Nicholas of Cusa
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by Master of the Life of the Virgin
Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – August 11, 1464) was a German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered as one of the greatest geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Kues.
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[edit] Biography
He was born Nikolaus Krebs in Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") to a merchant family, and received his doctorate in Canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. He attended the Council of Basel (1431–49), representing one claimant to the archbishopric of Trier.
While present at the council, he 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. 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.
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 cancelled 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.
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.
[edit] Influence on 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". He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical. 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. 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. Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school. Giordano Bruno quoted him; and some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him. Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s. Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States.
[edit] Influence on 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.
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.
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."
[edit] Influence on Political Thought
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.
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. Protestants 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.
[edit] Bibliography
- Catà, Cesare, "Perspicere Deum. Nicholas of Cusa and the European Art of Fifteenth Century", in "Viator" 39 no. 1 (Spring 2008)
- Bellitto, Christopher (ed.), Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man , Paulist Press (2004)
- D'Amico, Claudia, and Machetta, J. (edd.), El problema del conocimiento en Nicolás de Cusa: genealogía y proyección, EDITORIAL BIBLOS (2004)
- Kazuhiko Yamaki (ed.), Nicholas of Cusa: A Medieval Thinker for the Modern Age, Routledge, 2001.
- Bond, H. Lawrence, Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings [Classics of Western Spirituality]. Paulist Press, 2002. ISBN 0809136988
- Sigmund, Paul (ed.) The Catholic Concordance [Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought]. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[edit] External links
- Translations of numerous philosophical and theological treatises
- 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
| Preceded by Johann Röttel |
Bishop of Brixen 1450–1464 |
Succeeded by Georg Golser |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicholas of Cusa |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Krebs, Nikolaus; Cusanus, Nicolaus; Nicholas of Kues |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1401 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kues |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 11, 1464 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Todi |
