Nicholas of Cusa

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Cusa" and "Cusanus" redirect here. For the lunar crater, see Cusanus (crater). For other uses, see CUSA (disambiguation).
His Eminence

Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa, by Master of the Life of the Virgin
Born1401
Kues, Electorate of Trier,
Holy Roman Empire
Died11 August 1464
Todi, Umbria,
Papal States
Other namesDoctor Christianus, "Nikolaus Cryfftz", "Nicholas of Kues", "Nicolaus Cusanus"
Alma materHeidelberg University
University of Padua
EraMedieval philosophy
Renaissance philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolRenaissance humanism[1]
Christian humanism[1]
Main interests
Notable ideas
Learned ignorance, coincidence of opposites
Cardinal-Priest of San Pietro in Vincoli
Orders
Ordination1436[2]
Consecration26 April 1450[2]
by Pope Nicholas V
Created cardinal20 December 1448
by Pope Nicholas V

Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (

theologian, jurist, mathematician and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on "learned ignorance," as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire
.

As

Prince–Bishop of Brixen two years later. In 1459, he became vicar general in the Papal States
.

Nicholas has remained an influential figure. In 2001, the sixth centennial of his birth was celebrated on four continents and commemorated by publications on his life and work.[4]

Life

Birthplace in Kues

Nicholas was born in

canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. In Padua, he met with the later cardinals Julian Cesarini and Domenico Capranica and became friends with the mathematician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law," which he appears to have both taught and practiced there. In Cologne, he made friends with the scholastic theologian Heymeric de Campo
.

Following a brief period in Cologne, Nicholas returned to his hometown and became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the

computus, which, however, was not realized until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar
in 1582.

After the Archbishop Otto of Trier had died in 1430,

Speyer bishop Raban of Helmstatt his successor. Nevertheless, the Electorate was contested by opposing parties, and in 1432 Nicholas attended the Council of Basel representing the Cologne dean Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants,[6] who hoped to prevail against the new Pope Eugene IV. Nicholas stressed the determining influence of the cathedral chapter and its given right to participate in the succession policy, which even places the pope under an obligation to seek a consent. His efforts were to no avail in regard to Ulrich's ambitions; however, Nicholas's pleadings earned him a great reputation as an intermediary and diplomat. While present at the council, he wrote his first work, De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent. This work remained useful to critics of the papacy long after Nicholas left Basel.[7]

Initially as

Hussites. Between the summer of 1437 and early 1438 he was a member of the delegation sent to Constantinople with the pope's approval to bring back the Byzantine emperor and his representatives to the papally summoned Council of Florence of 1439, which was attempting to bring the Eastern Orthodox Church into union with the Western Catholic Church
. The reunion achieved at this conference turned out to be very brief. Nicholas would later claim (in the postfaced dedicatory letter of On Learned Ignorance, which Nicholas finished writing on 12 February 1440) that he had chosen to write on this metaphysical topic because of a shipboard experience of divine illumination while on the ship returning from this mission to Constantinople.

After a successful career as a papal envoy, he was made a cardinal by

interdict
on his lands. Nicholas returned to Rome, but was never able to return to his bishopric.

He died at Todi in Umbria on 11 August 1464. Sigismund's capitulation came a few days after Nicholas's death.[9]

Tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, with the relief "Cardinal Nicholas before St Peter" by Andrea Bregno

Upon his death, Nicholas's body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, probably near the relic of Peter's chains; but it was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. Two other tombstones, one medieval and one modern, also are found in the church. In accordance with his wishes, his heart rests within the chapel altar at the Cusanusstift in Kues. To this charitable institution that he had founded he bequeathed his entire inheritance; it still stands, and serves the purpose Nicholas intended for it, as a home for the aged. The Cusanusstift also houses many of his manuscripts.[1]

Philosophy

Nicholas's De Docta Ignorantia ('Of Learned Ignorance') is an epistemological and metaphysical treatise. He maintains the finite human mind cannot fully know the divine, infinite mind ('the Maximum'). Nonetheless, he holds that the human intellect can become aware of its limitations in knowing God and thus attain "learned ignorance". His theory shows the influence of neoplatonism and negative theology, and he frequently cites Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

Nicholas was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity. He wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and their unfolding in creation. He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical.[10] Nicholas also wrote in De coniecturis about using conjectures or surmises to rise to better understanding of the truth. The individual might rise above mere reason to the vision of the intellect, but the same person might fall back from such vision.

Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the implications of Reformed teaching on the

Pico della Mirandola
, who similarly explained the descensus in terms of Christ's agony.

Science and mathematics

Most of Nicholas's mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance), De Visione Dei (On the Vision of God) and De coniecturis (On Conjectures). He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises.

Mathematics plays a key role for Cusanus in orienting the human mind towards God. Mathematical figures provide a means for the mind to consider how figures may be deformed and transformed, and thus prepares the mind to reach the "coincidence of opposites" in the "Absolutely maximal Being".

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 edition):

The astronomical views of the cardinal are scattered through his philosophical treatises. They evince complete independence of traditional doctrines, though they are based on symbolism of numbers, on combinations of letters, and on abstract speculations rather than observation. The earth is a star like other stars, is not the centre of the universe, is not at rest, nor are its poles fixed. The celestial bodies are not strictly spherical, nor are their orbits circular. The difference between theory and appearance is explained by relative motion. Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work.[11]

Like Nicole Oresme, Nicholas also wrote about the possibility of the plurality of worlds.[12][13]

Norman Moore tells us in The Fitz-Patrick Lectures of 1905:

In medicine he introduced an improvement which in an altered form has continued in use to this day. This improvement was the counting of the pulse which up to his time had been felt and discussed in many ways but never counted. ...Nicholas of Cusa proposed to compare the rate of pulses by weighing the quantity of water run out of a water clock while the pulse beat one hundred times. ...The manufacture of watches with second-hands has since given us a simpler method of counting, but the merit of introducing this useful kind of observation into clinical medicine belongs to Nicholas of Cusa.[14]

Politics

In 1433, Nicholas proposed reform of the

Holy Roman Emperors. Although it was not adopted by the Church, his method was essentially the same one known today as the Borda count, which is used in many academic institutions, competitions, and even some political jurisdictions, in original form and a number of variations. His proposal preceded Borda's work by over three centuries.[15]

Nicholas's opinions on the Empire, which he hoped to reform and strengthen, were cited against papal claims of temporal power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestant writers were happy to cite a cardinal against Rome's assertions. Protestants, however, found his writings against the Hussites wrong. Nicholas seemed to Protestants to give the church too much power to interpret Scripture, instead of treating it as self-interpreting and self-sufficient for salvation, the principle of sola scriptura.[16]

Nicholas's own thought on the church changed with his departure from Basel. He tried arguing that the Basel assembly lacked the consent of the church throughout the world, especially the princes. Then he tried arguing that the church was unfolded from Peter (explicatio Petri).

Roman curia and outward throughout Christendom.[18]

Nicholas noted that government was founded on the consent of the governed:

Accordingly, since by nature all men are free, any authority by which subjects are prevented from doing evil and their freedom is restrained to doing good through fear from penalties, comes solely from harmony and from the consent of the subjects, whether the authority reside in written law or in the living law which is in the ruler. For if by nature men are equally strong and equally free, the true and settled power of one over the others, the ruler having equal natural power, could be set up only by the choice and consent of the others, just as a law also is set up by consent.[19][20]

Other religions

Shortly after the

Koran in Latin translation. While the arguments for the superiority of Christianity are still shown in this book, it also credits Judaism and Islam with sharing in the truth at least partially.[22]

Influence

Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth-century French scholars, including

Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag.[25] In the early twentieth century, he was hailed by Ernst Cassirer as the "first modern thinker,"[26] and much debate since then has centered around the question whether he should be seen as essentially a medieval or Renaissance figure. What is more, Cassirer presented Cusanus as the main focal point (einfachen Brennpunkt) of Italian Renaissance philosophy. Eminent scholars like Eugenio Garin and Paul Oskar Kristeller challenged Cassirer’s thesis, and went so far as to practically deny any considerable link between Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino or Giovanni Pico.[27] In the following decades, new hypotheses on the relationship between Cusanus and Italian humanists appeared, more balanced and focused on the sources.[28]

Societies and centers dedicated to Nicholas can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States. His well-known quote about the infinity of the universe is found paraphrased in the Central Holy Book of the Thelemites, The Book of the Law, which was "received" from the Angel Aiwass by Aleister Crowley in Cairo in April 1904: "In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found."

Works

Nicholas wrote a large number of works, which include:

  • De auctoritate praesidendi in concilio generali (1434), a proposal for resolving the question of presidency over the deliberations of the Council of Basil.
  • De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance) (1434), a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent.[29]
  • Reparatio kalendarii (1434/5), a plan for reforming the church's calendar.
  • De Docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440).[30]
  • De coniecturis (On Conjectures) (1441-2)
  • Dialogus concludens Amedistarum errorem (1441), an ecclesiological explanation of his papal advocacy.
  • De Deo abscondito (On the Hidden God) (1444/5)[30]
  • De quaerendo Deum (On Seeking God) (1445)[30]
  • De date patris luminum (On the Gift of the Father of Lights (1445/6)
  • De transmutationibus geometricis
  • De arithmetricis complementis (1445)
  • De filiatione Dei (On Divine Sonship)
  • De genesi (On Genesis)
  • Apologia doctae ignorantiae (The Defense of Learned Ignorance) (1449), a response to charges of heresy and pantheism by the Heidelberg scholastic theologian John Wenck in a work entitled De ignota litteratura (On Unknown Learning).[31]
  • Idiota de mente (The Layman on Mind) (1450). This is formed of four dialogues: De Sapientia I-II, De Mente III, and De staticis experimentis IV.
  • De visione Dei (On the Vision of God) (1453), completed at the request of the monks of the Benedictine abbey at Tegernsee.
  • De pace fidei (1453), written in response to the news of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks.
  • De theologicis complementis, in which he pursued his continuing fascination with theological applications of mathematical models.
  • De mathematicis complementis (1453)
  • Caesarea circuli quadratura (1457)
  • Excitationum ex sermonibus (1457)
  • De beryllo (On the Beryl) (1458), a brief epistemological treatise using a beryl or transparent stone as the crucial analogy.
  • De aequalitate (1459)
  • De principio (1459)
  • Reformatio generalis, (1459) a treatise on the general reform of the church, written at the request of Pope Pius II, but generally ignored by the Pope and cardinals.[31]
  • De possest (1460)
  • Cribratio Alkorani, a Christocentric evaluation of the
    Koran written at the request of Pope Pius II, based on the twelfth-century translation of Robert of Ketton
    .
  • De non aliud (On the Not-Other) (1462)
  • De venatione sapientiae (1462)
  • De ludo globi (1463)
  • Compendium (1463)
  • De apice theoriae (On the Summit of Contemplation) (1464), his last work.[30]

Modern editions

  • Opera omnia, ed. E Hoffmann et al., (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1932–2006) [The modern critical edition, begun under the editorship of Ernst Hoffmann and Raymond Klibansky]
  • Acta Cusana, ed Erich Muethen and Hermann Hallauer, (1976–) [A series designed to publish all extant documents, letters, deeds and other materials in which Cusanus and his activities are mentioned]
  • On Learned Ignorance, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1985)
  • Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa's Dialectical Mysticism: Text, Translation, and Interpretive Study of De Visione Dei , (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1985)
  • Dialectical Mysticism, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1988)
  • De auctoritate praesidendi in concilio generali, tr. HL Bond et al., Church History 59, (1990), 19-34
  • De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), tr. P Sigmund, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, (Cambridge: CUP, 1991)
  • A Miscellany on Nicholas of Cusa, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1994)
  • On Wisdom and Knowledge, tr. J Hopkins, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1996)
  • Metaphysical Speculations, tr. J Hopkins, 2 vols, (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1997–2000) [Contains translations of: Vol 1: De apice theoriae; Vol 2: De Coniecturis and De Ludo Globi]
  • Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1997).
    ISBN 0-8091-3698-8
    [Contains translations of On Learned Ignorance, Dialogue on the Hidden God, On Seeking God, On the Vision of God, and On the Summit of Contemplation.]
  • Hopkins, Jasper (ed.), Complete philosophical and theological treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols., (Minneapolis: AJ Banning Press, 2001)
  • Izbicki, Thomas M., ed., Nicholas of Cusa, Writings on Church and Reform, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

In popular culture

In the paradox interactive grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV, Nicholas is a hireable advisor for Austria in the 1444 start date as (natural scientist) Nikolaus von Kues.

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 2109-9529
    .
  2. ^ a b Nikolaus Cardinal von Cusa
  3. ^ Sophia Howlett, Marsilio Ficino and His World, Springer, 2016, p. 42.
  4. ^ Izbicki, Thomas M. (Spring 2007). "Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance". Renaissance Quarterly.
  5. ^ Donald F. Duclow, "Life and Works", in Christopher M. Bellitto, Thomas M. Izbicki, Gerald Christianson (Eds.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa, A Guide to a Renaissance Man, Paulist Press, 2004, p25
  6. ^ Donald F. Duclow, "Life and Works", in Christopher M. Bellitto, Thomas M. Izbicki, Gerald Christianson (Eds.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa, A Guide to a Renaissance Man, Paulist Press, 2004, pp. 25-56 at pp. 26-29.
  7. ^ Paul E. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
  8. ^ Duclow, "Life and Works," pp. 29-38.
  9. ^ Duclow, "Life and Works," pp. 38-48.
  10. ^ Jasper Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa's Debate with John Wenck: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Ignota Litteratura and Apologia Doctae Ignorantiae , 3rd ed., (Minneapolis, MN: Banning, 1988).
  11. ^ Hagen, J. (1911). "Nicholas of Cusa". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  12. ^ Dick, Steven J. Plurality of Worlds: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant. Cambridge University Press (June 29, 1984). pgs 35-42.
  13. ^ "Medieval & Renaissance Astronomy", Australia Telescope National Facility. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Retrieved from http://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/senior/cosmicengine/renaissanceastro.html on March 14, 2014.
  14. ^ Moore, Norman, M.D. (1905). "The Fitz-Patrick Lectures for 1905". The Lancet, Vol.2, Part 2, p.1525 (Oct-Dec, 1905). J. Onwhyn. Retrieved 3 May 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Gunter Hagele and Friedrich Pukelsheim, "The electoral systems of Nicholas of Cusa in the Catholic Concordance and beyond," in The Church, the Councils, & Reform: The Legacy of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Gerald Christianson, Thomas M. Izbicki and Christopher M. Bellitto, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008, pp. 229-249.
  16. ^ Thomas M. Izbicki, "'Their Cardinal Cusanus': Nicholas of Cusa in Tudor and Stuart polemics," in Izbicki, Reform, Ecclesiology, and the Christian Life in the Late Middle Ages, Aldershott: Variorum, 2008, IX, pp. 1-30.
  17. ^ Izbicki, "The Church," in Introducing Nicholas of Cusa, pp. 113-140.
  18. ^ Morimichi Watanabe and Thomas M. Izbicki, “Nicholas of Cusa: A General Reform of the Church,” in Nicholas of Cusa on Christ and the Church: Essays in Memory of Chandler McCuskey Brooks for the American Cusanus Society, ed. Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. 175-202.
  19. ^ De concordantia catholica II xiv
  20. Holt, Rinehart and Winston
  21. ^ Thomas P. McTighe, "Nicholas of Cusa's Unity-Metaphysics and the Formula Religio una in rituum varietate", in Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki (edd.), Nicholas of Cusa in Search of God and Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Morimichi Watanabe by the American Cusanus Society, ed. Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 161-172.
  22. ^ Jasper Hopkins, “The Role of Pia Interpretatio in Nicholas of Cusa’s Hermeneutical Approach to the Koran,” in Gregorio Piaia ed., Concordia discors: Studi su Niccolò Cusano e l’umanesimo europeo offerti a Giovanni Santinello Padua: Antenore, 1993, pp. 251-273.
  23. ^ The Prefatory Epistles of Jacques Lefévre D'Etaples and Related Texts, ed. Eugene F. Rice, New York: Columbia University Press, 1972; P. M. Sanders, "Charles de Bovelle's Treatise on Regular Polyhedra," Annals of Science 41 (1984): 513-566.
  24. ^ Leo Catana, "The Meaning of contractio in Giordano Bruno's Sigillus sigillorum." In Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance, ed. Hilary Gatti, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002, pp. 327-341; Thomas P. McTighe, "Nicholas of Cusa and Leibniz's Principle of Indiscernibility," The Modern Schoolman 42 (1964): 33-46.
  25. ^ Morimichi Watanabe, "The origins of modern Cusanus research in Germany and the establishment of the Heidelberg Opera Omnia," in Nicholas of Cusa: In Search of God and Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Morimichi Watanabe by the American Cusanus Society, ed. Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 17-42.
  26. ^ Ernst Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, (1927).
  27. ^ Eugenio Garin, "Cusano e i platonici italiani del Quattrocento." In Niccolò da Cusa: Atti del Convegno Interuniversitario di Bressanone nel 1960, ed. G. Flores D’Arcais, Florence: Sansoni, 1962, pp. 75-96; Paul Oskar Kristller, "Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and his sources." In L’opera e il pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola nella storia dell’ umanesimo. Convegno internazionale Mirandola 15-18 settembre 1963. Vol. I, Florence, Sansoni, 1965, p. 66.
  28. ^ Kurt Flasch, "Nikolaus von Kues und Pico della Mirandola," Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 14 (1980): 113-120; Bastitta Harriet, Francisco (2021). "Coincidentia philosophorum. La unidad de la verdad y la pluralidad de las filosofías en Nicolás de Cusa y Giovanni Pico". In Nicolás de Cusa: Unidad en la Pluralidad. Homenaje a Jorge Mario Machetta, vol. I, ed. Claudia D’Amico, Gianluca Cuozzo and Nadia Russano. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UBA. pp. 147–187. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  29. ^ English translation in De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), tr. P Sigmund, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, (Cambridge: CUP, 1991).
  30. ^ a b c d English translation in Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality, (New York: Paulist Press, 1997).
  31. ^ a b Bernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism, (2005), p435.

Further reading

English language


Foreign language

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nicholas of Cusa.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Nicholas of Cusa.
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by
Bishop of Brixen

1450–1464 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nicholas_of_Cusa&oldid=1217240476"