CLOUD OF UNKNOWING ("Nube della non conoscenza"). — A mystical text, anonymous, composed in England in the Midland dialect around the middle of the 14th century and first published, with a commentary, by the Benedictine Augustine Baker (1575–1641).
The author, writing under the influence of the works of St. Augustine, Richard of St. Victor, and especially Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, explains to his disciple that it is not knowledge, but mystical intuition of the divinity—attainable not by discursive reason alone, but by will and love—that leads to the possession of God. At the end of his spiritual struggle, the mystic will find himself before a cloud, which only his "little blind love" will have the power to penetrate.
BIBL.: Modernized text edited by I. McCann, 2nd ed., London 1936. Two editions of the original text exist (ibid. 1871 and 1912).