Editing Apophatic theology (section)

===Pre-Socratic===
For the ancient Greeks, knowledge of the gods was essential for proper worship.{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}} Poets had an important responsibility in this regard, and a central question was how knowledge of the Divine forms can be attained.{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}} [[Epiphany (feeling)|Epiphany]] played an essential role in attaining this knowledge.{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}} [[Xenophanes]] ({{circa|570|475 BC}}) 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.{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}}

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.{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=51}} The ancient Greek poet Hesiod (between 750 and 650 BC) describes in his ''[[Theogony]]'' the birth of the gods and creation of the world,{{r|ellopsos|group=web}} which became an "[[urtext (biblical studies)|ur-text]] for programmatic, first-person [[Epiphany (feeling)|epiphanic]] narratives in Greek literature,"{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}}{{refn|group=note|Hesiod's ''Theogony'' was highly referred in the time of [[Plato]] (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE), and Plato's ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' shows a profound familiarity with Hesiod's ''Theogony''.{{sfn|Boys-Stones|Haubold|2009|p=xiviii}} See also Timaeus e39-e41.{{r|ellopsos|group=web}}}} but also "explores the necessary limitations placed on human access to the divine."{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=52}} 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."{{sfn|Platt|2011|p=53}}{{refn|group=note|Richard G. Geldard: "[M]ore than any other pre-Socratic thinker, Heraclitus embodies the apophatic method. He "unsaid" the myths of the Archaic tradition on his way to transforming the ideas of divinity through the divine Logos. It was a transformation affirmed by Plotinus 800 years later."{{sfn|Geldard|2000|p=23}}}}

[[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."{{sfn|Cook|2013|p=109-111}} "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.{{sfn|Cook|2013|p=111-112}} Cook notes that Parmenides' poem is a religious account of a mystical journey, akin to the [[mystery cults]],{{sfn|Cook|2013|p=109}} giving a philosophical form to a religious outlook.{{sfn|Cook|2013|p=112}} 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."{{sfn|Cook|2013|p=112}}