<DIV>In the fourteenth century there was a great flourishing of religious writings in English, both orthodox and heretical. Many of these works focused on Christ's Passion and humanity, whereas <b>The Cloud of Unknowing</b> describes an abstract, transcendent God beyond human knowledge and human language. Drawing upon radically different traditions, it is a rich work full of intriguing contradictions that speaks to us with liveliness and wit even today. The unknown author, thought to be a priest and Carthusian monk, is also believed to have written the other three works in this volume: <b>The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis</b>, <b>The Book of Privy Counselling</b>, and <b>An Epistle on Prayer</b>, which, together with <b>The Cloud of Unknowing</b>, are the four texts at the core of medieval mystical theology.<br><br> This Penguin Classics edition includes full explanatory notes, suggestions for further reading, an appendix that reproduces the Middle English text of a section of The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, and an introduction that places the texts within the context of medieval religious writing.</div>