respect for convention. For further explanation the reader can consult Pelikan, pp. 87-88.
2 This statement warrants a cautionary remark. There was, of course, an inestimable influence of Hellenism on Christianity. What is meant here is that Plotinian thought specifically had little or no influence on the Byzantine Christians before the time of Pseudo-Dionysius specifically.
3 There are, it should be noted, forms of skepticism that do not fit this description but that call for a complete rejection of any such apophatic/cataphatic dichotomy. An example is the Jain syadvada, the "Doctrine of Maybe," which says that all statements are true in some sense, false in some sense,
meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless..., false and meaning- less..., and true and false and meaningless in some sense. (Malaclypse 39-40)
4 An insight into this distinction between pragmatic religious truth and logical propostitional truth is afforded by comparative languages. The English word "to know" does not explicitly distinguish between what types of knowledge are being known. Many languages use different verbs to translate this one English verb. French, for example, often uses "savoir," "to know [a fact]," when propositional knowledge is meant, and uses "connaitre," "to know [a person]" or "to be familiar with," when religious or personal knowledge is meant, as in "la connaissance de Dieu."
5 Scholarly integrity requires pointing out that Pseudo-Dionysius was stretching facts: the use of the word "worm" in Psalm 22.6, the text he quotes, is in self-reference to King David, not God.
6 It may be noted that some of the above examples appear to represent more of an epistemological limitation than theological apophaticism proper. The distinction, though, is often nebulous.