De Concordantia Catholica Pdf Download
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To the Bohemians: on the use of communion -- Is the authority of the holy councils greater than that of the pope? -- On presidential authority in a general council -- Oration at the Diet of Frankfurt -- That it is necessary to withdraw from neutrality or indecision -- Against suspension of allegiance -- A dialogue against the Amedeists -- Sermon 21: "Entering into the house" -- Letter to the Bohemians on church unity -- Letter to Rodrigo Snchez de Arvalo -- Sermon 126: "Thou art Peter" -- Sermon 144: "I shall give thee the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven" -- Sermon 160: "Thou art Peter" -- Sermon 287: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona" -- Sermon 280: "I am the Good Shepherd" -- Sermon 290: "When I shall be sanctified" -- A general reform of the church."Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), widely considered the most important original philosopher of the Renaissance, was born in Kues on the Moselle River. A polymath who studied canon law and became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote principally on speculative theology, philosophy, and church policies. As a political thinker he is best known for De concordantia catholica, which presented a blueprint for peace in an age of ecclesiastical discord." "This volume makes most of Nicholas's other writings on Church and reform available in English for the first time, including legal tracts arguing the case of Pope Eugenius IV against the conciliarists, theological examinations of the nature of the Church, and writings on reform of the papacy and curia. Among the works translated are an early draft of De concordantia catholica and the Letter to Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, which discusses the Church in light of the Cusan idea of "learned ignorance.""--Jacket.
Nicholas was born in Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") in south-western Germany. He was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman."[5] Nicholas entered the Faculty of Arts of the Heidelberg University in 1416 as "a cleric of the Diocese of Trier," studying the liberal arts. He seemed to have left Heidelberg soon afterwards, as he received his doctorate in canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. In Padua, he met with the later cardinals Julian Cesarini and Domenico Capranica and became friends with the mathematician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law," which he appears to have both taught and practiced there. In Cologne, he made friends with the scholastic theologian Heymeric de Campo.
After the Archbishop Otto of Trier had died in 1430, Pope Martin V appointed the Speyer bishop Raban of Helmstatt his successor. Nevertheless, the Electorate was contested by opposing parties, and in 1432 Nicholas attended the Council of Basel representing the Cologne dean Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants,[6] who hoped to prevail against the new Pope Eugene IV. Nicholas stressed the determining influence of the cathedral chapter and its given right to participate in the succession policy, which even places the pope under an obligation to seek a consent. His efforts were to no avail in regard to Ulrich's ambitions; however, Nicholas's pleadings earned him a great reputation as an intermediary and diplomat. While present at the council, he wrote his first work, De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance), 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.[7]
Initially as conciliarist, Nicholas approached his university friend Cardinal Julian 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 arbitrated in the conflict with the Hussites. Between the summer of 1437 and early 1438 he was a member of the delegation sent to Constantinople with the pope's approval to bring back the Byzantine emperor and his representatives to the papally summoned Council of Florence of 1439, which was attempting to bring the Eastern Orthodox Church into union with the Western Catholic Church. The reunion achieved at this conference turned out to be very brief. Nicholas would later claim (in the postfaced dedicatory letter of On Learned Ignorance, which Nicholas finished writing on 12 February 1440) that he had chosen to write on this metaphysical topic because of a shipboard experience of divine illumination while on the ship returning from this mission to Constantinople.
Upon his death, Nicholas's body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, probably near the relic of Peter's chains; but it was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. Two other tombstones, one medieval and one modern, also are found in the church. 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 also houses many of his manuscripts.[1]
Nicholas's De Docta Ignorantia ('Of Learned Ignorance') is an epistemological and metaphysical treatise. He maintains the finite human mind cannot fully know the divine, infinite mind ('the Maximum'). Nonetheless, he holds that the human intellect can become aware of its limitations in knowing God and thus attain "learned ignorance". His theory shows the influence of neoplatonism and negative theology, and he frequently cites Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
Nicholas was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity. He 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.[10] 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.
Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the 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.
Mathematics plays a key role for Cusanus in orienting the human mind towards God. Mathematical figures provide a means for the mind to consider how figures may be deformed and transformed, and thus prepares the mind to reach the "coincidence of opposites" in the "Absolutely maximal Being".
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]
In medicine he introduced an improvement which in an altered form has continued in use to this day. This improvement was the counting of the pulse which up to his time had been felt and discussed in many ways but never counted. ...Nicholas of Cusa proposed to compare the rate of pulses by weighing the quantity of water run out of a water clock while the pulse beat one hundred times. ...The manufacture of watches with second-hands has since given us a simpler method of counting, but the merit of introducing this useful kind of observation into clinical medicine belongs to Nicholas of Cusa.[14]
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.[15]
Nicholas's 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 assertions. Protestants, however, found his writings against the Hussites wrong. Nicholas seemed to Protestants 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.[16]
Nicholas's 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).[17] 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.[18]
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, as manifested in the eastern and western rites of the Catholic Church. The dialog presupposes the greater accuracy of Christianity but gives respect to other religions.[21] Nicholas's position was for Europeans not to retake Constantinople but simply to trade with the Ottomans and allow them their conquests. Less irenic but not virulent, is his Cribratio Alchorani, Sifting the Koran, a detailed review of the Koran in Latin translation. While the arguments for the superiority of Christianity are still shown in this book, it also credits Judaism and Islam with sharing in the truth at least partially.[22]
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