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Nicholas of Kues
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 | Nicholas of Cusa (Nicholas Krebs) |
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[b. Kues (Germany), 1401, d. Lodi (Italy), August 11, 1464]
Nicholas of Cusa studied at both Heidelberg and Padua, where he earned a law degree in 1423, but in 1430 he entered the church, becoming a cardinal in 1448. His ideas about the universe were generally ahead of their time, including modern views on astronomy, botany, and medicine -- but they were seldom backed with experiment or other proof. His invention of concave lenses for nearsightedness was an important advance.
| Biography: Nicholas of Cusa |
The German prelate and humanist Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was active in conciliating various schisms in the 15th-century Church and was a strong advocate of Church unity.
The son of a fairly prosperous boat owner and landholder, Nicholas was born in Cusa on the Moselle River. His early education was at Deventer under the Brothers of the Common Life, and he may have known Thomas à Kempis there. His university studies began at Heidelberg and continued at Padua, where he received a doctorate in canon law in 1423. After returning to his native Rhineland, he studied philosophy and theology at Cologne, where he also practiced law. In February 1432 he went to the Council of Basel.
The Council of Basel (1431-1449) had as its main subject the problem of Church unity and as its main task the avoidance of any repetitions of the Great Schism, which had recently split the Church. One suggested solution was the establishment of a supreme general council to oversee the papacy. At the beginning of his attendance at the council, Nicholas supported this plan (known as the conciliar movement). During the period from 1432 to 1434, Nicholas worked on, and submitted to the council, his famous political treatise, De concordantia Catholica, which deals with the problem of the respective roles of councils and popes in the government of the Church. This treatise supported the conciliar viewpoint of supremacy of the councils, but Nicholas eventually became disillusioned by the ineffectual committees working at the council and shifted his view to one of papal supremacy. In 1437 he began his services to Pope Eugene IV and his successors, as papal legate on various missions in Germany, as conciliator in the disputes between the Eastern and the Roman Churches, and as promoter of a crusade against the Turks.
In 1440 Nicholas completed his best-known work, De docta ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance). In it he shows himself as an early skeptic, holding that true wisdom lies in a clear awareness of the limitations of human knowledge. After 10 years in the service of Pope Eugene IV, Nicholas was made a cardinal by the dying pope, an appointment confirmed in 1448 by Pope Nicholas V. In 1450 he was appointed bishop of Brixen (Bressanone) in the Tirol, where he had the difficult task of reforming the churches and monasteries of the diocese, then under the strong secular influence of Archduke Sigismund of Hapsburg. Nicholas left the Tirol in 1458 to serve his friend Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, the new Pope Pius II. Pius's proposals for papal reform reflect Cusa's own ideas concerning the role of the papacy.
Nicholas spent the remainder of his life in his reforming work in the churches of Bohemia. He died at Todi in Italy on Aug. 11, 1464.
Further Reading
An introduction to Nicholas's life and thought and English translations of several of his works are in Unity and Reform: Selected Writings of Nicholas of Cusa, edited by John Patrick Dolan (1962). There is no definitive biography in English, but Henry Bett, Nicholas of Cusa (1932), is a standard source. Paul E. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought (1963), is the best modern study in English.
| Philosophy Dictionary: Nicholas of Cusa |
(1401-64) German cardinal, and Bishop of Brixen. His major work, De Docta Ignorantia (‘Of Learned Ignorance’, 1440) espouses a ‘negative theology’, in which a Neoplatonic conception of the cosmos renders its nature entirely unknowable. He is also associated with the doctrine of the ‘concordance of contraries’, an attack on the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction which was historically influential. In cosmology he was one of the earliest thinkers to deny the geocentric theory of the universe, and to affirm the unbounded nature of space.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Nicholas of Cusa |
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus), 1401?-1464, German humanist, scientist, statesman, and philosopher, from 1448 cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. The son of a fisherman, Nicholas was educated at Deventer, Heidelberg, Padua, Rome, and Cologne. He became bishop of Brixon (Bressanone) in 1450 and instituted widespread, though temporary, reforms of the monasteries. As papal legate he traveled throughout Europe preaching and negotiating diplomatic affairs for the Holy See. Nicholas' greatest achievements were in science and philosophy. His researches and writings formed major advances in Renaissance mathematics, astronomy, and mysticism. He held, before the time of Copernicus and Newton, that the nearly spherical earth revolves on its axis about the sun and that the stars are other worlds. He described the Gregorian calendar reform in detail, before it occurred. In mathematics Nicholas propounded significant concepts of the infinitesimal and contributed to modern relativity theory. His mystical religious philosophy was set forth in his essays De Docta Ignorantia [of learned ignorance] (1440, tr. 1954), De Conjuncturis Libri Duo, and De Visio Dei [vision of God] (1453, tr. 1928). It anticipated the direction of growth of Renaissance conjecture concerning the nature of man and his relationship to the cosmos.
Bibliography
See studies by M. Watanabe (1963); F. H. Burgevin (1969); and J. Hopkins (1986).
| Wikipedia: Nicholas of Kues |
"Cusanus" redirects here. For the lunar crater, see Cusanus (crater).
by Master of the Life of the Virgin
Nicholas of Kues (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a cardinal of the Catholic Church from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered one of the great geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is today recognized for significant spiritual, scientific and political contributions in European history, notable examples of which include his mystical or spiritual writings on 'learned ignorance' (and mathematical ideas expressed in related essays), as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Biography
Nicholas of Cusa or Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman."[1] He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1416 as "a cleric of the diocese of Trier" studying the liberal arts. He then received his doctorate in Canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law" which it appears he both taught and practiced there. Following this brief period in Cologne, he became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the Archbishop of Trier, and represented him in Rome in 1427. After the death of Otto, during the period when the archbishopric of Trier was contested by opposing parties, he attended the Council of Basel (1431–49), representing Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants.[2]
While present at the council, Nicholas wrote De concordantia catholica, 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.[3] Nicholas was close to Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, who had tried to reconcile pope and council, combining reform and hierarchic order. Nicholas supported transfer of the council to Italy to meet with the Greeks, who needed aid against the Ottoman Turks. He supported Pope Eugenius IV in his effort to bring the Eastern churches into union with the Western at such a "council of union." While returning from a mission to Constantinople to persuade the Greeks to attend the Council of Florence, Nicholas had a shipboard experience that led to his writing thereafter on metaphysical topics. Nicholas then represented the pope in Germany, becoming known as the Hercules of the Eugenian cause.[4]
After a successful career as a papal envoy, he was made a cardinal by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 or 1449, and was named Bishop of Brixen in 1450. His role as papal legate to the German lands included wide travels. His local councils enacted reforms, many of which were not successful. Pope Nicholas canceled some of Nicholas' decrees, and the effort to discourage pilgrimages to venerate the bleeding hosts of Wilsnack (the so-called Holy Blood of Wilsnack) was unsuccessful. His work as bishop - trying to impose reforms and reclaim lost diocesan revenues - was opposed by Duke Sigismund of Austria. The duke imprisoned Nicholas in 1460, for which Pope Pius II excommunicated Sigismund and laid an interdict on his lands. Nicholas of Cusa was never able to return to his bishopric, however. Sigmund's capitulation in 1464 came a few days after Nicholas's death at Todi in Umbria.[5]
Upon his death, his body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, but was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. 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 houses also many of his manuscripts.[1]
Influence
Philosophy
Nicholas of Cusa was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity, particularly on the possibility of knowing God with the divine human mind — not possible through mere human means — via "learned ignorance". Cusanus 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.[6] 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.
Most of his mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance), De Visione Dei (On the Vision of God) and On Conjectures. He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises.
Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the profound implications of Reformed teaching on the harrowing of Hell (Sermon on Psalm 30:11), followed by Pico della Mirandola, who similarly explained the descensus in terms of Christ’s agony.
Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth century French scholars, including Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Charles de Bovelles cited him. Lefèvre even edited the Paris 1514 Opera.[7] Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school. In later centuries, Giordano Bruno quoted him; and some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him.[8] Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag[2].[9] Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States.
Science
Nicholas is also considered by many to be a genius ahead of his time in the field of science. Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno were all aware of the writings of Cusanus as was Johannes Kepler (who called Cusanus 'divinely inspired' in the first paragraph of his first published work). Predating Kepler, Cusanus said that no perfect circle can exist in the universe (opposing the Aristotelean model, and also Copernicus' later assumption of circular orbits), thus opening the possibility for Kepler's model featuring elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun. He also influenced Giordano Bruno by denying the finiteness of the universe and the Earth's exceptional position in it (being not the center of the universe, and in that regard equal in rank with the other stars). He was not, however, describing a scientifically verifiable theory of the universe: his beliefs (which proved uncannily accurate) were based almost entirely on his own personal numerological calculations and metaphysics.[10]
Cusanus made important contributions to the field of mathematics by developing the concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion. He was the first to use concave lenses to correct myopia. His writings were essential for Leibniz's discovery of calculus as well as Cantor's later work on infinity[citation needed].
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]
Politics
In 1433, Nicholas proposed reform of the Holy Roman Empire and a method to elect 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.[12]
Nicholas' 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 pretensions. Protestants, however, found his writings against the Hussites wrong. Nicholas seemed 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.[13]
Nicholas' 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).[14] This allowed him to support the pope without abandoning ideas of reform. Thus he was able to propose to Pius II reform of the church, beginning with the pope himself. Then it was to spread through the Roman curia and outward throughout Christendom.[15]
Religious views
Nicholas supported the campaign of Pope Pius II for a crusade against the Turks, but this is not the limit of his thought on interreligious issues. Shortly after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Nicholas wrote De pace fidei, On the Peace of Faith. This visionary work imagined a summit meeting in heaven of representatives of all nations and religions. Islam and the Hussite movement in Bohemia are represented. The conference agrees that there can be una religio in varietate rituum, a single faith manifested in different rites. The dialog presupposes the greater accuracy of Christianity but gives respect to other religions.[16] Less irenic but not virulent, is Cusanus' Cribratio Alchorani, Sifting the Koran, a detailed review of the Koran in Latin translation. The arguments for the superiority of Christianity still credit Judaism and Islam with sharing in the truth.[17]
Cusanus' attitude toward the Jews was not always mild. The De pace fidei mentions the possibility that the Jews might not embrace the larger union of una religio in varietate rituum, but it dismisses them as politically insignificant. This matches the decrees from Cusanus' legation restricting Jewish activities, restrictions later canceled by Pope Nicholas V.[18]
Bibliography
- Bellitto, Christopher (ed.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man , Paulist Press (2004).
- Bond, H. Lawrence (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings [Classics of Western Spirituality]. Paulist Press, 2002. ISBN 0809136988
- Catà, Cesare, "Perspicere Deum. Nicholas of Cusa and the European Art of Fifteenth Century", in "Viator" 39 no. 1 (Spring 2008).
- Catà, Cesare, "La Croce e l'Inconcepibile. Il pensiero di Nicola Cusano tra filosofia e predicazione", EUM, Macerata (2009).
- D'Amico, Claudia, and Machetta, J. (edd.), El problema del conocimiento en Nicolás de Cusa: genealogía y proyección, EDITORIAL BIBLOS (2004).
- Flasch, Kurt, "Nikolaus von Kues : Geschichte einer Entwicklung", Georg Olms Verlag : 1998.
- Hopkins, Jasper (ed.), Complete philosophical and theological treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols., Minneapolis : A. J. Banning Press, 2001.
- Izbicki, Thomas M. (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa, Writings on Church and Reform, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008.
- Miller, F. Lee, Reading Cusanus: Metaphor and Dialectic in a Conjectural Universe, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8132-1098-4
- Sigmund, Paul (ed.), The Catholic Concordance [Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought]. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
- Yamaki, Kazuhiko (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: A Medieval Thinker for the Modern Age, Routledge, 2001.
References
- ^ 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
- ^ 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.
- ^ Paul E. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
- ^ Duclow, "Life and Works," pp. 29-38.
- ^ Duclow, "Life and Works," pp. 38-48.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Leo Ctana, "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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Tamara Albertini, "Mathematics and Astronomy," in Introducing Nicholas of Cusa, pp. 373-406.
- ^ Hagen, J. (1911). "Nicholas of Cusa". The Catholic Encyclopedia. 11. Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11060b.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-13.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Izbicki, "The Church," in Introducing Nicholas of Cusa, pp. 113-140.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Thomas M. Izbicki, "Nicholas of Cusa and the Jews," in Conflict and Reconciliation: Perspectives on Nicholas of Cusa, ed. Inigo Bocken, Leiden: Brill, 2004, 119-130.
External links
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- Bernkastel-Kues tribute to Nikolaus von Kues
- MacTutor biography, focusing on mathematical achievements
- A biography of Nicholas of Cusa
- Catholic Encyclopedia article on Nicholas of Cusa
- Website of the Cusanusstift (German)
- American Cusanus Society
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| Preceded by Johann Röttel |
Bishop of Brixen 1450–1464 |
Succeeded by Georg Golser |
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