human
life. It is difficult to characterize ignorance because it seems a negative
thing, and yet our ignorance, as much as our knowledge, defines or limits
our world for us, it is from the vastness of our ignorance that both our sense
of wonder and the sense of the sacred grow.289
Central to human development, the claim that a ‘sense of wonder and the
sacred grow’ from the vastness of human ignorance is explored throughout
subsequent discussions of Socratic aporia. Clearly, aporia was a positive
educational and existential experience impacting Socrates’ psyche or soul,
and from it grew a sense of wonder and the sacred. This exhibits a crea-
tive use of reason with wider scope, at odds with that seen in the negative
reaction of Critias towards aporia. This negative reaction is compounded
in the development of the apophatic tradition looking forward to reason
securing its greatest value at the point of its total collapse at the summit of
its Christian ascent. With divine sanction, Socrates’ recurrent consciousness
of the state of his own ignorance of wisdom made him the wisest Athenian
and the most effective in its pursuit. Correspondingly, Critias’ knowing, like
much today, stands accused of falsely claiming to be wise while remaining
ignorant of the inner human landscape that desperately needs cultivating.
Foreshadowing the apophatic tradition, Socrates makes the seriousness of
this charge clear: ‘For I think that nothing is so great and evil for a human
being as false opinion about the things that our argument now happens to be
about’ (Gorgias 458a,b). What was argued then, as now, concerned moral
opinions and attempts to define virtues or human excellence aimed ultimate-
ly at encouraging the fullest human flourishing. As Waterfield notes: ‘The
goal of all Plato’s dialogues, and his teaching in the school he set up, was to
get his audience to improve the quality of their lives-to live the good life, to
fulfill themselves as human beings, to attain happiness, to live as godlike a
life as is humanly possible.’290
Correspondingly, this Socratic charge went so far as to call such
ignorance of one’s ignorance of wisdom the ‘greatest evil’, and was
characterized by autonomous reason closed to anything defying its own
circumscribed ‘vision’. This is distinguished from the simple ignorance of
the mere lack of information. It is the ‘double ignorance’ of the absence of
knowledge coupled with the delusion of having genuine knowledge (Laws,
Bk IX). It also follows that the refutation of this cognitive evil becomes one
of the greatest goods: ‘And surely struggle against him we must in every
possible way who would annihilate knowledge and reason and mind, and
yet ventures to speak confidently about anything’ (Phaedo). I would argue
therefore that rediscovering these aporatic insights from this philosophical
heritage of the Christian apophatic tradition is a moral necessity. Speaking
for Socrates and anticipating these developments that begin with those of
aporia, Waterfield notes: ‘Our basic and worst sin, he thought, is believing
that we know something when we really do not, and aporia, unlike plain
ignorance, is a state where we are compelled to be aware of our ignorance
and will hopefully be motivated to do something about it’ Importantly then,
Socratic aporia or according to Blans, the irony of Socrates – ‘knowing the
unknowing’ – is certainly a valid precursor of negative theology’.291
Socrates’ elenchus292 method which he constantly practised achieved
this end. It consisted of a series of questions and answers raising moral
problems which could not be answered, or which ended in aporia. This can
be compared with the exercise of reason in the soul’s apophatic ascent that
ends in its total collapse at its summit. Aporia is first experienced producing
anger through being confronted with inconsistencies in one’s moral beliefs
and leaving no immediate answers in reply. A reason for this anger is that
these beliefs are likely to be heavily invested in by the person in the pursuit
of their human development. Crucially, this anger purges the soul of its con-
ceit of knowledge. This foreshadows the effect of thinking which encour-
ages an apophatic movement creating epistemic and existential space into
which can be received knowledge of one’s ignorance of the divine nature
and oneself. Humble acceptance of such cognitive impasse, and with it the
irresolvable heightening of epistemic and existential tension, is anathema
to modern autonomous reason. This was not so for the exercise of reason
which produced Plato’s contemplative ideal that was central to the apophat-
ic tradition. The classical scholar Mackenzie notes:
aporia forces itself upon our attention (cf. E.g. Apol. 23d4; Charm. 169c;
Lach. 196b2). This gives it an emotional dimension which Plato stresses
over and over again . . . So the person in aporia feels a sense of shame (e.g.
Charm. 169c3; Lach. 196b2), or of anger, of resentment or bewilderment
– with the notable exception of Socrates, who openly and even eagerly af-
firms his own aporia (cf. e.g. Charm. 165b8, 166c7ff.; 169c).293
Socrates then, unlike those with whom he dialogues, eagerly affirms his
aporia. This is because the certain conscious knowledge of his ignorance of
wisdom made his pursuit of it more earnest and effective – an impossible
exercise for those who remain ignorant of their ignorance. This is genuine
knowledge of great value about oneself, encouraging introspective scrutiny
of personal beliefs and values. If modern reason maintains this ignorance
of ignorance, the Delphic maxim ‘Know thyself’ can no longer inspire
the most profound Western pursuit of inner human development. Aporia
offers a way forward from this impasse, paradoxically by bringing to col-
lapse those beliefs that the modern mind holds dear. Revealed will be its
ignorance of the highly personal and intimate contours of the inner human
landscape which defy its attempts to comprehend and control. Yet the most
important aspect of human development will begin through the appalling
and dismaying knowledge to modern minds of such ignorance that is taken
to its extreme at the summit of apophatic ascent. This process could be dif-
ficult, but equally rewarding and attractive to many today; indeed, Socrates
reduced to aporia many in his own day while they were engaged in the
ordinary business of daily life.
The elenchus method was used by Socrates to examine and then refute
his interlocutors’ claims of wisdom, thereby reducing them to aporia. Jaeger
reasons that this was ‘the necessary complement to the exhortation’.294 By
reflecting the effect of the collapse of reason accompanied by the knowledge
of one’s ignorance of the divine nature and oneself, the experience of
aporia, ‘loosens the ground in preparation for the seed, by showing the
examinee that his knowledge is only imaginary’.295 This prepares a fertile
ground ready for an apophatic exhortation revealing one’s knowledge of
wisdom to be illusory, creating a capacity for a participatory knowing in
divine darkness that remains obscure, even as it is certain. Retrieving the
Greek philosophical foundations of the Christian apophatic tradition, which
are necessary for its full appreciation, aims precisely at encouraging this
paradoxical thinking in the pursuit of human development. And it is the
development of this ‘negative’ thinking that is traced into its convergence
with Biblical faith in Chapter Four ‘consonant with the nature of faith
itself’.296 In contrast, the reaction of Critias at being reduced to aporia by

Socrates is illuminating:
I got the impression that, thanks to my puzzlement, he too found himself,

against his will, in the snares of perplexity – much as people who see oth-
ers yawning in their presence find themselves yawning too. Given his high
reputation in every walk of life this was making him feel uncomfortable in
front of the assembled company. He was reluctant to admit that he couldn’t
settle the issues I was raising, and at the same time his attempt to cover up
his puzzlement was making what he was saying confused and confusing.
(Charmides, 169c)
The reaction of Critias’ character differs radically from that of Socrates.

Socrates, therefore, is an exemplar of those subsequently formed in the Pla-
tonic contemplative philosophical tradition which becomes central for the
emergence of the apophatic tradition.
Erotic Desire for Ultimate Beauty Characterized

byAporia
The formation of Socrates’ character was characterized by reason continually
reduced to aporia and happily declaring certain knowledge of the ignorance
of wisdom. This aporatic formation of character therefore establishes an
important precursor reflecting the development of character seen in the work
of theologians like Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius discussed in
Chapter Four. However, prior to discussing the development of the apophatic
tradition in more detail, we need to concern ourselves with the Greek erotic
desire for Beauty central to it, which motivated Socrates’ way of knowing
whilst happily accommodating the experience of aporia. Importantly, what
is noted here is that this form of reason takes full account of human passion
and desire. Hence, this ‘negative’ pursuit of eudaimonia will be seen to
invoke the deepest erotic human desire which will rise to meet the descent
of agape in the Christian tradition. As discussed in Chapter One, this also
shares the concerns of other solutions for a more holistic view of human
nature by rediscovering a feminine consciousness and voice that resists the
masculine seeking to be ‘maistre et possesseur de la nature’. The Platonic
understanding of Greek eros or ‘love’ runs through the Neoplatonism of
Plotinus and Proclus, resulting in the self-transcending ecstasy of deifying
union and the collapse of reason and language. Foreshadowed here is the
apophatic pursuit of human development characterized by deep human

desire and passion inextricably tied with the experience of cognitive
perplexity. Crucially, as discussion of the genealogy of Eros will show, the
apophatic trajectory is rooted in epistemic and existential poverty which is
retrieved as a way of knowing.
The Socratic concept of the pursuit of inner human development
anticipates the negative way of the radical heightening of epistemic and
existential tension of the apophatic tradition. This expresses the erotic desire
for knowledge of greatest value that remains always beyond reason’s grasp.
Importantly, it is a way characterized by poverty or by what is lacking. This
is expressed in the Symposium (385–380 BC) which is one of a series of
Platonic dialogues praising eros as the motivating desire in the pursuit of
Beauty itself. In it, Socrates is the quintessential philosopher taking centre
stage, first as a lover of wisdom (sophia) and discussion (logos). Secondly
he is an inverter or disturber of erotic norms evident in the dialogue being
a source of the concept of Platonic love. It concerns itself, therefore,
with the genesis, purpose and nature of love.297 The concluding speech
of the Symposium given by Socrates is the philosophical climax, largely
recounting Diotima initiating him into the mysteries of erotic desire or love,
which he argues expresses lack or deficiency of what is erotically desired.
Love desires Beauty because it lacks it: ‘Desire and love are directed at
what you don’t have, what isn’t there, and what you need’ (Symposium
200e). Eros (Greek for love), therefore, is understood as the most profound
of human desires or motivating forces leading to aporia which was Socrates’
recurrent conscious state.298 Eros was generally understood to be sexual in
nature, characterized by sexual desire and longing. The name of one of the
two Greek gods of love was called Cupid. Aside, Plato develops the idea
that love was aroused apprehending real Beauty embodied in human form.
The Form of Beauty itself was located in the Intelligible realm furthest
removed from its fragmented material representations. Consequently,
its contemplation alone could fully satiate the longing of love’s desire.
Directing reason’s gaze towards it meant exercising it as philo-sophia as a
spiritual way of life, and entailed apprehending the diffusion of Beauty in
its multiple material representations and then ascending towards Beauty’s
One simple immaterial source.
Socrates’ concluding speech in the Symposium suggests that sexual or
interpersonal love or desire is an expression of more certain profound and
universal types of desire or motivation. But Eros is placed by Plato in a
much broader framework than just that of interpersonal love. Importantly,
rediscovering insights from it for the present, as Jaeger argues, it ‘becomes
an epitome of all human striving to attain the good’299 which, as developed

in the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition, desires to attain union with the
Father. An earlier remark made by Aristophanes about eros is reinterpreted by
Socrates in light of this new and higher conception. This is worth mentioning
as it represents the development of the apophatic trajectory as the erotic desire
for wholeness characterized by an epistemic and existential lack or deficit.
Prior to this reinterpretation by Socrates, this wholeness was sought by eros
through physical love, attempting to reconstruct the individual’s own self:
love’s desire sought others like oneself, or one’s physical and individual other
half, in an attempt at reconstructing what is a ‘chance individual’. Aristophanes
explained love by drawing from a myth which claimed that human beings
were originally double the size, having four arms, two faces and so on. They
were also three genders, male, female and hermaphrodite. According to this
myth, Zeus cut them in half because of their perceived power. Consequently,
erotic desire seeks to reconstruct the original unity through sexual intercourse
and through social and physical proximity.
However, Socrates’ reinterpretation suggested that love’s desire seeks
the wholeness that it lacks, not in reconstituting an original individual unity,
but in transcending the individual ego by apprehending forever the Good
or Beautiful, thereby paradoxically finding one’s true self. This interior
trajectory towards a unified view of reality away from its many fragmented
material representations is taken up and radicalized in the development of
the apophatic tradition. Aristophanes, notes Jaeger, says that ‘Eros was a
yearning for the other half of our selves – that is, for wholeness. But it is
truer to say that by wholeness we must understand perfection and goodness.
We must take the completed whole to mean not a chance individual but
the true self.’300 True love of self then, is encouraged because it amounts,
says Pieper drawing from the Symposium (189c–193d), to ‘the desiring
and hunting for wholeness’.301 What begins with love’s desire for physical
beauty is now set towards the permanent possession of Beauty’s ultimate
Form in the Platonic contemplative tradition and thus set towards God the
Father in the Christian apophatic tradition. According to Jaeger:
Diotima gives a genuinely Socratic interpretation of the desire for the

beautiful . . . it is man’s yearning for perfect happiness, eudaimonia. Every
strong and deep urgency of our nature must ultimately be connected with
happiness, and must be deliberately guided and controlled with reference to
it. For it implies a claim and an aspiration to one ultimate supreme posses-
sion, a perfect good.302
Love’s desire, or the strongest and deepest urgency of our nature, must be
guided and controlled with reference to the perfect Good, which Diotima in-
structs Socrates to do by being ‘initiated in the rites of love . . . the purpose . . .
if they are performed correctly, is to reach the final vision of the mysteries’
(Symposium 210a). This final vision is the mystery beyond rational compre-
hension. Perfectly illustrating this is the account of the Beautiful Form of
erotic desire in the Symposium, towards which reason sets its contemplative
gaze which its modern autonomous form has restricted from view:
First, this beauty always is, and doesn’t come into being or cease; it doesn’t
increase or diminish. Second, it’s not beautiful in one respect but ugly in
another, or beautiful at one time but not at another, or beautiful in relation
to this but ugly in relation to that; nor beautiful here and ugly there because
it is beautiful for some people but ugly for others. Nor will beauty appear to
him in the form of a face or hands or any part of the body; or as a specific
account or piece of knowledge; or as being anywhere in something else, for
instance in a living creature or earth or heaven or anything else. It will ap-
pear as in itself and by itself, always single in form; all other beautiful things
share its character, but do so in such a way that, when other things come to
be or cease, it is not increased or decreased in any way nor does it undergo
any change.
‘When someone goes up by these stages . . . in the correct way, and begins
to catch sight of that beauty, he has come close to reaching the goal . . . if he
could catch sight of divine beauty itself, in its single form? Do you think’,
she said, ‘that would be a poor life for a human being, looking in that direc-
tion and gazing at that object with the right part of himself and sharing its
company?’ (Symposium 211a-b)
Encouraging reason’s contemplative gaze set towards the vision of divine

Beauty’s single form in the pursuit of inner human development is a crea-
tive opportunity offering to re-direct many moderns from the problematic
path discussed in Chapter One. The Orthodox theologian Louth notes that
‘The final vision of the Beautiful is not attained, or discovered: it comes
upon the soul, it is revealed to the soul. It is outside the soul’s capacity;
it is something given and received.’303 I argue that many moderns need to
learn how to be able-to-receive such knowledge which remains outside the
‘capacity’ of their present way of thinking.
Representing this apophatic re-education and epistemic and existential
re-orientation, the feminine voice of Diotima does not offer Socrates a ra-
tional analysis of perfect Beauty. Nor does she encourage his usual unique
individual pursuit of it. Instead, and in visionary style, the priestess initi-
ates Socrates into the mysteries of the rites of love. Even his undisputed
rational powers (knowing well his own ignorance of wisdom) were never
sufficient for this path towards the final vision. Diotima says: ‘Even you,
Socrates, could perhaps be initiated in the rites of love I’ve described so far
. . . and I’m not sure you could manage this. But I’ll tell you about them,’
she said, ‘and make every effort in doing so; try to follow, as far as you can’
(Symposium, 210a). Unusually in the Symposium, Socrates is not allowed to
triumph and silence his interlocutors. Instead, he is portrayed by Plato as the
naïve examinee recounting to his guests his conversation with the Manti-
nean prophetess concerning the real nature of erotic desire and what appears
to be the result of the sage’s revelation. Like the apophatic experience which
allows space into which can be received knowledge of one’s ignorance of
divine nature, Socrates is initiated into the rites of love. Diotima performs
the rite, step by step, through instruction that distinguishes between the
rite’s lower and higher degrees leading towards the last revelation which the
rite is preparing him to receive. This revelation is personal to Socrates, re-
flecting the personal form of the mystery-cults of Greek religion, as does his
description of the final personal satisfaction of the philosopher’s ascent.
The genealogy of Eros
While Socrates recounts this conversation with Diotima, the real charac-
teristics of erotic desire drawn from their genealogical cause begin to be
revealed. Importantly, they reveal movement towards the final vision char-
acterized by epistemic and existential poverty and not the rational mastery
and control of nature. From this genealogy, attention is directed towards
Eros’ mother and not the father; hence the real characteristics of erotic de-
sire are recalled by Socrates from the poetic eulogies made to it by the pre-
vious guest speakers to psychological reality. This genealogical reality of
the deepest erotic human desire and passion for eudaimonia roots it in what
one lacks. Eros strives to realize ultimate Beauty because he is not beauti-
ful. Plato makes the doctrine of Eros grow and unfold not from Agathon’s
mythic explanation but from this negative dialectic thesis.
Foreshadowing the via negativa, the doctrine of Eros grows from the
negative dialectic concerning what one lacks and cannot comprehend, and
illustrated in the genealogy explaining his birth from Poros (plenty) the
father and Penia (poverty) the mother. This erotic trajectory of negative
dialectic characterizes the work of all Christian apophatic theologians. The
portrait of Eros given by Alcibiades was really about Socrates, and that of
Diotima underlines significant features of the apophatic trajectory evident
in his definition. Importantly, according to Hadot, this was the ‘desire for
the beauty which all of us lack’.304 Accordingly, ‘For Socrates, love is a
lover. It is therefore not, as most people think, a god, but only a daimon; a
being intermediate between the human and the divine.’305 Unsurprisingly,
however, reflecting the apophatic trajectory and its benefit in human devel-
opment, Hadot adds: ‘The daimon has a relation both to gods and to men; he
plays a role in mystery initiations, in the incantations which cure maladies
of the soul and body, and in the communication which come from the gods
to men, both while they are awake and while they are asleep.’306 This erotic
pursuit of inner human development significantly traces its genealogy more
comfortably back to Penia (poverty) its mother. Poros (plenty), the father,
strikes a more familiar note with modern thinking, made autonomous from
any benefit from incantations invoking mysterious divine interventions that
cure maladies of the body and soul, even while asleep. This is understand-
able because, as notes Hadot, ‘From his father’s side, he gets his clever,
inventive mind (in Greek euporia)’.307 As a precursor to negative theology,
‘from his mother, he inherits the condition of a poverty stricken beggar . . .
Contrary to what the other guests assume, says Socrates, it is not the case that
love is beautiful. If it were, it would no longer be love, for Eros is essentially
desire, and the only thing that can be desired is that which one does not have.
Eros, then, cannot be beautiful: as the son of Penia, he lacks beauty.’308 Put
succinctly, many modern individuals have much to gain by learning to think
more like Penia, characterized by aporia, than like Poros which is charac-
terized by euporia. Retrieving this genealogy aims to encourage this aware-
ness and with it ‘negative’ thinking about human development aligned with
empowering a feminine consciousness and voice. Eros’ mother Penia came
begging at the end of a banquet held by the gods to celebrate the birth of
Aphrodite. Seeing Poros in Zeus’ garden asleep and drunk on nectar, she
perceived a way out of her destitution and deliberately lay with him and
conceived. Because of this, Eros, the son of:
. . . poverty, Love’s situation is like this. First of all, he’s always poor; far
from being sensitive and beautiful, as is commonly supposed, he’s tough,
with hardened skin, without shoes or home. He always sleeps rough, on the
ground, with no bed, lying in doorways and by roads in the open air; sharing
his mother’s nature, he always lives in a state of need. (Symposium, 203d)
This inheritance contrasts greatly with the characteristics that Eros inherits
from his father Poros, seen lighting a modern path of human development
which surprisingly caps the wellsprings of human passion and desire:
On the other hand, taking after his father, he schemes to get hold of beautiful
and good things. He’s brave, impetuous and intense; a formidable hunter,
always weaving tricks; he desires knowledge and is resourceful in getting
it; a lifelong lover of wisdom; clever at using magic, drugs and sophistry
(Symposium, 203d).
Since the Enlightenment, the euporia brought about by relentless tides of

useful facts and information and their presumed success consigns aporia
and apophasis as nothing more than redundant ancient history. However,
such euporia regarding inner human development might indeed have more
to do with sophistry and magical thinking than is recognized. Autonomous
modern reason has become an addictive drug of the mind maintaining igno-
rance of this ignorance, which in reality is its greatest evil. Retrieving this
genealogy of ‘negative’ philosophical thinking aims to bring the ignorance
of this sophistry and magical thinking back to the solid earth of problematic
existential, psychological and social reality. As will be discussed in subse-
quent chapters, the soul is better set contemplatively towards the One of
Neoplatonism which becomes God the Father in the Christian tradition.
This takes account of the deepest erotic human desire for happiness whose
wellsprings are capped by modern thinking. At odds with modern thinking
the classical scholar Remes comments:
In the ultimate unification with the One, the limits and conceptualizations
belonging to reasoning and intellection must be abandoned. Simplicity does
not allow conceptual multiplicity or inference. Some scholars have sug-
gested that it is first and foremost eros that helps the human soul in this final
leap. Certainly it must be the case that the motivation or desire (ephesis) to
ascend must be owed to the same awareness of lack that motivated the turn
in the first place.309
In exercising a more creative form of reason with transcendent hori-

zons, seen most effectively in Socrates’ initiation by Diotima into the ‘final
mysteries’310 of the rites of love, the true lover of wisdom can once again
achieve ‘immortality along with the good [through] Reproduction and birth
in Beauty’ (Symposium 206e).
The Veracity of the Socratic Claim of Ignorance
Ascertaining the truth of Socrates’ confident and unique claims to hav-

ing no knowledge of wisdom has created considerable academic interest.
Questions concerning the veracity of this claim of ignorance or deficit of

wisdom, accepted as being central to Socrates position, must be answered
before discussing the development of the apophatic tradition more fully.
Undermining its veracity would likewise affect the argument of this work.
So, what grounds can Socrates have for claiming any wisdom or knowledge
which are themselves not undermined by his claims to be ignorant of them?
Does Socrates really mean what he says when he claims to be ignorant of
knowledge, in light of a fact not disputed, that he consistently exhibited an
unusual ability to discern ignorance and confusion in others?
First, it would seem that Socrates when claiming both that he is the wis-
est of men (Apology 23b2–4) and also that he is ‘wise in no way great or
small’ (Apology 21b4–5) is guilty of a rational contradiction. This apparent
serious conflict of claims is most evident at the end of his discussion with
Callicles in the Georgia in which he boasts about the assured reasons he has
for maintaining a certain position and then claims also to possess no real
knowledge at all:
These things which have been made apparent to us in our earlier arguments,
as I say, are held down and fastened, if I may put it in a somewhat boor-
ish way, by reasons of iron and adamant; so at least it seems so far. And if
you, or someone more vigorous than you, doesn’t release them, no one who
speaks in a way other than I now speak can speak well. What I say is always
the same, that I do not know how these things are, but of those I happen to
meet, just as now, no one has been able to speak otherwise without being
ridiculous (Georgia 508e6–509a7).
Curiously, in no dialogue does anyone challenge Socrates about the clear in-
consistency in his position, evident, in this case, by claiming both ‘reasons
of iron and adamant’ quickly followed by declaring ‘I do not know how
these things are’. Resolving this apparent contradiction is critical. This is
because, if his claims of ignorance are bogus, so is the effect of his reason-
ing on the formation of his character. Norman Gulley311 in Philosophy of
Socrates claims that his profession of ignorance is insincere and really ‘an
expedient to encourage his interlocutor to seek out the truth, to make them
think they are joining with Socrates in a voyage of discovery.’312 There-
fore, Socrates’ profession of ignorance is bait to lure his interlocutors into
answering his questions, knowing that they will give wrong answers while
he knows the right ones. He then proceeds to reduce his interlocutors to
self-contradiction and confusion. This resolves his conflicting statements
because his claims of ignorance were insincere. If this is true, he could
have been untruthful about many other claims and any reliance upon their
authenticity used to support this thesis is severely undermined. Addressing

this criticism, however, the classical scholar Vlastos argues that Socrates’
position of having no moral knowledge is genuine. He satisfactorily re-
solves this unique paradoxical Socratic claim which is evidence itself of
possessing some moral knowledge. He argues:
To resolve the paradox we need only suppose that he is making a dual use
of his words for knowing. When declaring that he knows absolutely nothing
he is referring to that very strong sense in which philosophers had used them
before and would go on using them long after – where one says one knows
only when one is claiming certainty. This would leave him free to admit that
he does have moral knowledge in a radically weaker sense – the one required
by his own maverick method of philosophical inquiry, the elenchus. 313
This philosophical understanding of knowledge was acceptable to Socrates

and his contemporaries, who correspondingly saw a distinction between
what was knowledge (episteme) and certain and true belief or opinion
(doxa) which was not. This relates to the account of knowledge evident in
the Platonic scale of being along which the soul ascends towards the Intelli-
gible realm of Forms, most famously represented in the Cave allegory. This
understanding explains Callicles not charging Socrates with inconsistency
because he is reflecting this common understanding between two sorts of
cognition and, importantly, the value of those in pursuit of the fullest hu-
man flourishing. Both are operative and explain Socrates claiming posses-
sion both of knowledge which is really true belief or opinion (doxa) and of
genuinely being ignorant of having any knowledge at all, which is certain
knowledge (episteme):
Socrates. ‘But a little while ago you agreed that knowledge and opinion
were different.’
Glaucon. ‘Yes,’ he replied: ‘because no reasonable person would identify the
infallible with the fallible.’
Socrates. ‘Splendid,’ I said; ‘we are clearly agreed that opinion and knowl-
edge are different.’ (Republic Part VII, Bk V. 477E)
Clear differentiation is made between two general sorts of knowledge. One

sort of knowledge, episteme, renders its possessor wise in pursuit of what
is most profoundly desired, and the other sort, doxa, does not. Socrates can,
therefore, confidently claim knowledge of the former and ignorance of the
latter and in no way violates the integrity of his profession of ignorance.
Of these two types of knowledge, one radically weaker than the other, it is
certain knowledge or wisdom of which Socrates claims to be ignorant. In

each case, this is moral knowledge or knowledge of virtue which aims at the
fullest human flourishing. When Socrates was in a recurrent state of aporia,
he pursued moral or virtuous knowledge more effectively.
For Plato, speaking for Socrates in the middle dialogues, to qualify as
knowledge a cognitive state must possess infallibility which distinguishes it
from opinion or true belief. Socrates is therefore free to admit that he does
have moral knowledge but in a radically weaker sense and one required
from his elenchus. Vlastos notes that Plato distinguishes these two types of
knowledge by the cognitive state of being ‘inerrable’ (that which cannot be
in error) despite the same word being used by Plato and meaning only ‘iner-
rant’ (that which is not in error). In relation to the latter, this is seen when
Theaetetus tells Socrates, in contrast with what Glaucon told him, that true
belief is ‘not in error’ (Tht. 200E) and in the former sense when Socrates asks
Thrasymachus if rulers are ‘incapable of error’ (Rep. 339C1). Here, Plato
clearly uses ‘inerrable’ to mean that which cannot be in error, distinguishing
knowledge from true belief. Developing this distinction further would mean
that we know that P is true only when we possess the very highest degree
of certainty concerning the truth of P. In this respect, everyday knowledge
must be true but fallible. True belief, opinion or fallible knowledge fall short
of certainty and rest upon evidence which constitutes reasonable grounds
for belief but does not guarantee its truth. Vlastos explains this through a
common occurrence. Locking the door when leaving the house stands for P.
No one would hesitate to claim knowledge of this, but likewise, could not
claim it to be infallible knowledge because the evidence Q does not entail
the truth of P. It is reasonable to believe the evidence of my memory telling
me I turned the key in the door. But this is not infallible knowledge, because
it is also common for memories to go wrong. Normally, it would be unrea-
sonable to seek stronger evidence of P by returning to the house or phoning
a neighbour to check the door. Stronger evidence than this is not worth the
cost of disrupting normal daily living unless there was a serious danger of
being burgled, in which case, seeking to raise certainty about Q would be-
come reasonable. ‘The willingness to live with fallible knowledge is built
into the human condition. Only a god could do without it. Only a crazy man
would want to.’ And the reasons why only a god could do without fallible
knowledge that would likewise send a rational man mad, explains Socrates’
pursuit of wisdom characterized by aporia.
I conclude this chapter with Plato’s simile of a sea-captain found in
the Republic. The ‘true navigator’ illustrates the rude health of a character
formed thinking philosophically and theologically as a spiritual way of
life. This is seen as an alternative for many today who are represented by
the captain and his crew. Unsurprisingly, the captain and crew, like many
captains of society and their followers today, afford the ‘true navigator’
poor status. Socrates recounts this simile to Adeimantus to counter what he
thought was his jaundiced view of philosophers, regarding them as either
useless or dangerous to society. Socrates believed that Athenian society
was already corrupting the philosophic natures and character of its citizens.
And so the criticism of Socrates by Adeimantus who was amongst their
number:
it was impossible to contradict you at any point in argument, but yet that it
was perfectly plain that in practice people who study philosophy too long,
and don’t treat it simply as part of their early education and then drop it, be-
come, most of them, very odd birds . . . while even those who look the best
of them are reduced by this study you praise so highly to complete useless-
ness as members of society. (Republic, 487d)
Socrates counters this criticism, which is coloured by his dislike of the gen-
eral educational tradition of Isocrates begun by the Sophists which was cen-
tred on rhetoric, the art of public speaking and self-expression. Isocrates in
turn thought that Plato was too unrealistic, while Plato clearly thought that
Isocrates was superficial. However, in the simile, like much orchestrated
modern debate concerning how best to encourage human development, the
crew quarrel with each other about how to navigate the ship, each thinking
that they ought to be at the helm. The crew of the ship say that they ‘cannot
say that anyone has ever taught them, or that they spent any time studying’.
Sharing this ignorance of the crew like many today, the captain of the ship
is ‘similarly limited in seamanship’ and has
no idea that the true navigator must study the seasons of the year, the sky,
the stars, the winds and all the other subjects appropriate to his profession if
he is to be really fit to control a ship; and they think that it’s quite impossible
to acquire the professional skill needed for such control (whether or not they
want it exercised) and that there’s no such thing as an art of navigation. With
all this going on board aren’t the sailors on any ship bound to regard the
true navigator as a word-spinner and a star-gazer, of no use to them at all?
(Republic, 488b-489a)
The problem illustrated here is the belief that there is no such thing as a truly
liberal art of navigation. The philosophical and theological word-spinning
this entailed amounted to star gazing with no practical use at all.
Discussion now moves to the detailed treatment of the development of

the apophatic tradition’s ancient philosophical heritage from its germina-
tion with the rise of logos through to its flowering in Neoplatonism prior to
Christian tradition. This continues to offer the captains of a modern ‘broken
society’ an alternative liberal art of ‘negative’ philosophical and theological
thinking that will inform the navigation of a better course.
CHAPTER THREE
PURSUING EUDAIMONIA: RETRIEVING THE GREEK
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN
APOPHATIC TRADITION
‘To discover the maker and father of this universe is indeed a hard task.’
(Plato, Timaeus 28c)
Hearing the text’s literal voice mediated by accounts of the rise of logos
I will begin by mapping Funk’s four steps of the lectio divina framework
across this chapter. The first of Funk’s four categories has the logical mind
of the reader studiously employed in listening to the text’s literal voice
mediated by accounts of the rise of logos. Appreciation of the crucial im-
portance of this emergence of Greek reason as a powerful objective law-like
principle governing the cosmos is revealed here. This attunes the reader’s
logical mind to the emergence of this philosophical voice of logos evident
in Heraclitus and ensuing developments within the Platonic tradition.
Without hearing this literal voice of logos throughout these developments,
the Christian apophatic tradition (which emerges from the convergence of
Greek reason and Biblical faith) cannot be fully appreciated. Reiterating
this work’s scope and rationale, this step of the logical mind attending to
the literal voice of the emergence of logos and subsequent developments, is
necessary for a full appreciation of its apophatic culmination. In those who
will develop it, this will be the convergence of faith and Greek logos under-
stood as being consonant with the nature of faith itself.
Meditatio on the deeper significance mediated by accounts of logos’ ordering

of the pursuit of eudaimonia and the emerging shadow of its limitations
Next, meditatio is mapped as the mind repeatedly chews over the significance
of accounts of the powerful emergence of logos which it has taken in through
the eyes and ears during lectio. Through meditatio the intuitive senses of the
Greek Philosophical Foundations of the Christian Apophatic Tradition 93
reader’s mind are able to begin to grasp the deeper symbolic voice behind this
rise to power of an objective law-like principle governing the cosmos. Listen-
ing meditatively to this symbolic voice awakens intuitive insight not only into
the value of logos in its ordering of the pursuit of eudaimonia, but also insight
into the emerging dark shadow of its limitations. The reader’s intuitive senses
through meditatio attune to the dark side of logos concealed behind the blaze
of its new power and mediated by two accounts of human flourishing which
begin powerfully casting this Platonic shadow of doubt.
Discerning the inner moral directing voice mediated by accounts of

growing doubts about logos
Insight from the meditative pondering of these accounts leads to the map-
ping of oratio, traditionally understood as a response of prayer which also
profoundly affects the way a person lives life and their expectations from
it. This corresponds to Funk’s third stage, discerning and heeding through
one’s personal senses the inner moral directing voice mediated by accounts
of growing doubts about logos. As with oratio, this stage is characterized by
the expansion of the reader’s insight into human development being inextri-
cably entwined with hearing and heeding the inner moral directing voice. The
questioning of the power of logos by this voice will establish in the reader
crucial insight into the epistemological and existential ramifications that now
begin to play out at the heart of the pursuit of eudaimonia. The reader’s per-
sonal senses, therefore, are attuned to this voice in growing appreciation of
the difficulty of pursuing eudaimonia within the establishment of the view of
One unified reality over that of the constant flux of Heraclitus. This growing
appreciation of increasing existential and epistemological tension is mediated
through the text’s inner moral voice now directing the pursuit of eudaimonia
within the sensible world as Plato’s contemplative ideal. Crucially, constitut-
ing the ancient philosophical heritage of the via negativa, the accommodation
of this established tension at the heart of human development becomes evi-
dent within the Christian ‘qualified dualism’ of apophatic ascent.

growing frustration in discovering ‘the maker and father of this universe’
Corresponding with oratio, this movement of the reader’s personal senses

of growing appreciation of the irresolvable heightening of existential and
epistemological tension leads to that corresponding with contemplatio.

Mapping this with Funk’s fourth stage sees the spiritual senses of the reader
receive the mystical voice mediated by the text. These accounts reveal this
growing frustration of the desire for the fullest human development in the
experience of the disciple of Neoplatonism which Plato famously anticipat-
ed in his observation that ‘To discover the maker and father of this universe
is indeed a hard task’ (Timaeus 28c). As the first developments of apophatic
theology, the spiritual senses receive the mystical voice that is mediated
through accounts of Plotinus and Proclus achieving self-transcending union
with the new rarefied One. This new realization of the pursuit of eudai-
monia is heard by the spiritual senses in the mystical voice of accounts of
a new inward move of self-recognition which overcomes the fragmenting
effect of reason and language. Likewise, the freer and spontaneous inward
movement of the readers’ spiritual senses are able to receive with ‘delight
and surprise’ this mystical voice from accounts of the ecstatic ‘blooming’ of
Greek intelligence which overcomes the fragmenting effect of reason and
language. Corresponding with contemplatio, this stage attunes the reader’s
spiritual senses for hearing the voice of the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-
Dionysius in Chapter Four. This voice will constitute the radical apophatic
culmination of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia.
The Genesis of the Apophatic Tradition:

The Rise to Power of Logos
This chapter, therefore, begins tracing the development of this process
with the rise of logos314 which continues through that of Plato’s contempla-
tive ideal and flowering in the Neoplatonism of late antiquity. It will then
achieve its fullest embodied expression in the Christian ‘qualified dualist’
view that makes possible the self-transcending ecstasy of deifying union
discussed in Chapter Four. From their germination, it will become increas-
ingly apparent that these valuable insights into human development from
another time and place offer a resource for living in the present as they did
then. This is precisely because they remain those rooted in the ‘truths of
faith and of reason, both in the distinction and also in the convergence of
those two cognitive fields’ (see Chapter One, p. 21).
The origins of this form of negative philosophical and theological
thinking begin with the cosmological speculations of the first Pre-Socratic
philosophers who were robust speculative thinkers about nature as a whole
(600–469 BC). They were largely concerned with the nature, structure and
origin of material reality. The speculations of these natural philosophers

(mainly those of Heraclitus and especially Parmenides) were taken up by
Plato and then developed in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus, are
seen finally flowering in the Christian apophatic tradition. Crucially, this
was a movement first characterized by the rise of logos or reason in search
of reality’s ultimate material stuff, becoming one in search of a transcendent
realm from which it was furthest removed. This means that reason becomes
contemplatively set towards Plato’s Intelligible realm of Forms and away
from the bare empirical facts of sense datum. In this Intelligible world, the
Ultimate Form of Beauty and Goodness becomes the Father in the Christian
apophatic tradition. Central to this apophatic contemplative trajectory is
reason. But unlike its modern form, its ultimate value is paradoxically af-
firmed by achieving its total collapse at the summit of Christian apophatic
ascent. This contemplative apophatic trajectory entails a shift from precise
linguistic descriptions of material reality towards silence when attempting
to account for its simple immaterial source. This is the beginning of negative
theology. Spanning over a thousand years, the desire (eros/love) to know the
truth necessary for inner human development began exercising reason in
the spacio-temporal realm of empirical experience that concluded directing
its gaze contemplatively towards the realm of metaphysical intelligence.
Corresponding with this contemplative gaze was the darkening shadow of
doubt cast over reason’s scope to comprehend the divine nature.
Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes were the first to initiate cosmol-
ogy as an empirically based, scientific study of the world, thus seeking its
natural explanation. This was unique because such explanation and thinking
was distinct from that which had given rise to the religious and mythologi-
cal explanations dominating the then known world. What characterized this
new quest for natural or scientific explanation of the cosmos was unsurpris-
ingly, the rise of reason or logos. According to the classical scholar Long,
‘Early Greek philosophy is nothing less than the discovery of “the cosmos”,
the realization that the world as a whole has a structure which will reveal
itself to rational inquiry.’315 A concept of nature independent of myth and
traditional religion was in the making. Unavoidably, following this think-
ing about the cosmos would be the same concerning the human condition.
Philosophical concepts of human nature resulted, particularly those relat-
ing to what constituted real knowledge or that which is of greatest value
for its growth. This knowledge became located in the Platonic Intelligible
realm of Forms foreshadowing its residing with the ‘Father’ in the Christian
tradition. Naturally, these first stirrings of speculative natural philosophy
or scientific reasoning which swirled around the trading city of Miletus,
heralding the rise of logos, are rightly described by the classical scholar
Hussey316 as ‘a revolution in thought’. Here, a rational account of reality
independent of myth and religion was first identified and given pride of
place. Understanding this new consciousness in the development of the rise
of logos is important since it led also to growing concerns raised by Plato
about its power and scope.
The rise of logos in an increasingly constrained rational sense (thereby
somewhat intolerant of its prior mythic expression) first plays a major role
in Heraclitus. Heraclitus understands it as being an objective law-like prin-
ciple governing the cosmos. Importantly, this meant that it was present in
both the world and the human mind, making different forms of reasoning
possible. This understanding of the reasonable universality of logos meant
that Heraclitus was the first to apply philosophical thought towards its so-
cial function (none more important than in pursuit of human development)
as it was common to all things. Consequently, for Heraclitus, exercising
reason philosophically amounted to speaking one’s mind with logos and
thence being in accord with the intelligent ordering principle in all things.
With Heraclitus, despite maintaining that the ultimate nature of reality was
one of constant flux, logos was still seen as the rational ordering principle
within it, to which the human mind had access when thinking philosophi-
cally. For Heraclitus, it was not in vain, notes the philosopher Barnes, that
he directed people towards ‘Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise
to agree that all things are one.’317 In doing so, he is the first philosopher to
hold that logos and being in accord with it, though difficult, will have the
effect of renewing lives both individually and socially. This is because hu-
man reason was not autonomous from an intelligent ordering source (divine
Logos). Resulting from this intelligent ordering source of human reason in
the words of Heraclitus:
Those who speak with the mind cannot but strengthen themselves with that
which is common to all, just as a city makes itself strong with its law and
much more strongly than this. For all human laws are nourished by the one
divine law; for this holds sway as far as it will, and suffices for all, and pre-
vails in everything.318
Like Socrates, Heraclitus has no desire to impart new and ingenious meth-
ods of pursuing knowledge. Rather, he hoped to make the pursuit of wisdom
more effective by awakening consciousness to this nourishing and ordering
divine Logos to which human reason had access and with which it could be-
come in accord. Here are Penia’s characteristics in love’s desire for the truth
which human reason lacks. Thus, epistemic and existential re-orientation set
towards what will be Plato’s Intelligible realm of Forms begins creating the
capacity to be able to receive knowledge of the greatest value. By becoming
more awake to this thinking, it was possible to create a community bound
by philosophical insight encouraging contemplative insight. Resulting from
the valuable philosophical insights of Heraclitus, argues Jaeger, the concept
of law is established. For the first time,
the idea of ‘law’ has appeared in philosophic thought . . . it is now regarded

as the object of the highest and most universal knowledge . . . extended to
cover the very nature of reality itself . . . a shift of meaning . . . already . . .
foreshadowed by the designation of the world as an ordering-together or
kosmos . . . traced back to the older philosophy of nature.319
Logos was now regarded by Heraclitus as the object of the highest and most
universal knowledge available to human reason according to which every-
thing occurs. However, while Heraclitus calls on humanity to follow and
awaken to the logos or divine law and obey it, importantly Jaeger notes that
‘it still remains hidden from mankind’.320 Consequently, the emerging theo-
logical or divine aspect of logos, as Peters suggests, becomes the ‘underly-
ing organizational principle of the universe . . . a stable state . . . though it is
hidden and perceptible only to the intelligence’.321 While logos is the reason
why the cosmos is intelligible, it still remains hidden from humankind and
a characteristic of its pursuit of eudaimonia.
What is clear at this juncture is that the rise of logos as a rational princi-
ple, both human and divine, was at the heart of attempts to give an impartial
account of the material world. Moreover, it was seen to be highly success-
ful. The philosopher Mortley notes this ‘must have caused a certain amount
of exhilaration, just as the progress of science in our own century has caused
tremendous confidence in its stability and problem-solving capacities’.322
Exhibiting the Greek tendency to objectify reality through reason explains
the later creation of the verb to ‘enreason’ (logo). Mortley writes that this
was important in the ‘history of ideas since it shows that a new aspect of
the word logos was endeavouring to assert itself. Logos becomes a Force,
or principle of rationality at work in reality. It becomes an existent.’323 Cor-
responding with this reality, the rise of logos, or this force or principle of
rationality, becomes central in the development of negative thinking.
Logos was seen as being so successful that it became regarded as an
originating intelligent ordering principle with a concrete existence of its
own. From the Pre-Socratics to Aristotle, sceptical doubt could not under-
mine belief in its power. The only shadow of doubt tied in with his contem-
plative priority, is cast by Plato in his dialogue The Parmenides, which is
taken up in the development of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition.
The success of logos, or human reason, was presumed equally to continue
when applied to the pursuit of human flourishing within the logos’ order-
ing of the cosmos. An important point is reaffirmed here: the propensity for
exercising logos as a unique characteristic of the Greek mind was directed
towards theological thinking. Nowhere is this more evident than in the de-
velopment of the apophatic tradition discussed in Chapter Four. This is not
always appreciated, a fact that this work aims to address. Jaeger notes that
‘theology is also a specific creation of the Greek mind . . . a mental attitude
. . . characteristically Greek, and has something to do with the great impor-
tance which the Greek thinkers attribute to the logos, for the word theologia
means the approach to God or the gods (theoi) by means of the logos’.324
The great value accorded to logos by the Greek mind was equally evident
in the development of theological speculation and in natural accounts of the
cosmos. Importantly, Jaeger observes, ‘the religious problem is so closely
tied up with the problem of cosmogony, which sets the cognitive faculties
in motion and puts them to work on the problem of the divine nature, that
. . . religious quality follows inevitably’.325 The religious quality resulting
from this exercise of Greek cognitive faculties is seen in the heightened
religious sensibilities and epistemic and existential tension associated with
the Platonic contemplative tradition. This religious quality will continue as
Greek ‘negative’ reason converges with Biblical faith within the frame of a
grand interconnected vision of the whole of reality. Moreover, this quality
will be seen to express and accommodate the depths of human desire for
the ecstasy of deifying self-transcendence; this unlike anything produced
by reason’s autonomous and instrumental form which suppresses human
passion, presuming that it will comply with methodical, orderly, puritan
tacit assumptions.
Before discussing these contemplative developments aligned with Pla-
tonic criticism of logos as the first stirrings of the apophatic tradition (origi-
nating in Middle Platonism), the other important consequence of the rise of
logos requires some discussion. This is because the shadow of doubt cast
over it by Plato had similar ramifications regarding the scope of language.
Recalled here is consciousness of the exhilaration caused by the early suc-
cess of logos which resulted in classical Greek life being dominated by
words. The ordinary Greek citizen in a flourishing Athenian democracy was
bombarded by words, primarily in the form of rhetoric, but also through
poetry, drama and of course, philosophy and theology. Consequently, its
citizens who wished to gain positions of power and influence had to master
the use of words and language. An analogous situation is seen with Mac-
Intyre’s three principal figures of the modern age to which I have already
referred (page 59). All these characters rely heavily on the use of words in
order to deal with a consumptive society as opposed to a contemplative one.
The philosopher Picard makes this observation:
In this world of today in which everything is reckoned in terms of immedi-

ate profit, there is no place for silence. Silence was expelled because it was
unproductive, because it merely existed and seemed to have no purpose.
Almost the only kind of silence that there is today is due to the loss of the
faculty of speech. It is purely negative: the absence of speech. It is merely
like a technical hitch in the continuous flow of noise.326
Prefiguring educational endeavours today resulting in an uninterrupted flow

of instrumental babble, for a fee, travelling Sophists would meet the desire
of those seeking positions of power and influence by providing the required
instruction in the skilled use of oratory and rhetoric. These skills could make
even weaker arguments seem the stronger, like many politicians use now in
order to retain power and influence. More worryingly, these skills were also
hopelessly used by leaders of society to manage, control and make useful
the deepest passions and desires of the inner human landscape. Retrieving
what Picard would describe as language rooted in silence and central to
the development of the apophatic tradition, aims to stem the modern flow
of pragmatic rhetorical noise capping the wellsprings of human passion
and desire. Rediscovering this ancient contemplative characteristic in the
development of the via negativa will also empower a holistic feminine
consciousness of human development resistant to this fragmenting babble
which seeks to ‘master and control nature’.
In ancient Athens, young people through non-specialized contact with
the adult world received training aimed at forming an excellent character
(arête). Sophists, however, became professional teachers and pedagogues.
Immortalized in Plato’s dialogue of the same name, Protagoras represents
the relativism of their thinking and approach in the claim that ‘Man is the
measure of all things, of those that are, and those that are not that they are
not.’327 Sophists like Protagoras, whom Plato accused of relativism, ‘in-
vented education in an artificial environment – a system that was to remain
one of the characteristics of our civilization.’328 In this they began teaching
Athenian youth the rhetorical formulas for persuasion and control for which
Plato and Aristotle would reproach them as being ‘salesmen of knowl-
edge, mere retail-wholesale businessmen’.329 Those who sought to flourish
subjected themselves to this new Sophist business of education, mirroring

much educational endeavour today. In this new ‘business of education’,
Sophists would proudly display their knowledge and oratorical skills to ap-
preciative audiences. Conversely, Turner comments:
the apophatic tradition seeks by means of speech to pass over into silence.
For the ‘apophatic’ is what is achieved, whether by means of affirmative
or by means of negative discourse, when language breaks down. The ap-
ophatic is the recognition of how this ‘silence’ lies, as it were, all around the
perimeter of language.330
As discussion reveals, the philosophical foundations of the apophatic tradi-

tion are rooted in silence and expressed in Pieper’s notion of leisure being
the basis of culture.331 This is precisely because this ‘negative’ trajectory of
human development pushes reason and language to breaking point as they
strain to speak of knowledge located beyond their grasp.
The first stirrings of discontent concerning logos and language as a flow
of noise were witnessed by Socrates. He observed that Athens itself began
spawning those who were weary of the age of logos, a class of word hat-
ers and misologists, warning of the ‘“danger . . . we must guard against.”
“What sort of danger?” I asked. “Of becoming ‘misologic’, he said . . . No
greater misfortune could happen to anyone than that of developing a dis-
like for argument”’ (Phaedo, 89d). Importantly for the development of the
apophatic tradition, Mortley notes, growing criticism of logos began as a
parasitic ‘second phase activity, coming after the first flush of enthusiasm
for language and scientific discourse’.332 The philosopher Franke observes:
Negative theology arises at a very advanced stage in the development of

rational reflection in any given culture, a stage where the founding myths of
that culture, and lastly language itself as the foundation of all culture, come
into question. At this point, language can no longer be used unself-con-
sciously as having a direct grip on reality and as simply delivering truth.333
Postmodernity’s renewed interest in apophatic texts and thinking is evi-

dence that contemporary culture has reached a similar stage. Modern reason
is increasingly seen as perpetuating a myth, that of lighting a sure path in
the pursuit of the fullest human development. Following Nietzsche’s an-
nouncement that ‘God is dead’, the philosophers Bulhof and Kate note that
‘The “death of God” . . . announces not only the death of the “old god”
– the god of philosophers, theologians, and believers – but also the death
of the modern god who set himself on his own throne: autonomous human
reason.’334 With this death also comes the demise of the verbosity of in-
strumental language. ‘With the death of this “new god,” might a sensitivity
reappear for transcendence, for difference, for the sacred, for negation, in
short, for religion?’335 My aim is to encourage this sensitivity by retrieving
the philosophical foundations of the apophatic tradition’s contemplative
language of silence.
Parmenides’ Idea of One Reality: The Emerging

Philosophical Foundations of the Apophatic Tradition
Before discussing the doubt that Plato (especially in his dialogue The Par-
menides) cast over the power of logos, let us look at Parmenides’ work
which will inform us of what became of Plato’s contemplative priority. This
focuses on his crucial idea of One unchanging reality which, via Plato, will
eclipse the influence of Heraclitus throughout Western philosophical tradi-
tion. By raising the status of logos discussed previously, Heraclitus under-
stood reality or the essential truth of the cosmos which logos permeated and
maintained to reside in the constancy of its impermanence or incessant flux.
This contrasted profoundly with Parmenides who regarded it as one and un-
changing. Consequently, Heraclitus’s notion of plurality, becoming, change,
motion, flux, and so on are, for Parmenides, illusion and unreality, despite
what our senses may lead us to believe. Parmenides states:
Being is ungenerated and indestructible, whole, of one kind and unwaver-

ing, and complete. Nor was it, nor will it be, since now it is, all together,
one, continuous . . . That it came from what is not I shall not allow you to
say or think — for it is not sayable or thinkable that it is not . . . How might
what is then perish? How might it come into being? For if it came into being
it is not, nor is it if it is ever going to be. Thus generation is quenched and
perishing unheard of.336
This fundamental philosophical difference between Parmenides and Hera-

clitus became encapsulated in what is described as the battle between the
one view of reality over that of the constant flux of the many. At its heart,
which Plato sought to resolve through his theory of Forms, will be the dif-
ficulty of explaining the coming-to-be of the cosmos from one undivided
unchanging reality. More important are the epistemological and existential
ramifications of this thinking in the Platonic contemplative tradition, encour-
aging the soul to strive to ascend back from the fragmented many towards its
one immaterial source, seen in the famous Cave allegory. This internalized
contemplative ascent of the soul worked out in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus
and Proclus directly influences the same towards the ‘Father’ in the negative
theology of Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius. Mortley notes:
the negative method is intimately involved with the major epistemological

themes of Greek philosophy, and so can be said to stem from Parmenides,
and the Academic treatment of the One. It involves a whole range of Greek
ideas, including the notions of unity, being, reason, thought and the logic of
prediction. It is a matter not only of Greek logic, but also of ontology, since
it involves the notion of the incremental generation of reality, by interrelated
and interconnected stages.337
These interrelated and interconnected stages of the generation of reality

are discussed later, because correspondingly for the soul, their reverse was
believed to be the route of ascent back to its source. Consequently, Par-
menides’ view of one unchanging reality remains key in the development
of the apophatic tradition regarding the soul’s ascent back to its source.
Tracing these developments within the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradi-
tion means framing them against the view of one unchanging reality, not
its many fragmented representations. These epistemic and existential de-
velopments of the Western philosophical wisdom tradition are echoed in
the Western Christian tradition. Barnhart argues that ‘we begin to think of
contemplation as an experience of nonduality or of pure consciousness . . .
At this point we are confronted with the challenge to integrate this unitive
understanding into our Christian theological vision.’338 Retrieving the philo-
sophical way of thinking of the apophatic tradition realizes this challenge in
the radical experience of ‘nonduality’ or ‘pure consciousness’ evident in the
ecstasy of self-transcending deifying union. Yet it does so by maintaining
the challenge of heightening epistemic and existential tension at its heart
rooted in a Christian ‘qualified dualism’ consonant with Patristic tradition.
As Greek logos is discussed converging with Biblical faith this is seen to
be philosophically required by the affirmation that God works in history as
both transcendent and immanent in a non-accidental way in the incarna-
tion of Jesus Christ. Apophatic reasoning has, however, always retained
greater prominence in the Eastern than the Western Christian tradition. The
Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius, according to the Eastern Orthodox
theologian Vladimir Lossky, ‘constitutes the fundamental characteristic of
the whole theological tradition of the Eastern Church’.339 The contemplative
experience set towards one simple unified and incomprehensible view of
the reality of no-thing receives greater accommodation in the Eastern than
the Western Christian tradition. Notable exceptions include the anonymous

author of the Cloud of Unknowing, Nicholas of Cusa and St John of the
Cross.
Importantly and with far reaching ramifications, Parmenides’ doctrine
of one unified reality discarded the illusory way of sense-appearances. The
philosopher Copleston argues that this introduces a ‘radical distinction be-
tween the Way of Truth and the Way of Belief or Opinion’.340 Essentially,
this sets a distinction between two forms of reason which become two ways
of pursuing human development. Parmenides’ distinction, issuing from a
poetic account of divine revelation is discussed next, as being one of two
signs clearly intersecting with Plato’s contemplative priority.
Deciding for Parmenides (as Plato did), amounted to deciding against
Heraclitus, whose unity through opposites was seen to break the principle
of non-contradiction and provided no solid basis for knowledge. Long notes
that a world of constant change seemed unable to ‘provide any facts of
unchanging truth value for knowledge to take as its objects’.341 Parmenides’
view of reality was the only way to secure knowledge (but not without the
problems that Plato identifies). As revealed by later discussion of Plato’s
treatment of Parmenides’ thinking, it becomes, as the philosopher Stead
observes, ‘enormously influential; the next generation of philosophers had
to make a crucial decision for or against. Again he was deeply respected by
Plato; and his concept of unchanging being left its mark on the traditional
Christian doctrine of God.’342
Two Signs Intersecting with Plato’s Philosophical

Contemplative Ideal Foreshadowing the Development of
the Apophatic Tradition
The inspiratio of Apollo’s theia mania
Before discussing Plato’s treatment of Parmenides’ thinking, two signs

intersecting with his contemplative priority are identified. These are the
inspiratio of Apollo’s theia mania and Parmenides’ poetic account of the
goddess Night’s revelation of two Ways of Inquiry. These further illustrate
its epistemic and existential trajectory set within the frame of One unified
view of reality, aligned with growing doubts over reason’s (logos) capac-
ity to comprehend. Importantly, these show reason welcoming and being
enthused by the revelation and inspiratio of theia mania by those who
remain considered as exemplars of its highest exercise. These are, first,

expressions of the highest exercise of Greek cognitive faculties, and sec-
ond, the inspiratio of divine revelation which defies its grasp. These signs
illustrate the element of inspiratio or enthusiasm transmitted by divine
revelation, encouraging the exercise of reason as philo-sophia in a spiritual
way of life central to the development of the apophatic tradition. The en-
thusing of reason with divine inspiratio sets it along the way of ‘negative’
philosophical and theological thinking which culminates in divine madness
(theia mania). In Christian tradition this becomes realized in the unimagi-
nable ecstasy of self-transcending deifying union at the summit of apophatic
ascent. Perfectly illustrating this characteristic of reason’s divine enthusing,
the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:
All divine revelation is impregnated with an element of ‘enthusiasm’ (in the

theological sense). Nothing can be done for the person who cannot detect
such an element in the Prophets and the ‘teachers of wisdom’, in Paul and
John . . . Nor can anything be done for the person who persists in denying
the fact that all of this quenches and more than fulfils the human longing
for love and beauty, a longing which, previous to and outside the sphere
of revelation, exhausted itself in impotent and distorted sketches of such a
desperately needed and yet unimaginable fulfilment.343
Retrieving the philosophical foundations supporting the apophatic way

of thinking laid by the Greek ‘teachers of wisdom’ will also encourage
openness towards the value of reason’s divine enthusing. Moreover, this
offers the full appreciation of this valuable insight in the pursuit of eudai-
monia as this enthusing of Greek reason converges with that of Biblical
faith. Without the appreciation of this divine ingredient of the apophatic
tradition’s philosophical and theological heritage (identified especially
characterizing these two signs associated with the Greek ‘teachers of wis-
dom’), the longing for love and beauty by many moderns exhausts itself in
the way Balthasar suggests.
Divine inspiratio or ‘enthusiasm’ was a profound component within
Greek cognitive life, augmenting innate knowledge of fundamental truths,
or sparks of logos, brought out by philosophical thinking. This inextricable
association between divine inspiratio and Greek philosophical thinking is
seen particularly in the transmission of Apollo’s divine wisdom. At Del-
phi, the Greek god Apollo was a source of ancient wisdom which through
Socrates and Plato laid the philosophical foundations of the Christian apo-
phatic tradition. Apollo, like the goddess Athena, embodied this ancient
wisdom and justice which was an important source of reason’s enthusing
in the flourishing of Greek society. These embodiments of divine wisdom,

particularly in Apollo, were trusted signposts directing the sure pursuit of
human development (eudaimonia) characterized by philosophical think-
ing. By acknowledging Apollo as embodying wisdom (which I discuss in
relation to Parmenides’ poetic account of the goddess Night’s revelation
and Plato’s treatment of his thinking), I also mark the beginnings of the
epistemic trajectory of the apophatic tradition: namely the movement away
from the many fragmented representations of the soul’s immaterial source.
The word ‘Apollo’ was understood to mean the absence of multiplicity and
the absolute unity of the highest principle.344
Unsurprisingly, Apollo replaced both Hyperion and Helius as a god of
the sun and was often called Phoebus or Phoibos Apollo, an epithet mean-
ing ‘bright’. He was the god of light (enlightenment) and of the sun and
the overcomer of darkness representing both reason and self-control. The
imagery of the divine light of reason, drawing its human form like a moth
back to itself, permeates the Christian tradition, especially with the intro-
duction of important new thinking by Gregory of Nyssa. The Delphic for-
mula ‘Know thyself’ also suggests the process by which this knowledge is
revealed, being both an epistemic and existential movement of internaliza-
tion in accord with the divine light of reason evident in Christianity. Hadot
comments that ‘the philosopher recognizes the presence of divine reason in
the human self . . . This new meaning appeared even more clearly among
the Neoplatonists, who identify what they call the true self with the found-
ing intellect of the world and even with the transcendent unity that founds
all thought and all reality.’345
The method used by Apollo to reveal the divine brightness of wisdom
(which reduced even Socrates to aporia and cognizance of his ignorance) is
evident in the fact that of all the Olympian gods, Apollo was most closely
connected with oracles. Through them, he taught humankind the art of
prophecy, but most importantly, the associated theia mania and divine en-
thusing of reason transmitted to humanity, established the value of losing
the sovereignty and self-sufficiency of human reason. For many moderns,
this thinking is truly divine madness (theia mania), echoing Protagoras’
thinking that, ‘Man is the measure of all things’. How different is this to
Socrates’ position when he declares: ‘I shall call as witness to my wisdom
(such as it is) the god of Delphi’ (Apology, 20e). Among the ancients such
as Socrates and Plato, the inspiratio of divine revelation transmitted through
Apollo’s Pythia (the Oracle at Delphi who was the priestess at the temple
of Apollo), was clearly not seen as conflicting with the highest exercise of
Greek cognitive faculties. This thinking says much about the development
of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition and of the inspiratio of the di-

vine Logos becoming flesh. So, the heart of the single word ‘inspiratio’,
used by Virgil concerning the oracle at Delphi, saw reason enthused. This
meant it became open to the non-rational elements of the soul which are
its deepest passion and erotic desire, unlike that of its modern autonomous
form laid bare before empirical facts. Of the Pythia, Pieper notes that the
‘god Apollo “breathed into her the richness of the spirit”. The name for this
“breath”, of course, is inspiratio, inspiration!’346
Resulting from this enthusing of reason with the breath of divine inspi-
ratio, Socrates in the dialogue Phaedrus discusses four different types of
theia mania or divine madness. To modern thinking, theia mania resulting
from this inspiratio might suggest nothing other than madness. Plato, in
the dialogue Phaedrus, also has Lysias and Socrates posit the corruptive
and evil nature of madness. However, in the Great Speech, Socrates paints
a more complex picture relating to the inspiration of theia mania saying of
it: ‘but in fact the best things we have come from madness, when it is given
as a gift of the god’ (Phaedrus 244c). The four types of madness are later
classified as gifts from Apollo, Dionysus, the Muses, and Aphrodite. Conse-
quently, the Great Speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus, notes the philosopher
Graeme Nicholson, ‘gives a greater place still to the non-rational elements
of the soul’.347 Moreover, these deeper currents of human passion and desire
pursue their fullest satisfaction in ascent towards an incomprehensible unity
realized at the summit of the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition. This
represents the conception of the human person or anthropology upon which
the Christian understanding is built, summarized by Rahner’s definition as
‘the question to which there is no answer’. This means that the fullest hu-
man development and its pursuit defies the grasp of reason and language,
remaining rooted in the incomprehensible language of silence.
Exercising reason as philo-sophia as a spiritual way of life guards
against the barren intellectualism seen in Lysias’s address devoid of all
forms of eros. This enables the soul to take flight to heights even beyond
those sketched in the Phaedo, the Symposium and the Republic. The name
mania was given in honor of the oracle’s art because the ancients, writes
Pieper, ‘testified that more venerable than human reasonableness is the theia
mania, the god-given and enthusiastic state of being-beside-oneself’.348
Holding theia mania, or the state of being-beside-oneself more venerable
than human reasonableness, echoes the logic of the soul’s apophatic ascent.
Clearly, this logic illustrates an alternative conception of human nature to
that which, since the Enlightenment, roots reason in a natural anthropology
closed to the transcendent. This thinking, open to the inspiratio of theia
mania which can force autonomous reason out of the ignorance of believing
in its self-sufficiency, offers an important way forward for human develop-
ment. This philosophical and theological way of unknowing would militate
against the excesses of consumerism by encouraging contemplation and a
more beneficial use of leisure.
Apollo’s oracles revealed humanity’s future and hidden things, political
and especially personal. The Panhellenic sanctuary at Delphi contained his
most important oracle in the Greek world to which ordinary people, along
with representatives of states, came to ask Apollo questions of every sort.
The Platonist philosopher and historian Plutarch (46–120 CE) interpreted
the Timaeus literally, and his educational theory was used by Clement of
Alexandria in writing a treatise entitled Stromateis; according to this inter-
pretation, Pythia, the prophetess of Apollo, uttered the responses of the god
upon entering a trance after inhaling sweet-smelling noxious fumes coming
from deep fissures underneath the temple, which she sat astride on a tripod.
Despite this, the classical scholar Joseph Fontenrose349 notes that just once,
but often cited, is there a record of Pythia being hysterical and incoherent
leading to the mistaken assumptions of her irrational and delirious state when
being Apollo’s mouthpiece. However, notes Fontenrose, as a representative
of Apollo the oracle ‘went through a process of receiving his inspiration. She
would show herself inspired, enthusiastic; her emotion would affect her utter-
ance . . . After a session . . . the pythia feels calm and peaceful.’350 Plutarch,
when presenting the doctrine of Phaedr and relating the word mania to the
oracle, supports the correction of the mistaken view of the oracle being al-
ways delirious and incoherent when prophesying. Recalling discussion earlier
about Socrates’ claim that there is good mania when it is a gift of the gods, the
doctrine of Phaedr also understands there to be an unhealthy mania produced
by the body and its healthy counterpart. The healthy mania is the counterpart
of that produced by the body because it is from participation in divine power
which does not produce ‘uncontrolled and irrational frenzy. Confusion arises
from translating mania as “madness” or “insanity” . . . Yet mania, especially
as Plato and Plutarch use the word, means a high state of emotion and com-
prehends all kinds of transport, enthusiasm, and inspiration.’351
The theia mania transmitted by Apollo through his oracle, especially
with the transport and enthusing of Greek cognitive faculties it brought,
was clearly understood as being of a kind which human reason alone was
unable to fashion. Despite being exemplars of the power of logos, many like
Parmenides, Socrates and Plato were certainly not repulsed by the inspiratio
of this divine madness. Presenting themselves to be the exemplars of logos,
it is safe to argue that these ancients sought the enthusing and transport of
their reason through divine madness, seen at Delphi. The famous admoni-
tion ‘Know thyself’, which Socrates took to heart, represents this.
All this reflected a lively Athenian city state. The father of history, Hero-
dotus, tells how the oracle’s guidance was instrumental within a flourishing
Greek polis in leading the Greeks to victory against the Persians. Moreover,
the lyric poet Pindar’s knowledge of the ways of the Temple so impressed
the priests that they set up a throne for him which was cherished after his
death. Retrieving ‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking as a core
of liberal education, grounded in the maxim ‘know thyself’, will address the
present imbalance and is a pressing concern. Here, rediscovering valuable
educational insights will re-establish the pursuit of human development with
its deeper currents through the loss of the rational sovereignty of its autono-
mous and instrumental form. Leaders of modern society might wish to take
note of the personal and civic benefits afforded by the inspiratio of divine
madness seen at Delphi, and safeguarded in the apophatic tradition. Pieper
notes:
the effects of the Delphian oracle, especially when aimed at the political
arena, can hardly be overestimated. Its oracles contained religious and
ethical demands found practically nowhere else in the pre-Christian world
formulated with such consistency and intensity . . . not only is the inviola-
ble right to asylum proclaimed here, and . . . the custom of the blood feud
denounced, but the earliest rules for a more humane conduct of war, indeed
for some kind of ‘international law’, can also be traced back to the Delphian
Oracle.352
All these factors are further illustrated in the account of Apollo’s entry into
the world upon which sacred swans circled the island seven times, as it was
the seventh day of the month. Because of this, the seventh day of the month
was the day the Pythia became Apollo’s mouthpiece, revealing the inexora-
ble will of Zeus. Interestingly, the seventh day of the week is still associated
with rest from instrumental activity and recalls discussion of Pieper’s think-
ing concerning leisure as the basis of culture, and of a truly liberal educa-
tion. Next, the swans first flew Apollo north to their own country on the
edge of the ocean, which was home to the Hyperborean people. The point
here is that the Hyperborean people were a supremely happy race for whom
life was sweet. Upon visiting, Apollo became their high god and continued
to visit at certain times to receive their homage.
Parmenides’ poetic account of the goddess Night’s revelation of two

Ways of Inquiry
The second more obvious sign intersecting with the Platonic contemplative
trajectory is Parmenides’s poetic account353 of his personal revelation from
the goddess in ‘the halls of Night’ of two ‘ways of inquiry’. The ‘ways of
inquiry’ are the governing motif of the revelation. Parmenides was trans-
ported along such a way to the goddess in ‘the halls of Night’ by a chariot
driven by higher powers than reason alone could afford. Here, he receives
a revelation from the goddess who is mistress of this realm of two Ways of
Inquiry, correspond to the divine inspiratio and enthusiasm of his thinking.
The goddess begins:
And now you must study all things:

Not only the unshaken heart of well-rounded Truth
But also mortals’ opinions, in which there is no true reliance.354
Not surprisingly, the poem as a specific description of a mystical journey

sees Parmenides cast himself as an initiate into the mysteries of Orphic-like
ceremonies, like Socrates’ initiation into the rites of love by the priest-
ess Diotima. Consequently, in Parmenides’s poem, it was higher powers
than human reason in the form of a team of mares driven by daughters of
Helios that bore his carriage ‘as far as my heart desired’ to ‘the gates of
the pathways of Night and of Day’. Clearly, Parmenides’ description of his
experience represents fixed features of a type of religion. This is evident in
Parmenides’ account. Jaeger observes:
we encounter a highly individual inner experience of the Divine, combined

with the fervor of a devotee who feels himself charged with proclaiming
the truths of his own personal revelation and who seeks to establish a com-
munity of the faithful among his converts. Indeed, the ‘philosophical school’
was originally nothing but the secularized form of just such a religious con-
venticle. When Parmenides laments that mortals ‘roam about’ on the path of
error, or speaks of their ‘wandering minds’, this suggests the language of the
religious revival.355
This corresponds with the heightening of religious sensibilities that are

discussed in the Neoplatonic disciple, who like Pseudo-Dionysius in search
of wisdom attended the Schools of their masters Plotinus and Proclus. Like
Parmenides, they humbly reflect the ‘motif of the initiate which informs
Parmenides’ portrayal of himself as one whose encounter with a major
divinity has yielded a special knowledge or wisdom’.356 In this case, it is

noteworthy that the special knowledge or wisdom that is revealed is from
the goddess who appears to be Night herself. Parmenides is greeted by
the divinity in ‘the halls of Night’ (Fragment 1.9), welcoming him to ‘our
home’ (Fragment 1.25). Reflecting the aporia of Eros’ mother Penia and
that of apophatic ascent, reason’s exercise is seen encouraging an inter-
nalized movement towards the Night of the unknowing of divine nature.
Importantly, this contemplative movement of the soul or psyche is also
away from the fragmented representations of its One unified simple imma-
terial source. This is clearly illustrated in the goddess Night’s instruction to
Zeus on how he can preserve his unity when absorbing the created order of
things during the initiation of a new cosmological phase:
goddesss Night serves as counselor to Zeus in some of the major Orphic

cosmologies . . . In the closely related Orphic Rhapsodies, Night instructs
Zeus on how to preserve the unity produced by his absorption of all things
into himself as he sets about initiating a new cosmogonic phase. It is thus
appropriate that Night should be the source of Parmenides’ revelation, for
Parmenidean metaphysics is very much concerned with the principle of
unity in the cosmos.357
After welcoming Parmenides to her abode, the goddess Night starts to

describe the revelation that he is about to receive, declaring: ‘You must
needs learn all things,/ both the unshaken heart of well-rounded reality/ and
the notions of mortals, in which there is no genuine conviction’ (Fragment
1.28b–32). Understandably, the route driven by the sun-maidens taking
Parmenides to the goddess’ abode to begin learning of the ‘well-rounded
reality’ did not go ‘through all the cities’ like a second Odysseus, wan-
dering through the lands and towns of men. On greeting Parmenides, the
goddess Night says: ‘O young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers/
and mares who bear you as you arrive at our abode,/ welcome, since a fate
by no means ill sent you ahead to travel/ this way (for surely it is far from
the track of humans),/ but Right and Justice did’ (Fragment 1.1–28a). This
developing ‘negative’ way of knowing never resulted in Parmenides ever
becoming ‘maistre et possesseur de la Nature’, but concerning his inner hu-
man development it was one that was never ill fated.358 Moreover, this path
of human development was trod by the philosophical personality bearing
knowledge inconceivable to modern minds. The philosophical personality
is for the first time considered as a bearer of knowledge of a higher origin,
and travelling unscathed towards the summit of apophatic ascent.
Tellingly, the first of the ‘ways of inquiry’ in the important Fragment 2 is
classified as that of Being or of ‘the unshaken heart of well-rounded reality/

true reality’, which is ‘What Is is ungenerated and deathless,/whole and uni-
form, and still and perfect’ (Fragment 8.1–4). This is ‘the path of conviction,
which follows the truth’ and ‘constitutes one of the philosophical tradition’s
earliest, most extensive, and most important stretches of metaphysical
reasoning’.359 Here Parmenides was stating a fundamental principle of ra-
tionalist philosophy arguing that there was a correspondence between this
one well-rounded reality and human reason (logos) able in some degree
to apprehend it. This correspondence is made clear in Parmenides’ famous
phrase, ‘thinking and being are the same’.
However, as discussion of Plato’s dialogue The Parmenides will show,
Parmenides’ rationalism also raised serious epistemological and ontologi-
cal difficulties that would play out at the heart of the development of the
Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition. Against this way logically follows
the second way of Not-being, but no sooner is this introduced than it is set
aside as a ‘path wholly without report’. Immediately, the goddess speaks of
another third way. This intermingles being and not-being, characteristic of
mortal inquiry and those Socrates would describe as remaining ignorant of
their ignorance of wisdom:
These things I bid you ponder.

For I shall begin for you from this first way of inquiry,
then yet again from that along which mortals who know nothing
wander two-headed: for haplessness in their
breasts directs wandering thought. They are borne along
deaf and blind at once, bedazzled, undiscriminating hordes,
who have supposed that it is and is not the same
and not the same; but the path of all these turns back on itself.
(Fragment 6)
This poetic account of divine revelation vivifies Parmenides’ philosophical

proclamation of a way of thinking in pursuit of inner human development
set towards the ‘unshaken heart of well-rounded reality’ which is the truth
about Being. This is opposed to that rooted in mere appearance that ‘be-
dazzles’ the ‘undiscriminating hordes’ resulting in the ‘notions of mortals,
in which there is no genuine conviction’. This form of reason which dis-
tinguishes between an Intelligible realm of unchanging truth and one that
merely reflects it in shifting opinion, is articulated in Plato’s famous Cave
allegory. Together with this, the Biblical account of Moses’ ascent of Mount
Sinai will be used by Gregory of Nyssa (he makes an important change to
the motif of light, equating it with knowledge of the divine) and Pseudo-
Dionysius to explain the Christian soul’s ascent. Therefore, the goddess

Night warns Parmenides not to allow his thought to proceed along the way
typical of mortal inquiries:
But you from this way of inquiry restrain your thought,

and do not let habit born of much experience force you along this way,
to employ aimless sight and echoing hearing
and tongue. But judge by reason the strife-filled critique
I have delivered.
(Fragment 7)
The last directive of the goddess warns Parmenides to restrain from forming
habits of thought too reliant upon ‘experience’ if he wishes to continue
along the first Way of ‘well-rounded Truth’. Harsh, ‘strife-filled’ criticism
would be levelled against him if he were to be led by its ‘aimless sight’ and
the flow of unthinking opinion. Parmenides needs to remain single minded
by setting reason’s gaze towards the ‘unshaken heart of well-rounded
Truth’, away from its fragmented material representations. Importantly,
this poetic account of inner human development transposes its religious
form into philosophy and foreshadowing the development of ‘negative’
thinking. Parmenides’ poem, Jaeger notes, is therefore an ‘original device
for giving it intellectual form. It amounts to far more than mere metaphor.
What Parmenides has done is to take over the religious form of expression
and transpose it to the sphere of philosophy, so that in truth a whole new
intellectual world takes shape.’360 It is from within this intellectual world that
the philosopher will attempt through ‘negative’ thinking to tear themselves
loose from all that frustrates their pursuit of wisdom.
Plato’s Contemplative Priority: Establishing the

Philosophical Foundations of the Graeco-Christian
Apophatic Tradition
Plato expands this ‘new intellectual world’ through his dialogue The
Parmenides. This establishes the way of genuine conviction set towards the
‘unshaken heart of well rounded reality’ away from its fragmented material
representations, which establishes an epistemological and ontological
line dividing future philosophers. Famously illustrating the importance
of this throughout the Western philosophical tradition comprising the via
negativa, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead says: ‘The safest general
characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists

of a series of footnotes to Plato.’361 Plato, deciding for Parmenides against
Heraclitus would profoundly influence the development of the apophatic
tradition. The philosopher Martin Walsh notes that Plato ‘found much that he
liked in the doctrines of the “great Parmenides”. He identified Parmenides’
world of abiding Reality with the world of the eternal forms, the world of
Truth, Beauty and Goodness.’362 The pursuit of Truth, Goodness and Beauty
of this abiding reality will be central in the development of the Graeco-
Christian apophatic tradition. Allied with this will be the heightening of
epistemic and existential tension which will ‘suddenly’363 reach a radical
breaking point at the summit of apophatic ascent.
Plato’s dialogue The Parmenides364 (370 BC) is considered by many
scholars to be the most enigmatic and challenging. Viewed by some as
Plato’s theology, it inspired the metaphysical and mystical theories of
the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Proclus which directly influence Pseudo-
Dionysius. It is an almost certainly fictitious account of a meeting between
a venerable Parmenides and Zeno of Elea (both Eleatic Monists) and a
youthful Socrates, followed by a difficult array of interconnected arguments
presented to a compliant interlocutor named Aristotle (not the Aristotle).
Most commentators agree that Socrates articulates a version of the theory
of Forms defended by his much older namesake in the dialogues of
Plato’s middle period. Parmenides mounts several potentially devastating
challenges to this theory, and these are followed by a set piece of intellectual
gymnastics consisting of eight strings of arguments that are designed to help
the reader see how to protect the theory of forms against the challenges.
The narrator gives an account of this meeting beginning with Zeno reading
his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of
plurality who asserted that Parmenides’ idea of one reality gave rise to
intolerable absurdities and contradictions. The solution to these difficult
problems offered by the young Socrates, on how one unchanging reality or
essential being can admit of many different changing phenomena (and not
just by dismissing them as being mere illusion) is Plato’s famous theory of
Forms365 (Parmenides, 128E–130A). This is offered as the solution to the
problem of how plurality is possible, or more precisely, how plurality or
multiple phenomena participates in Unity. The Eleatic monism argument
of Parmenides, set against plurality (extreme nominalism),366 was rejected
as avoidable only by Plato’s theory. While Plato accepted Parmenides’ one
unified unchanging view of reality, unlike Parmenides, he also sought to
give a satisfactory account of plurality without dismissing it as illusion.
Importantly, Long notes that this problem has ‘its background in the quite
divergent philosophies of Heraclitus and Parmenides. How to bring being

and becoming into an intelligible relationship, to accommodate the one
and the many was an issue which stimulated Plato’s thoroughly original
thinking on knowledge and logic as well as metaphysics.’367
Plato’s thoroughly original thinking, particularly with regard to
knowledge and metaphysics, meant that he did not uncritically accept the
‘venerable’ Parmenides’ idea of one unchanging reality. This is evident in
the theory of Forms which addresses how to bring Being and becoming
into an intelligible relationship. According to Walsh, Plato ‘transformed
a doctrine of materialistic monism into that of Platonic idealism’.368
Accommodating both the One and the many (dismissed by Parmenides as
illusion), the theory of the Forms will directly bear on the understanding
of the soul’s ascent within the developing apophatic tradition. This
understanding of the soul’s movement along the Platonic scale of being
is crucial for the appreciation of the Christian articulation of the soul’s
apophatic ascent. Plato’s accommodation of these two domains, however,
still meant that the constant flux of material phenomena could not provide
real knowledge of essential unchanging reality. This maintained a division
like that discussed in the goddess Night’s revelation of two ways of inquiry
between ‘an intelligible order of reality separate from the phenomenal world
comparable to Parmenides “being” in its eternity and changelessness’.369
Plato’s theory of Forms, therefore, is generally regarded as the belief in
eternal, unchanging, qualities or principles, existing independently of the
changing world of phenomena. While mathematics and dialectic are the
main components of Plato’s educational method, their aim (as Cooper
importantly notes) is not
the amassing of information, knowledge . . . or the acquisition of practical

skills, but a ‘reorientation of a mind from a kind of twilight to true daylight’
(Republic 521). The ‘re-orientated’ person will have risen above immersion
in mundane empirical matters towards that articulate understanding of the
order of things without which his opinions, even if true, do not constitute
the grounded knowledge that alone affords effective and stable guidance in
life.370
Understandably, this realm is where real knowledge necessary for human

flourishing is located, and consequently towards which in its pursuit reason’s
focus is directed. According to Stead, ‘Plato’s most distinctive doctrine
was his theory of Forms or “Ideas”, by which he meant not “thoughts”, as
we now understand the word, but eternal objective realities which make
up an intelligible system or world.’371 In contrast with this Intelligible
realm of Forms, where real knowledge (episteme) of greatest value in the

pursuit of eternal wisdom is located, is the sensible realm which provides
mere opinion or belief (doxa) gleaned from the data of ever changing
sensible experience.372 Epistemologically, the Platonic scale of ‘being’
articulates a clear distinction between the true, infallible, unchanging
knowledge (episteme) of Being itself as reflected in the Parmenides.
Reason’s contemplative gaze is directed towards this knowledge away
from increasingly inferior grades lower down the scale. Descending the
scale, inferior knowledge was based upon the world perceived by the
senses (aistheton), the world of material change (genesis). At best, this
became relegated to the knowledge of ‘true belief’ (pistis) based upon
mere ‘opinion’ or what ‘seems to be’ (doxa). The image of the Cave in The
Republic373 powerfully illustrates this epistemology. According to Long,
‘This sharp distinction between the thought-world of Forms and the objects
of everyday experience is Plato’s most famous doctrine. Its force, as a way
of looking at the world has been constantly acknowledged in poetry and
religion as well as speculative philosophy.’374 From my previous discussion
of Parmenides’ poetic account of the goddess Night’s revelation (page 109),
tied with his view of One reality, the influence on the theory of Forms,
seems clear enough. For instance, within the Intelligible realm of Forms is
the Form of Forms most famously represented by the Sun in the influential
Cave allegory. According to the Greek Orthodox theologian Louth, Plato’s
ultimate aim is the vision of the Forms and, beyond and above them, of the
Supreme Form of the Good or the Beautiful. Having attained this stage –
something only finally possible beyond death – the soul rejoins the company
of the gods . . . There, in the ‘place beyond the heavens’, the soul achieves
its homecoming.375
Believing that this vision is achieved only after death suggests the diffi-
culty is not lost on Plato in maintaining reason’s contemplative orientation
towards the Good in achieving its final vision. Correspondingly, these dif-
ficulties were not forgotten, indeed they were made radically insurmount-
able in the search of the Christian apophatic tradition for knowledge of the
Father. Anticipating this epistemic breaking point as will be discussed, is
the darkening of the shadow of doubt cast by Plato over the power of logos.
Understandably then, staying with this Greek endeavour and Plato’s theory
of Forms (expressing the pursuit of the fullest human development), the
Supreme Form of the Good or the Beautiful conferred existence and illumi-
nation of the Intelligible world of the Forms themselves. Just like the real
sun which allows existence and human sight of the world of sense experi-
ence necessary for physical movement, the illumination of the Intelligible
world by the ultimate Form of the One or Good or Beautiful (the Sun in
the Cave Allegory) allows sight or knowledge of this world to human intel-
ligence or logos. Moreover, Plato believed that every person pursues this
knowledge, found ultimately in the vision of the highest Form, and thereby
designated as being that of the Good. This Platonic philosophical scheme of
things, seeks reason’s illumination from the Intelligible world as the great-
est good in human development. Following this Platonic conceptualization,
and reflecting the aim of retrieving the Greek philosophical foundations of
the Christian apophatic tradition, it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest:
Only philosophers are capable of loving and, through education, ultimately

achieving knowledge of what is authentically and fully good. Thus only they
are capable of governing action according to its true end . . . With a greater
Good in view than the ordinary ‘goods’ sought by the greedy and ambitious,
philosophers are able to bring unity, harmony and order to the city and those
within it.376
Of Plato’s contemplative philosophical thinking and development central to

the apophatic tradition, there is no more famous illustration than the Cave
allegory, set towards the Ultimate Form of the Good. The epistemological
schematics are illustrated in the diagram of the Line.377 It shows how hu-
man perception reveals things both as One and as many, which the theory
of Forms holds together, phenomena with essential ‘being’ (One over the
many). The rational soul could not pursue essential ‘being’ (the Good which
illuminates and sustains the Forms) if there were no perception of it via the
Forms in the Intelligible world; hence human perception is held to reveal
things both as One and as many. This makes directing the soul (understood
as the principle of cognition and consciousness) towards the Good possible,
sustaining a relationship of ‘not-being’ with ‘being’ described as that of
‘becoming’.
Understandably, this Platonic contemplative trajectory also aligns with
ascetic and spiritual practices and an interconnected learning approach seen
in its study of ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. Louth notes that this
‘implies identity with, participation in, that which is known . . . For Plato
real knowledge is more than intellectual awareness – it implies the orienta-
tion of the whole person so that one participates in the realm of Ideas or
Forms.’378 Exercising reason as philo-sophia admitted no rigid boundaries
of separation in the study of these subjects as they were framed within One
unified view of essential reality. Nor would their study encourage outer
human development through instrumental reason at the cost of internal hu-

man development played out in the arena of relationships with others and
oneself. Therefore, it is important to note:
Ethics . . . concerns how one ought to live and focuses on pleasure, virtue,
and happiness. Since, according to Plato, virtue and happiness require
knowledge, e.g., knowledge of goods and evils, Plato’s ethics is inseparable
from his epistemology. Epistemology is, broadly speaking, the study of what
knowledge is and how one comes to have knowledge. Among the many top-
ics included in epistemology are . . . perception, language and knowledge
. . . Integral to all of these notions is that they are directed at something.
Words refer to something; perception (aesthesis in Greek) involves percep-
tibles; knowledge requires a known. In this respect, epistemology cannot be
investigated without regard to what there is.379
Consequently, these interconnections meant that what knowledge there is,

particularly in the arena of relationships with others and oneself, ultimately,
is something towards which the soul sought illumination of from the Form
of Forms. This knowledge is always framed within the design of One uni-
fied unchanging reality which at best is contemplatively perceived. This
trajectory clearly begins offering valuable insights into a more holistic
view of human nature, and with it the concern of a feminine consciousness
embodied in Penia which resists the fragmenting effect of modern reason.
The educationalist Parker Palmer reflects upon the modern tendency to frag-
ment reality that is rooted in the desire to be ‘maistres et possesseurs de la
Nature’: ‘Once you have made an object out of something, and chopped it
up into pieces to see what makes it tick, you then move those pieces around
to see if you can create something more consistent with your design of what
the world ought to be.’380 Evidence suggests that the modern atomized de-
sign of what the world ought to be takes little account of the contemplative
illumination of its inner human landscape.
However, the philosophical difficulties that this Platonic contemplative
view of reality raised, especially concerning the soul’s pursuit of eudai-
monia within it, were considerable. For example, the incarnation event of
Christianity offers a definitive solution, at least in providing realistic hope
of evoking and satiating humanity’s deepest desires. A return here is made
to the importance of Plato’s dialogue The Parmenides, in addressing these
profound philosophical difficulties which logos encounters when attempting
to give an adequate account of that which is at the summit of the Platonic
scale of being. And more importantly, it is that towards which the soul seeks
to ascend without understanding of which, its full appreciation in Christian
tradition in respects to God the Father is impossible. In The Republic (506c-

e), Socrates responds to Glaucon begging from him some rational (logos)
account of the Good:
‘We shall be quite satisfied if you give an account of the good similar to that
you gave of justice and self-control and the rest.’
‘And so shall I too, my dear chap,’ I replied, ‘but I’m afraid it’s beyond me,
and if I try I shall only make a fool of myself and be laughed at. So please
let us give up asking for the present what the good is in itself; I’m afraid that
to reach what I think would be a satisfactory answer is beyond the range of
our present inquiry.’
It is just such an enquiry which The Parmenides takes up, and in doing so,
sets the parameters for future discussion concerning the limitations of logos
apprehending the nature of One unified unchanging reality. These param-
eters of discussion will play out at the heart of the Christian tradition. This
will be seen in the heightening of Platonic religious sensibilities beginning
in Middle Platonism, progressing through Neoplatonism and concluding in
the revelation of the One’s nature in the incarnate Christ, lying ultimately
beyond reason’s scope.
Laying the philosophical foundations for this radical affirmation of
reason in its eventual collapse, Plato, in The Parmenides, subsequently
takes up for examination Parmenides’ proposition that ‘the One exists’ or
reality is One, upon which, seven different interpretations or hypotheses
are produced. With the First and Seventh proving central, varyingly
these hypotheses are important in setting the philosophical parameters of
discussion in the later development of negative theology beginning in the
distinctly religious turn of Middle Platonism. Briefly, these hypotheses are
Plato’s systematic questioning of the essential character or nature of the
One or Unity and its relation to discourse and the many, which his theory
of Forms attempts to answer. These hypotheses about the One beg the
central question asked in the Eighth hypothesis, whether it is amenable at
all to apprehension by reason and of being spoken of in words. The First
hypothesis (137d) has the One in its purest form with no parts, no shape, no
beginning or end, and no movement or rest, concluding that if this is true,
then no rational/logos account given of it, nor any perception, opinion or
science of it, is possible (142a). ‘If the One exists’ it reasonably follows that
it has no parts, no beginning or end, and is therefore nowhere because it has
no shape. It also cannot move or be at rest because it has no place. This rules
out predicates381 and thereby being named, rendering it unspeakable and
unknowable. Precluded then from being subject to time as is the case with
all multiple phenomena, the dialogue asks: ‘Can it then partake of being
apart from in the present, past, or future? It cannot. Then the One has no
share in being at all’ (141e).
According to Franke, in The Parmenides ‘Plato had hypothesized a One
that cannot be, since if being were added to it, then it would no longer be
perfectly one (Parmenides 137b–144e).’382 Crucially, this is Plato laying
claim to be the father of ‘negative’ thinking and, one might argue, theology.
He does this by going beyond Parmenides giving priority to the One, not
as being in time or place at the top of a ladder of being, but by taking the
One completely out of the range of discourse altogether. This is seen in
Plato concluding that ‘In my opinion all being conceived in discourse must
be broken up into tiny segments. For it would always be apprehended as a
mass devoid of one’ (Parmenides 165b). This insight about the fragmenting
effect of discourse or language based on Plato’s philosophical conception
of the One will be crucial in the later development of negative theology.
And it prefigures Plotinus’ Neoplatonic first ‘hypostasis’ or theory of the
One beyond being. I discuss later how this is tied in with the heightening
of religious sensibilities, and epistemic and existential tension which
anticipates the necessity of the One revealing its nature in the incarnate
figure of Christ. Beginning with Plato, we see developing a contemplative
trajectory of ‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking taking the
Good and the One further beyond the range of reason and language. This
pursuit of eudaimonia will be radicalized in Christian tradition whereby the
Good will become the ‘no-thing’ of the via negativa.
Understandably, the First hypothesis of the One in its purest form
develops into doubts about reason and language ever being able to
apprehend and speak about it. But equally important, along with these
doubts, Plato recognizes the necessity for such Unity to act as a stable
basis permitting reason and language to remain meaningful, which the
constant flux of Heraclitus did not afford. In order for language and reason
to remain meaningful, they needed some contact with what they seemed
only to fragment. However, no contact was possible with Unity; meaning,
there could be no comprehension or explanation of its essential nature only
that of it being a philosophical principle predicated upon knowledge of its
fragmentation. This will be especially so regarding The Parmenides read
by Plotinus and Proclus, combining with Philo’s transposition of the Jewish
Biblical God resulting eventually in the notion of Christian apotheosis. If the
integrity of the essential unified unchanging nature of the One necessitated
remaining separate from the fragmenting effect of reason and language,
then some objective basis enabling some knowledge of it must also exist.
This was necessary for knowledge to retain any stable value or meaning at
all. This necessity was nowhere more important than in the early Christian
intellectual articulation of the faith. As discussed earlier, Plato’s theory of
Forms in the Intelligible world attempts to overcome this dilemma, which,
following developments in Middle Platonism, the Neoplatonism of Plotinus
and Proclus takes up and elaborates.
In the dialogue Parmenides, beginning with Parmenides himself
objecting to Socrates’ theory of Forms, (which are left unanswered), attempts
are made with the theory of Forms to provide such an objective basis for
reason and language. This would retain their meaningfulness without
compromising the essential nature of the One. Importantly, as Copleston
notes, ‘It is made clear by the difficulties raised that some principle of
unity is required which will, at the same time, not annihilate the many . . .
though the unity considered is a unity in the world of Forms.’383 Without
this accommodation, the laying of the Greek philosophical foundations
resulting in the apophatic convergence of reason and faith would not have
been possible. Therefore in the dialogue:
Parmenides was not concerned to deny the existence of an intelligible world:

he freely admits that if one refuses to admit the existence of absolute ideas at
all, then philosophic thinking goes by the board. The result of the objections
that Plato raises against himself . . . is, therefore, to impel him to further
exact consideration of the nature of the Ideal World and of its relation to the
sensible world.384
The further exact philosophical consideration of the nature of the Ideal

World and of its relation to the sensible world through Middle Platonism
and the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus into Christian tradition is my
continued discussion.
These crucial conditions or parameters, concerning the relation of the
One/Unity with multiple phenomena surfacing over doubts about lan-
guage, are set for future philosophical consideration. Importantly, these
considerations are the developing articulation of Plato’s contemplative
ideal in the pursuit of eudaimonia that will become that of apophatic
ascent. This explains why Mortley says of the important Seventh hypoth-
esis that ‘observation about the fragmenting power of discourse will be
found to have echoes throughout the history of Greek philosophy, as it
becomes clearer that intelligence is for the multiple, and that if applied
to a unity, will inevitably shatter it. Language and unity are simply seen
to be incompatible.’385 Plato’s Parmenides, therefore, is an aporetic ex-
ploration of Parmenides’ philosophy, and a developing articulation of the

pursuit of eudaimonia which becomes increasingly contemplative. These
developments will continue through Neoplatonism and prove central in
articulating the embodied revelation of the Father within Christian tra-
dition. The treatise On First Principles (De principis) by the last great
Neoplatonic philosopher, Damascius (462–538), is, according to Franke,
‘a culmination of a tradition of thinking the aporiae of any attempt to think
the One, that is, to think the first principle or ground of reality . . . But the
tradition actually starts from the aporiae of Plato’s Parmenides.’386 Plato
can, therefore, claim to be the true heir in the development of negative
theology during the Middle Platonism of late antiquity. This is because
Aristotle never shared Plato’s doubts over rationality which he articulated
in The Parmenides. Discussed in Chapter One, reflecting Plato’s thought
re-emerging through the apophatic tradition within post-modern criticism
of Enlightenment assumptions, Mortley writes of the then primacy of
logos that ‘it was not long before the shadow of a doubt was cast over this
achievement by Plato, in his work appropriately entitled the Parmenides.
Here, with a series of torturing paradoxes . . . Plato explored the limits of
language and reason.387 The growing value of silence in human develop-
ment through this Greek trajectory of exploration of the limits of language
will become radically established in Christian tradition at the summit of
apophatic ascent.
Clearly, the far reaching influence of the philosophical speculations
of The Parmenides is considerable and invariably extolled as the su-
preme expression of Platonic theology.388 This was no less disputed in the
Schools of Antiquity than among modern interpreters. Most notable of the
Schools was the Academy,389 where there were those who regarded it as a
mere exercise in dialectic making an important contribution to the theory
of ideas and others who rejected it as spurious and even a humorous
parody. However, for the apophatic tradition the important commentaries
extolling the dialogue’s theological expression include those of Proclus
who directly influences Pseudo-Dionysius, and a third- or fourth-century
commentary, possibly by Porphyry. From this juncture of establishing the
importance of The Parmenides as expressing the Greek pursuit of eudai-
monia, this trajectory is traced moving into its Middle and Neoplatonic
developments. With these important developments becoming directly as-
similated within the apophatic tradition, this trajectory will conclude in its
articulation of the Biblical experience of the revelation of the Word/Logos
made flesh.390
Heightening of Religious Sensibilities and Doubts

about Logos: Middle Platonism and the First Exponents
of Negative Theology
The apophatic tradition fully emerged during the period of Middle Platonism
(first century BC to AD 200) that is described as the proto-Neoplatonism
(200–550 AD) of Plotinus, discussed later. This occurred because Plato’s
thinking in The Parmenides concerning unity and discourse were established
as central concerns by the Academy. The Academy recognized that while
accepting that the ‘One must exist’, Plato did not go beyond systematically
recognizing that some knowledge of it may be incomprehensible and beyond
any account given of it. Despite being a systematic exploration of the on-
tological and epistemological ramifications of attempting to overcome this
linguistic and reasoning deficit, it provided no definitive answers. However,
it did establish the principal philosophical conditions which enabled the
Academy to systematically develop in future discussion. In late antiquity,
this discussion in the eras of Middle and Neoplatonism became characterized
by a combination of serious criticism of logos (faced with the One raised
beyond the mathematical One and that of the Good, Intellect and Being in
the Intelligible realm of Forms) and heightened religious sensibilities. It was
from this combination that negative theology proper emerged. This contin-
ued to articulate the pursuit of eudaimonia developing as the convergence of
Greek reason with Christian faith. Unsurprisingly, Proclus, the fifth-century
diadochus (the successor of Plato) and then head of the Academy in Athens,
is seen to have a direct influence on Pseudo-Dionysius.
The eras of Middle and Neoplatonism witnessed the first practitioners
of negative theology begin by applying Aristotle’s method of aphaeresis
(abstraction) as an instrument of mysticism in both Greek and Christian
tradition. As this was intended to reveal the essence of material reality, it
reflected Aristotle’s divergence from Plato’s contemplative ideal echoed
today in greater concern for phronesis (practical wisdom). Despite the
One being raised increasingly above being and with it the heightening of
religious sensibilities with growing criticism of logos, this method high-
lights the Greek pedigree of these developments. The soul’s movement up
the Platonic scale of being involving the dialectic method of abstracting is
reflected in the use now made of Aristotle’s method (aphaeresis) in devel-
oping negative theology. Louth writes:
intellectual purification Plato subsumes under the name of dialectic, the pur-
pose . . . is to accustom the soul to contemplation, noesis. In the Republic Plato
discusses what sorts of study will best serve dialectic, and he singles out two:
mathematics . . . and dialectic proper, the search for the essence of things, an
attempt to find the principles of things and the highest principle of all, the Idea
of the Good on which all other Ideas depend. These two intellectual exercises
. . . awaken and exercise the understanding (nous). And they do this because
both . . . abstract from what the senses present to us; they accustom the mind
to deal with objects apart from the senses, pure reality (ousia).391
Without this continuing understanding of human development as the philo-

sophical heritage of the Christian apophatic tradition, it is increasingly clear
that it will make it impossible to fully appreciate what this culmination of
it has to offer its pursuit now. Emphasizing the point, Plato famously sign-
posted a characteristic of this developing ‘negative’ pursuit of eudaimonia
which speaks as loudly now as it did then. In the Timaeus (28c) he declared:
‘To discover the maker and father of this universe is indeed a hard task.’
Discovering the maker and Father of the universe was indeed a hard
task, increasingly recognised as such during Middle Platonism or proto-
Neoplatonism. The difficult Platonic contemplative ideal seeking knowledge
of the One and simultaneously darkening the shadow of doubt cast over
reason and language by The Parmenides, becomes Platonic philosophical
religion. A constant was reason open to the enthusing of the inspiratio of
theia mania and the heightening of epistemic and existential tension. During
Middle Platonism, this was evident in an intensification of religious reading
of Plato’s dialogues, especially The Parmenides. Reflecting this, Chapter
Four discusses Philo’s superimposition of the Jewish Biblical God onto
Plato’s thought, in turn influencing Christian philosophers and theologians.
The religious nourishment provided by this dimension of Plato’s dia-
logues is clear, as is the reasoning that produced them, which encouraged
a contemplative ideal that developed into philosophical religion and from
which emerged the apophatic tradition. This dimension of Plato’s work
accommodated those seeking ‘assimilation to God so far as that is possi-
ble’.392 This was clearly not lost on Philo (20 BC – AD 50) and those fol-
lowing in the Christian tradition. According to the classical scholar Richard
Wallis, ‘only Platonism possessed sufficient depth to meet the age’s spiritual
needs and, after Plotinus had assured it a firm intellectual basis, the doom of
the other schools was sealed’.393 Therefore, directly influencing the develop-
ment of the negative theology of Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius,
‘The story of Greek philosophy from the third to the sixth century is the
story of Neoplatonism.’394
The apophatic ‘genuine article’ of Neoplatonism
Before discussing these Neoplatonic elaborations of the soul’s ascent to the

One in Plotinus and Proclus, an important distinction needs to be made.
This bears upon the greater effectiveness of one of two competing theories
of apophasis in pursuit of inner human development. It follows the think-
ing of the classical scholar A. H. Armstrong,395 who distinguishes between
two competing theories of apophasis evident during the eras of Middle
Platonism and later Neoplatonism. The apophasis, from the former era, is
understood to be a soft apophasis contrasted with that of the more radical
Neoplatonic apophasis developed by Plotinus and represented in Christian
tradition by Pseudo-Dionysius. This means that the negations of the soft
apophasis of Middle Platonism only replace positive notions of the divine
with negative ones, after which, all are then superseded only by transcend-
ent affirmations. However, the genuine apophatic approach that negates the
very negations of the divine reveals even these to be as inadequate as the
positive ones. Radical apophasis is therefore marked by negation of the
negations of the affirmations of the divine and described by Armstrong as
being a stance of ‘limitless criticism’396 which is ‘the genuine (apophatic)
article’.397 This stance is accepted by this thesis whilst recognizing that a
full analysis of this debate is beyond its scope.398 Armstrong argues that the
more radical apophasis is undervalued by its former weaker version which
has been adopted by mainstream Western Christianity, driven partly by the
fear of unfettered-negation undermining the content of faith, resulting in
nothing left in which to believe.399 Paradoxically, however, it is the weaker
version that is more susceptible to this nihilistic loss of faith, because it does
not extend its denial to negation itself most clearly seen in Pseudo-Dionysi-
us’ negation of the negations in his Mystical Theology. Stemming from Plo-
tinus’ doctrine of the ineffability of the One, this idea of negative theology
of saying only what god is not influenced Eastern tradition as discussion of
Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius will show. The Latin West adhered
more to making positive cataphatic theological statements of the divine.
Crucially, radical apophasis re-affirms the incomprehensible nature of
the Father necessitating the incarnate revelation of its nature. This affirma-
tion is the radical epistemic and existential root of this work’s Christian
‘qualified dualism’ speeding the pursuit of eudaimonia along its apophatic
way. I chart the intricacies in these developments of the convergence of
reason and faith in Chapter Four. The pursuit of eudaimonia becomes a
‘negative’ trajectory of radically heightening epistemic and existential ten-
sion through ‘limitless criticism’. This affects not only unending refinement
of one’s conceptual thinking but also that of one’s existential orientation

continually re-directed towards the ‘no-thing’ of divine nature at the summit
of apophatic ascent. Williams argues:
the lack of a natural term or rest in the Neoplatonic apophasis, the inability
of the conceptual-linguistic realm to satisfy the human sense of what is
experienced, the very limitlessness of the process of criticism, ensures its
carry-over into other facets of life. Radical apophasis, through the deliberate
disruption of linguistic norms and expectations, flushes the human need for
icons of the ultimate out of the epistemological arena into a wider existential
ground.400
This trajectory involves the entire human being moving in an opposite di-
rection to that encouraged by reason’s modern form, and opens up a wider
arena of existential ground. Within this arena of human development, an in-
comprehensible contemplative inter-connected view of reality is perceived,
which disrupts the ‘linguistic norms’ of its atomized material representa-
tions. Clearly, this radical apophasis becomes a tendency of thinking which
directs the deeper currents of inner human development towards ever-great-
er plentitude beyond the scope of instrumental reasoning.
Discussion now moves to the development within Neoplatonism of the
‘genuine’ apophatic ‘article’ seen in Plotinus and Proclus which directly in-
fluences the development of Christian negative theology. My account is brief,
as it continues into the following chapter bearing upon the Christian thinking
of Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius.
A firm intellectual philosophical basis assured the development of
the Christian apophatic tradition, seen in Clement, Gregory and Pseudo-
Dionysius. Like them, this is why I spend considerable time investigating
the intricacies of its ancient philosophical heritage without which it is
impossible to fully appreciate discussion of its development in Chapter
Four. This philosophical basis produced the Neoplatonic disciple, like their
Christian counterparts. Of the disciples of Plotinian philosophical religion
Proclus is most notable, and through whom the Neoplatonism of Ploti-
nus will be transmitted directly through Pseudo-Dionysius into Christian
apophatic tradition. Aside from the addition of Philo’s Biblical God, and
prior to its assimilation into Christian theology, Wallis notes that ‘while the
Neoplatonists’ otherworldliness was more thorough going than that of their
predecessors, the notion of philosophy as a way of life involving the whole
man had been basic to Greek thought from the earliest times.’401 This recalls
why discussion of the development of this ‘negative’ philosophical heritage
of the apophatic tradition was traced from the rise of logos in the specula-
tions of the early Greek cosmologist.
As already mentioned, detailed discussion of the work of Plotinus and
Proclus is beyond the scope of this thesis save for that which relates di-
rectly to the development of Christian apophasis. But Plotinus is a decisive
point in the transition from Platonism into the Patristic Fathers and in the
development of Christian negative theology. The negative epistemic and
existential trajectory of this work thus far becomes exemplified in Plotinus’
mystical philosophy which expresses his desire for union with the One, and
remains an abiding element running into the Christian Mystical Theology of
Pseudo-Dionysius. Louth suggests that Plotinus’ mystical philosophy sig-
nificantly ‘represents man’s inherent desire to return to heaven at its purest
and most ineffable’.402 Citing E. R. Dodds, in Plotinus ‘converge almost all
the main currents of thought that come down from eight hundred years of
Greek speculation; out of it there issues a new current destined to fertilize
minds as different as those of Augustine and Boethius, Dante and Meister
Eckhart, Coleridge, Bergson and T. S. Eliot.’403
Especially important amongst the minds fertilized by the new current
of Plotinian thought are those of Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius.
From this new current of Plotinus’ Neoplatonism, two strands develop
reaching into the Christian tradition. One goes through Porphyry (a pupil
of Plotinus), Victorinus and Augustine. The other strand, goes through Iam-
blichus (a pupil of Porphyry who disagreed with him over theurgy) who
took over the Academy as diadochus (successor of Plato), and whose most
famous representative was Proclus (AD 412–85). Proclus systematized Plo-
tinus’ teaching, but had much more sympathy with the practices of pagan
religion. This is the tradition of Neoplatonism that Pseudo-Dionysius stands
in and explains why he is often described as the Christian Proclus. This
connection, linking amongst other things Pseudo-Dionysius with Proclus’
sympathy with the practices of pagan religion is significant. It reflects his
own emphasis upon sacramental practice and how Christianity itself came
into being within the intellectual and social matrix of Greek and Roman
life that was heavily influenced by the worship of their gods. These rela-
tionships and interconnections have recently gained greater academic sig-
nificance through the pioneering work of the classical historian Price. His
book Rituals and Power404 remains a classic study. Through this he realized
an academic goal of building a frame within which Jewish and Christian
religious acts could sensibly be analysed alongside Greek and Roman ones
which shared many of the same concepts and inquiries.
However, the new current of mystical philosophy of Plotinus changed
Platonic understanding of the soul’s ascent to the One. This derived from
the idea that in some way, it was an ascent outside the person towards the
top of a ladder or the summit of Plato’s hierarchy of being. Crucially, Ploti-
nus directed this ascent inwards, whereby knowledge of One unified reality
reflected alignment with the true self and the deeper inwards the soul had
travelled introspectively. He affirmed that the spiritual world is found only
within ourselves, ‘inviting us to a metamorphosis of our inner perception’
as Hadot notes.405 This inward turn clearly encourages the navigation of the
inner human landscape and a metamorphosis of inner perception. This de-
velopment taken up in the apophatic tradition offers valuable insights today
for the development of meaningful relationships with oneself and others. In
contrast, Palmer argues, ‘The failure of modern knowledge is not primarily
a failure of our ethics, in the application of what we know. Rather, it is a
failure of our knowing itself to recognize and reach for its deeper source
and passion, to allow love to inform the relations that our knowledge creates
– with ourselves, with each other.’406 Plotinus describes this inward spiritual
turn in the soul’s ascent towards union with the One, whereby consciousness
ceases splitting itself into two and comes to coincide with the true self:
‘Let us flee then to the beloved Fatherland’: this is the soundest counsel. But
what is this flight? How are we to gain the open sea? . . . This is not a journey
for the feet; the feet bring us only from land to land; nor need you think of
coach or ship to carry you away; all this order of things you must set aside
and refuse to see: you must close the eyes and call instead upon another vi-
sion which is to be waked within you, a vision, the birth-right of all, which
few turn to use (The First Enneads: Sixth Tractate, Section 8).
But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its loveliness?
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful
yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful . . . until
you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are
self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can
shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man,
when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that
only veritable Light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any
circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever un-
measurable as something greater than all measure and more than all quantity
– when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become very
vision: now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step – you need
a guide no longer – strain, and see (The First Enneads: Sixth Tractate, Sec-
tion 9).407
This inward spiritual movement set towards mystical union with the
One is moved further towards the negative thinking characteristic of the
‘genuine (apophatic) article’ by Plotinus, radicalizing the transcendent sim-
plicity of the One. He does this by distinguishing between Plato’s Intelligi-
ble Forms, which, despite being individually simple, remained collectively
multiple and which, he sets against the utter simplicity of the One or Good
as first principle. The intellect has immediate access to the Forms through
the dialectic of philosophical work, abstracting their image in the sensible
world, leading to their contemplation in the Intelligible world. However,
similar progress with the same method towards union with utter simplicity
was not possible. As Remes argues:
With the One this move is less successful; if the end is a true unity without
any multiplicity and differentiation, our dialectical work in revealing the
multiplicity of being cannot directly bring us into union with absolute unity.
The road from thinking and intellectual contemplation to unification may
not be straight and simple. Inward-turned self-recognition leads into self-
transcending experience (ekstasis, ‘to stand outside’).408
The ekstasis of standing outside of oneself in union with the utterly simple
One admitting no duality, clearly anticipates the self-transcending ecstasy
at the summit of Christian ascent. This ecstatic experience of union with
the simplicity of the transcendent One of Plotinus meant that reason could
say nothing of what essentially was ineffable and incomprehensible. Plo-
tinus also pushes us beyond the common use of Aristotle’s aphaeresis to
remove inappropriate predicates from discourse concerning the One. The
Greek philosophical training in pursuit of the contemplative vision of the
One understood this was fully achieved only when one’s corporeal nature
was finally put off after death. Through Plotinus, the achievement of the
ekstasis of the utter simplicity of self-transcendence was possible before
death. Developing the reasoning begun by The Parmenides Plotinus asks: if
the One is utterly simple, how can it be touched by the mind or spoken of at
all? Williams comments:
Plotinus’ aphaeresis goes beyond this narrowly-defined precedent: of the

mind’s contact with the One, he asks ‘How can this happen? Take away
everything! Other verbs press home the same message: we are to ‘let the
intelligible go’, and to ‘put away’ and ‘cut away’ all but the One. This
process of cutting away not just the discriminative intellect but also the
imaginative powers, and the purification of the volitional and active life, so
that the soul will finally appear before the One ‘stripped’ of all that is alien to
it, all ego-sense, all passion, all conceptuality. Negation for Plotinus is then a
holistic process, involving the reorientation of the entire individual.409
With Plotinus, negation began as a more serious way of thinking. Moreover,

it encouraged inward reorientation of the entire individual set towards the
utter simplicity of union with the transcendent One. This goal of the Neo-
platonic development of the pursuit of eudaimonia was furthest removed
from any fragmented material representations. Plotinus even regarded the
Forms in the Intelligible realm as being divisive of its unity. His serious
apophatic thinking becomes filtered through Iamblichus to Proclus who
develops it even further. However, despite the important developments
that Plotinus introduced, he made no verbal distinction between apophasis
and aphaeresis. But Proclus did make such a distinction, and in so doing,
turned the vocabulary of apophasis and cataphasis into technical theological
terminology. Founding his comments on Plato’s dialogue The Parmenides
on which he made an important commentary, Proclus continues in the same
vein of radicalizing the utter simplicity of the One. He insisted that since
this makes it ineffable, we must not only negate our affirmations of it which
was characteristic of the Platonic contemplative trajectory, but the nega-
tions also. This clearly signals the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.
Moreover, this new negative theological vocabulary of negation of the ne-
gations of affirmations of the transcendent One continued the evolution of
Plato’s contemplative ideal. This continued to be encouraged by ‘negative’
philosophical thinking in the pursuit of eudaimonia, and becoming rooted
in an internalized spiritual ascent. The goal of this trajectory became even
further removed from any fragmented material representations of it regard-
ing even the Forms as divisive of its utter simplicity. Proclus’ articulation of
negation is integral to the soul becoming like the One it most deeply desires.
Importantly, this means that it does not stand outside this process of the
soul achieving the utter simplification of self-transcending union (to stand
outside itself) with the One. Discussion will show that this understanding
of the negation of negation as the end of dialectic and the beginning of the
language of silence, influences Pseudo-Dionysius’ negative vocabulary of
the Christian soul’s apophatic ascent towards union with the Father.
This internalized spiritual ascent follows Plotinus’ radicalization of the
One’s simplicity, but with Proclus, apophasis does not stand alone as a ver-
bal discourse concerning the Ultimate. At the simplistic level, it is part of
the dialectical play of the human mind, which can only bring the soul to the
doorstep of the One. At this point it is necessary to move beyond the dialec-
tic of the vocabulary of negation of negations, which Plotinus is the first to
develop as a technical language and is now the sign for doing so. Crucially,
this is an end to words and the breakdown of reason. It is the soul’s last act
before it passes through the doorway into the glory of the One’s transcend-
ent simplicity. Here, the role and prominence of the sacraments within
Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic mystical ascent to the Father is also antici-
pated by Proclus. He follows Iamblichus’ use of theurgy derived from the
Chaldaean Oracles to bridge that final gap between the soul and the One.
Negative theology is given its distinctive metaphysical and religious use by
Proclus. In Neoplatonism, Proclus was the main channel through which the
heightening of religious sensibilities with that of epistemic and existential
tension (evident in the ekstasis of achieving the simplicity of union with
the One) would pass through Pseudo-Dionysius into the Christian tradi-
tion. According to McGinn, Proclus is rightly regarded as ‘the last great
pagan philosopher, whose thought forms an indisputable background to the
Dionysian corpus, and in whom the evolution of the ideal of contemplative
piety that began with Plato reaches its culmination.’410 Before discussion of
the assimilation of this contemplative ideal in Christian tradition, mention
must be made of the fact discussed earlier that it also implied an ascetical
and spiritual way of life.
As will be revealed, this asceticism and contemplative spiritual way of
life implied by reason’s ancient exercise as philo-sophia will carry over
into Christian monastic tradition through Alexandrian and Cappadocian
theologians.411 Hadot reminds us that it too ‘continued to be linked closely
to such secular categories as peace of mind, the absence of passions, and life
in conformity with nature and reason’.412 The important point here is that
the intellectual and ascetical pursuit of the Greek soul of eudaimonia gives
the impression of a severe and abstract process that will be carried over
into the Christian apophatic tradition. But clearly, a trajectory incorporating
Socrates’ erotic pursuit of Beauty, allied with the inspiratio of divine
madness which culminates in the ecstasy at the summit of apophatic ascent,
means this could not be further from the truth. Therefore, importantly,
of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia now beginning to transit through
Neoplatonism into Christian tradition, Plato also
infuses it with passion. He speaks of the ‘pursuit of being’ (Phaedo 66C)

using the imagery of the hunt; of the soul ‘approaching and mingling with
the truly real and begetting understanding and truth’ (Rep. 490 B) . . . the
passionate description of the soul’s recognition of true beauty in the form of

the beloved in the Phaedrus . . . (251A) . . . These two strands – the austerely
abstract and the passionate – are fused in the account of the pursuit of beauty
in Diotima’s speech in the Symposium (210 A-D).413
The fusion of the two Platonic strands of the austerely abstract and the pas-
sionate is most important, its evocation and hope of ecstatic satiation seen
in the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius. Ensuing developments from
this convergence of the two strands of Biblical faith and Greek reason will
continue to ride the waves of the deeper currents of inner human develop-
ment and offer valuable insights into the present.
The passionate and erotic nature of the Greek ‘negative’ pursuit of eu-
daimonia will find the hope of its full satisfaction in Christian tradition. Dis-
cussion in Chapter Four will see this trajectory rise to be met by the descent
of agape within the development of Christian apophasis, and as a profound
convergence of the two cognitive fields of faith and reason. The inextricably
intertwined nature of these ensuing developments is perfectly illustrated in
Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on love, Deus Caritas Est:
True, eros tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond
ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renuncia-
tion, purification and healing . . . Yet eros and agape – ascending love and
descending love – can never be completely separated. The more the two, in
their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more
the true nature of love in general is realized . . . The element of agape thus
enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its
own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love
alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. The philosophical di-
mension to be noted in this biblical vision . . . lies in the fact that on the one
hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is
the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of
creation – the Logos, primordial reason – is at the same time a lover with all
the passion of a true love.414
The ‘philosophical dimension’ of this ‘biblical vision’ of the Greek pursuit

of eudaimonia, or that of being led ‘beyond ourselves’ as ‘True, eros tends
to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine’, perfectly illustrates developments
now. Reflecting the scope and rationale of this work, the importance of
understanding the inextricably intertwined nature of these ensuing develop-
ments of the erotic rise of logos converging with the descent of agape is
made clear by Pope Benedict, in being
decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of

faith and reason is taking place here . . . between genuine enlightenment and
religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the
heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not
to act ‘with logos’ is contrary to God’s nature . . . The New Testament was
written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit . . . the fundamen-
tal decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of reason
are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature
of faith itself. 415
Discussion now turns to the ‘negative’ philosophical and theological foot-

prints left by Greek Christian intellectuals at the heart of these ‘fundamental
decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of reason’.
Moreover, ‘consonant with the nature of faith itself’, these footprints con-
tinue to offer sure direction in the pursuit of the fullest human develop-
ment.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GRAECO-CHRISTIAN APOPHATIC TRADITION
We see that by the gift of God there is present in all things a natural desire
to exist in the best manner in which the condition of each thing’s nature
permits this. And [we see that all things] act toward this end and have instru-
ments adapted thereto . . . [They have this] in order that their desire not be
in vain but be able to attain rest in that [respective] object which is desired
by the propensity of each thing’s own nature. (Nicholas of Cusa, De docta
ignorantia)
No matter how much an individual does through his own efforts, he cannot
actively purify himself enough to be disposed in the least degree for the
divine union of the perfection of love. (St John of the Cross, The Dark Night
of the Soul)
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
(Psalm 37.4)
Hearing the text’s literal voice mediated as the account of the

convergence of reason and faith
Where, in current academic debate, my mapping of lectio through my logi-

cal mind’s reading of the Platonic corpus sits has been discussed at the be-
ginning of Chapter Two. Mapping lectio here, the reader studiously listens
to the backbeat of the text speaking of intricate philosophical and theologi-
cal developments expressing the Neoplatonic disciple’s continuing pursuit
of eudaimonia which converges with Biblical faith. The logical senses of
the mind maintain focus on profound and radical epistemological and ex-
istential ramifications of these developments of the pursuit of the Platonic
contemplative ideal transiting into Biblical religious tradition. This logical
focus is first directed upon the significance of these factors for Philo which
in turn influences their assimilation within Christian tradition. Importantly,
at this juncture, the logos or rationale of this work and its scope reflecting
that of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia itself now transiting into religious
Biblical tradition is made manifestly clear. The ensuing discussion will
reveal clearly to the logical mind that it is impossible to fully appreciate
the Christian apophatic tradition without a thorough investigation of its
ancient philosophical heritage. And as it was for those who developed it,
such an appreciation offers valuable insights for the present from ancient
philosophical and theological elements in the universal pursuit of human
development. Establishing from the outset of this chapter, the mapping of
the first stage of my methodology through the logical focus of the mind
on these factors is crucial. This will establish that all such insight which is
subsequently mediated by the text to the reader remains understood as that
rooted in the convergence of revealed Biblical faith and Greek reason/logos
consonant with the nature of faith itself.
Meditatio on the text’s deeper inner voice expressing the radical

heightening of epistemological and existential tension in the Christian
consummation of the pursuit of eudaimonia
The mapping of meditatio follows with the repeated chewing over of the
logic of this philosophical, theological and historical rationale which the
mind has taken in through lectio. Therefore, the reader’s intuitive senses
begin to receive the symbolic voice of the text lying hidden below that of
its purely logical or literal philosophical and theological interpretation just
discussed. Here, this is mediated by the accounts of the first Christian en-
deavours of Clement in the development of the apophatic tradition speaking
of her/his deeper existential and epistemological wrestling with the pursuit
of eudaimonia into becoming that of Greek reason converging with Biblical
faith. Through meditatio, the mind’s intuitive senses are able to receive this
deeper symbolic voice hidden within the Platonic logic of his philosophi-
cal and theological development of the via negativa. It is crucial that the
reader attunes their intuitive senses to this deeper symbolic voice beginning
to speak of the radical heightening of epistemological and existential ten-
sion that was established at the heart of the Platonic contemplative ideal
supported by The Parmenides. This voice mediated by the text speaks of
the tension of this wrestling in the Miscellanies which, while emphasizing
the superiority of revelation to philosophy, understands both to be God’s
revelation of truth and therefore the duty of every Christian to neglect nei-
ther (see page 152). This deeper Christian apophatic voice speaking of the
assimilation of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia will continually be heard
The Graeco-Christian Apophatic Tradition 135
by the reader’s intuitive senses of never resorting to being an ‘either/or’ of

faith and reason. The tension of wrestling with this deeper central factor
of the ongoing Christian pursuit of eudaimonia begun by Clement reaches
its apex in Pseudo-Dionysius. Therefore, through meditatio, the reader is
attuned to begin hearing in Clement the tension of this developing voice
hidden within the logic of philosophy which he needed to cultivate his
theological ‘meadow’ (Miscellanies). Crucially, throughout subsequent
discussion, this voice speaks continually to the mind’s intuitive senses of
this central tension in the development of the via negativa. The heightening
tension of the relationship between faith and reason is central to Clement’s
expression ‘the dark of Sinai’. The intuitive senses hear the epistemological
and existential ramifications of this convergence hidden at the heart of the
text’s logic directing the deeper currents of human development towards the
summit of apophatic ascent. Correspondingly, with this apophatic radicali-
zation of the pursuit of eudaimania growing appreciation of the inevitability
of a Christian ‘qualified dualism’ is established.
Discerning the inner moral directing voice mediated by accounts of

Gregory wrestling to realize this consummation
Next comes Funk’s third stage, corresponding with oratio, traditionally

understood as a response of prayer which in turn profoundly affects the per-
son’s way of life. Here, hearing and heeding with one’s personal senses the
inner moral directing voice is mediated by accounts of Gregory wrestling
with this trajectory of heightening epistemological and existential tension
remaining at the heart of his major development of the via negativa. His
apophatic thinking about the pursuit of eudaimonia, therefore, will sound
loudly through its inner moral voice directing the personal senses towards
new incomprehensible heights of inner human development. Appreciation
of the developing inner moral voice of this ‘negative’ trajectory will be the
greater with the reader’s ear, like that of Gregory’s, already attuned to it
from cognizance of the development of its ancient philosophical heritage.
Gregory makes this evident in the monastic ideal of the philosophic life
he shares with Plato in being entirely devoted to the idea of the unifica-
tion of human life in one ultimate aim of returning the soul to God and to
humanity’s original nature. However, mapping oratio here means that the
inner moral voice directing the practice of philosophy as a spiritual way of
life will be heard by the reader, speaking of a watershed in the understand-
ing concerning the requirement of the virtuous life and ascetic practice.
Moreover, at variance with established Greek thought, this understanding

will speak of Gregory’s unique insight whereby he squares a positive con-
ception of constant change innate to human nature with its immutable divine
counterpart. The challenge now of heeding the inner moral voice uniquely
directing the pursuit of eudaimonia as an infinite movement from ‘glory to
glory’ remains reflected in radically heightening existential and epistemic
tension at its heart. Crucially, attuning the reader’s personal senses to this
tension within the moral voice now directing the new stasis of perpetual
growth, will also give greater appreciation of the buds of radical negation
which flower in Pseudo-Dionysius.

this consummation in the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius
Mapping contemplatio with Funk’s fourth stage sees the spiritual senses
of the reader receive the mystical voice mediated by the central text The
Mystical Theology. In doing so is heard the radical culmination of the Greek
pursuit of eudaimonia and the tension of wrestling with its existential and
epistemic heart now realized in the total collapse of reason and language.
Through mapping contemplatio, the reader’s spiritual senses are able to
appreciate this self-transcending ecstatic culmination of the ’truth of faith
and of reason, both in the distinction and also in the convergence of those
two cognitive fields’ (see page 28). Crucially, they alone are required by
the reader for receiving the deepest truth mediated by the Mystical Theol-
ogy of this experiential apex of divinizing human development. Hearing
this mystical voice will speak loudest to the logical mind of an ‘existential
dualistic’ situation which cannot be resolved by any theoretical reflections
– philosophically requiring the ‘qualified dualism’ of the Christian affir-
mation that God works in history as both transcendent and immanent in a
non-accidental way in the incarnation of Christ (see pages 26–7). From all
this, the reader’s spiritual senses are alone now able to fully appreciate this
apophatic conclusion of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia as an unimagina-
ble mode of Christian salvation.
The Emergence of the Via Negativa
The Greek mind’s assimilation of the revelation of the Father in the

Word/logos made flesh is traced through the philosophical and theological
footprints left by Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-

Dionysius. The footprints of these Christian intellectuals and mystics con-
tinue along the path set by the deeper currents of inner human development
which Socrates trod previously while in a constant state of aporia. Upon
reaching this point of transition into Christian tradition proper, the comments
of Mortley are telling: ‘Negative theology begins with the speculations of
the Greek philosophers. It denotes a method of knowing the transcendent
essence of things, called the Good by Plato, the One by the Neoplatonists,
and Father by the Christians.’416 Unsurprisingly, in the light of these con-
siderations, what will now become increasingly recognizable as the Greek
philosophical foundations of the Christian apophatic tradition (especially
through the fourth and sixth centuries) marks ‘one of the most vital periods
in the history of Christian “theology” . . . The intellectual demands made
upon Christian thinkers of that period . . . led to the adoption and develop-
ment of basic positions that would characterise Christianity for . . . centuries
. . . seen . . . in the intellectual methods of argument adopted to resolve dif-
ficulties.’417 The apophatic tradition will reveal the heart of these difficul-
ties in the development of its position through its assimilation and radical
modification of the Neoplatonic disciple’s contemplative ideal. Detailed
discussion will show this position emerging through assimilating existing
philosophical understanding and struggling in the light of faith to develop
radical new thinking about the soul’s pursuit of eudaimonia. The established
view understood the soul attempting to be ‘like God as far as is possible’ by
returning back to its One immaterial source along the Platonic scale of being.
The Christian view now develops understanding of the soul’s ascent back
through Christ to the Father whose nature is now radically rendered as being
no-thing, and making possible the summit of apophatic ascent. Continuing
discussion of the pursuit of eudaimonia along the spine of the Platonic idea
of procession and return that concludes through Christ in the ‘abyss’ of the
Father, will reveal the via negativa to have
refined and tested centrally important understandings of the nature of God

and God’s involvement with the world; the dynamic significance of the per-
son and work of Jesus; the concept of the Trinity; the ways deemed appropri-
ate of reading the scriptural foundations of Christian thought; the forms of
the churches’ liturgical and sacramental life.418
The continuing appreciation of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia becom-

ing ‘refined’, ‘tested’ and rooted in Biblical understanding, maintains the
retrieval and rediscovery of valuable insights into human development now
in the light of Christian revelation. Through lectio divina, the reader’s ‘sus-
tained immersion’ in these textual developments will continue to bring the
recovered past into the present pursuit of happiness. Before discussing these
Christian developments, something of the important contribution made to
them from the Jewish Biblical faith of Philo is required.
Philo: Marrying Plato with Jewish Biblical Faith
Following in the vein of previous discussion of the intensification of reli-

gious reading of Plato’s dialogues beginning in Middle Platonism, particu-
larly of The Parmenides, stands Philo. However, unlike his pagan counter-
parts, he is the first to transpose the Jewish Biblical God onto this reading of
Plato’s thought which in turn influences Christian tradition. The merging of
texts was understandable because Philo’s Bible and Plato’s dialogues could
be viewed similarly as being able to meet the heightening of religious needs
of the time.
Philo’s influence on Christian apophatic tradition was significant. Ac-
cording to the theologian Bernard McGinn, he was ‘more than just another
platoniser; he was the first figure in Western history to wed the Greek con-
templative ideal to the monotheistic faith of the Bible’.419 Philo took the
Greek contemplative ideal and for the first time made the Jewish doctrine of
a Biblical God its central component. Louth comments:
Though in many ways his understanding of God is similar to contemporary

notions of God as the One, the Ultimate, it breathes a different spirit: God is
for him not only a philosophical principle, he is the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, a God who reveals Himself, a God about whom Philo thinks and
ponders because He is important to him in Himself.420
It is the Hebrew God who is the object of Philo’s quest and His revealed
nature will determine it and the subsequent development of his negative
theology. This meant that Philo’s assimilation of the Greek contemplative
ideal was no longer determined primarily by the abstract philosophical
conception of the One. The marriage of his Jewish heritage rooted in the
Bible with Greek philosophical tradition explains how his thinking became
so amenable to Christian apotheosis. For example, his use of the motif of
darkness is of particular importance in the work of Gregory of Nyssa. His
understanding of the soul seeking the vision of God, or ‘assimilation to
God so far as that is possible’, follows Plato’s Cave allegory as do Gre-
gory and Pseudo-Dionysius. In this the sun represents the Good, and cor-
respondingly speaks repeatedly of God being light and his absence being
darkness. Crucially, taken up in Christian tradition, this was an opportunity
(as Williams observes) for Philo to ‘synthesize the Platonic ascent from the
cave into the light, with Moses’ ascent of Sinai, to the cloud where God
dwelt (Exod. 20.21): both end in a kind of blinding darkness, which is no
longer the absence of God but his very presence.’421 For Philo, the ascent
of the prisoner in Plato’s Cave allegory along his scale of being (whose
development, seen particularly in The Parmenides, is discussed throughout
Chapter Three) is replaced by Moses’ mystical quest and ascent of Mount
Sinai. Importantly, the blinding darkness in the cloud at the end of the quest
rather than the blinding light of Plato’s Sun begins to suggest that the goal of
the pursuit of eudaimonia is never complete. Representing the Jewish Bib-
lical idea of God as ineffable and unnameable, Williams comments: ‘This
darkness renders the goal of the quest indistinct: there is no longer a clear
destination but merely a progress into the gloom . . . There is no light at the
end of the tunnel . . . no point at which one has explored sufficiently to be
able to map out and articulate the essence of the divine.’422 His idea of syn-
thesizing Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai with that of the prisoner in Plato’s
Cave allegory will remain of crucial Biblical and philosophical significance
throughout subsequent developments in the Christian tradition.
However, Biblical conceptions of human development and its goal
clearly begin to change perceptions from being that of achieving a static
state of perfection to being one of incomprehensible and inexhaustible pro-
gression. The ineffable and unnamable nature of the Biblical God is now
added into the equation of the pursuit of eudaimonia and is of major sig-
nificance to my argument. What escapes and ‘bedazzles’ the grasp of reason
and language becomes established at the heart of the developing apophatic
way. This is at odds with modern thinking which seeks to overcome all ambi-
guity and incomprehension. Gregory of Nyssa will be seen to endorse the
idea of God’s nature being incomprehensible corresponding with the idea
of the soul’s quest always being incomplete. Anticipating these develop-
ments in Christian negative theology, a decisive moment is reached. This
anticipates the Patristic Fathers and the development of the central idea of
the Christian soul’s ascent that will be discussed conveyed through the use
of philosophy inspired by scriptural teaching and precedent. This Stoicized
form that Platonism took from the beginning of the first century BC and
that is represented by Philo ‘provides the intellectual background of many
of the Fathers, and is the form in which the idea of the soul’s ascent to God
is understood.’423 The subtle and profound Christian development of this
re-articulation of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia is the focus of detailed

treatment of proceeding discussion culminating in the Mystical Theology
of Pseudo-Dionysius. Added to this is Philo’s mystical thought anticipat-
ing the exegetical character of apophasis (particularly evident in Pseudo-
Dionysius), and representing the development of lectio divina as my choice
of methodology. Though God was revealed in the Bible, it was believed
that not all had the eyes to read it. McGinn notes: ‘If the main intent of the
Philonic enterprise is a Graeco-Jewish reconciliation, its main instrument is
a vast and detailed allegorical interpretation of Scripture.’424
Clement of Alexandria, the First Christian to Develop

Negative Theology
Discussion of these developments in Christian tradition proper begins with
the Alexandrian spirituality of Clement. Clement focuses on the systematic
use of theological negation to understand the soul’s relation to God. Gregory
of Nyssa follows, who introduces the new idea of the soul’s perpetual
progress which echoes the idea of status viatoris discussed in Chapter One.
This Christian re-articulation of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia concludes
in its fullest satisfaction in the ecstasy of deifying self-transcendence at the
summit of Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic ascent. It should be noted from the
outset that this ‘negative’ Christian trajectory of human development begins
to reflect and maintain an embodied ‘qualified dualism’. I discuss this play-
ing out in the crucially important Patristic position of insisting upon the
radical distinction made between God’s uncreated divine nature and that
of creation created ex nihilo. Indeed, this position will reveal itself in the
apophatic tradition emerging from wrestling with the belief that God works
in history as both radically transcendent and immanent in the incarnation of
Christ. Subsequent discussion will show the development of this ‘qualified
dualism’ from a philosophically irreconcilable position, is actually what
makes the via negativa theoretically possible along with the articulation of
its existential experience. I turn to Clement to begin retrieving and rediscov-
ering valuable insights from this developing mode of salvation.
The writings of Clement (AD 150–215, a contemporary of Plotinus)
are full of Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas which he uses to interpret his
Christian faith. His Platonism was first hand, not mediated through any
Jewish or Christian writers, and is designated as Middle Platonism. With
its apophasis, criticized earlier as the weaker version of the Neoplatonic
‘real thing’, it was an amalgam of Platonic and Pythagorean theology, Stoic
ethics and Aristotle’s logic seen in his theory of abstraction (aphaeresis).

Consequently, in Clement, pagan ‘negative’ philosophy and theology is
seen to bridge naturally into its Christian assimilation and further develop-
ment. Illustrating the point is his primary motivation as a Platonist before
becoming a Christian. According to Norman Russell, ‘Clement had been a
Platonist . . . The goal of this Platonism was to become like God as far as
possible . . . Clement’s pursuit of it brought him to Christianity even before
he got to Egypt.’425 Seen here is the erotic Platonic contemplative ideal ris-
ing to meet the descent of Christian agape revealed in the incarnate Christ.
It anticipates the influence of Proclus’ Neoplatonism on Pseudo-Dionysius,
in the bridging between the ‘negative’ development of Plato’s thinking and
the Christian soul’s desire for union with the Father.
Despite some of Clement’s Christian contemporaries denying the value
of Greek philosophy in the practice of the faith, like contemporary theolo-
gians who overlook or dismiss their value, he clearly did not feel the same.
According to Ursula King, he ‘considered philosophy as another divine gift
to humanity, in addition to the gift of Christ, the Logos, or Word. Clem-
ent was one of the early thinkers . . . who wrestled with the relationship of
Christian faith to philosophy and culture. The beginnings of true Christian
Platonism and humanism are found in his thought.’426 One of Clement’s
chief aims was to determine the relationship between faith and reason, and
in so doing, show what philosophy had achieved to prepare the world for
Christian revelation. He also aimed to transform the data of this revelation
into a ‘scientific’ theology. Like his pagan predecessors, his theological aim
characterized by the ‘negation’ of his philosophy of God, was also charac-
terized by the highest exercise of Greek cognitive faculties and heightened
religious sensibilities, now seeking satisfaction in Christian revelation. This
Christian accommodation of the exercise of logos was far from uncritical,
but it blossomed into unimagined new vistas and understandings of human
aspiration.
Clement clearly maintained his cognitive focus on the Greek philosophi-
cal foundations of his Christian thinking, resulting in the penetration of
their deep interconnectedness. The benefits and priority seen by Clement of
maintaining an understanding of this relationship between Greek ‘negative’
philosophical and Christian theological thinking, are most evident in Book
1 Chapter 5 of Stromata 427 which merits quoting at length:
Accordingly, before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to

the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety;
being a kind of preparatory training to those who attain to faith through
demonstration. For your foot, it is said, will not stumble, if you refer what
is good, whether belonging to the Greeks or to us, to Providence. Proverbs
3.23 For God is the cause of all good things; but of some primarily, as of the
Old and the New Testament; and of others by consequence, as philosophy.
Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily,
till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring the
Hellenic mind, as the law, the Hebrews, to Christ. Galataians 3.24 Philoso-
phy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected
in Christ.
We merely therefore assert here, that philosophy is characterized by investi-

gation into truth and the nature of things (this is the truth of which the Lord
Himself said, I am the truth John 14.6); and that, again, the preparatory
training for rest in Christ exercises the mind, rouses the intelligence, and
begets an inquiring shrewdness, by means of the true philosophy, which the
initiated possess, having found it, or rather received it, from the truth itself.
Greek philosophical tradition is seen offering ‘preparatory training for even-

tual rest in Christ received from truth itself’. As discussion will show, this
stated importance and the valuable insights into human development it still
offers was maintained in the writings of Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius.
Drawing from this synthesis, Clement offers a clear warning about thinking
adrift from its philosophical exercise and historical store of wisdom evident
today:
Be not much with a strange woman. He admonishes us to use indeed, but

not to linger and spend time with, secular culture. For what was bestowed
on each generation advantageously, and at seasonable times, is a preliminary
training for the word of the Lord. For already some men, ensnared by the
charms of handmaidens, have despised their consort philosophy, and have
grown old . . . the most in rhetoric. But as the encyclical branches of study
contribute to philosophy, which is their mistress; so also philosophy itself
co-operates for the acquisition of wisdom. For philosophy is the study of
wisdom, and wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human; and
their causes. Wisdom is therefore queen of philosophy, as philosophy is of
preparatory culture . . . it appears more worthy of respect and pre-eminence,
if cultivated for the honour and knowledge of God. (Stromata Book 1 Chap-
ter 5)
Clement maintained the intrinsic value of the Greek philosophical foun-

dations of the Christian apophatic tradition. This endorsed the pursuit of
inner human development within the philosophical frame of One unified
view of reality, and made incarnate in Christ. Clement guarded against the
danger of reason becoming alienated from the store of wisdom gathered by
previous generations, even within the Christian tradition. Unlike modern
thinking, this reasoning will eventually aim to make knowledge ‘fail’ within
the divine ‘abyss’. Clement becomes the first Christian to use negation sys-
tematically and effectively as a vital key to philosophical thinking about
God. Prior to this, ‘negative’ vocabulary was used largely as a polemic
against paganism and Gnostic claims of the knowledge of God. Negation
was used by Clement with Aristotle’s method of abstraction (aphaeresis) to
remove anthropomorphic and passionate accretions to concepts of God. It
is expounded in the fifth book of the Stromata, in which the unknown and
ineffable Christian God defies even further the One of Neoplatonism and its
philosophical categories and methods. Despite acknowledging these ben-
efits Clement explained the necessity of the incarnate revelation in Christ:
Rightly, therefore, the divine apostle says, By revelation the mystery was
made known to me (as I wrote before in brief, in accordance with which,
when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of
Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is
now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets.’428
Like his pagan counterparts, what Clement arrives at through his negative
philosophical method is the concept of a simple unity. The value of this
method which produced Clement’s ‘dues philosophorum’ is that it also ac-
commodated his reception of Christian revelation. However, in the light
of Christian revelation, its limitations (and those of pagan philosophical
religion more generally) are now radically revealed. For Clement, the
value of philosophy and its limitations were seen in both moving a person
so near (the dues philosophorum), but because of Christian revelation, so
far from the One’s nature now revealed as infinitely unfathomable. I will
discuss this shortly in regard to Gregory profoundly modifying the Neopla-
tonic understanding of the soul achieving perfection. The final impotence
of Greek philosophical religion rooted in the limitations of human reason
before Christian revelation (representing the Christian tradition generally),
led Clement to re-appropriate its methods. Importantly, while still maintain-
ing the apophatic trajectory in pursuit of eudaimonia, the ‘negative’ method
of Greek philosophical religion became focused on bringing about moral
and intellectual purification. This was still deemed necessary in preparing
a person in readiness for the Father’s revelation in Christ. However, notes
Williams, because Christian revelation ‘lies beyond even this simple One
. . . what this method really achieves is not to tell us what God is, but what
he is not’.429 While the pure and absolute simplicity of the Neoplatonic One
defied reason and language (seen in Plotinus and Proclus) it was, at the
same time, dependent on them. Christian revelation would radically stretch
this Greek thinking above and beyond even the most rarefied philosophical
conceptions or vision of the One. The goal of the Neoplatonic disciples’
pursuit of eudaimonia falls radically short of that which will be conceived
by Christian mind’s evident in the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.
It becomes the goal of divinizing apophatic ascent made possible only
through the One revealing its nature in Christ. It was inconceivable for
philosophical thought or method alone to achieve. The heightening tension
of epistemic and existential movement encouraged by ‘negative’ reasoning
remains. But the holistic Greek movement of inner human development
becomes radicalized and made incomprehensibly more effective within the
frame of a Christian ‘qualified dualism’.
Crucially for Clement, the Christian revelation of the One’s ineffable
nature in the incarnate Christ forever situated his goal of the pursuit of
eudaimonia beyond even the purest of Plotinian conceptions. Moreover,
it offered real hope of the ecstatic satiation of the erotic desire for the full-
est human development through the unmerited gift of divinizing union. An
unprecedented dividing line is established distinguishing philosophical
religion from divinizing apophatic ascent to the Father. It is a distinction
which runs through this chapter separating the pagan philosopher from
the emerging Christian negative theologian, but always as a synthesis of
both understood as the convergence of the two cognitive fields of faith and
reason. However, while the exercise of reason as philo-sophia as a spiritual
way of life is maintained, for Clement it provides the philosophical founda-
tions accommodating a process of human divinization that will result finally
in the total collapse of reason.
The unique Christian idea of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) is central
to this radical development of the Greek ‘negative’ pursuit of eudaimonia.
This requires further analysis, prior to discussion of the development of
the negative theology of Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius. The
Greek Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky succinctly argues that ‘there
appears an idea which one never finds in Dionysius, and which draws a line
of demarcation between Christian mysticism and the mystical philosophy
of the neo-platonists’.430 Unlike the Christian God, that of ‘Plotinus ‘is not
incomprehensible by nature’.431 The uncreated nature of the Christian God
rendered it incomprehensible, and necessitated its revelation in the incar-
nate Christ. The Greek philosophical mind had never conceived of the One
having to reveal its nature, because no process of human thought was able
to gain any conception of it whatsoever. The One of Neoplatonism was
incomprehensible because human reason had been able conceptually to
understand it as being so, and was therefore positively defined as the One.
Accordingly, with this understanding most evident in Plotinus, it is possible
to achieve union with it through ‘reintegration in the simplicity of the object
of contemplation . . . which . . . is not distinguished from the subject con-
templating’.432 However, the goal of the Christian pursuit of eudaimonia is
beyond any contemplative philosophical reintegration with simplicity (the
dues philosophorum). Self-transcending ecstatic union with the no-thing
of uncreated divine nature becomes the goal of the soul’s ascent which
required an inconceivable process of human divinization. The process of
human development today which is dominated by instrumental reason
could not be further removed from this thinking and what it promises.
Let us consider further the differences between the apophatic pursuit of
the disciple of Neoplatonism and their Christian counterpart. The former
pursued ecstatic union with the One of Plotinus which was conceptu-
ally understood lying outside of being, and was achieved by realizing utter
‘simplification’. This is the goal of Plotinian negative theological thinking
where any distinction between the subject and the utter simplicity of the
One is overcome and division and change are discarded. Ecstasy is the soul
achieving this perfect Unity of inner human development, and necessitating
the cessation of the fragmenting effect of reason and language. This recalls
the discussion of Plotinus moving the pursuit of eudaimonia of Greek
philosophical religion inwards which the via negativa will follow. Plotinus
himself speaks of oscillating between this Unified apprehension of God and
his true self and any form of division from it:
If we come to be at one with our self, and no longer split ourselves into two,
we are simultaneously One and All, together with that God who is noise-
lessly present, and we stay with him as long as we are willing and able. If
we should return to a state of duality, we remain next to him as long as we
are pure; thus we can be in his presence again as before, if we turn to him
again. Out of this temporary return to division, we have, moreover, gained
the following benefit: in the beginning, we regain consciousness of our-
selves, as long as we are other than God. When we then run back inside, we
have everything (sc. Consciousness and unity with God). Then, abandoning
perception out of fear of being different from God, we are at one in the other
world (Enneud, V8,11,4–12).
This is the Plotinian high tide of inner human development reached by

Greek apophatic thinking whereby the self becomes simultaneously One

and all. Yet, for the Neoplatonic disciple, no matter how far their contem-
plative piety and reasoning ascended towards achieving this ecstasy, it
would always fall short of knowing what was revealed to lay beyond their
scope. Even this achievement still only pointed towards knowing what for
human nature was revealed as unknowable. The incomprehension of this
ecstasy was nevertheless understood as such, and therefore something that
human reason could claim to a greater or lesser extent to have achieved.
The value of this Neoplatonic philosophical heritage in the development
of the Christian apophatic remains undiminished as discussion will show.
However, the growing benefits to inner human development from its con-
vergence with Christian revelation become increasingly evident in Gregory
and Pseudo-Dionysius, and so to their inconceivability to the modern mind.
The Neoplatonic vision of the pursuit of eudaimonia will become expanded
beyond even that of the conception of realizing the ecstatic reintegration
into the simplicity of the One. Importantly, as Lossky notes, the Christian
God is unlike what formerly could be positively defined, but is
incomprehensible by nature, the God of the Psalms: ‘who made darkness his
secret place’ . . . not the primordial God-Unity of the neo-platonists. If He
is in-comprehensible it is not because of a simplicity which cannot come to
terms with the multiplicity with which all knowledge relating to creatures is
tainted. It is, so to say, an incomprehensibility which is more radical, more
absolute. Indeed, God would no longer be incomprehensible by nature if
this incomprehensibility were, as in Plotinus, rooted in the simplicity of the
One.433
Realizing ecstatic union with the Christian God ‘who made darkness his
secret place’, was not achievable by human will or reason. This required the
incarnate revelation of its uncreated divine nature, whose essence human
nature did not share and could not conceive of. Clement’s understanding
of the limitations of his dues philosophorum in the light of this revelation
become clear, and it preserved it from becoming too indistinguishable
from philosophical conceptions. Yet this ‘negative’ philosophical heritage
becomes foundational to the developing apophatic tradition’s radical re-
articulation of the pursuit of eudaimonia through a convergence constituting
the nature of Christian faith itself.
In antiquity, the dues philosophorum was effective in moving reason be-
yond what are the many fragmented material images which can enslave the
attention of human desire. However, faced with the radical incomprehensi-
bility of Christian revelation, it fell infinitely short of being able to complete
the job of fully realizing the new knowledge of human development. Impor-
tantly, though, for both Eastern and Western Christian traditions, aphaeresis
as part of Clement’s process of negation remained a central element of intel-
lectual and moral purification in preparing for Christian life. In the ‘Lord’s
service’ this process retained great value in orientating or ‘schooling’ the
person ready for the radical Christian development of what was the Greek
contemplative ideal. Despite the first Christian monks in Egypt and Syria
developing their monasticism spontaneously free of rigorous philosophi-
cal study by imitating Christ’s life found in the New Testament, this Greek
element is evident in their religious life. Even here, the convergence of the
Greek exercise of reason as philo-sophia and Biblical faith makes its influ-
ence felt. This was through the considerable influence of Clement and his
Cappadocian successors within the apophatic tradition regarding moral and
intellectual purification. The Greek heritage of ancient spiritual exercise
was transmitted to Christian spirituality through Christian monasticism.
While Christian monks interpreted their desire for God from the perspective
of the Bible, Greek philosophy also maintained a considerable influence.
According to the Benedictine monk Anselm Gruen,
Greek philosophy also played a role . . . The connection of asceticism with

mysticism, the vision of God, is typically Greek. The ascetical vocabulary
comes, for the most part, from the language of Hellenistic popular philoso-
phy . . . asceticism, anachoresis (withdrawal from the world), monk (from
monaschos, someone who separates himself), coenobote (member of a mo-
nastic community), and many more.434
The Greek heritage of ‘negative’ philosophical thinking as a spiritual

way of living would greatly influence Pseudo-Dionysius’ way of doing
Mystical Theology. In turn this influence would follow in the develop-
ment of the Eastern Christian tradition and monasticism. Evidence of the
maintenance and radicalization of this Greek ‘negative’ epistemic and
existential pursuit of eudaimonia is clear in the primary sources used by
Clement, Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius: John 6.63: ‘The Spirit gives life;
the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and
they are life.’ Resulting in a Christian ‘qualified dualism’, reason remains
set towards One simple unified reality, now radically rendered as ‘no-thing’
furthest removed from its many fragmented material representations. Also
maintained in this Christian pursuit of eudaimonia was the requirement of
moral and spiritual purification through the discipline of the ‘flesh’, whose
appetites counted ultimately for ‘nothing’. This ‘negative’ thinking about
human development is radically at odds with that today. The reverse is more
representative of instrumental reason whereby it is the ‘flesh’ which ‘gives

life’ and the spirit ‘counts for nothing’.
However, while Clement was the first Christian to give a central place to
the Greek method of negation in his philosophy of God, his negative theol-
ogy is still of a simple type. It was not yet maturely apophatic because the
negations of the divine are not yet themselves negated. Representing the
weaker Christian apophasis of Middle Platonism, his negative theology
falls short of developing into the buds of radical apophasis seen in Gre-
gory and fully expounded in Pseudo-Dionysius. Recalling earlier discussion,
Armstrong contrasts its purely verbal negations with the real apophasis of
Neoplatonism seen in Pseudo-Dionysius (negation of negations) which is
part of an existential orientation based on limitless criticism. He argues that
the Western Christian tradition has undervalued true apophasis through fear
of unfettered negation, and leading to the content of faith being emptied.
Ironically, however, it is Middle Platonism’s weaker version that is most sus-
ceptible to this type of nihilism by not extending its denials to the negations
themselves. This means that the radicalization of Christian apophasis, rooted
in the revealed uncreated and incomprehensible nature of God, is never fully
affirmed. What remain instead are transcendental affirmations of the divine.
Correspondingly, philosophical conceptions of human nature and develop-
ment arising from these do not encourage the total collapse of reason and
language before the ‘mystery’ of a ‘question to which there is no answer’.435
All this would suggest that Clement is susceptible to Middle Platon-
ism’s problematic weaker version of apophasis to which other Christians
in later antiquity revert, seeking to avoid the virulent anti-Christian stance
of many pagan Neoplatonists. Despite negative conceptions of the divine
not being seen to be as inadequate as positive ones, the radical affirmation
of God’s incomprehensible nature and its effect upon thinking about hu-
man development is relinquished by their maintenance. Despite Clement
being the first Christian to give a central place to his system of negation as
preparatory moral, spiritual and intellectual purification for life in Christ,
his simple negation is ‘not yet apophatic . . . and provides no springboard
to any higher negations or knowing by unknowing’.436 Western Christianity
has been more accepting of weaker apophasis than its Eastern counterpart.
This has led to a Christian way of life characterized more by cataphatic or
transcendent affirmations of the divine nature rather than one character-
ized by the ecstasy and joy of ‘knowing by unknowing’. There are notable
exceptions which include Nicholas of Cusa, the anonymous author of the
Cloud of Unknowing, and John of the Cross whose erotic aporatic pursuit of
inner human development reached new ecstatic heights.
There is a suggestion of some content in Clement’s work open for

development into true apophasis. Once again this brings to the fore the cen-
tral content of Christian revelation radicalizing the Neoplatonic disciples’
religious philosophical ideal of becoming ‘like God as far as is possible’.
This is seen in the requirement for Clement of a final radical apophatic
leap of faith through Christ into the ‘Almighty’: ‘we cast ourselves into the
greatness of Christ, and thence advance into the immensity by holiness, we
may reach somehow to the conception of the Almighty, not knowing what
he is, but what he is not’ (Stromata 5.71.3). Regardless of the undoubted
value of any philosophical method, he understood that it could never reveal
or provide a springboard to direct knowledge of the Christian God’s uncre-
ated divine nature. Hagg argues:
It is difficult, I think, to express the basic nature of apophatic theology in more

adequate terms than Clement does in the . . . phrase: arriving at the point, we
abstract its position and are left with unity itself. After the method of abstrac-
tion has been exhausted, however, one advances, by an extra-rational step,
into the ‘immensity of Christ’. But not even Christ can mediate knowledge of
God; if there is knowledge to be gained, it is a negative one.437
At this point the first hint of apophasis in Clement’s thinking is seen lying
open to expansion which Gregory of Nyssa undertakes, and who in many
ways is his spiritual heir. Taking the ‘extra-rational step into the immensity
of Christ’ clearly emphasizes the fact that He now becomes the true path of
inner human development leading into ‘negative’ knowledge of the Almighty.
Clement’s discussion of John 1.18438 (‘no one has ever seen God; it is only
the Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’)
illustrates this perfectly, commenting that God may be called ‘the Depth’.
Clement was the first to introduce the technical vocabulary of deification.
Yet no formal definition occurs until Pseudo-Dionysius’ formulation in
the sixth century, echoing the accommodation of the Platonic disciple’s
contemplative ideal: ‘Deification is the attainment of likeness to God
and union with him so far as is possible’ (EH 1.3). Clearly illustrating the
Greek philosophical foundations which support it, this is unlike modern
definitions of human development which have largely disassociated
themselves from any ties to spiritual or religious roots. Essentially, the
process of human divinization signifies a creature undergoing what is alien
to its nature. This is especially so for modern instrumental thinking. Secured
by the incarnational event, the process will be discussed particularly in its
centrality to Pseudo-Dionysius’ description of the soul’s ascent to the Father
in his Mystical Theology.
However, Clement was the first to apply a notion of deification to

the Christian life, in which (according to Russell) they are ‘deified by a
heavenly teaching (Prot. 11.114.4); when fully perfected after the likeness
of his teacher, he “becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh”. . .
(Strom.7.101.4); and at the end of his life he is enthroned “with the other
gods” in the heavenly places.’439 Speaking of being deified through heavenly
teaching (scripture) also indicates something of the debt that Clement owes
to Philo in learning how to bring his Platonism to bear on Biblical thought
and exegesis.440 Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius follow this, particularly
in their account of Moses ascending Mount Sinai. Learning this from
studying Philo’s texts at Alexandria, Clement becomes the first Christian to
significantly use the Biblical account of Moses ascending Mount Sinai into
the dark cloud of God’s presence. It is a central theme that will run through
the work of Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius. Clement takes a central
account of the Jewish Biblical faith transposed by Philo onto Plato and does
the same, adapting ‘Philo’s treatment of Moses to a Christian perspective.
The true Law giver is now the only-begotten Son. Moses is simply the
perfect man who has attained gnosis and therefore is the paradigm for
every Christian Gnostic.’441 Clement’s Christian appropriation of Moses’
apophatic ascent up Mount Sinai into the incomprehensible divine darkness
is discussed next in its important extended treatment in the second part of
Gregory’s Life of Moses.
Before discussing this work, something needs to be said about the
importance of silence for Clement as he envisions the leap of faith through
Christ into the unfathomable ‘Depth’ of the ‘Almighty’, and beginning
to know by unknowing. Its importance grows in significance in the work
of Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius. For Clement, the incomprehensible
‘Depth’ of the Father’s divine nature revealed in Christ must be worshipped
in wonder and silence:
the timeless and unoriginated First Principle, and Beginning of existences

– the Son – from whom we are to learn the remoter Cause, the Father, of
the universe, the most ancient and the most beneficent of all; not capable of
expression by the voice, but to be reverenced with reverence, and silence,
and holy wonder.442
For Clement, Christian revelation deepens the value of silence which will
carry through into the development of the Christian apophatic tradition.
Previous discussion of the ancient Platonic heritage which now provides
the apophatic traditions’ philosophical foundations, should make this
developing contemplative language of silence unsurprising. Charting this

development will see the radical deepening beyond the grasp of reason of
this language of silence at the summit of apophatic ascent. Clement, accord-
ing to Mortley,
advocates a sort of speechless mental contemplation and the use of language

is seen as a commitment to the senses. The ‘mind pure’ functions without
such props, and therefore without being diverted to the sensible world
(Strom. V.11.67.3) and it is probable that here too Clement is treating the
mind as bearing an immediate link with reality, of a kind that language lacks.
Accordingly prayer, as a form of communion with the highest reality, must
take place in silence: ‘we speak in silence’ (Strom. V11.7.40.1 ff.).443
The ocean of noise from modern instrumental thinking breaks up the deeper
currents of inner human development which flow strongest and true when
they are heard to ‘speak in silence’. Facilitated by lectio divina, the apophat-
ic tradition and its ancient philosophical heritage offer invaluable insights
for relearning this language.
I conclude my discussion of Clement’s thinking by noting the irresolva-
ble theoretical character of an ontological tension that remains central to the
development of negative theology for all Christian Platonists. It emerged
as these two traditions converged in understanding that the Father’s closest
philosophical representative was considered to be the One. In the light of
previous discussion of procession and return in Neoplatonism, the revela-
tion of the Father’s/One nature in his incarnate Son therefore becomes a
hugely difficult philosophical problem to square. The incarnate revelation
of the Father’s nature seems to endorse a view at odds with that of apophatic
epistemic and existential movement set in reverse back towards the silent
‘Depth’ of the Father’s uncreated immaterial nature. What value could this
incarnational movement have in the pursuit of eudaimonia which seemed
to reverse that which apophatic thinking encouraged? Clement formulates
something of a solution. This recalls discussion of the dialogue Parmenides
which identified both the epistemological need for the One, but also the
problem of gaining knowledge of it due to the fragmenting effect of lan-
guage. Clement’s solution involved the relationship between the Father and
the Son in which the Father, representing the Neoplatonic One, is made to
lie in the silent abyss of his nature beyond the level of the Son. The Son,
therefore, becomes incarnate to give language some scope of legitimacy;
but all the while, through the Son, lies the knowledge of unknowing of the
Father’s unified nature. According to Mortley, Clement envisions
silence as coming into operation beyond the level of the Son. It is the Father
of all things, the Middle Platonic One which lies beyond the realm of lan-
guage. Language would appear . . . operative up to the level of the Son, but
not beyond . . . Since Jesus was part of the sensible world, language could
be applied to him and used by him: this indeed was the whole point of the
incarnation, to give language at least some limited field of applicability. It
offered a launching pad for language and the experience of the senses. Yet
beyond the Son there is silence.444
Clearly, the incarnation radically ratchets up the epistemic and existential

tension which Clement inherits in his negative thinking, and does not di-
minish the value of any movement of return to the One from the many.
On the contrary, the incarnation’s assimilation within the Greek pursuit of
eudaimonia will radically guarantee it. As discussed in Chapter One, these
considerations are central to this work’s ‘qualified dualism’ which is philo-
sophically required by the Christian affirmation that God works in history
as both transcendent and immanent in a non-accidental way in the incarna-
tion. The incarnation also establishes at the heart of human development
the profoundest value of both silence and language, in the total collapse of
the latter at the summit of Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic ascent. With Clem-
ent, language and the experience of the senses now have a human ‘launch-
ing pad’ through which inner and outer forms of human development can
achieve a balanced unity. Unlike the language of instrumental reason which
now manipulates human desire and experience, the Son’s affirmation of
language is a launching pad for them into the silent ‘Depth’ of the Father.
Clement’s radical maintenance of the ‘negative’ epistemic and existential
trajectory of his Greek philosophical heritage, also reflects developments in
Christology in the wider church. Focusing on reconciling the human and the
divine in Christ, such solutions will have a huge bearing on the Christian
mystical tradition. Central to this was the process of human divinization in
the soul’s inward ascent through the Son to the Father. Clearly, it follows that
if Christ’s human and divine natures could not be reconciled – how the Son’s
human nature could be united with the immaterial and uncreated nature of
his Father – then the whole process of human divinization as apophatic
ascent would be rendered equally implausible. Favouring the Alexandrian
tradition in which Clement stood, the Council of Chalcedon (451) provides a
clear statement on the human and divine nature of Christ while emphasizing
the philosophical heritage of Plato’s contemplative ideal and that of Christ’s
divine nature as its consummation. The assimilation of the Greek pursuit of
eudaimonia with Christian revelation begun by Clement was set to develop
into the most radical ‘negative’ way of thinking about the fullest inner human
development.
Gregory of Nyssa, the Theologian of Darkness

and of the Soul’s Perpetual Progress
Gregory was perhaps the first to describe the mystical life as the soul’s
ascent to God being one of an unending journey into ever greater realization
of the darkness of his incomprehensible nature. As mentioned previously,
this developing Christian apophasis continues to remain possible only
through a ‘qualified dualism’ maintaining the philosophically irreconcilable
position of belief in God working in history as both radically transcendent
and immanent in the incarnation of Christ. Because of this, Gregory’s faith
in Christ (like that of Clement), observes Richard Wallis, ‘seems to have
the function of emboldening the mystic to leave the solidity of conceptual
thought and launch himself into the divine darkness’.445 Gregory redirects
the heightened religious desire of the disciple of Neoplatonism beyond the
‘solidity of conceptual thought’ towards an horizon promising the infinite
expansion of the soul. Modern human development by contrast is directed by
faith in the tangible solidity of instrumental reason. Though Gregory shows
his following of Clement through the Alexandrian tradition, his emphasis on
Christ’s divine nature and allegorical interpretation of scripture introduces
a whole new synthesis of negative theology that will influence Pseudo-
Dionysius.446 These developments focus on arguably the crowning work of
his mysticism, the Life of Moses,447 in which Moses becomes a symbol of
the spiritual or mystical apophatic journey of the Christian to God. Williams
writes, the heart of ‘the theologian of darkness . . . teaching is . . . found
in his Life of Moses.’ 448 Moreover Gregory’s ‘treatment of the image of
Moses ascending Sinai is significantly new’.449 Building upon Gregory’s
originality, Pseudo-Dionysius retells the story of Moses’ ascent of Mount
Sinai into the divine darkness, combining it with the imagery of Plato’s
Cave allegory. Discussion of these radical developments of the apophatic
tradition in Gregory’s Life of Moses, which conceptually Pseudo-Dionysius’
account stretches much further, means that focus remains directed at the
summits of both these ascents into the darkness of unknowing. Because
this experiential apex of inner human development is characterized by
the total collapse of reason, whereby one learns to listen and speak in the
dark silence of God’s infinity (Gregory’s unique insight), it is a perpetual
journey of divine discovery. Concerning Gregory’s unique idea of epektasis
and associated negative theology of darkness, the Patristics scholar Paul

Blowers writes: ‘The notion of a perpetual spiritual progress or straining . . .
toward the infinite God as the highest calling of human beings is a classic
leitmotif in the theological anthropology of Gregory of Nyssa.’450
Turner suggests:
What those theologians thought they were doing explains what they did.
They wanted to bring Plato and Exodus together. The effect . . . was a seis-
mic shock . . . three Greek theologians principally embody this convergence:
Gregory of Nyssa, Denys the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor.451
These two stories, one Greek and the other Hebrew, are fundamental in under-
standing the Christian radicalization of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia.
Importantly, Gregory’s development of apophasis in his account of Moses’
ascent, just like Pseudo-Dionysius, resists any weak expression of divine
transcendence and Unity representing a Christian ‘qualified dualism’.
In the Alexandrian tradition in which the Cappadocians and Pseudo-
Dionysius stand, there is a large measure of agreement about the divine
nature, especially its unity, reflecting the interconnected view of the whole
of reality encouraged by apophatic thinking. Yet despite Neoplatonism re-
maining a strong necessary characteristic in the Alexandrian Christian tradi-
tion, as with Clement, Jaeger writes that for Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius
it remains a fact that ‘philosophical speculation was used by them to support
a positive religion that was not itself the result of independent human search
for the truth, like earlier Greek philosophies, but took as its point of depar-
ture a divine revelation contained in a holy book, the Bible’.452 Here again,
the gulf between human and divine nature which philosophy and ascetical
effort alone cannot bridge, yet human nature is invited to cross, is clearly
illustrated by Gregory in the homily On the Beatitudes (7, PG 44. 1280c):
How can one give thanks worthily for such a gift? With what words, what
thoughts that move our mind can we praise this abundance of grace? Man
transcends his own nature, he who was subject to corruption in his mortality
becomes immune from it in his immortality, eternal from being fixed in time
– in a word a god from a man.
Gregory’s articulation of the apophatic ascent of the soul to the Father

understands human nature bridging an insurmountable gulf through deifica-
tion, ‘in a word a god from a man’. He introduces a sacramental dimension
also alluded to in this homily, and made efficacious by the Father’s divine
nature first becoming incarnate in Christ. The goal of the Christian pursuit
of eudaimonia, deifying union with the Father, required the free gift of
grace received through the sacraments. Russell notes: ‘Man transcends
his nature by becoming a son of God. It is the sacramental gift bestowed
by baptism, rather than any ascent of the soul through philosophy, which
Gregory seems to have in mind . . . Man does not transcend his nature by
his own ascetical effort.’453
This central dimension of the unmerited effect of the Christian sac-
raments deemed necessary in bridging the human with the divine (and
emphasized more strongly by Pseudo-Dionysius), unsurprisingly, was also
anticipated in Greek tradition. Pseudo-Dionysius stands in the Neoplatonic
tradition of Proclus with whom he shares striking similarities. Like Gre-
gory, his Neoplatonism was unlike that which passed through Porphyry and
Victorinus into Augustine. With Plotinus, contemplation (theoria) alone
was emphasized when drawing nearer to the One. Without diminishing the
value of theoria in the pursuit of eudaimonia, the Neoplatonism of Pseudo-
Dionysius’ apophatic thinking passed through Iamblichus to Proclus. This
deemed theurgy (theourgia) to be more effective. Proclus draws from Iam-
blichus’s work On the Mysteries of Egypt which is a full scale treatise on
theurgy. Theurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magi-
cal in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking
the presence of one or more gods. Its goal was achieving henosis, uniting
with the divine, and thereby perfecting oneself. Foreshadowing the effect of
the Christian sacraments, Proclus says of the divine power which theurgy
invokes that it is ‘better than any human wisdom or knowledge’.454 Follow-
ing Gregory in this trajectory of Neoplatonism, Pseudo-Dionysius makes
use of the clear distinction between contemplation and theurgy. He empha-
sizes more the limits of reason and the necessary work of grace through the
sacraments in bridging the gulf between human and divine nature. Louth
writes: ‘Pseudo-Dionysius thinks of the sacraments as Christian theurgy
. . . or . . . a Christian use of material things to effect man’s relationship
with the divine. Here we see the “Christian Proclus”, using neo-Platonic
language to express his understanding of Christian sacraments.’455 With the
Christian assimilation of this Neoplatonic language, the meaning of theurgy
is profoundly modified and enriched. No longer is divine presence invoked
because of its magical sympathy with certain natural material elements. The
material elements of the sacraments are now ‘vehicles of grace . . . because
of their use in a certain symbolic context’.456 It is a view of the role of
‘natural material elements’ as necessary ‘vehicles of grace’ in the pursuit of
human development, and offering a radical alternative to that of their instru-
mental application alone. Christian theurgy now invokes unmerited divine
grace to assist the soul’s apophatic ascent towards the divine. Yet the value
of the Greek ‘negative’ philosophical heritage supporting the articulation
of these developments is undimmed. Gregory argues that within this sacra-
mental process of deification, the pure and incorrupt spiritual condition of
virginity, or a ‘disengagement of heart’ from one’s physical condition as the
supreme attribute of God, can be acquired by philosophical thinking.457
Important in Gregory and becoming stronger in Pseudo-Dionysius, the
development of Christian apophasis really begins promising even greater
satisfaction of human longing for the Good, True and Beautiful. Anticipat-
ing the apophasis of Pseudo-Dionysius’, Williams comments that Gregory’s
was ‘the moderate variety; but the bud of radical negation is in him so fully
developed that it must shortly come into full bloom’.458 The difference from
that of Clement’s negative method might have been due to his greater resist-
ance towards established Neoplatonic debate concerning the use of language
to strip back material accretions concealing the One. However, Gregory still
utilized Aristotle’s method of aphaeresis as Clement had done to arrive at the
dues philosophorum. As a Cappadocian firmly situated within Alexandrian
tradition his resistance does not diminish the value of Greek logos. Drawing
from it he establishes philosophical foundations which support the develop-
ment of the buds of radical negation. Likewise, this work rediscovers invalu-
able insights for today from this trajectory of Graeco-Christian ‘negative’
philosophical thinking. Moreover, I maintain that Gregory’s resistance to-
wards this debate of the Academy reflects greater sensitivity for the Platonic
contemplative ideal which remains central to developments. He shares with
Plato the idea of education or paideia as the ultimate unifying aim (skopos)
of life, understood as the return or assimilation of the soul to God and to
man’s original nature.459 This skopos will remain central to Christian monas-
tic tradition which preserved the philosophical and spiritual roots of western
European culture. Joining with it, my work again aims to preserve these roots
from a more insidious threat to civility and the pursuit of happiness posed
by the barbarianism of the autonomous and instrumental mind. At odds with
this, arguably, we begin to see the correct mix of philosophical endeavour
and religious or contemplative sensibility in Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius.
Echoing the temperament of Socrates and his criticism of the Sophist bad
mix (in teaching rhetorical skills for a fee to those who sought power and
influence), Gregory criticized his fellow Christians whose intellectual ap-
proach was at the expense of a deeper religious zeal. Gregory
finds such intellectualism especially objectionable in Christians given too

much to dogmatic hair-splitting. Perhaps there was in his nature a stronger
emotional element than in these more formalistic minds, and one is tempted
to think of centuries of enthusiastic religious cults that had sprung from the
soil of Asia Minor. Gregory . . . remarked . . . he had not found a deeper
religious zeal . . . certainly nothing that could compare with the profound
religious ardor of ‘our Cappadocian people.’ Perhaps underneath his pol-
ished Hellenistic culture . . . there was a strong element of an older . . .
Cappadocian nature, and large reserves of its unspent human and emotional
energy.460
Perhaps Clement lacked such qualities, producing a more formal mind un-
duly tied to philosophical method. In turn, weak apophasis was maintained,
going no further than the denials of positive affirmations of the divine char-
acteristic of much modern Western theology. With Gregory and Pseudo-
Dionysius this danger is left behind, and so to only the partial uncapping of
the well-springs of human passion and desire. Seemingly, with characters
disposed more towards the apophatic ‘real thing’, both develop accounts of
Moses’ ascent to its summit where emotional energy and religious ardour
find ecstatic expression in the darkness of unknowing. The utility of the
datum-of-sense formulates modern accounts of human development which
evidence suggests give little account of its deeper currents.
It is clear that Gregory’s developing apophatic thinking did not dampen
his religious ardour or emotional energy. In fact, the reverse is the case,
producing the character of a mystic and poet, at once dramatic, conceptual
and existential. This aspect of Gregory’s and Pseudo-Dionysius’ character
recalls my discussion in Chapter One of a shared concern with other voices
of challenge to the problematic, for a more holistic view of human nature
by empowering a feminine voice and consciousness. In Chapter Two, I
embody this concern by recovering the voice of Penia, the mother of Eros,
as a central feature of the Platonic pursuit of eudaimonia running through
this work. Its continued holistic expression through Gregory will culminate
in the ecstatic satisfaction of human passion and desire at the summit of
Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic ascent. At the heart of Gregory’s apophatic
spirituality lies his fundamental spiritual doctrine of divine infinity or epekta-
sis. This will influence the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius which in
turn conceptually radicalizes even more the nature of God beyond being.
The doctrine of epektasis is a three staged spiritual ascent of the soul
entailing purification (‘light’), contemplation (‘cloud’), and union (‘dark-
ness’). It represents par excellence Gregory’s third stage of the perfection
of spiritual development within the infinite darkness of divine nature. It is
a stage which recalls discussion of the erotic desire for ultimate Beauty of
Socrates in the Symposium which was characterized by aporia. Also that of
the theoretically irresolvable epistemic and existential tension at its heart

requiring the ‘rites of love’, now being radically heightened in Christian
tradition. Daniélou argues that epektasis represents the process of spiritual
perfection generally, while Blowers suggests that it
is an expression par excellence of Gregory’s third stage of spiritual devel-

opment, the ‘darkness’ wherein the soul’s indefatigable yearning for God
stands in perpetual tension with God’s inexhaustible beauty and mystery.
The upshot is a continuous conversion to the Good, a sublime frustration, an
ongoing process of mystical union with God, with every spiritual advance
being merely a new beginning in the never-ending mystery.461
An unavoidable ‘qualified dualism’ is seen developing in Gregory’s writ-

ings. Irresolvable epistemic and existential ‘tension’ is established by
constructing a spiritual vision of the ‘soul’s indefatigable yearning’ for the
‘inexhaustible beauty and mystery’ of uncreated divine nature. This is found
primarily in his Homilies on the Song of Songs and the Life of Moses.462 In
both works Moses ascends Mount Sinai in three stages instead of the two
found in the original Exodus story. These are from the Light, to the Cloud
and then the Darkness: ‘Moses’ vision of God began with light; afterwards
God spoke to him in cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more
perfect, he saw God in the darkness’ (Commentary on the Song of Songs,
PG44.1000C). The Greek pursuit of eudaimonia now becomes framed
within this three staged Judaic Christian narrative. As discussion will show,
‘sublime frustration’ or ‘tension’ are introduced by Gregory’s radical new
idea of ‘continuous conversion to the Good’ within the ‘never-ending mys-
tery’. Emerging from this new idea of inner human development and facili-
tating its recovery in the present is my methodology of lectio divina.
The connections between these stages and the events in the life of Moses
are made clearer in Gregory’s Life of Moses. According to Malherbe and
Ferguson, his treatment of Moses is different from that of the Latin Fathers,
who ‘discuss different events than does he, and where they mention the
same events, they are concerned with more practical, moral questions.’463
This reflects the distinction I make between the weaker apophasis of West-
ern Christian tradition and the ‘real thing’ of Eastern tradition. I also align
with this the divergence of Aristotle’s practical priority and use of aphaer-
esis from Plato’s contemplative ideal. I make the point that my identifica-
tion of these antecedents to the problematic of instrumental reason suggests
also an apophatic solution.
The solution of Gregory’s three stages represents progress in the spiritual
life from light to darkness. Discussion now shows that without first tracing
the development of the apophatic traditions Greek philosophical heritage,

the full appreciation of these developments would be impossible. That pre-
viously of the Platonic idea of moving from the darkness of ignorance into
the light of knowledge is now only for beginners. It is but the first stage
of purification leading to the final stage of an ongoing process of mystical
union in which every spiritual advance is merely a new beginning in the
never-ending darkness of divine mystery. Plato has the philosopher ascend
from the darkness of ignorance in the Cave out into the light of knowledge.
Beginning with baptism, Gregory sees the Christian ascend from the dark-
ness cast by the shadow of sin from the ignorance of false notions about
God. The second stage of contemplation follows the Biblical imagery of
Moses’ ascent rather than the Platonic. It is one of movement into the cloud
where the voice of God is heard. Platonic tradition is no longer strictly fol-
lowed viewed through the prisoner in the Cave allegory continually turning
from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. The voice of God
is heard by Moses in the cloud signalling radical apophatic developments
in the pursuit of eudaimonia. These begin to redirect the deeper currents of
inner human development away from the many fragmented material repre-
sentations of the divine. Williams suggests that this ‘represents a clouding-
over of our senses: we are leaving behind the world of the visible, where our
senses provide accurate information’.464 This is madness for the principal
figures of the modern age who deal with the consumer society. The bureau-
cratic manager, the aesthete and the therapist must keep the ‘senses’ on
the road of instrumental thinking. Finally, at the third and highest stage of
union, Gregory makes no claim that there is any further ascent beyond dark-
ness to light. Pseudo-Dionysius will conceptually stretch the point furthest
beyond the collapse of reason and language, and deeper into the dark abyss
of unknowing. We have arrived at an authentic experience of apophatic
theology in Gregory establishing the soul’s infinite growth/expansion in
the knowledge of God’s never-ending mystery. Importantly, the darkness
resulting from this total incapacity of knowledge becomes a positive (lumi-
nous) reality truer than any determined categorical knowledge.
Gregory’s unique insight of the luminous darkness of infinite divine
presence remains profoundly significant in the pursuit of human develop-
ment and the ‘blooming’ of intelligence. Yet, autonomous and instrumental
reason has cut the modern mind adrift from invaluable insights which the
luminous darkness still offers. So, paradoxically, Gregory writes that it
resists the grasp of our thoughts . . . Then at last the soul gives up all she has
found; for she realizes that what she seeks can be understood only in the very
inability to comprehend His essence, and that every intelligible attribute be-
comes merely a hindrance to those who seek to find Him. This is why she
says When I had passed by then, I abandoned all creatures and passed by
all that is intelligible in creation; and when I gave up every finite mode of
comprehension, then it was that I found my Beloved by faith (Commentary
on the Canticle, PG 44.892C-893C-D).
The luminous darkness in which the soul perpetually grows (epektasis)

‘resists the grasp’ of ‘every finite mode of comprehension’. An affirma-
tion of cognitive incomprehension, the idea of epektasis following that of
Socratic aporia, is radically at odds with modern thinking which seeks to
be ‘maistre et possesseur de la nature’. Yet this paradoxical point which
Pseudo-Dionysius continues developing is also cause for hope. Discussion
of (post)modernity in Chapter One also revealed openness towards core
elements of the apophatic tradition. The movement of desire initiated by
the Other, and the role of the unsayable which transcends self-understand-
ing and present consciousness are central. The lack of knowledge of one’s
own ignorance of this knowledge, as being a positive resource for authentic
human development, strikes a note of warning at the heart of western Euro-
pean culture. Concerning its present malaise, the comments of the Russian
Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff are telling:
Since Gregory of Nyssa, the destiny of man is viewed, in Greek Patristic

thought, as an ascent in the knowledge of God through communion into
divine life. Man, therefore, is not conceived as an autonomous and closed
entity: his very life is in God: ‘who alone has immortality,’ while sin consists
precisely in a self-affirmation of man in an illusory independence.465
The infinite value of navigating inner human development through the dark
reservoirs of human ignorance of divine nature is lost to the ‘self-affirma-
tion’ of an ‘illusory independence’ of the modern mind. Incorporating the
soul’s eternal progress (epektasis), Daniélou notes: ‘Here we are at the very
heart of Gregory’s spiritual doctrine.’466 The theme of the ‘luminous’ dark-
ness of divine presence is first seen in the works of Clement and Origin.
However, evident in the Life of Moses and the Commentary on the Canticle,
Gregory’s use of the term ‘darkness’ expresses a new mystical meaning. It
emphasizes the fact that the divine essence remains inaccessible even to
minds enlightened by grace:
the term ‘darkness’ takes on a new meaning and an essentially mystical con-
notation. It expresses the fact that the divine essence remains inaccessible
even to the mind that has been enlightened by grace, and that the aware-
ness of this inaccessibility constitutes the highest form of contemplation.
Gregory’s originality consists in the fact that he was the first to express this
characteristic of the highest stages of mystical experience.467
Gregory arrives at the crucial postulate of negative theology; namely, that

God transcends thought and language. Upon reaching union, his third and
highest stage of apophatic ascent, language becomes understood entirely
as a product of the human condition. It is incapable of standing outside of
itself, and saying anything about the essence of an infinite uncreated divine
nature. Paradoxically, it is at this stage that both language and logos find
their greatest value in human development through their total collapse at
the summit of apophatic ascent. The ‘luminous’ darkness of divine pres-
ence finds sublime expression in the eternal language of silence. Gregory is
worth quoting at length on this matter:
no created being can go out of itself by rational contemplation. Whatever

it sees, it must see itself; and even if it thinks it is seeing beyond itself,
it does not in fact possess a nature which can achieve this. And thus in
its contemplation of Being it tries to force itself to transcend a spatial
representation, but it never achieves it. For in every possible thought, the
mind is surely aware of the spatial element which it perceives in addition
to the thought content; and the spatial element is, of course, created. Yet
the Good that we have learned to seek and to cherish is beyond all crea-
tion, and hence beyond all comprehension. Thus how can our mind, which
always operates on a dimensional image, comprehend a nature that has no
dimension, especially as our minds are constantly penetrating, by analysis,
into things which are more profound. And though the mind in its restless-
ness ranges through all that is knowledge, it has never yet discovered a
way of comprehending eternity in such wise that it might place itself
outside of it, and go beyond the idea of eternity itself (Commentary on
Ecclesiastes, sermon 7).468
Instrumental reason can only see ‘itself’ operating on tangible ‘spatial represen-
tations’. Therefore, even more so, Gregory would urge this thinking to radically
‘go beyond’ its ‘idea of itself’ in the pursuit of human development.
Many moderns would naturally ask: Why encourage such thinking when
it seems to lead to the unbridgeable impasse of radically stepping ‘beyond’
or ‘outside’ my present way of thinking? Lossky, speaking of Clement,
recalls earlier discussion of the answer which was made possible in the
incarnation event:
The very awareness of the inaccessibility of ‘the unknown God’ cannot . . .

be acquired except by grace: ‘by this God-given wisdom which is the power
of the Father.’ This awareness of the incomprehensibility of the divine na-
ture thus corresponds to an experience: to a meeting with the personal God
of revelation. In the power of this grace Moses and St. Paul experienced the
impossibility of knowing God: the former, when he penetrated to the dark-
ness of inaccessibility: the latter, when he heard the words conveying the
divine ineffability.469
The encounter now between genuine Greek philosophical enlightenment

and religion makes possible the consummation of the ‘negative’ pursuit
of eudaimonia in the ‘impossibility of knowing God’. The Fathers of the
church were in accord about what made this impossibility possible. Atha-
nasius writes: ‘For He was made man that we might be made God; and He
manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen
Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immor-
tality.’470 The Platonic contemplative ideal clearly now provides philosophi-
cal foundations supporting Pseudo-Dionysius’ attempt at a definition of
deification, which becomes the heart of the soul’s mystical ascent:
Now this blessed Deity which transcends everything and which is one and
also triune has resolved, for reasons unclear to us . . . to ensure the salvation
of rational beings…This can only happen with the divinization of the saved.
And divinization consists of being as much as possible like and in union
with God. (EH 376A:198)
Importantly, recalling previous discussion, Gregory’s account of the soul’s

ascent into the darkness of God’s presence marks a change from the Pla-
tonic imagery of continually turning towards the light of knowledge away
from the darkness of ignorance. For Gregory, there is no more progress be-
yond the ‘luminous’ darkness of divine presence. According to King: ‘Thus
the mind can progress ever further toward the contemplation of God, and
yet the more one knows of God, the greater becomes the mystery, the “dark-
ness,” the hidden-ness of God’s face.’471 As the soul ascends and the senses
begin to cloud over within the intensification of the darkness of ‘the hidden-
ness of God’s face’ apophatic thinking is clear. Gregory writes: ‘For leaving
behind everything that is observed, not only what sense comprehends but
also what the intelligence thinks it sees’ (Life of Moses II.163). As the soul
ascends into the cloud, conceptions about God drawn from sense experi-
ence begin to be negated and replaced by philosophical ones. In turn, as the
experience of darkness intensifies, even the purer philosophical conceptions
of God are negated. Radically at odds with the goal of the modern think-
ing in seeking to submit human development to orderly and quantifiable
instrumental procedure, this movement, Gregory suggests, is inspired by
contemplative vision:
The true vision and the true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely
in not seeing, in an awareness that our goal transcends all knowledge and
is everywhere cut off from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility. Thus
that profound evangelist, John, who penetrated into this luminous darkness,
tells us that no man hath seen God at any time John 1.18, teaching us by this
negation that no man indeed, no created intellect-can attain a knowledge of
God.472
My discussion now moves to Gregory’s central idea of the soul’s per-

petual progress (epektasis) within the ‘darkness of incomprehensibility’.
After leaving behind everything observed and conceived, Gregory says
of the progress of the soul: ‘it keeps on penetrating deeper’ (Life of Moses
II.163). Daniélou suggests that epektasis represents the process of the soul’s
spiritual perfection generally, while Blowers473 views it as expressing par
excellence the final stage: from light to cloud in which God speaks to Moses
(purer philosophical conceptions of God replace or negate those drawn from
sense-experience); and then to darkness in which Moses sees God (union,
the philosophical conceptions are themselves negated).
With epektasis, suggest Malherbe and Ferguson, we come to ‘the most
distinctive teaching of the Life of Moses, and the theme that holds the whole
work together, the idea of eternal progress . . . Gregory’s spiritual teaching . . .
firmly based on his theology, and the fundamental doctrine for his spirituality
is the divine infinity’.474 The idea of the soul’s ‘eternal progress’ in sanctity
within ‘divine infinity’ is hinted by Daniélou as being Gregory’s major new
contribution upon which Pseudo-Dionysius conceptually builds. Despite the
lack of negative vocabulary its logic, and more importantly, its epistemologi-
cal and psychological consequences are strongly apophatic. Gregory borrows
the use of the term epektasis (‘tension’, ‘expansion’) from Paul’s use of the
word epekteinomai in Philippians 3.13, denoting a similar movement of the
soul. The idea of the eternal ‘tension’ or ‘expansion’ of the soul anticipates
the climax in Pseudo-Dionysius of the heightening of epistemic and existen-
tial tension which I located developing at the heart of the Greek pursuit of
eudaimonia. As well as illustrating the requirement of a Christian ‘qualified
dualism’, epektasis also leads Gregory to repudiate an important aspect of his
Greek philosophical heritage; that the soul’s perfection was logically incom-
patible with change.475 Blowers writes:
Gregory’s answer to this dilemma is something of a watershed in Greek

patristic anthropology, and is integral to his vision of a perpetual progress of
souls toward the infinite God. Granted the basic mutability characteristic of
created beings, Gregory refuses to admit the fateful Platonic (and Origen-
ist) equation of change with degeneration, and postulates instead a positive
form of changeability, a perpetual choice of the Good leading to an eternal
transformation of the person in assimilation to God.476
Gregory makes the eternal expansion/tension of the soul in the darkness

of divine infinity progress itself. The perpetual turning of the soul towards
what is better is its way of perfection. It was a watershed in thinking which
viewed perfection as a perpetual and dynamic process of inner human de-
velopment. Gregory no longer viewed it as a static state achieved by over-
coming change. Yet the same ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory traced by this
work is maintained. Blowers observes: ‘In his twelfth homily in Canticum
Canticorum, Gregory dramatically portrays the free will as caught between
the upward movement or change of the spirit and the downward movement
of the body, such that it must choose existentially which motion or change
will carry the day.’477 The human will must continue to choose between the
upward movement of the spirit in the pursuit of its happiness, or that of the
downward movement of the body. It is clear which movement is compatible
with the problematic of instrumental reason which defers to the ‘earthly at-
tachments’ of sense experience. Gregory writes:
All heavy bodies that receive a downward motion . . . are rapidly carried
downwards of themselves . . . So too, the soul moves in the opposite direc-
tion, lightly and swiftly moving upwards once it is released from sensuous
and earthly attachments, soaring from the world below up towards the
heavens . . . And . . . seeing that it is of the nature of Goodness to attract
those who raise their eyes towards it, the soul keeps rising ever higher and
higher, stretching with its desire for heavenly things . . . thus it will always
continue to soar ever higher. For because of what it has already attained, the
soul does not wish to abandon the heights that lie beyond it. And thus the
soul moves ceaselessly upwards, always reviving its tension for its onward
flight by means of the progress it has already realized. Indeed, it is only
spiritual activity that nourishes its force by exercise; it does not slacken its
tension by action but rather increases it. This is the reason why we say that
the great Moses, moving ever forwards, did not stop in his upward climb.
He set no limit to his rise to the stars. But once he had put his foot upon
the ladder on which the Lord had leaned, as Jacob tells us, he constantly
kept moving to the next step; and he continued to go ever higher because
he always found another step that lay beyond the highest one that he had
reached.478
Epektasis expresses the double aspect of the soul’s upward movement of

growth. It also expresses the epistemic and existential tension which now
quickens the pursuit of eudaimonia along its apophatic way. Through the
spirit, there truly is a divinizing contact and participation in God’s immu-
table and uncreated nature. Yet, at the same time, the soul must constantly
change in an ascent ‘ever higher’ because it always finds another step
beyond the highest one that it has reached. This is due to God’s infinite
nature which will always ‘lie beyond it.’ Speaking of Abraham’s experi-
ence, Gregory writes: ‘Relying on what he had already found he stretched
himself forth to the things that were before . . . And as he disposed all these
things in his heart, he kept constantly transcending what he had grasped by
his own power, for this was far inferior to what he sought.’479 The perpetual
expansion/tension of the soul is a consequence of the infinite darkness of
divine presence which will always ‘lie beyond it’ – even as the soul is drawn
into its deeper penetration, stretching with its desire for heavenly things.
Gregory’s doctrine of epektasis clearly illustrates that he is the ‘first to draw
out its epistemological consequences’480 as a positive resource. His ‘nega-
tive’ reasoning is at odds with its modern form which seeks to overcome
everything it cannot comprehend. Instead, he treats incomprehension within
his conception of human development:
not as an obstacle to knowledge, but rather a resource. The unending riches

of God create a constant dialectic of reward and challenge, nourishment
and hunger, for the soul . . . his heart’s yearning for an infinite God taught
Gregory that the highest state of humanity was one of movement, exploring
the freshness of grace . . . The good is in its nature infinite . . . participation
in it will be infinite also.481
Moreover, the soul’s perpetual exploration of the ‘freshness of grace’ be-

comes radically self-transcending. This is because it is movement within
which there is infinitely ‘no-thing’482 to be grasped either by the senses or
by the intellect. It is not a case of the divine essence dwarfing human under-
standing. For Gregory, God can never even partially be an object of knowl-
edge, either as a rarefied philosophical essence or substance. The intellect
and senses look into the infinite divine darkness perpetually seeing ‘no-
thing’ at all. Gregory considers this knowledge of one’s ignorance of divine
nature to constitute the highest state of human development. Constituting
this state now is perpetual growth in the production and consumption of

material goods through instrumental reason.
The perpetual growth of the soul (epektasis), reliant on a goal which for
the senses and intellect is infinitely no-thing at all, is undoubtedly psychologi-
cally and existentially radically self-transcending. It is especially so for the
modern autonomous cogito asserting itself within a domain of instrumental
means. But this radical transcendence of the modern ‘self’ vividly recalls the
self-emptying of divine status through the incarnation. Unlike the static per-
fection of the One of Platonic contemplation, Gregory’s God emptied himself
upon the cross. This divine self-emptying mirrors Gregory’s anthropology
where self-transcendence or psychological self-denial is closely connected to
epektasis. The exploration of the infinite ‘freshness of grace’ reveals but fur-
ther steps in the spiritual life to what have hitherto been taken. It is an aspect
of Gregory’s negative theology developed by others as the ground of human
self-transcendence.483 It will be discussed providing the theoretical founda-
tions Pseudo-Dionysius conceptually stretches to the limit.
In imitation of Christ, Gregory’s encouragement of human development
through psychological and existential self-transcendence meant it was also
never divorced from ethical and moral dimensions. Particularly, these en-
tailing ministering to human need within the ever changing realm of sense
experience. Yet the ultimate goal of this Gospel injunction remains union
with the Father’s immutable divine nature and archetypal source, which
Gregory squares with ‘essentially changeable’ human nature. This is evident
in the resurrection of Christ, and reflected in the ecstasy of self-transcending
deifying union at the summit of apophatic ascent. He writes:
man must necessarily be changeable insofar as he is but an imitation of the

divine nature. For an imitation would be identical with its model if it did not
exist in a different way. So here the precise difference between the image
and its archetype is that the archetype is immutable and the image is not, but
is essentially changeable.484
The maintenance of the distinction between the essential changeability

of human nature, and the immutable divine archetype, brings to the fore
Gregory’s unique squaring of these two different natures. Its difficulty
is evident in his mature works in which, according to Russell, Gregory
‘prefers to speak of “participation” rather than “deification.” He seems
increasingly to have avoided anything that might tend to compromise
the transcendence of God’s immutable nature.’485 However, central to his
idea (epektasis) of the soul’s perpetual expansion/tension was that also
of the essential changeability of human nature. He was cognizant of the

fact that this dynamic of inner human development, seemed irreconcilable
with the immutability of divine nature within which it was situated. Yet
Gregory makes the essential changeability of human nature itself the way
the soul progresses in perfection. He therefore provided a unique solution
to the problem of how the soul progresses through ‘participation’ in
immutable divine nature; described by Paul as being from ‘glory to glory’
(2 Corinthians 3.18).
The solution entailed finding a positive conception of the innate
changeability of human nature at play in the soul’s progress from ‘glory to
glory’. Without this the ecstatic self-transcending culmination of the pursuit
of eudaimonia at the summit of Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic ascent could
not be realized. Instead, in Greek understanding, the soul’s progression in
perfection from ‘glory to glory’ would remain seen as movement of constant
degeneration. God’s activity would also be reduced to that of continually
restoring a person back to primitive immortality, only to continually fall
back again. There could be no perpetual progress of the soul in perfection
within the infinite darkness of God’s divine presence, only one of constant
degeneration and divine restoration. The stability necessary would be
impossible due to two irresolvable conflicting natures, one human and the
other divine. By solving the problem Gregory accomplishes a revolution in
thought.
Gregory produces an intriguing idea in which the constant change innate
to human nature is accommodated in ‘participation’ with the divine. He
argues that the mutability of human nature can work within movement in
two directions. There is the energy expended in apophatic ascent initiating
movement of infinite change for the better. Then there is energy expended
in the movement of change downwards, which despite all endeavours,
makes no progress at all. Perpetual change for the good becomes the
new stability of inner human development, and within immutable divine
nature. Indeed, as discussion has shown, the darkness of divine infinity
makes achieving a static state of perfection impossible. Energy expended
in movement of inferior motion or change is characteristic of the biological
world, which reduces a person to the level of an animal found in nature.
Gregory compares it to the life cycle of human generation; alone, it just
marks time and is motion without progress. The person expending energy in
this downward movement of constant change becomes immersed in the life
of the body, and captive within the prison of the cosmos. Gregory uses the
image of sand to illustrate the insubstantial, illusory quality of this motion
of the soul, which makes no progress in perfection at all. He comments:
All men’s interests in the things of this life are like castles children build in
the sand. The enjoyment is limited merely to the effort one puts into building
them. And as soon as you stop, the sand collapses and leaves not a trace of
the work you put in (On Ecclesiastes, Sermon 1, 44.628C-D).
It is
like men who try to climb through sand. It does not matter whether they take
big strides or not; they waste their effort. For their feet constantly slip to the
bottom with the sand, and so, despite all their energy, they make no progress
whatsoever. (Life of Moses, 44.405C-D)
Daniélou notes: ‘We thus arrive at the paradox that what the Platonists call
motion is, in reality, immobility; for the energy expended leaves the object
exactly as it was and involves no spiritual change.’486 Paradoxically, the
strenuous endeavours of autonomous and instrumental reason are seen to
result only in the modern ‘immobility’ of inner human development. For
Gregory, energy expended solely in a domain of instrumental means re-
sults in ‘no progress whatsoever’, irrespective of undoubted technological
progress. Such motion effects no spiritual change, and leaves the person in
exactly the same position in which they started. Gregory provides an anti-
dote to the perpetual ‘immobility’ of wasted effort, evident today in a prob-
lematic dichotomy between inner and outer forms of human development.
It is to expend energy in the second movement or motion of change innate
to human nature. This makes progress in genuine human development pos-
sible through perpetual movement in the True, Good, and Beautiful, now
contained in the Father:
For man does not merely have an inclination to evil; were this so, it would be
impossible for him to grow in good, if his nature possessed only an inclina-
tion towards the contrary. But in truth the finest aspect of our mutability is
the possibility of growth in good; and this capacity for improvement trans-
forms the soul, as it changes, more and more into the divine. (What then) ap-
pears so terrifying (that is the mutability of our human nature) can really be a
pinion in our flight towards higher things, and indeed it would be a hardship
if we were not susceptible of the sort of change which is towards the better.
One ought not then to be distressed when one considers this tendency in our
nature; rather let us change in such a way that we may constantly evolve
towards what is better, being transformed from glory to glory, and thus al-
ways improving and ever becoming more perfect by daily growth, and never
arriving at any limit of perfection. For that perfection consists in our never
stopping in our growth in good, never circumscribing our perfection by any

limitation. (On Perfection, 46.285B-C)
No longer immobilized by such as the modern instrumental mind, Gregory

declares that in ‘truth the finest aspect of our mutability is the possibility of
growth in good.’ The innate changeable nature of the human soul becomes
a positive resource affecting its transformation ‘more and more into the di-
vine’ through apophatic ascent. Far from being immobilized, inner human
development is set never to arrive ‘at any limit of perfection’; especially
that circumscribed by modern thinking. Gregory’s thinking is revolutionary
in that the ‘mutability of our human nature’ now becomes ‘a pinion in our
flight towards higher things’. Importantly, once this movement is stabilized
in virtue, the heart of a person becomes ‘winged’ in its pursuit of happiness,
and the satisfaction of their deepest passion and desire is assured. Offering
invaluable insight today, concerning this stabilization in virtue, Gregory
writes: ‘the more steadfast and unshakable he becomes in good, so much
the more quickly will he accomplish his course. His very stability becomes
as a wing in his flight towards heaven; his heart becomes winged487 because
of his stability in good’ (Life of Moses, 44.407C-D). Ironically, despite the
modern European mind possessing this ancient philosophical and theo-
logical heritage, evidence suggests it nevertheless clips these ‘wings’ before
‘flight’. The true meaning of Moses’ stance upon the rock (Exodus 33.21)
given by Gregory, suggests that present thinking is not firmly grounding.
Instead, it is tossed one way and another while being carried along in a do-
main of instrumental means:
This is the most marvellous thing of all: how the same thing is both a stand-
ing still and a moving. For he who ascends certainly does not stand still, and
he who stands still does not move upwards. But here the ascent takes place
by means of the standing. I mean by this that the firmer and more immovable
one remains in the Good, the more he progresses in the course of virtue. The
man who in his reasonings is uncertain and liable to slip, since he has no firm
grounding in the Good but is tossed one way and another and carried along
. . . and is doubtful and wavers in his opinions concerning reality, would
never attain to the height of virtue.488
The notion of the soul’s ascent being ‘both a standing still and a moving’
in the Good is characteristic of Gregory’s theology, and with it the infinite
exploration of the ‘freshness of grace’. Perpetual spiritual progress is itself
perfection. The ramifications of infinitely turning towards what is ‘better’,
and putting aside that which has already been achieved in the spiritual life,
provides the theoretical foundation for the idea of self-transcendence or

psychological self-emptying.
The Ecstasy of Self-transcending Deifying Union:

The Summit of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Mystical Theology
While Gregory provides the theoretical foundations for the idea of self-tran-
scendence, it is Pseudo-Dionysius who radically builds upon them. This is
evident in his notion of the soul actually being torn outside of itself in the
ecstasy of deifying union: ‘by going out of yourself and everything, casting
aside every restraint in pure and absolute ecstasy, you will raise yourself
to the ray of Divine Darkness that is beyond being, leaving all behind and
released from all’ (MT I.1:997B-1000A). Facilitated by my methodology of
lectio divina, we arrive at the deepest textual wells of apophatic wisdom, and
the consummation of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia. From these wells will
be drawn invaluable insights into inner human development, and the con-
tinuing convergence of Greek ‘negative’ reason and Biblical faith. Moreover,
these insights will realize the most radical point in transcending the circum-
scribed vision of the modern individual ‘self’ locked within a domain of
instrumental means. Balthasar writes: ‘no one has emphasized so strongly as
Pseudo-Dionysius the transcendence of God’.489 Its impact upon reason and
language is described by the philosopher Jeffrey Fisher as hypernegation.490
While avoiding nihilism, hypernegation nevertheless sees the complete col-
lapse of reason and language. It results from the ecstasy of self-transcending
deifying union in which the soul is torn outside of itself. Here, the Greek
pursuit of eudaimonia realizes its most radical apophatic consummation.
From the outset, I have shown the development of the Christian ap-
ophatic tradition to be inextricably linked with its ancient Greek ‘negative’
philosophical heritage. This trajectory’s Christian consummation in The
Mystical Theology of the pagan pursuit of eudaimonia is understood along
a spectrum of Dionysian scholarship through Louth, Williams, Rubenstein,
Lossky, Riordan, Daniélou, and Russell. It is scholarship which accepts
Pseudo-Dionysius’ thinking as a thoroughbred synthesis of orthodox Chris-
tian thinking and the truths revealed by Greek logos. Pope Benedict XVI
states this position clearly as being ‘at the same time the truth of faith and
of reason, both in the distinction and also in the convergence of those two
cognitive fields’.491 It is a pursuit of inner human development re-appropri-
ated by this work as one of the ‘developments consonant with the nature
of faith itself’.492 It is obvious, therefore, that I situate Pseudo-Dionysian
apophasis within scholarship which emphasizes his strong Christian think-

ing articulated through the Greek logos. It is a deeply Christian voice which
has been shown to resonate with the whole history of ancient thought, from
the Christian Platonism of the Fathers within the Alexandrian tradition,
particularly, Gregory of Nyssa and the Cappadocians, to the realization of
Plato’s contemplative ideal in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus.
Discussion of Pseudo-Dionysius’ thought will show it always deferring to
the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which he calls ‘divine oracles’.
Taking my position along this line of Dionysian scholarship will dem-
onstrate that it is a mistaken view to see The Mystical Theology of Pseudo-
Dionysius as reflecting the primacy of natural mysticism over revealed
Biblical tradition. Louis Bouyer writes of Pseudo-Dionysius’ teaching:
‘under its Greek clothing it is wholly biblical’.493 And Louth makes clear
why he pseudonymously identifies himself as the Athenian convert who
stands at the point where Christ and Plato meet, believing ‘that the truths
that Plato grasped belong to Christ, and are not abandoned by embracing
faith in Christ’.494 I will echo this position, seeing Pseudo-Dionysius’ Mysti-
cal Theology as representing a
complete Christian theology, from the Trinity and the angelic world through
the incarnation and redemption to the sacramental life and orders of the
church . . . Together with scripture, the Fathers, and the entire ancient tradi-
tion, he provides a framework and a vocabulary for ordinary spirituality as
well as mystical practice, especially for describing the approach of the soul
through inactivity of all knowledge to a state of unification with God ‘in the
brilliant darkness of a hidden silence’ (MT, 1).495
This scholarship reflects the full scope of my work which clearly illustrates
that ‘neither Christianity nor Platonism are side shows in Dionysius’ thought;
they are rather mutually important whole perspectives that do not get lost in
the mix’.496 Luther reflects an opposite view and one which I wholly reject:
‘Dionysius is most pernicious; he Platonizes more than he Christianizes.’497
Following this uncompromising view by forms of modern Protestantism,
according to Adolf Harnack, in Pseudo-Dionysius: ‘the Christian dogmas
themselves appear merely as the dress of neo-Platonic ideas’.498
Following Gregory, Pseudo-Dionysius corrects the Greek imagery of
real knowledge being equated with light. He replaces it with the imagery of
the darkness of unknowing which he deepens radically. Through him, the
concept of the darkness of unknowing will become central to the Christian
mystical tradition. From the Orthodox tradition, Lossky notes that ‘this
radical apophaticism’499 ‘is truly characteristic of the whole tradition of the
Eastern Church’.500 Jantzen writes that in the Western tradition ‘What is ab-
solutely certain, however, is the huge influence his writings had on medieval
thought generally, and on the understanding of what counts as mystical in
particular.’501 Mortley concludes that in Pseudo-Dionysius Christian ‘nega-
tive theology reaches its culmination, and finds its most controlled expres-
sion’.502 However, the negative theological thinking of Pseudo-Dionysius,
which culminates in ecstatically ‘going out of yourself and everything’, is
furthest removed from that now encouraging human flourishing solely with-
in a domain of instrumental means. Pseudo-Dionysius could be speaking of
the belief that this instrumental rationale is able to secure such an aim:
It can happen too that these beings push beyond the reasonable limits set
to their vision and that they have the gall to imagine that they can actually
gaze upon those beams which transcend their power of sight . . . the soul,
imperfectly offering itself to absolute Perfection, will not only fail to arrive
at those realities foreign to it but in its evil arrogance will even be deprived
of what is available to it. Still, as I have already said, the divine Light, out
of generosity, never ceases to offer itself to the eyes of the mind, eyes which
should seize upon it for it is always there, always divinely ready with the gift
of itself (EH 2.400B).
Stretching radically beyond the limits of the vision of human

development set by the instrumental mind, discussion now proceeds to that
set by the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius. It will remain focused
on his work the Mystical Theology. In it, the ascent of the soul towards
the apophatic heights of inner human development as the goal of life is
the leading metaphor. Pelikan, Leclercq and Froehlich argue that it ‘is the
key to the Dionysian method and to the structure of the entire corpus’.503
Louth writes that apophatic theology, ‘which has its roots in Philo and
Gregory of Nyssa, is summed up in the . . . immensely influential Mystical
Theology’.504 It is the Christian text par excellence, which is supported by
Greek ‘negative’ philosophical foundations whose development this work
has traced.
To elaborate on previous discussion, the route that Neoplatonism took, in
which Pseudo-Dionysius stands, passed through Iamblichus and took over
the Academy at Athens at the end of the fourth century. The most famous
representative of this school was Proclus (410–85). The early studies of
Koch and Stiglmayer505 have established that Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings are
substantially indebted to Proclus, the fifth century diadochus (the successor
of Plato), and then head of the Academy. It is likely that Pseudo-Dionysius
actually attended the Academy and frequented the lectures of Proclus.506
This might help to explain the pseudonym regarded generally as being used
either as a means to win readership, or as a safeguard against persecution
and censorship in an age anxious over orthodoxy.507 Hathaway508 paints
a vivid picture of the student body at Athens. She argues that despite the
fact that Christians from the time of Porphyry were not approved to attend,
many did seek the ‘theologia of Plato’. She also notes the preparatory work
in Aristotle required of students wishing to enter the curriculum on Plato
set by Proclus. Despite the fact it is not known for sure whether Pseudo-
Dionysius attended the Academy prior to becoming a Christian, like
Clement, it is clear that ‘he uses, as he calls them, the “things of the Greeks”
to express the truth of the faith’.509 Of this developing Greek intellectual
Christianity with the strongest Platonic influence, Remes notes: ‘Gregory
of Nyssa can be said to propound, broadly speaking, Plotinus’ branch
of Neoplatonism, while the hugely influential Pseudo-Dionysius was an
adherent of Proclean tradition.’510 Illustrating the scope of this work aimed
through the lens of lectio divina at affording the readers full appreciation
of developments now, McGinn writes of Proclus that he is ‘the last great
pagan philosopher, whose thought forms an indisputable background to the
Dionysian corpus, and in whom the evolution of the ideal of contemplative
piety that began with Plato reaches its culmination’.511 Indeed, Pseudo-
Dionysius is often referred to as the Christian Proclus. The full appreciation
of Athenian Proclean philosophy converging with the Christian theology of
Pseudo-Dionysius will continue to offer invaluable insights into thinking
differently about human development. Drawn from the apophatic mind’s
‘pure-bred pedigree’, these insights are set most radically at odds with those
offered by the modern instrumental mind. Louth writes: ‘What appears to
us a strange mongrel, the product of late Greek philosophy and a highly
developed form of Christianity, appeared to Denys a pure-bred pedigree, or
rather the original specimen of the species.’512
The central ingredient of Proclus’ philosophy that influenced Pseudo-
Dionysius was his apophatic method. Unsurprisingly, it returns us to the
epistemological difficulties of relating the One to its many fragmented
material representations. The elaboration by Proclus of Plotinus’ explanation
of Neoplatonism’s central theory of procession and return is key. This was
an account of how essential reality or real knowledge became concealed
from view. It was understood to result from the increase of the layered
generation of material reality around it, as it travelled further from its One
immaterial source. The theory’s assimilation and modification by Pseudo-
Dionysius says much about his cosmic program. In it, the soul endeavours
to ascend back towards its immaterial source, and union with the Father
in which it is ecstatically torn outside of itself and ‘everything’. Pseudo-

Dionysius is free from the need of Neoplatonists having to increasingly
elaborate the theory. However, he picks up and stretches to breaking point
the heightening of epistemic and existential tension remaining at its heart.
Traced throughout this work and now framed within a Christian ‘qualified
dualism’, this maintained its necessary role of encouraging inner human
development within the frame of one unchanging view of reality.
The essential structure of Neoplatonism of the cyclical pattern of a
downward procession and upward return is summarized by Proclus: ‘Every
effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and returns to it.’513 It was
eminently attractive to the Greek intellectual Christianity of Clement,
Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius. They saw it anticipating the revelation
of the One’s divine nature in Christ, and of the soul’s apophatic return
back through Christ to the Father. Unsurprisingly, Proclus was the first
to use the Greek terms cataphatic and apophatic. The way of negation
applied to the utterly transcendent ‘One’ and the way of affirmation to
its separate manifestations described in Plato’s dialogue The Parmenides.
Pseudo-Dionysius was the first Christian writer to use the terms, but in
doing so, he avoided the danger inherent in Proclus’ Neoplatonism of
establishing an oppositional dualism. The crucial change was effected
through the scriptural doctrine of creation ex nihilo (creation out of no-
thing) establishing a Christian ‘qualified dualism’. No longer was creation
seen as the result of the One of Neoplatonism, out of necessity pouring forth
Intelligence and from Intelligence Soul, and producing an ever elaborate
chain of being. This view of creation was transposed into that resulting from
the loving creative act of the Thearchy (the One Divine Trinity and principle
of divinization). Greek intellectual Christianity, writes Gersh, attempts to
solve the problem ‘not by the postulations of intermediates but by locating
the source of multiplicity within the First Principle itself’.514 Moreover, the
Thearchy or: ‘Trinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness!’
(MT, 997A), did so while remaining utterly One with all His attributes in
absolute simplicity. While examining the application of the name One to
God, aimed directly at the deficiencies of its Neoplatonic definition, Lossky
writes of Pseduo-Dionysius:
his refusal to attribute to God the properties which make up the matter of af-
firmative theology, Dionysius is aiming expressly at the neo-Platonist defini-
tions: ‘He is neither One, nor Unity’ . . . In his treatise Of the Divine Names,
in examining the name of the One, which can be applied to God, he shows its
insufficiency and compares with it another and ‘most sublime’ name – that
of the Trinity, which teaches us that God is neither one nor many but that He
transcends this antinomy, being unknowable in what He is.515
Declaring the essence of divine nature to be ‘neither one nor many’ and
‘unknowable in what He is’, Pseudo-Dionysius reveals affirmative or cata-
phatic statements to have no ultimate value. The ‘hiddenness’ of divine
nature lay even beyond that of the revered name of the ‘Good’ and any
procession from or return to it:
But no unity or trinity, no number or oneness, no fruitfulness, indeed, noth-

ing that is or is known can proclaim that hiddenness beyond every mind and
reason of the transcendent Godhead which transcends every being. There
is no name for it nor expression. We cannot follow it into its inaccessible
dwelling place so far above us and we cannot even call it by the name of
goodness. (DN, 13.981A)
As well as the Thearchy becoming lovingly immanent with His creatures

created ex nihilo, it also becomes ‘wholly unsensed and unseen’ (MT,
997B). It is therefore wholly ‘beyond every mind and reason’, and essen-
tially ‘no-thing’ at all. It is ‘hiddenness’ especially from the vision of human
development generated by the instrumental mind, and rooted in the datum
of sense experience. No longer is it the super source of pure light of the hu-
man intellect blinding the escapee prisoner in Plato’s Cave allegory – or the
goal of the Neoplatonic disciple’s desire for realizing the ecstasy of over-
come division and change. There is no longer an elaborate chain of proces-
sion and return, but an immediate and immanent loving creative act of God,
whereby the soul now ascends through divinization. However, though now
lovingly immanent with his creatures, cataphatic/affirmative statements and
even their denials by the weaker Middle Platonism apophasis are rendered
wholly redundant before the Thearchy. The pursuit of eudaimonia now has
a radically new Christian goal located in an ‘inaccessible dwelling place
so far above us’ which ‘we cannot even call by the name of goodness’. Its
‘hiddenness’ having been revealed in Christ, draws the deeper currents of
inner human development ‘from glory to glory’ through a process of divini-
zation. The hypernegation of Pseudo-Dionysius kicks away the Neoplatonic
ladder (as Wittgenstein discussed later) of the procession and return of the
soul back to its source. It urges the deepest human passion and desire for
happiness, ‘to strive upward as much as you can toward union with him
who is beyond all being and knowledge’ (MT, 997B). The philosophical
requirement of a ‘qualified dualism’ for this continuing progress in human
development is clear. Pseudo-Dionysius’ hypernegation is clear Christian
affirmation that God works in history as both transcendent and immanent in

a non-accidental way in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.516
The erotic Greek desire for eudaimonia is consummated by the descent
of Christian agape, in which transcendence becomes lovingly immanent and
enfleshed. It reflects a loving and creative act of God not out of necessity,
but one rooted in both the self-emptying of Christ and the scriptural doctrine
of creation ex nihilo. Riordan comments: ‘Denys’ distinctively Christian
position contrasts sharply. God is seen as a creative Cause of all . . . Each
one proceeds immediately into being by His creative act – an act that is
endowing of creatures with being, even a literal investing of Himself (by
way of His immanent presence) in their very being.’517 The immediate crea-
tive act of the continual ‘investing’ of creatures ‘by way of His immanent
presence’ had an important consequence. Creation as a whole was preserved
from the inevitable deteriorations inherent upon progressively proceeding
further away from their one immaterial source. While still encouraging the
epistemic and existential trajectory of Greek ‘negative’ reason (entailing
its purifying intellectual and ascetic practices transferred to monastic tra-
dition), the disdain of the material world becomes inherently less severe.
Paradoxically for the modern instrumental mind believing itself sufficient
to both consume and care for the world – it is the radical transcendence of
Pseudo-Dionysius’ God creating ex nihilo which provides a new providen-
tial intimacy pervaded all of creation:
What I have to say is concerned with the benevolent Providence made

known to us, and my speech of praise is for the transcendentally good Cause
of all good things . . . for that Cause of existence and Life and wisdom
among creatures with their own share in being, life, intelligence, expression,
perception. I do not think of the Good as one thing, Being as another, Life
and Wisdom as yet other, and I do not claim that there are numerous causes
and different Godheads, all differently ranked, superior and inferior, and all
producing different effects. No. But I hold that there is one God for all these
good processions (telling) of the universal Providence of the one God, while
the other names reveal general or specific ways in which he acts providen-
tially. (DN, 816C-817A)
The ‘benevolent providence’ of ‘the transcendentally good Cause of all

good things’ is nowhere more evident than in its incarnation in Christ.
For Pseudo-Dionysius there was no greater or more radical manifestation
of benevolent and sustaining divine intimacy with the material world.
Crucially, this signposted the return of a truly human soul in the pursuit of
the fullest inner human development back to its transcendent immaterial
source. The fruits of the incarnation provide the sure apophatic route back to
total happiness, and explain the scriptures and sacraments being the primary
source of the soul being ‘uplifted to the ray of the divine shadow which
is above everything that is’ (MT, 1.1000A). Despite the undoubted debt
Pseudo-Dionysius owed to the Greek philosophical foundations supporting
his negative theology, his Mystical Theology always defers to Biblical texts.
It is evident in the Celestial Hierarchy, which begins with scripture, that he
always defers to it and not philosophical analysis:
Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down
from the Father of lights. (James 1:17) . . . Inspired by the Father, each pro-
cession of the Light spreads itself generously toward us, and, in its power to
unify, it stirs us by lifting us up. It returns us back to the oneness and deify-
ing simplicity of the Father who gathers us in. For, as the sacred Word says:
‘from him and to him are all things’ (CH, 120B-121B).
He continues:
Let us, then, call upon Jesus, the Light of the Father, the ‘true light enlight-
ening every man coming into the world,’ ‘through whom we have obtained
access’ to the Father, the light which is the source of light. To the best of our
abilities, we should raise our eyes to the paternally transmitted enlighten-
ment coming from sacred scripture and…do so in accordance with what the
scripture has revealed to us in symbolic and uplifting fashion. We must lift
up the immaterial and steady eyes of our minds to that outpouring of Light
which is so primal, indeed much more so, and which comes from that source
of divinity . . . the Father . . . But we need to rise from this outpouring of illu-
mination so as to come to the simple ray of Light itself. (CH, 120B-121B)
As discussed in Chapter One, many moderns, subjected by instrumental

reason to a life of ‘neg-otium’ (not-leisure), would do well to think dif-
ferently and raise their ‘eyes to the paternally transmitted enlightenment
coming from sacred scripture’. My methodology of lectio divina is key to
seeing the ‘outpouring of illumination’ the textual wells of scripture offer.
It is ‘illumination’ ‘hidden’ from the prevailing methodologies of reading
of the modern academies of learning, which just mine a text for facts and
information. Especially today, Jantzen’s comments strike a note of warning:
‘Dionysius starts from the assumption of a hidden or mystical meaning of
scripture.’518 Blind to this meaning of scripture, the mentality of modern
reading traces its heritage back to Descartes and ‘over-confidence’ placed in
autonomous ‘self-constitution’. Again recalling discussion in Chapter One,
with that of (post)modernity showing sympathy with apophatic criticism,

Mary Rubenstein writes:
Long before Descartes will utter it from his solitary room, Pseudo-Diony-
sius locates the cogito as the primary obstacle to (un) knowing God . . .
The Mystical Theology shatters the myth of individualism, which even in
the sixth century was bound up with a certain over-confidence in episte-
mological self-constitution . . . Such people weight themselves down with
themselves, too dazzled by the meagre light of their own intellect to ascend
to the divine darkness.519
If the pursuit of happiness is to be made more effective, the ‘meagre light’

of the autonomous cogito asserting itself within a domain of instrumental
means must be exposed. More than at any other time in epistemological his-
tory, Pseudo-Dionysius starkly illustrates the extent to which many people
need to change their thinking about human development: ‘If only we lacked
sight and knowledge so as to see, so as to know, unseeing and unknowing,
that which lies beyond all vision and knowledge. For this would be really
to see and to know’ (MT, 2.1025A). Thinking this differently would reveal
a truly radical new goal of human development: ‘Source of perfection for
those being made perfect, source of divinity for those being deified, prin-
ciple of simplicity for those turning toward simplicity, point of unity for
those made one; transcendently, beyond what is, it is the Source of every
source (DN, 589C). Invaluable insight here offers support for the concern of
liberation and feminist theologies for a more holistic view of human nature,
which resists the fragmenting effect of the problematic. The ‘negative’
philosophical and theological exercise of reason encouraged by Pseudo-
Dionysius turns human passion and desire ‘toward simplicity’ and a ‘point
of unity’.
As a summary of his whole spiritual teaching, the Mystical Theology
also provides a summary of affirmative/cataphatic and negative theology,
whose goal is the unifying divine ‘Source of every source’. The realization
of this apophatic goal is ecstatic self-transcending deifying union with the
‘ray of the divine shadow which is above everything that is’ (MT, 1. 1000A).
The account of the soul’s ascent towards this experiential summit begins
with Moses520 ascending Mount Sinai, which, Louth notes, ‘has several
close verbal parallels with Gregory’s Life of Moses’.521 Russell writes: ‘As
with Gregory of Nyssa, to whose Life of Moses the Mystical Theology is
closely related, Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai is presented as the paradigm
of the soul’s ascent to God.’522
Also mirrored in the Mystical Theology is Gregory’s preference for
the word ‘participation’ rather than deification, in order to preserve God’s

immutable and unified nature. Here too, the technical language of deification
is noticeable by its absence. Yet deification is also a fundamental principle
of Pseudo-Dionysius’ spirituality. The absence of technical language
relates directly with the radical nature of the soul’s apophatic ascent, the
paradigm of which is embodied by Moses. In the Mystical Theology, more
than any other Christian writer, Pseudo-Dionysius stresses the reason for
this. Importantly, writes Russell, the ‘technical language of deification (or)
“Theosis” is too cataphatic a word in this context. For the ascent is not
to theos but to one who is beyond deity.’523 As discussed previously, the
apophatic ‘real thing’ of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Proclean philosophical heritage
reveals itself. The process of the soul’s deification and ascent takes it
‘beyond deity’, and radically beyond the grasp of both reason and language.
Cataphatic statements of the divine, and even their denials, remain rooted in
reason and language which stop the soul short of the summit of apophatic
ascent. Following the example of Moses, the goal of the soul’s inward ascent
is union ‘beyond deity’, with what for reason and language is absolutely ‘no-
thing’ at all. Therefore, the absence of the technical language of deification
says much about the movement of the four ways of knowing God mentioned
in the Mystical Theology (1032D–1048B). It also reiterates the rationale of
this work: its full appreciation is impossible without a thorough examination
of the development of the Greek philosophical foundations supporting
it. Moreover, that this scope was also an expression of the pursuit of
eudaimonia now realizing its consummation in Biblical tradition. Riordan
writes: ‘These four ways greatly resemble classical Greeks approaches
given a certain supernatural “lift”, however, due to God’s Self-revelation
and the rectifying gift of faith in receptive souls.’524 From this convergence
of reason and faith ‘consonant with the nature of faith itself’,525 it is the last
two ways which, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, are the more perfect or
‘divine’. They are the particular focus of this work and viewed by Aquinas
as essentially one. Both are negative. The first way begins progressing in
ascent through denying both the sensible ‘Symbolic’ similitudes followed
by the ‘Theological Representations’ or intelligible processions of the
divine. Finally, the second way progresses the soul’s ascent by denying the
superlative (the mystical beyond natural knowledge) representations of the
divine through an unknowing knowledge in faith. Prior to these negative
ways of unknowing, are those respectively of gaining knowledge of God
through the ‘Symbolic’ or sensible representations followed by affirmative/
cataphatic ‘Theological Representations’ from intelligible processions.
Descending cataphatic ‘Theological Representations’ of the divine
begin with the highest most congruous ones, proceeding ‘downward’ to

increasingly less appropriate ‘Symbolic’ representations by which language
plays a central role. Pseudo-Dionysius writes:
In my Theological Representations, I have praised the notions which are

most appropriate to affirmative theology . . . In The Divine Names I have
shown the sense in which God is described as good, existent, life, wisdom,
power, and whatever other things pertain to the conceptual names for God.
In my Symbolic Theology I have discussed analogies of God drawn from
what we perceive (MT, 3.1032D–1033B).
‘Theological Representations’ (affirmative/cataphatic) of the divine begin

with God’s oneness, descending downward to less appropriate ‘Symbolic’
ones drawn from the senses: ‘When we assert what is beyond every asser-
tion, we must then proceed from what is most akin to it, and as we do so
we make the affirmation on which everything else depends’ (MT, 3.1033C).
Summarizing Pseudo-Dionysius’ affirmative/cataphatic theology, Rorem
says:
The Theological Representations began with God’s oneness and proceeded

down into the multiplicity of affirming the Trinity and the incarnation. The
Divine Names then affirmed the more numerous designations for God which
come from mental concepts, while The Symbolic Theology ‘descended’ into
the still more pluralized realm of sense perception and its plethora of sym-
bols of the deity.526
Cataphatic affirmations of the divine begin with mental concepts of God’s

oneness, and move downward towards those drawn from ‘the still more plu-
ralized realm of sense perception and its plethora of symbols of the deity’.
The way of negation moves opposite, ascending upward through the denial
of all these affirmations, even ‘superlative’ (mystical) representations of
the divine. It is epistemological and existential movement in the pursuit of
human development, radically at odds with that encouraged by the modern
instrumental mind. More akin to that encouraged by cataphatic theology,
human passion and desire are directed to penetrate deeper the ‘pluralized
realm of sense perception’, and not the unknowing of ‘the divine shadow’.
For Pseudo-Dionysius, ‘negative’ thinking which denies both sensible and
intelligible representations of the divine is better, ‘more divine’:
Now it seems to me that we should praise the denials quite differently than
we do the assertions. When we made assertions we began with the first
things, moved down through intermediate terms until we reached the last
things. But now as we climb from the last things up to the most primary
we deny all things so that we may unhiddenly know that unknowing which
itself is hidden from all those possessed of knowing amid all beings, so that
we may see above being that darkness concealed from all the light among
beings. (MT, 2.1025B–1032D)
Thinking very differently from many today, Pseudo-Dionysius redirects the

human desire for happiness towards ‘that darkness concealed from all the
light among beings’. Those who believe that their possession of ‘know-
ing amid all beings’ is fit for purpose would also not follow his reasoning
concerning the sacraments being necessary for this: ‘So, therefore, let us
behold the divine symbols’ (EH, 2.392C).The point is reflected in previous
discussion of Socrates’ Erotic pursuit of Beauty requiring initiation by the
prophetess Diotima into the ‘rites of love’. Of baptism, Pseudo-Dionysius
writes:
the sacred divine birth has nothing unfitting or profane in its perceptible
images. Rather, it reflects the enigmas of a contemplative process worthy of
God, and it does so by way of natural reflections suited to the human intel-
lect . . . Even if it had no other and more sacred meaning, this tradition of
things performed symbolically . . . teaches . . . a holy way of life and in the
cleansing of the whole body by water it proposes a complete purification of
an evil way of life. (EH, 3.397B).
Beginning with baptism, the sacramental ‘lift’ of the Greek pursuit of eudai-
monia radically realizes the Platonic contemplative ideal of ‘assimilation to
God so far as that is possible’ (Theaetetus 176B). The deifying sacramental
effect of the Eucharist and its celebration, powerfully illustrate the unifying
and holistic movement of human development which is encouraged. Con-
trasted with this, is the use of the material by the instrumental mind, closely
tied with its atomization into the empirical datum of fact. Symbolizing the
latter, Pseudo-Dionysius writes of the exchange of the kiss of peace after the
Eucharistic celebration:
The love of the Deity for humanity having been thus reverently celebrated
. . . The divine kiss of peace is exchanged. Then there is the proclamation,
mystical and transcendent, of the holy volumes. For it is not possible to be
gathered together toward the One and to partake of peaceful union with the
One while divided among ourselves. If, however, we are enlightened by the
contemplation of and knowledge of the One we are enabled to be unified, to
achieve a truly divine oneness and it will never happen that we succumb to
that fragmentation of desire which is the source of corporeal and impassioned

hostility between equals. This, it seems to me, is the united and undivided life
prescribed for us by the kiss of peace as it joins like to like and turns the frag-
mented away from the divine and unique visions. (EH, 3.437A)
Pseudo-Dionysius stands in the tradition of Origen, Athanasius and Cyril

relating deification to the efficacy of the sacraments effecting the apophatic
‘lift’ of the pursuit of eudaimonia. The ‘kiss of peace’ after the Eucharistic
celebration symbolizes a ‘united and undivided life’. However, as evidence
discussed suggests, the thinking of many today ‘succumbs to that fragmen-
tation of desire which is the source of corporeal and impassioned hostility’.
A change in thinking symbolized by the ‘divine kiss of peace’, and gather-
ing together human passion and desire effected by a sacramental use of the
material, offers a way forward. Torevell notes: ‘Salvation only comes about
when the light of this mysterious knowledge shines in the hearts of the initi-
ated and a movement into mystery starts to begin . . . the Greek word for
mystery became “sacrament”, which referred mostly to baptism and the
Eucharist.’527 A unifying movement of inner human development ‘into mys-
tery’ initiated by the sacraments begins, and away from its fragmentation
within ‘corporeal and impassioned hostility’: ‘In the earlier books my argu-
ment travelled downward from the most exalted to the humblest categories,
taking in on this downward path an ever-increasing number of ideas which
multiplied with every stage of descent. But my argument now rises from
what is below up to the transcendent (MT, 3.1033C). He continues:
But when we deny that which is beyond every denial, we have to start by
denying those qualities which differ most from the goal we hope to attain. Is
it not closer to reality to say that God is life and goodness rather than that he
is air or stone? Is it not more accurate to deny that drunkenness and rage can
be attributed to him than to deny that we can apply to him the terms of speech
and thought? (MT, 3.1033D)
Previewing the two subsequent works on perceptible symbols (The Celes-

tial Hierarchy and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy), the Mystical Theology
begins to deny the perceptible attributes of the ‘supreme cause of every
perceptible thing’. Even the material depictions of angels in scripture and
temporal images of God in the liturgy have to be transcended in ascent from
the perceptible to the intelligible. Absent also the technical language of dei-
fication, with the apophatic method of Pseudo-Dionysius the soul rises from
what is below towards its goal. According to Golitzin this is the ‘“ineffa-
ble,” “unknowable” . . . “sudden” “mystical” visitation of Christ . . . within
the temple of the soul’.528 He argues that this is ‘the purpose and goal of the
Mystical Theology . . . as well as the content . . . of the darkness into which
Moses ascends in Mystical Theology’.529
The ‘sudden’ mystical visitation of Christ within the ‘temple of the
soul’ is coordinated by Golitzin with that of his presence in the ‘temple’
of the liturgical assembly on the eucharistic altar. Yet it is the content of
the darkness of this ‘sudden’ visitation which should be noted. Before
further discussion of this content and its deepening during the soul’s
apophatic ascent seen in that of Moses ascending Mount Sinai, an im-
portant point is made. The purpose and goal of the Mystical Theology,
like this work, is not just to produce sound philosophy and theology
independent of human experience, especially that of daily life. On the
contrary, the purpose and goal of both, is to uncap the wellsprings of hu-
man passion and desire like the Greek exercise of reason as philo-sophia
from which they emerged. Rubenstein observes: ‘It is common to dis-
tinguish negative theology, a set of discursive/ philosophical/linguistic
strategies, from the via negativa, a lived/experienced/practiced “mysti-
cal”’ ascent toward the divine.’530 With this work, the Mystical Theology
is firmly set against making this distinction at the expense of its primary
purpose of encouraging the via negativa. My choice of lectio divina as
my methodology reiterates the point.
Performing the task of the via negativa is Pseudo-Dionysius’ radical
method of ‘un-saying’ or ‘conceptual destabilization’ leading to ‘hyper-
negation’.531 Paradoxically, its ‘conceptual destabilization’ of instrumen-
tal reason offers what Gregory might describe as ‘a standing still’ in a
movement of ‘change’ for the better. It would certainly effect a ‘turning
toward’ a radically different way of thinking about human development,
unlike that which despite every effort ‘makes no progress at all’. Blans
writes:
For Dionysius, like the Neoplatonists, knowledge is a ‘turning toward.’ This

means that knowledge is not merely ‘learning something about something,’
but is a way of becoming one with the object of our orientation so that we
may know it better. This turning towards shares knowledge with all forms of
life and being. It is its highest form. All beings proceeded from the One or the
Good, and return to it in a ‘reversal’ or turning toward. As long as knowledge
is confined in a multiplicity of reasonings and objects, it has not reached the
One.532
Pseudo-Dionysius could rightly describe the modern mind as being ‘con-

fined in a multiplicity of reasonings and objects’. The hypernegation of his
Mystical Theology ensures that human development continually turns away

from any such confinement, and of arriving at a final destination. The influ-
ence of Gregory’s view of the never ending growth or expansion/tension of
the soul in the darkness of divine infinity is reflected here. The hypernega-
tion of Pseudo-Dionysius makes the pursuit of inner human development
unavoidably nomadic. There is now absolutely nowhere to rest one’s epis-
temic and existential head. Fisher writes: ‘Thus, God’s transcendence of
Goodness itself sets in motion the nomadic process of unlimited semiosis.
Dionysius conceives this thoroughly human activity as one of “erring” or
“wandering” . . . and as a “discursive passage” or “orbit of the sun” . . . in
a “circle”.’ 533 This ‘also gestures toward the Parmenidean understanding
of signification as a path. Dionysius plays on this in his invocation of the
theologians’ preference for the “negative way”. Dionysius’s hypernegativ-
ity shifts the migratory epistemological pattern noted above to a nomadic
semiotic one.’534 The apophatic theologian’s preference is for the ‘negative
way’ of a ‘migratory epistemological’ and existential pursuit of inner human
development. The ‘hypernegativity’ of Pseudo-Dionysius guarantees this,
and with it, the collapse of reason and language as they turn to face what
for them is absolutely ‘no-thing’ at all. He recognized in these factors the
requirement of a certain innate human faculty, beyond the capacity of both
soul and intellect (henosis). Moreover, this faculty signified, unlike with
modern instrumental reason, an innate holistic capacity for a ‘particular
commingling in the Beautiful and the Good’ located now in the Father:
a capacity to effect a unity, an alliance, and a particular commingling in the

Beautiful and the Good. It is a capacity which preexists through the Beauti-
ful and the Good. It is dealt out from the Beautiful and the Good through the
Beautiful and the Good. It binds the things of the same order in a mutually
regarding union. (DN, 4.709D)
The ‘bloom’ or ‘blossom’ of the intellect535of the Neoplatonists is lifted to

radical new heights through this ‘particular commingling in the Beautiful
and the Good’ and ‘in a mutually regarding union’. Modern academies have
largely replaced this learning outcome with the tedium of feeding instru-
mental minds with inert facts and information.
The account of the soul’s apophatic ascent in the Mystical Theology
(1000B–1001A) begins by using the analogy of Moses’ ascent of Sinai:
It is not for nothing that the blessed Moses is commanded to submit first to
purification and then to depart from those who have not undergone this . . .
When every purification is complete, he hears the many-voiced trumpets. He
sees the many lights, pure and with rays streaming abundantly. Then, stand-
ing apart from the crowds . . . he pushes ahead to the summit of the divine
ascents. (MT, 1000C–1000D)
Pseudo-Dionysius is not the first to make an analogy of Moses’s ascent,

but he is the first to use these themes as part of his negative theology to
signify God’s utter ‘unknowability’. As McGinn comments, he uses them
in the most ‘objective sense to signify God’s utter unknowability, an un-
knowability that indicates that we attain God only through unknowing.’536
Recalling previous discussion, this is why, ‘more than any other patristic
author, Dionysius used language . . . to subvert the claims of language’.537
His use of these themes to subvert the claims of language reflects the role
of the dialogue The Parmenides first casting doubt over the power of logos.
They reveal its identification of the fact that reason and language were
incompatible with unity. Rubenstein summarizes Pseudo-Dionysius’ radi-
calization of these themes and expressing the consummation of the pursuit
of eudaimonia: ‘The way to be lifted to the God beyond all knowledge is to
abandon that self which “knowledge” constitutes and the way to abandon
the self-as-knowing is to make knowledge fail.’538 The negative theology of
Pseudo-Dionysius radically subverts the claims of reason and language and
therefore also the ‘self-as-knowing’. Today, directing human development
towards abandoning that ‘self which “knowledge” constitutes’, like Moses,
really would mean ‘standing apart from the crowds’. Moses does just that.
The prayer of Pseudo-Dionysius for his friend Timothy, which opens the
Mystical Theology, would be understood as encouraging the climactic fail-
ure of making ‘knowledge fail’:
Trinity!! Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness! Guide of Chris-
tians . . . Lead us up beyond unknowing and light . . . where the mysteries of
God’s Word lie simple, absolute and unchangeable in the brilliant darkness
of a hidden silence . . . Amid the wholly unsensed and unseen they com-
pletely fill our sightless minds with treasures beyond all beauty. (997A-B)
In the concluding chapter the prayer has remained constant, as has Moses
pursuit of human development which ‘breaks free’ and grows ever distant
from the madding crowd:
Again, as we climb higher we say this. It is not soul or mind, nor does it
possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding . . . It cannot be
spoken of and it cannot be grasped by understanding . . . It is beyond asser-
tion and denial . . . by virtue of its pre-eminently simple and absolute nature
. . . (MT, 5.1045D)
Writing of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras, Gavrilyuk

presses home the point about the subversive nature of this movement of in-
ner human development: ‘Having defined Dionysian apophaticism as “the
abandonment of every conceptual necessity” and “annihilation of all con-
ceptual idols of God” . . .’.539 By abandoning every ‘conceptual necessity’
and annihilating all ‘idols’, especially belief in the sufficiency unto itself
of the modern cogito of securing happiness, a new ‘mystical’ language of
silence is learnt. Rubenstein writes:
The apophatic self, marked by an endless desire to represent that which she
cannot represent, is thus marked by a certain absence – but also by an excess
of presence, which constantly unspeaks her speech and speaks through her
silence. Always interrupted and undone: ‘mystical speech’ has no proper
subject or object and can only emerge, through a full abandonment of the
speaking self and spoken God.540
The ‘full abandonment’ of the instrumental mind’s ‘speaking self’ is

what Pseudo-Dionysius’ negative theology is now used to encourage.
The ‘apophatic self’ can then begin to articulate a richer and truer
language of human development spoken through silence within the soul.
Accordingly, the Mystical Theology begins with a prayer, which according
to Turner depends upon ‘the “self-subverting” utterance . . . which first
says something and then, in the same image, unsays it . . . These opaque
utterances are contrived, they are deliberately paradoxical, but they are not
merely artful. They are . . . the natural linguistic medium of his negative,
apophatic theology.’541 Therefore, it is the apophatic ‘self-subverting
utterance’, not the self-constituting babble of instrumental reason that will
carry the soul towards the silent summit of its ascent: ‘the more language
falters, and when it has passed up and beyond the ascent, it will turn silent
completely, since it will finally be at one with him who is indescribable’
(MT, 3.1033C). Pseudo-Dionysius’ comments drive home the point that
modern instrumental thinking and language cannot uncap the well-springs
of human passion and desire:
The truth we have to understand is that we use letters, syllables, phrases,

written terms and words because of the senses. But when our souls are
moved by intelligent energies in the direction of the things of the intellect
then our senses and all that go with them are no longer needed. And the same
happens with our intelligent powers which, when the soul becomes divin-
ized, concentrate sightlessly and through an unknowing union on the rays of
unapproachable light (DN, 708D)
The via negativa encourages modern academies of learning, aiming to

produce a civil and happy society, to become less tied to ‘letters, syllables,
phrases, written terms and words because of the senses’. Like this work,
instead, their use should focus on moving the mind’s ‘intelligent energies’
and ‘powers’, in a direction which loosens the senses hold over them. My
choice of lectio divina as my methodology reveals itself here by facilitating
the movement of the reader’s ‘intelligent energies’ and ‘powers’ beyond the
grasp of the senses, and ‘letters, syllables, phrases, written terms and words’.
This radical redirection of state and personal educational endeavour finds
prayerful support: ‘For this I pray . . . Timothy, my friend, my advice to you
. . . is to leave behind you everything perceived and understood, everything
perceptible and understandable . . . all that is . . . to strive upward as much
as you can toward union with him who is beyond all being and knowledge’
(MT, 1000A). And: ‘By an undivided and absolute abandonment of yourself
and everything, shedding all and freed from all, you will be lifted to the ray
of the divine shadow which is above everything that is’ (MT, 1000A).
Facilitated by my methodology, epistemologically and existentially, the
reader arrives at the ecstatic consummation of the ‘negative’ intellectual
trajectory expressing the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia traced by this work.
‘An undivided and absolute abandonment of yourself and everything’,
particularly instrumental thinking about human development, in deifying
union, goes beyond Gregory to whom otherwise Pseudo-Dionysius is so
close. The result is a new vocabulary of unknowing expressing an experi-
ential apex in which the soul is torn outside of itself, and (writes Williams)
as the ‘the fruit of the union with the divine consequent upon the mind’s ec-
stasy’.542 The realization of the Greek pursuit of eudaimonia in the ‘bloom’
or ‘blossoming’ of the Neoplatonist’s intellect progresses further through
Christian faith. The ecstasy of the Christian mind is the ‘fruit of the union
with the divine’, where the soul is torn outside of itself within the dark-
ness of unknowing. It is beyond philosophical method alone, even when
exercised as philo-sophia. Turner summarizes this well: ‘when . . . Pseudo-
Dionysius says that in the apophatic ecstasy “all intellectual activities must
be relinquished” he means that intellect is transported as intellect beyond
what it can do by itself into its own dazzling darkness’.543 This suggests that
the light cast by many modern minds leads into a cul-de-sac of diminished
horizons of human potential. Pseudo-Dionysius uses Moses to embody an
alternative ‘negative’ way of thinking rooted in the ancient convergence of

reason and faith:
But then he breaks free of them, away from what sees and is seen, and he
plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing
all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and invis-
ible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being
neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united to the completely
unknowing by an inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind
by knowing nothing. (MT, 1001A)
Rooting the pursuit of inner human development in ‘being neither oneself

nor someone else’ begs the important question of who and what one is
becoming. One thing is clear; it is not that of the modern individual ‘self’
emerging solely from its relation to language, culture or biology. The
modern cult of the individually constituted self, or personality, becomes
extinguished because there is absolutely ‘no-thing’ to cultivate it from. The
hypernegation or negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius which performs
the task of the via negativa, is an unending moment of crisis for these con-
structions. Placing the energies and capacities of the human mind ‘prior
to the beginning, before knowledge, before signs and symbols, before any
thought’,544 can only result in ‘being neither oneself nor someone else’.
However, this should not be viewed as a radical nihilistic loss of core indi-
vidual identity, but the infinite expansion of the deepest human passion and
desire constituting this core. Appealing to the scriptural experience of Paul
as well as Moses, Pseudo-Dionysius illustrates the point:
the great Paul, swept along by his yearning for God and seized of its ecstatic
power, had this inspiring word to say: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ
who lives in me’. Paul was truly a lover and, as he says, he was beside him-
self for God, possessing not his own life but the life of the One for whom he
yearned. (DN, 712A)
Paul’s ‘yearning’ and his being ‘seized of its ecstatic power’ in the pur-
suit of his fullest inner human development, showed that the loss of his ‘I’
in Christ was no loss of his core individual identity. Becoming ecstatically
‘beside himself for God’ as a true ‘lover’ in the satisfaction of his deep-
est ‘yearning’, is clearly no loss of core identity, quite the reverse. Also,
paradoxically, God becomes ecstatically beside himself in a yearning for
‘commingling’ with the human soul, while also remaining transcendent and
immutable:
He is, as it were, beguiled by goodness, by love, and by yearning and is en-

ticed away from his transcendent dwelling place and comes to abide within
all things, and he does so by virtue of his supernatural and ecstatic capacity
to remain, nevertheless, within himself. (DN, 712B)
The Christian ‘qualified dualism’ which I have highlighted and which has
shown that God works in history as both transcendent and immanent in
the incarnation of Christ, is again evident. It now secures the satisfaction
of the deepest human ‘yearning’ for happiness, an extraordinary trajectory
of human passion and desire for that which is transcendent and immutable.
The divine also yearns for each person’s satisfaction and, in turn, ‘is enticed
away from his transcendent dwelling place’ while remaining ‘nevertheless,
within himself’(DN, 712B). There is no greater expression for Pseudo-
Dionysius of this than the self emptying of divine nature in the incarnation
of Christ: ‘And out of love he has come down to be at our level of nature
. . . He, the transcendent God, has taken on the name of man . . . His full-
ness was unaffected by that inexpressible emptying of self ’ (DN, 649A).
Resulting from this is an ecstatic ‘commingling’ in love at the summit of
apophatic ascent, with no loss of the core characteristics of His nature.
Pseudo-Dionysius is careful to root the idea of the ecstasy of the Christian
mind, in which the soul is torn outside of itself within the darkness of un-
knowing, firmly in scripture. He does so by appealing to the imagery of the
divine inebriation (Ephesians 5.18) whereby one’s fullness is produced by
the Holy Spirit.
The reader, too, has now reached the summit of apophatic experience.
Arriving at its full appreciation, along with the support of the Greek philo-
sophical foundations, has been the important aim and task of the methodol-
ogy of lectio divina. With this appreciation, aimed at bringing invaluable
insights into human development from the recovered past into the present,
its fitness for purpose should be clear. This experience also speaks of the
unsuitability of many modern alternatives which mine texts simply for facts
and information largely for instrumental use.
Therefore, what insights does Pseudo-Dionysius’ theological thinking
and its Greek philosophical foundations offer human development today,
greatly circumscribed within a domain of instrumental means? The loss of
the modern individually constituted self within the darkness of unknowing
offers the gain of infinitely greater satisfaction of inner human needs. As I
have recorded, the paradigm of this ascent of the human soul in the Mystical
Theology is Moses, who moves towards the apophatic summit of a mutual
ecstasy of love – and so might we. For those frustrated by the prevailing
zeitgeist, Pseudo-Dionysius offers a radically different way of thinking

directing them towards ‘a union superior to anything available to us by way
of our own abilities or activities in the realm of discourse or of the intellect’
(DN, 1.588A). Indeed, the malaise affecting European culture may be due,
in some measure, to holding out without any ties to its ancient heritage of
‘negative’ philosophical and theological thinking. This chapter has traced
this important philosophical and pragmatic contribution to culture, high-
lighting its flourishing within the Christian tradition.
CONCLUSION
What cannot be put into words should not be suppressed.545 (Jean-Luc

Marion)
The frenzied need to work, to plan, and to change things is nothing but
idleness under other names – moral, intellectual, and emotional. In order to
defend itself from self-knowledge, this agitated idleness is busy smashing
all the mirrors in the house.546 (Roger Scruton)
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two mas-
ters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image
of what you desire.547 (Thomas Merton)
I will now gather together the threads of this thesis. I began Chapter One
by elucidating the ‘Christian’ context and rationale of the central thread
running through this work prior to its specific treatment in Chapter Four.
Drawing from the work of Janet Williams, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Roul
Mortley, Andrew Louth, Vladimir Lossky, Joseph Pieper, Pope Benedict
XVI, Werner Jaeger, Pierre Hadot and Hilary Armstrong among others, I
placed my argument squarely within the paradigm of Christian Platonism.
I revealed this position to represent a Christian ‘qualified dualism’ emerg-
ing from the convergence of reason’s ancient ‘negative’ exercise (logos)
expressing the pursuit of eudaimonia, and an embodied Biblical tradition
(Word). It was also rooted in the irresolvable philosophical requirement of
affirming that God works in history as simultaneously transcendent and im-
manent in a non-accidental way, witnessed especially in the incarnation of
Christ. Moreover, I demonstrated that this position represented the radical
conclusion of the heightening of epistemic and existential tension at the
heart of the ‘negative’ pursuit of eudaimonia, reduced to breaking point
at the summit of apophatic ascent. This rationale and scope was shown to
illuminate and advance the endeavours of all those from whom this work
draws.
In the Introduction I discussed my methodology of lectio divina and
indicated how I would map it across at the beginning of each chapter. I
next discussed the Greek vision of the pursuit of eudaimonia, aligning its
development with that of the ‘negative’ intellectual trajectory which be-
came the via negativa discussed in Chapter Four. I then outlined significant
commonalities of theme and argument of this ancient trajectory of human
development within contemporary voices of challenge. These emerged

from the disciplines of philosophy, theology, spirituality, psychology
(transpersonal), and education. Following this I charted the development
of the philosophical foundations supporting the problematic Enlightenment
legacy of instrumental reason. I concluded the chapter by discussing the re-
emergence of apophasis within a constructive (post)modern context. I did
this along with a discussion of other solutions to the problem, in particular,
liberation and feminist theology.
I began Chapter Two outlining my approach to reading the Platonic
corpus and later Platonic philosophy guided by David Brown’s critique. I
revealed it to be most closely situated within a creative, literary and imagi-
native textual approach. Unsurprisingly, this was also shown to complement
neatly my chosen methodology. Picking up discussion in the Introduction,
I then translated my methodology across the chapter using Funk’s four
stages corresponding to the lectio divina framework. I made it clear this
process would begin each succeeding chapter. By applying these comple-
mentary methods of reading, I began to retrieve invaluable insights from
the aporatic pursuit of wisdom as conceived by Socrates, which revealed it
to be an important precursor to negative theology. Allied to this discovery,
I contrasted a feminine consciousness in relation to the voice of Penia, the
mother of Eros, with the father Poros. Analysing the development of these
ancient examples of the aporatic pursuit of eudaimonia I pointed to a femi-
nine consciousness, an often overlooked characteristic of the Greek erotic
contemplative ideal central to the development of Christian apophasis. This
voice was shown to be at odds with many modern endeavours seeking to be
the ‘maistre et possesseur de la nature’. I concluded the chapter by estab-
lishing the veracity of Socrates’ claim of aporia, and its significance for my
argument about inward change and regeneration.
In Chapter Three I discussed the genesis of this trajectory through the
rise of logos and Parmenides’ idea of one unchanging reality. This began
establishing an inward aporatic trajectory of the pursuit of eudaimonia that
would play out through these two central factors. Also, it revealed itself to
be characterized by a heightening of epistemic and existential tension which
would reach breaking point at the summit of apophatic ascent. Moreover, I
showed that this would result in an irresolvable heightening of tension which
would actually quicken the pursuit of eudaimonia towards its apophatic
consummation and the convergence of Biblical revelation and reason/logos.
This entailed discussion of two signs intersecting with the pursuit of eudai-
monia tied with growing doubts over the power of logos set before one uni-
fied reality. They were Parmenides’ poetic account of the goddess Night’s
Conclusion 193
revelation of two ways of inquiry and the inspiratio of Apollo’s theia

mania. Continuing this process, I discussed Plato establishing a ‘negative’
contemplative trajectory within the Western philosophical tradition through
his dialogue The Parmenides. I showed how he did this by accepting with
modifications Parmenides’ idea of One unchanging reality over the position
of Heraclitus, allied with its articulation of doubts concerning the power of
logos and language. Brief discussion followed concerning Aristotle’s practi-
cal priority (phronesis) and his theory of abstraction (aphaeresis) used by
the early exponents of negative theology. This reasoning illustrated resist-
ance towards the doubt Plato’s contemplative priority had begun casting
over the power of logos. My retrieval of these insights from the developing
Platonic philosophical heritage of the apophatic tradition, led to a discus-
sion of the realization of its experiential zenith in the ecstatic ‘blooming’
of intelligence in Plotinus and Proclus. From a significant heightening of
epistemic and existential tension and religious sensibility, I revealed this to
be increasingly at odds with modern forms of reason. Illustrating the point
further I discussed the view of A. H. Armstrong which showed how this
‘blooming’ was a characteristic of the apophatic ‘genuine article’ of Neopla-
tonism. I concluded the chapter by signposting the transit of the ‘negative’
trajectory of the Greek erotic pursuit of eudaimonia to be met by the descent
of Christian agape.
Picking up this central thread in Chapter Four, I made it clear from the
outset that the contextualization within Christian revelation was a radically
new development in the pursuit of eudaimonia. Indeed, it was set towards
a new, incomprehensible apophatic goal of inner human development. Fol-
lowing my discussion in previous chapters, I analyzed the passage of these
developments through a discussion of the writings of Philo, Clement and
Gregory and, in particular, referred to the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-
Dionysius to strengthen my point. I also showed how the cultivation of
the modern inner human landscape might be assisted in this endeavour
by drawing from the work of Janet Williams, Mary-Jane Rubenstein,
Vladimir Lossky, Andrew Louth, Norman Russell, William Riordan and
Jean Daniélou.
My central thesis throughout has been the retrieval of the Greek
‘negative’ intellectual trajectory of eudaimonia and its importance for
today. This has led me to give a thorough historical investigation of the
intricacies involved in the development of what was the ancient ‘negative’
philosophical heritage of the Christian apophatic tradition. My aim, as it
was for Clement, Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius, was the retrieval and re-
discovery of invaluable classical insights in the light of Christian revelation,
as part of a universal pursuit of human development and happiness and how

these encourage a radically different way thinking, thus offering a richer vi-
sion and surer path than those approaches gaining prominence at the present
time. Central to bringing this recovered past into the present has been my
methodology of lectio divina, emerging from the ancient heritage of ‘nega-
tive’ philosophical and theological thinking, in particular, its effectiveness
in drawing wisdom out from important, textual wells. Complimenting my
choice of methodology was the position I took within current classical
scholarship regarding the imaginative, creative and literary interpretation
of the Platonic corpus. The combination of these two approaches is signifi-
cantly new.
I undertook this educational journey with philosophical and theological
dialogue partners who facilitated and encouraged a ‘negative’ way of think-
ing aimed at inward change and regeneration. Allied with commonalities
of theme and argument from the different disciplines discussed in Chapter
One, the thesis has also been a study re-affirming its initial expected out-
come. In summary, that there is an urgent need for an apophatic way of
thinking about inner human development as an alternative to the prevailing
instrumental mentality. My work is primarily aimed at a Western Euro-
pean audience and especially those who presently feel the need to re-as-
sess the paths which are recommended in the pursuit of human flourishing.
Those who repudiate Christianity are encouraged to recognize echoes of
(post)modern thought and experience in its deliberations. My work has also
added to existing knowledge by advancing the arguments and studies of
eminent writers, including Hadot, Pieper, Jaeger and Armstrong, who seek
to recover reason’s ancient exercise of philo-sophia in the pursuit of eudai-
monia. I also included key theological voices, especially Lossky, Louth,
Williams, Rubenstein, Mortley, Rahner, Marion and Pope Benedict XVI,
since they, too, identify the importance of the ‘apophatic’ way for contem-
porary living and its indebtedness to, and emergence from, the Greek notion
logos. The Christian ‘qualified dualism’, endorsed within the framework
of the apophatic alternative I recommend, is thus offered as a creative way
forward for the twenty-first century.
A further expected and illuminating outcome of this study was the
identification of commonalities of theme and argument from the different
disciplines of philosophy, theology, spirituality, psychology (transpersonal)
and education in support of my retrieval and re-appropriation of the via
negativa. In Chapter One I showed this coalition of voices to be bound by
a common intent in their dissatisfaction with any over-emphasis on autono-
mous reason, and by drawing from the past encouraging a contemplative
Conclusion 195
conception of human development. I make a significant new contribution

to knowledge by utilizing this coalition of voices from these different disci-
plines as a multidisciplinary resource to promote and advance these shared
arguments and concerns. Gathering together this resource reflecting a more
contemplative vision was crucial to my argument, and clearly represents
specific lines of further research in the public and private application of my
work. Its application as a resource in the provision of holistic models and
approaches within healthcare is another area for future investigation. One
clear profit in this arena is reflected in the emergence of the philosophical
counselling movement which, according to Peter Savage, offers ‘an oppor-
tunity for philosophers, or philosophy, to fulfil some of its most ancient and
cherished promises – to assist people to eudemonia. This may help to fulfil
Bertrand Russell’s assertion that philosophy is “an integral part of the life
of the community”.’548 I include theologians and theology as a necessary
complement in this task. My work offers to advance such reasoning and its
application by re-connecting the medical profession with its own histori-
cal, philosophical and theological roots, especially in relation to the holistic
development of the body, mind and spirit. The attempt to apply this work in
these areas of public practice also identifies its weaknesses. For example,
I have not had time to discuss the historical development of the apophatic
tradition in Eastern religious traditions; I am well aware this would lead
to fascinating comparisons and contrasts with my present study. A weak-
ness also resides in what might be perceived by some as being this work’s
difficult philosophical and theological nature. Yet I argue that everyone
possesses the capacity, indeed it is innate, of being able to engage at some
level in this way of thinking and reflection. I illustrate this particularly in
the work of the educationalists which I discuss. My point is reinforced by
the highly successful work of Matthew Lipman, recognized as the founder
of Philosophy for Children.549 These considerations make it clear that this
work offers expansive scope for further development.
The unexpected outcome of my study has been the discovery of shared
concerns with liberation and feminist theology. These are for an empower-
ment of a feminine consciousness and voice which resists those which seek
to be ‘maistre et possesseur de la nature’. However, this shared concern
for a more holistic view of human nature and its development does not
include foregoing all dualisms. Discussion in Chapter One shows this to
be quite the reverse. I argue that these shared concerns are most effectively
addressed through a negation of the concept of God as something dualisti-
cally transcendent to the world, realizable only through a practice of death
to the world. While I locate a feminine consciousness and voice at the heart
of the Platonic contemplative ideal, it is shown becoming fully realized at

the summit of apophatic ascent. It is a view which avoids the trap of a one-
sided negation which reduces the ultimate to the immanent, and identifies
spirituality simply with morality or aesthetics.
To conclude this work, which offers a different way of thinking aimed
at redirecting the pursuit of human development towards the summit of ap-
ophatic ascent, let me set down the words of Franke:
apophatic or negative theology has held in keeping the keys to the peren-
nial vitality of philosophical thinking that does not define and then exhaust
arbitrarily laid down, heuristic limits for its thinking. The willingness to let
go of all definitions, to negate all its own formulations, opens thought to
what is moving within it, beyond or beneath the definitive grasp of words
and concepts. Philosophy at this level is not merely cognitive but shades into
and merges with other dimensions, affective and connative, of human being
and experience. In the ancient world, notably among the Neoplatonists, phi-
losophy was understood as a spiritual exercise involving all the faculties of
human intellection and sensibility and praxis.550
But I offer the final advice to those who want to think seriously about exer-
cising their unalienable right to pursue happiness to Pseudo-Dionysius:
leave behind you everything perceived and understood, everything per-

ceptible and understandable, all that is not and all that is, and, with your
understanding laid aside, to strive upward as much as you can toward union
with him who is beyond all being and knowledge. By an undivided and
absolute abandonment of yourself and everything, shedding all and freed
from all, you will be uplifted to the ray of the divine shadow which is above
everything that is. (MT, 1)
Affirming my concluding hypothesis: Wittgenstein seeks

recourse to ‘negative’ thinking
By way of further reinforcement of this concluding hypothesis, I draw at-
tention to the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in the Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus found it necessary and beneficial to seek recourse to reason’s
‘negative’ form. Importantly, he represents a post-secular spiritual searcher
targeted by this work, pursuing a better balance between their inner and
outer developmental needs than that provided by modern thinking. Jean Luc
Marion writes:
Conclusion 197
The experience of not being able to comprehend, see, or think God can be
taken seriously as a positive experience. We can be confronted to something
completely outside of our reach and nevertheless present as such, as absent
. . . So incomprehensibility is a real knowledge fitting exactly what is at
stake. And, let us recall Wittgenstein: ‘What we cannot speak about we must
pass over in silence’.551
‘What is at stake’, as my work argues, is reconnecting ‘incomprehensibility’

as ‘real knowledge’ in the pursuit of happiness, and of which modern think-
ing has lost the ability to ‘speak’ in silence. Despite a strong association with
the early Anglo-American analytic tradition552 (for which any presence that
was absence to autonomous reason was just that), Russell Nieli553 attempts
to show that the Tractatus is based upon a mystic vision whose integrity and
sacredness Wittgenstein was concerned to maintain. In his review of Atkin-
son’s book The Mystical in Wittgenstein’s Early Writings, Nieli writes:
Unlike the early logical positivist interpreters of the Tractatus, Atkinson rec-
ognizes that Wittgenstein in his early philosophy was no enemy of ‘higher
things.’ While Wittgenstein believed that the expressive capacity of lan-
guage was largely confined to descriptive statements such as those found in
the natural sciences, Wittgenstein also believed, Atkinson stresses, that there
were certain ineffable truths about what is real that had to be passed over in
silence yet were not for this reason unimportant or insignificant for human
life. Indeed, Atkinson shows that what we must pass over in silence may
be just as important – or much more important – for the early Wittgenstein
than what can be expressed through language. Among the things relegated
by Wittgenstein to the realm of silence are God, the mystical, eternity, the
wonder at the world’s sheer existence, one’s higher or true inner-self, and
the meaning of life.554
The early Wittgenstein saw it as significant that there was knowledge

of great value in the silence of a presence that is absence to much modern
thinking about human development. Peter Hacker identifies a similar theme
running through the Tractatus:
That there are things that cannot be put into words, but which make
themselves manifest (TLP6.522) is a leitmotif running through the whole of
the Tractatus. It is heralded in the preface, in which the author summarizes
the whole sense of the book in the sentence ‘What can be said at all can be
said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence’,
and it is repeated by the famous concluding remark ‘What we cannot speak
about we must pass over in silence’. Wittgenstein’s claim is, or at least
seems to be, that by the very nature of language, or indeed of any system
of representation whatsoever, there are things which cannot be stated or
described, things of which one cannot speak, but which are in some sense
shown by language.555
My concluding hypothesis, offering invaluable insights drawn from the

retrieval of the Greek philosophical foundations of the Christian apophatic
tradition, is the same. In the pursuit of the fullest human development the
greatest value that reason and language possess lie in their capacity for
manifesting ‘higher things’ of which ultimately one ‘cannot speak’ or com-
prehend. Supporting the value of this re-appropriation of the via negativa
at odds with that directed by the modern mind dominated by instrumental
reason and the sense-datum of empirical fact. Nieli writes:
Positivist readers had apparently thought, like the young Ayer, that Witt-
genstein was only joking – putting down metaphysicians, as it were – when
he spoke of a reality beyond the world, about which one must be silent.
Such passages . . . had apparently been chalked up to lingering religious
or metaphysical impulses which were seen as entirely out of tune with the
rest of the work. From Brian McGinness’s article on ‘The Mysticism of the
Tractatus’, however, I learned that Wittgenstein was quite serious when he
wrote about das Mystische, and that he had himself apparently undergone
a very profound mystical experience sometime before the first world war
. . . Everything in the Tractatus, I came to realize – the musical cadence, its
logical system of ‘the world’, the say/show itself distinction, the remarks
on timelessness, the mystical, the silence, etc. – began to fall into its proper
place once the work is seen in its function as a ladder in the mystical ascent
along the via negativa . . . Janik and Toulmin, I came to believe, were right
in seeing the Tractatus as essentially an ethical and culture-critical work
whose logical system was instrumentally subordinate to its higher purpose.
They failed however to realize fully that the ethic upon which the Tractatus
was built was a mystical or theocentric ethic, that is, an ethic whose basis
was seen to lie in a transcending vision.556
Here is reflected what my work offers the modern mind, an alternative

‘negative’ epistemic and existential ladder upon which to ascend towards
an unimaginable satisfaction of human passion and desire. This explains
something of why others like Atkinson have attempted to reconcile
Wittgenstein’s analytic philosophy with those issues that consumed his
personal life, including his religious disposition, ascetic lifestyle and concern
with the mystical.557 Even his atheist mentor Bertrand Russell acknowledged
the feature that Wittgenstein liked best about the Tractatus; namely ‘its
Conclusion 199
power to make him stop thinking’.558 Maintaining this affirmation of my

concluding hypothesis in the advice of Pseudo-Dionysius, Wittgenstein’s
Russian teacher, Fania Pascal, claimed that he was ‘a person above all in
search of spiritual salvation’.559 It is not surprising that Atkinson attempts to
understand his negative metaphysics by comparing the Tractatus with the
negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius:
In Chapter 5 of the Mystical Theology Pseudo-Dionysius states, in a passage

similar to Wittgenstein’s, that the Supreme or Pre-eminent Cause of all that
one perceives is not any one thing . . . Rather than stating what he believes
are the attributes of the Supreme Cause, Pseudo-Dionysius offers a list
of negations of ‘what cannot be spoken or grasped by understanding’ . . .
The first purpose for drawing a comparison between Pseudo-Dionysius
and Wittgenstein is to show precedence for applying a method of doubt or
negation to a mystical end that lies outside time and what can be said.560
Wittgenstein is seen here following Pseudo-Dionysius, showing precedence

for ‘applying a method of doubt or negation to a mystical end’ that remains
outside the scope of reason’s autonomous and instrumental form. Clearly
reflecting the scope of this work expressing the pursuit of eudaimonia
which culminates in the eventual collapse of logos in the silence of mystic
presence, Neili writes:
While it is undoubtedly true that the Pseudo-Dionysius, like Wittgenstein,

believed that what is beheld in higher levels of mystic transport cannot be
expressed in language, at the same time the Pseudo-Dionysius also believed
– again like Wittgenstein . . . that higher level mystic-ecstatic experiences
are not experiences of absences but of overpowering encounters with
a Higher Presence. Further, this Higher Presence is made manifest in a
rapturous-ecstatic experience that carries the experiencer beyond the realm
of normal reality and beyond the capacity of speech to express.561
Heeding Wittgenstein’s own words reflecting those of Pseudo-Dionysius,

I press home my concluding hypothesis – that the ancient convergence
of faith and reason encouraged by ‘negative’ thinking offers invaluable
insights into the universal pursuit of human development needed now more
than ever:
My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who

understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has
used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak,
throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these
propositions, and then he will see the world aright. (Tractatus Logico-Philo-
sophicus 6.54)
ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY TIMELINE
Ancient Greek Philosophy is usually divided into four time-periods. Eminent

thinkers and schools of these philosophical periods are the following (dates
are given for those who feature in this work):
1 Presocratic Philosophy (6th – 5th century BCE)
IONIANS: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Heraclitus

(after 480 BCE)
PYTHAGOREAN SCHOOL: Pythagoras, Philolaus, Archytas, Alcmaeon
ELEATIC SCHOOL: Parmenides (b. 515 BCE), Zeno, Melissus
PLURALISTS AND THE ATOMISTS: Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus
SOPHISTS: Protagoras (490–420 BCE), Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias,
Prodicus
2 Classical Philosophy (4th century BCE)
Socrates (469–399 BCE)

Plato (429–347 BCE )
Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
3 Hellenistic Philosophy (late 4th century BCE – 1st century CE)
CYNICS: Antisthenes, Diogenes, Crates

STOICS: Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus
EPICUREANS: Epicurus, Metrodorus, Hemarchus, Polyaenus, Lucretius
SCEPTICS: Pyrrho of Elis, Carneades
4 Imperial Philosophy (1st century CE – 6th century CE)
MIDDLE-PLATONISM: Plutarch, Albinus, Apuleius, Atticus, Maximus

Ammonius, Philo (20 BCE – 40 CE)
NEO-PYTHAGOREANISM: Nicomachus, Moderatus of Gades, Numenius

EARLY NEOPLATONISM: Plotinus (204–270 CE), Porphyry, Amelius
LATER NEOPLATONISTS: Iamblichus, Proclus (410 /11 – 485 CE),
Damascius
Christian Theologians
Clement of Alexandria (d.215 CE)
Gregory of Nyssa (335–395 CE)
Pseudo-Dionysius (650–725 CE)
NOTES
1 John Locke’s Essay (1671) provoked a response from Leibniz in defence of in-
nate ideas. Leibniz’s response, New Essays on Human Understanding and the
contemporary nativism debate reflect the Platonic epistemological trajectory
traced by this work into its assimilation within the Christian apophatic tradition.
Further discussion of these modern developments as they relate to the apophatic
tradition is beyond the scope of this work.
2 C. V. Hamilton, “The Surprising Origins and Meaning of the “Pursuit of
Happiness,”” History News Network, 27 January 2008, http://hnn.us/articles/
46460.html (accessed 29 September 2009).
3 W. Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture: Vol. II: In Search of the Divine
Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 45.
4 P. Hadot, Philosophy as a way of life: spiritual exercises from Socrates to
Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995), 265.
5 W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lec-
tures, 1936 (London: Clarendon Press, 1947) and Early Christianity and Greek
Paideia (London: Harvard University Press, 1961).
6 P. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2004).
7 J. Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press,
1998) and “Divine Madness”: Plato’s Case against Secular Humanism (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989) and Happiness & Contemplation (South Bend,
IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1979).
8 L. Rouner, “Dualism,” in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. A. Rich-
ardson and J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), 166.
9 Z. Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992) and Leg-
islators and Interpreters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).
10 E. Gellner, Reason and Culture: New Perspectives on the Past (Oxford: Black-
well, 1992).
11 C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989).
12 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
2007).
1998).
14 I. N. Bulhof and Laurens ten Kate, eds., Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Per-
spectives on Negative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).
15 R. Mortley, From Word to Silence, Vol. I. The Rise and Fall of Logos (Bonn:
Hanstein, 1986) and From Word to Silence, Vol. II. The Way of Negation,
Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986) and “The Fundamentals of the
Via Negativa,” American Journal of Philology 103, no. 4 (1982): 429–439 and
“What is Negative Theology? The Western Origins.” Prudentia supplementary
number, Via Negativa Conference, University of Sydney (1981): 5–12 and An-
cient Mysticism: Greek and Christian Mysticism, and Some Comparisons with
Buddhism, Publication of The Macquarie Ancient History Association, No.2.
This paper comprises the text of a lecture delivered to the Macquarie Ancient
History Association on 1 October 1978.
16 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1972).
17 P. Remes, Neoplatonism: Ancient Philosophies (Stocksfield: Acumen Publish-
ing, 2008).
18 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989) and Theology,
Contemplation and the University (London: Continuum, 2004) and The Ori-
gins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007).
19 J. P. Williams, Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto
Zen Buddhist Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
20 M. Rubenstein, “Unknow Thyself: Apophaticism, Deconstruction, and Theol-
ogy after Ontotheology,” Modern Theology 19, no.3 (2003): 387–417.
21 V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James
Clarke, 1957).
22 W. Riordan, Divine Light: The Theology of Denys the Areopagite (San Fran-
cisco: Ignatius Press, 2008).
23 Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mysti-
cal Writings, trans. H. Musurillo and introduction J. Daniélou (London: John
Murray, 1962).
24 N. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
25 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis. The Fathers of the Church, trans. J. Fergu-
son (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1991).
cal Writings, trans. H. Musurillo and J. Daniélou (London: John Murray, 1962)
and The Classics of Western Spirituality: Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses,
trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
27 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works,
trans. C. Luibheid and P. Rorem (New York: Paulist Press, 1987).
28 A. Golitzin, “‘Suddenly, Christ’: The Place of Negative Theology in the Mys-
tagogy of Dionysius Areopagites,” in Mystics: Presence and Aporia, ed. M.
Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
29 See L. Rouner, “Dualism,” in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed.
A. Richardson and J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), 166. As will be
discussed, the phrase Christian ‘qualified dualism’ is central to developments
traced throughout this work and representative of Patristic tradition.
30 In Greek religion Apollo was a deity of manifold function and meaning, and
after Zeus perhaps the most widely revered and influential of all the Greek
gods. His forename Phoebus means ‘bright’ or ‘pure’ and the view became cur-
rent that he was connected with the sun. Though his original nature is obscure,
from the time of Homer onward he was the god of divine distance, who sent or
threatened from afar; the god who made men aware of their own guilt and puri-
fied them of it; who presided over religious law and the constitutions of cities;
who communicated with mortals through prophets and oracles his knowledge
of the future and the will of his father, Zeus. As the god of prophecy Apollo
exercised this power in his numerous oracles, and especially in that of Delphi.
This is discussed in Chapter Three concerning the inspiratio of theia mania:
Notes 205
‘given as a gift of the god’ (Phaedrus 244c). Importantly, this ‘gift’ placed great
value on the non-rational elements of the soul in the pursuit of wisdom that was
central to the development of the apophatic tradition, and permitting the soul to
take flight to heights beyond even those sketched in The Symposium.
31 A. H. Armstrong, “The Escape of the One” (paper presented at the Patristics
Conference, Oxford, 1979). Reprinted in A. H. Armstrong, Plotinian and
Christian Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), 87–9.
32 The Greek words agape and agapan designate the original and unique Christian
idea of the love of God and of one’s neighbour. In Greek ‘ . . . .the words eros,
philia, and agape and their cognates . . . designate love. Eros signifies the pas-
sion of sexual desire and does not appear in the NT. Philein and philia designate
primarily the love of friendship. Agape and agapan, less frequent in profane
GK, are possibly chosen for that reason to designate the unique and original
Christian idea of love’ J. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (London: Geoffrey
Chapman, 1985), 521. (Crucially however I will show that Plato places eros in
a much broader framework than just that of interpersonal love, becoming an
epitome of all human striving to attain the Good, True and Beautiful – see p.
82.) In the New Testament this is seen: ‘Hereby perceive we the love of God,
because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren’ (1 John 3:16). And ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself’ (Matthew 22:37–9).
33 The Father is one of three persons in the doctrine of the Trinity accepted as the
official teaching of the Church since the Council of Nicea (325). The Eleventh
Council of Toledo’s (675) profession of faith in God the Father is a ‘doctrinally
precise . . . formulation.
And we profess that the Father is not begotten, not created, but unbegot-
ten. For He Himself, from whom the Son has received His birth and the
Holy Spirit His procession, has His origin from no one. He is therefore
the source and origin of the whole Godhead. He Himself is the Father of
His own essence, who in an ineffable way has begotten the Son from His
ineffable substance. Yet He did not beget something different from what
He Himself is: God has begotten God, light has begotten light. From Him,
therefore, is ‘all fatherhood in heaven and on earth.’ (cf. Ephesians 3:15)
(R. McBrien, Catholicism (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), 318)
34 M. Funk. Lectio Matters: Before the Burning Bush: Through the Revelatory
Texts of Scripture, Nature and Experience (London: Continuum, 2010), 3.
35 L. Dysinger OSB, “Lectio Divina,” in The Oblate Life, ed. Gervase Holdaway
(Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2008), 107.
36 The two most important ancient texts on lectio divina according to Dysinger
are: John Cassian, Conference 14: ‘The First Conference of Abba Nesteros
– On Spiritual Knowledge’. Modern translation by B. Ramsey, John Cassian:
The Conferences (New York: Paulist Press, 1997) and the classical description
of the medieval monastic practice of lectio divina, in The Ladder of Monks by
Guigo II (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2004).
37 D. Foster, Reading with God: Lectio Divina (London: Continuum, 2005), 3.
38 L. Dysinger OSB, “Lectio Divina,” in The Oblate Life, ed. Gervase Holdaway
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008), 109–110.

39 Ibid.
40 J. Sullivan, “Understanding and Overstanding: Religious Reading in Historical
Perspective,” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 11, no. 2 (2007): 25. A
useful source that surveys the theoretical literature about reading is G. Cavallo
and R. Chartier (eds), A History of Reading in the West (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1999).
Zen Buddhist Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 197.
42 Ibid.
cisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 34.
44 T. Jones, “Dionysius in Hans Urs von Balthasar and Jean-Luc Marion,” in Re-
thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. S. Coakley and C. Stang (Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 217.
45 D. Foster, Reading with God: Lectio Divina (London: Continuum, 2005), 4.
46 D. Stanley, “A Suggested Approach to Lectio Divina,” American Benedictine
Review 23, no. 4 (1972): 441.
47 Ibid.
48 U. Agnew, “Transformative Reading,” in With Wisdom Seeking God: The
Academic Study of Spirituality. Studies in Spirituality Supplements, 15, ed. U.
Agnew, B. Flanagan, and G. Heylin (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 189.
49 M. Pike, “From beliefs to skills: the secularization of literacy and the moral
development of citizens,” Journal of Beliefs and Values 27, 3 (2006): 284.
50 D. Stanley, “A Suggested Approach to Lectio Divina,” American Benedictine
Review 23, no. 4 (1972): 442.
51 H. Chadwick, The Pelican History of the Church. 1: The Early Church: The
Story of the Emergent Christianity from the Apostolic Age to the Foundations
of the Church in Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997), 183.
52 V. H. Zeller, The Holy Rule: Notes on St. Benedict’s Legislation for Monks
(London: Sheed and Ward, 1958), 75.
53 Cited by P. Sheldrake, “Spirituality in the Academy: New Trajectories—New
Challenges,” in With Wisdom Seeking God: The Academic Study of Spiritual-
ity. Studies in Spirituality Supplements, 15, eds. U. Agnew, B. Flanagan and G.
Heylin (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 37. See also J. Leclercq, The Love of Learning
and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham
University Press 1982).
54 M. Laird, “The ‘Open Country Whose Name is Prayer’: Apophasis, Decon-
struction, and Contemplative Practice,” Modern Theology 21, no. 1 (2005):
141. See also K. Hart, ‘The Experience of Nonexperience,’ in Mystics: Pres-
ence and Aporia, ed. M. Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: Chicago Univer-
sity Press, 2003).
55 D. O’Murchu, Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
(New York: Crossroad, 2000), 10.
Zen Buddhist Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 226–227.
For discussion of the integration of theology and spirituality supported by
apophatic praxis see M. A. McIntosh, Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spir-
Notes 207
ituality and Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).

57 Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflec-
tions” (lecture, University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006).
58 Lecture given upon reception of the St Benedict Award for the promotion of life
and the family in Europe on 1 April 2005. See also Benedixt XVI, Christianity
and the Crisis of Cultures (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 47.
59 E. Ivánka, Plato Christianus: Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus
durch die Väter (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1964). French version: Plato chris-
tianus: la réception critique du platonisme chez les Pères de l’Église, trans.
Elisabeth Kessler-Slotta, Rémi Brague, Jean-Yves Lacoste, (Paris : Presses
universitaires de France, 1990), 19. For a survey of recent scholarship on this
issue see E. J. Meijering, God Being History: Studies in Patristic Philosophy
(Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub. Co, 1975).
60 André-Jean Festugière, Contemplation et vie contemplative selon Platon (Paris:
Vrin, 1936), 5.
61 M. Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, MO:
Triumph Books, 1996), viii.
62 J. Ratzinger and M. Pera, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity and
Islam (New York: Perseus Books, 2006), viii.
63 M. Pera, Christianity and the Crisis of Civilization. Why We Should Ccall
Oourselves Christian: The Religious Roots of Free Societies (New York: En-
counter Books, 2008), 2.
64 Radical Orthodoxy is a critique of modern secularism representing the return
of theology to the intellectual scene, evident in renowned philosophers such as
Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou and Quentin
Meillassoux currently writing about Christianity. It perceives the ‘exhaustion’
of secular ideologies such as capitalism, communism and humanism, leaving an
ideology of natural science, a militant atheism or ‘scientism’ expanding to fill
the gap. This critique of modern society, culture, politics and philosophy, issues
from the movement’s return to Christianity’s medieval roots when ‘faith and
reason were inseparable’ and based upon its creedal statements. It represents
the themes and argument of this work rooted in the convergence of faith and
reason in antiquity, and which played out at the heart of the development of
the Christian creeds as discussion will show. However, its members tend to be
Church of England or Roman Catholic who, as Graham Ward says, went ‘on
the offensive against secularism’. Milbank began in reaction against the domi-
nance of the liberal theology of the 1970s which views the world as humanist
and concentrates on fitting Christian beliefs around secular wisdom. His teacher
at Westcott House, Rowan Williams, questioned this approach and started his
student on a road that led to Theology and Social Theory (1990), his most im-
portant book. In it, Milbank argues that instead of asking how theology may fit
into the conclusions of secular social science, it should instead challenge its as-
sumptions. While the name ‘radical orthodoxy’ emphasizes the movement’s at-
tempt to return to or revive traditional doctrine, it was also chosen in opposition
to strands of so-called radical theology, seen in the likes of Bishop John Spong.
These however asserted a highly liberal version of Christian faith where doc-
trines such as that of the Trinity and the incarnation were denied, in an attempt
to respond to modernity. Radical orthodoxy in contrast attempted to show how
the orthodox interpretation of Christian faith, given primarily in the ecumenical

creeds, was in fact the more radical response to contemporary issues and was
more rigorous and intellectually sustainable.
65 J. K. A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular
Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 13. See also Steven
Shakespeare, Radical Orthodoxy: A Critical Introduction (London: SPCK,
2007).
66 Jennifer Wang’s article lookng at John Hughes and Matthew Bullimore, “What
is Radical Orthodoxy?” Telos 123 (Spring 2002), http://www.telospress.com/
main/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=397 (accessed 15 June
2011).
67 J. Milbank, C. Pickstock and G. Ward, “Suspending the Material: The Turn of
Radical Orthodoxy,” in Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, ed. J. Milbank,
C. Pickstock and G. Ward (New York: Routledge, 2006), 3. See also Graham
Ward, Cities of God (London: Routledge, 2000) and John Milbank, The Word
Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
68 L. Rouner, “Dualism,” in A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. A.
Richardson and J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), 166. Charting the
development of this qualified Christian dualism see also John H. Randall, Jr.,
Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). For an exploration of crucial
stages in the history of Christian dualist heresy see Yuri Stoyanov, The Other
God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2000).
69 E. Simons, “Dualism,” in Encyclopedia of Theology: Concise “Sacramentum
Mundi”, ed. K. Rahner (London: Burns and Oates, 1999), 371.
70 Benedict XVI, Caritas In Veritate (Stoke on Trent: alive Publishing, 2009),
29.
71 S. du Boulay, Beyond the Darkness: A Biography of Bede Griffiths (New York:
O Books, 1998), 247.
13.
73 G. Striker, “Greek Ethics and Moral Theory” (Tanner Lectures on Human Val-
ues, Stanford University, 14 and 19 May 1987), 185.
74 C. Rowe, “Ethics in ancient Greece,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 122.
75 See G. Pence, “Virtue Theory,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer (Ox-
ford: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 251. Pence says that ancient ethical theory
necessary for understanding modern virtue theory (which was mainly that of
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) ‘focused on virtues (traits of character) as the
subject of ethics . . . Second, they analysed specific virtues such as the ‘cardi-
nal’ (major) ones of courage, temperance, wisdom and justice . . . Third, they
ranked types of character. E.g. Aristotle classified human character into five
types, ranging from the great-souled man to the moral monster.’
76 J. Shear, “Ethics and the Experience of Happiness,” in Crossing Boundaries:
Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism, eds. G. William Barnard and J. J.
Kripal (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001), 361–379.
77 C. Rowe, “Ethics in Ancient Greece,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer
Notes 209
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 121. This contemporary reflection in

ethics is seen in Martha Nussbaum’s The Fragility of Goodness and Bernard
Williams’ Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.
78 G. Striker, “Greek Ethics and Moral Theory,” (Tanner Lectures on Human Val-
ues, Stanford University, 14 and 19 May 1987), 185.
79 R. Parry, “Ancient Ethical Theory,” The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
(Fall 2011 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ (accessed 5
November 2011).
80 Morality is explained in terms of actions which are moral or immoral and their
circumstances are roughly divided into two groups of thinkers: consequential-
ists, who judge the morality of an action on the basis of its known or expected
consequences and deontologists who do so on the basis of its conformity to
certain kinds of laws or commandments. See Phillip Pettit, “Consequentialism”
and Nancy Davis, “Contemporary deontology” in C. Rowe, “Ethics in Ancient
Greece,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer (Oxford: Blackwell Publish-
ing, 1993).
(Fall 2011 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ (accessed 5
November 2011).
Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism, ed. G. William Barnard and J. J.
Kripal (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001), 362.
83 Ibid. 361.
84 S. Hooft, Understanding Virtue Ethics: Eudaimonia (Chesham: Acumen Pub-
lishing, 2006), 83.
85 The thought of these schools in particular illustrates important features of the
development of that traced by this work. The other are named in the Greek
Philosophical Tradition before the Bibliography.
(Fall 2011 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ (accessed
5 November 2011). For further reading on Stoicism see T. Brennan, The Stoic
Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) and B. Inwood, The Cambridge
Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
87 For further reading see Cyril B. Bailey, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928) and John Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) and David Sedley, Lucretius
and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998).
88 J. Vella, Aristotle: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2008),
116.
89 Peters says this idea is still visible in Plato (Rep. 620d) and much debated in
later philosophy whether the daemon is within the person or not. Plato (Tim.
90a) identifies it with the soul. F. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Histori-
cal Lexicon (New York: New York University Press, 1967).
90 Jaeger notes: ‘Still, the word never loses its religious root-meaning’ (W. Jaeger,
Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture: Volume II: In Search of the Divine Centre
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 348).
91 Aristotle presents two conceptions of the flourishing life. Book 1 of Ni-
comachean Ethics presents an account of the good life requiring the flourishing
of all the capacities of the soul and Book 10 a strictly contemplative account.
126.
93 Ibid.
94 C. V. Hamilton, “The Surprising Origins and Meaning of the ‘Pursuit of
Happiness’,” History News Network, 27 January 2008, http://hnn.us/articles/
46460.html (accessed 29 September 2009).
128.
96 C. Rowe, “Ethics in Ancient Greece,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 123.
97 P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to
98 Ibid.
13.
101 See the influential work by A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (London: University
of Notre Dame Press, 2007). See also J. Kupperman, “Character and Ethical
Theory,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1988): 115-25 and R. Kruschwitz
and R. Roberts, eds., The Virtues: Contemporary Essays on Moral Character
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987), 237–263, which contains a bibliography of
articles and books broken down by sub-areas.
102 G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy,’ Philosophy 33 (1958):
1–19.
103 “Professor G E M Anscombe: Obituary,” The Telegraph, June 6, 2001,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1313382/Professor-G-E-M-
Anscombe.htm (accessed 10 June 2011).
104 G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy 33 (1958): 1–19.
Anscombe criticized moral philosophy’s long preoccupation with a rationally
objectified law conception of ethics which deals exclusively with obligation
and duty and not the virtuous formation of character of ancient theory central
to the apophatic tradition. Mill’s utilitarianism and Kant’s deontology were
amongst the theories she criticized for their reliance on universally applicable
morality that could be applied to any moral situation (Mill’s Greatest human
flourishing Principle and Kant’s Categorical Imperative). This reliance upon
universal principles in ethics, she points out, consequently results in a rigid
moral code which is based on a notion of obligation that has become meaning-
less in contemporary secular society that no longer believes in an ultimate law
giver; but a belief which is necessary if laws based upon universally applicable
morality are to make sense.
105 G. Pence, “Virtue Theory,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 251.
Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism, ed. G. William Barnard and J. J.
Notes 211
107 Ibid., 363.

Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995) and What is Ancient Philoso-
phy? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) and Plotinus or The
Simplicity of Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
1998) and Happiness & Contemplation (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press,
1979) and “Divine Madness”: Plato’s Case against Secular Humanism (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989).
110 W. Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture: Volume II: In Search of the
Divine Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) and The Theology of
the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures, 1936 (London: Clarendon
Press, 1947) and Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (London: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1961).
111 Augustine, City of God (Bk XIX).
112 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. K. Smith (London: Macmillan,
1929), 25.
Press, 2004), 258–259.
114 Ibid.
115 A. De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy (London: Hamish Hamilton,
2000).
116 L. Marinoff, Plato, not Prozac! Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Prob-
lems (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
117 M. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practise in Hellenistic Eth-
ics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 486.
118 Ibid., 14.
Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995).
120 Ibid. 69.
Divine Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
123 P. Rabbow, Seelenfuhrung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike (Munich:
Kosel, 1954), 18.
124 P. Hadot, Philosophy as a way of life: spiritual exercises from Socrates to
Press, 2004), 259.
126 P. Grosch, “After Spirituality: Some Connections between Theology and Phi-
losophy,” in Spirituality and the Curriculum, ed. A. Thatcher (London: Cassell,
1999), 182.
1998), 24.
128 Ibid., 31.
129 J. Pieper, Happiness & Contemplation (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press,
1979), 20.
130 Kant, Opus postumum, French translation by F. Marty (Paris,1986), 245–246.

131 J. Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press,
1979), 27.
132 J. Pieper, Death and Immortality (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press, 2000),
75–76.
133 Benedict XVI, Caritas In Veritate (Stoke on Trent: alive Publishing, 2009) and
“Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections” (lecture, Uni-
versity of Regensburg, 12 September 2006) and Christianity and the Crisis of
Cultures (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).
Clarke, 1957).
135 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989) and The Origins
of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2007) and Theology, Contemplation and the University (London:
Continuum, 2004).
136 K. Rahner, Christian at the Crossroads (New York: Seabury, 1975) and Foun-
dations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New
York: Crossroads Publishing, 2008).
137 J. L. Marion, God without Being (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995)
and “Introduction: What do We Mean by ‘Mystic’?” in Mystics: Presence
and Aporia, ed. M. Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2003) and The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
2007).
Zen Buddhist Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
29.
140 Ibid., 13.
141 Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections”
(lecture, University of Regensburg, Germany, 12 September 2006).
Clarke, 1957), 217.
143 Ibid., 53.
144 Ibid., 121.
145 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989).
146 K. Rahner, Christian at the Crossroads (New York: Seabury, 1975), 11.
147 B. Barnhart, The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity
(New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2007), 81.
148 S. McKinley, Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomena,
and Hermeneutics: Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (New York: Ford-
ham University Press, 2009), 1. See also V. Kal, “Being Unable to Speak, Seen
as a Period: Difference and Distance in Jean-Luc Marion,” in Flight of the
Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology, ed. I. Bulhof and L.
Kate (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).
150 See J. L. Marion, “Introduction: What do We Mean by ‘Mystic’?” in Mystics:
Notes 213
Presence and Aporia, ed. M. Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2003).
151 M. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994), 6. See also Louise Nelstrop, Kevin Magill and Bradley B. Onishi,
Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Approach-
es (Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), 15; K. Hart, “The Experience of Nonexperience,”
in Mystics: Presence and Aporia, ed. M. Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2003), 188–206. This entire volume contains es-
says that explore the interplay between modern and postmodern readings of
mysticism of which apophasis is central to contemporary debate.
152 M. Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contempla-
tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
153 Ibid., 1.
154 Ibid., 9.
155 M. Laird, “The ‘Open Country Whose Name is Prayer’: Apophasis, Decon-
struction, and Contemplative Practice,” Modern Theology 21, no.1 (2005): 142.
See also Laird’s, “‘Whereof We Speak’: Gregory of Nyssa, Jean-Luc Marion
and the Current Apophatic Rage,” The Heythrop Journal 42, no. 1 (2001) and
Laird’s Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Di-
vine Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
156 J. Finnegan, “Psychology and Mysticism,” in With Wisdom Seeking God: The
157 B. Barnhart, Second Simplicity: The Inner Shape of Christianity (New York:
Paulist Press, 1999), 15.
(New York: Continuum International Publishing, 2007), 2.
159 Ibid., 6.
160 Ibid.
161 Ibid., 22.
163 A. Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man: A Study of Contemporary Religious
Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
164 C. Williams, “Religion and Psychology,” in Encountering Religion: An Intro-
duction to the Religions of the World, ed. I. Markham and T. Ruparell (Oxford:
165 A. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (Toronto: Wiley, 1998), 178–181.
166 D. Merkur, “Psychology of Religion,” in The Routledge Companion to the
Study of Religion, ed. J. Hinnells (London: Routledge, 2005), 172.
167 C. G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, trans. W. S. Dell and Cary F.
Baynes (Orlando: Harcourt Harvest, 1955).
168 A. Maslow, The Farthest Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Viking,
1971).
169 M. Washburn, The Ego and the Dynamic Ground: A Transpersonal Theory of
Human Development (Albany: State University of New York, 1998), 224–225,
233. See also Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World (Albany: State Univer-
sity of New York Press, 2003).

170 K. Wilber, Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy
(Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2000). See also Collected Works of Ken
Wilber: Integral Psychology, Transformations of Consciousness, Selected Es-
says (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1999).
172 Ibid.
173 D. Merkur, “Psychology of Religion,” in The Routledge Companion to the
Study of Religion, ed. J. Hinnells (London: Routledge, 2005), 174.
174 D. Henderson, “Carl Jung and Thomas Merton: Apophatic and Kataphatic Tra-
ditions in the 20th Century,” Studies in Spirituality 13 (2003): 263–91.
175 R. King, “Mysticism and spirituality,” in The Routledge Companion to the
Study of Religion, ed. J. Hinnells (Oxford: Routledge, 2005), 320.
176 R. Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).
177 D. Harkins, “Review of In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern
Life, by R. Kegan.” Journal of Adult Development 1, no. 4 (1994): 265.
178 R. Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 5.
179 Ibid.. 17.
180 I. McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Mak-
ing of the Western World (Yale: Yale University Press, 2009), 6.
181 I. Bulhof and L. Kate, “Echoes of an Embarrassment: Philosophical Perspec-
tives on Negative Theology – An Introduction,” in Flight of the Gods: Philo-
sophical Perspectives on Negative Theology, ed. I. Bulhof and L. Kate (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 3.
182 Ibid., 14.
183 M. Levine, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Ad-
vantage Are Creating a Generation of Discontented and Unhappy Kids (New
York: HarperCollins, 2006).
184 Ibid., 5.
185 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. M. Ostwald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer-
rill, 1962), 315–316.
1998), 4.
187 Ibid., 14.
188 Ibid., 75.
189 Ibid., 22.
190 Ibid., 3.
191 V. Kazanjian, “Religion, Spirituality, and Intellectual Development,” Journal of
Cognitive Affective Learning 1 (2005): 1–7: 1. See also Victor H. Kazanjian, Jr.
and Peter L. Laurence, eds., Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism,
Spirituality and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (New York: Pe-
ter Lang Publishing, 2000) and V. Kazanjian, “Religious Identity and Intellec-
tual Development: Forging Powerful Learning Communities,” Diversity Digest
(1999) and V. Kazanjian, “Reuniting Mind with Spirit,” The Witness 81, no. 9
Notes 215
(1998).
192 P. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (San
Francisco: Harper, 1993), 35. See also P. J. Palmer, A. Zajonc and M. Scrib-
ner, The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal (San Francisco: Jos-
sey-Bass, 2010) and P. J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner
Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007) and P. J.
Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 2000) and P. J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward
an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004) and P. J. Palmer, Healing
the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Hu-
man Spirit (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).
Francisco: Harper, 1993), x.
194 P. Palmer, “The Violence of Our Knowledge: Towards a Spirituality of Higher
Education” (The Michael Keenan Memorial Lecture, Berea College, Kentucky,
1993), www.21learn.org/arch/articles/palmer_spirituality.html (accessed 6 June
2006).
195 Ibid.
Francisco: Harper, 1993), x.
197 P. Palmer, “A Vision of Education as Transformation” (An address given at the
Education as Transformation National Gathering), www.wellesley.edu/RelLife/
transformation/edu-ngvision.html (accessed 17 January 1998). See also my re-
flection upon the application of an alternative apophatic epistemology with the
same aim in B. Cook, “Connecting The Subject With The Self,” Through the
Looking Glass: Reflective Research in Post Compulsory Education 2, no. 1
(2007): 23–29.
Francisco: Harper, 1993), 43.
Divine Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 315.
200 See J. H. Newman, Idea of a University: Rethinking the Western Tradition
(London: Yale University Press, 1996).
201 A Zajonc and P. Palmer, The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).
202 A. Zajonc, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes
Love (Gt. Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 2009) Offers an overview of
meditation as a means both of establishing equanimity and insight. See also
Zajonc’s “Spirituality in Higher Education: Overcoming the Divide,” Liberal
Education (Journal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities)
89, no. 1 (2003): 50–58 and The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with
the Dalai Lama (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); the proceedings of
a five-day dialogue between six Western scientists and the Dalai Lama, edited
and narrated by Arthur Zajonc. See also A. Zajonc, “Moulding the Self, The
Common Cognitive Sources of Science and Religion,” in Education as Trans-
formation, ed. Victor H. Kazanjian, Jr and Peter L. Laurence (New York: Peter
Lang, 2000), 59–68.
203 A. Zajonc, “Love and Knowledge: Recovering the Heart of Learning through
Contemplation,” Teachers College Record 108, no. 9 (2006): 1742–1759.

204 Ibid., 1742–1759.
205 J. Morgan, “Leisure, Contemplation and Leisure Education,” Ethics and Edu-
cation 1, no. 2 (2006): 142.
1998), 76.
207 This is ‘any philosophy magnifying the role played by unaided reason, in the
acquisition and justification of knowledge’ (or) ‘the preference for reason over
sense experience as a source of knowledge.’ S. Blackburn, ed., Oxford Diction-
ary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 308.
208 S. Shapin, “Descartes the Doctor: Rationalism and Its Therapies,” British Jour-
nal for the History of Science 33, no. 2 (2000): 135.
Cambridge University Press, 1989), 503.
210 M. Picard, The Flight From God (London: Harvill Press, 1934), 2.
212 R. Descartes, Descartes’ Philosophical Writings, trans. N. K. Smith (London:
Macmillan, 1952), 6.
213 Ibid., 196.
215 Within the Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition, any apprehension of a pres-
ence that remained beyond the grasp of reason and language.
216 H. Küng, Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (New York: Crossroad, 1999),
199.
218 R. Descartes, Discours de la méthode, trans. E. Gilson (Paris: Vrin, 1976), 6,
61–62.
221 E. Zamano, “Learning to Surrender: Accessing the Meaning in Education,”
Spirituality in Higher Education Newsletter 1, no. 3 (2004): 1–7.
222 J. Morgan, “Leisure, Contemplation and Leisure Education,” Ethics and Edu-
cation 1, no. 2 (2006): 133–147.
223 R. Descartes, Discourse on the Method for Reasoning Well and for Seeking Truth
in the Sciences, trans. I. Johnston (Nanaimo, BC, Canada: Vancouver Island
University, 2010), http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/descartes/descartes1.htm#t18
(accessed 17 August 2011). René Descartes published Discourse on Method in
1637 as part of a work containing sections on optics, geometry, and meteorol-
ogy. The fourth section, the Discourse, outlined the basis for a new method of
Notes 217
investigating knowledge. He later (in 1641) published a more detailed explora-

tion of the philosophical basis for this new approach to knowledge in Medita-
tions on First Philosophy.
well, 1992), 168.
2007), 80.
227 Cited in M. Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), 20.
well, 1992), 168.
229 Ibid.
2007), 79.
232 Ibid., 81.
well, 1992), 170.
234 Z. Bauman, Legislators and Interpreters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989), 192.
For further discussion of Bauman’s social theory with particular reference to
the role of instrumental reason in the construction of modernity see D. Torevell,
“The Terrorism of Reason in the Thought of Zygmunt Bauman,” New Blackfri-
ars 76, no. 891 (1995).
2007), 62–88.
236 P. Vardy and P. Grosch, The Puzzle of Ethics (London: Fount, 1994), 114–115.
237 M. Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture (Lon-
don: Darton, Longman and todd, 2003), 78.
238 P. Grosch, “After Spirituality: Some Connections between Theology and Phi-
losophy,” in Spirituality and the Curriculum, ed. A. Thatcher (London: Cassell,
1999), 184.
240 J. L. Marion, “Introduction: What do We Mean by ‘Mystic’?” in Mystics:
Chicago Press, 2003), 2–3.
241 Ibid., 2.
well, 1992), 174.
Cambridge University Press, 1989), 520–521.
244 Ibid.
245 K. Armstrong, The Case for God: What Religion Really Means (London: Bod-
ley Head, 2009), 302.

247 MT, 1000A.
248 See Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowl-
edge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979). He describes the post-
modern condition as characterised by growing scepticism towards the totalizing
nature of the ‘metanarratives’ (which will include those of science) and their
reliance on some form of ‘transcendent and universal truth’ (xxiv-xxv). Yet this
view is not without criticism, reflected in this work, seen in Jurgen Habermas,
“Modernity versus Postmodernity,” New German Critique, Special Issue on
Modernism, No. 22. (1981): 3–14. Habermas views Lyotard’s notion as being
internally inconsistent and self-refuting. Declaring that the postmodern world
is characterized by ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’ can itself be accused of
being one.
249 I. Bulhof and L. Kate, eds., Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on
Negative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 32.
250 J. Soskice, “The Ends of Man and the Future of God,” in The Blackwell Com-
panion to Postmodern Theology, ed. S. Ward (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
2001), 73.
252 I. Bulhof and L. Kate, eds, Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives
on Negative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 40–41.
It asks if negative theology can become relevant in ‘a period of emancipation
and secularisation that represents human history as a self creation, as its own
project, appreciate anew and incorporate a tradition that gnaws on its founda-
tions? [or see it] as a break, an interruption, even an invasion into the history
of thought’. For the presence of negative theology in postmodern culture and
thought see also S. Budick and W. Iser, eds, Languages of the Unsayable: The
Play of Negativity in Literary Theory (New York: Columbia University Press,
1989) and M. Buning, “Review of recent publications on negative theology
and philosophy,” Literature and Theology: An International Journal of Theory,
Criticism, and Culture 9, no. 1 (1995): 99–103 and Hans Urs von Balthasar,
“Negative Theologie,” in Theologik, vol. 2 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag,
1985), 80–112 and H. Rikhof, “Negative Theology,” in (Dis)continuity and
(De)construction: Reflections on the Meaning of the Past in Crisis Situations,
ed. J. Wissink (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok, 1995), 154–71 and M. Sells,
Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)
and K. Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology, and Philoso-
phy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
253 M. Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture (Lon-
don: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), 99.
Notes 219
255 G. Ward, “Postmodern Theology,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduc-

tion to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. D. Ford (Oxford:
256 I. Bulhof and L. Kate, eds, Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on
Negative Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 31.
257 Z. Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992), x.
258 L. Hogan, “Feminist Theology,” in The Oxford Companion to Christian
Thought, ed. A. Hastings, A. Mason and H. Pyper (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000).
(New York: Crossroad, 2000), 15. For a comprehensive overview see A. Ross
and M. Hilkert, “Feminist Theology: A Review of Literature,” Theological
Studies 56 (1995): 327–52.
260 My rehabilitation of Penia, as an aspect of the ancient epistemological and
existential philosophical heritage of the apophatic tradition, reflects feminism
forging deep links with long-lost sacred traditions that rehabilitate the female
personification of divinity (goddess) that proceeded patriarchal religions. See
G. Orenstein, The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Books,
1990) who cites well-known names like Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carol
Christ, Charlene Spretnak and Miriam Simos.
261 U. King, Women and Spirituality: Voices of Protest and Promise (London: Mac-
millan, 1989), 20.
(New York: Crossroad, 2000), 16. For a comprehensive overview see A. Ross
and M. Hilkert, “Feminist Theology: A Review of Literature,” Theological
Studies 56 (1995): 327–52.
ardson and J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), 166.
264 See C. Witt, “How Feminism Is Re-writing the Philosophical Canon” http:
//www.uh.edu/~cfreelan/SWIP/Witt.html (accessed 12 July 2012).
265 Ibid.
267 Ibid.
268 Ibid.
269 P. Mellor and C. Shilling, Re-forming the Body: Religion, Community and Mo-
dernity (London: Sage Publications, 1997).
270 James A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the
Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
271 Remaining a valuable source for this context is G. Grote, Plato, and the Other
Companions of Sokrates Volumes I, II, III (London: Adamant Media Corpora-
tion, 2004) and likewise for an exhaustive scholarly discussion and interpreta-
tion see E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, 2. Teil, 1. Abteilung, Sokrates
und die Sokratiker, trans. O.J. Reichel, Socrates and the Socratic Schools (Lon-
don: Longmans, Green, 1885) and G. Vlastos, ed., The Philosophy of Socrates
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971) and H. H. Benson, ed., Essays on the
Philosophy of Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
272 R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic Interpretation (Cam-

273 To see how much disagreement there was about how Plato should be read even
in the very early period see H. Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpreters (London:
Duckworth, 2000).
274 R. E. Allen, The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 4: Plato’s Parmenides rev. edn
(London: Yale University Press, 1998), xiii.
275 See J. Annas and J. Rowe, eds., New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and An-
cient: Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2003). Dealing with the dialogues as literary works see also C.
Diskin, Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the Silent Philosopher (Pennsylva-
nia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000) and K. Sayre, Plato’s Literary
Garden (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995) and C. J.
Rowe, Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2007) and M. Frede, “Plato’s Arguments and the Dialogue Form,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Supplementary Volume (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992), 201–220 and C. H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic
Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) and C. Diskin, “Plato’s First Words,” in Beginnings in
Greek Literature, ed. T. Cole and F. Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), 113-129.
276 R. B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic interpretation (Cam-
277 I draw extensively from P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Ex-
ercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995) and
Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993). See also M. Miles, Plotinus on Body and Beauty (Oxford: Wiley-Black-
well, 1999) and John Peter Kenny, Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient
Platonic Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010).
278 M. Funk, Lectio Matters: Before the Burning Bush: Through the Revelatory
279 Ibid., 10–13.
280 M. Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, MO:
Triumph Books, 1996), vii.
281 M. Funk, Lectio Matters: Before the Burning Bush: Through the Revelatory
282 Ibid., 8.
283 In particular these texts are: Plato, The Symposium, trans. C. Gill (London:
Penguin Classics, 1999) and Plato, The Republic, trans. D. Lee and introduc-
tion by M. Lane (London: Penguin Classics, 2007) and Plato, The Dialogues of
Plato, Volume 4: Plato’s Parmenides, rev. edn trans. R. E. Allen (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1998) and P. Hadot, Plotinus or The Sim-
plicity of Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) and Plotinus, The
Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna and abridged and edited by John Dillon
(London: Penguin Books, 1991) and Proclus, The Elements of Theology, trans.
E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon. 1933).
284 M. Funk, Lectio Matters: Before the Burning bush: Through the Revelatory
285 W. K. C. Guthrie, Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971),
Notes 221
147.
Press, 2004), 29.
287 Charmides, Laches and Lysis are taken to be canonical ‘dialogues of search’ in
which Plato portrays Socrates using his method of enquiry the elenchus, and
belong to his earliest period of writing concerned mainly with portraying his
mentor at work. They investigate the moral nature respectively of ‘self control’,
‘courage’ and ‘friendship’.
288 N. Burbules, “Postmodern Doubt and Philosophy of Education” (an essay from
the Philosophy of Education Discussion Group, University of Illinois, 1995).
289 A. R. Drengson, “The Virtue of Socratic Ignorance,” American Philosophical
Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1981): 237.
290 Plato, Meno and Other Dialogues, trans. R. Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2005), x.
291 B. Blans, “Cloud of Unknowing: An Orientation in Negative Theology from
Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, and John of the Cross to Modernity,” in
Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology, ed. I.
Bulhof and L. Kate (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 64.
292 The Socratic elenchus method of raising problems without providing solutions
is sometimes called the aporetic method. According to Aristotle, philosophy
begins with wonder growing from an initial difficulty (aporia) experienced be-
cause of conflicting arguments. Both the aporia and its attendant wonder can be
paralleled in Socrates frequent protestations of his own ignorance (Meno, 8od,
Soph. 244a).
293 M. Mackenzie, “The Virtues of Socratic Ignorance,” Classical Quarterly 38,
no. 2 (1988): 334.
Divine Centre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 62. Also due to the
experience of aporia, Plato in the Sophist 230a-d picks out the chief feature of
Socratic enquiry as being that of creating greater tolerance of others.
295 Ibid., 62.
297 See R. Allen, Plato’s Symposium (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press,
1991).
298 See Meno 80c9; Prot. 361c; Laches 200e5.
300 Ibid.
1998), 122.
303 A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 13.
304P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to
305 Ibid., 161.

Press, 2004), 42.
308 Ibid., 161.
ing, 2008), 170.
310 This evokes the language of the final revelation in Greek mystery religions.
311 For those who claim his profession of ignorance was insincere see also Shero
(1927), 109; and Vlastos (1971), 7–8 who subsequently changed his mind (see
his article below). For those who maintain the sincerity of these professions see
also Austin (1987); Irwin (1977), 39–40; Lesher (1987); Woodruff (1990).
312 N. Gulley, Philosophy of Socrates (London: Macmillan, 1968), 69.
313 G. Vlastos, “Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge,” Philosophical Quarterly
35 (1985): 1–31. Among others: A. R. Drengson, “The Virtue of Socratic Ig-
norance,” American Philosophical Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1981): 237–242; M.
Mackenzie, “The Virtues of Socratic Ignorance,” Classical Quarterly 38, no. 2
(1988): 331–350.
314 The term logos (account, to say, speech, reason, definition, rational faculty,
proportion) within Greek philosophy is both most basic and complicated and so
difficulty arises when this common and amorphous word is used in a technical
sense. ‘Originating as the verbal noun of the verb “speak” (legein), it denotes
sometimes “word” or “speech”, sometimes the “reason”: “thought”, or “prin-
ciple” expressed therein, elsewhere, by a natural transition, a thing’s “rational”
or “ordering principle”, and much else besides’ (R. Wallis, Neoplatonism
(London: Bristol Classical Press, 1972), 68). When used by the philosophers
and theologians featured in this thesis, many of the above meanings are often
used simultaneously. This will be especially so concerning the Neoplatonism of
Plotinus (and Proclus) in whom ‘all these meanings have come together in an
extremely rich and multivalent concept’ (ibid.).
315 A. Long, “Thinking about the Cosmos: Greek philosophy from Thales to Aris-
totle,” in The Greek World: Classical, Byzantine and Modern, ed. R. Browning
(London: Thomas and Hudson, 1999), 109.
316 See E. Hussey, The Pre-Socratics (London: Duckworth, 1972) and W. K. C.
Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, I-V (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1962).
317 J. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 102.
318 Heraclitus cited in Chap VII of W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek
Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures, 1936 (London: Clarendon Press, 1947),
4.
tures, 1936 (London: Clarendon Press, 1947), 4.
320 Ibid., 5.
321 F. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (New York: New
York University Press, 1967), 111.
322 R. Mortley, “What is Negative Theology? The Western Origins,” Pruden-
tia supplementary number, Via Negativa Conference, University of Sydney
(1981), 5–12: 6.
Notes 223
Hanstein, 1986), 159.
326 M. Picard, The World of Silence (London: Harvill Press, 1946), 223.
327 Plato, Protagoras and Meno, trans. Adam Beresford (London: Penguin Clas-
sics, 2005), xii.
Press, 2004), 13.
329 Ibid.
330 D. Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 150.
1998).
332 R. Mortley, “What is Negative Theology? The Western Origins,” Prudentia,
supplementary number 1981, Via Negativa Conference (University of Sydney),
5–12: 5.
333 W. Franke, “Apophasis and the Turn of Philosophy to Religion: From Neopla-
tonic Negative Theology to Postmodern Negation of Theology,” International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60, nos 1–3 (2006): 64.
334 I. Bulhof and L. Kate, “Preface,” in Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspec-
tives on Negative Theology, eds. I. Bulhof and L. Kate (New York: Fordham
University Press, 2000), viii.
335 Ibid.
336 Cited in J. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (London: Penguin Books, 1987),
134.
Hanstein, 1986), 125.
(New York: Continuum Press, 2007), 53.
Clarke, 1957), 26.
340 F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Volume 1, Greece and Rome, Part 1and
2 (New York: Image Books, 1963), 65.
341 A. Long, “Thinking about the Cosmos: Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aris-
342 C. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 10.
343 H. U. von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics: I: Seeing
The Form (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1982), 123.
344 R. Mortley, “The Fundamentals of the Via Negativa,” American Journal of
Philology 103, no. 4 (1982): 430.
345 P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995),
65.
346 J. Pieper, “Divine Madness”: Plato’s Case against Secular Humanism (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 16.

347 G. Nicholson, Plato’s Phaedrus: The Philosophy of Love (West Lafayette, Indi-
ana: Purdue University Press, 1999), 197.
349 J. Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations with a Cata-
logue of Responses (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1978), 208.
350 Ibid., 211.
351 Ibid., 211–212.
353 All quotations from the poem are cited online at J. Palmer, “Parmenides,”
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 edition), http:
//plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides (accessed 30 June 2010) and in W.
Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures,
1936 (London: Clarendon Press, 1947).
354 Cited in W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford
Lectures, 1936 (London: Clarendon Press, 1947), 93.
355 Ibid., 90–108.
356 J. Palmer, “Parmenides,” The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring
2012 edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides (accessed 12 June
2010).
2012 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides (accessed 12 June
2010).
358 In Hesiod the goddesses Night and Day occupy the ‘horrible dwelling of dark
Night’ as they alternately traverse the earth’s skies. Hesiod and Parmenides’
conception of this place is drawn from the sun god’s abode of Babylonian my-
thology. This was traditionally a place of judgement to which the souls of the
dead travelled and which explains the goddess telling Parmenides that miracu-
lously, no ill fate had brought him there.
2012 edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides (accessed 12 June
2010).
361 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1929), 39.
362 M. Walsh, A History of Philosophy (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1985), 10.
364 Plato’s Parmenides is generally recognized to be among the most important of
all Plato’s writings. See J. N. Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doc-
trines (New York: Humanities Press, 1974), 229. Ancient and modern scholars
have differed more on its interpretation than on any other of Plato’s dialogues.
See Francis M. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way of Truth
Notes 225
and Plato’s Parmenides (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1939), v. Among the

many influential commentators seen throughout the course of Western history
who have been profoundly influenced by it are Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Di-
onysius, Nicholas of Cusa, and Hegel.
365 This is not the place for an exhaustive study of Plato’s theory of Forms and its
development throughout his other dialogues. Suffice to mention the Phaedrus
(265–266) dealing with the unity problem in thought and nature; the Philebus
(14–18) dealing with it in the one and many, parts and whole, and through the
whole Republic for example in Book III and V (402–403) (472–483) respec-
tively treating education as the pursuit of Forms and philosophy the love of
them. The latter two factors equate also with the necessity of rule by the phi-
losopher king.
366 Nominalism is the view that only individuals exist. Its extreme view is that
there is only one individual or that ‘all is one’. Both Aristotle and Plato diag-
nose Eleatic monism, as resting on an implicit and unstated nominalism.
(London: Thames & Hudson, 1999), 110.
368 M. Walsh, A History of Philosophy (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1985), 10.
Idealism is a doctrine with no firmly drawn boundaries aside from maintaining
that ‘reality is fundamentally mental in nature . . . opposed to the naturalistic
belief that mind is itself to be exhaustively understood as a product of natural
processes’ (S. Blackburn, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 177). These two qualified aspects of this doctrine, es-
pecially the second part and their close association with realism, are representa-
tive of this work’s apophatic epistemological and existential approach in pursuit
of human development. Therefore forms of idealism specifically related to this
work are the traditional Christian idea of God as being ‘a sustaining cause, pos-
sessing greater reality than his creation. Also, Leibniz’s thinking concerning in-
nate ideas that incorporates his doctrine that the simple substances out of which
all else is made are themselves perceiving and appetitive beings (monads), and
that space and time are relations among these things’ (ibid.).
370 D. Cooper, “Plato,” in Fifty Major Thinkers on Education: From Confucius to
Dewey, ed. J. Palmer, L. Bresler, and D. Cooper (London: Routledge, 2000),
12.
371 C. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 18.
372 Each of these two realms is then divided into higher and lower parts resulting in
a total of four shown below in the diagram. The divisions apply not only to the
objects of knowledge, but importantly to the organs of knowledge as well, for
the organ of knowledge must be suited to its object.
Highest forms represented only in the mind;

Dialectical questioning of assumptions leading to
insight (nous, noesis);
Intelligible
Mathematical and other forms represented
by sensible images; Logical reasoning and
argumentation based on assumptions (dianoia)
Objects of sensible world; Perceptions based on
unquestioned belief (pistis) or opinion (doxa)
Sensible
Images and shadows of sensible objects;
Capacity to receive sensible images (eikasia)
373 The Republic, Bk VII.514a–521b.

374 A. Long, “Thinking about the Cosmos: Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aris-
376 M. Lane, “Introduction,” in The Republic, trans. D. Lee and introduction by M.
Lane (London: Penguin Classics, 2007), xxxiv.
377 Republic 509d–511e.
379 A. Silverman, “Plato’s Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology,” Stanford
Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/
entries/plato-metaphysics/#12 (accessed 19 February 2010).
380 P. J. Palmer, “The Violence of Our Knowledge: Towards a Spirituality of Higher
Education” (The Michael Keenan Memorial Lecture, Berea College, Kentucky,
1993), www.21learn.org/arch/articles/palmer_spirituality.html (accessed 6 June
2006).
381 From the Latin: ‘to proclaim’ or ‘make known’. Predicates are one of the two
main parts of a sentence or clause, modifying the subject. In both grammar and
logic, the predicate serves to make an assertion or denial about the subject of the
sentence. ‘The subject of the sentence, as its name suggests, is generally what
the sentence is about – its topic. The predicate is what is said about the subject.
The two parts can be thought of as the topic and the comment.’ (Martha Kolln
and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar, 5th ed. (Boston, MA: Al-
lyn and Bacon, 1997).
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60, nos 1–3 (2006): 61–76: 63.
383 F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Volume 1, Greece and Rome, Part 1 and
2; Vol IV, Descartes to Leibniz; Vol V, Hobbes to Hume; Vol VI, Wolff to Kant
(New York: Image Books, 1963), 209.
384 Ibid.
Notes 227
385 R. Mortley, “What is Negative Theology? The Western Origins,” Prudentia

supplementary number, Via Negativa Conference, University of Sydney (1981)
5–12: 7.
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60, nos 1–3 (2006): 61–76: 63.
387 R. Mortley, Ancient Mysticism: Greek and Christian Mysticism, and Some
Comparisons with Buddhism, Publication of The Macquarie Ancient History
Association, no. 2. This paper comprises the text of a lecture delivered to the
Macquarie Ancient History Association on 1 October 1978, 3.
388 The thirteenth-century translation of Proclus’s commentary of the dialogue by
the Dominican friar William of Moerbeke stirred subsequent medieval interest.
In the fifteenth century, this greatly influenced the mystical writings of Nicolas
of Cusa, who set aside the definitions and methods of the ‘Aristotelean Sect’,
replacing them with deep speculations and mystical forms of his own, including
his first treatise: ‘De docta ignorantia’ (On learned Ignorance). The influential
fifteenth-century Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino also penned a major commen-
tary on The Parmenides. Ficino declares:
While Plato sprinkled the seeds of all wisdom throughout all his dialogues,
yet he collected the precepts of moral philosophy in the books on the Re-
public, the whole of science in the Timaeus, and he comprehended the
whole of theology in the Parmenides. And whereas in the other works he
rises far above all other philosophers, in this one he seems to surpass even
himself and to bring forth this work miraculously from the adytum of the
divine mind and from the innermost sanctum of philosophy. Whosoever
undertakes the reading of this sacred book shall first prepare himself in a
sober mind and detached spirit, before he makes bold to tackle the myster-
ies of this heavenly work. For here Plato discusses his own thoughts most
subtly: how the One itself is the principle of all things, which is above
all things and from which all things are, and in what manner it is outside
everything and in everything, and how everything is from it, through it,
and toward it. (R. Klibansky, “Plato’s Parmenides in the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance: A Chapter in the History of Platonic Studies,” Medieval
and Renaissance Studies 1 (1941–3): 281–335. This article gives a notable
analysis of the long ingluence of the Parmenides’ idea of one unified real-
ity.)
389 The philosophical institution or school founded by Plato, which advocated
scepticism in succeeding generations. The Academy (Academia) was originally
a public garden or grove in the suburbs of Athens, about six stadia from the
city, named from Academus or Hecademus, who left it to the citizens for gym-
nastics. Within this enclosure Plato possessed, as part of his patrimony, a small
garden, in which he opened a school for the reception of those inclined to attend
his instructions. Hence arose the Academic sect, and the term Academy has de-
scended to our times. Plato’s immediate successors as ‘scholarch’ of Akademia
were Speusippus (347–339 BC), Xenocrates (339–314 BC), Polemon (314–269
BC), Crates (ca. 269–266 BC), and Arcesilaus (ca. 266–240 BC). Later schol-
archs include Lacydes of Cyrene, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo of Lar-
issa (‘the last undisputed head of the Academy’). Other notable members of
Akademia include Aristotle. After a lapse during the early Roman occupation,
Akademia was refounded as a new institution of some outstanding Platonists
of late antiquity who called themselves ‘successors’ (diadochoi, but of Plato)
and presented themselves as an uninterrupted tradition reaching back to Plato.
The Neoplatonists Plotinus and Proclus are most notable directly influencing
Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine its Christian philosophical
heirs.
390 John 1.14.
392 Theaetetus 176B.
393 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London: Duckworth, 1972), 36.
394 Ibid.
395 A. H. Armstrong, “The Escape of the One,” Paper presented at the Patristics
Conference in Oxford, 1975. Reprinted in A. H. Armstrong, Plotinian and
Christian Studies, 87–9 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979).
396 Ibid., 31.
397 Ibid., 78.
398 See J. Keeny, “The Critical value of Negative Theology,” The Harvard Theo-
logical Review 86, no. 4 (1993): 439–453.
399 A. H. Armstrong, “The Escape of the One,” Paper presented at the Patristics
Conference in Oxford, 1975. Reprinted in A. H. Armstrong, Plotinian and
Christian Studies, 87-9 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), 78.
401 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London: Duckworth, 1972), 8.
403 Ibid.
404 S. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
405 P. Hadot, Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1993), 35.
407 Plotinus, The Six Enneads of Plotinus, trans. Stephen McKenna and B. S. Page
(London: Forgotten Books, 2007), 73–74.
ing, 2008), 170.
410 B. McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New
York: Crossroad, 1991), 55.
411 Hadot quotes Clement of Alexandria saying ‘true piety towards God consists
in separating ourselves, irrevocably, from the body and its passions’ (P. Hadot,
What is Ancient Philosophy? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2004), 246). Gregory Nazianzen, reproaching a friend, comments:
On the contrary, you must do philosophy [that is to say, you must train
Notes 229
yourself to live as a philosopher] in your suffering . . . this is the moment

to purify your thoughts, and to reveal yourself as superior to your bonds
[which tie you to your body] . . . your illness . . . teaches you to despise the
body and corporeal things and all that flows away . . . so that you may be-
long completely to the part which is above . . . making this life down below
– as Plato says – a training for death, and liberating your soul. (ibid., 246)
Press, 2004), 242.
414 God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 20.
415 “Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections” (lecture, Uni-
versity of Regensburg, Germany, 12 September 2006).
416 R. Mortley, “What is Negative Theology? The Western Origins,” Prudentia
supplementary number, Via Negativa Conference, University of Sydney (1981)
5–12: 1.
417 J. McGuckin, “Greek Theology – 4th to 6th Centuries,” in The Oxford Com-
panion to Christian Thought, ed. A. Hastings, A. Mason, and H. Pyper (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 278.
418 Ibid.
422 Ibid.
ford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 123. See also J. M. Dillon, The Middle
Platonists (London: Duckworth, 1996), 115–135.
426 U. King, Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies throughout the Ages
(London, Routledge, 2004), 30.
427 For a recent translation of the first three books of the Stromata see Clement of
Alexandria, Stromateis. The Fathers of the Church, trans. J. Ferguson (Wash-
ington: Catholic University of America Press, 1991). In the ‘Miscellanies’
(Stromata) order and plan are disclaimed by Clement. He compares the work
to a meadow where all kinds of flowers grow at random and, again, to a shady
hill or mountain planted with trees of every sort. It is in fact a loosely related
series of remarks, possibly notes of his lectures in the school and the fullest of
Clement’s works. He starts with the importance of philosophy for the pursuit of
Christian knowledge and perhaps defending his own scientific labors from local
criticism of conservative brethren. He shows how faith is related to knowledge,
whilst also emphasizing the superiority of revelation to philosophy. God’s truth
is to be found in revelation and another portion of it in philosophy and therefore
it is the duty of the Christian to neglect neither. Religious science, drawn from
this twofold source, is even an element of perfection, the instructed Christian
the true Gnostic’ is the perfect Christian. He who has risen to this height is far
from the disturbance of passion; he is united to God, and in a mysterious sense
is one with Him. Such is the line of thought indicated in the work, which is full
of digressions.
428 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis. The Fathers of the Church. Book V, Chap-
ter 10, trans. J. Ferguson (Washington: Catholic University of America Press,
1991).
Clarke, 1957), 30.
431 Ibid., 30–31.
432 Ibid., 31.
433 Ibid.
434 A. Gruen, Heaven Begins Within You: Wisdom from the Desert Fathers (New
435 K. Rahner, Christian at the Crossroads (New York: Seabury, 1975), 11.
437 Ibid., 25.
son (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 7 V.71.3.
ford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 121.
440 See D. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey. Compendia Rerum
Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 3 (Assen and Minneapolis: Van Gorcum
and Fortress Press, 1993), 155; H. Chadwick, “Philo and the Beginning of
Christian Thought,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Me-
dieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), 137–157.
son (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), VII.1.23.
443 R. Mortley, From Word to Silence, Vol. II. The Way of Negation, Christian and
Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986), 36.
444 Ibid., 37.
445 R. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London: Duckworth, 1972), 155.
446 See also supporting the links this thesis makes in the development of the Chris-
tian apophatic epistemic trajectory between Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-
Dionysius. Werner Jaeger (Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (London:
Harvard University Press, 1961), 128–130) follows Walther Volker in saying
that Gregory ‘sees Origen against the background of that continuous Jewish-
Christian movement of the first centuries . . . which aims at ethical perfection
and leads up to the souls mystical union with God. Volker’s own merit lies in
his analysis and description of that movement, which he traces from Philo via
Notes 231
Origin and Gregory of Nyssa down to Pseudo-Dionysius.’

447 See J. Danielle, Platonisme et Théologie Mystique. Théologie 2 (Paris: Aubier,
1944); L. Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers (Paris:
Desclée, 1963), 351–368; J. T. Muckle, “The Doctrine of St. Gregory of Nyssa
on Man as the Image of God,” Mediaeval Studies 7 (1945): 77–84.
449 Ibid.
450 P. Blowers, “Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Concept of
‘Perpetual Progress,’” Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 2 (1992): 151.
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 11. Also, this thesis stops at
Pseudo-Dionysius because no one, even Maximus the Confessor, emphasized
so strongly the transcendence of God’s revealed nature.
452 W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (London: Harvard University
Press, 1961), 47.
454 Cited by A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato
to Denys (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 157.
455 Ibid., 158.
456 Ibid., 159.
459 Malherbe & Ferguson say despite Gregory endorsing Aristotle’s ethical doc-
trine of virtue as the mean, ‘his greatest debt is clearly to Plato. But all has
undergone a profound transformation into a Christian synthesis’ (Gregory of
Nyssa, The Life Of Moses, trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York:
Paulist Press, 1978), 5).
460 W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (London: Harvard University
Press, 1961), 82.
‘Perpetual Progress,’” Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 2 (1992): 151–171.
462 I use two sources for the works of Gregory: From Glory to Glory: Texts from
Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings, trans. and ed. by H. Musurillo, introd. by
J. Daniélou (London: John Murray, 1962) and Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of
Moses, trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
Basically the The Life of Moses is a formal treatise dealing with ‘Perfection in
Virtue’ and may have been designed for reading aloud in a household of ascet-
ics.
463 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson
(New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 9.
465 J. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Yonkers, New York: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975), 211.
cal Writings, trans. H. Musurillo and J. Daniélou (London: John Murray, 1962),
26.
467 Ibid., 27.
468 Ibid., 127.
Clarke, 1957), 34.
470 Athanasius, Select Works and Letters, NPNF IV, trans. Phillip Schaff (New
York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892), 65–66.
471 U. King, Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies Throughout the Ages
(London: Routledge, 2004), 48.
472 Cited in Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s
Mystical Writings, trans. H. Musurillo and J. Danielou (London: John Murray,
1962), 118.
‘Perpetual Progress,’” Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 2. (1992): 151–171.
474 A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson, “Introduction,” in The Life of Moses, trans. A.
J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 12–14.
475 In Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII the Unmoved Mover renders all change deterio-
ration, accepting growth only in biological terms which accordingly, the soul
must be free from for its total perfection.
‘Perpetual Progress,’” Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 2 (1992): 156.
477 Ibid.
cal Writings, trans. H. Musurillo and J. Danielou (London: John Murray, 1962),
57.
479 Ibid., 59.
481 Ibid.
482 Ibid., 62.
483 See R. D. Williams, The Wound of Knowledge (London: Darton, Longman and
Todd, 1979), 54. Williams notes that Muhlenberg & Hochstaff have developed
this aspect of Gregory’s thinking.
54.
51.
487 Further supporting the retrieval of the Greek philosophical foundations of the
Christian apophatic tradition is the fact that wings associated with the theme of
the flight of the soul, come directly from Plato. See Phaedrus 246b, 249a, 255c,
and Theaetetus 176a.
488 Gregory of Nyssa, The Classics of Western Spirituality: Gregory of Nyssa: The
Notes 233
Life Of Moses, trans. A. J. Malherbe and E. Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press,
1978), 117.
490 J. Fisher, “The Theology of Dis/similarity: Negation in Pseudo-Dionysius,” The
Journal of Religion 81, no. 4 (2001): 529–548.
13.
492 Benedict XVI. “Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections”
493 L. Bouyer, Le Père invisible (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1976), 326.
494 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989), 11.
495 K. Corrigan and L. M. Harrington, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,”
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Fall 2011 edition), http://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/ (ac-
cessed 1 January 2012). See also See A. Golitzin, “The Mysticism of Dionysius
Areopagita: Platonist of Christian?” Mystics Quarterly 19 (1993): 98–114; A.
Louth, “Pagan Theurgy and Christian Sacramentalism in Denys the Areop-
agite,” Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986): 432–438; J. Rist, “Pseudo-
Dionysius, Neoplatonism and the Weakness of the Soul,” in From Athens to
Chartres: Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought, ed. H. J. van Westra (Leiden:
Brill, 1992).
496 K. Corrigan and L. M. Harrington, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,”
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Fall 2011 edition), <http:
//plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/>
(accessed 1 January 2012).
497 Martin Luther, Weimarer Ausgabe 6, 562, quoted in Pseudo-Dionysius: The
Complete Works, trans. C. Luibheid and P. Rorem (New York: Paulist Press,
1987), 44.
498 A. Harnack, History of Dogma (London: Williams and Norgate, 1898), Vol. IV,
340.
Clarke, 1957), 37.
500 Ibid., 42.
501 G. M. Jantzen, Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1995), 96.
502 R. Mortley, From Word to Silence, Vol. II. The Way of Negation, Christian and
Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986). 221.
503 Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. C. Luibheid and P. Rorem (New
York: Paulist Press, 1987), 134 (from the Introduction by J. Pelikan, J. Leclercq
and K. Froehlich to the Mystical Theology).
505 Hugo Koch, “Proklos als Quelle des Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre
vom Bosen”, Philologus, 54 (1895), 438–454 ; Josef Stiglmayr, “Der Neupla-
toniker Proklos als Vorlage des sogenannten Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre
von Ubel,” Historisches Jahrbuch 16 (1895), 253–273 and 721–748.
506 See S. Gerch, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory

and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leidan: Brill, 1978), 1.
507 Charles M. Stang argues that scholars should not overlook the relevance of
the pseudonym and corresponding influence of Paul: “Dionysius, Paul and the
Significance of the Pseudonym,” in Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed.
S. Coakley and C. Stang (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
508 R. Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Orders in the Letters of Pseudo-
Dionysius: A Study in the Form and Meaning of Pseudo-Dionysian Writings
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969), 19–21.
ing, 2008), 199.
512 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989), 11.
513 Proclus, The Elements of Theology, trans. E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon,
1933), 38.
514 S. Gerch, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and
Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 138.
Clarke, 1957), 31; DN. XIII.
ardson & J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1983), 166.
518 G. M. Jantzen, Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1995), 100.
ogy after Ontotheology,” Modern Theology 19, no. 3 (2003): 397.
520 Pseudo-Dionysius’ advice to Timothy in the Mystical Theology introduces both
the account of Moses ascent and the general uplifting that goes beyond the
perceptible and even beyond the intelligible seen respectively in Chapters Four
(including the hierarchical treatises) and Five.
ford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 253. For an exhaustive study of the
similarities between the Mystical Theology and Gregory’s Life of Moses see Y.
Andia, Henosis. L’Union à Dieu chez Pseudo-Dionysius l’Areopagite, Philos-
ophia Antique, Book 71 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 303–373. More generally see
also Balthasar’s brief comment in Glory II (p. 147) and R. Hathaway, Hierarchy
and the Definition of Orders in the Letters of Pseudo-Dionysius: A Study in the
Form and Meaning of Pseudo-Dionysian Writings (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969),
20. Also S. Gerch, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Pre-
history and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978),
4, noting ‘the undoubted influence of the Cappadocian Fathers’.
Notes 235

(lecture, University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006).
526 See footnote 17 in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Complete Works, trans. C.
Luibheid and P. Rorem (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 140.
527 D. Torevell, Liturgy and the Beauty of the Unknown: Another Place (Farnham,
Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 133.
Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 24.
529 Ibid.
531 Ibid., 394. Concerning ‘hypernegation’ see J. Fisher, “The Theology of Dis/
similarity: Negation in Pseudo-Dionysius,” The Journal of Religion 81, no. 4
(2001): 529–548.
532 B. Blans, “Cloud of Unknowing: An Orientation in Negative Theology from
Dionysius the Areopagite, Eckhart, and John of the Cross to Modernity,” in
Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology, ed. I.
Bulhof and L. Kate (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 62–63.
Journal of Religion 81, no. 4 (2001): 547.
534 Ibid.
Kessler and C. Sheppard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 13.
536 B. McGinn and F. McGinn, Early Christian Mystics: The Divine Vision of the
Spiritual Masters (New York: Crossroad, 2002), 185–186.
537 Ibid.
549 P. Gavrilyuk, “The Reception of Dionysius in Twentieth-Century Eastern Or-
thodoxy,” in Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, ed. S. Coakley and C. Stang
(Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 184.
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 21-22.
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 131.
Journal of Religion 81, no. 4 (2001): 529–548: 540.
545 Jean-Luc Marion, L’Idole et la distance : Cinq études. (Paris: Grasset, 1977),
232.
1998), xi.
547 Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1999).
548 P. Savage, “Philosophical Counselling,” Nursing Ethics 4, no. 1 (1999).
549 See the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) at
Montclair State University at http://cehs.montclair.edu/academic/iapc/
Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60, nos 1–3 (2006): 61–76, 73–74.
551 J. L. Marion, “Introduction: What do We Mean by ‘Mystic’?” in Mystics:
Chicago Press, 2003), 4.
552 See O. Hanfling, “Logical Positivism,” in Routledge History of Philosophy.
Volume IX. Philosophy of Science, Logic and Mathematics in the Twentieth
Century, ed. S. G. Shanker (London: Routledge, 1996), 193-213.
553 R. Nieli, Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language – A Study of
Viennese Positivism and the Thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1987), xv.
554 See also Nieli’s review of J. Atkinson, The Mystical in Wittgenstein’s Early
Writings (New York: Routledge, 2009), at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews,
University of Notre Dame, http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24116-the-mystical-in-
wittgenstein-s-early-writings/ (accessed 9 June 2012); P. Tyler, Return to the
Mystical: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Teresa of Avila and the Christian Mystical
Tradition (London: Continuum, 2011).
555 P. Hacker. “Was He Trying to Whistle It?” in The New Wittgenstein ed. A. Crary
and R. Read (London: Routledge, 2000), 353–388.
556 R. Nieli, Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language –A Study of
Viennese Positivism and the Thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1987), xi-xii.
557 See also F. Sontag, Wittgenstein and the Mystical: Philosophy as an Ascetic
Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
558 This is evident in a letter Russell wrote to Lady Ottoline Morrell in the winter
of 1919 after he had met with Wittgenstein in Holland to discuss his Tractatus
manuscript and is an invaluable resource for understanding Wittgenstein’s es-
sentially religio-spiritual personality and frame of mind shortly before and dur-
ing the First World War:
I have much to tell you that is of interest. I leave here today [December
20, 1919, from the The Hague] after a fortnight’s stay, during a week of
which Wittgenstein was here, and we discussed his book [the Tractatus]
everyday. I came to think even better of it than I had done; I feel sure it is
really a great book, though I do not feel sure it is right . . . I had felt in his
book a flavour of mysticism, but was astonished when I found that he has
become a complete mystic. He reads people like Kierkegaard and Angelus
Silesius, and he seriously contemplates becoming a monk. It all started
from William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, and grew (not
unnaturally) during the winter he spent alone in Norway before the war,
when he was nearly mad. Then during the war a curious thing happened. He
Notes 237
went on duty to the town of Tarnov in Galicia, and happened to come upon a
bookshop, which, however, seemed to contain nothing but picture postcards.
However, he went inside and found that it contained just one book: Tolstoy
on the Gospels. He brought it merely because there was no other. He read it
and re-read it, and thenceforth had it always with him, under fire and at all
times. But on the whole he likes Tolstoy less than Dostoyevsky (especially
Karamazov). He has penetrated deep into mystical ways of thought and
feeling, but I think (though he wouldn’t agree) that what he likes best in
mysticism is its power to make him stop thinking. I don’t much think he will
really become a monk – it is an idea, not an intention. His intention is to be a
teacher. He gave all his money to his brothers and sisters, because he found
earthly possessions a burden. I wish you had seen him. (Letters to Russell,
Keynes, and Moore, ed. G. H. von Wright (New York: Cornell University
Press, 1974), 82)
559 F. Pascal, “Wittgenstein: A Personal Memoir” in Recollections of Wittgenstein
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INDEX
Abraham 165 Bhagavad Gita 28
Academy 121, 122, 172–3 Blowers, P. 163
agape 131–2, 141 Borresen, Kari 65
Albinus 201 brain hemispheres 44
Alcmaeon 201 Bulhof, I. 64
Amelius 202
American Declaration of Independ- Carneades 201
ence 1 Cave allegory 88, 102, 111, 115–16,
Anaxagoras 201 138–9, 159
Anaximander 95, 201 Chalcedon, Council of 152
Anaximenes 95, 201 Christ
Anscombe, Elizabeth 27 divine and human natures 152–3
Antiphon 201 resurrection 166
Antisthenes 201 Christian Platonism 15
aphaeresis 122, 128, 143, 147, 156 Chrysippus 201
Apollo 104–6, 107, 108 Cleanthes 201
apophasis 124, 129–30, 148 Clement of Alexandria 107, 140–53,
apophatic tradition 3, 22, 103–8, 137, 202
145–6 consumerism 58–9, 64–5, 76
aporia 74–86 contemplatio 73–4, 94, 136
apotheosis 118 contemplative life, in Aristotle’s
Apuleius 201 thought 24–5
Aquinas 18 Copleston, F. 103
Archytas 201 cosmology 95–6
arête 1, 20, 25, 99 counselling 29–31
Aristophanes 82 Crates 201
Aristotle 18, 24–5, 46–7, 122 creation 140, 144, 174, 176
Aritotle 201 Cynics 201
Armstrong, A. H. 124 Cyprian of Carthage 8
ascent to God 151–3
asceticism 130 daemons 24
Athanasius 162 Daly, Mary 65
Atomists 201 Damascius 121, 202
Atticus 201 Daniélou, Jean 158, 163
Augustine of Hippo 18, 126 darkness 138
authority, of private experiences 43 death of God 63, 100
deification 149–50, 154–6, 162, 178–9
baptism 181 Delphic oracle 74–6, 104–6, 108
Barnhart, Bruno 39–40 ‘know thyself’ 8, 79, 108, 110
Bauman, Zygmunt 58 Democritus 201
beauty 80 depth, of the Almighty 150
Benedict, St 20, 34 Descartes, René 51–3
Rule of 10–11 Diogenes 201
Benedict XVI (Pope) 14–15, 131–2, Diotima 81, 83–4
170 doxa 88–9
dualism 18 Gorgias 201

dues philosophorum 143–6, 156 Gossmann, Elizabeth 65
Dysinger, A. R. 9 Gregory of Nyssa 33, 102, 105, 111,
135–40, 149, 153–70
education 99, 156 Griffith, Bede 10
challenges to human development Grosch, P. 59
46–51 Guigo II 8
in Platonic thought 49
reading in 9, 187 Hadot, Pierre 18, 20, 85
role of spirituality 48–9 happiness 1, 20, 33
ekstasis 128, 145–6 in Platonic thought 24
Eleatic monism 113 and virtue 23
Eleatic School 201 Hardy, Alister 43
elenchus 78–9 Harkins, D. 43
Empedocles 201 Hathaway, R. 173
empiricism 56–8 Hemarchus 201
Enlightenment 51–68 henosis 155, 184
enthusiasm 104 Heraclitus 95, 96–7, 101, 103, 201
epektasis 33, 153–4, 157–8, 160, 163 hiddenness of the divine 175
Epicureans 23–4, 201 Hippias 201
episteme 88–9 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 63
eros 80–6, 131–2 human development 24–5
Eros, genealogy of 66, 84–6 problems raised about 28–51
erotic contemplative ideal 141 hypernegation 170, 175–6, 183–4
erotic desire 80–6
Eucharist 181–2 Iamblichus 126, 155, 202
eudaimonia ignorance 77–9, 86–91, 105
material significance 24 incarnation 19, 121, 143, 151–2
in Platonic thought 22 incomprehensibility of God 139
eudaimonism 20 individual self 188–90
euporia 85–6 inspiratio 103–8, 109
excellence 1 instrumental knowledge 184
intellect 187
facts 60 Ionian philosophy 201
faith, convergence with reason 133–5, Isocrates 90
141, 179, 188, 199–200 Ivánka, Enre von 15
feminist theology 65–8, 178, 195
Finnegan, J. 38–9 Jaeger, Werner 29, 81–2, 97–8
Fisher, Jeffrey 170 Jantzen, Grace 177
flourishing 24–5 Jefferson, Thomas 1
Fontenrose, Joseph 107 Jerome 8
Forms 95, 101, 113, 114–18, 120, John’s Gospel 14
128–9 Jung, Carl Gustav 42
Funk, M. 7, 71–3
Kant, Immanuel 47
Gallagher, M. 63–4 Kate, L. 64
Gellner, Ernst 61 Kazanjiam, Victor 47–8
Golitzin, A. 182–3 Kegan, Robert 43–4
Index 251
kiss of peace 181–2 negation of negation 129, 148

‘know thyself’ 8, 79, 105, 108, 110 negative reason 196–200
knowledge 60 negative theology 129–30, 140–53
episteme and doxa 88–9 negative trajectory 18
of God 149, 162 see also via negativa
instrumental 184 Neoplatonism 95, 120–1, 124–32,
Koch, Hugo 172 172–4
Nicomachus 202
Laird, Martin 38 Nieli, Russell 197
law 97 Nietzsche, Friedrich 63, 100
lectio divina 7–12, 71–2, 133–4 nous 18
leisure 46–7, 100 Numeius 202
Levine, Madeline 45–6
liberation theology 178, 195 one reality 101–3, 113, 118–21, 128,
liberty 1–2 142–6
Lipman, Matthew 195 oracles 105–8
Locke, John 1 oratio 72–3, 93, 135–6
logos 2–3, 13–14
as creative energy 14 paideia 156
as embodied revelation 19–20, 121 Palmer, Parker 48–9, 117
as pedagogue 27 Parmenides 95, 101–3, 109–12,
rise of 92, 94–101, 126 118–23, 120–1
Lossky, Vladimir 34–5, 144, 161–2, participation in the divine nature 179
171–2, 174–5 Paul (Saint) 188–9
Louth, Andrew 35, 116, 171 Pera, Marcello 16
love 80–6, 131–2, 181, 189 Philo of Alexandria 5, 31, 123, 138–40,
Lucretius 201 201
Luther, Martin 171 philo-sophia 2
Philolaus 201
McGilchrist, Ian 44 philosophical counselling 29–31, 195
MacIntyre, Alasdair 27, 59–60 philosophy
madness see theia mania ancient Schools of 20–2
Marion, Jean-Luc 10, 36, 60–1 as contemplative spiritual exercise 26
Maslow, Abraham 41–2 as a spiritual way of life 17, 20, 29,
Maximus Ammonius 201 74–80, 144, 147
meditatio 72, 92–3, 134–5 as theoretical activity 32
Melissus 201 phronesis 122
Merton, Thomas 42–3 Pickstock, Catherine 16
Metrodorus 201 Pieper, J. 29, 32, 33, 100, 108
Milbank, John 16 Pike, M. 10–11
Moderatus of Gades 202 Pindar 108
moral agents 21–2 Plato 201
Morgan, J. 55 Cave allegory 88, 102, 111, 115–16,
Mortley, R. 120, 121 138–9, 159
Moses 111, 139, 150, 153–4, 157–9, contemplative ideal 22
169, 178, 183–5, 188, 189 on education 49
mysticism 34, 37, 41–3, 153 on eudaimonia 22
on happiness 24
Plato (continued) reason (continued)

on madness 106 modern philosophical foundations 4
Parmenides 101–3, 112–14, 118–23, negative exercise 2–3, 13–14
120–1 set against passion 60
passion 130–1 as spiritual way of life 2, 104, 106
Protagoras 99 religious experience 41–3
theory of Forms 95, 101, 113, as source of authority 43
114–18, 120, 128–9 resurrection, of Christ 166
Timaeus 123 revelation 19–20, 104, 105, 121, 140,
Platonic philosophy 69–74 151–2
dualism 18 Ruether, Rosemary Radford 65
Platonism, Christian 15
Plotinus 95, 113, 120, 125–8, 145, 155, sapiential wisdom 39–40
202 saturated phenomena 36
Pluralists 201 Sceptics 201
Plutarch 107, 201 science 62–3, 95–6
Polyaenus 201 self 188–90
Porphyry 121, 126, 202 Sells, Michael 37–8
postmodernism 62–8, 65 skopos 156
Price, S. 126 Socrates 2, 72–91, 201
procession and return 173 on theia mania 106
Proclus 95, 113, 120–2, 125–6, 129, Sophists 90, 99–100, 201
155, 172–4, 202 soul 75
Prodicus 201 spiritual exercises 31
Protagoras 105, 201 spirituality
Pseudo-Dionysius 102, 111–13, 124, challenge to human development
126, 153, 155, 170–90, 202 37–41
psyche 75 in education 48–9
psychology, challenges to human devel- Stiglmayr, Josef 172
opment 40–6 Stoics 23, 201
Pyrrho of Elis 201 Sullivan, John 9
Pythagoras 201
Taylor, Charles 61
qualified dualism 13, 147, 152–3, 158, Thales 95, 201
174–6, 189 Thearchy 174–5
theia mania 103–8
Rabbow, P. 31 theology
Radical Orthodoxy 16 challenge to human development
Rahner, Karl 35–6, 106 34–7
reading 9 in Eastern Orthodox thought 34
reason theoria 55, 155
apophatic 4 therapy 60
in Aristotle 24–5 theurgy 130, 155
and the cogito 35 Thomas Aquinas 18
convergence with faith 133–5, 141, transcendent anthropology 35–6
179, 188, 199–200
as divine light 105 union with the divine 145, 178–9, 187
liberation theology 65 unknowing 150, 157, 171
Index 253
via negativa 17, 38–9, 43, 61, 119,

136–8, 183, 187, 188
Victorinus 126
virtue 1, 27
and happiness 23
virtue ethics 27–8
Vlastos, G. 88, 89
Ward, Graham 16
Washburn, Michael 42
ways of inquiry 109–12
Whitehead, A. N. 112–13
Wilber, Ken 42
Williams, Janet 36–7
wisdom 14, 33
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 175, 196–200
Xenophanes 201
Yannaras, Christos 186
Zajonc, Arthur 49–50

Zen Buddhism 28
Zeno 201
Zeno of Citium 201
Zeno of Elea 113

Pursuing Eudaimonia

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Pursuing Eudaimonia

LIVERPOOL HOPE UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ETHICS SERIES

This book first published 2013

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Copyright © 2013 by Brendan Cook

ISBN (10): 1-4438-4224-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4224-2

1 Human development today: Why think differently? 13

2 The philosophical pursuit of the fullest human flourishing in

3 Pursuing eudaimonia: Retrieving the Greek philosophical

Plato’s contemplative priority: establishing the philosophical

4 The Graeco-Christian apophatic tradition 133

Ancient Greek philosophy timeline 201

(Courage to see things as they are)

Consequently, the promise of liberty in expressing the deeper currents

voices of challenge and solutions to the issue of the Enlightenment legacy

ment of this Biblical trajectory continues through Christian philosophers

Methodology: Lectio Divina

Lectio divina is a sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While scripture

such as Jerome, likewise strongly recommended the practice of lectio di-

Lectio divina was also chosen as a methodology to facilitate the primary

historical and intellectual trajectory of unparalleled achievement rooted

Among the principal Lenten observances listed in chapter XLIX we find

Pike makes an important observation about affectivity which in turn shifts

work: ‘Reading is an essentially “religious” activity, not necessarily in the

The historian Henry Chadwick also, speaking of Benedict prescribing

Schneiders can be further seen supporting my choice of methodology:

the patristic-monastic theory of scriptural exegesis, allied with modern

I include here philosophical texts central to the development of the Graeco-

There is a tendency among scholars to reduce apophatic theology to liter-

Complementing my literary and imaginative reading of the Platonic corpus,

Rationale and Christian Context

This work draws substantially from the Greek philosophical exercise of

I aim to provide a full appreciation of the Christian apophatic tradition

spirit . . . the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between

In a lecture entitled On Europe’s Crisis of Culture the then Cardinal Ratz-

If I seek answers from ancient wisdom it is only because my own experience

a ‘resource toward more effective living in the present’. This contemporary

This Christian context of my resistance against human development con-

Our knowledge of things of this world can always be qualified by knowledge

of God, since it is analogically mediated, is always and only given through

As an aporetic synthesis of theology and philosophy whose epistemic and

one is led to articulate a more incarnate, more participatory, more aesthetic,

My work also strongly reflects Hadot’s position that ‘philosophy’ is a

Redressing this, I chart the development of an historical ‘negative’ intellec-

From its biblical beginnings onwards . . . Christian thought reflects a quali-

pursuit of eudaimonia along its apophatic way. It is a ‘negative’ intellectual

a contradiction between what is and what ought to be . . . which plagues all

The existential ‘dualistic situation’ of ‘holding out under’ the theoretically

My detailed investigation of the convergence of Greek ‘negative’

philosophical thinking with Biblical understandings of the revealed Logos

Human Development: The Greek Vision of Eudaimonia

Retrieving and rediscovering valuable insights into human development

framed within an overarching philosophical view of reality was central to

The first approach which dominated in antiquity and exemplified in the

Importantly, this concern represents the ‘state of being’82 ethical approach

traditions as well as through the writings of many philosophers, beginning’84

blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human

to arête, the Greek word for ‘virtue’ or ‘excellence’. In the Nicomachean

Importantly, this transformation of character was seen to be that which was

‘happiness’. Many translators make this choice because ‘happiness’ in Eng-

Ancient philosophy as a contemplative spiritual exercise produced charac-