Note on the Apophasis in Dionysius the Areopagite

Abstract

This paper wants to demonstrate that the Dionysian resumption of Neoplatonic henology occurs with changes due to the influence of Christian theology on Neoplatonism. The most important of these is the revaluation of the positive discourse on divinity, made possible by the negation by transcendence that allows us to affirm that God is, taking into account the fact that the divine Being, because of its transcendence is beyond our knowledge. The first issue of the problematic of negation in a Christian Neoplatonic regime is not so much to break with the Aristotelian definition of negation as to break with the supposed primacy of affirmation and show that it has no ontological foundation when it comes to the One. But also and above all, in Dionysian theology, we find a rehabilitation of the positivity of the divine attributes revealed in Scripture, opening the thought of the superessential nothingness to non-opposition. We will see that the introduction of the concept of revelation is of capital importance, for, henceforth in Christianity, if it is necessary to preserve secrecy, obscurity, and it is also necessary to reconcile with revelation, in short, it is necessary in order to maintain transcendence, not to neglect immanence. This gesture of the Areopagite proved to be of great fertility in the Middle Ages.