HeyJ XLII (2001), pp.

112

WHEREOF WE SPEAK:
GREGORY OF NYSSA,
JEAN-LUC MARION AND THE
CURRENT APOPHATIC RAGE
MARTIN LAIRD
Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA

Recent discussions of the possible relevance of the Christian apophatic

tradition to postmodern theological concerns have become something of
a commonplace. We are all apophatic theologians, says Denys Turner
with restrained cheek.1 Many of these discussions have drawn inspiration
from the work of Jacques Derrida, who himself, while genuinely intrigued
by 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 a
deeper and crucial dimension of Christian apophasis. The oversight is
not insignificant; what has been overlooked is precisely that dimension
of Christian apophaticism which overcomes the deconstructionist critique
of the same. The problem can be stated as follows. Deconstructionism
has queried whether indeed Christian apophaticism does not, after all its
negations, 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 interrogative
value, 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 almost
exclusively on the kataphasisapophasis dialectic.6 It is precisely this
narrow 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 purpose
of this article, then, is to broaden the horizon of discussion by exposing
a discourse proper to apophasis that indeed is not kataphasis but
logophasis, a neologism which I shall explain in due course. To reveal
this logophatic dimension of Christian apophasis I shall look at two

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

2 MARTIN LAIRD

apophatic theologians, one patristic, the other postmodern, both of

whose apophaticism is well acknowledged, namely, the fourth-century
Cappadocian, Gregory of Nyssa and the French philosopher Jean-Luc
Marion. The advantage of bringing into concert these two thinkers will
be seen in the fact that both evince a thoroughgoing apophaticism that
reveals 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 watershed

Against Eunomius or for the celebrated luminous darkness, which became
his apophatic signature in the Life of Moses and the Homilies on the Song
of Songs, Gregory of Nyssas seminal contribution to the development
of the Christian apophatic tradition has long been acknowledged.7 The
following assertion from the Life of Moses shows the bishop of Nyssa
at his most apophatic: any concept that attempts to attain or define the
divine becomes an idol of God and does not make him known.8 Not
only are concepts incapable of grasping the divine essence, they pose a
certain stumbling block for one who would assault the mountain of
divine knowledge. For Gregory, the First Commandment itself prohibits
the formation of any conceptual representation of God, and anyone who
would encounter God must leave behind all manner of comprehension
before entering the sanctuary of divine presence. Whether it is the bride
in the darkness of unknowing, or Pauls experience of the indwelling
Christ, or indeed the Beloved Disciple having laid his head on the Lords
breast, Gregorian apophatic experience is characterized by this shedding
of concept, image and speech. However, this is not all there is to Christian
apophaticism, at least as embodied by Gregory of Nyssa, and this is
precisely what has been left out of not a few postmodern attempts to
weld this tradition to its concerns.
While Gregorian apophaticism is relentlessly consistent in its refusal
to allow concepts and speech to grasp the divine essence, the apophatic
silence of divine union is neither mute nor inert. Because for Gregory
apophatic union is union with God the Word (at least in the Homilies
on the Song of Songs), there is a characteristic dimension of apophasis
which might well be termed logophasis.9 By this neologism I intend
the following: as a result of apophatic union, in which concepts, words
and images have been abandoned, characteristics of the Word are taken
on; the Word indwells the deeds and discourse of the one in apophatic
union. Hence a new discourse emerges: the Word says itself (hence the
term logophasis) through deeds and discourse. I have coined and employed
 WHEREOF WE SPEAK 3

the use of this term lest one think, as the deconstructionist critique sus-
pects, that the discourse following upon apophatic experience slips back
into kataphasis, substituting a thinly disguised affirmation. We can best
see this paradoxical logophasis in the apophatic experience of the bride,
Paul and the Beloved Disciple.
For all of the brides apophatic gestures of aphairesis10 her shedding
of concepts, and abandonment of all manner of comprehension she is
paradoxically 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 words
blossoms 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, the
bride begins to ascend through various levels of knowledge. Forsaking
sense perception, she ascends to the angelic rank and learns by the silence
of the angels that the Beloved cannot be comprehended. She realized
that her desired love is known only in unknowing.12 Therefore, the bride
exclaims, I passed by every creature and every intelligible thing in
creation, and after forsaking every manner of comprehension, I found
my Beloved by faith. No longer will I let him go once found by the grasp
of faith.13
The text is rife with the apophatic motifs: ascent in darkness, aphairetic
gestures that abandon levels of conceptual knowledge, the coincidence
of knowing and unknowing, all culminating in union beyond concepts
by means of a faculty reserved for that very purpose.14 However, union
beyond thought and speech, beyond all manner of comprehension, is not
the only concern of this apophatic text; for the text very quickly moves
into what I have termed logophasis.
After this profoundly apophatic experience of union, the silent chamber
of the brides heart begins to speak: after this the bride speaks in a loving
manner to the daughters of Jerusalem.15 It is important to observe, how-
ever, the nature of this speech; it is not characterized by a kataphatic
enunciation of divine attributes. In fact, Gregory does not tell us pre-
cisely what the bride says; rather he draws attention to the effect of this
discourse on her maiden companions.
The brides 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 brides discourse evokes from her maiden companions
the same response that the Bridegroom evoked from her: ascending
desire. This, then, is the logophatic dimension of apophatic experience:
by virtue of the brides apophatic union with the Word, her discourse
takes on the power and efficacy of the Word itself. From the brides per-
spective, apophasis is ascent into the darkness of unknowing, beyond
language and concepts that would attempt to grasp God, but from the
companions perspective looking at the brides apophatic experience,
4 MARTIN LAIRD

they experience logophasis, the manifestation of the Word in her deeds

and discourse. Apophasis, then, involves a double movement, (1) the
ascent to union with the Word beyond all thought and word, and (2) the
descent of the Word into the world of deeds and discourse. Not captured
by her words, but manifesting itself through them, the Words beauty
stirs the daughters of Jerusalem and causes them to arise.
The logophatic dimension of Gregorys apophaticism appears with
varying clarity throughout the Homilies on the Song of Songs. In a simple
yet moving image of union in Homily One, the bride places her mouth
on the mouth of the Bridegroom, which wells up like a fountain with
words of everlasting life.17 As a result of this union, the brides mouth is
filled with words of eternal life, and so, in union with the fountain of
the 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 once
again with discourse as a result of contact with the Word. Her breasts are
described as fountains of good teachings, and, as the Bridegroom turns
to behold the bride, he says of her: your heart has become a honeycomb
full of every kind of instruction. From your hearts treasure come your
words. They are honeyed drops that the Word might be blended with
milk and honey.19 As the brides speech, honeyed with presence, drips
from the honeycomb of her mouth, Gregory is keen to emphasize that
her words are not merely words, but power.20
This power in the brides discourse is the fructifying efficacy of the
Word 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 the
benefit of the bride but for those who hear her speak; for they receive
seeds into their hearts, and these words of faith become a garden
planted in their hearts.22 Their hearts, like hers, have become gardens
of virtue. As the bride was transformed by virtue of her union with the
Bridegroom-Word, so those who listen to the brides discourse are
transformed; 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 search
of God (kataphatic), but language that is full of God (logophatic). So
keen is Gregory to prevent us from thinking that the bride has returned
to kataphatic discourse, transmuting her negations into affirmations, that
he does not even let us know precisely what she says. Gregory empha-
sizes instead what the daughters of Jerusalem encounter in the brides
discourse: the ineffable, inscrutable, incomprehensible Word itself. The
logophatic dimension of apophatic experience is not limited to that of
the bride; the apophatic experiences of Paul and the Beloved Disciple
likewise reveal this dimension of logophasis.
Paul, made radiant from darkness,23 is in many respects an apophatic
figure for Gregory. In Homily Three on the Song of Songs, he sees Paul
 WHEREOF WE SPEAK 5

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, the
divine nature can itself speak through Paul. Having become a dwelling
place of Christ through union by faith, Paul showed forth Christ living
in him and gave proof of Christ speaking in him.25 Because it is the Word
who speaks through Paul, Paul has a transforming effect on those around
him. Thus Titus, Silvanus and Timothy are transformed when they inhale
Pauls scent, which contains the indwelling Christ.26 In Homily Fourteen
on the Song of Songs, Pauls discourse bears the transforming character
of the ineffable Word who indwells him. Hence, when Thekla hears
Pauls discourse, these flowing drops of myrrh, she herself is trans-
formed into a divine dwelling place: After this teaching the Word
alone lived in her.27 Paul, united with the Word who cannot be grasped
by 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 is
logophatic. Again Gregory does not reveal what Paul actually did or said;
instead emphasis is placed on the transforming efficacy of the deeds and
discourse: the Word itself.
The Beloved Disciple is another apophatic figure who exhibits the same
logophatic dimension that we see in the bride and in Paul. In the Life of
Moses it is none other then John who announces Gregorys apophatic
carte dentre by entering the luminous darkness and claiming that
no conceptual grasp of the divine essence can be attained.28 In Homily
One on the Song of Songs, the Beloved Disciple assumes a different but
likewise apophatic posture. Reclining on the Lords breast, John places
his heart like a sponge on the breast of the Lord. As he rests there silently
he is filled with an ineffable transmission of the mysteries hidden deeply
within the heart of the Lord.29 However, instead of resting there on the
Lords breast, the Beloved Disciple takes the breast of the Word upon
which he has lain and offers us the good things he has received and by
this deed proclaims the Word who exists from age to age.30 In the Life
of Moses Gregory states emphatically that any concept of God becomes
an idol and does not proclaim God.31 Johns proclamation does not
contradict this. Rather, by virtue of his being drawn into the depths of
the ineffable Word, he is drawn into the Words incarnational dynamism
of expressive transformation. Johns proclamation is not grounded in
conceptual idolatry but, as in the case of the bride and of Paul, in the
Word, who unclenches the tight grasp of concepts and speaks in the
deeds and discourse of the Beloved Disciple.
In contrast to kataphatic discourse which affirms something about
God, logophatic discourse affirms nothing; nor does it attempt to reach
God 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
6 MARTIN LAIRD

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

II. FROM THEOLOGY TO THEOLOGY:

LOGOPHATIC APOPHATICISM IN JEAN-LUC MARION

With the publication of Dieu sans ltre, Jean-Luc Marion consolidates

his position as one of the most significant Christian apophaticists of
postmodernity.32 While Marion certainly does not evince the grand, apo-
phatic gestures of anabasis and aphairesis that Gregory does, the motifs
are there, however restrained; and even so, if not the words, indeed the
res. Moreover, as in Gregory of Nyssa, we see Marions apophaticism
open onto that dimension of apophaticism that we are calling logophasis.
A chapter which has not enjoyed the critical reception and exploration
it deserves, Of the Eucharistic Site of Theology reveals the apophatic
blossoming of the rather more critically excavated chapters that pre-
cede.33 While indeed Marions apophaticism has led to the treasure of
silence, a dignified silence free from idolatry, this silence is neither mute
nor inert. Citing Denys the Areopagite, Marion suggests that we are led
paradoxically to become messengers announcing the divine silence.34
From here he goes on to say something about the nature of theology and
the theologian: Theology can reach its authentically theological status
only if it does not cease to break with all theology.35 Somehow within
the treasures of silence there is still a role for discourse.
But what of this discourse? Is Marion not doing exactly what Turner
warned of by saying that in the end there is speech and not silence.36 Is
Marion, in other words, suggesting a return to kataphatic discourse?
Is he transmuting apophatic denials into kataphatic assertions? On the
contrary, like Gregory of Nyssa, Marion is suggesting something far
more subtle and paradoxical, and this is precisely what postmodernitys
affair with the apophatic tradition has not recognized and what indeed
establishes Jean-Luc Marion and Gregory of Nyssa as theologians in
concert: for Marion too a new discourse emerges from the depths (or
heights) of apophatic silence. This new discourse, however, is not a return
to kataphatic language searching for God, but a transformation of dis-
course into language that is full of God; what we called in Gregory of
Nyssa logophasis. Moreover, this transformation of discourse in Marion
takes 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, Marions
theologian, in abandoning discourse, is paradoxically said by the Word:
theology becomes theology.
While Marions theology is not sealed in waxen biblical figures such
as the bride, Paul or the Beloved Disciple,37 if one were to take Marions
 WHEREOF WE SPEAK 7

theologian as one such figure,38 we would find something rather similar

to the logophatic characters we find in Gregory of Nyssa. Marion says
of 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 the
Word, in order to let himself be said by the Word, as the word lets himself be said
by the Father him, and in him, us also. In short, our language will be able to speak
of God only to the degree that God, in his Word, will speak our language and teach us
in the end to speak it as he speaks it divinely, which means to say in all abandon.39

In the attempt to reach God, Marions theologian, like Gregorys bride,

abandons discourse. This aphairetic gesture is more than simple refrain
from speech. For in the apophatic tradition, as we have seen in the case
of Gregorys bride, the aphairetic abandonment of images, concepts, and
words propels the apophatic ascent into deeper silence. And in what
Marion 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 the
Word sounded the unspeakable Word of his Father.40
In these particular texts Marion does not specify why the theologians
apophatic abandonment of discourse transforms the theologian into the
logophatic discourse of the Word. Elsewhere, however, he is rather clear
that this transformation is due to an encounter with the Word, and in
one important text this encounter is described as union.41 Other texts
designate the encounter less boldly and merely hover over the notion of
union.
In a curious parallel to the patristic exegetical strategy of moving from
signum 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 of
charity. 43 This movement would seem not to be a discursive movement,
however, for Marion says it is extrascientific.44 It is here that Marion
makes a rather subtle alignment between the theologians abandoning
his discourse and every linguistic initiative to the Word45 and this non-
discursive movement of aiming at the referent or going through the
text. In Gregory of Nyssa it is precisely the dynamic of aphairesis, of
engaged and vigilant abandonment of thoughts, images and language,
that propels one into the silence of the Word and indeed to union with the
Word. Likewise for Marion, or so it would seem: here is the qualification,
extrascientific but essential, that makes the theologian: the referent is
not taught, since it is encountered by mystical union. And yet, one must
speak of him Only the saintly person knows whereof he speaks in
theology, .46 It should be emphasized that when Marion says one
must speak of him, he does not intend that as a result of this union one
can somehow make God an object of discourse; for just earlier he has
said that if theology speaks of God, this of is understood as much as
8 MARTIN LAIRD

the origin of the discourse as its objective (I do not say object ).47 For
Marion, then, this access to the referent,48 this transgressing the text
by the text, as far as the Word49 is tantamount to the aphairetic process
of abandonment of discourse that leads to apophatic union. However, for
both Marion and Gregory of Nyssa, this provokes a new discourse. And
yet we must speak of him. Moreover, for both Marion and Gregory this
new discourse is not a departure from the apophatic but the graced
fruition 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 logophatic
discourse it is the Word who speaks.
How does Marion describe this new discourse? It is certainly not a
return 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 discourse
concerning God is abandoned, the Word becomes incarnate in human
words. [The Word] proffers himself in them, not because he says them;
he proffers himself in them because he exposes himself in them by
incarnating himself. Thus speaking our words, the Word redoubles his
incarnation .53
Marion suggests neither that we become subjects of divine ventrilo-
quism nor that our discourse about God having been abandoned is taken
up 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 God
concerning God .54 Rather, as in the case of Paul, who is the locus of
divine indwelling in Gregorys Homily Three on the Song, the Word
says himself the Word. Word, because he is said and proffered through
and through He says himself, and nothing else, for nothing else
remains to be said outside of this saying of the said .55
Passing from signum to res, from text to referent, from the words to
the Word, abandoning every linguistic initiative,56 the theologian
becomes theologian as the Word becomes incarnate in human words
without being enclosed by them. Unspeakable to us, the Word says
itself in human discourse. Labile inhabitant of our babble, it in-
habits our babble nevertheless as referent.57 The Word has become the
site for theology, where the theologian imitates the Theologian
superior to himself,58 securing for himself this place were the Word in
person silently speaks.59

III. CONCLUSION

At a recent conference on religion and postmodernism,60 Marion chal-

lenged Derridas claim that Christian apophaticism left a residue of
 WHEREOF WE SPEAK 9

hyperessentiality, that the apophatic transmutes into affirmation its

negativity.61 Marion claimed that Derrida did not see that both apophasis
and kataphasis in the end yield to a third way.62 This third way, as
Marion terms it, does not hide an affirmation beneath a negation,
because it means to overcome their duel, just as it means to overcome
that between the two truth values wherein metaphysics plays itself out
[N]egation itself submits its very own operation, and above all its
duel 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 matter
of saying something about something Its a matter of being exposed.64
Marions third way, that is neither kataphatic nor apophatic, I have
termed 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 further
reaches, one is exposed to, indeed united with, the Word. How does
logophasis 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 and
strategies. There is no suggestion by the texts themselves that the
paradoxical discourse of logophasis is surreptitiously smuggling in and
re-establishing an affirmation.65 Examining the logophatic discourse of
Gregorys bride, Paul and the Beloved Disciple, and Marions theologian,
we saw that their logophatic discourse was never a question of positing
God 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 that
would indeed sustain the deconstructionist suspicion of being a negation
transmuted again into an affirmation. However, logophasis is no such
predicative discourse. For Gregory and Marion, when kataphatic
discourse concerning God is abandoned in apophatic union, the Word
indwells human deeds and discourse; the Word manifests itself in them.
The clenched fists of predicative, attributive discourse have relaxed, and
in these open palms of discourse, the Word speaks itself, labile inhabitant
of our babble.66 Language is no longer grasping but revealing.
The purpose of this article has been to uncover a form of discourse in
two outstanding representatives of Christian apophaticism as a way of
responding to an important concern raised by deconstructionism. An
exclusive focus on the kataphatic apophatic dialectic, which character-
izes the deconstructionist critique of Christian apophaticism, has obscured
from view the deeper transformation of discourse within the apophatic
context. Having uncovered logophatic discourse, even the deconstruction-
ist unclenches conceptual fists before the great speaking absence between
the images.67
10 MARTIN LAIRD

Notes
1 D. Turner, The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ: Negative Theology and Eucharistic
Presence, Modern Theology 15 (1999): pp. 14358 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. 15065; J. Caputo,
The Prayers and Tears of Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 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 Theology
and Negative Anthropology in Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena, Heythrop Journal 40
(1999), pp. 43855; 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. 12435; 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. 20316; R. Scharmann (ed.), Negation and Theology (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of
Virginia, 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. 47388; J.-L. Marion, In the Name: How to Avoid
Speaking 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. 2053, esp. pp. 203.
6 In so far as the deconstructionist critique has all but ignored the important dimension of
aphairesis, it is questionable to what extent deconstructionism has understood the multilevelled
dynamics of denial. Speaking specifically of Denys the Areopagite, J. Williams has recently argued
that this oversight is largely due to misleading translations which fail to differentiate between the
distinct types of negation ; see J. Williams, The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-
Areopagite I, Downside Review 117 (1999), pp. 15772 at p. 157; see also J. Jones, Sculpting
God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology, Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996),
pp. 35571.
7 Among an abundant literature see, for example the classic article by H. Puech, La Tnbre
mystique chez le Pseudo-Denys lAropagite et dans la tradition patristique, tudes Carmlitaines
23 (1938), pp. 3853, reprinted in En qute de la gnose, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), vol. 1,
pp. 11941; as well as J. LeMatre, Prhistoire du concepte de gnophos, in Dictionnaire de
Spiritualit, s. v. Contemplation, cols. 186872; J. Danilou, Platonisme et thologie mystique
(Paris: Aubier, 1944, 2nd ed., 1953), pp. 19099; A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical
Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 8097; D. Carabine, The Unknown God:
Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition; Plato to Eriugena (Louvain: Peeters, 1995),
pp. 23458.
8 De vita Moysis, II, 165, Sources Chrtiennes (= SC) 1bis, ed. J. Danilou (Paris: Les ditions
du Cerf, 1987), p. 212; interestingly this very text serves as one of the opening quotations in
Marions LIdole et la distance (Paris: Editions Grasset et Fasquelle, 1977), p. 7.
9 An expanded version of this section was presented to the Thirteenth International Conference
on Patristic Studies, Oxford, 1621 August 1999.
10 Throughout I am using the terms aphairesis and aphairetic in a sense broader than the
cerebral sounding abstraction, encompassing the senses of abandonment or letting go of images
and concepts in the course of apophatic ascent.
11 Gregory comments in this Homily on Sg 3, 14: 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 to
Gregory 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, 23.
13 Ibid., p. 183, 59.
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 Gregorys
part; see M. Laird, By Faith Alone: A Technical Term in Gregory of Nyssa, Vigiliae Christianae
54 (2000), pp. 6179.
 WHEREOF WE SPEAK 11
15 In Cant. VI, GNO VI, p. 183, 1011.
16 Ibid., p. 184, 1315.
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, 24.
19 In Cant. IX, GNO VI, p. 270, 711.
20 Ibid., p. 280, 3.
21 Ibid., p. 281, 2.
22 Ibid., p. 282, 47.
23 In Cant. II, GNO VI, p. 48, 15.
24 The alpha privatives of , and underscore the apophatic
thrust of the context. This stringing together of alpha privatives is a characteristic apophatic strategy
for Gregory; see F. Vinel, Homlies sur lEcclsiaste, SC 416 (Paris: Les ditions du Cerf, 1996),
p. 388, n. 2.
25 In Cant. III, GNO VI, p. 88, 46.
26 Ibid., pp. 91, 1792, 4.
27 In Cant. XIV, GNO VI, p. 405, 79.
28 De vita Moysis, II, 163 (SC, p. 212).
29 In Cant. I, GNO VI, p. 41, 710. The language of ineffability () and hiddenness
() underscore the apophatic sense of the text.
30 Ibid., p. 41, 1013.
31 De vita Moysis II, 165 (SC, p. 212).
32 J.-L. Marion, Dieu sans ltre: Hors-texte (Paris: Librairie Arthme Fayard, 1982). Recent
appraisals, include J.-D. Robert, Autour de Dieu sans ltre de Jean-Luc Marion, Laval thologique
et philosophique 39 (1983), pp. 34147; idem, Dieu sans ltre: A propos dun livre rcent,
Nouvelle Revue Thologique 105 (1983), 40610; K. Ziarek, The Language of Praise: Levinas and
Marion, Religion and Literature 22 (1990), pp. 93107, esp. pp. 98102; D. Moss, Costly Giving:
On Jean-Luc Marions Theology of the Gift, New Blackfriars 74 (1993), pp. 39399; K. Schmitz,
The God of Love, The Thomist 57 (1993), pp. 495508; D. Powers, R. Duffy, K. Irwin, Sacramental
Theology: A Review of Literature, Theological Studies 55 (1994), pp. 68893; T. Sanders, The
Otherness of God and the Bodies of Others, Journal of Religion 76 (1996), pp. 57287;
A. Godzieba, Ontotheology to Excess: Imagining God without Being, Theological Studies 56
(1995), pp. 320, esp. pp. 811; J. OLeary, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1996), pp. 18591.
33 All references are to the English-language edition: God without Being, trans. T. Carlson
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 13958.
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. 14344: 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 who
wonders 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 Marions recourse to scripture is incidental; God without
Being 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 the
word-play between theology and theology. On the relationship between the bishop and theologian,
see God without Being, pp. 15358.
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 Spiritual
Exercise, To Help Overcome Trinitarian Timidity, Horizons 25 (1998), pp. 27691.
41 God without Being, p. 155.
42 Ibid., pp. 15455.
43 Ibid., p. 155.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., p. 144.
46 Ibid., p. 155.
12 MARTIN LAIRD

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 2527, 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 negations self-negation, see the two-levelled
apophasis indicated by D. Turners reading of Denys the Areopagite in The Darkness of God:
Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 1949.
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.