The theology of alpha privative flourishes in the late Hellenistic thinking. This popularity of the alpha privative gives testimony for an innovative transcendentalism in the religious reflection. Such expressions of transcendence could be catalogued as protonegative theology, since they are just the forerunners of the late Platonists’ technical achievements. Aristotle identifies the use of the alpha privative with the logic of privation, and this is the place where “the negative theology” begins, despite the refusal of Late Platonism to associate the notion of steresis with via negativa. The apohatic will eventually be contrasted with the steretic, but this distinction is not as clearly emphasized in Aristotle: Privation (steresis) has as many meanings as there are negations (apophasis) by the alpha privative (Metaphysics 1022b33). It is noticeable that the privation is equaled with a form of negation, and the alpha privative is included in the logic of privation. Here we find the ground of negative theology: in order to discover the essence of something through the negative method, someone should withdraw some feature and should thus persist until the unessential content is removed from the conceptual process. What is consequently conceived constitutes a gradual removal of the elements from a composite entity.
