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me individual soul. Whoso deserves to see and know God rests therein, says Dionysius of that
darkness, and, by the very fact that he neither sees nor knows, is truly in that which surpasses all
truth and all knowledge.
> Then, says the writer of the Cloud whispering as it were to the bewildered neophyte
the dearest secret of his love then will He sometimes peradventure send out a beam of ghostly
light, piercing this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and Him; and show thee some of His
privity, the which man may not, nor cannot speak.
* * * * * * *
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Numerous copies of the Cloud of Unknowing and the other works attributed to its writer
are in existence. Six manuscripts of the Cloud are in the British Museum: four on vellum (Harl.
674, Harl. 959, Harl. 2373, and Royal 17 C. xxvii.), all of the 15th century; and two on paper (Royal
17 C. xxvii. of the 16th century, and Royal 17 D. v. late 15th century). All these agree fairly closely;
except for the facts that Harl. 2373 is incomplete, several pages having disappeared, and that Harl.
959 gives the substance of the whole work in a slightly shortened form. The present edition is based
upon Harl. 674; which has been transcribed and collated with Royal 17 C. xxvi., and in the case of
specially obscure passages with Royal 17 C. xxvii., Royal 17 D. v., and Harl. 2373. Obvious errors
and omissions have been corrected, and several obscure readings elucidated, from these sources.
The Cloud of Unknowing was known, and read, by English Catholics as late as the middle
or end of the 17th century. It was much used by the celebrated Benedictine ascetic, the Venerable
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Augustine Baker (1575-1641), who wrote a long exposition of the doctrine which it contains. Two
manuscripts of this treatise exist in the Benedictine College of St. Laurence at Ampleforth; together
with a transcript of the Cloud of Unknowing dated 1677. Many references to it will also be found
in the volume called Holy Wisdom, which contains the substances of Augustine Baker s writings
on the inner life. The Cloud has only once been printed: in 1871, by the Rev. Henry Collins, under
the title of The Divine Cloud, with a preface and notes attributed to Augustine Baker and probably
taken from the treatise mentioned above. This edition is now out of print. The MS. from which it
was made is unknown to us. It differs widely, both in the matter of additions and of omissions,
from all the texts in the British Museum, and represents a distinctly inferior recension of the work.
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A mangled rendering of the sublime Epistle of Privy Counsel is prefixed to it. Throughout, the
pithy sayings of the original are either misquoted, or expanded into conventional and flavourless
sentences. Numerous explanatory phrases for which our manuscripts give no authority have been
incorporated into the text. All the quaint and humorous turns of speech are omitted or toned down.
The responsibility for these crimes against scholarship cannot now be determined; but it seems
likely that the text from which Father Collins edition was in his own words mostly taken
was a 17th-century paraphrase, made rather in the interests of edification than of accuracy; and that
8
The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymous
it represents the form in which the work was known and used by Augustine Baker and his
contemporaries.
The other works attributed to the author of the Cloud have fared better than this. Dionise
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Hid Divinite still remains in MS.: but the Epistle of Prayer, the Epistle of Discretion, and the
Treatise of Discerning of Spirits, together with the paraphrase of the Benjamin Minor of Richard
of St. Victor which is supposed to be by the same hand, were included by Henry Pepwell, in 1521,
in a little volume of seven mystical tracts. These are now accessible to the general reader; having
been reprinted in the New Medieval Library (1910) under the title of The Cell of Self-knowledge,
with an admirable introduction and notes by Mr. Edmund Gardner. Mr. Gardner has collated
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