ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Bacons negative hermeneutics actually projects a theological, rather than an empirical, framework for the discovery of knowledge. The Dionysian author wrote of the two ways of knowing: When we made assertions we began with the first things, moved down through intermediate terms until we reached the last things. The next rank of angels receives this knowledge and manifests it as power. It is often forgotten that Francis Bacons most quoted axiom, knowledge is power, was formulated in the context of a theological discussion. Indeed, in the very passage where Bacon directly references Dionysius, he does so in order to demonstrate that in human actions knowledge must precede power, as it does in the Celestial Hierarchies. In the Divine Names, knowledge and power are discussed as separate attributes of God, but only because they are human ways of identifying and describing the effects of the single divine act of emanation which was the creation of the cosmos.
