The Cloud of Unknowing is a fourteenth century work by an anonymous English author. Over the years, there has been much speculation about the identity of the author, and it has often been said that he was a Carthusian monk. One thing that is clear from the text is that its author was certainly learned, well versed in scholastic theology. There is also a very clear influence of Pseudo-Dionysius, whom the author quotes directly in chapter seventy: 'The most Godlike knowledge of God is that which is known by unknowing’. Pseudo-Dionysius, who was then widely thought to be a follower of Paul (see Acts 17), is used as source and authority for the ideas that The Cloud proposes. The author asserts that we can know more about what God is not than about what God is. This theology informs his approach to the contemplative life, and in this he stands among many influential writers, including St John of Cross, who wrote some two centuries later.Read more
