Pre-Socratic For the ancient Greeks, knowledge of the gods was essential for proper worship. Poets had an important responsibility in this regard, and a central question was how knowledge of the Divine forms can be attained.
Epiphany played an essential role in attaining this knowledge.
Xenophanes () noted that the knowledge of the Divine forms is restrained by the human imagination, and Greek philosophers realized that this knowledge can only be mediated through myth and visual representations, which are culture-dependent. According to
Herodotus (484–425 BC),
Homer and
Hesiod (between 750 and 650 BC) taught the Greek the knowledge of the Divine bodies of the Gods. The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (between 750 and 650 BC) describes in his
Theogony the birth of the gods and creation of the world, which became an "
ur-text for programmatic, first-person
epiphanic narratives in Greek literature," but also "explores the necessary limitations placed on human access to the divine." According to Platt, the statement of the Muses who grant Hesiod knowledge of the Gods "actually accords better with the logic of apophatic religious thought."
Parmenides (fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC), in his poem
On Nature, gives an account of a revelation on two ways of inquiry. "The way of conviction" explores Being, true reality ("what-is"), which is "What is ungenerated and deathless,/whole and uniform, and still and perfect." "The way of opinion" is the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful. His distinction between unchanging Truth and shifting opinion is reflected in Plato's
allegory of the Cave. Together with the Biblical story of Moses's ascent of Mount Sinai, it is used by
Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to give a Christian account of the ascent of the soul toward God. Cook notes that Parmenides' poem is a religious account of a mystical journey, akin to the
mystery cults, giving a philosophical form to a religious outlook. Cook further notes that the philosopher's task is to "attempt through 'negative' thinking to tear themselves loose from all that frustrates their pursuit of wisdom."
Plato Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC), "deciding for Parmenides against
Heraclitus" and his theory of eternal change, had a strong influence on the development of apophatic thought. Plato further explored Parmenides's idea of timeless truth in his dialogue
Parmenides, which is a treatment of the
eternal forms,
Truth, Beauty and Goodness, which are the real aims for knowledge. The Theory of Forms is Plato's answer to the problem of how one fundamental reality or unchanging essence can admit of many changing phenomena, other than by dismissing them as being mere illusion. In
The Republic, Plato argues that the "real objects of knowledge are not the changing objects of the senses, but the immutable Forms," stating that the
Form of the Good is the highest object of knowledge. His argument culminates in the
Allegory of the Cave, in which he argues that humans are like prisoners in a cave, who can only see shadows of the Real, the
Form of the Good. Humans are to be educated to search for knowledge, by turning away from their bodily desires toward higher contemplation, culminating in an intellectual understanding or apprehension of the Forms, c.q. the "first principles of all knowledge." According to Cook, the
Theory of Forms has a theological flavour, and had a strong influence on the ideas of his Neo-Platonist interpreters Proclus and Plotinus. The pursuit of
Truth, Beauty and Goodness became a central element in the apophatic tradition, but nevertheless, according to Carabine "Plato himself cannot be regarded as the founder of the negative way." Carabine warns not to read later Neo-Platonic and Christian understandings into Plato, and notes that Plato did not identify his Forms with "one transcendent source," an identification which his later interpreters made.
Middle Platonism Middle Platonism (1st century BC–3rd century AD) further investigated Plato's "Unwritten Doctrines," which drew on
Pythagoras' first principles of the
Monad and the
Dyad (matter). Middle Platonism proposed a
hierarchy of being, with God as its first principle at its top, identifying it with Plato's
Form of the Good. An influential proponent of Middle Platonism was
Philo (c. 25 BC – c. 50 AD), who employed Middle Platonic philosophy in his interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures, and asserted a strong influence on early Christianity. According to Craig D. Allert, "Philo made a monumental contribution to the creation of a vocabulary for use in negative statements about God." For Philo, God is undescribable, and he uses terms which emphasize God's transcendence.
Neo-Platonism Neo-Platonism was a mystical or contemplative form of Platonism, which "developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism." It started with the writings of Plotinus (204/5–270 AD), and ended with the closing of the Platonic Academy by Emperor Justinian in 529 AD, when the pagan traditions were ousted. It is a product of Hellenistic syncretism, which developed due to the crossover between Greek thought and the Jewish scriptures, and also gave birth to
Gnosticism. Proclus of Athens (*412–485 AD) played a crucial role in the transmission of Platonic philosophy from antiquity to the Middle Ages, serving as head or 'successor' (diadochos, sc. of Plato) of the Platonic 'Academy' for over 50 years. His student Pseudo-Dionysius had a far-stretching Neo-Platonic influence on Christianity and Christian mysticism.
Plotinus , 204/5–270 AD
Plotinus (204/5–270 AD) was the founder of Neo-Platonism. In the
Neo-Platonic philosophy of Plotinus and Proclus, the first principle became even more elevated as a radical unity, which was presented as an unknowable Absolute. For Plotinus, the
One is the first principle, from which everything else emanates. He took it from Plato's writings, identifying the Good of the
Republic, as the cause of the other Forms, with the
One of the first hypothesis of the second part of the
Parmenides. For Plotinus, the
One precedes the
Forms, and "is beyond Mind and indeed beyond Being." From the
One comes the
Intellect, which contains all the Forms. The
One is the principle of Being, while the Forms are the principle of the essence of beings, and the intelligibility which can recognize them as such. Plotinus's third principle is Soul, the desire for objects external to itself. The highest satisfaction of desire is the contemplation of the
One, which unites all existents "as a single, all-pervasive reality." The
One is radically simple, and does not even have self-knowledge, since self-knowledge would imply multiplicity. Nevertheless, Plotinus does urge for a search for the Absolute, turning inward and becoming aware of the "presence of the intellect in the human soul," initiating an ascent of the soul by
abstraction or "taking away," culminating in a
sudden appearance of the
One. In the
Enneads Plotinus writes: Carabine notes that Plotinus' apophasis is not just a mental exercise, an acknowledgement of the unknowability of the
One, but a means to
ecstasis and an ascent to "the unapproachable light that is God." Pao-Shen Ho, investigating what are Plotinus' methods for reaching
henosis, concludes that "Plotinus' mystical teaching is made up of two practices only, namely philosophy and negative theology." According to Moore, Plotinus appeals to the "non-discursive, intuitive faculty of the soul," by "calling for a sort of prayer, an invocation of the deity, that will permit the soul to lift itself up to the unmediated, direct, and intimate contemplation of that which exceeds it (V.1.6)." Pao-Shen Ho further notes that "for Plotinus, mystical experience is irreducible to philosophical arguments." The argumentation about
henosis is preceded by the actual experience of it, and can only be understood when
henosis has been attained. Ho further notes that Plotinus's writings have a didactic flavour, aiming to "bring his own soul and
the souls of others by way of
Intellect to union with the One." As such, the
Enneads as a spiritual or ascetic teaching device, akin to
The Cloud of Unknowing, demonstrating the methods of philosophical and apophatic inquiry. Ultimately, this leads to silence and the abandonment of all intellectual inquiry, leaving contemplation and unity.
Proclus Proclus (412–485) introduced the terminology used in apophatic and cataphatic theology. He did this in the second book of his
Platonic Theology, arguing that Plato states that the
One can be revealed "through analogy," and that "through negations [
dia ton apophaseon] its transcendence over everything can be shown." For Proclus, apophatic and cataphatic theology form a contemplatory pair, with the apophatic approach corresponding to the manifestation of the world from the
One, and cataphatic theology corresponding to the return to the
One. The analogies are affirmations which direct us toward the
One, while the negations underlie the confirmations, being closer to the
One. According to Luz, Proclus also attracted students from other faiths, including the Samaritan Marinus. Luz notes that "Marinus' Samaritan origins with its Abrahamic notion of a single
ineffable Name of God () should also have been in many ways compatible with the school's ineffable and apophatic divine principle." ==Christianity==