The reason is this: in affirming the existence of what transcends all affirmation, we were obliged to begin from what is most akin to It and then make the affirmation upon which all the rest depended; but to attain in the theology of negation what is beyond all negation we are obliged to begin by denying what are most disparate from it.

– The Pseudo-Dionysius: ‘De Mystica Theologia’ (‘Negative and Affirmative Theologies’)