The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite (Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchy, Mystical Theology)

mind and essence—being such that It embraces, unites, comprehends, and anticipates all things, yet Itself is altogether incomprehensible to all—and of It there is neither perception nor imagination, nor surmise, nor name, nor expression, nor contact, nor science—in what way can our treatise thoroughly investigate the meaning of the Divine Names, when the super-essential Deity is shown to be without name and above name?

But, as we said when we put forth the Theological Outlines, it is not possible either to express or to conceive what the One, the Unknown, the Super-essential self-existing Good is—I mean the threefold Unity, the alike God, and the alike Good. Even the unions of the holy Powers Angels., such as befit angels—whether we must call them efforts after, or receptions from, the super-unknown and surpassing Goodness—are both unutterable and unknown, and exist in those angels alone who, above angelic knowledge, are deemed worthy of them. The godlike minds (men) made one by these unions, through imitation of angels as far as attainable (since it is during the cessation of every mental energy that such a union of the deified minds towards the super-divine light takes place), celebrate It most appropriately through the abstraction of all created things. Enlightened in this matter, truly and supernaturally from the most blessed union towards It, they recognize that It is the Cause indeed of all existing things, but Itself is none of them, as being super-essentially elevated above all. To none, indeed, who are lovers of the Truth above all truth, is it permitted to celebrate