The following extract from a 6th century treatise called ''Mystical Theology". The author called himself 'Denis the Areopagite' in imitation of the 1st century saint of that name (see Acts 17,34). He shows us how by a process of eliminating limited human terms about God, we may arrive at a better appreciation of God's incomparable majesty.
After having attempted, in vain, to formulate about God what we know-by admitting all the time that God is greater and different-, we finally come close to God in a union of silent love.
I recommend especially the last paragraph for careful meditation.
God, the cause of all things,
embraces all
and is above all,
is not without being nor without life.God does not lack reason or intelligence.
Yet, God is not an object.
God has no form or shape,
no quality, no quantity, no weight.
God is not restricted to any place.
God cannot be seen.
God cannot be touched.
Our sense cannot perceive God,
our mind cannot grasp God.God is not swayed by needs or drives
or inner emotions.
Things or events that take place in our world
can never upset God.
God needs no light.
God suffers neither change
nor corruption nor division.
God lacks nothing
and remains always the same.God is neither soul nor intellect.
God does not imagine, consider, argue or understand.
God cannot be expressed in words
or conceived in thoughts.God does not fall into any category
of number or order.
God possesses no greatness nor smallness,
no equality nor inequality,
no similarity nor dissimilarity.God doesn't stand, nor move,
nor is God addressed.
God doesn't yield power,
neither is God power itself
nor is God light.
God doesn't live,
nor is God life itself.God may not be identified with being,
nor with eternity or time.
God is not subject to the reach of the mind.
God is not knowledge, nor truth,
nor kingship,
nor wisdom.God is not the one,
nor oneness;
not godhead nor goodness.
God is not even spirit
in the way we understand it,
nor sonship nor fatherhood.God is not anything else known to us
or known to any other being.God has nothing in common with things that exist
or with things that don't exist.
Nothing that exists knows God as God really is.
Nor does God know things that exist
through a knowledge existing outside God himself.Reason cannot reach God,
or know God.
God is neither darkness nor light,
neither falsehood nor truth.All statements affirmed about God
or denied about God
are equally wrong.For although we can make positive or negative statements
about all things below God,
we can neither affirm nor deny God himself.Because the all-perfect and unique cause of all things
is beyond all affirmation.Moreover, by the simple pre-eminence
of his absolute nature,
God falls outside the scope
of any negation.God is free from every limitation
and beyond all limitation.The higher we rise in contemplation
the more words fail.
Words cannot express pure mind.When we enter the darkness
that lies beyond our grasp,
we are forced, not merely to say little,
but rather to maintain an absolute silence,
a silence of thoughts
as well as of words...As we move up from below
to that which is higher in the order of being,
our power of speech decreases,
until,
when we reach the top,
we find ourselves totally speechless.We are then overcome
by God who is wholly ineffable.
Denis the Areopagite
The text is taken from The Mystical Theology of PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, esp. ch. 4, 5. I have rendered the text rather freely and have slightly rearranged its order; ch. SANCTI DIONYSII AREOPAGITAE, Opera Omnia, ed. B. CORDERIUS, Typis Antonii Zatta, Venice 1755, "De Mystica Theologia", pp. 543-588. For more information about this work, see P. SHELDON-WILLIAMS "The PseudoDionysius", in The Cambrige History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. ARMSTRONG, Cambrige University Press 1970, 457-472; V. LOSSKY, The Vision of God, Faith Press. London. pp. 99-105.
