#Nicholas Cusanus

[apenitentialprayer]

Do you think it would be possible for an Evangelical or Pentacostal church to enter full communion with Rome (presuming that their pastors would get ordained etc) while keeping most of its current liturgy?

I haven't really been to any Protestant services of a low church persuasion before, so I don't think I can competently comment on it. But in principle, I don't see why not.

In Allatae sunt, Pope Benedict XIV says that when groups of "schismatics" return to the Catholic Church, they should not be expected to give up their liturgical traditions. "[The Church's] great desire is [...] in short, that all may be Catholic rather than all become Latin." Now, this was written with the Orthodox Churches in mind. But I don't see why this would ipso facto mean that it couldn't also be applied to groups born of the Protestant Reformation.

Now, Anglican Ordinariate communities are technically Roman Rite Catholics, but their breviary and missal might bring something to the conversation, too. Namely, as their website says, Divine Worship: The Missal is a very unique Catholic liturgical text in that it "marks the first time the Catholic Church has sanctioned liturgical texts deriving from the Protestant Reformation." And if it's happened once, well, I don't see why it can't happen again. I would imagine that any explicitly anti-Catholic or overtly Calvinistic language would need to be expunged, and the Communion prayer would need to incorporate the Epiclesis and Words of Institution, at minimum.

Based off of these two principles, I don't think it's necessary impossible for what you're suggesting to come to pass. I think these rites would potentially look radically different from the current 24 rites of the Catholic Church, but as early as the 1450s, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa was making suggestions for incorporating religious traditions that would have looked radically different from the Catholic rites prominent in his own time.

But I wonder if someone has actually talked about this possibility in a way that was publishable in an academic environment?

[majestativa]

What would have happened if what lived in the hearts of the greatest individuals – Nicolaus Cusanus, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, and Campanella – would have entered the hearts of everyone? […] What if the old and the new had met and intermingled, spirit with blood, and blood with spirit?

— Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader, transl Gabriel Kuhn, (2010)

[philosophy-uml]

[6.10.1] Cusanus, Nicolaus on God, Universe, Christ, and Human Being

Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus Cryfftz or Krebs in German, then Nicolaus Cusanus in Latin, 1401-1464) “Christian Neoplatonic framework to construct his own synthesis of inherited ideas”.  Cusanus addresses the four categorical realities traditionally found in Christian thought: God, the natural universe, Christ and human beings. God is absolute and maximum. The following OntoUML diagram shows…

[timeenshrined]

Annotated Bibliography #1

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Hey 👋🏻 I would like to ask number 19, 21 and 25 from your latest history ask game. :-)

Thank you! :D Here you go:

19. Which historical kingmaker / hand behind the throne kinda person would you gladly be a puppet of?

Really? None at all. They inevitably fall out of favour at some point and being too closely associated with them might prove disadvantageous at best, and deadly at worst. I will say however that I whole-heartedly agree with Richelieu's opinion on cats.

21. How good are you at remembering names and dates?

There's this expectation for those who study/studied/work in (a field related to) history that you'll be able to know *all* the names and dates in the world off the top of your head.

The thing is that learning dates by heart isn't as important as many people would expect as you can look those up online or in a book most of the time.

Personally, I'd say I am quite decent at remembering historical names and dates, which however is not the case in my daily life. I am very bad at remembering e.g. the birthdays of living persons around me, but give me a historical figure I've spent some time studying and I'll know their birthday, day of baptism, wedding anniversary, the day they died and when they were buried off the top of my head. Apparently my brain's memory function only works when the people in question have been dead for a couple of centuries. :-)

25. The topic/title of your last History paper?

Thomas Livingstone! A participant of the Council of Basle (1431–1449), and the first Scottish clergyman to attend. Although only a minor figure, he was a rather interesting person. Presumably the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Thomas rose to become an advisor to King James II of Scotland and was close with his much more well-known contemporary, Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus von Kues; Cusanus). His illustrious connections did however not save him from financial concerns later in life, and he had to legally fight to reclaim an in commendam (a type of benefice) granted to him by Pope Nicholas V that was taken from him again and redistributed to another clergyman under Calixt III. His legal battle against the guy who was given the in commendam in his stead is rather interesting as the affair spans the (albeit rather short) lives of several popes. Sadly, Thomas didn't live to see the conclusion of his legal battle; Pope Pius II however posthumously ruled that Thomas had been in the right, and ordered all papal paperwork regarding the case to be altered accordingly. Why Pius II acted shortly after Thomas' death remains unclear; it is possible though that his friend Nicholas of Cusa, an influential cardinal, may have spoken to the Pope on his behalf in order to set the record straight for posterity.

...I haven't been to any of the now fairly obscure Scottish churches (which definitively wasn't the case at the time!) and monasteries I researched, but here are two pictures of the memorial of Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas Livingstone's close friend since their student days at the university of Cologne.

[apex-mentis]

the ultimate and deepest contemplation of God is boundless, infinite, and in excess of every concept. For, assuredly, every thing of which there is a concept is encompassed by [that] concept. But God exceeds all this. For the concept of God is [an absolute] Concept, or an absolute Word, which enfolds within itself everything which can be conceived; but it is not conceivable in anything else.

Nicholas of Cusa, Trialogus De Possest, n. 40

[italianartsociety]

By Jean Marie Carey

Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora was born 26 November 1518 in Rome. In addition to being born into the Milanese dynasty (which had begun fading by the beginning of the 16th Century) he was also the son of Costanza Farnese and therefore grandson of Pope Paul III, brother of Cardinal Alessandro Sforza (1565), uncle of Cardinal Francesco Sforza and great-uncle of Cardinal Federico Sforza (1645). During his time as a cardinal he served as legate as well as administrator of different towns and episcopal sees.

His ecclesiastical career started very early with his selection as Bishop of Viterbo, Acquapendente, Bagnoregio, Montefiascone, Tuscania and San Martino al Monte Cimino on 12 November 1528 when he was not quite ten years of age. He resigned in 1548.

The six dukes who founded the Sforza dynasty of princes, popes, and cardinals descended from the Romagnol condottiere Muzio Attendolo (1369–1424), a kinsman of Micheletto Attendolo. Muzio's illegitimate son Francesco took his father's nom de guerre (sforzo means “struggle”), and so became Francesco Sforza. Through his marriage in 1441 to Bianca, daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti, he claimed the dukedom of Milan after the collapse of the Ambrosian republic in 1450. In 1445 Francesco's brother Alessandro (1408–73) became ruler of Pesaro (in the Papal State), which he and his descendants ruled until 1512; in 1493 Alessandro's grandson Giovanni of Pesaro married Lucrezia Borgia.

During the height of their wealth and power the Sforza clan were builders of churches and castles as well as collectors of antiquities and patrons of artists throughout Italy. Many artworks surviving from the Renaissance bear the Sforza seal or name even when the name of the maker is unknown.

Guido Ascanio Sforza, one of the last male direct inheritors of the family name, died on 6 October 1564 of fever in Mantua. His body was transferred to Rome and buried in his family's chapel in the patriarchal Liberian basilica.

Reference: Gordon Campbell. "Sforza family." In The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press, 2003. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198601753.001.0001/acref-9780198601753-e-3264.

Leonardo, da Vinci, Study for Sforza Monument, c. 1488-90. Silver point. Windsor Castle, Royal Library.

Master of the Sforza Altarpiece, Virgin and Child Enthroned, ca. 1495. Oil on poplar. Photo: Volker-H. Schneider. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nr. 1433.

Sforza Castle (Castello Sforzesco), Originally 14th c., Milan, Italy.Photo: Sara N. James.

Antonio Pisano Pisanello, Francesco Sforza (1401-1466), ca. 1441. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Rogers Fund, 1974; 1974.169

Stanislas Mogila, Hours of Bona Sforza, Folio #: fol. 036v-037r, 1527-1528. Annunciation, with arms of Bona Sforza in margin. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Shelfmark: MS. Douce 40.

Further Reading: Kathleen Christian. Empire without End: Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome, c. 1350-1527. New Have: Yale University Press, 2010. 

Charles H. Carman. Leon Battista Alberti and Nicholas Cusanus: Towards an Epistemology of Vision for Italian Renaissance Art and Culture. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2014. 

[eikona-co]

Nicholas then proposes some geometrical “exercises” to provide his readers some object lessons designed to teach how we might reach for the unlimited even while we are aware that we cannot grasp what the infinite God may be. For instance, we are to imagine a circle and a straight line or tangent that meets the circle. From a certain perspective, as the diameter or circumference of the circle increases, its circumference approaches the straight line and appears less and less curved. If we then imagine and extrapolate the circumference to the infinite, we can almost “see” that both straight tangent and curved circumference should coincide—a kind of “coincidence of opposites” that is a figure of how we may think beyond limited things toward the transcendent One. All this is mathematically impossible, of course, but it demonstrates some metaphorical steps for moving beyond the finite toward the infinite that might be transferred from geometrical figures to created beings and their Creator.

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cusanus/#NicTho]

[zemis-tobacco-cigars]

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[juniorformulamotorsport]

Wednesday September 27th – Day 5, Bernkastel-Kues

After slightly more driving than anticipated the day before we decided we’d take it easier on Wednesday and would spend the day pottering gently round Bernkastel-Kues, just 5k down the road. It was another foggy morning but we weren’t going to let that stop us. It boded well for the afternoon, and there was plenty we could do indoors while the cloud burned off.

After we’d parked up, and been side-tracked by the local market where I bought a much-needed new wallet, we started the morning on the Kues side of the river, at the Cusanusstift, an institution founded on 3rd December 1458 by a man of whom you will hear more in this post. It was intended as an almshouse for 33 men over the age of 50, which at the time was a very respectable age. It is still an old people’s home, these days for both men and women and has never been used for anything other than its original purpose. So that’s 559 years of providing care for the elderly of the town.

Now obviously that does not sound like a place anyone would be much interested in. Who wants to visit a hospice, after all? However, the late Gothic building also contains a glorious chapel, and a library containing numerous books owned by the founder Nicholas Cusanus.

Who he, I hear some of you say. Well, according to Wikipedia “Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus, was a German philosopher, theologian, jurist and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions to European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on ‘learned ignorance‘, as well as his participation in the power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire.“

Something of an all round smart guy then, with a wide ranging career. He was born locally (hence Cusa for Kues) to a ferryman, of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. As a result of the family name, Krebs, he took a crayfish for his insignia and these can be found all over Bernkastel-Kues if you look hard enough.

and was educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Padua, before going on to teach at Cologne, and turn down a post at Leuven. He wasn’t lacking for employment, despite not going to Leuven. He was papal legate to Germany from 1446, was appointed cardinal by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 and became Prince–Bishop of Brixen two years later. In 1459 he became vicar general of the Papal States. And in the middle of all that, found time to set up a foundation in his own home town.

We has a nose round the chapel, which is tiny but lovely and has some very well preserved and rather fabulous medieval wall paintings. It’s also the burial place of Nicholas’ heart (the rest of him was buried in Rome) and of his sister Klara Cryfftz.

After we’d finished in the library as well, where there was a small exhibition of books owned by Nicholas, we headed outside and crossed the courtyard to the Wine Museum, which supposedly provides lots of interesting information about wine cultivation in the region. Well, it would if the machines in the place actually worked; most of them didn’t, so it was short visit before we crossed over to the associated Vinothek where you can taste and buy wines, and exchange your museum ticket for a glass of local wine. You could also taste a large number of wines for a relatively small outlay, but as it was only midday, we decided we’d best not!

We enjoyed our wine, and then headed along the riverside to search for the Cusanus birthplace. On the way we found the old railway station, which is now a splendid looking brewery.

There are also a good handful of splendid art nouveau houses, a repeated feature we would find in most of the reasonable sized towns along the river.

A short walk later and we’d found the house we were looking for.

It was supposed to be open, and so we rang the bell as instructed. A voice from the top floor proved to be owned by the museum’s curator who eventually appeared and opened the door for us. There is an small but interesting exhibition of Cusanus’ life and works, and he was even able to rustle up a copy of the guide in English for Lynne though he did make her promise to hand it back as it was the only one he had. He was also more than happy to tell us as much as we wanted to know about Nicholas and his life.

Half an hour later we headed back towards the town bridge knowing a lot more than we had about a medieval scholar we probably should have already known about. The Kues side of the town is a wonderful mix of medieval, modern and in between, and has the plus side of being almost unknown to the cruise ship tourists. It is thus not rammed and you can wander the streets untroubled by traffic.

There is also a church well worth a short detour for. This is the evangelical church, and although it’s not that old, it does – no surprise – contain a crayfish coat of arms or two.

It was now time to bite the bullet and cross back into Bernkastel, which while not quite the quintessential chocolate box medieval town on the Mosel (that title probably goes to Beilstein), is certainly a close runner-up and is thus overrun by tourists, including on this occasion the passengers of a Dutch river cruise ship who were all over the place, generally getting underfoot, stopping dead to take selfies, and making something of a nuisance of themselves. To be fair, when you hit the market square, you can see why everyone comes here:

Frankly by now all that history was making us hungry (and thirsty) so we needed a short break for cake and it needed to be outside! That meant we had to opt for Cafe Hansen as the only place with a table available.

I opted for a piece of plum cake, and a glass of federweisser, something I’d not seen before. It was because I wanted to know what it was, and was curious. What arrived was cloudy and seemed to have a certain amount of pétillance going on. It tasted very fruity, and not at all alcoholic, like a slightly fizzy grape juice. It wasn’t till I stood up that I realised it must be quite a bit stronger than I thought. A small amount of research later and I’d discovered that what I’d drunk was new wine, which basically continues to ferment in the bottle (or large plastic container). It does mean that apparently you mustn’t fasten the lid fully or the container or bottle may explode! Oh and it also comes in red.

We followed the town trail we’d picked up at the Tourist Information office earlier in the day from the market square, round the old houses of Bernkastel, and along to the wonderful Bernkasteler Doktor vineyards, which run along the edge of the town.

From there we found the Graacher Tor, which is a museum with possibly the oddest opening hours we found (basically about 4 hours a week, between 18:00 and 20:00 on two days). The original town gate was built in 1300, but the in 1689 it was partly destroyed by the French, under Louis XIV. It was later reconstructed and was used as a prison, and then as a hostel for the homeless, before ending up as the museum of local history.

We finished the afternoon off in St. Michael’s church, which is one of the more distinctive buildings in the town. It has a 600 year old tower that is a well-known landmark along the river, and the inside of the building is pretty snazzy too!

The church has three naves, which is unusual, and has a Baroque facade, restored in 1968. The sacristy dates from 1664 and the central feature in the chancel is a Calvary scene from 1496. There’s also a “plague altar” in the annexe showing a scene from 1630 where the town’s inhabitants have gathered in the market square to carry a victim of the plague to his grave.

It’s thought that the tower has been used for defensive purposes in the past as well as for attracting worshippers, and the whole is fascinating. It’s also a welcome respite from the tourists, as most of them don’t bother.

And as we were about to run out of our paid for parking time, we decided it was time to quit and head back to Zeltingen.

That night we had decided to try and eat at Saxler’s in the village. However, they were fully booked when we got there, so we booked for the following night, and then stayed in their bar for a pre-dinner drink before heading for the Zeltinger Hof, where we’ve eaten in the past (and stayed).

The meal started well enough, though they’ve redecorated and the dining room has lost a lot of its character as a result. We ordered the rather complicated starters. In Lynne’s case, the “Mosel-Faßdaubenschmaus” which should be served on a plank from a wine barrel and includes smoked trout in a saffron sauce, cream of pumpkin soup, toasted goat’s cheese with confit tomato and ham on gräwes (potato puree and sauerkraut). This arrived on the plate/slate for the other starter.

I ordered the “Zeltinger-Schieferterrasse” which should have been on the slate that the other starter arrived on, not the plank it did come on. Anyway, that aside it was fresh goat’s cheese with juniper berries, smoked game, a Barbary duck breast on an apple and lentil salad, smoked salmon fillet with horseradish sauce and a minced beef soup.

The starters were fine but things went downhill from there. First we were brought the wrong meals, having ordered venison steaks (and it took ages for the proper dish to arrive rather than the ragout that had appeared initially), and what did arrive was pretty tough as well as off-puttingly huge. Neither of us could finish it, and we ended up taking it home with us more on the waitress’s insistence than because we wanted to, but we could probably find something to do with it. If not, we could bin it and they’d not be any the wiser. I reckoned I could chuck most of it into a soup or something.

It was getting late and so we took a slow riverside stroll and then went home to bed.

Travel 2017 – Moselle Road Trip, Day 5 Wednesday September 27th - Day 5, Bernkastel-Kues After slightly more driving than anticipated the day before we decided we'd take it easier on Wednesday and would spend the day pottering gently round Bernkastel-Kues, just 5k down the road.

[epiccigarstobaccoworld]

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[apenitentialprayer]

I've never hit the jackpot before, but I just found the entire corpus of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa's works, for free, in English, so I guess I have an idea on what it must feel like.

[lovegodsmashtyrants]

‘What do the living ask, but to live? What does he who exists ask, but to be? You, therefore, who are the giver of life and of being, are also the One who seems to be sought in the various rites and in various fashions, who is called by various names, and who yet remains unknown and ineffable. You, who are infinite power, are nothing of that which you have created; nor can the creature grasp the idea of your infinity, for there is no relation between finity and infinity. But you, almighty God, who are invisible to all intellects, can make yourself visible in such form as you can be grasped. Therefore, hide yourself no longer, oh Lord. Have mercy, reveal your face, and all peoples shall be saved. For no one can shun you, unless it be he who does not know you. If you deign to heed our plea, the sword, hate, envy, and all evil shall disappear, and all shall know that in the multiplicity of rite, there is one religion. If this multiplicity of rites cannot be given up, or if it seems not good to do away with it, since the differences themselves may become a spur to piety, bringing each land to cultivate it’s own customs with even greater zeal as those most pleasing to God-let there be at least one religion, even as you are One, and one worship of God.

From De paci fidei (1453) by Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus 

[upon-a-rainbow]

Not Other is not an other, nor is it other than any other, nor is it an other in an other—for no other reason than that it is Not Other, which can in no way be other, as if it something were lacking to it, as to an other. For an other which is other than something lacks that than which it is other. But Not Other, because it is not other than anything, does not lack anything nor can anything be outside it.

Nicholas Cusanus

[apenitentialprayer]

The Influence of Humanism on Catholic Attitudes Towards Islam

Although [Nicholas of Cusa and Pope Pius II] worked closely together in Rome during the composition of the Cribratio [Alkorani] and the Epistula [ad Mahumetem], the direct influence seems minimal. Yet in their concept of humanity, their ideas on the nature of religion and in their ideals for the divided, pluralistic world they lived in, we find remarkable similarities. A major correspondence is their view of man as a rational being, and in consequence the power they attribute to reason and education. Regarding their views on religion, both share the supposition that Islam is in fact a Christian heresy, which allows them to argue for further rapprochement between Islam and Christianity on one hand and for fierce censure of errors on the other. According to them, a Muslim is no "inveterate infidel" but a wandering soul in need of education. As to their strategic approach to the threat on the eastern border, Cusanus is often wrongly regarded as more pacifistic than Pius. Cusanus had his doubts regarding the feasibility of a western crusading union, but he was not fundamentally against the use of arms. On the other hand, both Pius and Cusanus found forced conversion objectionable and both abhorred the atrocities of religious war (see the passage quoted above). Armed and verbal responses to the Turkish invasion were both expressions of a longing for unity and lasting peace and were therefore not viewed as mutually exclusive. While neither Cusanus' ideal of inter-religious dialogue nor Pius' attempt of conversion turned out to be fruitful, their visions weren't mere phantasms. Their confidence in human reason and their focus on the similarities between both religions provided firm grounds for confidence. By taking their religious opponent seriously, they positively distinguished themselves from their medieval predecessors.

- Suzan Sierksma-Agteres (from her summary of her Two Views of the East: Nicholas of Cusa and Pius II on Islam Shortly After the Fall of Constantinople). Minor reformatting changes to make it more readable.

[apenitentialprayer]

Cardinal Cusanus was a theologian and philosopher who wrote the Cribratio Alkorani, or 'Sifting of the Koran,' in 1461 as an attempt to locate Christian truths and doctrines within the text of the Koran. […] According to Cusanus, Mohammad represents an important, yet preliminary stage in the education of the originally 'rude Arabs'. This approach enables him to apply a constructive exegesis which he calls pia interpretatio ('pious interpretation') to passages of the Koran that had evoked the fiercest polemics in medieval writings. The scriptures of a rival religion are thus for the first time taken seriously as a depository of divine truths.

- Suzan Sierksma-Agteres (from her summary of her Two Views of the East: Nicholas of Cusa and Pius II on Islam Shortly After the Fall of Constantinople)