the theology of dis/similarity: negation in pseudo-dionysius

The Theology of Dis/similarity: Negation in Pseudo-DionysiusAuthor(s): Jeffrey FisherReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 529-548Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1206053 .Accessed: 01/08/2012 18:05

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The Theology of Dis/similarity: Negation in Pseudo-Dionysius*

Jeffrey Fisher / Chicago, Illinois

Medieval negative theology has been attracting a great deal of attention in the last decade or so, both in historical and in constructive theological circles.' The works of Pseudo-Dionysius have risen to take a central place in the post-Derridean debates over the radical possibilities of the Chris- tian tradition and of the Christian mystical tradition in particular.2 While the role of Pseudo-Dionysius in this debate has become increasingly important, the readings of his work have not kept pace with that develop- ment. Consequently, one recent article can warn us, on the authority of a careful reading of the key Dionysian treatise, The Mystical Theology, to "be conscious of the difference between how Dionysian theology may be re-

* I am grateful to John N. Jones, Dan Grau, and especially Cyril O'Regan for their patient and thoughtful responses to this work at various stages of its progress.

1 There is substantial literature, but here I will note, in the more historical vein, Michael A. Sells's Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) and Deirdre Carabine's The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition (Louvain: Peeters, 1995). On the more constructive side, note esp. Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and, more recently, John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997). The deconstructive mode of theological discourse arises not only out of Derrida but also from the work of Emmanuel Levinas, whose Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969) and Otherwise Than Being, trans. Alphonso Lingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981) contribute both directly and indirectly (through Derrida) to the current debate. Clearly, we do not wish to draw too fine a line between the historical consideration and the constructive projects that often accompany them (or vice-versa). In- deed, the present article is in many ways precisely an attempt to bring them together.

2 All translated quotations are from Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luib- heid, notes and additional trans. Paul Rorem (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). All Greek quotations are from the recent edition in Corpus Dionysiacum (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1990-91). Chapter and section numbers correspond to those used in this edition and this translation. References to the Migne edition, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca III (Paris, 1857), have been included parenthetically for convenience.

? 2001 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/2001/8104-0001$02.00

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trieved and how it is to be interpreted in its own right."3 There is an odd complicity here between Derrida's own dismissal of negative theology and the defense of Dionysius from "charges" that he engages in something like deconstruction-a complicity enhanced by the lack of a strong reading of Dionysius by those who would take issue with both of the aforemen- tioned parties.

Therefore, in the interests of adding some depth to the debate, I will offer a comprehensive reading of Dionysian negativity, in and through which I contend that Dionysius engages in an apophaticism of the most radical kind, that it is radical in a quite particular semiotic fashion, and finally that Dionysian negative theology is significantly compatible with certain aspects of Derridean deconstruction. It is not my aim in the present article to defend per se the deconstructive mode of theology.4 Rather, I aim to show that precisely what theology has found useful in deconstruction is operative in the tradition of Dionysian negative theology.

I. HIERARCHY: THE ARCHE AND ITS PROJECTION

Dionysius writes of a non-entitative God, transcendent ontologically, beyond substance, beyond being, even beyond God (nREppE6tirroq). His first two treatises, The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology, address specifi- cally the nature of God.5 The first, in a highly original approach to affirmative theology, applies the first hypothesis of Plato's Parmenides to God, and only to God.6 From the outset, then, Dionysius breaks the traditional

3 John N. Jones, "Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology," Harvard Theological Review 89, no. 4 (1996): 369. I will not dispute here Jones's quite ingenious, and in many ways necessary, reading, except to say that I wonder whether a distinction such as he recommends is even possible, and, if so, to what extent. I hope to offer a more detailed critique of Jones's arguments at another time, having established the basic reading put forth herein.

4 See Hart; Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1982) and Err- ing: A Postmodern A/theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Charles Winquist, Epiphanies of Darkness (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986); and Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), whose reading is more radical than the twelfth- and thirteenth-century domestications of Dionysius, while remaining (I would ar- gue) on the whole within the affective tradition represented most prominently by the Victo- rines. Nevertheless, my reading here may be understood as in many ways complementary to Marion's, even if we do not go all the way down the road together. For more on the Victorine tradition, see my discussion of Chenu, below, or better yet, the treatment in Ber- nard McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1996).

5 Here I follow the ordering of the treatises according to Paul Rorem, "The Place of The Mystical Theology in the Pseudo-Dionysian Corpus," Dionysius 4 (1980): 87-98.

6 The Parmenidean hypotheses, so called according to their source in the Platonic dia- logue of the same name, classify speech about the divine. The key hypotheses are the first, or affirmative, which is generally taken to apply to those things below the One, such as life, goodness, etc. The second, or negative, hypothesis is applicable to the One because it makes

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Negation in Pseudo-Dionysius

rules of speculation about the First Principle, according to which only the second, or negative, hypothesis was directed toward the One. He searches

scripture for the names of God, and, having listed them and posited them all of God, he goes on to interpret a number of them in some depth; the last, most essential, "most enduring of them all" is "One."7 Every characteristic cataloged in The Divine Names, which is to say everything in scripture and more, is affirmed of God, effectively collapsing the second hyposta- sis of Neoplatonic cosmology into the first. Being, Life, and Intelligence, that is, are now also the One, the Good, and the Beautiful.8

I do not think of the Good as one thing, Being as another, Life and Wisdom as yet other, and I do not claim that there are numerous causes and different God- heads, all differently ranked, superior and inferior, and all producing different effects. No. But I hold that there is one God for all these good processions, and that he is the possessor of the divine names of which I speak and that the first name tells of the universal providence of the one God, while the other names reveal general or specific ways in which he acts providentially.9

No ontological intermediaries intrude between God and creation: no ar- chon, no demiurge, and the Logos is, as everything else, not a separate entity, but God itself. Dionysius here departs cosmologically, cosmogoni- cally, and ontologically from the Plotinian-Proclean Neoplatonic tradition, according to which a procession of emanations mediates between the transcendent unity of the One and the multiplicity of material reality.'0 Dionysius may now use all names of previously disparate hypostases to praise one and the same God. The epistemological aspect of affirmative theology is fundamentally doxological: "Hence the songs of praise and the names for it are fittingly derived from the sum total of creation.""

Dionysius also employs a semiotic mode complementary to the doxological. He offers a critique of the whole metaphysical and epistemological system according to which affirmative theology and praise are possible.

no knowledge-claims, indicating the One's transcendence. The Parmenides, and this aspect in particular, are crucial to the Neoplatonist tradition stemming from Plotinus. See esp. Proclus's Commentary on Parmenides.

7 The Divine Names (hereafter DN) 13.1 (977B): r6 'iapcEpdTraTov, v. 8 Compare Proclus's elaboration of the Plotinian system in the Elements of Theology. 9 DN 5.2 (816C-817A): O6ic

',•o S Eivao r6ya4i6v 5 ov l ir V K cai o r 6 6v o00icai o t' v odiv

1 Tilyv ootiav, oi5&a inoX' rx aifta icai aXXwov dUag napaictuc;g OE6Tit0a; =EpeXooaa; icGai i4Cxteiva;, d•h' v6; OEoi j a; 6ila; dyaoia; nopoSou;

icatl rax• Inap' i'tJov KE4vou•uva; OEoVu-

gj a; ical riV *V Eivat -i iavXoi;, roog f) 6vb; gEo npovotag ; icavtutfiv,

ra; &• 6riov

6Xu•,ticrpov roi aij5roi KCai c EputYr~ip0Cv. 10 Compare also Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory

and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978). " DN 1.7 (597A): ~iK crv 6vrov ynadv-rov evapjgovioc) ;gvetrat iai 6vo~iEcrxat. Note the

praise function, manifested in the singing of hymns. We shall have to address this more directly below.

531


The following passage demonstrates clearly his ability to run the affirmative and negative (ultimately a semiotic approach) alongside each other.

We know him from the arrangement of everything, because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and sem- blances of his divine paradigms. We therefore approach that which is beyond all as far as our capacities allow us and we pass by way of the denial and the transcendence of all things and by way of the cause of all things. God is therefore known in all things and as distinct from all things. He is known through knowledge and through unknowing. Of him there is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name, and many other things. On the other hand, he cannot be understood, words cannot contain him, and no name can lay hold of him. He is not one of the things that are, and he cannot be known in any of them.12

While it clearly has an emanationist ring to it, particularly taken together with the hierarchies here implied and elsewhere explicit, Diony- sius's "projection" serves an epistemological-semiotic rather than ontological function. Close attention to the language of projection reveals an ambiguity characteristic of Dionysius's methodology. The term "projection" indicates at once "extension" or "promontory" and "shield" or "defense." In semiotic terms, we may understand projection (extension) as signifying the possible ontological and epistemological connection of the created world to its arche (thus the "causal approach") and projection (shield) as the semiotic interruption of semantic stability (thus denial, the negative approach). The projection as the possibility of signification coincides with projection as the necessity (or inescapability) of signification, that is, of the sign never reaching its ground. Because what seems to reveal in fact obscures, even deceives, Dionysius's God can never be the semantic arche. He is clear about this elsewhere: "Someone beholding God and understanding what he saw has not actually seen God himself but rather something of his which has being and is knowable,"'" perhaps the "paradigms" of the present passage. Thus, "God is known in all things [projection as symbol] and as distinct from all things [projection as shield]," the latter resulting in Dionysius's clear preference for the negative way.

12 DN 7.3 (869D-872A): iE6v ytvvxnogEv ... iK l-ri iw aVr6w v 6wv oowv itat6Esg 6;•

0 avro-0i0 npopE oevi;w Kiai EiKticva;g tivaig Kca 6io)toara trov ihe5fov aroui napaSEtygituov X- o6oarl Et; tb r6 iKEtova dwaov 68i t6Et Iar~

86vatv &jvtjiv i v f ivwvrcov d4atpt~al

Knii Ur-

EpoXjfi ai v f nd1v-ov aitig. At0 Kra v nalowv 6 i6; ytvd6c Tat Kica X(opi;g ndvov. Kai 8th yvm•cEog

o Eb i ytvxcenxat Kai c ta adyvaoxa;. Kai cautv alboi icai v6roat; icai X6yo; ica intofitlrl icatL ~inaIi ail atarlonat; riati 66a iati avrazaa rcat 6vogla ri ai t a'XXa nadv-ra, icat oiTrE vositat oitre X&yEat OiaE ,o6voi6raExat. Kai oKic i~iat t -rciv 6vr(ov, olb& iv rtvt rcSv 6vrov ytvo6-

'3 Epistles I (1065A): Kai Ei t-i i86ov iE6v oruvicEv, yv El8Ev, oi5i) alrbyv &'pacKEV, daa6 it -rcv aurou T-rv 6v-civ ical ytvoxcogevov.

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A brief discussion of Dionysius's relation to the prior apophatic tradition is required at this point. The most useful exemplar is Gregory of Nyssa, who falls, H. A. Wolfson argues, in the Aristotelian/Plotinian tradition with regard to negation.14 Aristotle's characteristic classification systems divide negative language into two types: "privation" (arpriaot;) and "negation" (arn60aotq). Privation denies a proposition the opposite of which can be affirmed; negation refers to a proposition in which the opposite of the predicate can in no way be affirmed of the subject. Plotinus used the term "remotion" (d4azpeatg;) in such a way that it corresponded to "negation," suggesting that this process removes the subject from the realm of discourse of the predicate in question, which is the only proper way in which to speak of the One. Gregory utilized both of the terms a6r64act; and 6aa4cpEct;, "negation" and "removal," with the same extension, avoiding oz(prlot;, "privation."'5 Alpha privative negations are for him valid as negations; that is, to say "God is incorruptible" is the same as to say "God is not corruptible." He also allows affirmations with a negative meaning; "unsusceptible of evil" is equivalent to "good." Each of these techniques, Wolfson argues, functions to remove the subject, God, from the realm of discourse of the predicate. He also maintains that Dionysius stays within this tradition.

However, while Dionysius relies heavily on negative theology, he moves decisively beyond the Aristotelian/Plotinian tradition, certainly as we see it in Gregory.'16 Consider first the sheer scope of Dionysius's negativity: "And the fact that the transcendent Godhead [inr•p tdvra z E6Tll;/quae est super omnia Deitas] is one and triune must not be understood in any of our typical senses. .... no unity or trinity, no number or oneness, no fruitfulness, indeed, nothing that is or is known can proclaim that hid-

'4 H. A. Wolfson, "Negative Attributes in the Church Fathers and the Gnostic Basilides," in Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, vol. 1, ed. Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 131-42.

1' Compare ibid. 16 Compare ibid. See also Henri-Charles Puech, "La tenebre mystique chez le Pseudo-

Denys l'Areopagite," in Puech's En quete de la Gnose (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). I am perhaps in the minority in thinking that Dionysius's discussion of the nature of evil belies his serious lack of interest in the subject at all. I would say the same with regard to his treatment of the Trinity. His discussion of evil is all within the context of the stipulated principle of the Good, for which, see below. Also, Augustine's view of evil coincides with that described here and, to my mind, demonstrates nothing other than the commonplace nature of the position. As for the Trinity, Dionysius's presentation is standard at best and in no way informs the broader arc of his theological program. In spite of certain (sets of) triadic structures, there is little that is trinitarian about them. Rather, his emphasis is squarely on the One Good God. I wonder, however, whether his discussion of the Trinity in The Divine Names, as a discussion of the plurality within the divine unity-a distinction which introduces no difference-is not a (semiotic) gesture toward the possibility of the transcendence of unity, or of that which transcends unity, as the transcendent unity similarly indicates that which transcends difference.

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denness beyond every mind and reason of the transcendent Godhead

[inrepiOE6-rroq /superdeitatis] which transcends every being.... we cannot even call it by the name of goodness."" He denies unity and trinity, even the principle of fecundity under the name of the Good. Gregory, for all his negativity and resistance to closure, as in the doctrine of epektasis, would not go so far. Dionysius's negation of unity does not reduce to transcendent trinity, nor his negation of trinity to transcendent unity. Note well that the phrase, "of the transcendent Godhead," translates "'nrep-

E6-rlTro;," a resounding rejection of god-language.

Dionysius's willingness to deploy such language relates to the semiotic

principle at work, a forceful elaboration of the second Parmenidean hypothesis. Negations do not convert simply to affirmations, even of transcendent versions of the negated quality.'" Furthermore, Dionysius argues that, while there are more and less anagogically appropriate metaphors, and ultimately they are all equally (in)valid, neither are they really any more or less valid than negations; they simply function in different capacities.19 God's absolute transcendence defies even the apophatic way, which

principle Dionysius affirms as he denies his denials: "There is no speaking of it, nor name nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth- it is none of these. It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial."20 Stephen Gersh

suggests that the result is a synthesis of the two Parmenidean hypotheses in a third, which consists of a tension between the affirmative and negative principles.21 This is perhaps the only practical way of understanding the radicality of Dionysius's negativity, a negativity so absolute as to swal-

'7 DN 13.3 (980D-981A): At6b Kai gov'; 1pvouLhvia Kiai tpthi; i unp iadvra 46F-gq;

o K 0o1tnV ot8A Lgovag, o68s %ptag i snpg E lav WV -o tvo%; v rv vryov

8tvyv E ogX l, ....

Oe .. jifa 6E

lgov~i; i pta;, o068 daptlag6; o68%

9 v6r; i~ yov•6Trltg6 o68 6ikXo t

% cv9ov6vov i1 nvt iv 56vtov

ouvEyv(oaiV(OV Ea6yet rliv -ocnp advra cai 6you icai vouv cpuit6qrra -~; 6untp advra np-

ouoiato ntepoionM snepse6Frro;, o98% 6volaa

a xfn ho- v o08% X6yo;, iXX' av di6dcoti; Apralt.

18 Compare Mystical Theology (MT) 2 (1025A-B). '9 Celestial Hierarchy (CH) 2.4, 5 (141C-145C), 15.8 (336D-337C); MT 2 (1025A-B). 20 MT 5 (1048A-B): olre X6yo; a-~xqi; ;onv oure 6volIa o re yvitxn;- ore or6cro; ativ oue

?6), orse 1EvrXav o6re aOFieta- orspe oai v ati~; ScaO6'Xou Oot; ooe Caipeati, daXX r& v Et' atvriv tir; Ooetg ;cai dautp oet; notouvweg auriv o6Ee irEt-qv oJtEe &datpoi1•v,

i9Ej w icac 6,p ndeaav fotav ofiv 11 navtell;g oai Svtafa tr&v rEdv(ov ical on Ep nioaav a aOaipeatv N 1 nepoXil rou

a'dvy&ov d noleX u ioevoiU Kcai iEsteva TrV 6hcov. 21 Stephen Gersh, Studia Patristica, vol. 15 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1984), p. 300, n. 13.

More to the point, however, is a remark he relegates to the footnotes, which is that "this synthesis does not, of course, exclude the possibility of a higher mystical state in which the conflict of negative and affirmative loses its meaning."

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low even itself. If we take it seriously, the double- or hyper-negative move leaves us at a theological impasse. Either we allow that God can neither be identified with nor distinguished from even such generic and fundamental categories as being and nonbeing, or we begin to do theology all over again to rescue God from the threat of nonbeing, or to rescue creation from the threat of losing its creator. Dionysius gambles with high stakes, risking nihilism on the one hand and the semantic reinscription of affirmative theology on the other. He engages in a deconstructive ma- neuver both daring and deft: opening the door to nihilism while at the same time refuting even that form of closure to the mystical project.

It is precisely the kind of wager one would expect Jacques Derrida to

respect. However, in his early work, Derrida rejects negative theology virtually out of hand as still bound up in the ontotheology of the sign, that is, as determined by and to a transcendent signified which thereby prevents it from being ultimately anything other than affirmative. Der- rida later responds more extensively to those relating his work to negative theology, and particularly to Pseudo-Dionysius.22 He contends that even in Dionysius, negativity retains a commitment to meaning, that is, that it is still caught up in (affirmative) theology. In its rejection of an empty formalism, by which rejection it manages to seem to risk and to deny the

possibility of a risk of nihilism, it ultimately returns to the hymnic/prayer- ful mode which once again relates effect (creation) to cause (creator/God). The prayer by which Dionysius inaugurates the Mystical Theology (and which works similarly in the fourth chapter of The Divine Names) deter- mines as well its end, the iritorpoo4i, in fact, is its end. The whole movement of negative theology proves, according to Derrida, incapable of es- caping the general economy of (affirmative) theology, and on the contrary, even supports it. The apophatic resolves itself prayerfully into (a mode of) the cataphatic. Derrida raises a crucial question in this regard: does Dionysius, in avoiding the Scylla of nihilism, fall prey to the

Charybdis of a totalizing presence? In other words, does Dionysius truly risk nihilism, empty formalism, or is it a feint, a sleight of hand working to (re)instate the truth of the presence of God? Or, as I shall attempt to show, does Dionysius's profundity arise directly from his risk of both nihilism on the one hand and totality on the other? (Is it even possible to risk the one without risking the other?) In other words, does Dionysius not successfully navigate the unmarked route between Scylla and Charybdis? We can put this still another way: is the play of difference which consti- tutes negative theology subdued, silenced, by the activity of presencing

22 See esp. "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials" and "Postscriptum: Aporias, Ways and Voices," both in Harold Coward and Toby Foshay, eds., Derrida and Negative Theology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992).

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analogy? The risk of nothingness is mitigated, prevented, guaranteed by a hyperessential Goodness which relates itself causally to beings and so never in fact allows the possibility of nothingness, of saying nothing.23 In effect, the bet is not allowed to be placed. This problematic may be resolved into two concrete questions. First, what is the function of the prayer, the inaugural hymn? What discourse does it mark off, and what stability does it provide? Second, what role does negation itself, and especially double- (or hyper-)negation, play in the dynamic of negative theology? And then what impact does it have on, what ramifications for, (affirmative) theology, and language generally? These questions dissolve again, having been so formulated, into a broader question: what is the semiotics of negative theology?

II. DIS/SIMILARITY

The principle of Dionysius's theological semiotics is his concept of "dissimilar similarity," or simply "dis/similarity."24 He explains: Since the way of negation appears to be more suitable to the realm of the divine and since the positive affirmations are always unfitting to the hiddenness of the inexpressible, a manifestation through dissimilar shapes is more correctly to be applied to the invisible. So it is that scriptural writings, far from demeaning the ranks of heaven actually pay them honor by describing them with dissimilar shapes so completely at variance with what they really are that we come to discover how those ranks, so far removed from us, transcend all materiality.... Of course, one must be careful to use the similarities as dissimilarities, as discussed, to avoid one-to-one correspondences, to make the appropriate adjustments as one remembers the great divide between the intelligible and the perceptible.25 An unbridgeable gap persists between even the "most God-like" symbol and God. Precisely the dissimilarity of everything to God enables everything to be similar to God.26 Anything can mean God because nothing

23 Compare above regarding evil as nothing and the nonexistence of evil; even Satan does not escape the goodness of the divine (economy).

24 For my insistence on this rather postmodern way of combining these terms, please see n. 35 below.

25 CH 2.3, 4 (141A, 141C): Ei rotvvy at CJiv dnoa6oa0ts i Et nt•rov E•v drlaiXE, ati ~ Kiaaad6-

aOEt dvdpapoorot i -cput6Otn trv danoppi~tov, oiicEtolpa glhXX6v o otv ~ini rtov dop6&ov I 8th ov dvoiov

ol acvanaidowcv icavropia. TtiLa~t otyapoiv, oKnc atoixog dCnon'lpoioit rg; o1)pavia; &aiaooafioet ati tv Xoytov ikpoypao~at ai; da9vogofotS aidtS Jopoonootilat; Kicaivoi- oat Kai 8th ao6uov adnoVSetOv6loat rOov OXtLCov davnavov lnepCooi•o3E TDEP•• •iag.

.... dvoglofyO

; Eltpjrat Q otv 61iotoriev ihXalipavoiVs

Kicai tv abrcv o0 9a6tQt9, r vapgloviOo; ye Kai OicEiOE; nti 1r ov vop&v re Ki ctat aic roV i8tovorijv 6ptiog•Vov.

26 Nicholas of Cusa gives what is perhaps the most forceful elaboration of (this aspect of) this principle in his discussion of infinity. Contrary to A. H. Armstrong in the Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1967), I believe that for Dionysius, the dissimilarity in dis/similarity amounts to the necessity of semiotic failure.

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can mean God. This statement is also convertible to: everything simultaneously both "means" God and does not mean God, "for the very same things are both similar and dissimilar to God."" In any name of God there is an irreducible "something else," an other, which can never be captured or delineated, making it finally indescribable. Theological language, in this sense, fails altogether.

Dionysius simultaneously confirms and denies the emptiness of theological language with his declaration that "human souls possess reason and with it they circle in discourse around the truth of things."28 There is in this phrase a heliotropic nuance we must later consider in more detail, which suggests that the Other orders reality in spite (or because) of its alterity.29 However, the clearly dominant theme of the metaphor is the metaphorical indomitability of God. Human beings, attempting to "zero in" on God, multiply metaphor upon metaphor in an endless cycle. Why? Each symbol is of necessity derived from another symbol; in a sense, there is nothing else for a sign to signify but another sign: "omne symbolum de symbolo."30

Marie-Dominique Chenu's essay in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century typifies the view of Dionysian symbolism among contemporary medievalists, not to mention Dionysius's twelfth-century interpreters, with whom Chenu is primarily concerned.3 It also concurs strikingly with the reading of Dionysius offered by Derrida.32 Chenu discusses a distinction between what he calls the Augustinian sign and the Dionysian symbol. The former is arbitrary and, therefore, Chenu argues, polysemous (i.e., signifying many things). Dionysius orients his semiotic iconically, coming out of, and feeding strongly into, the symbolism of the developing eastern orthodoxy; Chenu asserts that it is inherently semantic. In reality, however, Augustine's semiotic is strongly monosemic (i.e., signs signify

27 DN 9.7 (916A): T&i y6p a~i Kcai '

iaota E) icati dv6ogota. 28 DN 7.2 (868B): ruXai t6

lXotv ooyt xo v Eoot 8tEo&8t

E COLV aiv wa i• Kp itEpti -iv Ov 5vrov dXi41eOtav Enptlnopev6ooevat.

29 For a detailed analysis of the heliotrope, the image of satellites revolving around a central body, usually planets around the sun (helios), see Jacques Derrida, "White Mythology," in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

30 For the role of this phrase in the thought of C. S. Peirce and its place in Derrida's work, see below, and the Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Justus Buchler (New York: Dover, 1955), p. 115 (from Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-35], 2:274-302); and Derrida's treatment of Peirce in Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).

31 Marie-Dominique Chenu, esp. pp. 124-27, in Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Cen- tury (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 98-145.

32 Chenu's essay had been available for some time when Derrida wrote the essay relevant to Dionysius. Derrida, however, never mentions Chenu, and it seems unlikely that he ever read Chenu's essay, as "dissimilar similitude" figures prominently in Chenu's analysis and yet never appears in any of Derrida's writing, in spite of its similarity to his own reading.

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only one thing, a true reality), as Derrida indirectly argues and we will see in more detail below.33 Dionysius, on the other hand, is more radical than even mere polysemia in his theological language, and at a deeper level than Chenu appears to have apprehended. God is infinitely repre- sentable not because God is eminently present, but precisely because God is un(re)presentable. In any symbol of God, God is merely a trace, a hole in its semantic field in any given syntactical arrangement. The semantics of divine anominability goes hand in hand with the syntax of divine omni- nominability.

On the one hand, Chenu appears to understand the dynamic of Diony- sian semiotics, in terms of the function of the "symbol" to demonstrate (demonstrare, i.e., to indicate) mystery. On the other hand, he misconstrues Dionysian dis/similarity, which he takes to be founded on similarity, and which by moving through dissimilarity returns or moves forward to similarity. This is precisely the kind of Hegelian Aufhebung of absence into presence criticized by Derrida. Dionysius's dissimilarity does not lead us to similarity, rather it indicates something beyond similarity and dissimilarity. Dionysius clearly requires that all the way up to the highest possibility of similarity there remains an aporetic dissimilarity that prevents the final presencing of God's logos.34 The dissimilarity represents for us the inarticulability, the unre-presentability, of that which the similar attempts to signify. That dissimilarity is irreducible to a similarity of any kind. The similar could be said to signify as much the dissimilar (or even the dynamic of dis/similarity) as much as it signifies its "primary" significate. There is no dissimilarity in God. The dissimilarity of the term "Good," like the similarity of the term "stone," indicates (demonstrat) an inability to name (denominare) God, shows God's indenominabilitas, God's "metaphorical indomitability," which is still a metaphor. Dissimilarity is not impressed into the service of similarity. On the contrary, dissimilarity and similarity define the limits of our theological discourse in their mutual dependence, a sort of "semiotic symbiosis."

This symbiotic "circl[ing] in discourse around the truth of things" re- sembles in its effect Derrida's heliotropes, which, he says, are bad metaphors yielding the best examples. The Areopagite's notion of dis/similarity is precisely the bad metaphor yielding the best example, consciously.35

3 See Derrida, Of Grammatology, chap. 4. 4 The dissimilarity is the space within which movement takes place. In this respect,

Chenu's location of the dynamic is near the mark. However, to interrupt the dis/similar dynamic with(in) an enclosing similarity really only produces another dissimilarity.

35 I say "dis/similarity" in order to indicate this conceptual inseparability. Insofar as similarity and dissimilarity imply each other, and insofar as there is no dissimilarity in God, neither is there any similarity (in God). "Augustinian retrievals" of Pseudo-Dionysius aside, the Areopagite rejects any semiotic subjugation of the divine; thus God resides for us in

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"I doubt that anyone would refuse to acknowledge that incongruities are more suitable for lifting our minds up into the domain of the spiritual than similarities are ... Indeed the sheer crassness of the signs is a goad so that even the materially inclined cannot accept that it could be permit- ted or true that the celestial and divine sights could be conveyed by such shameful things. And remember too that there is nothing which lacks its own share of beauty, for as scripture rightly says, 'Everything is good.'"36 Here is the full concept of dis/similarity. The same things are both similar and dissimilar, but even the most similar are infinitely dissimilar, and so it is clearer to simply use what is obviously and indisputably dissimilar, and so to emphasize the difference between God and all that we know or can know with the mind. This emphasis even expresses itself in the denial of the names "goodness," "One," and "Trinity."37

Note also that Dionysius undercuts the absoluteness of negative meth- odologies with a line about all things being good-here gesturing to the system of which negative theology is still a part. That is, negative theology succumbs to (affirmative) theology precisely when it allows itself to take affirmative theology's place. A positive negativity, in other words a negativity that never succumbs to its own negativity, ultimately yields to the affirmative. A positive negativity is not a negativity; it is the positive under the guise of the negative. In order for the negative to be negative, it must disappear into itself. On the other hand, negation demands a return to affirmation in order to indefinitely defer an affirmative victory. Only in losing does the negative win, because it is in/by losing that it indicates its own vulnerability, its own risk of affirmation, and in that indication, indicates a beyond which is beyond its ability to indicate. Moreover, in its willingness to negate itself, it risks absolute negation-a fall into nothingness.

Thus, the hypernegation at the end of the Mystical Theology is a negation not only of negation but also of affirmation: "For it is both beyond every

darkness. With metaphysics, with reason, "human beings ... circle in discourse around the truth of things." But the truth is darkness and unknowing, chaos. "Heliotropic metaphors are always imperfect metaphors," argues Derrida; "as the best metaphor is never absolutely good, without which it would not be a metaphor, does not the bad metaphor always yield the best example? Thus, metaphor means heliotrope, both a movement turned toward the sun and the turning movement of the sun" (Margins of Philosophy, pp. 250-51).

36 CH 2.3 (141A-C): O t 8 ical t6v i•-rpov voiv dvayo-oot g6LXXov ai dneg•tatvo(oTat rc0v

6goto••irov, o)oic oiCjf rtva r&v e~4povo^3vrZow cvrepeiv.... 6tavt(in6a a8 'b 6v avoep'; rl

4•fif Icatil novzTrzowIa Tit 8Topop4fa tq v oauvbhIj4tOv d; nle fte vEtroij 4J78 da&'xkqoij o;coov-

tzo eivat grl76 zoi;~ yav 7poo?iXot;, 6zrt oi; ot•0o; alXpoi6 t;Eepi np6S d~hfiet16v rozrt rz

nepo)pdvta vtai.

ieia ~6edgara. "AXXo ; a~ ,alroi•ro wvvojooat Xp•r ot grl G iv r v 6vrov eivat

icai6ko- iT ro icaXoo 3geroiafa;g 'areprCPvov, etiep ,i rTv Xoyov a '1Xiet6 frnot <H6vrca icaXa X"av>.

37 Compare the discussion in the first section of this essay regarding Dionysius's epistemology.

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assertion [according to its perfection, simplicity and infinity, and] it is also beyond every denial."38 This final denial, of denial itself along with affirmation, leads us nowhere but into the silence at the end of the Mysti- cal Theology. At this point, Dionysius simply will brook no speech, because that of which we were attempting to speak is outside any possibility of speech. The risk of nihilism in this passage beyond both affirmation and negation is manifest, as is the risk of "empty formalism" described by Derrida. Nevertheless, "when we assert what is beyond every assertion, we must then proceed from what is most akin to it [according to affirmation-negation; not according to the hypernegation which itself disallows any dis/similarity], and as we do so we make the affirmation on which everything else depends."" Yet, in proceeding "from what is most akin to it," we also necessarily proceed from what is different from it, in fact, infinitely different. The real sense of contingency in these assertions stems from their grounding in infinite difference. In other words, Diony- sius avoids both nihilism and totalism (where he risks both) by inverting the relationship between affirmation and negation, such that, whereas the negative had been seen as relative to affirmation, affirmation is now seen to rest on a hypernegation, which indeed provides the very possibility of affirmation while simultaneously undercutting any final authority it might have. Hypernegation both authorizes and resists any posthyper- negative affirmation. Thus, the diffirance of God is played out by Diony- sius in the Mystical Theology, in which he asserts that we must affirm our thoughts of God, deny those affirmations, and then deny the denials. That process does not bring us back to where we started; rather, it places us prior to the beginning, before knowledge, before signs and symbols, before thought.40

III. INFINITE DIS/SIMILARITY: DIONYSIAN ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

Dionysius's apparent epistemology and ontology are easily squared with the interpretation offered above of his semiotics, providing at the same time a viable solution to the transcendence/immanence difficulty encoun-

38 MT 5 (1048B): 1irp icpaav Ho-v ariv ... Kai •,•9p canaav d#afaipe-v. 39 Ibid., 3 (1033C): "Ont co6 i~p I naav

ttwva;6 6•av ad76 co- 3 ,aXov

auiwb osuyvetowpou qlv 6nox•otic'V icaca rda'Xptv zpfy ntvat. 40 And yet that place is darkness, i.e., it is still not quite before; it is still thought. This

darkness is the thought possibility of thought, of thinking, of theologizing, and its end. The darkness is the possibility of reconceptualizing theology. The indeterminacy of that darkness threatens theology and allows for its spontaneous and always originary generation. Dionysius further elaborates that ultimate knowledge is unknowing; what greater deferral of epistemological totalitarianism and assimilation could there be? This is not to suggest that knowledge is unimportant to Dionysius. Quite the contrary, it is crucial, for it is as one grows in knowledge that one comes to recognize that one's knowledge is severely, infinitely, limited. Just as meaning is of the delineated, so is knowledge of the knowable.

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tered above. While Derrida may accuse Eckhart of allowing for only a

temporary, essentially fake, deferral of presence, we may emphasize the

differance of God in Dionysius's theology. The dynamic concept of dis/similarity rules out categorically any possi-

bility of final absolute presence. Whatever is dis/similar to God is infinitely dissimilar: "[Things] are dissimilar to him in that as effects they fall so

very far short of their Cause and are infinitely and incomparably subor- dinate to him."41 It is at precisely this point that dis/similarity renders its de(con)structive possibilities, that is, the very dis/similarity of the Good itself: "We cannot even call it by the name of goodness."42 Not only is God not being, being beyond being, God is not even the gratuitous (gift- giving) cause of all. Yet, when we stipulate, when we move out of our

conceptual abyss, we posit first goodness: "When we assert what is beyond every assertion [i.e., when we construct a theological system], we must then proceed from what is most akin to it, and as we do so, we make the affirmation on which everything else depends."43 We noted above Diony- sius's negation of goodness as a predicate. Here, he confirms the relativi- zation of the predicate fundamental to the Neoplatonic logic of fecundity. Even the causal relation of dependence, preeminent within the discourse of affirmative theology, falls short of denominating. The very basis of con- tinuity, and, therefore, of analogical predication, is disallowed.44 This simply reiterates the transcendence principle that has been maintained throughout the argument. Infinite difference simply can never be finally overcome. The Areopagite's subversions of being and goodness/analogy/ causality come together forcefully in his deployment of divine infinity. For Dionysius, God is both infinite and beyond finitude and infinity.45 God as infinite is infinitely giving and powerful (i.e., goodness coincides with infinity), and unknowable.46 Infinity as a negative attribute of the divine

41 DN 9.7 (916A): tc6 K8i aTa' b6 dtoS Zv ov c&v aitua c To i atrio- •aL xpot; d letpot; Kai doryicpQrot; diok)Et6I?Evov.

42 Ibid., 13.3 (981A): Kai ot65 ai'r 6 o i Ta d; &ya166r Iro; 0o4 apgo6`ovce; a?OrT xpooa0poleFv. 43 MT 3 (1033C); cf. n. 39 above. 44 Chenu and Derrida both emphasize the causally based analogous mode in Pseudo-

Dionysius. See also John D. Jones, "The Ontological Difference according to St. Thomas and Pseudo-Dionysius," Dionysius 4 (1980): 119: "While Dionysius understands be-ing as cause, he denies it to be a being."

45 See esp. the concise, text-based analysis of Salvatore Lilla: "The Notion of Infinitude in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite," Journal of Theological Studies 31 (1980): 93-103.

46 Various passages make this plain, but note especially the following: "His power is infinite because all power comes from him and because he transcends all power, even absolute power. He possesses a superabundance of power which endlessly produces an endless number of other powers" (DN 8.2); "Their [the angels'] stability and their ceaseless desire for the Good come from that infinitely good Power which itself bestows on them their own power and existence, inspiring in them the ceaseless desire for existence, giving them the very power to long for unending power" (DN 8.4); and see also DN 1.2.

541


works in the same way as the name Good, that is, it embraces both God's

knowability (similarity/analogy), and God's unknowability (we cannot know the infinite).47 In this context, God as beyond infinity represents the hypernegation of divine infinity, which gestures beyond even God's unknowability. We cannot even comprehend God's incomprehensibility. Moreover, the God beyond infinity is not only beyond unknowing (which will show the limits of mystical experience/knowledge) but also beyond the positive/causal aspects of infinite goodness and power. The affirma-

tive/negative dialectic is undercut in infinity as a negation of infinity itself and opens up a space of radical possibility.48 This space is both the annihi- lation of determination and the possibility of determining. With the con- struction of this space of infinite dis/similarity, Dionysius risks not only nihilism, a risk Derrida denies he takes, but also totalism. Moreover, this space remains beyond us-Moses only reaches unknowing-we cannot transcend unknowing. Yet, our infinite reconception of the infinite God, as a result of unknowing, is a trace of that hyperinfinite beyond both the hierarchies and our (e.g., Moses') transcendence of the hierarchies.

IV. THE DIONYSIAN HIERARCHIES

Nevertheless, Dionysius does maintain that our object is "perfection" and that a measure of perfection is attainable, as in the case of Moses. But that qualification is crucial. Even to the extent that we attain some sort of perfection, it is a relative perfection, not perfection absolutely speaking: "Hierarchy causes its members to be images of God in all respects, to be clear and spotless mirrors reflecting the glow of primordial light and indeed of God himself."49 Perfection, at least in terms of the hierarchy, is not in union per se but, rather, in "a certain activity"-to be a perfect image of God, and to continue to pass knowledge down through the hierarchies. The purpose of hierarchy is the orderly communication of knowledge (irntoeTrfig).50 Angels are angels (oi i yyE10ot, "messengers") precisely because they transmit their superior knowledge of the divine to the inferior orders: "[The angels] have a preeminent right to the title angel or messenger, since it is they who are first granted the divine enlighten- ment and it is they who pass on to us these revelations which are so far

47 Lilla traces the doctrine of the unknowability of infinity to Gregory of Nyssa and Aris- totle.

48 Compare Derrida's analysis of the Timaean khora in "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials" (n. 22 above).

49 CH 3.2 (165A): tobg ;auro 6taudora;g dy4tatara Meka t &eXv ooinTpa 8tet8,arTTa KOa diqktiSYoa, eicuica' ?; dlpXtoonOu Kat lEtapXtici; d'ictvo;.

50 Regarding the distinction between et•uTiigrl

and yv6not;, cf. esp. CH 3.1 (164D-168B) and MT 1.3 (1001A).

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beyond us.""5 Not only is perfection not obliterative either of the human or the divine, as the divine remains transcendent (transcending even perfection), neither is perfection simply static. Activity continues, and the

process never quite reaches the end: "Nothing is completely free of the need for perfection. Nothing, that is, except that Being truly perfect in himself and truly preceding all perfection."52

The hierarchical role in the anagogical process is clarified in terms of a three-stage progression of purification, illumination, and perfection. Dionysius explains in the seventh chapter of The Celestial Hierarchy: "In

summary, we can reasonably say that purification, illumination, and perfection are all three the reception of an understanding of the Godhead, namely being completely purified of ignorance by the proportionately granted knowledge of the more perfect initiations, being illuminated by this same divine knowledge (through which it also purifies whatever was not previously beheld but is now revealed through the more lofty enlight- enment), and being also perfected by this light in the understanding [i~ntiatgll] of the most lustrous initiations."53 The progression here described is clearly epistemological, cognitive rather than affective, and mi-

gratory rather than nomadic.54 The pilgrim, or even the angel, acquires knowledge according to a certain order. While itinerant in character, moving up a scale, it is not yet wandering.

Affirmative theology and doxology coalesce in the liturgical function of the hierarchies, the means by which knowledge is transmitted. The pilgrim acquires knowledge of God by participation in and uplifting (anagogical) contemplation of the ritual praises contained in the liturgy. Nota- bly, the significance is not in the fact of the ritual, but in its contemplation, which precedes knowledge and prepares the soul to receive knowledge, that is, anagogical doxological interpretations of the liturgy.55 This contemplation finally employs dis/similar theology: "So there is nothing ab-

51 CH 4.2 (180B): naph a6vwa Ti;g yyeXtKiug ? ov-o{ag i~Kp{xro; ij'ovat 8th 'xb ipr;e Sig; ai-rhg iyytve(oTat 'ilv %eapXtuijv XXaNfytv aic St' aird&v eiF ilga g tanopageoaat 'hig C i; p jga•g Kicavwopiag.

52 Ibid., 10.3 (273C): i dxipo(Teg a;ca6ov cEht6rog E; i) e t i16 6vtox a~-owEh;g Kati npo- rixtov.

35 Ibid., 7.3 (209C-D): IveXOv 8 Eical xtoo •ooa•rv

&v oi5ic dnet•cox;

6 i.t at • dap~;ig oCst cai omut6g ala teXacxot; i ' tij ;eapXtiuci; tcxii;n jEisrtX ta, dyvota; giv otov dioica- OaLpo'aoa Kcr?ta 6~tv yvSt•toCv, yvxet t6v eh poy• POv guiam~ov, om

o owa 8' asrj efiqt yvxoet St' Sg icai Kaia(pet ~iv oi5 Ip6xepov exox~teoacav 6oTa viv

ecaaivecat 86th T~i

1jn"XotrFpaq F_'XXajn&oc, icai treketo-3(a iE6Xtv a'i)Ti fi zfjM ot i icaYF 'jtv e'nt(iT Tng V c& avo- TaTC~v R-07oy0(v.

54 It should be noted that the rites described in The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy do have a distinct moral tone.

55 Compare Rene Roques, L'univers Dionysien (Paris: Aubier, 1954), p. 30: "I•'t(rftij

cor- responds logiquement a un etat plus parfait que celui de la

w•~Opa qui, au moins dans notre hierarchie humaine, le precede et le prepare."

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surd in rising up, as we do, from obscure images to the single Cause of everything, rising with eyes that see beyond the cosmos to contemplate all things, even things that are opposites, in a simple unity within the universal Cause."56 We rise up from "obscure images" by way of dis/similarity: "Such a way guides the soul through all the divine notions, notions which are themselves transcended by that which is far beyond every name, all reason and all knowledge."'' All names are applied to God, and then God is removed from the names, as a process by which it is shown that God is, in fact, beyond them all. The process of uplifting is ultimately a movement toward union with God. Dionysius elaborates on this perfection as follows: "The most divine knowledge of God, that which comes through unknowing, is achieved in a union far beyond mind, when mind turns away from all things, even from itself, and when it is made one with the dazzling rays, being then and there enlightened by the inscrutable depth of Wisdom."58 This is the central paradox of Dionysian mysticism, that the ultimate knowledge is unknowing and that unknowing is the means of mystical union with God.

On the other hand, humanity does not achieve perfection properly speaking within the context of the hierarchies. In the end, the theotic process draws the contemplative up through the hierarchies of knowledge and thrusts him out the other side. His goal, theosis, is beyond the range of contemplation, however divinely inspired that contemplation might be. The entire symbolic structure, the interpretant grid-that is to say, the liturgy, the hierarchies, the scriptures-so crucial to the theotic process, must finally be shrugged off for that process's very consumma- tion. Certainly Moses' perfection in the Mystical Theology takes place beyond the hierarchies, although not without them.59 Moses nevertheless returns from his perfection and passes on some of what he learned in a form accessible to those who have not reached his degree of perfection. Conversely, the ritual structure also supports Moses in his abandonment of it. It would appear that we can never absolutely divorce ourselves from

56 DN 5.7 (821B): Oi5&v oiv i tonov E a?8u6p&v eib6vCo tiv n z6 x6vicvT arittov dvaf3dvxa; eprcooafiot1 6 )a0,goi;g eopfcoat nd6vzra v t^ indvova aito0 )cail t

dX',iCot; vavia igo-

voet6i ical ti1 v(Oivo);. 57 Ibid., 13.3 (981B): At6 iai a ol i Tq 68th 't&v d xo4odoemv avo5ov inpoetuiRcactvWc;y ad tcTr-

iaav iiv iinilv t6ov ehaoTr ou v icaio 6l i 8th acv aov betov voiuemov 686e-o'ta, av ,o 4p7trat <tc6 i•9p

I av 6vga> icaat irdvra 6yov icai yv6otv. 58 Ibid., 7.3 (872A-B): Ka'i iEtv a16t ii etozdrl &eoof yv~axn; i &' ayvoxa; ytvoeicog~vr car a~ iv 6~i~p voov ievoxtv, 6tcav 6 vo;g txo6v wcov i•vo0v danooatd, eet a icami awyr6v deit evwtbf tait; )nep4a&ty1 &dicftyriv Eic6E v icai KEt coi dtveSepeivirt I Pa6iet -ti; aloofa; icacaXag-

nogevo;. 59 Compare MT 1 (1000C-1001A), wherein Moses proceeds to Mt. Sinai within the con-

text of the hierarchies, with the people of Israel assembled at the foot of the mountain and with trumpets blaring, but then passes beyond all of those things.

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the divinizing order, either in terms of contributing to it or benefiting from it. Accordingly, the gap between ourselves and God is never closed. But God itself both supports and destroys the hierarchies. The hierarchies are good and useful insofar as they lead us beyond themselves, that is to say, insofar as they destroy themselves. This is not to say that they are completely avoidable, but it is to say that insofar as the structure is reified it denies its purpose, it denies its own surreality, its own contin-

gency. Dionysius calls the hierarchical order "symbolic" for precisely this reason, that it undercuts itself in the face of the divine anarchy, which transcends all notions of order and disorder.

It might nevertheless be argued that Dionysius hypostatizes his God by suggesting that there is a God to be similar to. In other words, if, as I have been arguing, the God of Dionysius is not "there," what does it mean to be similar to God? Must there not be a God, understandable, "real," to which to be similar? The best support for such an argument would be the

concepts of eot , "divinization," and lvcootx, mystical "union." How-

ever, Dionysius evades the accusation on two counts. First, Dionysius's point, stemming from Parmenides's equation of being and knowledge, is that anything knowable is hypostatized, and knowable because it is hypostatized, as well as that anything hypostatized is knowable.60 Dionysius never confuses God's manifestations (npo6o00t) with God, which should be clear from what we said above. Second, in what is this similarity said to consist? One is divinized in unknowing, meaninglessness. By casting loose from the stability of reason, even thought, the mystic approaches God. God's alterity is inescapable, so much so that, as there is no dissimilarity in God, union is "being neither oneself nor someone else"61-neither the same nor different; identity and difference, similarity and dissimilarity fall away. Even this union, whatever it is, cannot be conceptualized because of the infinite alterity of God.

One might say, then, that far from being hypostatized, God instead

collapses into a kind of metaphorical black hole. This is still a metaphor, but one which illustrates performatively the way in which metaphors are undermined, and rendered meaningless, precisely by that which they at-

tempt to represent. The very metaphor, "metaphorical black hole," like

"dis/similarity," always collapses in on itself, taking metaphysics with it. What, then, of the formidable hierarchies laid out by Dionysius in two of his treatises, and the elaborate systems and rituals? How are they justi- fied? What is their foundation, or are they completely arbitrary? A system

60 For Parmenides, see Fragment 3 in G. S. Kirk and S. G. Raven, The Presocratic Philoso- phers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

61 MT 1.3 (1001A): ot"zE a'uzoro oT"E 'ripoO.

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like that of Dionysius can only be built around a stable center, or at least a center taken to be stable. Suzanne Langer sums up the problem elo-

quently: "[Man] can adapt himself to anything his imagination can cope with; but he cannot deal with Chaos."62 Human beings simply are not

equipped to handle raw meaninglessness, hence religion, physics, philosophy, biology. Only by ordering reality are we able to function on a day- to-day basis. How else, then, to approach the meaningless but through structure? Even deconstruction requires a victim. There must be some-

thing to deconstruct. Dionysius builds, tears down and rebuilds in one fell swoop. The cataphatic is a stage on the way to the apophatic; then the apophatic is set aside in favor of meaninglessness. This is part of the erasure and reinscription with which this section opened. None of these three elements-writing, erasure, reinscription-can be abandoned; neither can any be prioritized; nor does the process cease.

V. UNLIMITED SEMIOSIS

The center holds, then, but in a purely functional way. It is not the life-

giving, metaphor-supplying structural foundation of traditional Western metaphysics. Rather, the center is precisely what threatens at any moment, at every moment, to annihilate metaphysics altogether. God, even as a~pl, cannot serve as a ground for ontotheology and is better understood negatively as an-arche (the bad metaphor yielding the best ex-

ample). Thus, the radical possibility of hypernegation comes to fruition in a tension, as Gersh puts it above, between hierarchies semantically in- scribed in an anarchic semiotic (i.e., affirmative theology, doxology, liturgy) and semantic hierarchies relativized by semiotic anarchy (negative theology).

Dionysius certainly hierarchizes reality; that cannot be doubted. How- ever, he also makes it quite plain that God does not anywhere fit into this hierarchy, thereby rendering the hierarchies themselves contingent (technically anarchic), and radically so, because God is not a res which they might therefore signify. There is an intelligible signified, but no In- telligible Signified; the intelligible signified is another signifier of the non- intelligible (omne symbolum de symbolo). In the process of lining up Peirce against Saussure, an apparently unsuspecting Derrida describes Diony- sius's reality with surprising accuracy: "Peirce goes very far in the direc- tion that I have called the deconstruction of the transcendental signified, which, at one time or another, would place a reassuring end to the refer- ence from sign to sign. ... What broaches the movement of signification is what

62 Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 287.

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makes its interruption impossible. The thing itself is a sign."63 We have already detailed the failure of analogical predication and the uses to which Diony- sius puts the language of projection. As Dionysius says, "Someone beholding God and understanding what he saw has not actually seen God himself, but rather something of his which has being and is knowable."64 Thus, insofar as signs signify, that is, insofar as they communicate something (comprehensible), they cannot signify God, they can only signify other signs. Thus, God's transcendence of Goodness itself sets in motion the nomadic process of unlimited semiosis.

Dionysius conceives this thoroughly human activity as one of "erring" or "wandering" (inkdvr) (as a planet), and as a "discursive passage" or "orbit of the sun" (8teoIo8t-•o) in a "circle"

(K.i•KX).65 Not only does this

fit with the heliotropic considerations above, it also gestures toward the Parmenidean understanding of signification as a path (066;).66 Dionysius plays on this in his invocation of the theologians' preference for the "negative way" (ti&iv 8t t6v dinoov4Ecov avo60v).67 Dionysius's hypernegativity shifts the migratory epistemological pattern noted above to a nomadic semiotic one.

The hymn or prayer, then, as, for example, that which opens the Mysti- cal Theology, does not bring negation to ground in affirmation. On the contrary, we bring to bear the analysis given earlier in this chapter of hypernegation and say rather that the hymn marks off theological discourse (broadly understood to include the hierarchies and hierarchical ritual) as that most likely to be grounded. This delineation allows Diony- sius to deconstruct that language clearly and explicitly, so that the ultimate failure of the hymn in hypernegation is unmistakable.

If we grant that we are talking about the signification of theological language, then all of this language "means" God. The question then be- comes in what way things symbolize God. Interpretation consequently involves a certain sort of purification of polysemia. Language is mono- semous insofar as it all "refers" to God; yet polysemous insofar as it cannot refer to God either properly or metaphorically. On the other hand, language might more accurately be called "asemous," insofar as that to

65 Derrida, Of Grammatology (n. 33 above), p. 49. 64 Ep. 1 (1065A); cf. n. 13 above. 65 DN 7.1 (865B): ndoa davOpon•iv 6t6vota n&6v iX rig t o; t cKptvog•VT npo;,

r aaOzaepbv Kalt

gt6vtov -rVt OqEtfV 1Oca TZEtOTu6rV VOTOuEmV; DN 7.2, cf. n. 28 above; contrast also the taxon-

omy of spiritual motion in DN 4.9 (705A-B). It might be interesting to attempt a reconcilia- tion of these vocabularies according to a labyrinthine paradigm.

66 This is an important theme throughout Parmenides, but see especially Fragment 1 in Kirk and Raven. I should note for the sake of clarity that a geocentric cosmology in no way mitigates the essential aspect of the heliotrope for our purposes, that is, satellites orbiting a central body.

67 DN 13.3 (981B), cf. n. 57 above. Note the adjectival form of 6vo6og.

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which it nominally refers is, in the jargon of negative theology, a mystery. The "mystery" of Dionysius's God is utter impenetrability; it is that which cannot be made sense of, that which cannot be ordered: "Language is what it is, language, only insofar as it can then master and analyze polysemia..... Each time that polysemia is irreducible, when no unity of

meaning is even promised to it, one is outside language. And conse-

quently, outside humanity."68 Theological language works neither in the

cataphatic nor the apophatic, nor even in the conjunction of the two, but in the transcendence of the conjunction. We step outside the syntactic/ semantic dichotomy in the asemia of language. Each symbol is in reality less a symbol of God than it is a symbol of its own inability to symbolize God. The name Good, as we explained above, indicates a dis/similarity- not God, but a similarity and a concomitant and irreducible dissimilarity. In effect, it indicates its own failure to bring the Other, that is God, to

presence. It misses its mark, and bound into the name and its semiotic function is its signification of its own failure. Its failure is beyond simply God's alterity, as God is beyond difference, beyond the play of dis/similarity. The failure of hymnic discourse, even negative hymns, indicates a

theological asemia and concomitant polysemia. In other words, contrary to Augustine, the surface polysemia of language is not homogenized by theological discourse but radicalized by the necessary and incessant failure of theological discourse.69

Thus, while Derrida clearly emphasizes differance, he is also perfectly willing to admit the following: "To prepare, beyond our logos, for a diffirance so violent that it can be interpellated neither as the epochality of

being nor as ontological difference, is not in any way to dispense with the

passage through the truth of Being, or to 'criticize,' 'contest,' or miscon- strue its incessant necessity. On the contrary, we must stay within the dif-

ficulty of this passage."70 Given the sophistication of Dionysius's theology, does Derrida's "criticism" really amount to anything more than dissatis- faction at the apparent emphases in radical Christian negative theology? The negativity of Dionysius is complex and virtually unparalleled in its

radicality. In the end, Derrida cannot simply disregard negative theology, any more than negative theology can disregard him.

68 Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (n. 29 above), p. 248. 69 Dionysius's theology, then, is built around a "determined moment in the total move-

ment of the trace," with the clear awareness that (always) by the time that moment has been bracketed, the edifice built upon it is a mummified marker of the passing of the trace. The sun around which his system is built is really a tomb, and an empty one at that, always already empty. It cannot be overemphasized, however, that all of this is still more metaphor, the framework by which one might, according to Dionysius, dispense with frameworks.

70 Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, p. 32.

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the theology of dis/similarity: negation in pseudo-dionysius

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