The Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa. An Introduction into His Thinking

Pavel Floss

The Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa An Introduction into His Thinking

Schwabe Verlag

This book study is a result of the research funded by the Czech Science Foundation as the project GA Č R 14-37038G “Between Renaissance and Baroque: Philosophy and Knowledge in the Czech Lands within the Wider European Context”.

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Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Schwabe Verlag, Schwabe Verlagsgruppe AG, Basel, Schweiz This work is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or translated, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover illustration: Nicholas of Cusa, from a painting by Meister des Marienlebens (circa 1480), located in the St. Nikolaus-Hospital, Bernkastel-Kues. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nicholas_of_Cusa.jpg Cover design: Martin Zech, Bremen Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Print: CPI books GmbH, Leck Printed in Germany ISBN Print 978-3-7965-4156-8 ISBN eBook (PDF) 978-3-7965-4195-7 DOI 10.24894/978-3-7965-4195-7 The ebook has identical page numbers to the print edition (first printing) and supports full-text search.

Furthermore, the table of contents is linked to the headings. rights@schwabe.ch www.schwabe.ch

I dedicate this book to the university professor Paul Richard Blum with respect and gratitude.

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abbreviations and explanation of the structure of the primary references to literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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I. Early period: De docta ignorantia and De coniecturis . . . . . . . . . . .

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1.

On some of the philosophical aspects of Nicholas’ first two sermons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

2.

Infinity in Cusanus’ sermons dating to the 1430s . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

3.

De docta ignorantia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

4.

The intermezzo from the year 1440: The sermon Dies sanctificatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

5.

De coniecturis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

6.

Panorama of Cusanus’ work from De coniecturis to the beginning of the middle period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

II. Middle period: Idiota de mente and De beryllo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

1.

Notions on the dialogue Idiota de sapientia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

2.

Idiota de mente . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

3.

Literary activity of the year 1453 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

4.

De beryllo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

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Contents

III. Late period: Trialogus de possest and De apice theoriae . . . . . . 257

1.

The creativity of the summer of 1459 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

2.

Trialogus de possest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

3.

Cusanus’ philosophical writings from 1461 to 1463 . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

4.

Cusanus’ final message: the dialogue De apice theoriae . . . . . . . . . 310

IV. Nicholas of Cusa and John Amos Comenius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Selected Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Preface

Out of the broad variety of Cusanus’ work, this book discusses six of his writings, careful not to isolate them from the whole of his work. It instead presents them against the maturation of Cusanus’ thinking as it developed from his first sermons up to his shortest philosophical text De apice theoriae. The texts in question are De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, Idiota de mente, De beryllo, Trialogus de possest and De apice theoriae. The first two of the six writings represent the early stages of Cusanus’ work, the third and fourth texts the middle stage, and the last two the late phase. The early stage, lasting from 1430 to 1449, opens with the first of Cusanus’ sermons – In principio erat Verbum – and concludes with Apologia Doctae ignorantiae, his defense against the attacks and defamations of Johann Wenck of Herrenberg in the treatise De ignota literatura. Beginning with Cusanus’ departure for Italy, the second stage opens in 1450 with Idiota de sapientia and ends with De beryllo.

The late, third stage, covering the years 1459 to 1464, is a time of frantic literary activity on the part of Cardinal Cusanus, which resulted in several extensive and substantial books. This last phase of Cusanus’ work, opening with De aequalitate and De principio, was heavily influenced at the very beginning by the trialogue De possest, which is closely related to the final text

by Cusanus, De apice theoriae.

The reasons behind my decision to focus on the selected six texts will be given below. Although many of his philosophical contemplations appear already in some of the early sermons and Cusanus’ first book De concordantia catholica, I consider De docta ignorantia one of the most notable of Cusanus’ works, particularly for its radically new concept of the universe and the doctrine of contraction, which is further developed in another extensive text by Cusanus, De coniecturis. This paper is included in the selection primarily due to its elaboration of the correlational and relational interpretation of reality and the constitution of the doctrine mens ipsa and unitates men-

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Preface

tales. Contemplations on mens then become an integral part of Cusanus’ meditations and one of the major factors in his intellectual legacy.

I focused on Idiota de Mente due to the fact that out of the three texts in which idiota becomes the mouthpiece for Cusanus’ opinions (Idiota de sapientia, Idiota de mente and Idiota de staticis experimentis), this one is of the greatest intellectual value, but also because the book serves to present a new form of meditations on mens and instructive insight into Cusanus’ gnoseology. Another important fact, pointed out by W. Schwarz, was that the conceptual core of the book was affected by the spiritual shock of Wenck’s accusations of pantheism and heresy (which Cusanus had already responded to in Apologia). Although the extensive De visione Dei is undoubtedly another significant work of the second period, in which culminates Cusanus’ borrowing of the traditions of light-metaphysics, I turn my attention to De beryllo, a not too extensive treatise. Unlike most of Cusanus’ previous writings, this book is not written in dialogue, but is composed of notes and comments on a variety of philosophical problems (Kurt Flasch even recommends it as an introduction to the reading of Cusanus’ work). Thanks to this diversity, the short text provides a wellspring of intriguing insights and thoughts. At the end of the text, Nicholas apologizes for giving the reader a book that is subpar but he hopes that it will help the reader discover greater secrets and touch the higher spheres of reality.

From the third period, I chose to discuss Cusanus’ first extensive work, namely Trialogus de possest, and De apice theoriae, the last text by Cusanus.

No more than several pages long, the latter can be considered, to a certain degree, Cusanus’ intellectual testament, partly because of the attached Memorandum. In Trialogus de possest, Cusanus develops his concept of God as possest, which, as Cusanus is ready to admit, was foreshadowed in his earlier writings and which he builds on in the last three texts of the late period. The possest plays a key role among the ten basic philosophical concepts, the contemplation of which is the intellectual nucleus of the highly sophisticated De venatione sapientiae. It retains the position in the two following books, even though the concept of possest is transformed into posse (from which the allpenetrating aequalitas flows) in Compendium and into posse ipsum in De apice theoriae. This line of thought from the late period is the peak of Cusanus’ lifelong search for the most adequate name for God, philosophically

Preface

speaking – for the first principle of everything, which attracts growing interest from modern interpreters of Cusanus’ spiritual references.

The present book is primarily intended to serve as an introduction to the reading and study of Cusanus’ work as a thinker who ranks among the most important figures of European philosophical discourse in general. The fourth chapter of the book is dedicated to the views of the most renowned Czech thinker J. A. Comenius on the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, and also briefly describes the work of major modern Czech philosophers who studied Comenius (namely Jan Patoč ka, Robert Kalivoda, Karel Floss).1 Cusanus’ writings are presented chronologically, and detailed analyses of selected parts are primarily focused on the views and interpretations of Cusanus which are particularly expressive of the originality of his ideas and represent a permanent input into the treasury of European philosophical thought.

This book could easily have for its motto a statement written by Cusanus in the Prologue to his penultimate major text De venatione sapientiae: “Conscripsi dudum conceptum de quaerendo deum; profeci post hoc et iterum signavi coniecturas”. (“A considerable time ago I wrote a piece on seeking God. Thereafter, I continued on and again set forth other surmises”.)2 In the search

The chapter on Comenius’ relationship to the work of Nicholas of Cusa is one of my contributions to the 350th anniversary of Comenius’ death.

2 Nicholas of Cusa, De venatione sapientiae, ed. R. Klibansky, I. G. Senger, in: NCOO, vol. XII, Hamburg, 1982, 1: 9–11, p. 3; English: On the Pursuit of Wisdom, transl. J. Hopkins, in: CPTTNC, p. 1280. Two explanations should be provided for the translation of the Latin quotation. First of all, Cusanus apparently did not refer to his De quaerendo Deum, as Hopkins means (CPTTNC, no. 3, p. 1357), but rather general seeking of God as the primary objective of his philosophising. The second remark concerns the translation of the word ‘coniectura’, which in the given context I interpret as ‘view’, because the word ‘conjecture’ would, in view of today’s meaning of this term, make Nicolas’ solution to the search for the most acceptable name for God somewhat inferior. More on Cusanus’ concept of conjectures in the chapter devoted to the analysis of De coniecturis.

As far as Cusanus’ quoted sentence is concerned, since Cusanus’ account of his philosophical journey has been translated quite freely, I quote one English and one German translation of the place in question. The already-quoted J. Hopkins translates it as follows: “A considerable time ago I wrote a piece on seeking God. Thereafter, I continued on and again set forth other surmises”; Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicho1

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Preface

for God, or rather in Cusanus’ lifetime efforts to have his spirit touch the first principle and the basis of all things, new perspectives on the world and man within would open up for Cusanus.3 In the previously mentioned text, I respect this basic intention of Cusanus’ thinking and I primarily deal with his ontotheological (metaphysical) claims and, in their context, I then turn my attention to his cosmological, or anthropologico-gnoseological opinions (at some points I focus on his view in the areas of political science and religious studies, at least briefly).

Here, I would like to express my thanks to my co-workers Lenka Pospíš ilová, Aleš Dvoř ák and Otakar Bureš .

las of Cusa, translated by J. Hopkins, 2 parts, Minneapolis/Minnesota 2001, Vol. 2, p. 1280.

In the German translation by W. Dupré, we read: “Vor langer Zeit habe ich die Grundgedanken über das Suchen nach Gott ausgeführt. Daraufhin forschte ich weiter und habe noch andere Mutmaßungen niedergeschrieben”; Nikolaus von Kues Philosophisch-theologische Schriften, trans. and comment. D. and W. Dupré, 3 parts, Wien 1989, vol. 1, p. 3.

3 Cusanus uses the term ‘attingere’ in his reflections on God, it might prompt us to a small historical meditation. Pre-Socratics and then Plato (Parm. 48d, 149a) and especially Aristotle (Met. IX, 1051b2) were convinced that every cognitive act has its ontological assumption in that cognizing and the cognized are already in some contact. Aristoteles uses in the term ‘thigein’ in this context, the later versions of which are the Latin words ‘contingere’ and ‘contactus’. Cusanus also assumes that a person who seeks God’s knowledge is already in a contact with Him (for example, by faith and love outpouring from it), but the term ‘contingere’ appears inapplicable to Cusanus due to the transcendence of the divine. He therefore considers the term ‘attingere’ to be more appropriate for human nature coming closer to God.

Abbreviations and explanation of the structure of the primary references to literature

a. articulus (article) arg. argumentum (objection) co. corpus articuli (the body of the article; response) dist. distinctio (distinction) lect. lectio (lecture) n. numerus (number) par. paragraph prooem. prooemium (introduction) prop. propositio (proposition) q. quaestio (question) qc. quaestiuncula (minor question) resp. responsio (answer) CCCM Corpus Christianorum, continuatio Mediaevalis CCSL Corpus Christianorum, series Latina CEM Cesty evropského myš lení [The Course of European Thought] (a series on the history of philosophy by Pavel Floss) CPTTNC = Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa (translated by Jasper Hopkins) NCOO Nicolai de Cusa opera omnia (Heidelberg edition) SCetH Studia Comeniana et historica (This scientific journal, publishing studies on John Amos Comenius and the intellectual history of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, was founded in 1970. It also features contributions from international conferences organized by the publisher of the journal, namely the Jan Amos Comenius Museum, Uherský Brod, Czech Republic. Under the Communist regime, it also published studies by philoso-

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Abbreviations and explanation of the structure of the primary references to literature

phers, theologians and historians whom the repressive regime strove to silence).

In general, the references to primary literature are written so that a Roman numeral denotes a book (in some cases part of the text), the Arabic numeral a chapter, and another numerical specification refers to lines and pages or to the more detailed structure of the text.

References to works by Nicholas of Cusa refer to texts in the Heidelberg edition (Heidelberg Academy of Letters edition, Leipzig/Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, from 1932 on), published as Nicolai de Cusa opera omnia (NCOO); except the text De mathematica perfectione, edited by P. Wilpert, Berlin 1967. Referencing is further specified so that the first number in the brackets is the consecutive number (of the paragraph), which is separated by a colon from the second number indicating the line numbers. (For example, De concordantia catholica II, 6 (85:7–9), p. 113 refer to: book II, chapter 6, paragraph 85, line 7–9, page 113.) Page numbering instead of paragraph numbering was applied only to a few of Cusanus’ texts; the texts in question are as follows: De docta ignorantia; Apologia Doctae ignorantiae; De pace fidei; Idiota de staticis experimentis; De non aliud and Epistula ad Ioannem de Segobia; in these cases the first number of the brackets refers to a page, not a paragraph; the number of the paragraph is supplemented with the abbrevation ‘par.’ after the line numbers. (For example De docta ignorantia I, 3 (8:20–23; par. 9) refers to: book I, chapter 3, page 8, line 20–23, paragraph 9) No brackets are used with short texts which are not divided into books and chapters.

The works of Nicholas of Cusa in the Heidelberg edition are available at the Cusanus-Portal of the University of Trier (http://urts99.uni-trier.de/cusa nus/index.php). The website provides Cusanus’ original Latin texts with English and German translations, as well as bibliographies, a dictionary, and information concerning the life and work of Nicholas of Cusa. For the English translation of Cusanus’ works we shall use translations by Jasper Hopkins, published together as the Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa (CPTTNC), Minneapolis 2001, which are freely available on the Internet at http://www.cla.umn.edu/jhopkins/ or at the Cusanus-Portal.

I. Early period: De docta ignorantia and De coniecturis

1. On some of the philosophical aspects of Nicholas’ first two sermons The majority of history of philosophy textbooks begin their discussion of Nicholas with an analysis of his first book-length philosophical work De docta ignorantia. This approach sometimes suggests to readers the view that De docta ignorantia is the ‘first work’ of a not very experienced author who is only just beginning his career in writing. However, at the time when Nicholas conceived of this text he already had a ‘literary’ career of almost ten years behind him, since he was the author of more than twenty sermons (sermones) and of the extensive religious and political text De concordantia catholica.

In the two introductory chapters I will try, before I focus my attention on the texts De docta ignorantia and De coniecturis, to point out some of Nicholas’ significant opinions that appear in the sermons of the first decade of his work. In the first chapter, I will focus primarily on the first sermon (In principio erat Verbum) and in part on the second sermon (Ibant magi) and in the next chapter I will highlight the problem of infinity, which Nicholas touches upon in his sermons written between 1430 and 1439.

By doing this I intend, among other things, to point out the reality that some of the essential topics that Cusanus will spend the rest of his life dealing with, are already present in his earliest sermons – for example, in In principio the principal topic of Nicholas’ philosophising, which is the search for the most acceptable name for God, is already introduced – and that his intellectual path is, at least as far as our areas of interest are concerned, to some extent foreshadowed in them.

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I. Early period: De docta ignorantia and De coniecturis

The significance that Nicholas attributed to his sermons is evidenced by the fact that he decided to publish them at the end of the first half of the sixth decade of the fifteenth century, i. e. at the period in time which, in the text De aequalitate (1459) he described as the culmination of his intellectual maturation up to that point. Even though he considered its previous two stages as a period in time during which his mind moved more in darkness than it did in the light, he decided to publish sermons that were written in this part of his life. He certainly did this in part because he was aware of the extent to which he is indebted to these sermons, especially some of them, for intellectual insights and observations, which he then developed in his philosophical texts.4 This is why he encourages the reader, in the foreword to his published sermons, to read them as a documentation of his intellectual journey, and to remark the contradictory opinions that he expresses in them.5

Regarding philosophical issues in Nicholas’ sermons see: W. Dupré, Die Predigt als Ort der Reflexion. Einige Bemerkungen zur Philosophie in den Predigten, in: Nikolaus von Kues als Prediger, ed. K. Reinhardt and H. Schwaetzer, Regensburg 2004, pp. 79–104; M. J. Hoenen, ‘Caput scholae rationis est Christus’. Verschränkung von Exegese und Philosophie in den Predigten des Cusanus, in: Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der CusanusGesellschaft 30: Die Sermones des Nikolaus von Kues: Merkmale und ihre Stellung innerhalb der mittelalterlichen Predigtkultur, Akten des Symposions in Trier vom 21. bis 23. Oktober 2004, ed. K. Kremer, Trier 2005, pp. 43–69; on the position of Nicholas’ sermons in the culture of medieval speeches see: the entire issue of Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 30; Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 31: Die Sermones des Nikolaus von Kues II: Inhaltliche Schwerpunkte: Akten des Symposions in Trier vom 20. bis 22. October 2005, in: ed. K. Kremer, Trier 2006; see also W. A. Euler, Die Predigten des Nikolaus von Kues, in: Trierer theologische Zeitschrift, vol. 110, no. 4 (2001), pp. 280–293.

5 Before proceeding to analyze the individual sermons of the first decade of Nicholas’ work, I must take into consideration K. Flasch’s legitimate objection to translating the term sermo. Since historians of philosophy deal with the philosophical aspects of almost three hundred sermons that Cusanus conceived during his lifetime, we should consider Flasch’s view that those who translate the term ‘sermo’ as ‘sermon’ assign theological rather than philosophical meaning to them, thus sliding towards an excessively theologizing interpretation of this part of Cusanus’ work. However, the term ‘sermon’ is justified by the fact that Nicholas often spoke to his listeners on the occasion of major religious holidays 4

1. Nicholas’ first two sermons

He delivered his first sermon In principio erat Verbum in the presence of the archbishop of Trier on Christmas of the year 1430. This sermon by Cusanus, which he gave before his ordination into the priesthood, is inspired by the first few sentences of the Gospel of St. John “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.6 This Gospel as a whole, not only the introductory passage of this Gospel, has always attracted the attention of Christian theologians and philosophers, since it differs from the older Gospels (these being Mathew, Mark and Luke) in that it contains a number of claims that always had greater ontotheological relevance to Christian thinkers. Together with the epistles of St. Paul and eventually the epistles of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite,7 who was considered to be a pupil of this great apostle, it was viewed by medieval Christian authors as the original thesaurus of spiritual contemplation that is authentically Christian.

The young lawyer Nicholas of Cusa takes the opportunity to present a public reflection on the Gospel of John on the occasion of the great Christian holiday, with a reference to Augustine of Hippo,8 whose commentary on the aforementioned Gospel had a very significant role in the history of Christian ontotheological speculation. Augustine’s thoughts affected Cusanus’ other opinions, not only in sermons, but also in the course of his lifelong endeavor to interpret the so-called divine attributes, and towards the end of his life Cusanus was affected by Augustine’s thoughts during his creation of the concept of posse ipsum. Respect for Augustine and his intellectual legacy is one of the constants of Nicholas’ spirituality and the fact that in Cusanus’ first text he is the first famous author to be mentioned, is certainly significant. No less significant is the fact that here Nicholas already refers to Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite, whom he later called godly and whose works he will be grappling with for the rest of his life. in sacral environments and, apart from the important philosophical aspects, their theological and religious content and meaning cannot be marginalized, either.

6 John 1, 1.

7 W. Beierwaltes, Der verborgene Gott. Cusanus und Dionysius, in: Trierer Kusanus Lecture, no. 4, Trier 1997; on the work of Plotinus see: F. Karfík, Plótínova metafyzika svobody, Praha 2002.

8 For the study of the work of Augustine see: L. Karfíková, Grace and the Will According to Augustine, Leiden 2012.

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I. Early period: De docta ignorantia and De coniecturis

In his book Die philosophische Hintertreppe, W. Weischedel named Nicholas “nomenclator Dei”. In this popularizing work of his, he follows the development of Cusanus’ “search” for the most acceptable name for God starting with the text De docta ignorantia, while this search demonstrably starts almost ten years before this text was written and it was clearly a substantial part of Nicholas’ thinking even before 1430, including, but not limited to, the time when, in the year 1428, he was in Paris, acquiring extensive transcripts of the works of Raymund Lull (1232–1316), who was, from the start of Nicholas’ philosophical development one of the greatest inspirations for Cusanus’ thinking.

If we follow Nicholas as the nomenclator Dei from his first sermon, then we can state that although a number of divine attributes such as benevolence, perfection, unity, simplicity and ontological nobility is listed several times in the sermon, infinity – which will, some years later, become the most fitting word for God in his view – infinity relating to God is only mentioned twice.

Once in an indirect form, where it is stated, that aside from God nothing is infinite and only once directly, when at the beginning of the third section Cusanus mentions that although we find various names for God in countless nations, his name is unique, infinite, unspeakable, unknown and highest.9 It should be mentioned that some of the above-named divine attributes are found – though in adjective form – in Cusanus’ last text De apice theoriae, where they appear as divine qualities of God as posse ipsum.10 In the ontotheological contemplations11 of the first sermon some explicit form of

9 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo I (In principio erat Verbum), ed. R. Haubst, in: NCOO, vol.

XVI (Sermones I: 1430–1441), part 1 (Sermones I–IV), Hamburg 1991, 3:3–6, p. 4: Nominatur humanis diversis vocibus, diversis linguis diversarum nationum, licet nomen suum sit unicum, summum, infinitum, ineffabile et incognitum.

10 Nicholas of Cusa, De apice theoriae, ed. R. Klibansky, I. G. Senger, in: NCOO, vol.

XII, Hamburg 1982, e. g. here 6:14–16, p. 121: Si aliquid certum esse potest, posse ipso nihil certius. Si nec prius nec fortius nec solidius nec substantialius nec gloriosius, et ita de cunctis; also ibid., 19:2–4, p. 131: Sic nihil ipso posse potest esse melius, potentius, perfectius, simplicius, clarius, notius, verius, sufficientius, fortius, stabilius, facilius, et ita consequentur.

11 I do not use the word ontotheology with the meaning that was given to it, in the context of the critical analysis of European intellectual history, by Heidegger (or his crit-

1. Nicholas’ first two sermons

the concept of posse is not found, however in the second section, in relation to analyses of Jewish names for God, Nicholas concludes that the name ‘Jehovah’ was given to God because of his omnipotentia. The prioritization of omnipotence among the attributes of God, founded on the (prayer) creed (Credo in unum deum) itself (whose first sentences read “I believe in God, the father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”.) and emphasized in ontotheological debates in the second half of the thirteenth century and then in the following century, is eventually expressed in Cusanus’ texts to an increasingly greater extent and has its beginnings in the second part of the first sermon (though it does not appear in its first ‘metaphysical’ part).

The highlighting of omnipotence in relation to God’s other attributes prepared the ground for speculation about God’s posse, which eventually becomes Nicholas’ last name for God. Let us now turn our attention to his belief about the common foundation of all religions, which is, besides the search for the most adequate name for God, an intellectual constant throughout the whole of Nicholas’ life.

Cusanus addresses the problem of ‘religious studies’ in the text De concordantia catholica, and also, in the later phase of his work, with the noteworthy texts De pace fidei and Cribratio Alkorani. Nevertheless, the first and second sermons are in some way a distant precursor of Cusanus’ concept of the coexistence of diverse religions, as he explains it particularly in the text De pace fidei. In both of his earliest sermons, the intellectual assumptions, which are Cusanus’ starting point in this religious and philosophical text of his, are outlined.

The first of these is the belief that all of the names for God, in spite of their diversity, point to the most powerful and the highest being who is therefore unique and is the cause and foundation of everything. Already in the sermon In principio erat Verbum, Cusanus mentions the fact that due to the infinity of God, he can be called by countless names. It is also possible to note that because of this it would not be necessary to understand multitude

ics e. g. J. L. Marion) rather, I simply want to express, with this word, the fact that Cusanus’ metaphysics is a unique conceptual structure that was created by joining philosophical terms and opinions (originating mostly in the sphere of Neoplatonist thought) with specific parts and interpretations of the Christian theological tradition.

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