The Edges of the Medieval World

Tibi Silens Laus: Silence at the Edge of Language

TIBI SILENS LAUS: SILENCE AT THE EDGE OF LANGUAGE Lucie Doležalová After expounding his version of negative theology and concluding that no positive statement can be made about God’s essence, Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) opened chapter 59 of the first book of his Guide of the Perplexed with a question: Someone may ask and say: If there is no device leading to the apprehension of the true reality of His essence and if demonstration proves that it can only be apprehended that He exists and that it is impossible, as has been demonstrated, to ascribe to Him affirmative attributes, in what respect can there be superiority or inferiority between those who apprehend Him?1 Within the chapter, Maimonides argues that it is possible to distinguish between the levels of apprehension of God. Among other things, he says: The most apt phrase concerning this subject is the dictum occurring in the Psalms [65:2], “Silence is praise to thee,” which interpreted signifies: silence with regard to you is praise. This is the most perfectly put phrase regarding this matter . For of whatever we say intending to magnify and exalt, on the one hand we find that it can have some application to Him, may He be exalted, and on the other we perceive in it some deficiency. Accordingly, silence and limiting oneself to the apprehensions of the intellect are more appropriate – just as the perfect ones have enjoined when they said: “Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.” [Psalms 4:5].2 My attention was caught by the role of silence in the problem of the ineffability of God, the impossibility of grasping Him, of successfully describing His nature in words. Could silence indeed provide a solution, could it be the most appropriate way of praising Him? The idea of silence as praise makes sense; at the edge of language, in a situation where words are unable to express reality, silence appears to be the most adequate solution. 1 Moses Maimonides: The Guide of the Perplexed, vol. 1, tr. and intro. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), 137 (hereafter: The Guide). 2 The Guide 1, 139-140. TIBI SILENS LAUS 137 But silence is ambiguous and thus tricky, too – silence is everything and nothing. What Maimonides describes is a conscious, decided silence, silence as a strategy, which, however, exactly due to being silence, that is, lack of speech, cannot be (from the outside ) distinguished from confused or silly silence. Silence has great potential but the expectations it sets may turn out to be false – remember the classical phrase Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses (If you had remained silent, you would have remained a philosopher ), which evokes an image of a silent person looking very wise but turning out to be dumb once he opens his mouth. Because silence surely can, besides having content (like being a solution of the wise to the real edge of language – God), also be empty (like a strategy of the ignorant wishing to look clever). Medieval Christian theologians do not mention silence as a fitting praise to God. That can be explained very simply: while Psalm 65 quoted by Maimonides really says in Hebrew “silence is praise to Thee,” in the Septuagint the “silence” is completely omitted and, consequently, it is missing from the Jerome’s first translation of the Psalm, which has: te decet hymnus Deus in Sion (you deserve a hymn, God in Zion). The Church Fathers used this translation, and thus no comment on silence as praise to God appears in Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos and other early influential Christian writings. Jerome’s second translation based on the Hebrew Bible reads: Tibi silens laus, Deus in Sion (Silent praise to you, God in Zion). It is close to the Hebrew and may seem to be its equivalent, but actually it is not. Silence is not the subject of the clause, it does not say that silence (as such) should be practiced as praise to God, but that praise to God should be silent, that is, not pronounced aloud. The silence is also skipped in later vernacular translations of the Bible. The King James’ version reads: Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion, the Bible of the French King Louis II: Avec confiance, ô Dieu! On te louera dans Sion. Only Luther’s Bible is based on Hebrew in this case and has: Gott, man lobt dich in der Stille zu Zion, which, however...