Introduction to The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counselling

by Phyllis Hodgson
li

PART II. SUBJECT-MATTER

The Contents Of The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book Of Privy Counselling and its sources.

The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counselling, treatises full of individual experience as well as of typical fourteenth-century speculative and affective mysticism, have an importance to-day for the man of prayer and the psychologist no less than for the student of medieval thought. The author, describing an exercise of contemplative prayer, was obviously drawing from his own mystical experience. Having a fine insight into the workings of the mind, and being highly conscious of his own different mental states, he was able to describe spiritual processes accurately and vividly. He was also a priest and a trained theologian, fully alive to the controversies of his time. The direction of his thought, so closely resembling that of other fourteenth-century mystics such as Eckhart, Tauler, or Ruysbroeck, shows that he was in the full stream of fourteenth-century mysticism. Emphasis in his works on certain disputed themes such as the need for grace, Immanence and Transcendence, the relationship of body and soul in the work of contemplation, the respective merits of the active and contemplative lives, suggests that he had some voice, at least, in contemporary controversy. Though his own mystical experiences are the unmistakable background of both these treatises yet, being schooled in the works of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, he naturally shaped his thought according to the teaching of those writers who had most influenced him, because their experience was most akin to his own. Many of his turns of thought and phrase are traceable to known sources, but in their context they are so vividly personal that one must assume that such borrowed expressions best described his own mental and emotional experiences.

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A. THEME

Both treatises were written specifically for a young disciple, but in actual fact for all those on the threshold of the highest form of contemplative life, to give instruction how to be ‘knit to God in spirite, & in oneheed of loue & acordaunce of wile’.1 Perfect oneness with God, which is the aim of the contemplative, is to know God, not objectively as a being to be analysed and understood in all His parts, but subjectively, as a divine force working in and through the soul, the soul moving only in God. To others who do not understand the contemplative purpose the treatises may be harmful, because they may so easily be misconstrued.

Disciplining of the body, the cleansing of conscience, customary spiritual exercises of reading, meditation, and vocal prayer are necessary in preparation, but they lead only to the beginning of the act of contemplation and leave the soul still separate from God. The Cloud of Unknowing treats almost exclusively of an exercise of the will which will overcome the separation and lead to union. Privy Counselling supplements the teaching of The Cloud. The real character of this exercise is an uninterrupted focusing of all the attention solely upon the being of God. This work has a double aspect—the concentration of all the faculties of the soul upon one single point involves a strenuous effort of the will to clear away from the mind everything that is between God and the soul. Both treatises describe the psychological difficulties at different stages of the work and show how they may be overcome.

The directing of the attention is ‘hard & streyte in þe byginnyng’2 because there is no clearly defined goal. God is infinite and the finite mind can grasp only finite things; man's highest knowledge falls short of God, and what he affirms of God falls short of the truth. The author had discovered that his discursive mind could never comprehend God, and its activities were, after a certain stage, a hindrance in the work of contemplation. He needed then to silence its inquiries by concentrating all his intellectual powers in a straining towards one single point, God as he knew him through a blind intuition of faith. When the usual liii connexions are severed from the consciousness there is at first no compensatory illumination of the spirit. The mind is in a state of darkness,

‘as alle þat þing þat þou knowest not, or elles þat þou hast forzetyn, it is derk to þee; þe first tyme when þou dost it, þou fyndest bot a derknes, & as it were a cloude of vnknowyng—þis derknes & þis cloude is, howsoeuer þou dost, bitwix þee & þi God, & letteþ þee þat þou maist not see him cleerly by lizt of vnderstonding in þi reson, ne fele him in swetnes of loue in þin affeccion’.3

The hardest discipline of the contemplative is to persevere in this darkness with faith, keeping the reason and the senses from their usual activities by placing a ‘cloud of forgetting’ between himself and the thoughts and images of all creatures.

The exercise will be difficult and barren at first, but if the contemplative perseveres, God will ‘sumtyme—seend oute a beme of goostly lizt, peersyng þis cloude of vnknowing þat is bitwix þee & hym, & schewe þee sum of his priuete. … þan schalt þou fele þine affeccion enflaumid wiþ þe fiire of his loue’.4 The exercise, at first deliberate and difficult, becomes easier and spontaneous; sudden impulses of the soul will be ‘as it were vnauisid, speedly springing unto God as sparcle fro þe cole’.5 The deliberate concentration and rigorous blind focusing of the attention gives place to a spontaneous reaching up of love, unimpeded and sure of its direction.

The author does not belittle the difficulty of simplifying the consciousness by excluding from it all creatures, but the three chief obstacles which he stresses and shows how to overcome arise from the contemplative's preoccupation with himself. The contemplative must refuse to allow his mind to dwell on the memory of particular sins which he has committed. If he does not overcome this natural tendency, his mind will be distracted and in conflict, and this brooding might sooner raise in himself ‘an abelnes to haue efte synnid, þen to haue purchasid by þat werke any pleyn forzeuenes’6 of all his sins. He must put aside the thought of individual sins committed by the positive means of shifting his attention and looking only towards God; ‘& þou haddest God, þen schuldest þou lacke synne’.7 Even then the liv feeling of collective sin will remain as a consciousness of limitation and unworthiness—‘synne, a lump, þou wost neuer what, none oþer þing bot þiself’8 … ‘onyd & congelid wiþ þe substaunce of þi beyng’.9 This feeling may with greater difficulty be surmounted by an absolute rejection and dissociation from sin. ‘Crye þan goostly euer upon one: “Synne, synne, synne; oute, oute, oute!”’ This is more than repentance for sinfulness, desire for amendment: it is another aspect of that burning desire to see and feel and have only God. As the contemplative advances in love, the barrier of sin will gradually disappear, but consciousness of separation from God will painfully persist:

‘þou schalt fynde, when þou hast forzeten alle oþer creatures & alle þeire werkes, ze, & þerto alle þin owne werkes, þat þer schal leue zit after, bitwix þee & þi God, a nakid weting & a felyng of þin owne beyng: þe whiche wetyng & felyng behouiþ alweis be distroied, er þe tyme be þat þou fele soþfastly þe perfeccyon of þis werk.’10

Chapter 44 of The Cloud teaches that this feeling may only be broken down by very special grace and by ‘a stronge and a deep goostly sorow’, again that burning desire for God alone. Privy Counselling describes in detail the further stage in the work of contemplation, the final stage before union. The contemplative must persevere in the feeling of his own being. Without trying to know what he is, he must realize to the full that he is, for only then can he offer himself wholly to God:

‘a nakid entent streching into God … freely fastenid & groundid in verrey beleue, schal be nouzt elles to þi þouzt & to þi felyng bot a nakid þouzt & a blynde feling of þin owne beyng: as zif þou seidist þus vnto God withinne in þi menyng, “þat at I am, Lorde, I offre vnto þee, wiþoutyn any lokyng to eny qualite of þi beyng, bot only þat þou arte as þou arte, wiþouten any more.”’11

‘þof al I bid þee in þe biginnyng, bicause of þi boistouste & þi goostly rudenes, lappe & cloþe þe felyng of þi God in þe felyng of þiself, zit schalt þou after whan þou arte maad by contynowaunce more sleiz in clennes of spirit, nakyn, spoyle & vtterly vncloþe þiself of al maner of felyng of þiself, þat þou be able to be cloþid wiþ þe gracyous felyng of God self.’12

It is tempting to regard The Book of Privy Counselling as a fulfilment of the promise in Chapter 74 of The Cloud to expound any lv difficult passages. Though this treatise continues the teaching of The Cloud, it also supports his doctrine by giving a background of metaphysical reasoning. The mysticism of The Cloud is more affective, of Privy Counselling more speculative. The Cloud is more concerned with the will and love, Privy Counselling with the intelligence. In the latter the author describes at length how God is immanent in all things, being the essence of all things and maintaining all things in being. To simplify the consciousness by a concentration of all the faculties on the feeling of one's being, to return to one's centre, is therefore to return to God.

In the first part of Privy Counselling the author also explains by metaphysical reasoning why the ‘nakid entent streching into God’ shall not be ‘cloþid in any specyal þouzt of God in hymself … but only þat he is as he is’. The nature of God may not be apprehended by a summation of all the attributes of goodness, beauty, power, or wisdom; ‘þat same is to him only to be, þat is alle þees for to be.’13

As Privy Counselling teaches a more advanced stage in the prayer of contemplation than The Cloud, the psychological experiences he describes belong to one who has progressed farther along the ‘mystic way’. In current terminology, the art of recollection taught in The Cloud results in the ‘dark night of the senses’, when the ‘cloud of forgetting’ hides all customary objects of consciousness and the ‘cloud of unknowing’ hides God. The spiritual processes described in The Cloud are those of the Purgative and Illuminative Ways. The state described at the end of Privy Counselling, however, when the soul alternates between sharp consciousness of grace and a feeling of emptiness and abandonment, is the condition of the contemplative on the very verge of the Unitive Life. The barrenness and confusion describe ‘the dark night of the soul’.

Though the author of these two treatises never digresses far from his main purpose of expounding one particular aspect of contemplative prayer, associated trains of thought show that he took an active interest in some of the leading controversies of his day.

On the question of the relative merits of the active and contemplative life, for instance, he takes up a position that is definitely lvi one of defence, sometimes of counter-attack, suggesting that, like Richard Rolle at an earlier date, he himself had been subjected to opposition, perhaps from the supporters of the Wycliffite movement at the end of the fourteenth century. His defence of the contemplative life is most vehement in Privy Counselling, where he becomes almost abusive to its attackers;14 but there are lengthy and quite disproportionate digressions15 in The Cloud, in which he emphatically asserts the superiority of the contemplative life above the active and mixed lives.

He is much concerned with the burning question of grace. The whole progress of the soul towards God rests entirely upon grace. By grace man is called to the contemplative life (ch. i); the desire of perfection ‘behoueþ algates be wrouzt in þi wille, bi þe honde of Almizti God & þi consent’16 ; this grace is freely given, ‘specyaly wrouzt in what soule þat hym likiþ, wiþoutyn any deseert of þe same soule’17 ; all those truly stirred to the contemplative life should ‘worche in þis grace & in þis werk, whatsoeuer þat þei be, wheþer þei haue ben customable synners or none’18 . ‘Somme, þat haue ben orrible & customable synners, comen sonner to þe perfeccion of þis werk þen þoo þat ben none. & þis is þe mercyful myracle of oure Lorde, þat so specyaly zeuiþ his grace’19 ; whereby it may be seen that ‘no man schuld be demyd of oþer here in þis liif’ (chs. 29, 30). The emphasis in The Cloud on the part played by grace in contemplation is reinforced in Privy Counselling by a long interpolation showing how nothing can be done without God in any state of life, active or contemplative.20

The author of The Cloud is careful to dissociate himself from the heresy of Pantheism, which was the charge made against much of the continental mysticism of the fourteenth century. The teaching of the sect of the Brethren of the Free Spirit which had spread over Germany, of the Beghards and Beguines, was manifestly heretical. Twenty-eight propositions drawn from the works of Eckhart had been condemned by Pope John XXII in 1329 for being impregnated with Pantheism; the works of Suso and Tauler did not escape suspicion. The English author, whose thought in lvii many ways closely resembles that of the German mystics, reiterates the warning with great emphasis that God ‘is þi being and þou not his’. This is the substance of chapter 67 of The Cloud, and the theme is developed at length in the beginning of Privy Counselling: ‘For þof it be so þat alle þinges ben in hym bi cause & bi beyng & he be in alle þinges here cause & here being, zit in himself only he is his owne cause & his owne being.’21

The discussion at disproportionate length of the nature and powers of the soul in chapters 63-6 of The Cloud sounds also polemic. Unlike the German mystics, and unlike a great number of his predecessors and contemporaries, who claim a higher faculty through which union with God takes place in the essence of the soul,22 the author of The Cloud recognizes no higher faculty than the reason and the will, and through the right working of these he taught that mystical union can take place.

B. SOURCES

The style of The Cloud and Book of Privy Counselling makes it difficult to trace the immediate sources of the sequence of thought. The young disciple for whom these treatises were written was not a scholar.23 The author having perfectly assimilated the teaching he wanted to communicate, and writing from very immediate personal experience, used simple everyday terms, deliberately avoiding all learned terminology; he would not confirm his statements by quotations from recognized authorities because such a display of learning was not necessary for his purpose, and was a habit ‘now … turnid into corioustee & schewyng of kunnyng’.24 It is possible, however, to estimate in part this author's indebtedness, and to discriminate between his different kinds of sources. What influenced his main theme of contemplative prayer is first in importance; but this main theme is set in a framework of the traditional teaching of the Church on contemplation, and is elucidated occasionally by direct borrowings, which serve to illustrate or define.

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1. CHIEF INFLUENCES UPON THE MAIN THEME OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

The author of The Cloud openly acknowledged the chief influence upon his thought when he referred to the works of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite:25

‘And trewly, who-so wil loke Denis bookes, he schal fynde þat his wordes wilen cleerly aferme al þat I haue seyde or schal sey, fro þe biginnyng of þis tretis to þe ende.’26

There is another reference, equally definite, in Privy Counselling:

‘þis same werk … is Denis deuinite … his lizty derknes & his vnknowyn kunnynges’.27

The treatise in mind here was De Mystica Theologia, which it seems certain he translated into English.28 His only direct quotation29 from Dionysius, however, is taken from De Divinis Nominibus, the treatise in which Dionysius expounded at length the lix metaphysical basis of his mystical teaching. It is significant that Privy Counselling, obviously written to expound and develop some of the difficult ideas of The Cloud, should be to a certain extent a paraphrase of De Divinis Nominibus.

The spiritual exercise, which was inspired by Dionysius, rests upon the belief in the absolute incomprehensibility of God. The English treatises contain the same argument,30 clearly stated in De Divinis Nominibus, that the natural faculties of intelligence are impotent to comprehend the being of God because God's nature is essentially different from the nature of man:

‘Si enim cognitiones omnes exsistentium sunt, et si exsistentia finem habent; qui est super omnem substantiam, et ab omni cognitione est segregatus.’31

Since their highest achievement must still fall short, any activity of the normal faculties is a hindrance in the prayer of contemplation; any idea of God they give must necessarily be tainted with error:

‘Sed juxta proprietatem nostram ea quae sunt super nos accipientes, et rationi connutritae sensibus infixi, et nostris divina comparantes, decipimur, secundum apparens divinam et ineffabilem rationem exsequentes.’32

Although they lay repeated stress on the transcendency of God, both Dionysius and the English writer are careful to show why man's soul is not irreconcilably separated from the being of God. God is immanent in all things as well as transcendent above them. God is the Unity embracing all things and sustaining all things in being:

‘omnia est, ut omnium causa, et in ipso omnia principia, omnes terminationes, omnium causa totorum, comprehendens et praehabens. Et super omnia est, sicut ante omnia supersubstantialiter superexsistens.’33

lx This is implied in The Cloud and expounded in Privy Counselling by a simple paraphrase of the Dionysian teaching.34

Since God is in all things, but is more than the summation of all things, both Dionysius and the English writer would take the via negativa of contemplation. The normal faculties of intelligence attain to a more complete truth in the statement of what God is not than of what He is, by rejecting every mental conception of Him and denying Him any attribute. The ‘nakid entent streching into God’ advocated in the English treatises is a blind act of faith, ‘not cloþid in any specyal þouzt of God in hymself, how he is in himself or in any of his werkes, bot only þat he is as he is’.35 The whole of the teaching on prayer in The Cloud and Privy Counselling is an exposition of the Dionysian doctrine that:

‘þe moste goodly knowyng of God is þat, þe whiche is knowyn bi vnknowyng.’36

The imagery in The Cloud describing the soul's progress in the contemplative life and the effect upon the mind is parallel to the description of Moses' ascent of the mount of contemplation in De Mystica Theologia.37 The stage that most concerned the English author was that in which the soul, by its own efforts assisted by grace, had attained ‘ad summitatem divinarum ascensionum’, ‘the which is the terms and the bounds of man's understanding’38 ; he would still be conscious that he was separated from God: the clouds and darkness described by the Psalmist39 would still hide from him the being of God. No further progress in knowledge could be made by the human intelligence: the soul must now be prepared to plunge into that darkness by renouncing all the discursive workings of the mind. This darkness is the ‘caligo ignorantiae’ described by Dionysius, wherein the contemplative, lxi putting aside all the conceptions of his normal understanding, is united to God:

‘zif euer schalt þou fele him or see him, as it may be here, it behoueþ alweis be in þis cloude & in þis derknes.’40

The soul's effort must be to persevere in this darkness, which is really a state of complete concentration upon the unconditioned and incomprehensible being of God. To attain to union he must by successive stages purify his mind from every image, must still the working of the discursive reason, and lastly lose even the consciousness of his own separate existence. These different stages are often described in The Cloud and Privy Counselling.41 The practice is the same as that taught in De Mystica Theologia:

‘et sensus derelinque et intellectuales operationes, et omnia sensibilia et intelligibilia, et omnia non exsistentia et exsistentia; et sicut est possibile, ignote consurge ad ejus unitionem qui est super omnem substantiam et cognitionem. Etenim excessu tui ipsius et omnium irretentibili et absoluto, munde ad supersubstantialem divinarum tenebrarum radium, cuncta auferens et a cunctis absolutus, sursumageris.’42

The state of ignorance to which both Dionysius and the author of The Cloud would lead the contemplative is thus paradoxically one of transcendent knowledge: as a reward for the renunciation of all knowledge of natural things, the mind will be illumined with a supernatural and inexpressible intuition of Divine mysteries:

‘þan wil he sumtyme parauenture seend oute a beme of goostly lizt, peersyng þis cloude of vnknowing þat is bitwix þee & hym, & schewe þee sum of his priuete, þe whiche man may not, ne kan not, speke.’43

The English author acknowledged only Dionysius as his master in The Cloud, but many modifications in the Middle English lxii treatise reveal that he was influenced quite as much by other writers in the Dionysian tradition as by the actual works of Dionysius himself. The title of the Middle English treatise, for example, illustrates this. The ‘cloud of unknowing’ is adapted from the Dionysian conception of the ‘darkness of unknowing’. The Latin translations of the works of Dionysius have always ‘caligo’, which is exactly translated by ‘darkness’ in Deonise Hid Diuinite. In a passage of Benjamin Major,44 obviously influenced by the description of the ascent of Moses in De Mystica Theologia, Richard of St. Victor used exactly the same image as the Middle English writer: he described the ‘nubes ignorantiae’. It will be shown later45 that the image of the cloud is common, particularly in the works of St. Gregory, and that it was probably taken originally from the Scriptures. The use of another cloud image in the English treatise, however, supports the idea that the expression ‘cloud of unknowing’ was drawn from Richard of St. Victor.46 From one aspect, the ‘cloud of unknowing’ is also a ‘cloud of forgetting’, beneath which the knowledge of all created things lies buried.47 Richard of St. Victor also described the ‘nebula oblivionis’ in a similar context.48

In his introduction to the modernized version of The Cloud (pp. xxvii-xxviii) Dom Justin McCann has drawn attention to one of the chief modifications of the thought—the English author's insistence that this mystical exercise is essentially an act of will and of love, and that the union it leads to is also a union of love. Dionysius also held that love was the energizing force which led to the union of God and the human soul,49 but he never gave a full explanation of this idea. Dom Justin McCann notes that this is the interpretation of Thomas Gallus. This emphasis upon the unifying power of love was common in the later Middle Ages, but lxiii since there is indisputable evidence50 that the author of The Cloud knew the works of Thomas Gallus, it is only reasonable to ascribe this modification of the Dionysian thought at least in part to his influence. In the commentary51 on De Mystica Theologia which was used by the Middle English translator the interpretation of unitive prayer as an act of love does occur. In the proem describing the nature of the Dionysian treatise Thomas Gallus maintains that the highest cognitive faculty is not the intellect but love:

‘Putauit summam vim cognitiuam esse intellectum, cum sit alia que non minus excedit intellectum quam intellectus racionem vel racio ymaginacionem, scilicet principalis affeccio. Et ipsa est scintilla sinderisis que sola unibilis est spiritui diuino.’52

The exercise of contemplative prayer taught by the English author involves more than the negative process of freeing oneself from all images and all discursive thought stressed by Dionysius. It is a positive reaching up of love towards God. The English writer lays alternate stress now on the one aspect, now on the other.

In his descriptions of the strange psychological experience of a highly conscious concentration on the substance of God apart from his qualities the English author was following in the tradition of Dionysius, who set before the contemplative an unconditioned Godhead as the object of his quest. Though this experience is the central point of The Cloud, the idea of the ‘naked entent’ is often affected in the author's mind by the doctrine of ‘chaste love’ enunciated by St. Augustine and epitomized by St. Thomas Aquinas. This close association of the two ideas is well illustrated in The Cloud, ch. 24. The passage defining the ‘nakid entente’ (58/17-18) is very reminiscent of St. Augustine's lxiv teaching on disinterested love,53 but the rest of the chapter, both before and after this passage, refers to the psychological experience of ‘blynde loue … betyng upon þis derke cloude of vnknowyng’.

THE CLOUD, PRIVY COUNSELLING, AND DE ADHAERENDO DEO.

A comparison of the Middle English treatises and De Adhaerendo Deo54 will reveal a marked similarity in thought and expression. The main theme of each treatise is fundamentally the same, and in the development of that theme many of the same ideas are introduced. Much of the teaching is certainly traditional, but it would perhaps not be too rash to assume that the frequent combination of the same ideas in the treatises is more than coincidence. It is reasonable to conjecture some connexion between the two treatises:55 perhaps they both derived from a common source, in the Dionysian tradition and devoted to the interpretation of the Dionysian conception of mystical prayer.

The contemplative prayer taught in the Middle English treatises and in De Adhaerendo Deo is essentially the same and is described in similar terms. The characteristic English epithet ‘naked’ corresponds to the repeatedly used ‘nudus’. in the Latin: e.g. ‘cum solo Domino Deo expedita, secura, et nuda firmaque adhaesione’ (cap. i), lxv ‘nudo ac simplici ac puro intellectu et affectu’ (cap. iv), ‘in solo nudo intellectu et affectu ac voluntate tuum pendeat exercitium circa Deum’ (cap. iv), ‘nuda et expedita mente vacare et adhaerere Deo’ (cap. x).

Both treatises emphasize that this ‘naked intent’ must be directed towards the simple and unconditioned Godhead, ‘circa objectum simplicissimum Deum’.56 The Latin treatise urges the same total exclusion of all normal consciousness as The Cloud:57

‘Super omnia ergo valet, ut teneas mentem nudam sine phantasmatibus et imaginibus, et a quibuscumque implicationibus, ut nec de mundo, nec de amicis, nec de prosperis, nec de adversis, praesentibus, praeteritis, vel futuris, in te nec in aliis, nec etiam nimis de propriis peccatis solliciteris: sed cum quadam puritatis simplicitate te esse cum Deo extra mundum nude cogita, ac si anima tua jam esset in aeternitate extra corpus separata.’58

Oneness with God is ‘not elles bot a good & an acordyng wil vnto God, & a maner of weelpayednes & a gladnes þat þou felest in þi wille of alle þat he doþ. Soche a good wille is þe substaunce of alle perfeccion.’59 ‘þou atteynest to come þedir by grace, wheþer þou mayst not come by kynde; þat is to sey, to be onyd to God in spirit & in loue & in acordaunce of wille.’60 The same idea is to be found in the Latin treatise:

‘Haec vero unitas spiritus et amoris est, quo homo omnibus votis supernae et aeternae voluntati conformis efficitur, ut sit per gratiam, quod Deus est per naturam.’61

If the will reach only towards God, that alone is sufficient; there is no need for meditation on past sin62 or for devotional exercises to acquire virtue:63

‘It distroieþ not only þe grounde & þe rote of sinne … bot þerto it geteþ vertewes. For & it be treuly conceyuid, alle vertewes scholen be sotely & parfitely conceyuid & felid comprehendid in it, wiþ-outen any medeling of þe entent.’64

lxvi The Latin treatise is equally emphatic:

‘Quippe bona voluntas in anima est origo omnium bonorum, et omnium mater virtutum: quam qui habere incipit, secure habet quidquid ei ad bene vivendum opus est.’65

‘Sufficit tibi hoc pro omni studio et lectione sacrae Scripturae, et ad dilectionem Dei et proximi.’66

Both the English and the Latin treatises teach that God will accept and recompense the will for the deed, though the soul fall short in its achievement:

‘Si ergo volueris bonum, et non potes, factum Deus compensat.’67

The exercise of the will directed solely towards God pleases God more than any other exercise:

‘Super omnia placet Deo mens nuda a phantasmatibus, id est, imaginibus, speciebus, et similitudinibus rerum creatarum.’68

Both writers promise ‘erles’ of the bliss of heaven to the contemplative,69 but they urge perseverance in the exercise of the ‘naked intent’ and a negligent attitude towards the sensible comforts and sweetness which will occasionally reward their efforts:

‘Praeterea, non multum cures actualem devotionem, aut sensibilem dulcedinem, vel lacrymas.’70

Mystical prayer in De Adhaerendo Deo as in The Cloud is characterized as an act of love.71 The same stress is laid upon the antithesis of the understanding and affection:

‘nullo umquam sensu est perceptibilis, sed pleno desiderio totus desiderabilis: non insuper est figurabilis, sed intimo affectu perfectissime appetibilis: non est aestimabilis, sed mundo corde totus affectibilis.’72

lxvii

Belief in the unitive power of love is supported by the theory that ‘whersoeuer þat þat þing is, on þe whiche þou wilfuly worchest in þi mynde in substaunce, sekerly þer art þou in spirit, as verrely as þi body is in þat place þat þou arte bodely’.73 The same reasoning occurs in the Latin treatise:

‘Plus enim est anima ubi amat, quam ubi animat: quia sic est in amato secundum propriam naturam, rationem, et voluntatem: sed in eo quod animat, tantum est secundum quod est forma: quod etiam brutis convenit.’74

The English author's indebtedness to Thomas Gallus has already been discussed.75 In one important way, however, he does not explicitly reproduce the teaching of Gallus. Gallus teaches that the supreme mystical apprehension of God is achieved by a special faculty of the soul which he calls ‘principalis affectio’,76 and which he sets far above the normal cognitive faculties of imagination, reason and intellect. The author of The Cloud gives a quite conventional account of the faculties of the soul; like the author of De Adhaerendo Deo77 he insisted upon the traditional division of the soul into the three principal faculties, and recognized no higher faculty than the reason and the will.78

The gist of chapters 64-6 of The Cloud is that before man lxviii sinned all his faculties were in direct touch with God and worked according to His will. The purpose of the contemplative is to be raised again to this state of union. A similar description is given in the Latin treatise of the highest perfection possible in this life:

‘Ita Deo uniri ut tota anima cum omnibus potentiis suis et viribus in Dominum Deum suum sit collecta, ut unus fiat spiritus cum eo, et nihil meminerit nisi Deum, nihil sentiat vel intelligat nisi Deum, et omnes affectiones in amoris gaudio unitae, in sola Conditoris fruitione suaviter quiescant. … Et quamdiu illae ex toto, Deo impressae non sunt, non est anima deiformis juxta primariam animae creationem. …’79

The difficulty of contemplative prayer is acknowledged in both treatises, but the contemplative is urged to persevere and not to fall back for comfort on vocal prayer.80 After long practice this prayer will become easy and sometimes habitual.81

This spiritual exercise greatly angers the Devil, and he will try to prevent it in every possible way he can.82 In both treatises a similar device is taught for overcoming temptations:

‘þink þat it is bot a foly to þee to stryue any lenger wiþ hem; & þerfore þou zeeldest þee to God in þe handes of þin enmyes.’

‘þis meeknes deserueþ to haue God himself miztely descendyng to venge þee of þine enemyes. …’83

Cf.

‘Et sic expedite secureque te totum, etiam plene omnia et singula committe infallibili et certissimae divinae providentiae cum silentio et quiete, et ipse pugnabit pro te: et melius, honestius ac dulcius liberabit te et consolabitur.’84

There is yet one other point of resemblance between The Cloud and De Adhaerendo Deo, in itself very inconclusive, yet combined with all the other similarities helping to corroborate the theory of some connexion between the two treatises. The same text is lxix quoted to explain why contemplative prayer must be purified from every thought of bodily things.85

2. THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

It is often impossible in The Cloud and Privy Counselling to determine whether the author was influenced in a particular theme by the tradition of Dionysius or by that of the Western Church, since many of the Dionysian conceptions were based ultimately upon the Scriptures, and many of the same ideas were developed independently by such Fathers as St. Augustine and St. Gregory. Moreover, in many passages the author of The Cloud blends the Dionysian conception of prayer with the traditional teaching of the Church on contemplation.

St. Augustine, for example, explains why the created universe must be transcended before the human soul may be perfectly united to the being of God.86 The via negativa of contemplation, taught by Dionysius in its extreme form, was taught first, according to Bossuet,87 by Clement of Alexandria, and later by St. Augustine88 and St. Gregory.89 The plunge into the ‘darkness of unknowing’ is only a vivid image of the decision of faith to love and to press towards a God whom the understanding cannot comprehend,90 and belief in the power of faith impelled such Doctors as St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor to exalt affection above the reason in the act of contemplation.91

The careful avoidance of any suggestion of Pantheism in The lxx Cloud,92 together with the insistence upon the need for grace in every stage of contemplative prayer, is wholly in accord with the orthodox teaching of the Church.

There is a striking similarity in the testimony of the mystics of all ages, and with the author of The Cloud, himself a contemplative, it is not often possible to decide whether he was describing his own experience, drawing upon the experience of his predecessors, or, still more likely, clothing his own experience in the descriptions of others. The immediate preparation for contemplation taught in The Cloud 93 is essentially the same process of introversion formulated in the works of such Fathers of the Church as Cassian,94 St. Augustine,95 St. Gregory.96 Like others who describe mystical prayer, the author of The Cloud attests to the transient and momentary character of the feeling of union in contemplation.97 The same brevity is described by St. Bernard in De Diligendo Deo;98 graphic accounts of the same recoil of spirit are to be found in the works of St. Augustine and St. Gregory.99 Most writers100 on contemplation agree with the author of The Cloud that a clear vision of God is not possible to the mind in this life:

‘Whiles þat a soule is wonyng in þis deedly flesche, it schal euermore se & fele þis combros cloude of vnknowyng bitwix him & God.’101

This idea that contemplation in this life is as seeing the sun through a cloud is familiar in the literature of mysticism; Dom Cuthbert Butler is inclined to believe102 that the use of the image in this particular connexion originated with St. Gregory. This image is certainly often repeated in the Morals on Job; e.g.:

lxxi

‘Super quo recte expandi nebula dicitur, quia sicut est illa coelestis regni gloria non videtur. … A videndo ergo eo nebula aspergimur, quia ipsa nostrae ignorantiae obscuritate caligamus. Unde recte per Psalmistam dicitur: Caligo sub pedibus ejus. …’103

In the Psalms God's greatness is unsearchable104 ; ‘clouds and darkness are round about him’105 ; ‘he made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies’.106 The image in the fourteenth-century English treatise has a double aspect. As in the works of St. Gregory, the ‘cloud’ is partly caused by the frailty of the flesh which obscures the vision of God107 ; as in the Psalms it must ever hide the being of God from the knowledge of men.108

A supernatural illumination, at times, however, rewards the contemplative on earth, and the description of this in The Cloud109 is reminiscent of many passages in patristic writings, as is also the description of the sensible foretaste of heavenly joys frequently experienced during contemplative prayer.110 Like most writers on mysticism, the author of The Cloud teaches that such sweetness and comforts are not essential to contemplation, and must not be cherished for their own sake.111

The traditional distinction of the Church between the active and contemplative life underlies the whole of the teaching in The Cloud. Like Origen, St. Augustine, St. Gregory, St. Thomas Aquinas, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, and countless others, the English writer interprets the story of Martha and Mary in lxxii St. Luke x in terms of the active and contemplative life. The definition in the Prologue and in the eighth chapter of The Cloud and the allegory in chapters 17-21 can be paralleled with many passages from their writings. Contemplative life is higher than the active life because it will not come to an end with the body,112 a theme developed in The Cloud as in the writings of St. Augustine.113 The conduct of Martha and Mary typifies the restlessness of active life contrasted with the peaceful nature of the contemplative life.114 Active life in The Cloud is divided into two parts, in accordance with traditional teaching.115 Contemplative life in The Cloud is also divided into two parts, the higher part corresponding to the definition of contemplation found in patristic writings.116 Active life, however, must precede contemplative life in time, and dispose the soul for contemplation; the contemplative must first ‘able him to contemplatiue leuyng by þe vertuous menes of actiue leuyng’.117

Two118 details in his interpretation of the story of Martha and Mary will prove how closely the author of The Cloud was following the traditional sources of the allegory. Christ answered ‘sekirly not only as domesman, as he was of Martha apelyd: bot as an lxxiii aduoket lawfuly defendid hir þat hym loued’.119 This resembles the account of St. Augustine:120

‘Dominus autem pro Maria respondit Marthae; et ipse ejus factus est advocatus, qui judex fuerat interpellatus.’121

St. Augustine also gives the same explanation as the author of The Cloud for the repetition of Martha's name:

‘Repetitio nominis indicium est dilectionis, aut forte movendae intentionis: ut audiret attentius, bis vocata est.’122

3. DIRECT BORROWINGS

Long123 borrowed passages in The Cloud are immediately recognizable because they are different in style from the central teaching. Many of these are taken from the works of Richard of St. Victor.124

The three allegorical chapters of The Cloud (71-3), describing the different ways by which different people attain to contemplation, are little more than a close translation of passages from Benjamin Major. The English author adopts the same interpretation of the story of the building of the Ark of the Covenant, and, like the Victorine, holds that the ‘grace of contemplacion is figurid by the Arke of þe Testament in þe Olde Lawe’.125 The jewels and relics placed in the Ark are, to both writers, ‘treasures of wisdom and knowledge’.126 Three men were chiefly concerned with the building of this Ark, Moses, Beseleel, and Aaron, the first the example of those who attain to contemplation only in ecstasy, the last two typifying those who retain ‘fulle deliberacion of alle þeire wittis, bodely or goostly’.127

lxxiv

‘Modis autem tribus in gratiam contemplationis proficimus, aliquando ex sola gratia, aliquando ex adjuncta industria, aliquando ex aliena doctrina.’128

The exposition in The Cloud of how Moses climbed with great long travail to the top of the mountain, and abode there six days awaiting the revelation from God, and how this was granted to him on the seventh day, not through his own efforts but solely by the grace of God, is taken directly from the Latin treatise:

‘Quasi sex ergo dies transigimus in hoc monte, quando cum multo labore, magnaque animi industria in ejusmodi sublimitatis statu assuescimus diutius permanere. Tunc autem quasi ad septimum diem venitur, quando tanta mentis sublevatio, menti in oblectamentum vertitur, et sine ullo labore subitur.’129

‘Quod enim Moyses in monte per nubem arcam videre meruit, sola revelantis Domini gratia, fuit: nam ut eam pro arbitrio videret, in sua omnino potestate non habuit.’130

It sometimes happens that those who, like Moses, first attain to contemplation only after long travail, afterwards are able to contemplate whenever they will.131

In contrast to Moses, Aaron, signifying those who ‘by þeire goostly sleiztes, bi help of grace, mowen propre vnto hem þe perfeccion of þis werk as oft as hem likiþ’, had it in his power, as a priest, to see the Ark in the temple as often as he pleased.132 Aaron, however, was dependent133 upon Beseleel, who made the Ark according to the revelation granted to Moses in the mountain. The contemplative is like Beseleel when he advances by his own ‘goostly sleizt, holpyn wiþ grace’.134 The author of The Cloud lxxv even follows Richard of St. Victor in comparing his own office to that of Beseleel.135

Chapters 63-6 of The Cloud, classifying and describing the different faculties of the soul, are also clearly derived; much is taken from the early part of Richard of St. Victor's Benjamin Minor. Richard described the two chief powers of the soul, Reason and Affection, and the two secondary faculties, Imagination and Sensuality:

‘Una est ratio, altera est affectio: ratio, qua discernamus, affectio, qua diligamus. Ex ratione oriuntur consilia recta; ex affectione, desideria sancta. … Ex ista denique, omnis virtus; ex illa vero, veritas omnis.’136

‘Ad invisibilium cognitionem nunquam ratio assurgeret, nisi ei ancilla sua, imaginatio videlicet, rerum visibilium formam repraesentaret.’137

‘Sine sensualitate affectio nil saperet.’138

The English writer follows Richard of St. Victor in maintaining that Imagination and Sensuality are often now disobedient servants, ministering disordered and fantastic images and evil feelings, especially to those newly turned to a life of devotion:

‘Imaginatio autem cum tanta importunitate in auribus cordis perstrepit, quatenus ejus clamorem … ipsa Rachel vix vel omnino cohibere non possit. Hinc est quod saepe dum psallimus vel oramus, phantasias cogitationum vel quaslibet imagines rerum ab oculis cordis amovere volumus, nec valemus.’139

‘Sensualitas, quae animi affectionem carnalium voluptatum desiderio inflammat, et earum delectatione inebriat.’140

Shorter passages in The Cloud describing the different planes of the mind's activity are possibly also derived from the works of Richard of St. Victor. In three different chapters141 of The Cloud lxxvi the author describes when a man is below and without himself, when he is even with and within himself, and when he is above himself, in passages which resemble similar classifications in Benjamin Minor142 and Benjamin Major.143

Ch. 35 in The Cloud also gives the impression of being borrowed, but it is very possibly a composite. The author himself acknowledges that ‘þou schalt fynde wretyn in anoþer book of anoþer mans werk moche betyr þen I can telle þee’144 of Lesson, Meditation, and Orison. Dom Justin McCann suggests145 that the book referred to is probably the Scala Claustralium146 of Guigo II.147 This treatise was translated into Middle English,148 and it is possible that the author of The Cloud knew both the Latin original and the translation. Although Lesson, Meditation, and Orison are commonly taught as the way to contemplation, several other resemblances in the same chapter of The Cloud support149 the theory that the Scala Claustralium is the source. After emphasizing the interdependence of the three exercises, both treatises continue to explain that ‘alle is one in maner, redyng & heryng’.150 In the course of the same argument both treatises relate these three exercises to the different states of ‘beginners’, ‘profiters’151 and of those ‘þat be parfite’.152

Ch. 53, describing at disproportionate length the curious gestures and antics of those deceived by a false spirituality, offers a different problem. The author himself was so conscious that he was setting down an undue number of examples that he explained why.153 The piquant descriptions in which this chapter abounds lxxvii are quite characteristic of this author's style, and it is impossible to say whether he was writing from personal experience or quoting from the keen observations of others. Dom Justin McCann154 and Dom Noetinger155 have suggested that the Middle English author made use here of the twelfth chapter of Hugh of St. Victor's De Institutione Novitiorum;156 but a close comparison of the two treatises reveals that only a few157 ideas from the Latin treatise are repeated in The Cloud.

Notes

  1. 32/15-16.
  2. 62/7.
  3. 23/20-2, 16/20-17/5.
  4. 62/14-18.
  5. 22/7-8.
  6. 46/12-13.
  7. 79/17-18.
  8. 73/15-16.
  9. 79/15.
  10. 82/23 ff.
  11. 135/20-136/6.
  12. 156/9-15.
  13. 143/27.
  14. 149/20 ff.
  15. Chs. 8, 19, 21, 23.
  16. 15/14-15.
  17. 69/3-4.
  18. 63/6-7.
  19. 64/17-20.
  20. 162/8-164/6.
  21. 136/16-18.
  22. e.g. Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck and others.
  23. See 71/12-14, 125/19-20, &c.
  24. 125/19.

  25. The pseudo-Dionysius was a Christian Neoplatonist, probably a Syrian ecclesiastic, who lived about the beginning of the sixth century. His only extant works are De Divinis Nominibus, De Mystica Theologia, De Cœlesti Hierarchia, De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, and some Epistolae. These treatises are printed in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, tt. iii, iv (Paris, 1857). No reliable trace of any other work is to be found, though Dionysius asserts in these extant works that he was the author of six other treatises.

    P. G. Théry (Études Dionysiennes, Paris, 1932) claims that these />works were first known directly in the West in the middle of the eighth century. In the ninth century they were translated into Latin, first by Hilduin and later by Johannes Scotus Erigena, and subsequently had a great vogue in Europe. The most important of the later translators were Johannes Sarracenus, Thomas Gallus, Robert Grossetête. The chief commentators were Maximus (sixth century), whose commentaries were translated into Latin by Anastasius in the ninth century and by Robert Grossetête in the thirteenth century, Johannes Scotus Erigena, Johannes Sarracenus, Hugh of St. Victor, Thomas Gallus, Robert Grossetête, Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

    The works of the German mystics of the fourteenth century are deeply influenced by Dionysian thought.

  26. 125/13-15. It is very unlikely that the author of The Cloud knew the works of Dionysius in their original form. He was probably acquainted with some of the many translations and commentaries. The style of the English treatises makes it impossible to decide which particular source he used. For his translation of De Mystica Theologia, Dom Justin McCann states (Cloud of Unknowing, London, 1924, Introd., pp. xii-xiii) that he used three distinct sources: the twelfth-century Latin version of Johannes Sarracenus, the thirteenth-century Latin paraphrase (extractio) of Thomas Gallus, and the Latin commentary of Thomas Gallus.
  27. 154/13-18.
  28. See p. lxxviii.
  29. 125/11-12.
  30. 125/5-9, 25/18-26/2.
  31. Ch. i. Quoted from S. Dionysii Areopagitae De Divinis Nominibus. Translatio Joannis Sarraceni. D. Dionysii Cartusiani Opera Omnia, vol. xvi, Tournai, 1902, p. 353. Unless it is otherwise stated the Latin quotations from Dionysius are taken from Sarracenus's translation.
  32. Ibid. ch. vii, p. 380; cf. Cloud, 33/11-16, Privy Counselling, 146/1-5, 158/1-10.
  33. Ibid., ch. v, p. 377.
  34. 136/16-23. Cf. ibid. v, p. 376: ‘Et omnia ipso participant, et a nullo exsistentium recedit; et ipse est ante omnia, et omnia in ipso consistunt … (p. 378). In uno enim … exsistentia omnia et praehabet et subsistere facit: praesens omnibus et ubique et secundum unum et idem et secundum idem omne; et ad omnia procedens, et manens in se ipso.’
  35. 135/21-22.
  36. 125/11-12, quoted from De Divinis Nominibus, ch. vii.
  37. Ch. i.
  38. Denis Hid Divinity, ch. i, The Cloud of Unknowing (London, 1924), p. 260.
  39. Psalms (A.V.) xcvii. 2; xviii. 11.
  40. Cloud, 17/7-9. Cf. De Mystica Theologia, i. p. 472: ‘Tunc et ab ipsis absolvitur visis et videntibus, et ad caliginem ignorantiae intrat, quae caligo vere est mystica: in qua claudit omnes cognitivas susceptiones, et impalpabili omnino et invisibili fit omnis exsistens ejus qui est super omnia, et nullius, neque sui ipsius neque alterius; omnino autem ignoto vacatione omnis cognitionis secundum melius unitus, et eo quod nihil cognoscit, super mentem cognoscens.’
  41. e.g. 16/6-7, 23/10, 82/2-6, 83/3-5, & c.
  42. Ibid., p. 472. Cf. De Divinis Nominibus, vii, p. 380: ‘Secundum hanc igitur oportet divina intelligere, non secundum nos, sed nos ipsos totos extra nos ipsos statutos et totos deificatos.’
  43. 62/14-17.
  44. Lib. iv, cap. 22 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, t. cxcvi, col. 165).
  45. See p. lxx.
  46. Further support may be adduced from the fact that like the cloud in the Middle English treatise (122/11-13), Richard of St. Victor's cloud is also paradoxically luminous: ‘et juste mirari debeas quomodo concordet ibi … nubes ignorantiae, cum nube illuminatae intelligentiae.’
  47. Cloud, ch. 5.
  48. Benjamin Major, v. 2 (col. 171): ‘Quid enim est ad divinae vocationis accessum nebulam intrare nisi mente excedere, et per oblivionis nebulam quasi adjacentium memoria mente caligare?’
  49. De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, ch. i.
  50. Deonise Hid Diuinite (MS. Harl. 674, f. 121 a ): ‘in translacion of it [i.e. De Mystica Theologia ] I haue not onlich folowed þe nakid line of þe text. Bot for to declare þe hardnes of it I haue moche folowed þe sentence of þe abbot of seinte victore, a noble and a worþi expositour of þis same book.’ According to Dom Justin McCann (Cloud, pp. 249, xiii), ‘þe abbot of seinte victore’ was Thomas Gallus, Abbot of St. Andrew's, Vercelli, from its foundation in 1219 until his death in 1246, a Canon Regular of the Congregation of St. Victor.
  51. Only three extant manuscripts of this commentary are known: Royal 8 G IV, Worcester Cathedral Library F 57, Merton College Library, Oxford, MS. 69.
  52. Merton College MS. 69, f. 131 b .
  53. Also Cloud, ch. 50, 93/21-4. Cf. Enarratio in Psalmum lxxii. 32 ( P.L. t. xxxvi, col. 928): ‘Qui aliud praemium petit a Deo, et propterea vult servire Deo, carius facit quod vult accipere, quam ipsum a quo vult accipere. Quid ergo? Nullum praemium Dei? Nullum, praeter ipsum. Praemium Dei, ipse Deus est. Hoc amat, hoc diligit; si aliud dilexerit, non erit castus amor.’ Also Enarr. in Psal. lv. 17 (col. 658), lii. 8 (col. 617), Sermo cxxxvii. 10 (P.L. t. xxxviii, col. 760); St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II, ii, q. xvii, a. 8.
  54. B. Alberti Magni Opera Omnia (Paris, 1898), vol. xxxvii, pp. 523-42.
  55. The authorship and date of De Adhaerendo Deo are still subjects of controversy, so that the tempting theory that the English author knew the Latin treatise must not be pressed too far. The standard text of this treatise embodies a number of passages which derive from 14th-century writers, so that its ascription to Albertus Magnus (d. 1284), at least in this form, is unacceptable. It is possible that Albertus was the author of the treatise in an original, shorter form, which was amplified in the 15th century by a Bavarian Benedictine, Johannes von Kastl. The question has been much discussed since Mgr. Grabmann first advocated the authorship of Johannes von Kastl in the Tübinger Theol. Quartalschrift, 1920, pp. 186-235. Some account of the discussion is given by Hieronymus Wilms, Albert the Great (London, 1933), pp. 104-5. Slight support of a close connexion may be adduced from the fact that De Adhaerendo Deo is to be found in MS. Bodleian 856 (Bo 1 ), a mid-fifteenth-century manuscript. See pp. xvi-xvii.
  56. De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. iv, p. 526; cf. Cloud, ch. 7, ch. 8, 32/7-8.
  57. 82/2-6.
  58. Cap. viii, p. 531; cf. cap. vi, p. 529: ‘si vis Deum veraciter possidere, necesse est quod cor tuum denudes omni amore sensibili, non tantum cujuscumque personae, sed etiam cujuscumque creaturae.’
  59. Cloud, 92/18-21.
  60. Cloud, 120/6-8.
  61. Cap. v, p. 528.
  62. Cloud, ch. 16.
  63. Cloud, chs. 12, 24, 42.
  64. Cloud, 39/11-15.
  65. Cap. xi, p. 535.
  66. Cap. v, p. 527.
  67. Cap. xi; cf. Cloud, 132/18-20.
  68. Cap. x, p. 533; cf. Cloud, 16/10.
  69. Cloud, ch. 48, De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. vii.
  70. Cap. x, p. 533.
  71. Cap. xii, p. 535: ‘Quippe solus amor est, quo convertimur ad Deum, transformamur in Deum, adhaeremus Deo, unimur Deo, ut simus unus spiritus cum eo, et beatificemur hic in gratia, et ibi in gloria, ab eo, et per eum. Amor enim ipse non quiescit, nisi in amato, quod fit cum obtinet ipsum possessione plenaria atque pacifica.’ Cf. Privy Counselling, 156/16-20: ‘þis is þe trewe condicion of a parfite louer, only & vtterly to spoyle hymself of himself for þat þing þat he louiþ, & not admit ne suffre to be cloþed bot only in þat þing þat he louiþ; & þat not only for a tyme, bot eendlesly to be vmbilappid þerin, in ful & fynal forzetyng of hymself.’
  72. Cap. vii, p. 530; cf. Cloud, 26/2-5.
  73. 121/16-19.
  74. Cap. xii, p. 536.
  75. See Introd., pp. lxii-lxiii.
  76. Merton Coll. MS. 69, f. 131 b : ‘ipsa est scintilla sinderisis que sola unibilis est spiritui divino.’
  77. Cap. iii, p. 525: ‘Imago enim Dei in his tribus potentiis in anima expressa consistit, videlicet, ratione, memoria, et voluntate.’
  78. Cap. iv, p. 526: ‘Hujusmodi autem exercitium non fit in organis carneis et sensibus exterioribus, sed per quod quis homo est: homo vero quis est intellectu et affectu.’ Dom Justin McCann very kindly pointed out to the present writer that in substance, in his insistence on the exercise of the will, and on the power of love to attain to a surpassing, immediate knowledge of God, the author of The Cloud is in profound agreement with the teaching of Thomas Gallus. Though the latter speaks of his ‘principalis affectio’ as a cognitive faculty, since it yields the supreme apprehension of God, one must suppose him to mean that this faculty is none other than the will, and its knowledge the surpassing knowledge of love and union.
  79. Cap. iii, p. 525.
  80. Cf. Cloud, chs. 37, 39; De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. viii, p. 531: ‘Et cum adest turbatio, aut acedia, vel mentis confusio, non propterea insolescas, aut pusillanimis sis, nec propter hoc curras ad orationes vocales, aut alias consolationes.’
  81. De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. xiii, p. 537: ‘erit tibi in tua introversione et recollectione jam facile ac promptum contemplari ac frui, sicut vivere in natura’; cf. Cloud, 62/7-11, 126/10-13.
  82. Cf. Cloud, ch. 3; De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. iv.
  83. 67/2-4, 10-14.
  84. Cap. iv, p. 526; cf. Privy Counseling, 149/2-5.
  85. De Adhaerendo Deo, cap. i, p. 523: ‘Quoniam quidem Spiritus cum sit Dominus Deus et eos, qui adorant eum, in spiritu et veritate oportet adorare; id est, cognitione et amore, intellectu et affectu, ab omnibus phantasmatibus nudis.’ Cf. Cloud, 88/19-21.
  86. Enarr. in Psal. xli. 8 (P.L. t. xxxvi, col. 469); cf. Cloud, 32/12-13, 120/2-5.
  87. Instruction sur Les États d'Oraison, Second Traité (Paris, 1897), ch. xxi, p. 55.
  88. e.g. Enarr. in Psal. lxxxv. 12 (P.L. t. xxxvii, col. 1090): ‘Deus ineffabilis est; facilius dicimus quid non sit, quam quid sit;’ Sermo lii. 16; De Civ. Dei, ix, 16.
  89. e.g. Morals on Job, v, cap. xxxvi (P.L. t. lxxv, col. 716).
  90. Cloud, 21/14-15.
  91. Cf. Summa Theologica, 1. ii, q. xxviii, a. 1 ad. 3: ‘Amor est magis unitivus quam cognitio.’
  92. See p. lvi.
  93. 16/4-9, 25/4-8, 82/2-6, &c.
  94. Cf. Coll. x. 5 (P.L. t. xlix, col. 826), ibid. 11 (col. 836).
  95. The progressive silencing of the different faculties of the mind is described at length in Confessions, ix. 25 (P.L. t. xxxii, col. 774).
  96. Cf. Hom. in Ezech. ii, v. 9 (P.L. t. lxxvi. col. 989-90).
  97. e.g. 62/11-12.
  98. P.L. t. clxxxii, col. 990: ‘Beatum dixerim et sanctum, cui tale aliquid in hac mortali vita raro interdum, aut vel semel, et hoc ipsum raptim, atque unius vix momenti spatio experiri donatum est.’
  99. Cf. Cloud, 22/11-13; Confessions, x. 65 (P.L. t. xxxii, col. 807); Morals on Job, v, cap. xxxii (P.L. t. lxxv, col. 711).
  100. St. Augustine is the most noteworthy exception.
  101. 63/20-2.
  102. C. Butler, Western Mysticism, London, 1927, p. 127.
  103. xvii, cap. xxvii (P.L. t. lxxvi, col. 29); cf. also Morals, v, cap. xxx (P.L. t. lxxv, col. 708); iv, cap. xxiv (P.L. t. lxxv, col. 659).
  104. Ps. (A.V.) cxlv. 3 (Vulgate cxliv. 3).
  105. Ps. (A.V.) xcvii. 2 (Vulgate xcvi. 2).
  106. Ps. (A.V.) xviii. 11 (Vulgate xvii. 11).
  107. Cloud, ch. 28.
  108. Cloud, 19/3-5.
  109. 62/14-18, a passage reminiscent of St. Gregory's ‘chink of contemplation’ described in Morals on Job, v, cap. xxix, Hom. in Ezech. ii, Hom. v, 17. Cf. also St. Bernard, Sermo in Cantica, lvii (P.L. t. clxxxiii, col. 1053). There is an agreement in mystical writings that this illumination often affords ‘a most firm, clear assurance and experimental perception of those verities of Catholic religion which are the objects of our faith, which assurance the soul perceives to be divinely communicated to her.’ F. A. Baker, Holy Wisdom, London, 1876, p. 533.
  110. 90/20 ff.; cf. Cassian, Coll. x, cap. 7; St. Augustine, Confessions, x. 65; St. Bernard, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, cap. v, 15.
  111. Cloud, ch. 49; cf. St. Bernard, Sermo in Cant. xxxi.
  112. Cloud, 31/4-6, 15-17; cf. St. Augustine, Sermo ciii, cap. iv; Tract. in Ioan. cxxiv. 5.
  113. 54/12-16; cf. Sermo civ, cap. ii (P.L. t. xxxviii, col. 617), Sermo ciii, cap. v. St. Gregory repeats this theme in Hom. in Ezech. ii, Hom. ii.
  114. St. Augustine, De Consensu Evangelistarum, i. 8 (P.L. t. xxxiv, col. 1046): ‘illa [Martha] operatur, ista [Maria] requiescit’; Sermo ciii, cap. ii (P.L. t. xxxviii, col. 614): ‘illa multa disponebat, ista unum aspiciebat.’
  115. 31/21-3; cf. Summa Theologica, II. ii, q. clxxxii, a. 3: ‘Vita activa potest considerari quantum ad duo. Uno modo quantum ad ipsum studium et exercitium exteriorum actionum … alio modo potest considerari vita activa quantum ad hoc quod interiores animae passiones componit et ordinat.’
  116. 32/5-8; cf. St. Gregory, Hom. in Ezech. ii, Hom. ii. 8 (P.L. t. lxxvi, col. 953): ‘Contemplativa vero vita est … ab exteriore actione quiescere, soli desiderio conditoris inhaerere, ut nil jam agere libeat, sed, calcatis curis omnibus, ad videndam faciem sui Creatoris animus inardescat.’
  117. Cloud, 2/6-7; cf. Summa Theologica, II. ii, q. clxxxii, a. 4; Hom. in Ezech. i, Hom. iv (P.L. t. lxxvi, col. 809).
  118. Possibly a third example is the discussion of the superlative ‘best’ in The Cloud, ch. 21. St. Gregory, Hom. in Ezech. ii, Hom. ii (P.L. t. lxxvi, col. 953-4), also discusses the choice of the epithet, though he gives a slightly different explanation.
  119. 51/23 ff.
  120. The exegesis of St. Augustine became the tradition with Western mystical writers; see Western Mysticism, p. 232.
  121. Sermo civ, cap. i. (P.L. t. xxxviii, col. 616).
  122. Cloud, 52/2-3; Sermo ciii, cap. ii (P.L. t. xxxviii, col. 614).
  123. Shorter borrowings are given in the notes.
  124. P.L., t. cxcvi.
  125. 126/18-19; cf. Benj. Maj. i. 1 (col. 65): ‘Vides ergo quam recte gratia contemplationis in eo sacrario intelligitur … Si igitur per arcam sanctificationis recte intelligitur gratia contemplationis. …’
  126. Cloud, 126/21-4; Benj. Maj. i. 2 (col. 65): ‘Scimus autem quia pretiosa quaeque aurum, argentum et lapides pretiosi soleant in arca reponi. … Si igitur sapientiae et scientiae thesauros cogitemus.’
  127. Cf. Cloud, ch. 71, Benj. Maj. iv. 22 (col. 166). Aaron is the type in The Cloud, Beseleel in Benj. Maj.
  128. Benj. Maj. v. 1 (col. 167).
  129. Ibid. iv. 22 (col. 165).
  130. Ibid. iv. 23 (col. 166).
  131. Cloud, 128/3-5; Benj. Maj. v. 1 (col. 169): ‘Moysi quidem arca Domini ex Dominica revelatione est in monte ostensa, postmodum autem in valle familiariter nota et frequenter visa.’
  132. Cloud, 127/8-13; Benj. Maj. iv. 23 (col. 166-7): ‘Aaron autem jam ex magna parte in potestate habebat quoties idipsum ordo vel ratio poscebat in sancta sanctorum intrare, et intra ipsum velum arcam … videre’; ‘alii vero ut hoc possunt sibi comparant (cum gratiae tamen cooperatione) ex magna animi industria. … Iam velut ex virtute ejusmodi gratiae efficaciam habere dicendi sunt, qui ex magna jam parte id possunt cum volunt.’
  133. Cloud, 129/1-3; Benj. Maj. v. 1 (col. 167-8): ‘Aaron autem arcam aliena jam operatione formatam videre consuevit.’
  134. Cloud, 128/18; cf. Benj. Maj. v. 1 (col. 168): ‘Sed tunc quasi juxta Beseleel exemplum in idipsum ex proprio opere proficimus, cum in eamdem gratiam nostro studio et labore artem comparamus.’
  135. Cloud, 129/4-9; cf. Benj. Maj. v. 1 (col. 169): ‘Ecce nos in hoc opere quasi Beseleel officium suscepimus qui te ad contemplationis studium instructionem reddere et quasi in arcae operatione desudare curavimus. Longe tamen meipsum in hac gratia praecedis, si ex his quae audis adjutus intrare praevaleas usque ad interiora velaminis.’
  136. Cap. iii (col. 3); cf. Cloud, 115/19-20, 116/10 ff.
  137. Cap. v (col. 4); cf. Cloud, 117/6-7.
  138. Cap. v; cf. Cloud, 118/8-9.
  139. Cap. vi (col. 5); cf. Cloud, 117/12-17.
  140. Cap. v (col. 5); cf. Cloud, 119/8-10.
  141. Chs. 8, 62, 67.
  142. Cap. lv (col. 40).
  143. ii. 16 (col. 95); iv. 2 (col. 136).
  144. 71/14-16.
  145. Cloud of Unknowing (1924), p. 87 note.
  146. Migne, P.L., t. xl, col. 997 ff.; t. clxxxiv, col. 475 ff.
  147. Prior of the Grande Chartreuse towards the end of the twelfth century.
  148. ‘A Laddre of foure Rongys by the whiche ladder men mowe wele clymbe to heuen.’ This translation is to be found in MSS. Douce 322, f. 52 b ff., Univ. Lib., Cambridge, Ff. vi. 33, Harleian 1706.
  149. Support is necessary, since Dom Noetinger, Le Nuage de l'Inconnaissance (Tours, 1925), pp. 159 ff., opposes the theory.
  150. 71/20-1; cap. xi (P.L. t. clxxxiv, col. 482): ‘Auditus enim quodam modo pertinet ad lectionem. Unde solemus dicere, non solum libros ipsos nos legisse, quos nobis ipsis vel aliis legimus, sed illos etiam quos a magistris audivimus.’
  151. i.e. proficients.
  152. Cloud, 71/17 ff.; cf. MS. Douce 322 (f. 53 b ): ‘The furst degre ys of begynners. The secund of profyters. The thryd of hem that been deuoute. The iiiith of theym that ben holy and blyssed wiþ God.’
  153. 100/2-4.
  154. Loc. cit., p. 128, note.
  155. Loc. cit., p. 205, note.
  156. Migne, P.L., t. clxxvi, col. 938 ff.
  157. The present writer has found only six, and some of these have not a close resemblance: Cloud, 99/2-6; cf. col. 941: ‘Alii quasi ambae aures ad audiendum factae non sint, alteram tantum collo detorto voci venienti opponunt.’ … ‘Sunt enim quidam qui nisi buccis patentibus auscultare nesciunt, et quasi per os sensus ad cor influere debeat, palatum ad verba loquentis aperiunt. … Alii loquentes digitum extendunt.’ Cloud, 99/9; cf. col. 942: ‘Alii navigant brachiis incedentes.’ Cloud, 98/1-2; cf. col. 942: ‘Alii majori ridiculo dimidiato ore loquuntur.’ Cloud, 99/13-14; cf. cap. xvii (col. 948): ‘Modestiam debet habere gestus loquentis, ut nec inordinate, nec impudice, nec turbulenter inter loquendum membra moveat, neque oculorum nutibus, aut indecenti conformatione sive transmutatione vultus, placorem sui sermonis imminuat.’