¹ Dionysius Areopagita, Eccl. Hier. 1, 3; PG 3, 376A

² G. W. F. Hegels Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe, Berlin 1843, vol. VI, p. 108.

³ The concept of μθει undergoes a functional redefinition in the later writings of Plato, cf. Sophistes 256B-257A. With Aristotle Met. 987b 1–35 the explicit critique of the Platonic dualism begins; and Hegel, at the end of the Graeco-Christian tradition, renews this criticism as one of his main themes. In Logic IV, 148–164 he transforms the modern structure of the χωρσμόs into a dialectical mediation which, although on a higher level, tends to reassert a pre-platonic position. This is an effort, seldom attempted, to overcome the tradition by using its own means and in this way to return to its roots.

⁴ Anaximander, Diels-Kranz⁵, Jr. 2; 3

⁵ Heraclitus, DK, fr. 30; 88

⁶ Parmenides, DK, fr. 8, 5

⁷ Empedocles, DK, fr. 17

⁸ Phaedo 85B is placed as a counterpoint to Phaedo 64A and can be understood as the mythical dimension into which philosophical thought ascends.

⁹ Met. 1071b 1–35; 1032a 15–25; Phys. 221b 1–10.

¹⁰ Phys. 219b 1; 220a 24

¹¹ Conf. XI, 26, 33. Past, present and future proceed from the timeless basis of spirit and return to it, cf. Conf. XI, 17, 22: ex aliquo procedit occulto... et in aliquod recedit occultum.

¹² Liber de causis, p. 165 (ed. Bardenhewer)

¹³ in Joan, tract. 20, 11: transcende et corpus, et sape animum: transcende et animum, et sape Deum.

¹⁴ Super ierach. cael. I, 3; PL 122, 142B

¹⁵ Since Marx and Hegel it is commonly forgotten that the concept of alienation found its origin in a theological dimension. Primarily, in Roman law, alienatio had various meanings: the transferring of possessions, cultus and teaching to another (alius ), cf. Cicero, leg. III, 48; orat. 144; Phil. II, 1; Seneca, de benef. V, 10, 1. In Christian adaptation of classical culture the sense of alienation changed: thus Augustine recognizes in de Trin. XI, 5, 9 both a negative alienation in the surrender to the mundus sensibilis (following the Neoplatonic degradation of matter); and, in Enarr. in Ps. 103 s. 3, 2, a positive and perfecting alienation in the ascent of the soul to the mundus intelligibilis (following the Neoplatonic primacy of spirit). In the Middle Ages this latter aspect was transferred to the description of the visio beatifica, cf. Richard of St. Victor, de grat.contempl. V, 2; PL 196, 176A. Hegel, by his emphasis on spirit as true being, renews in a modified form a Neoplatonic position; consequently the development of the natural consciousness to reflective knowledge, e.g. in education, is understood as an alienation of naive self-assurance, cf. Phen. II, 365 Der sich entfremdete Geist; die Bildung. In the sense that Bildung (education) presents a stage in the movement toward absolute knowledge, the concept of alienation has still a theological meaning for Hegel. Karl Marx exposed precisely this sense, when he traced all forms of cultural, economic and political alienation back to one fundamental cause: religion. Cf. Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, p. 261 (ed. Easton-Guddat).

¹⁶ Brevil. V, 6 (ed. Quaracchi)

¹⁷ Deutsche Werke, V, p. 112, 19 (ed. Quint)

¹⁸ Augustine, Conf. IX, 10, 25.

¹⁹ The distance between traditional and contemporary hermeneutics becomes evident in the critique of this Augustinian concept: while Hegel is giving an internal re-interpretation of the “eternal now” as mediated selfpresent, overcoming its own mediation, Heidegger, from a different ontological perspective, rejects the quantitative structure of time and its transposition to eternity, cf. Sein und Zeit, Halle 1927, p. 427

²⁰ Aesthetics, X, 2, p. 78, 101, 425; cf. W. Rehm, Götterstille und Göttertrauer, Aufsätze zur deutsch-griechischen Begegnung, München 1952, p. 174

²¹ Hegel, in Rel. Phil. XII, 306, refers explicitly to Luther but he interprets the text in a dialectical manner: with the death of God a negatio negationis takes place in the sense that finite being is pushed back into its finiteness, negating its own negativity; cf. I, 157; II, 564; II, 590; XII, 301–3

²² Plato, Symposium 211B, Phaedo 78D

²³ The duplex negatio as the logical determination of the Absolute is to be found already in the via eminentiae of Meister Eckhart, cf. Deutsche Werke, I, p. 361 (ed. Quint); Lateinische Werke, I. p. 43; III, p. 175–6 (ed. Weiss-Koch). Eckhart stands in a two-fold tradition: in the first place the concept of self-relating negativity can be traced back to the 1280 translation of Proclus' Comm. in Plat. Parm.: nam per negari et ipse removit (omnes) negationes, Plato Latinus III, p. 76 (ed. Klibansky-Labowsky). A second connection leads through several stages to the theologia negativa of Dionysius Areopagita who, in Div. Nom. I, 5; PG 3, 593A and in Theol. Myst. V; PG 3, 1045–8, refers back to Plato's Parmenides 142A. Also here—through Plotinus Enn. V, 1; VI, 9—Proclus must be regarded as the mediator, cf. R. Klibansky, Ein Proklos-Fund und seine Bedeutung, Heidelberg 1929, p. 12. The functional significance of negativity with regard to the definition of the Absolute, as it is transmitted to the moderns through Cusanus and Spinoza, can, therefore, be traced back to the dialectical process of conceiving the ev in Plato's Parmenides. Gf. Hegel's references in II, 55; III, 102; XIV, 244.

²⁴ The speculative sense of Urteil implies in German both a logical and an ontic division, cf. Logic V, 63: die urspriingliche Teilung als … Urteil gesetzt. All ontic structures can be described in terms of logical functions since, for Hegel, the sense of being is thought.

²⁵ For the origins of this essentially Hegelian motif as well as a critique of the same cf. II, 25; II, 605; III, 249; VIII, 58; XIII, 105

²⁶ H. Niel, De la médiation dans la philosophic de Hegel, Paris 1945, p. 213: Le mouvement de médiation immanent à chacune des catégories de la Logique se prend lui-même pour objet dans l'ldée absolue.

²⁷ C. Bruaire, Logique et religion chrétienne dans la philosophic de Hegel, Paris 1964, pp. 83–113

²⁸ Rel. Phil. XXI, 240: Gott als … sich auf sich selbst beziehende Negativität. Cf. as contrast Augustine, de symb. c. 7: nihil ibi distat, nihil varium, nihil defectivum, nihil alteri contrarium.

²⁹ Augustine, de Trin. II, 5, 9; epist. 138, 1, 5; de mus. VI, 11, 29

³⁰ William of Auvergne, de Trin. c. 9; f. 13b; Opera omnia, Paris 1674

³¹ Bonaventure, Brevil. II, 2, 5 (ed. Quaracchi)

³² H. Marcuse, Hegels Ontologie und die Grundlegung einer Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit, Frankfurt 1932. Since the logical movement as presen -to-self seems to be based on a temporal structure, it is, for Marcuse, “time itself” (p. 168); but, one may object, as present-to-self it overcomes its temporal extension, for it is a present “without a before and after,” cf. VII. 1, 26.

³³ In emphasizing the quantitative structure of time as well as its dependence on space (VII. 1, 52), Hegel takes up an Aristotelian conception, cf. Phys. 220a 10. We find here a surprising synthesis between the Aristotelian concept of time and the Neoplatonic view of exemplarity.

³⁴ Parmenides 156D; Timaeus 37C-38D. Proclus, in his Comm. in Plat. Tim. II, 2; III, 7 (ed. Diehl), develops this theme into a cosmological theory of time as imitation of eternity; cf. H. Leisegang, Zeit und Ewigkeit im späteren Platonismus, Beiträge XII, 4 (1913) p. 113

³⁵ Hegel, Die Vernunft in der Geschkhte, p. 30 (ed. Hoffmeister)

³⁶ The analogia entis is constantly suspended by a dialectical mediation, since the ontological basis is not given, the esse firmum et solidum, quasi per se existens, Thomas Aquinas, In Arist. Met. IV, 1; n. 543. Cf. B. Lakebrink, Hegels dialektische Ontologie und die Thomistische Analektik, Köln 1955, p. 168

³⁷ Logic IV, 49: Die höchste Reife und Stufe, die irgend Etwas erreichen kann, ist diejenige, in welcher sein Untergang beginnt.

³⁸ In this dialectical turn which can also be applied to the sense of αύró, ἕτερoν and áλλo Hegel's re-interpretation of, and at the same time his distance, from, traditional positions becomes evident; cf. Aristotle Phys. 219b 12: The now (νûν ) in one sense is the same (τò αύτó), in another it is not the same (oύ Tò αύó ) Insofar as it is in succession (ν ἅλλῷ κai αλλῷ), it is different (ἕτερoν). For Hegel, the mediating phase within this process would be das Andere eines Andern (V, 331), whereas, for Aristotle, the dialectical coincidence is suspended by analogy, ὡι ἅλλo πρòs ἅλλo, Met. 1016b 34

³⁹ A. Kojève, Introduction a la philosophic de Hegel, Paris 1947, p. 365: Hegel est le premier à identifier le Concept et le Temps. Kojève's left-wing interpretation does not take into consideration that Hegel explicitly separates den reinen Begriff from time as den daseienden Begriff (II, 604), i.e., der nicht seinen reinen Begriff erfaβt, d.h. nicht die zeit tilgt (II, 604).

⁴⁰ A detailed interpretation of the historical ascent, culminating in the meeting of the Jewish East and the Greek Roman West, i.e., the interpretation of the “ripeness of time” is given by E. L. Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought, Indiana University Press, 1967, pp. 133–43

⁴¹ With some restrictions one may agree with J. v. d. Meulen, Hegel und Heidegger, Meisenheim 1953 that the concept of time as “absolute present” (p. 91) includes the negation of the triadic extension of temporality, but, in this case, time has overcome its own temporality; consequently, to interpret the logical process in terms of “original temporality” (p. 233) means to disregard the qualitative transmutation which is established by the Aufhebung of time, cf. v. d. Meulen, Hegel, Die gebrochene Mitte, Hamburg 1956, p. 233

⁴² Consistent with its transcendent direction the traditional ontology emphasizes in contrast the στàσιs of eternity, cf. Plotinus, Enn. III, 7, 3; III, 7, 5; Augustine, Conf. XI, 11, 13: semper stans aeternitas; de Trin. V, 1, 2: sine tempore sempiternus.

⁴³ H. Heimsoeth, Hegels Philosophic der Musik, Hegel-Studien II (1963) p. 201

⁴⁴ In his relating of the three modes of time to the trinitarian process Hegel makes use of an old motif, the origins of which can be traced back to Augustine, de Trin. IV, 4, 7 and Ench. c. 118. In medieval Augustinianism the trinitarian interpretation of history is carried on by Rupert von Deutz, de Trin. in Deut. II, 3; PL 167, 95gA; and it is consummated in the works of Joachim of Fiore, In Apoc. lib. intr. f. 5rb, Venice 1527; Concordia, II, 1, 8, Venice 1519, f. gva. Through romanticism, and in its return to medieval forms of faith, cult and myths, the motif of the triadic structure of history was transmitted to modern speculation, cf. Schelling, Philosophie der Offenbarung, II, 4, p. 71 (Stuttgart 1858).

⁴⁵ Hegel, Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, p. 183 (ed. Hoffmeister)

⁴⁶ op. cit. p. 180

⁴⁷ op. cit. p. 157

⁴⁸ op. cit. p. 182. The deliberately antiquarian word “itzt” (now) must be taken as an allusion to medieval mysticism, cf. Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Werke I, p. 34, 2 (ed. Quint). In Rel. Phil. XII, 212 Hegel gives a dialectical interpretation of the Eckhardian visio mystica, emphasizing the mutual implication of finite and infinite cognition. It must be added, however, that Eckhart himself remains within the framework of traditional conceptions, cf. Eine lateinische Rechtfertigungsschrift des Meister Eckhart, Beitrdge XXIII, 5 (1923) p. 42. This detail illustrates both the continuity of, and at the same time the tension between, medieval and modern thought.