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is able to persist in the undergoing of an “experience” [une épreuve] that is also a“trial,” 23 the trying experience of the Henryian text itself. 24The reader who persists in sustaining the trauma of the Henryian text is brought torealize that although “textual truth” taken by itself inevitably subverts itself in a destructivemanner as long as it remains founded on transcendence and the transcendentalhorizon, this same “textual truth” is able to subvert itself in a positive manner when itsfoundation is relocated in immanence. Immanence is the essence of manifestation;affectively structured immanence is Being, indeed “the Self of Being,” 25 which showsitself to itself in the form of the “archi-impressionality” of the immanent dialectic ofsuffering and joy. Once the Being of the text is resituated in this manner, the “worldlyword” and the “textual truth” is able to turn itself “away from itself,” able now to achieve“the displacement that leads outside its own word to this other site where the Word ofLife speaks.” 26 In short, the Being of the text -- and the Being of the human subject --is properly to be situated within God, whom Henry understands to be the Unity of theRelationship of Strong Reunion of the Self of Being with Itself. 27 Both the humansubject and apophantic logos are to be situated in God and not in the transcendentalhorizon. When this truth is understood, the text is able to serve as the very Gestalt of thenow positively understood invisibility that determines both human and divine ipseity.23Cf. EL, 312. “Violence” is a concept that appears with some frequency in Henry’s later writing.Cf. Michel Henry, C’est Moi la Vérité: pour une philosophie du Christianisme [= CMV] (Paris: Seuil,1996), 189, at which Henry speaks of the violence done to the human ego in order that it be in fact aliving person, “cette violence lui est faite d’être un vivant.” Henry believes it is both just and necessaryto inflict violence on the apophatic logos because violence is what makes the human ego a vivant, a livingone. Cf. also CMV, 251, at which Henry points out that the suffering of Self is always already a violence,and “plus violente l’étreinte et s’empare de soi et jouit de soi—plus forte est la joie.” Cf. also REP, 224:“N’est-ce pas du reste ceci, l’essence de la violence: la possibilité inhérente à toute force de se donnertoujours, en dépit de sa propre impuissance, et proportionellement à elle, les moyens de la conjurer en s’endélivrant?”24Cf. EL, 282. As Sebbah points out, the Henryian text is precisely a text, relying upon the veryapophatic logos to which it seeks to do violence. As Sebbah also points out, the reliance of the Henryiantext on the apophatic logos that it seeks to overthrow raises serious questions about the consistency ofHenry’s philosphical enterprise. I think, however, that Sebbah overstates things when he says here thatone cannot look directly to Henry to answer the questions raised by his dependence on the text, that “pourraisons d’essence il n’y a nulle place dans M. Henry pour une théorie du texte,” so that “il faut se tournervers quelque indications, comme telles indirectes.” To the contrary, in connection with a consideration ofthe meaning of the truth of the Christian scriptures, Henry in fact explicitly discusses the inadequacy ofthe text as such relative to the Absolute Reality to which the text is subordinate. Cf. CMV, 7-19. Henry’sdirect remarks regarding the inadequacy of the text might seem only to serve to render more pressing thequestion regarding his philosophical consistency. Henry himself points out that neither the ChristianScriptures nor the text as such is the object of his study in CMV. Cf. ibid., 286. Nonetheless, the wholeof chapter 12 of CMV is dedicated to articulating the manner in which human language and the writtentext can serve the self-revelation of God in man. See especially ibid., 290-91. Cf. also Michel Henry,Paroles du Christ [= PC] (Paris: Seuil, 2002). The entirety of this book, Henry’s final work, concerns thenature of the relationship between human language/the human text and the original Logos of la vie. Infairness to Sebbah, however, it is of course necessary to point out that this last work was not availableto Sebbah at the time of his own writing.25EM, 337.26Cf. IAT, 8 and 230. Cf. also EL, 287-88: “Le texte n’est-il pas précisément, et de manière exemplaire,ce dehors consenti, cette percée chez l’ennemi, qui ne peut se faire sans risque, qui ne peut se fairesans le risque . . . d’opacifier, de rendre ambiguë la Parole de la Vie? Plus radicalement, le texte n’est riend’autre que ce risque. Le risque du texte, n’est-il, comme M. Henry semble implicitement le penser, qu’unsacrifice provisoire et contrôlé pour la Parole de la Vie, ou bien en aura-t-il toujours déjà assombril’immédiateté?”27Cf. EM, 167 et passim.144