The Divine as Inaccessible Object of Knowledge in

Ancient Platonism: A Common Philosophical

Pattern across Religious Traditions

Ilaria Ramelli

I. INTRODUCTION
The notion of the divine as an inaccessible object of human knowledge
and reasoning is prominent in philosopherstheologians of the first four
centuries ce who display a refined cognitive approach to religion and a
sophisticated treatment of the problem of theo-logy. Greek 
means reasoning and speaking ( ) about the divine ( ), but if the
divine is unknowable, how can theology work? Notably, these thinkers all
belong to the same philosophical tradition, that of Platonism (so-called
Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism), but they come from three different
religious traditions. Philo of Alexandria (first century bce to first century
ce) comes from Judaism, in particular Hellenistic Judaism. Plotinus (third
century ce) comes from so-called paganism, a general term for ancient
cultic traditions other than Judaism and Christianity that is more useful
than correct from the point of view of historians of religions.1 Finally, Origen of Alexandria (second to third centuries ce) and Gregory of Nyssa
1
For a discussion of paganism/Hellenism as religion or culture in late antiquity see
e.g. Aaron P. Johnson, Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre. The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); also Johnson,
Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006); Johnson, Porphyrys Hellenism, in Le traite de Porphyre contre les chretiens, ed. Sebastien Morlet (Paris: Institut dEtudes Augustiniennes, 2011), 16581.

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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS APRIL 2014

(fourth century ce) come from Christianity. Philo was a Jewish Platonist,
Plotinus a pagan Platonist, and Origen and Gregory of Nyssa were
Christian Platonists.
Notwithstanding their affiliations to different religious traditions, these
thinkers reflections on the divine as an impossible cognitive object for
humans are remarkably homogeneous. It will be argued that this homogeneity is mainly due to their common philosophical tradition, which provides them with a shared epistemological and ontological pattern. All of
these philosopher-theologians share a dialectic and a tension between a
declared apophaticismthe awareness that the divine is indeed an inaccessible object of knowledge and expression for humansand a discourse
about the divine in which they nevertheless engage. It will therefore be necessary to clarify this dialectic. This will not have to be sought on the religious plane, since the dialectic at stake is trans-religious and common to all
of these imperial and late antique Platonists.

II. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

All of these thinkers were both philosophers and theologians. From our
post-Kantian perspective, philosophy and theology are two independent
disciplines, with different methodologies and objects, but this was not the
case in late antiquity. From the viewpoint of Patristic philosophers, and
especially Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, the study of God, i.e. theology,
was the culmination of philosophy. This is why Origen did not teach theology without having taught the rest of philosophy first, and why he banned
atheistic philosophical schools from his teaching, as his disciple Gregory
Thaumaturgus attests in his panegyrical oration for Origen. In his Commentary on the Song of Songs prol. 3.24 Origen, after dividing philosophy
into ethics (ethica), physics (physica), epoptics (epoptica), and logic (logica), posited epoptics as the crowning glory of philosophy.2 Epoptics is the
branch of philosophy that investigates the divine and heavenly things
(epoptica de divinis et caelestibus), that is, theology. Thus Origen regarded
Michael York, Paganism as Root-Religion, The Pomegranate 6 (2004): 1118 classifies
religions as gnostic, dharmic, Abrahamic, and pagan; cf. York, Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2003).
2
Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs prol. 3.24. I will cite all sources in classical
style, whenever book, chapter, and/or paragraph numbers are available. I will make an
exception only when page and/or column or line numbers are the sole citation form
available.

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Ramelli The Divine in Ancient Platonism

theology as part and parcel of philosophy, its highest part in fact, on the
one hand; and on the other hand made it clear that theology could not be
studied alone, without philosophical bases. In his Homilies on Genesis
14.3, too, he admitted that the learned of this world thanks to the study
of philosophy [per eruditionem philosophiae] were able to grasp many
truths.3 Among these truths he included theological tenets. For instance,
many philosophers write that God is one [unum esse Deum] and created
everything [cuncta creaverit]. In this respect they agree with Gods Law.
Some also add that God both made and governs all by means of his Logos
[per Verbum suum], and it is Gods Logos that regulates all.4 Origen in
this passage cited the traditional (Stoic) division of philosophy into logic,
physics, and ethics, but interestingly ascribed to logic the realm of metaphysics and theology as well: Logic is that part of philosophy which confesses God the father of all.5 The incongruence results from the fact that
the tripartite division of philosophy was Stoic, and in Stoic immanentism
both metaphysics and theology were reduced to physics. But Origen, who
was no immanentist, could by no means accept such a reduction.
For Philo, theology was essentially exegesis of Scripture, which is all
about God, and this interpretation was to be performed through the lenses
of philosophy, especially Platonism. His attention focused primarily on
the Bible, as Valentin Nikiprowetzky, David Runia, Peder Borgen, and
David Winston have rightly emphasized.6 Philos approach was therefore
exegetico-theological, but philosophy offered him an indispensable framework for his exegesis. In Plotinuss view, too, philosophy included the investigation of the divine realm, which was metaphysics at its highest level.
Indeed, Aristotle himself treated theology as a synonym of metaphysics as
opposed to physics: Three are the theoretical branches of philosophy: mathematics, physics, and theology [, , ].7 Thus,
Plotinuss discourse on the Oneattempted, suggestive, and limited at the
same time, as will be pointed out shortlyis both protological and theological.
Origen, Homilies on Genesis 14.3.
Origen, Homilies on Genesis 14.3.
5
Origen, Homilies on Genesis 14.3.
6
Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Valentin Nikiprowetzky, Lexege`se de Philon dAlexandrie, Revue dHistoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 53 (1973):
30929; Nikiprowetzky, Le commentaire de lecriture chez Philon dAlexandrie (Leiden:
Brill, 1977); David T. Runia, review of La philosophie de Mose, by Richard Goulet,
Journal of Theological Studies 40 (1989): 588602; Runia, Philo of Alexandria. On the
Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses (Leiden: Brill, 2001); David Winston, Philo
and the Wisdom of Solomon on Creation, Revelation, and Providence, in Shem in the
Tents of Japhet, ed. James Kugel (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 10930.
7
Aristotle, Metaph. 1026a18.
3
4

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III. PHILO
Philo of Alexandria interpreted the Hebrew Bible (in its Greek translation,
the Septuagint or LXX) in the light of Platonic philosophy, and indeed he
has many themes in common with so-called Middle Platonism.8 He could
read Scripture with Platonic lenses thanks to an allegorical interpretation.
This is what Christian interpreters of the Bible such as Origen and Gregory
of Nyssa would do as well. However, unlike some extreme Jewish Hellenistic allegorists against whom he seems to have reacted, Philo did not reject
the historical aspect of Scripture. He kept both the historical and the allegorical planes at the same time.9
Likewise, the roots of Philos apophaticism and mysticism, too, are
found in his biblical exegesis.10 Philo interpreted some biblical episodes as
the allegorical expression of the necessity of apophaticism: this meant the
awareness of the limit of human cognitive and discursive-expressive power
when it came to the divinity in itself, that is, its nature or essence as distinct
from its activities and their products. This clearly presupposed a transcendent notion of the divinity, which squares with Platonism but not with an
immanentistic system such as Stoicism (the latter influenced Philo as well,
but more on the ethical than the ontological plane). These allegorical
expressions appeared precisely in passages which have been fruitfully compared11 with the parallel interpretations of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa.
This meant that there was a strong continuity in this respect between Philo,
Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa.
Indeed, Philo inspired Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of
Nyssa with the principle that the divinity is unknowable in its essence
(), and therefore also ineffable, but knowable through its activity.
Indeed, What Is cannot be grasped from itself alone, without anything
else, but only through its works, either qua creator or qua ruler.12 The
8
I limit myself to referring to the synthesis offered by David T. Runia, Philon dAlexandrie, in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, ed. Richard Goulet, vol. 5/a (Paris:
CNRS, 2011), 36390.
9
See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and its Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and Plato,
International Journal of the Classical Tradition 18 (2011): 33571.
10
On the relation between biblical exegesis and mysticism see Steven Katz, Mysticism and
Sacred Scripture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
11
See Ilaria Ramelli, Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo and Its Legacy in
Gregory of Nyssa, Studia Philonica Annual 20 (2008): 5599.
12
        
 , "# #

 %  % , Philo, Abraham 122

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Ramelli The Divine in Ancient Platonism

Godhead in itself is ineffable, unintelligible, impossible to grasp 13; in

The Special Laws 1.32 Philo gives up determining what is Gods essence
or .14 Even the epithets that are ascribed to God in the Bible do not
describe Gods very essence (), that is, Gods true nature or ,
but rather Gods relationship to the creation. These two aspects are kept
distinct from one another.
What humans can know about God is that God is, 15 but not what God
is. Because of Gods transcendence, human intellects cannot grasp the
divine essence, but some help to this end can come from the revelation of
God in Scripture.16 For Philo, just as for Clement, Origen, and Gregory,
divine revelation in Scripture represents an important factor that moderates
negative theology. It is a gnoseological factor in that it allows human beings
to know something of the divinity, which would otherwise be precluded.
This cognitive factor, however, is subject to strict rules of interpretation.
Allegoresis, in the sense of the allegorical exegesis of the sacred textin
this case, that of Scripture, but in the case of pagan Neoplatonists, for
instance, poetry and various forms of traditional myths and ritualsis the
key to grasping the true meaning of the Bible, but it is also a key available
to few, those who master this hermeneutical tool. This tendency to exclusivity in relation to allegoresis is particularly evident in Clement and, to a
degree, in Origen, but also in pagan Middle Platonists and Neoplatonists, from Plutarch to Porphyry to Sallustius, who cherished allegoresis.
Just as Clement, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa after him, Philo bases
his apophatic theology on Exod. 20:21, the passage in which Moses enters
the darkness where God is: Now the people were standing at a distance,
but Moyses went into the darkness where God was. Philo and his followers interpret this darkness ( ) as a reference to Gods unknowability.17
Non-seeing is a metaphor of human cognitive impairment before the divine.
Philo, The Changing of Names 10; 15. On Gods ineffability in Philo see Sean McDonough, YHWH at Patmos: Rev. 1:4 in its Hellenistic and Early Jewish Setting (Tubingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 7984. For the Middle-Platonic background of the idea of Gods
ineffability in Philo: R. M. Garca, La concepcion de Albino y Apuleio de los atributos
del Dios transcendente, con especial referencia al termino arrhetos, in Arrhetos Theos:
Lineffabilita` del primo principio nel medio platonismo, ed. Francesca Calabi (Pisa: ETS,
2002), with review in Stylos 14 (2005): 17782; also Anna Passoni DellAcqua, Innovazioni lessicali e attributi divini: una caratteristica del Giudaismo alessandrino?, in La
Parola di Dio cresceva, ed. Rinaldo Fabris (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1998), 87108.
14
Cf. Philo The Special Laws 1.43; God Is Immutable 62; The Posterity of Cain 15.
15
Exod. 3:14: I am The One Who Is. See Philo The Life of Moses 1.75. Translation
from NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint), throughout.
16
Philo The Allegories of the Laws 3.100.
17
Philo The Posterity of Cain 14; The Changing of Names 7.
13

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It is a metaphor of apophaticism, that is to say, the awareness that the

human logos (word and thought) cannot grasp and express the divinity.
This is a remarkable limitation to theo-logy (-), reasoning and
discourse on the divine. The divinity in its own nature is an inaccessible
object of human intellectual sight, that is, of human epistemic equipment.
In Exod. 33:2023, God says to Moses that he will be unable to see his
face, but he will only see his back: You shall not be able to see my face.
For a person shall never see my face and live. . . . You shall stand on the
rock. Now, whenever my glory passes by, then I will put you in a hole of
the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by. And I will take
my hand away, and then you shall see my hind parts, but my face will not
appear to you. By means of his allegorical exegesis, Philo refers this passage, as well, to Gods unknowability.18 Philos interpretationwhich, as
will be pointed out, was followed by Origen and Gregory of Nyssais that
Gods existence is easy to grasp, whereas Gods essence is unknowable.
However, the search for God is the noblest among human activities. Thus,
the cognitive impairment of human beings before the divine should not stop
their theo-logical investigation. In On Flight 165, too, Philo interprets
Exod. 33:23 (you shall see my hind parts, but my face will not appear to
you) in the sense that only what is behind God, at his back, is knowable to human beings:
God says: You will see my back parts [# (], but my face
[ ] you will not behold. For it is sufficient for the
wise man to know what comes after and follows [# "
*  ], and the things which are after God [+ # 
]; but he who wishes to see the principal Essence [ '
/ ] will be blinded by the exceeding brilliancy of
its rays before he can see it.19
The visual metaphor of blindness due to the excessive brightness of the
divine essence is typical of Philo.20 As will be demonstrated below, Gregory
of Nyssa followed Philo in his exegesis of precisely this biblical passage in
Philo The Special Laws 1.32.50.
Philo On Flight 165.
20
Francesca Calabi, La luce che abbaglia: una metafora della inconoscibilita` di Dio in
Filone, in Origeniana, vol. 8, Origene e la tradizione alessandrina, ed. Lorenzo Perrone
(Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 22332.
18
19

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Ramelli The Divine in Ancient Platonism

reference to apophaticism; more specifically, Gregory read Philos words

through the filter of Origen.21
IV. PLOTINUS
Like the Jewish exegete Philo, the pagan Neoplatonist Plotinus was also
convinced that it was impossible for human beings to comprehend and
describe the essence of God. This is the supreme principle, what Plotinus
calls the One or 0E. For him, humans can only cognitively grasp, understand and express what is around the divinity and what concerns it or
# * 
 (exactly this notion will appear again in the writings of
Gregory of Nyssa, who was very well acquainted with Plotinuss thought).
Already Numenius, a Neopythagorean and Middle Platonist well known to
Plotinus as well as to Origen, maintained that the first Intellect [
],
which is called absolute Being, is entirely unknown to humans. 22 The
One, however, for Plotinus is even beyond Being, just as it is beyond the
Intellect (N
). The latter proceeds from the One as a second hypostasis
or principle, but the One is above it.
According to Plotinus, human cognitive sight and language imply a
separation between the subject who sees and speaks, and the object of this
sight and speaking. As a result, human intellection and language pertain
not to the One, but to duality; as such, they begin only at the level of the
Intellect, one step after the One.23 Therefore, the One, the supreme principle
David Bradshaw, The Vision of God in Philo of Alexandria, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 483500. Philo was received in Patristic mysticism more
than in ancient Jewish mysticism; on the latter see e.g. Peter Schaefer, The Hidden and
Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: SUNY Press,
1992); Daniel Matt, Varieties of Mystical Nothingness: Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist
Perspectives, Studia Philonica Annual 9 (1997): 31631; Joseph Dan, Ancient Jewish
Mysticism (New York: Mod Books, 1990); Ori Soltes, Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam: Searching for Oneness (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).
22
fr. 17 Des Places. Numenius, Fragments, ed. Edouard Des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1973). On the use of negative theology in Neopythagoreanism: John Whittaker,
Neupythagoreismus und negative Theologie, in Der Mittelplatonismus, ed. Clemens
Zintzen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 16986  Symbolae
Osloenses 44 (1969): 10925. On negative theology in Platonism, see Deirdre Carabine,
The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition. Plato to Eriugena
(Louvain: Peeters, 1995).
23
These are protological principles, ". For the relationship between protology and
mathematics in Plotinus see Svetla Slaveva Griffin, Plotinus on Number (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009). On Plotinuss use of language in relation to the One see Frederic
M. Schroeder, Plotinus and Language, in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed.
Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: University Press, 1996), 33655; and Sara Rappe, Reading
21

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of Plotinuss metaphysics, is unspeakable and intellectually invisible,

that is, incomprehensible; it is an impossible object of the human cognitive
faculty. This is because the One, as already mentioned, is anterior and superior to the Intellect, which is the second principle in Plotinuss metaphysical
scheme, and qua talis is inferior to the One. Plotinuss triad of first principlesthe three "* 12: the One, the Intellect, and the Soulis
indeed strictly hierarchical. The second principle derives from, and is subordinated to, the first; in turn the third principle derives from, and is subordinated to, the second.24 Thus, the One comes before, and is beyond, any
human act of intellection and any cognitive grasp. This is why we humans
can only limit ourselves to say something that concerns it or that is
about/around it.25
Plotinus explains the main reason why it is impossible to touch and
grasp the One: because the One, which is beyond Being (
), is infinite (), and it is ridiculous to try to grasp and circumscribe what is infinite by nature.26 Plotinus also uses the reverse argument:
not only can the One not be grasped intellectually because it is infinite, but
moreover it is infinite because its power cannot be grasped or encompassed:
It is necessary to conceive the One as infinite . . . because its power is
impossible to comprehend.27 As will be demonstrated, this argument is
also paramount for Gregory of Nyssas negative theology, which owes
much to that of Plotinus. Plotinus insists that the One, which is infinite, can
be contemplated only on the basis of finite realities, because humans cannot
grasp the infinite and indefinite (, " ): If your mind cannot
find anything definite because the One is none of these things, you just stick
to these, and contemplate on their basis.28
In Plotinuss view, the One can be known and expressed only in the
negative: We say what is not, but what is, we cannot say.29 This is the
Neoplatonism: Non-Discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
24
On the possible influence of Origen on Porphyrys characterization of Plotinuss three
principles see Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Origen, Greek Philosophy, and the Birth of the Trinitarian Meaning of Hypostasis, Harvard Theological Review 105 (2012): 30250. A
systematic comparison between Origen and Plotinuss thought is badly needed. The only
work available so far is Henri Crouzel, Orige`ne et Plotin. Comparaison doctrinale (Paris:
Tequi, 1991).
25
* 
: Enneads 5.3.1314.
26
 #      2: Enneads 5.5.6.15.
27
 3 *   45
 "4
 2: Enneads 6.9.6.1011.
28
6 ' + 3  , " 4
 74,
  6
, * "
 5: Enneads 6.9.7.
29
 8  9: 8  ,  : Enneads 5.3.14.5. Raoul Mortley,

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essence of what is called negative theology or apophaticism. The use

of many negative adjectives in reference to the supreme principle or first
divinity was already deployed in Middle Platonism: for instance, ,
ineffable, , unspeakable, ", impossible to circumscribe,  9 , unlimited, etc.30 This trend will continue in
pagan and Christian Platonism as well, as will soon be clear. According
to Plotinus, due to the very superiority of the One to the Intellect, to Being,
and to finitude, humans can have no knowledge of the One on the cognitive-epistemological plane: neither knowledge nor intellective intuition of
it.31 This would later be emphasized by Proclus.32 For this reason it is
necessary for the soul to go far from science and all of its objects, because
every knowledge and every science implies a multiplicity and therefore
detaches the soul from unity and the One itself. In fact, whenever the intellect knows, this immediately produces a duality of knower and known:
For science is reasoning, and reasoning entails multiplicity [
# /  # 3 ; ]. In this way the soul fails to
attain the One, because it falls into number and multiplicity [6
" *

]. . . . The intellect that knows [

] cannot even remain simple itself [3  

<
] . . . since it will make itself double [2 #  ].33
Negative Theology and Abstraction in Plotinus, American Journal of Philology 96
(1975): 36367; Mortley, The Fundamentals of Via Negativa, American Journal of
Philology 103 (1982): 42939. Cf. Marie Anne Vannier, Aux sources de la voie negative, Revue des sciences religieuses 72 (1998): 40319; Giovanni Zuanazzi, Pensare
lassente-Alle origini della teologia negativa (Rome: Citta` Nuova, 2005); William Franke,
On What Cannot Be Said, Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and
the Arts, vol. 1. Classic Formulations (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
2007). See also Richard Gale, Mysticism and Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy 57
(1960): 47181; Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1961);
Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven Katz (London: Sheldon, 1978); Jerome
Gellman, Mystical Experience of God: a Philosophical Enquiry (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2001).
30
See Henny F. Hagg, Clement of Alexandria and the Beginning of Christian Apophaticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 15962; Calabi, ed., Arrhetos Theos.
31
3
 3 9 
: Enneads 5.3.14.
32
On Procluss use of silence and negative theology in the approach to the One see Mark
Edwards, Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2013), 16567 ; also Carlos Steel, Beyond the Principle of Contradiction? Proclus Parmenides and the Origin of Negative Theology, in Die Logik der Transzendentalen, ed.
Martin Pickave (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 58199.
33
Plotinus Enneads 6.9.4; 5.3.10.4344. On Plotinus Intellect as one and many see now
Alexandrine Scnhiewind, Le statut des objets intelligibles chez Alexandre dAphrodise
et Plotin, in Plato Revived. Essays on Ancient Platonism in Honour of Dominic J.
OMeara, eds. Filip Karfk & Euree Song (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 2740: here 3637.

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Union with the One must therefore escape the duality of knowledge
and expression.34 It is especially noteworthy that Plotinus in this connection
shows the awareness of the following tension on the cognitive and communicative plane. The One cannot be expressed or even thought, since this
immediately implies a duality and multiplicity, but the philosopher, nevertheless, does speak of it. He or she does so not in a positive or assertive way,
but by way of indication, to give hints to those who want to contemplate:
The One cannot be said or writtenand nevertheless we speak
and write, to lead people toward it [ 6  ] and to
awaken them from the slumber of words / reasonings to the wake
of contemplation [" 
 *  ], as
though we indicated the way [= ; ] to those
who want to contemplate.35
This methodological statement by Plotinus is also fundamental to keep the
mystical union with the One (which he is going to describe) within the
realm and scope of philosophy. Union with the One thus becomes a kind of
apophatic culmination of the theological branch of philosophy. At the same
time, Plotinus likely wanted to mark the distinction between this union at
the limit of philosophy and any such experience promoted by mystery religions. Plotinuss philosophical theology is notoriously different from later
Neoplatonists religious-theurgical drift. Olympiodorus classified Proclus,
together with his inspirers Iamblichus and Syrianus, among the religious
exponents of Neoplatonism, as opposed to the philosophical exponents
such as Plotinus and Porphyry: Some, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, etc.,
give priority to philosophy; others, such as Iamblichus, Syrianus, Proclus,
and the whole priestly school, give priority to the priestly art, >.36
For Plotinus the One cannot be known intellectually (by the intuitive
intellect,
), let alone reached by means of a discursive approach
(through 2 or discursive reason), but can be contemplated in ecstasy.
At the epistemological level, this difference is decisive. Philosophical discourse on God, on the supreme Principle (the One), is a hint to mystical
union with God. Humans cannot gaze at God, neither with their physical
nor with their intellectual sight, but they can experience God in another
way: in a mystical experience. This is an ecstasy, a mystical union:
Nelson Pike, Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992).
35
Plotinus Enneads 6.9.4.
36
Damascius, Commentary on Platos Phaedo 1.172.
34

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The comprehension [] of the One can be attained neither

through science [' ] nor through intellection [#
], as in the case of the other intelligible beings, but thanks
to a presence [# ] that means more than science
[ ]. . . . The One is present [7].37
This reception, which is meta-cognitive proper, is called by Plotinus
, trust/faith, a term which in Plotinus receives a much more positive
connotation than in Plato. Indeed, Plato ranked  with 6 (representation, apprehension through shadows, conjecture) at the lower tiers
of knowledge, far inferior to discursive reason (2) and intuitive intellect (
). However, Plotinuss  bears a different sense than
Christian , faith.38 This act of meta-cognitive comprehension for
Plotinus is not an epistemic possession, which, as has been pointed out,
would immediately imply dualism and separation. Rather, it is the action
of receiving the One as present, in an authentic union:
It will be sufficient to be able to touch it in an intelligible way
[
 2] [. . .] Only later will it be possible to reflect
[] on it. But in that instant it is necessary to believe
[] that one has seen it [. . .] it is necessary to think that it
is present [ @]39
This presence of the One in trust/faith allows the human subject to
touch it (2). This touching is something better and greater
than knowing it or 6, the verb that expresses the cognitive grasping
of objects.40 This experience can be done only by means of abstraction from
everything else. Indeed,  2, remove everything, is Plotinuss
Plotinus Enneads 6.9.4. Kevin Corrigan, Solitary Mysticism in Plotinus, Proclus,
Gregory of Nyssa, and the Pseudo-Dionysius, Journal of Religion 76 (1996): 2842; cf.
Curtis L. Hancock, Negative Theology in Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. R.T. WallisJ. Bregman (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1992), 16786. Also Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence, I, The Rise and
Fall of Logos; II, The Way of Negation, Christian and Greek (Bonn: Hanstein, 1986);
John Peter Kenney, Ancient Apophatic Theology, in Gnosticism and Later Platonism:
Themes, Figures, and Texts, eds. John Turner and Ruth Majercik (Atlanta: SBL, 2000),
25975.
38
On classical and Christian notions and terminology of faith see Ilaria Ramelli,
Alcune osservazioni su credere, Maia 51 (2000): 6783; and Ramelli, Studi su Fides
(Madrid: Signifer, 2002).
39
Plotinus Enneads 5.3.17.
40
Ibid. 6.6.
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most famous injunction.41 A less pithy and more thoroughly motivated

expression of this principle is found in Enneads 6.9.7.921. Here Plotinus
warns that it is impossible to grasp [
] the One until in the soul
there is the impression [] of something else. Therefore, in order to
contemplate the One, the soul must leave all external realities [2

 9 "] and turn entirely toward its interiority [


  A 2] . . . after giving up knowing everything ["
# 2], first sense-perceptible objects and then the intelligible forms
themselves, one should forget even the knowledge of oneself ["
3 * 1 ]. The negation of all knowledge and the abstraction from all
objects of knowledge bring the soul toward the One in a theology that is
negative in that it draws on such a negation and abstraction. Forgetting
even the knowledge of oneself is the peak of this abstractive process; Christian mystics will build on this and conceive mysticism as a self-offering.42
Abstraction was indicated already in Middle Platonism, by Alcinous,
as a way that leads to some knowledge of God on a par with the analogical
way.43 These would later be labeled via negationis and via analogiae respectively. Likewise Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria presented abstraction
as a way to contemplationClement in particular as a means to ascend to
the first Intellect, N
.44 Porphyry would follow his teacher Plotinus with
regard to abstraction.45
Indeed, for Plotinus the One is present in silence. Since the One has no
existence (  12), one must stop any rational investigation into it
and be silent.46 The One is the silence that remains after the removal of
the Difference that necessarily exists between the subject and the object of
Ibid. 3.17; cf. 6.7.36; 6.8.21.
James Wetzel, What the Saints Know: Quasi-Epistemological Reflections, in The
Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, ed. Julia Lamm (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2013), 55061: There is no conceivable knowledge of God that is not a selfoffering. The inconceivable part is what we receive in return (560). On epistemological
approaches to mysticism: Steven Katz, Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism, in
Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven Katz (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978), 2274; William Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious
Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Michael Stoeber, Constructivist
Epistemologies of Mysticism: A Critique and a Revision, Religious Studies 28 (1992):
10716; Keith Yandell, The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Evan Fales, Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles (New York: Routledge, 2010).
43
Alcinous Teaching 165.1718 H.
44
Plutarch Platonic Questions 3.10011002B; Clement of Alexandria Strom. 5.71.2.
45
Porphyry Sentences Leading to Intelligible Realities 40.
46
  ", *  " 4 4
 74  3 9 :
Plotinus Enneads 6.8.11.1.
41
42

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thinking.47 Silence, like darkness, is the metaphor for the meta-cognitive

experience of the divine that Plotinus postulates. For both imply the negation of any epistemic experience and expressionnot, however, to preclude
any experience of the divine at all, but rather to open the door to a metaepistemic experience, to point to it, as Plotinus himself says.
V. ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA
Origen was a fellow-student of Plotinus at Ammonius Saccass school in
Alexandria, and he can probably be identified with the homonymous Neoplatonist mentioned by Porphyry in the Life of Plotinus, by Proclus, and by
other Neoplatonists.48 Like Philo the Jew, Origen the Christian supported
the thesis of the incomprehensibility of Gods nature or essence on the epistemic plane, and the possibility for humans to know only Gods works and
activities (9 and ):
In the limits of our scarce forces, we have known the divine nature
[divina natura] by considering it more from its works [ex operum
suorum contemplatione] than through our cognitive capacity [ex
nostri sensu contemplatione]. We have observed its visible creatures and have known by faith those invisible, because human
frailty [humana fragilitas] cannot see everything with its eyes and
know everything with its reason [ratione complecti]. For the
human being is the weakest and most imperfect among all rational
beings.49
T 3  , B' 4C
 * . FH # "4   , G
: Enneads 5.1.4.39.
48
Strong arguments for this identification in Pier Franco Beatrice, Porphyrys Judgment
on Origen, in Origeniana, vol. 5, Historica, Text and Method, Biblica, Philosophica,
Theologica, Origenism and Later Developments, ed. Robert J. Daly (Leuven: Peeters,
1992), 35167; Beatrice, Origen in Nemesius Treatise On the Nature of Man, in Origeniana, vol. 9, Origen and the Religious Practice of His Time, ed. Gyorgy Heidl and
Robert Somos (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 531; Thomas Bohm, OrigenesTheologe und
(Neu-) Platoniker? Oder: Wem soll man misstrauen: Eusebius oder Porphyrius? Adamantius 8 (2002): 723; Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian
Platonism: Re-Thinking the Christianisation of Hellenism, Vigiliae Christianae 63
(2009): 21763; Ramelli, Origen the Christian Middle/Neoplatonist, Journal of Early
Christian History 1 (2011): 98130. On the same line most recently, see Elizabeth
DePalma Digeser, A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012), 4971.
49
Origen On First Principles 2.6.1. Regrettably, very little is devoted to Origen in Bogdan
Bucur, Mysticism in the Pre-Nicene Era? in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to
Christian Mysticism, ed. Julia Lamm (Malden-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 13346.
Morealbeit with a different perspective than in the present essayin John Dillon, The
47

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There is something that is precluded to human sight: Gods nature. In

his Commentary on the Gospel of John 19.6.3538, in a passage that will
exert a strong influence on Gregory of Nyssa, Origen claims that Gods
nature and power ( and )50 are even beyond being ().
Thus, humans cannot reach them: they cannot see and observe (;
 )
or contemplate () or perceive () them, but barely peer
at () them. This is precisely a verb for a difficult object of observation, be it physical or intellectual sight (i.e. cognitive faculty).
According to Origen, the Godhead cannot be known by human reason,51 and yet it is mysteriously intelligible, intelligible thanks to an ineffable power or faculty ("  4 2 ), even though it
transcends everything.52 In particular, God transcends being or  and
intellect or
,53 but at the same time is also the supreme Being.54 Indeed,
only the invisible and incorporeal nature ( " * "7)
of God is Being in the fullest and most proper sense.55 Every other being is
a being, an , exclusively by virtue of participation in the Being that is
God.56
Origen felt the need to maintain the identity between God and the
absolute Being because of Exod. 3:14, which in the Septuagint reads: 7
6 ; I, I am the One who Is. This, from the biblical side; but he also
wanted to stick to Platos identification of the Being and the Good. The
divinity is the Good and the Being, while evil, its opposite, is non-being.
This idea will return in Gregory of Nyssa and other Christian Platonists
such as Evagrius, Ps. Dionysius, and Maximus the Confessor. Origen, for
instance, declares that evils are not substances / beings.57 Unlike creatures, which are good insofar as they participate in the Good, the divinity
is the Good. It is the Good itself,  a Numenian termby
essence.58 God is the absolute Good, the Good per se.
Knowledge of God in Origen, in Knowledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World, ed.
John Dillon and Jaap Mansfeld (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 21928.
50
Gods essence/nature and power also appear coupled in Origens Commentary on the
Gospel of John 20.24.207.
51
Origen Against Celsus 6.65.
52
2 : ibid., 7.45.
53
Ibid., 6.64; 7.38.
54
: ibid., 6.64 and On First Principles 1.3.5.
55
 : Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 20.18.159; cf. invisible
and incorporeal essence,  " * "7 said of God in Origen Against
Celsus 6.71.
56
Origen, Against Celsus 6.64.
57
 9  # 2: Origen, Philoc. 24.4.
58
' : Origen Selected Passages from the Exegesis of the Book of Numbers,
Patrologia Graeca 12.577D.

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If God is the absolute Good, Origen deduces that Gods power

() must also be good and Gods operation or activity ()
manifests itself in the goodness of the divine creation and divine Providence.59 That essence, power, and activity in God must be considered in a
unitary way was also Iamblichuss view,60 on the pagan side of Neoplatonism. Iamblichus knew Origens thought and seems to have been influenced by it in various respects, as is emerging from ongoing research.
After speaking of the epistemic process of deducing Gods essence on
the basis of Gods activity and works in creation, Origen describes God as
a Monad and Henad (a unity) in On First Principles 1.1.6. Since God is
an intelligible nature and not material or corporeal, Origen argues, the
Godhead is simple [intellectualis natura simplex]; absolutely nothing can
be added to it . . . but it is a Monad [2] in an absolute sense, and, so
to say, a Henad [2]: intelligence and spring from which every intelligence
gushes out. This passage is extant in Rufinus of Aquileias Latin translation, but it is noteworthy that Rufinus chose to leave Origens original
Greek terms for monad and henad, without translating them. This is
probably because he considered them to be technical terms. Thus, in Origens view, the Godhead is the principle of everything, and therefore we
must not deem it composite. This absolute simplicity takes God away from
the grasp of human knowledge, just as it does the One according to Plotinus, as has been pointed out above.
Consistent with this, in On First Principles 1.1.5 Origen illustrates the
excellence and cognitive incomprehensibility of the Godhead, who is
incomprehensible and impenetrable in its reality. Every human thought is
inevitably inferior to, and cannot grasp, the Godhead itself, just as a spark
is infinitely inferior to the splendor of the sun. So is human intelligence
inferior to the intellectual and spiritual realities, and these in turn are
inferior to God. God is superior to all of these, ineffably and inestimably
excellent. This is a development of the Platonic metaphysical model of transcendence.

VI. GREGORY OF NYSSA

Gregory of Nyssa, the youngest and most philosophically minded of the
Cappadocian Fathers, is the most insightful follower of Origen and the
59
60

Origen On First Principles 2.9.1; 3.5.2; 4.4.8.

Iamblichus On Mysteries 1.5.18.

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greatest Patristic Platonist along with Origen himself and Augustine of

Hippo. His reflections on apophaticism are marked by a profound influence
of Philo and, above all, of Origen and Plotinus. Indeed, he was very well
acquainted with the works and thought of all of these Platonists.
In his Homilies on Ecclesiastes Gregory interprets Ecclesiastes 3:7 (a
verse concerning a time to speak and a time to be silent) as follows: The
time to be silent is when one wants to investigate the nature of God,
whereas the time to speak is when one wants to announce the wonders of
his works.61 Like Plotinus, Gregory thinks that the very essence or nature
of God is impossible to express and must lie in silence. In Against Eunomius
2.1.105, Gregory declares that divine realities, which exceed both word
and discursive thought [# 13 * 2], must be honored with silence (4

 ). What can be grasped cognitively and
can therefore be expressed is Gods activity in the world, first of all the
Creation.62 Like Plotinus, Philo, and Origen, indeed, Gregory maintains
that Gods nature or essence () is known only in the impossibility of
being understood [
]. 63 This is why Gregory, for instance,
in his dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrectionan intentional Christian
remake of Platos Phaedo64 uses a great many negative adjectives in reference to God. For example, God is invisible, unspeakable, impossible to
define, incorporeal, immaterial, impalpable, unlimited, non-dimensional,
and Gods essence is inaccessible. Gods essence is a precluded cognitive
object, and its characteristics must be inferred by analogy; its existence is
revealed by the contemplation of the world (Psalm 18:2: The heavens are
telling of divine glory, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork).
Like Plotinus, in fact, Gregory maintains that only by analogy can God
be known, and this to a very limited extent. In his Homilies on the Song of
Songs Gregory remarks that, since Gods infinite nature is inaccessible to
human minds, we must proceed by conjecture. We must start from our
knowledge of the world, and try to represent to ourselves the incomprehensible by means of what we can comprehend, on the basis of a certain
analogy.65
Gregorii Nysseni Opera 5 p. 414.
Especially on Gregory of Nyssa see also Philipp Renczes, The Patristic Notion of
Divine Grace on the Horizon of Apophatic Theology, in Silenzio e parola nella patristica (Rome: Augustinianum, 2012), 3953.
63
Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius 1.373.
64
On this dialogue, with commentary, see Ilaria Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa Sullanima
e la resurrezione (Milan: BompianiCatholic University, 2007); reviews by Panayiotis
Tzamalikos, Vigiliae Christianae 62 (2008): 51523; and Mark Edwards, Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 60 (2009): 76465.
65
9 ": Gregorii Nysseni Opera 6.3638.
61
62

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The infinity of God is a crucial point in Gregory of Nyssas negative

theology, and this point partially depends on Plotinus.66 The latter, as demonstrated earlier, used the following double argument: not only that the
One cannot be grasped intellectually because it is infinite, but also that it is
infinite because its power cannot be grasped or encompassed. The same
argument is repeated by Gregory of Nyssa, who draws on both Plotinus
and Origen on this score: the divinity is impossible to grasp precisely
because it is infinite.67 Gods nature is consequently impossible to touch
and conceive (", " ), and it is superior to any grasp
["] provided by reasoning.68
Gregory, like Plotinus (and Philo), ascribed infinity to Godbut not to
evil. Only what is contrary to Beauty and the Good is limited, whereas
the Good, whose nature is not susceptible of evil, will progress toward the
unlimited and infinite.69 Gregory thus posited God as , and evil as
limited, in that it is the opposite of God. It is not to be ruled out that
Gregory was consciously correcting Plotinus, who, in turn following
Plato, described as  both absolute evil and the One.70 Gregory
probably realized that, if evil is  and the One / Good / Godhead too
is , there is not enough opposition between the two, which therefore risk telescoping into one another.
Gregory of Nyssas apophatic theologythe awareness that the divinity in itself can be known and spoken of only in negative termsrefers
to the specific area of Gods transcendence. Gods nature or essence
( or ), infinite as it is, cannot be known, whereas Gods activities or operations () can be known and spoken of. This is the
same line as Philos and Origens. In his treatise To Ablabius: There Are
Not Three Gods, Gregory states that names do not reveal Gods nature,
what the Godhead is in its essence, since this is unnamable and ineffable (" * ). Rather, names describe something of what pertains to it (literally: what is about/around it [*
Although the connection with Plotinus is not investigated, the centrality of Gods infinity to Gregorys apophaticism is caught by Ari Ojell, The Constitutive Elements of the
Apophatic System of Gregory of Nyssa, in Studia Patristica, vol. 41, eds. Frances Young,
Mark Edwards, and Sarah Parvis (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 397402; and Robert Brightman, Apophatic Theology and Divine Infinity in St. Gregory of Nyssa, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 18 (1973): 97114.
67
Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius 1.6668.
68
Ibid., 2.158, with the very same terminology as used by Plotinus.
69
  " * "  " : Gregory of Nyssa
On the Soul and the Resurrection 97AB.
70
Plotinus Enneads 1.8.9.
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]: an idea pointed out above in Plotinus and very well known to
Gregory). Now, this something does not at all indicate what divine
nature is in its essence [' ].71
The divinity, invisible in its nature, becomes visible in its works, and
can thus be understood by human intellects in some respects concerning its
nature (literally, again: about/around it [* ]). Here, too, Gregory relies not only on Plotinus, but also on Origen, Against Celsus 6.65,
who used in a similar sense the expression what is around/about, #
. This phrase in turn was already employed by Clement of Alexandria,
between the second and the third century ce, in a passage that deals precisely with the abstractive process in the human cognitive grasp of God.72
Origen elaborated on the same concept and expression in Commentary on
the Gospel of John 13.21.124: it is possible to find in Scripture clues to say
something () regarding Gods nature or essence, * 
.
The same concept and expression is also found in Plotinus, in Enneads
5.3.14: the One is ineffable,   , because to say something about it
is, after all, to say something, , but the One is not merely some thing,
that is, a thing among all others. The very same idea and expression will be
found again in another Origenian, a milestone in Christian apophaticism: the early sixth-century Neoplatonist called Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, who was deeply influenced by Proclus.73
Gregory specifically follows Philo in his interpretation of Exod. 20:21,
the passage in which Moses enters the darkness where God is.74 Like Philo
and Origen after him, Gregory draws a distinction between Gods essence
or nature, unknowable, and Gods existence, knowable and actually
known. He draws the same connection as Philo did between Exod. 20:21
(Moyses went into the darkness where God was) and Psalm 17:12 (He
made darkness his hideaway; around him was his tent, dark water in clouds
of air) in reference to the very same allegorical interpretation of the cognitive inaccessibility of Gods nature. Now, this connection had already been
Gregorii Nysseni Opera 3/1.4243.
Clement of Alexandria Miscellany 5.11.71.3.
73
Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite Heavenly Hierarchy 2.3. On his negative theology I limit
myself to referring to the most recent work, Charles Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity
in Dionysius the Areopagite: No longer I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). On
Ps. Dionysius in the tradition of Christian mysticism see Andrew Louth, The Origins
of the Christian Mystical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); cf. Louth,
Mysticism: Name and Thing, Archaeus 9 (2005): 921; Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, vol. 1. The Foundations of
Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991); McGinn, ed., The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism (New York: Modern Library, 2006).
74
Gregory of Nyssa The Life of Moses 1.47 and 2.110.
71
72

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established by Origen.75 Gregory very probably depends on Origen on this

score; indeed he often reads Philo through Origen.76 Centuries later, the
same connection will appear again in a classical text of mystical tradition
such as the Cloud of Unknowing.77
Gregory, in The Life of Moses 2.219255 draws on Philo once more
in his allegorical exegesis of Exod. 33:2023, where God says to Moses
that he will be unable to see his face, but he will only see his back. Philo, as
already indicated, referred this passage to Gods unknowability in The Special Laws 1.32.50, and so does Gregory. Gregory indeed follows Philo in
his exegesis of Exod. 33:23 in reference to apophaticism, and, in this case
just as in many others,78 he follows him through the lenses of Origen. Gregory observes that this episode must be interpreted allegorically, since it has
no literal meaning, because it speaks of the back of God. This entails a
notion of corporeality, and therefore an anthropomorphism, which is
absurd in reference to God. God has no back, since God has no body whatsoever. God is incorporeal: this is a tenet of Platonismagainst Stoicism
and Epicureanism, for instance.
On the same grounds Philo also denied any anthropomorphic feature
in God, but Gregorys argument and terminology evidently stick to Origens theory of Scriptural allegoresis in On First Principles 4. Here the
absurdities at the literal level of Scripture (" and , things
that are impossible and illogical according to Aristotelian literary-critic
terminology79) are said to reveal that the passages that include them cannot
be interpreted literally, but must be understood allegorically. Exactly divine
anthropomorphismsthe attribution of human or material characteristics
to Godsuch as the notion of the back of God are a kind of absurdity
that Origen adduced as a reason to reject the literal meaning of a biblical
passage and interpret it allegorically. The notion of Gods face is of course
no less anthropomorphic than that of Gods back, but Philo, Origen, and
Gregory tend not to choose this as an example of blatant anthropomorphism. All of them, however, do interpret both Gods face and Gods back
allegorically.
Origen Against Celsus 6.17; Commentary on the Gospel of John 2.172; and Fragments
from the Exegesis of the Gospel of Luke 162.
76
This has been argued in Ramelli, Philosophical Allegoresis.
77
On this tradition see e.g. Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian
Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
78
As is demonstrated in Ramelli, Philosophical Allegoresis.
79
Aristotle inquired into " in literature, especially myth, in Poetics 1460ab. See
N. J. Richardson, Aristotles Reading of Homer, in Homers Ancient Readers, ed. Robert Lamberton and John Keeney (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3040.
75

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There are further proofs of how Gregory did know Philos exegesis of
a biblical passage, but decided to keep closer to Origens exegesis of that
passage. Gregory links Exod. 33:23 (interpreted as an exhortation to follow
God) with Deut. 13:4, which speaks of walking after God, and with
Psalm 62:9, about sticking to the back of God. The same connection had
been drawn by Origen.80 Gregory, on the other hand, chose not to interpret
the words my back, what is behind me in an eschatological sense.81 In
so doing he left aside the eschatological exegesis of those wordsperhaps
to be traced back to Philo, On Flight 165: what comes after and followswhich Origen knew and developed.82
In the second of Gregory of Nyssas Homilies on the Song of Songs,
the soul, personified as a character in a dialogue, addresses God as follows:
Your Name is beyond any other name and is inexpressible and incomprehensible to any rational being. Likewise in Homily 6: How is it possible
that the One who is beyond every name be found by means of the pronunciation of a name? Indeed, the divine, from the point of view of its
nature, is ungraspable / untouchable ["] and incomprehensible
[" ] . . . ineffable [  ] and inaccessible ["] to
reasoning.83 This is why we know only its existence, and not its essence.84
This is what Philo also maintained, as has been remarked above.
In his sixth Homily on the Beatitudes, Gregory insists that the divine
nature, in what it is per se, is beyond any thought that can comprehend it,
inaccessible and unapproachable to every conjectural intuition. Likewise
in Against Eunomius 2.67ff. he illustrates the impossibility of grasping
intellectually and expressing the divine substance. He does so by interpreting the migration of Abraham as an allegory of the souls ascent to the One,
that is to say, the Plotinian One identified by Gregory with God the Trinity.85 Gregory explains that from knowledge based on sense-perception,
symbolized by Chaldaean wisdom, one can pass on to the intelligible
realm by analogy. Abrahams first acquisition is negative knowledge of God
and the awareness that Gods nature is unknowable:
Origen Fragments from the Exegesis of Psalms, Patrologia Graeca 12.1489B.
# ( : Exod. 33:23.
82
See Origen, Homily on Psalm 36.4: posteriora mea  quae in novissimis temporibus
implebuntur, my back / what is behind me  what will take place in the eschatological
times, at the end of all; Commentary on the Song of Songs 3.4; Homilies on Jeremiah
16.24; On First Principles 2.4.3.
83
Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius 2, Gregorii Nysseni Opera 1.26566.
84
Ibid., 24748.
85
Ibid., 8496.
80
81

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In relation to the concepts [1], he went through every

representation [6] of its nature coming from names, purified
his own rational faculty from such suppositions [1 ], and
received a faith that is absolutely pure from every notion [9].
Then he considered it a sure and clear clue of the knowledge of
God to believe that the Godhead is beyond every sign that provides
its knowledge.86
In Gregorys Homilies on the Song of Songs negative and positive theology intermingle,87 after the model of Origens commentary on the Song
of Songs. In the twelfth homily Gregory hammers home and further develops the same apophatic thesis:
As for what always turns out to be beyond any impression that
can reveal it, how could it ever be understood by means of an
indication included in this or that name? This is why the soul
excogitates every meaning of names, in order to indicate that inexpressible Good, but every discursive capacity of reasoning is
always defeated and declared inferior to the object that it is looking for. This is why the soul says: I have called him as I could,
excogitating words that indicate its inexpressible beatitude, but he
was always superior to the indication suggested by their meanings. The same experience often happens to the great David as
well, who invokes God with an infinity of names, and yet recognizes that he has remained inferior to the truth.
For Gregory, just as for Philo, by means of names we can only say
how God is (
 ), and not what God is [ ].88 Divine names
are established by humans on the basis of each of the divine activities
[] that we know89; the divine is denominated with different
appellatives which refer to its manifold activities.90 Indeed, the divinity,
Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius 2.89.
This is noted by Martin Laird, Apophasis and Logophasis in Gregory of Nyssas Commentarius in Canticum Canticorum, in Studia Patristica, vol. 37, ed. M. F. Wiles and
E. J. Yarnold (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 12632; more broadly Laird, Gregory of Nyssa
and the Grasp of Faith. Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
88
 : To Ablabius Gregorii Nysseni Opera 3/1.56.
89
Ibid., 3/1.44
90
Against Eunomius Gregorii Nysseni Opera 1.315.
86
87

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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS APRIL 2014

who is invisible in its nature, becomes visible in its activities.91 Per se,
God transcends every movement of our mind or 2, the discursive
mind.92 That is to say, the divinity is an inaccessible cognitive object.

VII. CONCLUSION
The notion of the divine as an inaccessible object of human thought and
reasoning is very similar in these philosopher-theologiansPhilo, Plotinus,
Origen, and Gregorywho belonged to the same Platonic philosophical
tradition, but to three different religious traditions. The similarity of their
reflections on the divine as an inaccessible epistemic object for humans,
which can nevertheless be experienced in a meta-cognitive way, seems due
to their common philosophical tradition.
Most interestingly, all of these thinkers show a tension between the
apophaticism they declarerepeatedly proclaiming that the divine is an
impossible object of human thought and languageand the discourse
about the divine (-) that none of them gives up developing. In
order to be able to say something of the divine, notwithstanding all, they
pursue the strategy of differentiation. That is, they establish that the
divines intimate nature or essence is inaccessible, and indeed does not offer
itself as a cognitive object, but that the divine manifests itself in its effects.
For Philo, Origen, and Gregory, moreover, the divine manifests itself
through Scripture. Unlike Plotinus, they considered the Bible to be the revelation of the divinity. However, Plotinus also postulated a direct access to
the divine, not through a cognitive, intellectual process, but through the
mystical experience, which allows one to touch what one cannot see
with the eyes of the body or of the soul. This possibility, too, was admitted
both by Philo and by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. Philosophical discourse
about the divine, theo-logy, is thus described by Plotinus as an indication, a hint, that points to the mystical, non-dualistic experience of an
object (God) that, qua object of knowledge and therefore qua epistemic
object, is inaccessible.
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and Durham University.

91
92

On the Beatitudes Gregorii Nysseni Opera 7/2.141.

Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius 2, Gregorii Nysseni Opera 1.397.

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