God, on the other hand, is absolutely and infinitely beyond all beings, including those that contain others and those that are themselves contained, and He is beyond their nature, apart from which they could not exist, by which I mean to say apart from time and the age beyond time, as well as place, by which the universe is limited, for God is absolutely unconditioned by any relation to anything whatsoever. It follows, then, that the one who has wisely understood how he ought to love God, seeing that God is beyond all reason, knowledge, and any kind of relation whatsoever (because He is beyond nature), will pass by all sensible and intelligible objects, as well as all time, age, and place without establishing any relation to them; and finally, after having, in a manner beyond nature, stripped himself of every activity conforming to sensation, reason, and intellect, he will attain, ineffably and unknowably, the divine delight, which is beyond reason and intellect, and he shall attain this in a mode and principle known to God who gives such grace, and to those who are worthy to receive it. Thus he no longer bears about with him anything natural or written, since all that he could possibly say or know has been completely transcended and wrapped in silence.
[St. Maximus the Confessor,
On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, Volum I, Constas, ed. and tr. Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA: 2014) pp. 244-245.]
