We have only to observe what happens when in Epistola XIII to Cangrande della Scala he explains how the poet has attempted to render the ineffability of the divine vision. Dante obviously cites Pseudo-Dionysius, and, even if he had not done so, we would have known perfectly well where the theme of the unutterability of God came from. He further warns us that “multa namque per intellectum videmus quibus signa vocalia desunt: quod satis Plato insinuat in suis libris per assumptionem metaphorismorum” (“in fact with the aid of our intellect we see many things for which we lack verbal expressions: which is sufficiently demonstrated by Plato in his works when he makes use of metaphors”) (Epistola XIII, 29). And, even using a very conservative definition of whether an expression is used metaphorically, in Paradiso 33, 55–145, we can identify seventy-seven metaphors and similes—some of which are among the most striking in the poem. But throughout the Epistola, it does not even occur to Dante, who seems determined to explain everything, and brings in philosophy and theology to elucidate what it was he wanted to say, to comment upon these metaphors. When he cites the opening lines of the Paradiso, “The glory of him who moves all things / penetrates and shines throughout the universe,” he confines himself to saying that what he says is “bene dictum,” explaining that the glory of God “penetrat, quantum ad essentiam; resplendet, quantum ad esse” (“it penetrates as to its essence, it shines as to its being”) Epistola XIII, 23). He says, in other words, what philosophical purposes these two metaphors are used for, but he feels no need to say in what way glory (in any case already a metaphorical expression) can be said to penetrate and shine.
3.6. The Symbolic Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius
At this point it remains to be seen whether metaphor, having forfeited its cognitive function in poetry and in the text of Scripture, could still assume a revelatory function in a theory of divine names—where the challenge is to name someone whom no literal expression can give a proper account of.
In the wake of Neo-Platonism, in the sixth century the idea of the One as unfathomable and contradictory enters the Christian world, through the agency of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (hereinafter “Dionysius”). In his works the Divinity is named negatively as something that is
the Cause of all [and] is above all and is not inexistent, lifeless, speechless, mindless. It is not a material body, and hence has neither shape nor form, quality, quantity, or weight. It is not in any place and can neither be seen nor be touched. It is neither perceived nor is it perceptible. It suffers neither disorder nor disturbance and is overwhelmed by no earthly passion. It is not powerless and subject to the disturbances caused by sense perception. It passes through no change, decay, division, loss, no ebb and flow, nothing of which the senses may be aware. None of all this can be either identified with it nor attributed to it.…
… It is not soul, or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding. Nor is it speech per se, understanding per se. It cannot be spoken of and it cannot be grasped by understanding. It is not number or order, greatness or smallness, equality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity. It is not immovable, moving or at rest. It has no power, it is not power, nor is it light. It does not live, nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It cannot be grasped by the understanding since it is neither knowledge nor truth. It is not kingship. It is not wisdom. It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness. Nor is it a spirit, in the sense in which we understand that term. (The Mystical Theology, trans. Luibheid, pp. 140–141)30
And so on in this vein for page after page of dazzling mystical aphasia.
How then can we speak of divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge, if it abides beyond the reach of mind and of being, if it encompasses and circumscribes, embraces and anticipates all things, while itself eluding their grasp and escaping from any perception, imagination, opinion, name, discourse, apprehension, or understanding? (The Divine Names, trans. Luibheid, p. 53).
Not knowing what else to name it, Dionysius calls the divinity “the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence” and “the ray of the divine shadow which is above everything that is” (p. 135). At first blush, these appear to be oxymorons, expressing a contradiction, and therefore the impossibility of an unambiguous definition; they are nonetheless oxymorons based upon metaphors.
Dionysius, however, continues to insist that no metaphor or symbol can express the divine nature. But in so doing he swings back and forth between a kind of mystagogic attitude (under the influence of various non-Christian sources) and a symbolic theology, designed to help even the simple-minded comprehend the nature of God.
From the mystagogic point of view God is ineffable, and the only way to speak adequately of him is to be silent: as we ascend from lower to higher things “we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing,” (The Mystical Theology, trans. Luibheid, p. 139). When someone speaks, it is to hide the divine mysteries from those who cannot penetrate them: “it is most fitting to the mysterious passages of scripture that the sacred and hidden truth about the celestial intelligences be concealed through the inexpressible and the sacred and be inaccessible to the hoi polloi. Not everyone is sacred, and, as scripture says, knowledge is not for everyone” (The Celestial Hierarchy, trans. Luibheid, p. 149). Symbolic discourses regarding God are “the protective garb of the understanding of what is ineffable and invisible to the common multitude” (Letter Nine, trans. Luibheid, p. 283).
This mystagogic attitude is continually contradicted by the opposite attitude, the theophanic conviction (and it is this mode that will fascinate Eriugena) that, since God is the cause of all things, he is rightly nameless and yet all names are fitting, in the sense that every effect points back to its Cause (The Divine Names, trans. Luibheid, p. 56). In this way the form and figure of a man are attributed to God, or that of fire or amber, his ears are praised and his eyes and his hair, his countenance, his hands, his shoulders, his wings, his arms, his back, and his feet “They have placed around it such things as crowns, chairs, cups, mixing bowls and similar mysterious items” (The Divine Names, trans. Luibheid, pp. 56–57).