HeyJ XLII (2001), pp. 1–12

© The Editor/Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford, UK and Boston, USA.

‘WHEREOF WE SPEAK’: GREGORY OF NYSSA,

JEAN-LUC MARION AND THECURRENT APOPHATIC RAGE

MARTIN LAIRDVillanova University, Pennsylvania, USA

Recent discussions of the possible relevance of the Christian apophatictradition to postmodern theological concerns have become something ofa commonplace. ‘We are all apophatic theologians’, says Denys Turnerwith restrained cheek.1 Many of these discussions have drawn inspirationfrom the work of Jacques Derrida, who himself, while genuinely intriguedby Christian apophaticism, has not been without critical reserve. Pro-vocative, even profitable, as many of these discussions have been, how-ever,2 the parameters of the debate have served ironically to obscure adeeper and crucial dimension of Christian apophasis. The oversight isnot insignificant; what has been overlooked is precisely that dimensionof Christian apophaticism which overcomes the deconstructionist critiqueof the same. The problem can be stated as follows. Deconstructionismhas queried whether indeed Christian apophaticism does not, after all itsnegations, fall back into kataphatic affirmation and into the dreaded onto-theology. Is there not, as Derrida has put it, a trace of ‘hyperessentiality’?3

Is not ‘the modality of apophasis despite its negative or interrogativevalue, … that of the statement’?4 Is not Christian apophaticism ultim-ately trying to make some affirmation?

Responses to Derrida by those who would defend Christian apophat-icism from ontotheology have been neither fainthearted nor imperceptive.5

However, the debate, whether critical or appreciative, has focused almostexclusively on the kataphasis–apophasis dialectic.6 It is precisely thisnarrow focus which has prevented the postmodern gaze from seeing a variegated apophaticism that evinces its own proper discourse, a dis-course that is neither kataphatic nor slips into ontotheology. The purposeof this article, then, is to broaden the horizon of discussion by exposinga discourse proper to apophasis that indeed is not kataphasis butlogophasis, a neologism which I shall explain in due course. To revealthis logophatic dimension of Christian apophasis I shall look at two

apophatic theologians, one patristic, the other postmodern, both ofwhose apophaticism is well acknowledged, namely, the fourth-centuryCappadocian, Gregory of Nyssa and the French philosopher Jean-LucMarion. The advantage of bringing into concert these two thinkers willbe seen in the fact that both evince a thoroughgoing apophaticism thatreveals a transformation opening onto a discourse neither kataphatic nor apophatic, a discourse that does not maintain a residue of hyper-essentialism or transmute its negations into an affirmation.

I. A GARDEN OF WORDS: LOGOPHATIC APOPHATICISM IN GREGORY OF NYSSA

Whether for his tenacious confrontation with Eunomius in the watershedAgainst Eunomius or for the celebrated luminous darkness, which becamehis apophatic signature in the Life of Moses and the Homilies on the Songof Songs, Gregory of Nyssa’s seminal contribution to the developmentof the Christian apophatic tradition has long been acknowledged.7 Thefollowing assertion from the Life of Moses shows the bishop of Nyssa at his most apophatic: any concept that attempts to attain or define thedivine ‘becomes an idol of God and does not make him known’.8 Notonly are concepts incapable of grasping the divine essence, they pose acertain stumbling block for one who would assault the mountain ofdivine knowledge. For Gregory, the First Commandment itself prohibitsthe formation of any conceptual representation of God, and anyone whowould encounter God must leave behind all manner of comprehensionbefore entering the sanctuary of divine presence. Whether it is the bridein the darkness of unknowing, or Paul’s experience of the indwellingChrist, or indeed the Beloved Disciple having laid his head on the Lord’sbreast, Gregorian apophatic experience is characterized by this sheddingof concept, image and speech. However, this is not all there is to Christianapophaticism, at least as embodied by Gregory of Nyssa, and this isprecisely what has been left out of not a few postmodern attempts toweld this tradition to its concerns.

While Gregorian apophaticism is relentlessly consistent in its refusalto allow concepts and speech to grasp the divine essence, the apophaticsilence of divine union is neither mute nor inert. Because for Gregoryapophatic union is union with God the Word (at least in the Homilies on the Song of Songs), there is a characteristic dimension of apophasiswhich might well be termed logophasis.9 By this neologism I intend the following: as a result of apophatic union, in which concepts, wordsand images have been abandoned, characteristics of the Word are takenon; the Word indwells the deeds and discourse of the one in apophaticunion. Hence a new discourse emerges: the Word says itself (hence theterm logophasis) through deeds and discourse. I have coined and employed

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the use of this term lest one think, as the deconstructionist critique sus-pects, that the discourse following upon apophatic experience slips backinto kataphasis, substituting a thinly disguised affirmation. We can bestsee this paradoxical logophasis in the apophatic experience of the bride,Paul and the Beloved Disciple.

For all of the bride’s apophatic gestures of aphairesis10 – her sheddingof concepts, and abandonment of all manner of comprehension – she isparadoxically ever the fountain of potent teaching for the maiden com-panions gathered round her; although she has abandoned discourse in search of apophatic union with the Bridegroom, a garden of wordsblossoms from her mouth.

Homily Six on the Song of Songs provides one of the more represent-ative of these apophatic encounters.11 Embraced by the divine night, thebride begins to ascend through various levels of knowledge. Forsakingsense perception, she ascends to the angelic rank and learns by the silenceof the angels that the Beloved cannot be comprehended. ‘She realizedthat her desired love is known only in unknowing.’12 Therefore, the brideexclaims, ‘I passed by every creature and every intelligible thing increation, and after forsaking every manner of comprehension, I foundmy Beloved by faith. No longer will I let him go once found by the graspof faith.’13

The text is rife with the apophatic motifs: ascent in darkness, aphaireticgestures that abandon levels of conceptual knowledge, the coincidenceof knowing and unknowing, all culminating in union beyond conceptsby means of a faculty reserved for that very purpose.14 However, unionbeyond thought and speech, beyond all manner of comprehension, is notthe only concern of this apophatic text; for the text very quickly movesinto what I have termed logophasis.

After this profoundly apophatic experience of union, the silent chamberof the bride’s heart begins to speak: ‘after this the bride speaks in a lovingmanner to the daughters of Jerusalem.’15 It is important to observe, how-ever, the nature of this speech; it is not characterized by a kataphaticenunciation of divine attributes. In fact, Gregory does not tell us pre-cisely what the bride says; rather he draws attention to the effect of thisdiscourse on her maiden companions.

The bride’s discourse causes the daughters of Jerusalem to ‘rise up … so that the will of the Bridegroom might be accomplished in them as well’.16 The bride’s discourse evokes from her maiden companions the same response that the Bridegroom evoked from her: ascendingdesire. This, then, is the logophatic dimension of apophatic experience:by virtue of the bride’s apophatic union with the Word, her discoursetakes on the power and efficacy of the Word itself. From the bride’s per-spective, apophasis is ascent into the darkness of unknowing, beyondlanguage and concepts that would attempt to grasp God, but from thecompanions’ perspective looking at the bride’s apophatic experience,

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they experience logophasis, the manifestation of the Word in her deedsand discourse. Apophasis, then, involves a double movement, (1) theascent to union with the Word beyond all thought and word, and (2) thedescent of the Word into the world of deeds and discourse. Not capturedby her words, but manifesting itself through them, the Word’s beautystirs the daughters of Jerusalem and causes them to arise.

The logophatic dimension of Gregory’s apophaticism appears withvarying clarity throughout the Homilies on the Song of Songs. In a simpleyet moving image of union in Homily One, the bride places her mouthon the mouth of the Bridegroom, which wells up like a fountain withwords of everlasting life.17 As a result of this union, the bride’s mouth isfilled with word’s of eternal life, and so, in union with the fountain ofthe Word, the bride herself is transformed into a fountain of words,‘wishing all to be saved and desiring every person to share this kiss’.18

The same motif reappears in Homily Nine as we see the bride filled onceagain with discourse as a result of contact with the Word. Her breasts aredescribed as fountains of good teachings, and, as the Bridegroom turnsto behold the bride, he says of her: ‘your heart has become a honeycombfull of every kind of instruction. From your heart’s treasure come yourwords. They are honeyed drops that the Word might be blended withmilk and honey.’19 As the bride’s speech, honeyed with presence, dripsfrom the honeycomb of her mouth, Gregory is keen to emphasize thather words ‘are not merely words, but power’.20

This ‘power’ in the bride’s discourse is the fructifying efficacy of theWord itself, and by virtue of her union with the Word, Gregory says a‘garden blossoms from her mouth’.21 However, this power is not for thebenefit of the bride but for those who hear her speak; for they receiveseeds into their hearts, and these ‘words of faith become a gardenplanted in their hearts’.22 Their hearts, like hers, have become gardens of virtue. As the bride was transformed by virtue of her union with theBridegroom-Word, so those who listen to the bride’s discourse aretransformed; for it is the same Word they encounter.

It is important to point out, however, that her discourse is not a kata-phatic attempt to grasp God with language; it is not language in searchof God (kataphatic), but language that is full of God (logophatic). Sokeen is Gregory to prevent us from thinking that the bride has returnedto kataphatic discourse, transmuting her negations into affirmations, thathe does not even let us know precisely what she says. Gregory empha-sizes instead what the daughters of Jerusalem encounter in the bride’sdiscourse: the ineffable, inscrutable, incomprehensible Word itself. Thelogophatic dimension of apophatic experience is not limited to that ofthe bride; the apophatic experiences of Paul and the Beloved Disciplelikewise reveal this dimension of logophasis.

Paul, ‘made radiant from darkness’,23 is in many respects an apophaticfigure for Gregory. In Homily Three on the Song of Songs, he sees Paul

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initiated into the ineffable, where he hears what cannot be pronounced(cf. 2 Cor 12:4).24 While the divine nature cannot be spoken by Paul, thedivine nature can itself speak through Paul. Having become a dwellingplace of Christ through union by faith, ‘Paul showed forth Christ livingin him and gave proof of Christ speaking in him’.25 Because it is the Wordwho speaks through Paul, Paul has a transforming effect on those aroundhim. Thus Titus, Silvanus and Timothy are transformed when they inhalePaul’s scent, which contains the indwelling Christ.26 In Homily Fourteenon the Song of Songs, Paul’s discourse bears the transforming characterof the ineffable Word who indwells him. Hence, when Thekla hearsPaul’s discourse, ‘these flowing drops of myrrh’, she herself is trans-formed into a divine dwelling place: ‘After this teaching … the Wordalone lived in her.’27 Paul, united with the Word who cannot be graspedby discourse, is transformed and becomes a vehicle of the transforming,ineffable Word. From the perspective of Paul, it is an apophatic encounter,but from the perspective of Thekla listening to Paul, the encounter islogophatic. Again Gregory does not reveal what Paul actually did or said;instead emphasis is placed on the transforming efficacy of the deeds anddiscourse: the Word itself.

The Beloved Disciple is another apophatic figure who exhibits the samelogophatic dimension that we see in the bride and in Paul. In the Life ofMoses it is none other then John who announces Gregory’s apophaticcarte d’entrée by entering the ‘luminous darkness’ and claiming that no ‘conceptual grasp of the divine essence can be attained’.28 In HomilyOne on the Song of Songs, the Beloved Disciple assumes a different butlikewise apophatic posture. Reclining on the Lord’s breast, John placeshis heart like a sponge on the breast of the Lord. As he rests there silentlyhe is ‘filled with an ineffable transmission of the mysteries hidden deeplywithin the heart of the Lord’.29 However, instead of resting there on theLord’s breast, the Beloved Disciple takes the breast of the Word uponwhich he has lain and offers us the good things he has received and bythis deed ‘proclaims the Word who exists from age to age’.30 In the Lifeof Moses Gregory states emphatically that any concept of God becomesan idol and ‘does not proclaim God’.31 John’s proclamation does notcontradict this. Rather, by virtue of his being drawn into the depths ofthe ineffable Word, he is drawn into the Word’s incarnational dynamismof expressive transformation. John’s proclamation is not grounded inconceptual idolatry but, as in the case of the bride and of Paul, in theWord, who unclenches the tight grasp of concepts and speaks in thedeeds and discourse of the Beloved Disciple.

In contrast to kataphatic discourse which affirms something aboutGod, logophatic discourse affirms nothing; nor does it attempt to reachGod by means of speech. We recognize logophatic discourse by its loca-tion within an apophatic context and by its effects on those attendant.Logophatic discourse evokes in them the same response that the Word

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evokes in the bride and Paul: ascent to union, divine indwelling. Dis-course abandoned in apophasis is discourse indwelled, redeemed, anddeified in logophasis.

II. FROM THEOLOGY TO THEOLOGY: LOGOPHATIC APOPHATICISM IN JEAN-LUC MARION

With the publication of Dieu sans l’être, Jean-Luc Marion consolidateshis position as one of the most significant Christian apophaticists ofpostmodernity.32 While Marion certainly does not evince the grand, apo-phatic gestures of anabasis and aphairesis that Gregory does, the motifsare there, however restrained; and even so, if not the words, indeed theres. Moreover, as in Gregory of Nyssa, we see Marion’s apophaticismopen onto that dimension of apophaticism that we are calling logophasis.

A chapter which has not enjoyed the critical reception and explorationit deserves, ‘Of the Eucharistic Site of Theology’ reveals the apophaticblossoming of the rather more critically excavated chapters that pre-cede.33 While indeed Marion’s apophaticism has led to the treasure ofsilence, a dignified silence free from idolatry, this silence is neither mutenor inert. Citing Denys the Areopagite, Marion suggests that we are ledparadoxically to become ‘messengers … announcing the divine silence’.34

From here he goes on to say something about the nature of theology andthe theologian: ‘Theology can reach its authentically theological statusonly if it does not cease to break with all theology.’35 Somehow withinthe treasures of silence there is still a role for discourse.

But what of this discourse? Is Marion not doing exactly what Turnerwarned of by saying that ‘in the end there is speech and not silence’.36 IsMarion, in other words, suggesting a return to kataphatic discourse? Is he transmuting apophatic denials into kataphatic assertions? On thecontrary, like Gregory of Nyssa, Marion is suggesting something farmore subtle and paradoxical, and this is precisely what postmodernity’saffair with the apophatic tradition has not recognized and what indeedestablishes Jean-Luc Marion and Gregory of Nyssa as theologians inconcert: for Marion too a new discourse emerges from the depths (orheights) of apophatic silence. This new discourse, however, is not a returnto kataphatic language searching for God, but a transformation of dis-course into language that is full of God; what we called in Gregory ofNyssa ‘logophasis’. Moreover, this transformation of discourse in Mariontakes place for the same reason it does in Gregory of Nyssa; abandon-ment of language, image and concept (the aphairetic gesture) leads to an encounter, indeed union, with the Word, as a result of which, Marion’stheologian, in abandoning discourse, is paradoxically said by the Word:theology becomes theology.

While Marion’s theology is not sealed in waxen biblical figures suchas the bride, Paul or the Beloved Disciple,37 if one were to take Marion’s

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theologian as one such figure,38 we would find something rather similarto the logophatic characters we find in Gregory of Nyssa. Marion saysof the theologian:

It is not a question, for the ‘theologian’, of reaching that which his discourse speaks… of God, but of abandoning his discourse and every linguistic initiative to theWord, in order to let himself be said by the Word, as the word lets himself be saidby the Father – him, and in him, us also. In short, our language will be able to speakof God only to the degree that God, in his Word, will speak our language and teach usin the end to speak it as he speaks it – divinely, which means to say in all abandon.39

In the attempt to reach God, Marion’s theologian, like Gregory’s bride,abandons discourse. This aphairetic gesture is more than simple refrainfrom speech. For in the apophatic tradition, as we have seen in the caseof Gregory’s bride, the aphairetic abandonment of images, concepts, andwords propels the apophatic ascent into deeper silence. And in whatMarion calls a ‘docile abandon’ the theologian lets himself ‘be said …to the point that … God speaks in our speech, just as in the words of theWord sounded the unspeakable Word of his Father’.40

In these particular texts Marion does not specify why the theologian’sapophatic abandonment of discourse transforms the theologian into thelogophatic discourse of the Word. Elsewhere, however, he is rather clearthat this transformation is due to an encounter with the Word, and in one important text this encounter is described as union.41 Other textsdesignate the encounter less boldly and merely hover over the notion ofunion.

In a curious parallel to the patristic exegetical strategy of moving fromsignum to res, Marion says that if the teacher is to become a theologian,he or she must aim ‘in the text at the referent’.42 This aiming at the refer-ent Marion later calls ‘going through the text … to receive the lesson ofcharity’. 43 This movement would seem not to be a discursive movement,however, for Marion says it is ‘extrascientific’.44 It is here that Marionmakes a rather subtle alignment between the theologian’s ‘abandoninghis discourse and every linguistic initiative to the Word’45 and this non-discursive movement of ‘aiming at the referent’ or ‘going through thetext’. In Gregory of Nyssa it is precisely the dynamic of aphairesis, ofengaged and vigilant abandonment of thoughts, images and language,that propels one into the silence of the Word and indeed to union with theWord. Likewise for Marion, or so it would seem: ‘here is the qualification,extrascientific but essential, that makes the theologian: the referent isnot taught, since it is encountered by mystical union. And yet, one mustspeak of him … Only the saintly person knows whereof he speaks intheology, …’.46 It should be emphasized that when Marion says ‘onemust speak of him’, he does not intend that as a result of this union onecan somehow make God an object of discourse; for just earlier he hassaid that if theology speaks of God, ‘this of is understood as much as

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the origin of the discourse as its objective (I do not say object … )’.47 ForMarion, then, this ‘access to the referent’,48 this ‘transgressing the textby the text, as far as the Word’49 is tantamount to the aphairetic processof abandonment of discourse that leads to apophatic union. However, forboth Marion and Gregory of Nyssa, this provokes a new discourse. ‘Andyet we must speak of him.’ Moreover, for both Marion and Gregory thisnew discourse is not a departure from the apophatic but the gracedfruition of apophatic union with the Word. This new, logophatic discourse,the theology, that results from union with the Word is not a return to the‘distinguished blasphemy’,50 that presumes to have God as its object;rather the theologian ‘lets himself be said by the Word’.51 In logophaticdiscourse it is the Word who speaks.

How does Marion describe this new discourse? It is certainly not areturn to a discourse that would attempt to enclose God in a concept.52

Rather, as a result of the union of which Marion speaks, this trans-gression of the text by the text as far as the Word, in which discourseconcerning God is abandoned, the Word becomes incarnate in humanwords. ‘[The Word] proffers himself in them, not because he says them;he proffers himself in them because he exposes himself in them … byincarnating himself. Thus speaking our words, the Word redoubles hisincarnation … ’.53

Marion suggests neither that we become subjects of divine ventrilo-quism nor that our discourse about God having been abandoned is takenup again by the Word. For the Word, in whom is abolished the gap be-tween the sign and the referent, ‘does not speak words inspired by Godconcerning God … ’.54 Rather, as in the case of Paul, who is the locus ofdivine indwelling in Gregory’s Homily Three on the Song, the Word‘says himself – the Word. Word, because he is said and proffered throughand through … He says himself, and nothing else, for nothing elseremains to be said outside of this saying of the said … ’.55

Passing from signum to res, from text to referent, from ‘the words tothe Word’, abandoning every linguistic initiative,56 the theologianbecomes theologian as the Word becomes incarnate in human wordswithout being enclosed by them. Unspeakable to us, the Word saysitself in human discourse. ‘Labile inhabitant of our babble, it in-habits our babble nevertheless as referent.’57 The Word has become thesite for theology, where the theologian imitates ‘the Theologiansuperior to himself’,58 securing for himself this place were the Word inperson silently speaks.59

III. CONCLUSION

At a recent conference on religion and postmodernism,60 Marion chal-lenged Derrida’s claim that Christian apophaticism left a residue of

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hyperessentiality, that the apophatic ‘transmutes into affirmation its …negativity’.61 Marion claimed that Derrida did not see that both apophasisand kataphasis ‘in the end yield to a third way’.62 This ‘third way’, asMarion terms it, ‘does not hide an affirmation beneath a negation,because it means to overcome their duel, just as it means to overcomethat between the two truth values wherein metaphysics plays itself out… [N]egation itself submits its very own operation, and above all itsduel with affirmation, to the final transgression.’63

What is this final transgression, this third way? Marion calls it ‘de-nomination’, a non-predicative discourse that is ‘no longer a matterof saying something about something … It’s a matter of being exposed.’64

Marion’s third way, that is neither kataphatic nor apophatic, I havetermed logophatic. The term ‘logophatic’ has the advantage of gestur-ing more directly towards that to which one is ‘exposed’, i.e., the Word;as the apophatic gives way to the vast landscape of its own furtherreaches, one is exposed to, indeed united with, the Word. How doeslogophasis as seen in Gregory and Marion hold up to the decon-structionist critique?

We have seen that logophatic discourse occurs within an already well-established apophatic context, flagged by apophatic terminology andstrategies. There is no suggestion by the texts themselves that theparadoxical discourse of logophasis is ‘surreptitiously smuggling in andre-establishing an affirmation’.65 Examining the logophatic discourse ofGregory’s bride, Paul and the Beloved Disciple, and Marion’s theologian,we saw that their logophatic discourse was never a question of positingGod as an object and then predicating something of this object.Logophatic discourse is not trying to reach God with speech; nor does it attempt to seek God. This characterizes the kataphatic discourse thatwould indeed sustain the deconstructionist suspicion of being a negationtransmuted again into an affirmation. However, logophasis is no suchpredicative discourse. For Gregory and Marion, when kataphaticdiscourse concerning God is abandoned in apophatic union, the Wordindwells human deeds and discourse; the Word manifests itself in them.The clenched fists of predicative, attributive discourse have relaxed, andin these open palms of discourse, the Word speaks itself, ‘labile inhabitantof our babble’.66 Language is no longer grasping but revealing.

The purpose of this article has been to uncover a form of discourse intwo outstanding representatives of Christian apophaticism as a way ofresponding to an important concern raised by deconstructionism. Anexclusive focus on the kataphatic – apophatic dialectic, which character-izes the deconstructionist critique of Christian apophaticism, has obscuredfrom view the deeper transformation of discourse within the apophaticcontext. Having uncovered logophatic discourse, even the deconstruction-ist unclenches conceptual fists before the ‘great speaking absence betweenthe images’.67

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Notes1 D. Turner, ‘The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ: Negative Theology and Eucharistic

Presence’, Modern Theology 15 (1999): pp. 143–58 at p. 143.2 Some recent ones include I. Almond, ‘Negative Theology, Derrida and the Critique of Presence:

A Poststructuralist Reading of Meister Eckhart’, Heythrop Journal 40 (1999), pp. 150–65; J. Caputo,The Prayers and Tears of Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1997); H. Coward and T. Foshay (eds.), Derrida and Negative Theology (Albany: SUNY Press,1992); K. Hart, Tresspass of the Sign, Deconstruction, Theology and Philosophy (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1989); W. Otten, ‘In the Shadow of the Divine: Negative Theologyand Negative Anthropology in Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena’, Heythrop Journal 40(1999), pp. 438–55; N. Pokorn, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing in Dialogue with Postmodernism’, in L. Gearon (ed.), English Literature, Theology and the Curriculum (New York: Cassell, 1999, pp. 124–35; H. Ruf (ed.), Religion, Ontotheology, and Deconstruction (New York: Paragon House,1989); T. Sanders, ‘Remarking the Silence: Prayer after the Death of God’, Horizons 25 (1998), pp. 203–16; R. Scharmann (ed.), Negation and Theology (Charlottesville, VA: University Press ofVirginia, 1992).

3 J. Derrida, ‘How to Avoid Speaking: Denials’, trans. K. Frieden in H. Coward and T. Foshay(eds.), Derrida and Negative Theology, p. 77.

4 J. Derrida, ‘Post-Scriptum: Aporias, Ways and Voices’, trans. J. Leavey in ibid., p. 83.5 See, for example, D. Turner, ‘The Art of Unknowing: Negative Theology in Late Medieval

Mysticism’, Modern Theology 14 (1998), pp. 473–88; J.-L. Marion, ‘In the Name: How to AvoidSpeaking of “Negative Theology”’ in J. Caputo and M. Scanlon (eds.), God, the Gift and Post-modernism, The Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion, M. Westphal, gen. ed. (Bloomington,IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 20–53, esp. pp. 20–3.

6 In so far as the deconstructionist critique has all but ignored the important dimension ofaphairesis, it is questionable to what extent deconstructionism has understood the multilevelleddynamics of denial. Speaking specifically of Denys the Areopagite, J. Williams has recently arguedthat this oversight is largely due to misleading translations which fail ‘to differentiate between thedistinct types of negation … ’; see J. Williams, ‘The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – I’, Downside Review 117 (1999), pp. 157–72 at p. 157; see also J. Jones, ‘SculptingGod: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology’, Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996), pp. 355–71.

7 Among an abundant literature see, for example the classic article by H. Puech, ‘La Ténèbremystique chez le Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite et dans la tradition patristique’, Études Carmélitaines23 (1938), pp. 38–53, reprinted in En quête de la gnose, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 119–41; as well as J. LeMaître, ‘Préhistoire du concepte de gnophos’, in Dictionnaire deSpiritualité, s. v. ‘Contemplation’, cols. 1868–72; J. Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique(Paris: Aubier, 1944, 2nd ed., 1953), pp. 190–99; A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian MysticalTradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 80–97; D. Carabine, The Unknown God:Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition; Plato to Eriugena (Louvain: Peeters, 1995), pp. 234–58.

8 De vita Moysis, II, 165, Sources Chrétiennes (= SC) 1bis, ed. J. Daniélou (Paris: Les Éditionsdu Cerf, 1987), p. 212; interestingly this very text serves as one of the opening quotations inMarion’s L’Idole et la distance (Paris: Editions Grasset et Fasquelle, 1977), p. 7.

9 An expanded version of this section was presented to the Thirteenth International Conferenceon Patristic Studies, Oxford, 16–21 August 1999.

10 Throughout I am using the terms ‘aphairesis’ and ‘aphairetic’ in a sense broader than thecerebral sounding ‘abstraction’, encompassing the senses of abandonment or letting go of imagesand concepts in the course of apophatic ascent.

11 Gregory comments in this Homily on Sg 3, 1–4: ‘On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him and did not find him; I called out to him, and he did not hear me …’The apophatic terminology of the lemma (‘night’, ‘not hearing’, ‘not finding’, ‘rising’) suggests toGregory the apophatic direction that his exegesis takes.

12 Commentarius in Canticum canticorum (= In Cant.) VI, Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. VI (= GNO VI), ed. H. Langerbeck (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960), p. 183, 2–3.

13 Ibid., p. 183, 5–9.14 While there is nothing particularly novel about the designation of a faculty of union, that

Gregory would name this apophatic faculty of union ‘faith’ is rather idiosyncratic on Gregory’spart; see M. Laird, ‘By Faith Alone: A Technical Term in Gregory of Nyssa’, Vigiliae Christianae54 (2000), pp. 61–79.

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15 In Cant. VI, GNO VI, p. 183, 10–11.16 Ibid., p. 184, 13–15.17 In Cant. I, GNO VI, p. 32. Gregory is commenting on Song 1, 2: ‘Let him kiss me with the

kisses of his mouth’.18 In Cant. I, GNO VI, p. 33, 2–4.19 In Cant. IX, GNO VI, p. 270, 7–11.20 Ibid., p. 280, 3.21 Ibid., p. 281, 2.22 Ibid., p. 282, 4–7.23 In Cant. II, GNO VI, p. 48, 15.24 The alpha privatives of �πÞρρητïν, �λÀλητïν and �νÛκφραστïν underscore the apophatic

thrust of the context. This stringing together of alpha privatives is a characteristic apophatic strategyfor Gregory; see F. Vinel, Homélies sur l’Ecclésiaste, SC 416 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996), p. 388, n. 2.

25 In Cant. III, GNO VI, p. 88, 4–6.26 Ibid., pp. 91, 17–92, 4.27 In Cant. XIV, GNO VI, p. 405, 7–9.28 De vita Moysis, II, 163 (SC, p. 212).29 In Cant. I, GNO VI, p. 41, 7–10. The language of ineffability (�ρρητïν) and hiddenness

(�γκεݵενïν) underscore the apophatic sense of the text.30 Ibid., p. 41, 10–13.31 De vita Moysis II, 165 (SC, p. 212).32 J.-L. Marion, Dieu sans l’être: Hors-texte (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1982). Recent

appraisals, include J.-D. Robert, ‘Autour de Dieu sans l’être de Jean-Luc Marion’, Laval théologiqueet philosophique 39 (1983), pp. 341–47; idem, “Dieu sans l’être”: A propos d’un livre récent’,Nouvelle Revue Théologique 105 (1983), 406–10; K. Ziarek, ‘The Language of Praise: Levinas andMarion’, Religion and Literature 22 (1990), pp. 93–107, esp. pp. 98–102; D. Moss, ‘Costly Giving:On Jean-Luc Marion’s Theology of the Gift’, New Blackfriars 74 (1993), pp. 393–99; K. Schmitz,‘The God of Love’, The Thomist 57 (1993), pp. 495–508; D. Powers, R. Duffy, K. Irwin, ‘SacramentalTheology: A Review of Literature’, Theological Studies 55 (1994), pp. 688–93; T. Sanders, ‘TheOtherness of God and the Bodies of Others’, Journal of Religion 76 (1996), pp. 572–87; A. Godzieba, ‘Ontotheology to Excess: Imagining God without Being’, Theological Studies 56(1995), pp. 3–20, esp. pp. 8–11; J. O’Leary, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth (Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 185–91.

33 All references are to the English-language edition: God without Being, trans. T. Carlson(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 139–58.

34 De divinis nominibus, IV, 2, PG 3, 696b; cited in Marion, God without Being, p. 107.35 Marion, ibid., p. 139.36 D. Turner, ‘The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ: Negative Theology and Eucharistic

Presence’, pp. 143–44: ‘I can guarantee nowadays that whenever I read a paper on some account of the ‘apophatic’, among the first participants in the following discussion will be someone whowonders how I … will … take account of the positive revelation of God in Jesus Christ. For surely,it is said … in the end is the Word as it was in the beginning, therefore in the end there is speech,not silence.’

37 Obviously this is not to say that Marion’s recourse to scripture is incidental; God withoutBeing is replete with scriptural citations and inspiration.

38 While the figure of the bishop as ‘the theologian par excellence’ (God without Being, p. 152)might seem more appropriate, I will stay with the term ‘theologian’ because it fits better with theword-play between theology and theology. On the relationship between the bishop and theologian,see God without Being, pp. 153–58.

39 God without Being, p. 144.40 Ibid., p. 143. This text, among others, reveals how the logophatic dimension of apophaticism

is subtly Trinitarian; see the concerns raised by F. van Beeck, ‘A Very Explicit Te Deum: A SpiritualExercise, To Help Overcome Trinitarian Timidity’, Horizons 25 (1998), pp. 276–91.

41 God without Being, p. 155.42 Ibid., pp. 154–55.43 Ibid., p. 155.44 Ibid.45 Ibid., p. 144.46 Ibid., p. 155.

‘WHEREOF WE SPEAK’ 11

47 Ibid., p. 139.48 Ibid., p. 146.49 Ibid., p. 148.50 Ibid., p. 139.51 Ibid., p. 144.52 Ibid., p. 106.53 Ibid., p. 141.54 Ibid., p. 140.55 Ibid.56 Ibid., p. 144.57 Ibid., p. 142.58 Ibid., p. 148; see also p. 151.59 Ibid., p. 151. The Eucharist is for Marion the place par excellence for this.60 ‘Religion and Postmodernism’, Villanova University, September 25–27, 1997. See the pro-

ceedings of this conference in J. Caputo and M. Scanlon (eds.), God, the Gift and Postmodernism,(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999).

61 Marion, ‘In the Name: How to Avoid Speaking of “Negative Theology”’ in J. Caputo and M. Scanlon (eds.), God, the Gift and Postmodernism, p. 25.

62 Ibid., p. 24 and p. 33. For another approach to negation’s self-negation, see the two-levelledapophasis indicated by D. Turner’s reading of Denys the Areopagite in The Darkness of God:Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 19–49.

63 Marion, ‘In the Name’, p. 26.64 Ibid., p. 32.65 Ibid., p. 25.66 Marion, God without Being, p. 142.67 Rowan Williams, Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses (London: Darton, Longman

and Todd, 1994), p. 101.

12 MARTIN LAIRD

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