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HNGU!N � CLASSICS THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING AND OTHER WORKS ADVISORY EDITOR: BETTY RADICE The identity of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing is unknown, but he was undoubtedly an English priest who lived during the latter half of the fourteenth century. Six other works are commonly attributed to the same pen; and their words, style, and language suggest those of a country parson from the East Midlands. CLIFTON WoLTERS was born in London, and trained for the priesthood at Durham University and the London College of Divinity. He was Vicar of Wimbledon Park, Rector of Sanderstead, and later Provost of Newcastle. After retirement, he served as Chaplain to St Margaret's Convent, East Grinstead. He has also translated Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love and Richard Rolle's Fire of Love for the Penguin Classics. Clifton Wolters died in I99!. THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING AND OTHER WORKS TRANS LA TBD INTO MODERN ENGLISH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CLIFTON WOLTERS PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the PenguinGroup PenguinBooks Ltd, 27 WrigbllLaoc, London W8 STZ, England Penguin BooksUSA Inc., 37S Hudaon St:Ret,New York, New York 10014,USA Penguin BooksAus lrBiiaLtd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Lid, 10 AlcornAvenue, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaM4V 3B2 Penguin Boolr.s(NZ) Ltd, 182-190Wairau Road,Auclr.land 10, NewZealand Penguin BooksLtd, Rcgilt=d Offil:es:Harmondsworth,Middi CIICX, England This translation of TheClowl of Unknowingfirst published 1961 Reprintedwith TheEpl.ltl� of Priory C01111.Jel, Dlonyslu.r'My:�ticd Teaehblg and TheEpi.Jtle of Prayer 1978 IS 17 19 20 18 16 Copyright©Clifton Wolters, 1961, 1978 All righll rcscrvcd Printedin England by Clays Ltd, St Ivespic Setin Monotypc Bcmbo Except in the United Statesof America, thisis boolr. sold subj«:t to the condition that it a�ll not, by way of tradeor otherwise, belent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwisecirculated without the publisher's prior consent in any formof binding or cover otherthan that in which it is publishedand without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on thesubsequent purchaser CORONAE MEAE ET GAUDIO CONJUGI CARIS SIMAE ANIMO GRATISSIMO CON TENTS Introduction Authorship II The Sources 14 The Mystic Way 18 Notes Chapters and Other Matters 29 Acknowledgements 29 Select Bibliography 30 The Cloud ofUn knowing Leading Ideas 35 Outline 35 Grace 37 The Naked Intent 38 The Hardness of the Way 40 Sin 43 Contemplation 46 TITLE PAGE 49 PRAYER 50 PROLOGUE 51 LIST OF CHAPTERS 53 EXHORTATION sB TEXT 59 The Epistle ofPrivy Counsel Authorship 153 Date 153 Leading Ideas 154 TITLE PAGE 157 CONTENTS PROLOGUE 159 TEXT 161 Dionysius' Mystical Teaching (Dionise Hid Divinite) Authorship 201 Leading Ideas 201 TITLE PAGE 205 PRAYER 206 PROLOGUE 207 TEXT 209 The Ep istle ofPra yer Leading Ideas 219 TITLE PAGE 221 TEXT 223 INTROD UCTION THE works translated in this book1 belop.g to the devo­ tional classics of the English Church, and are among the greatest of them all. No one who reads them can fail to catch something of theirsplendour and charm. They spring from an age when English mysticism was in full flower, when Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, the author of The Cloud, and Julian of Norwich, 2 were writing with such timelessness and reality that their influence is as great today as it has ever been since that remarkable inexplicable cen­ tury. We are told that the wind of God blows where it lists; certainly the whole of the Western Church was quickened at this time. France, Germany, Flanders, Italy, all bear wit­ ness to the same profound stirring. A glance at the names of the outstanding continental mystics confirms it: Mech­ tild, Gertrude, Angela de Foligno, Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Catherine of Siena, Ruysbroek, and Thomasa Kempis. 3 It is a noble band and fruitful, and together with the English­ men, makes a company without parallel in the history of the Church. The surprising thing about this particular upsurge is that it happened when it did. Western Europe was in the throes of the Hundred Years War; the Black Death was decimat­ ing every country it entered; social unrest was showing it­ self in the English Peasants' Revolt; the Papacy, soon to be split in two, was already 'in captivity' at Avignon; new I. They are The Cloud ofUnknowin g, TheEpistle ofPrivy Counsel, TheEpistle ofPrayer, andDionysius' Mystical Teaching. 2. Their dates are 130o-49; d. 1396; c. 1370; 1343-1413. 3· They clied respectively in 1298, 1302, 1309, 1327, IJ6I, 1365, IJ80, 1381, 1471. 9 INTRODUCTION ideas were beginning to emerge; heresy was exerting its disintegrating influence; the fo redawn of the Renaissance was discernible; and already the premonitory tremors of the cataclysm of the Reformation could be fe lt. Medieval Christendom was passing away, and modem nationalism was coming to painful birth. It was in this restless, unsettled age that mysticism re­ vived, and men turned fr om the rage and storm to consider rather the cahn depths that lay beneath. It was as children of their age of course that they 'turned aside to see', and what they saw they describe to us in their own idiom, which reflects the hopes and fe ars of their day. The fo ur­ teenth-century mystic, writing fo r the first time in the vernacular and with a new emphasis on the individuality of the soul, is a man speaking fr om the midst of an age of transition. This may well be the reason why these later medievals are treasured by both Anglicans and Romans alike, fo r both are heirs of the tensions and divisions which stem fr om those fa r-off days. We may hope that in this common appreciation and affection they are drawn closer to each other. Yet fo r most English-speaking Christians The Cloud of Unknowing (the best known of them all) is not even a name, and fe w of those who have heard of it have gone on to read it or its companion works. There are various reasons fo r this ignorance, and two of them are obvious: language and subject matter. Many people fm d the language a real difficulty. In such editions as are procurable, the Middle English of the original has been little altered, except fo r a word here and there, and the spelling generally. Thus the pith and vigour of the books can be fu lly savoured, but their message not so easily understood. They reveal their meaning to those who persevere, and who fe el fo r the archaic, but not many IO INTRODUCTION people nowadays seem to have the necessary time or talent. Ifthe Authorized Version of the Bible, published in I6II, is considered difficult to understand and needs modem English versions to explain it, there must be even greater need for a translation of books which were written about 1370. There is an obvious loss in being deprived of the original language. It has a strength and rhythm and beauty, and a score of memorable phrases, which do not always stand the strain of being translated. Offsetting this, however, is the considerable gain in lucidity, and it is hoped that the translation's inevitable inadequacy will not wholly obscure the freshness and beauty of this fourteenth-century work. The second reason, the subject matter, is nothing like so baffling once the language has been modernized, and it is to this that the rest of this general introduction and the individual prefaces to each work are devoted. These pre­ liminaries, like the writings themselves, complement each other, and it is possible (in the words of The Cloud) that 'peradventure there is some matter therein, in the begin­ ning or in the middle, the which is hanging and not fully declared where it standeth: and ifit is not there it is soon after, or else in the end.' But in any case it is the works themselves that count, and the reader's attention is directed to them. Authorship The identity of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing and its cognates is not known. It is commonly assumed that from the first his intention was to remain anonymous, which with a book of such a title is not altogether inappro­ priate. There have been countless conjectures, and though some have been ingenious, none has been convincing. The II INTRODUCTION problem may yield ultimately to scholarly probing, but at the moment it is intractable. Every reader will form his own opinion of the author, and though individual impressions will vary it would com­ monly be accepted that he was a man convinced of the necessity for God to be at the centre of all life; he had a well-stored and scholarly mind, with a flair for expressing complexities simply; there was more than a streak of the poet in him, and at the same time a saving sense of humour and proportion. Probably most people would feel that they would like to know him, and some at least might wish they could have his guidance today. The writing of great religious works is not by any means a male preserve - we have only to look at the lists of names in the opening paragraph- but we can safely predicate 'he' of the author of The Cloud works, not merely because of the sense of masculinity that pervades the whole, nor be­ cause of the knowledge of theology that is revealed, nor even because of the authority with which the young dis­ ciple1 for whom some at least of the books were written is being directed - all these are cumulative, but not con­ clusive - but because Th e Cloud's fmal paragraph reveals him as a priest, dispensing 'God's blessing and mine' (Chap­ ter 75).

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