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The Way and The Means
According to the Cloud
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 September 2024
Extract
X is usually taken as the symbol of the unknown in modern thought. If a man wishes to discover an unknown figure or fact, he begins by positing ‘X’ as the object of his enquiry and then he proceeds to argue in such a way as to reveal the nature of that unknown. In the ‘argument’ of the spiritual life the process is largely reversed. Having begun with a ‘clear idea’ of God, derived partly from reason and partly from faith, the Christian gradually ascends the holy mount until this sun disappears behind the luminous cloud and he finds himself surrounded thickly on all sides by the Unknown. It is in many ways the conclusion of his search.
But having become aware that he is enveloped in this cloud of unknowing, the Christian may well take the opportunity to run over in his mind the way he came into this place and the means he had taken to ensure that he should ascend at every pace.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © 1948 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 This identification should be compared with Hilton's Scale, where the higher form of active life is shown to penetrate in some way into the beginning of the contemplative way of life,
2 Another point of interest for our own times is his description of the opposition of 'actives' to those who wish to live purely contemplative lives—'their own brethren and their sisters, and all their nearest friends . . . with a great complaining spirit shall rise upon them, and sharply reprove them, and say that it is nought that they do'. (Cloud, c. 18).
3 Cf. Dom Justin McCann's note to his edition, page 87.
4 Epistle of Prayer,pp. 85 and 88 in Edmund Gardner's edition of The Cell of Self-Knowledge.