Volume 19, Issue 1 - Nikolaus von Kues. Herausgegeben von Isabelle Mandrella

Nicholas of Cusa was dedicated to addressing grievances in society, politics and Christian life which in his view resulted primarily from bad customs and the granting of singular privileges. He therefore pursued a program of general reform that consisted of dogmatically and systematically reestablishing forgotten rules. The main field for this policy of redogmatization was spiritual. Nicholas functioned as a papal legate in Germany and Italy and as bishop of Brixen, and he proposed curial reforms as well. His efforts were also secular, for example the reconstitution of ancient legal standards that characterized his involvement in the controversy over the diocese of Trier, the Council of Basel, and the conflict with Duke Sigismund of Austria. This study of the well documented life of the cardinal and his social context therefore also contributes to analyzing contemporary strategies for handling social crisis.

The essay seeks to provide an introduction to the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa, drawing on his major works to discuss fundamental concepts like ‘learned ignorance’ ( docta ignorantia ), ‘conjecture’ ( coniectura ) and ‘living image’ ( viva imago ), with a focus on his epistemology and anthropology. It is argued that Cusa puts forward a transcendental philosophy which sees the transcendent God as an archetype of the human mind. The resulting conception of the human mind as a thinking subject has a close affinity with the Neo-Kantian philosophy of existence of Heinrich Barth (1890–1965). In conclusion, the author proposes an additional connection between Cusa and modern themes, by proposing ideas about contemporary education inspired by Nicholas of Cusa.

Since the rediscovery of Nicholas of Cusa in the 19th and 20th centuries, his philosophy has been much discussed while his theology has often been neglected. Yet Nicholas’ emphasis on the role of Christ, from his first writings until his last sermons, shows that for him there can be no sharp distinction between philosophy and theology. His theory of man as image of God can be completed only with reference to the Trinitarian Christ. Cusa grounds this comprehension in the letters of Saint Paul, who saw this truth when he was caught up to the third heaven. So Cusa’s theory of man as a living image must be sought in his Christology. Here he refers to the important idea of Meister Eckhart of God’s birth in the human soul.

Nicholas of Cusa authored three writings dealing mainly with Islam: ‘De pace fidei’ dating from September 1453‚ the letter addressed to John of Segovia from December 29, 1454 and ‘Cribratio Alkorani’‚ 1460/61. In these three writings an interesting development can be seen. Cusa ignores the anti-Christian side of Islam in ‘De pace fidei’‚ presenting it as a mere misunderstanding. In his letter to John of Segovia he already implies that he is aware of the ambivalence of Islam (visible in his remark about the hermeneutic of the Koran), and he goes on to discuss this extensively in ‘Cribratio Alkorani’. The uniformity of the interpretation of Islam and the Koran suffers accordingly.

In the last 550 years Nicholas of Cusa has not only been noticed as philosopher‚ theologian, jurist or church politician, but also as mathematician or as natural scientist. Indeed he spoke about the reform of the Julian calendar and about certain experiments with a balance (‘Idiota de staticis experimentis’). This essay focuses on his attempt to prove the quadrature of the circle and on his cosmology, in particular his view on the motions of the earth, which may be seen as an anticipation of Copernicus. The essay shows that Cusa was a thinker who made numerous proposals in mathematics and natural philosophy, yet did not make advances in the empirical knowledge required by these scientific disciplines.

Although Nicholas of Cusa has not developed a theory of aesthetics‚ he frequently uses examples from the domain of art, especially from the Flemish ars nova which he knew very well. His doctrine of the image has its basis in the idea of man as image or mirror of the divine archetype. As a consequence Cusa tries to think of God using images rather than rational concepts, because the image represents the common basis between God and the human mind. In his ‘De visione Dei’‚ Cusa analyzes human perspectivity and the resulting capacity of human vision. This relates him to Leon Battista Alberti. One highlight in the influence and the fascination of Cusa’s theory of vision for the art of the Renaissance is the celebrated self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer (1500). The essay focuses on the ‘crucifixion of Benediktbeuern’, by an unknown artist but probably commissioned by someone within the milieu of Nicolas of Cusa. In this painting the spectator has the sort of active role Cusa describes in his writings, when he speaks of the cognition of God as a relation between seeing and being seen.

Nicholas of Cusa was renowned for his preaching in the vernacular. However‚ all his sermons, with the exceptions of XXIV and LXXVI, are transmitted in Latin. They reflect different stages on the way to the delivered sermon: a concept, an outline or a fully formulated text, which may have been written before or after the actual speech in order to preserve it for a second use. The actual sermon was an event joining visual and aural dimensions which are not preserved in the written texts. The preacher often employed exempla to enliven his speech. This essay focuses on the German sermons XXIV, an interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, and LXXVI which is a reportatio , a transcript of the speech reworked for preservation in a manuscript. In the four surviving manuscripts the actual preaching of Cusa is evoked by super- or subscriptions and certain textual traits, in order to add the aura and dignity of the spoken sermon to the teaching. Thus the sermon preserves some dimensions of the ‘voice’ of the preacher. Cusa’s style of preaching can be reconstructed as sober and concise, didactic but not without compelling verbal sequences.

The name of Nicholas of Cusa was communicated to Japanese students of philosophy directly after the new opening of Japan in the process of the Meiji-Restoration of 1868, by the two German philosophers Ludwig Busse (1862–1907) and Raphael von Koeber (1848–1923). One of these students was Kitaroh Nishida, who later became one of the leading Japanese philosophers. He was interested in Cusa his whole life long and inspired many of his pupils to pursue the same interest. Until 1950, the Japanese research of Cusa, following the work of Nishida, focused on the relation between Cusa and Buddhism. Scholars of the post-war generation, many of them Christians, was more interested in Cusa as a Christian thinker. After describing the history of Cuas’s influence in Japanese philosophy, the author presents his own theses in analyzing the coincidence of the opposites and the idea of the gradual approach to the truth. He characterizes Cusa’s philosophy as an elliptic thought of decentralisation which is, in his eyes, able to avoid a clash of civilizations.

The anthropology of Nicholas of Cusa represents the heart of his philosophy and theology. The human being always plays a special role: he is not only image of God, but also intended by the Creator, who wished to manifest his glory to a creature which is able to know him. On the basis of this characterization, the human being has certain godlike potentialities which must be realized if he is to come nearer to his archetype: intellectuality and freedom. For Cusa this represents a dynamic process which can be infinitely increased, leading him to call man a living image ( imago viva ) of God. The essay focuses on some problematic issues in Cusa’s anthropology which concerns the application of his theory to human reality, for example the role of women as living images. Finally, some reflections are offered concerning Cusa himself as a godlike human being.

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