Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus (Variorum Collected Studies) [1 ed.] 9781032443904, 9781032443928, 9781003371922, 1032443901

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1 The Sleep of Adam, the Making of Eve: Sin and Creation in Eriugena
2 Coinciding in the Margins: Cusanus Glosses Eriugena
3 Meister Eckhart: Preaching the Annunciation
4 Theologies of Suffering: Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming
5 Johannes Tauler: Preaching the Exaltation of the Cross
6 Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa: Eucharist and Mystical Transformation
7 “Our Substance is God’s Coin”: Nicholas of Cusa on Minting, Defiling and Restoring the Imago Dei
8 Cusanus, Wenck, and the Art of the Insult
9 Cusanus’ Clock: Time and Eternity in De visione Dei
10 “Eternal Time”: Nicholas of Cusa on World, Time and Eternity
11 Cusanus’ Philosophical Testament: De venatione sapientiae/The Hunt of Wisdom (1462)
Index

Citation preview

Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus

Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus contains two new essays and nine others published between 2005 and 2019. The essays explore Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus as bold thinkers deeply engaged with their times and culture. John Scottus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa are key figures in the medieval Christian Neoplatonic tradition. This book focuses on their engagement with practical, experiential issues and controversies. Eriugena revises Genesis’ Adam and Eve narrative and makes sexual difference and overcoming it central to his Periphyseon. Eckhart’s Annunciation sermons urge his hearers to give birth to God’s son within their lives, and he develops a distinctive approach to pain and suffering. His radical preaching on the Eucharist and mystical union was judged heretical but was later taken up by Nicholas of Cusa. Coins and banking became key symbols in Cusanus’ exploration of humanity as created in God’s image, and he used mechanical clocks in reflecting on time and eternity. “Engagement” also describes these thinkers’ reception of their predecessors and how later readers appropriated their works. Eriugena struggled with the legacy of Augustine and the Greek Fathers. Eckhart’s theology of suffering provoked varied responses in his students Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler, and in the twentiethcentury therapist Ursula Fleming. Cusanus provides the volume’s lynchpin as two articles analyse his reading of Eriugena and Eckhart, and a third discusses how he deftly countered Johannes Wenck’s accusations of heresy. The book will be of interest to students of Medieval Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality and their place within Cultural History. Donald F. Duclow studied English Literature and Philosophy at DePaul University and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr College in 1974. He is Professor Emeritus at Gwynedd Mercy University, where he taught Philosophy from 1974 to 2009. He has published widely on the medieval Christian Neoplatonic

tradition, and his book Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus (2006) includes 20 of his articles. He remains active in academic societies, especially the American Cusanus Society and the Renaissance Society of America. He and his wife Geraldine live in Philadelphia.

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Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus

Donald F. Duclow

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Donald F. Duclow The right of Donald F. Duclow to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Duclow, Donald F., author. Title: Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus / Donald F. Duclow. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series: Variorum collected studies series | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2023016319 (print) | LCCN 2023016320 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032443904 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032443928 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003371922 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Christian philosophy. | Philosophy, Medieval. | Erigena, Johannes Scotus, approximately 810–approximately 877. | Eckhart, Meister, –1327. | Nicholas, of Cusa, Cardinal, 1401–1464. Classification: LCC BR100 .D74 2024 (print) | LCC BR100 (ebook) | DDC 230.01—dc23/eng/20230628 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023016319 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023016320 ISBN: 978-1-032-44390-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-44392-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-37192-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003371922 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS1117

TO WILHELM DUPRÉ – MAGISTER ET AMICUS.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Preface

x xii

1 The Sleep of Adam, the Making of Eve: Sin and Creation in Eriugena

1

2 Coinciding in the Margins: Cusanus Glosses Eriugena

21

3 Meister Eckhart: Preaching the Annunciation

39

4 Theologies of Suffering: Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming

59

5 Johannes Tauler: Preaching the Exaltation of the Cross

79

6 Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa: Eucharist and Mystical Transformation

87

7 “Our Substance is God’s Coin”: Nicholas of Cusa on Minting, Defiling and Restoring the Imago Dei

105

8 Cusanus, Wenck, and the Art of the Insult

122

9 Cusanus’ Clock: Time and Eternity in De visione Dei

137

10 “Eternal Time”: Nicholas of Cusa on World, Time and Eternity

147

11 Cusanus’ Philosophical Testament: De venatione sapientiae/ The Hunt of Wisdom (1462)

157

Index

172 ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Brepols: •

“The Sleep of Adam, the Making of Eve: Sin and Creation in Eriugena,” in Eriugena and Creation: Proceedings of Eleventh International Colloquium on Eriugenian Studies held in Honor of Edouard Jeauneau, ed. W. Otten and M. Allen (2014), pp. 235–261.

Taylor and Francis: • •

“Theologies of Suffering: Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming,” Eckhart Review, 14 (2005): 41–46. “Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa: Eucharist and Mystical Transformation,” Eckhart Review, 17 (2008): 44–61.

Brill: •

“‘Our Substance is God’s Coin’: Nicholas of Cusa on Minting, Defiling and Restoring the Imago Dei,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Times of Transition: Essays in Honor of Gerald Christianson, ed. T. Izbicki, J. Aleksander & D. Duclow (2019), pp. 301–319.

Cusanus Institute, Trier •

“Cusanus’ Clock: Time and Eternity in De visione Dei,” Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Geselschaft, vol. 34 (2016): 135–146.

Aschendorff •

“’Eternal Time’: Nicholas of Cusa on World, Time and Eternity,” in Manuductiones: Festchrift zu Ehren von Jorge M. Machetta und Claudia D’Amico, ed. C. Rusconi & K. Reinhardt (2014), pp. 211–221.

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Medieval Institute Publications •

“Cusanus’ Philosophical Testament: De venatione sapientiae (The Hunt of Wisdom) (1462),” in Inventing Modernity in Medieval European Thought, ca. 1100 – ca. 1550, ed. B. Koch & C. Nederman (2018), pp. 137–154.

xi

P R E FA C E

At first glance, Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus seem an unlikely trio. John Scottus Eriugena (c.800-c.877) served as a philosopher, theologian and poet in the court of Charles the Bald. The German Dominican Meister Eckhart was a theologian, preacher, and mystic whose provocative teachings were judged heretical following his death in 1328. Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) was a prominent churchman, bishop and cardinal who wrote widely on political theory, philosophy and theology. Yet all three thinkers worked within a common Christian Neoplatonic tradition which they took in new and often startling directions. They also share a clear historical connection in Cusanus’ close reading and creative use of Eriugena’s and Eckhart’s writings. My previous Variorum volume, Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus (2006), explored these thinkers’ speculative thought, especially their negative theology. The present volume features the same thinkers but focuses on their engagement with practical, experiential issues and controversies. Eriugena revises Genesis’ Adam and Eve narrative and makes sexual difference and overcoming it a guiding thread throughout Periphyseon. Eckhart’s Annunciation sermons urge his hearers to give birth to God’s son within their lives, and he develops a distinctive approach to pain, suffering and consolation. His radical preaching on the Eucharist and mystical union was judged heretical, but was taken up later by Nicholas of Cusa. As Cusanus managed the finances of his diocese in Brixen, coins and banking became key symbols in his account of humanity as created in God’s image. Similarly, his fascination with mathematics and measure led him to use mechanical clocks in his reflections on time and eternity. “Engagement” also describes these thinkers’ reception of their predecessors and later readers’ appropriations of their works. Eriugena struggled with the legacy of Augustine and the Greek Fathers. Eckhart’s theology of suffering provoked strikingly varied responses in his students Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler and in the therapist Ursula Fleming (d. 1992) who said, “Most of what I know and teach about pain control comes from the study of Meister Eckhart.” Cusanus provides the volume’s lynchpin as two articles analyse his reading and appropriation of Eriugena and Eckhart, and a third discusses how deftly he replies to Johannes Wenck’s accusations of heresy. The concluding essay focuses on Nicholas’ De xii

P R E FA C E

venatione sapientiae, where he traces his “hunt for wisdom” through his own writings and his reading of texts from Plato to Dionysius the Areopagite. In a surprisingly “modern” move, he marks out his own place within the history of philosophy and theology. These articles thus present Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus as bold thinkers deeply engaged with their times and culture. Academic writing may be solitary work, but we write within communities of colleagues and friends. So I gladly acknowledge the societies and organizers of the conferences where these essays began their lives. Willemien Otten hosted the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (SPES) colloquium at the University of Chicago, where I presented the first Eriugena essay, and Agnieszka Kijewska organized the Eriugena-Cusanus conference in Lublin where I spoke on Nicholas of Cusa’s reading of Eriugena’s Periphyseon. Willemien and Agniezka then edited the conferences’ proceedings. The Eckhart Society’s invitations to speak at their conferences in Oxford provided the occasions for the articles on suffering and the Eucharist in Eckhart. The Society then published the articles in The Eckhart Review, and the essay on Tauler first appeared in the Society’s Newsletter. Four of the concluding articles on Nicholas of Cusa are the latest fruit of my long association with the American Cusanus Society. Three began as papers for the Society’s sessions at the annual meetings of the Renaissance Society of America, and the fourth, “Cusanus’ Philosophical Testament,” stems from the Society’s 2014 conference at United Lutheran Seminary’s campus in Gettysburg. I thank my Cusan colleagues, especially Jason Aleksander and Thomas Izbicki, for their friendship and work in sustaining our remarkable Society. Two of this book’s essays are new. Pandemic isolation enabled me to develop two conference papers into “Meister Eckhart: Preaching the Annunciation” and to write “Cusanus, Wenck and the Art of the Insult.” The nine previously published articles have been lightly edited for this book, and recent publications have been added to the bibliographies and notes. I thank my wife, Geraldine Duclow, for her skillful proofreading and editing of the essays. I also thank Elaine Beretz for her expert technical support and Louis Nicholson-Pallett of Routledge for guiding this book to publication. I would especially like to thank my mentor, Wilhelm Dupré. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Vienna, he arrived at DePaul University in 1965. I took Wilhelm’s courses on medieval and modern philosophy, Teilhard de Chardin, philosophy of culture, a graduate seminar on Contemporary Problems (history, myth and symbol) and a fateful course on Nicholas of Cusa. The last was my introduction to Cusanus, and soon thereafter, Wilhelm supervised my M.A. thesis on Nicholas of Cusa and Anselm of Canterbury.1 Wilhelm knows Cusanus thoroughly, having worked with his wife Dietlind on the three-volume edition and German translation of his philosophical and theological works.2 He brings a distinctive 1 Anselm and Nicholas of Cusa: From the Ontological Argument to Negative Philosophy (1969). 2 Nikolaus von Kues, Philosophisch-theologische Schriften, edited by Leo Gabriel, German translation and commentary by Dietlind and Wilhelm Dupré, 3 vols. (Vienna: Herder, 1964–67).

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viewpoint to his work on Cusanus – textually precise and speculatively adventurous. Wilhelm’s reading of Nicholas reflects his pioneering work in the philosophy of culture and religion. His first book in English, Religion on Primitive Cultures,3 is subtitled “A Study in Ethnophilosophy,” reflecting Wilhelm’s deep engagement with anthropology and the history of religions. Since culture, myth, symbol and truth are constant themes in Wilhelm’s work, they echo in his reading of Cusanus. For him, Nicholas thus becomes not simply a thinker of historical interest but a dialogue partner in what Cusanus calls the “hunt of wisdom.” In pursuing this hunt, I found both Wilhelm and Cusanus to be provocative and elusive thinkers who refuse closure because, in Nicholas’ terms, thinking requires “learned ignorance”: we continually approach ultimate truth and meaning, knowing that we can never grasp them precisely. From Wilhelm, I learned habits of thought and inquiry that have shaped my teaching and research ever since. In 1974 Wilhelm moved to the Netherlands, where he became Professor of the Philosophy and Sciences of Religion at the University of Nijmegen (now Radboud University). We have remained close friends and colleagues, meeting at Cusanus conferences in Trier, Gettysburg and elsewhere. Geraldine and I have often enjoyed visiting Wilhelm and Dietlind in Nijmegen. In Eckhartian terms, Wilhelm is not only a Lesemeister, a master of learning, but his personal warmth, generosity and enthusiasm also make him a Lebemeister, a master of life. I dedicate this book to Wilhelm Dupré – teacher, mentor and cherished friend.

3 Wilhelm Dupré, Religion in Primitive Cultures: A Study in Ethnophilosophy (The Hague & Paris: Mouton, 1975).

xiv

1 THE SLEEP OF ADAM, THE MAKING OF EVE Sin and Creation in Eriugena*

The Lord cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman. Genesis 2:21–22

The story is familiar. Adam sleeps, and the woman who will be named Eve is made. Both of these scenes appear in a remarkable mosaic from the Creation cupola of San Marco in Venice. (Figure 1.1) On the left, Adam reclines on a grapevine with his right hand supporting his head, as the cross-nimbed, beardless Creator removes a rib from his left side. On the right, the making of the woman is nearly complete, as the Creator grips her wrist and molds her right shoulder.1 This image is among the few from the Middles Ages that follow Genesis in separating the two scenes of Adam’s sleep and the creation of Eve.2 I begin with this image because John Scottus Eriugena too distinguishes these scenes in his commentary on the Genesis narrative, and focuses on the sleep of Adam as initiating the making of Eve. His detailed exegesis of the two scenes links sexual difference, sin and creation in new and striking ways. Humanity’s division into male and female also marks a key moment in Periphyseon’s dialectic of creation. Following Maximus the Confessor, John identifies this division as the final stage of nature’s division. And its overcoming in the resurrected Christ – in whom “there is neither male nor * This article appeared in Eriugena and Creation: Proceedings of Eleventh International Colloquium on Eriugenian Studies held in Honor of Edouard Jeauneau, ed. W. Otten and M. Allen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 235–261. 1 On this mosaic, see Kurt Weitzmann and Herbert Kessler, The Cotton Genesis: British Library Codex Cotton Otho B. VI (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 54; and Penny Howell Jolly, Made in God’s Image?: Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics at San Marco, Venice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 30–41. 2 The thirteenth-century mosaics of the creation cupola are based on the Cotton Genesis, an early Christian illuminated manuscript. See Weitzmann and Kessler, Cotton Genesis, 18–20. They further note that “A distinctive feature of the CG family is the depiction of Eve’s creation in two phases” (p. 54). Medieval iconography usually conflates the two scenes into one, as in the top image of Figure 1.2.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-1

1

THE SLEEP OF ADAM, THE MAKING OF EVE

female”3 – begins the return to divine unity. Sexual difference thus becomes the pivotal point for Periphyseon’s dialectic of procession and return. Here I propose to analyze this dialectic in terms of sexual division, and to do so I shall take the view from below – indeed, from the last and lowest vantage point available to us. I shall begin by looking at Eriugena’s commentary on the sleep of Adam and the making of Eve, and then consider three broad issues: first, this commentary’s place within John’s exegetical program; second, the role of sin and sexual division within Periphyseon’s account of creation; and finally, the controversies surrounding Eriugena’s views of sexual difference that emerged within Periphyseon itself and figured in its condemnation in the thirteenth century.

Genesis and Gendering Humanity Before exploring John’s exegesis, let us review the two accounts of creating humanity in the book of Genesis. In Chapter 1, on the sixth day God creates man in his image and likeness. Although God here creates humanity “male and female,” we must turn to the account in Chapter 2 for details. God forms man from clay of the earth, breathes life into his face, and places him in paradise. Saying that “it is not good for man to be alone,” the Lord makes the beasts of the earth and birds, which Adam names as they parade before him, yet none of them provides him “a helper like himself.” So God tries again, “casts a deep sleep upon Adam,” takes one of his ribs, and forms it into a woman (Figures 1.1 & 1.2). Adam is delighted with his new companion, whom he declares to be “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” But of course things quickly go wrong – with the serpent, eating the forbidden fruit, and eviction from paradise. Indeed, the woman receives her name “Eve” – as mother “of all the living” – only when they exit paradise (Gn. 3:20). While Eriugena plays with both Genesis accounts, in Periphyseon IV he seizes on the second, longer narrative. Commenting on Adam’s lame attempt to shift blame for eating the fruit to Eve, “the woman You [God] gave me to be my companion,” the Teacher constructs a dramatic dialogue, where he himself cross-examines Adam – and thereby takes on God’s role in Genesis 2–3. Adam acknowledges that the Lord gave the woman to him, but stumbles badly when asked why God made her and gave him this gift. The Teacher loads his long question with his own answers, which center on Adam’s sleep and responsibility. He asks, Why, when you were sleeping, that is to say, when you were turning the attention of your mind from the contemplation of truth to the love of a

3 On the resurrection, see Periphyseon II, 537D-538A, CCCM 162: 18–19, citing Gal. 3:28. References to Periphyseon will be to H. J. Floss’ edition in Patrologia Latina, vol. 122, followed by E. A. Jeauneau’s critical edition, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (CCCM) volumes 161–165 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996–2003). I shall cite the English translation of I. P. SheldonWilliams, revised by John J. O’Meara, in Eriugena, Periphyseon (The Division of Nature) (Montreal and Washington: Bellarmin/Dumbarton Oaks, 1987).

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Figure 1.1 Creation of Eve. Detail of the Creation Cupola, San Marco, Venice. Otto Demus’ San Marco Mosaics, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

carnal spouse, did He take the rib from your side and make of it a woman and give her to you when you were sinning and abandoning him? Why did He not make the woman . . . in the same way He made yourself? You yourself, as is fit for one who chose earthly things for heavenly things, were made of the dust of the earth. It is fitting that the woman should have been taken out of your side, seeing that the cause of your transgression originated from yourself.4 Elsewhere Eriugena attributes the Fall to the first man’s “turn to himself before he turned to God,”5 but here this turn is sexually charged. For Adam’s sleep consists of shifting his attention to “the love of a carnal spouse/amorem carnalis coniugii.”6 Yet in the Genesis narrative, this desire is sheer fantasy because woman has yet to be created. Rather, Adam’s sleep and fantasy lead to the making of Eve from his own side. Adam thus conceives – in more senses than one – and gives birth to Eve.

4 Periphyseon IV, 845B-C, emphasis added, CCCM 164: 147. 5 Periphyseon II, 582C, CCCM 162: 77. 6 See also Periphyseon IV, 835D, CCM 162: 77, where the Teacher describes Adam’s trance as “carnalis copulae appetitus.”

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Continuing his cross-examination, the Teacher asks why God made a woman for Adam? For companionship and help, we may ask – as did Augustine7 – why not another man, perhaps Adam and Steve? Like Augustine, Adam replies, “for assistance in procreation and the multiplication of human nature.” However, the Teacher disagrees. Citing Genesis’ first creation account, he asserts that sexual reproduction is not inherent in human nature, but results from Adam’s choice. For if human nature, “created in the image of God,” had retained its original integrity, it would be sexless and multiply like the angels, not like the beasts of the field. However, thanks to Adam’s fantasies and desires, humanity “chose (elegit) to propagate the species ingloriously among the other animals.” Foreseeing this decision, the creator undertook damage control and “added to his nature the twofold sex (duplicem sexum) to enable him to breed like the beasts.” The Teacher then rebukes Adam for trying to shift his guilt to Eve, when his “own pride and contempt and . . . desertion of God” led to her creation. She did not initiate sin, he did – and she is its living consequence. The Teacher underlines this point with an extraordinary commentary on what he calls “God’s ironical words: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. Let us make him a companion like unto him.’” (Gn. 2:18). He explains these words’ irony by paraphrasing them in vivid detail: Man whom we have made to our image and likeness does not think it good to be alone, that is, to be simple and perfect nature abiding everywhere without the division of his nature into sexes, being wholly in the likeness of the angelic nature, but prefers to tumble down headlong into earthly couplings like the beasts. . . . Let us then make for him a companion like unto him through whom he can perform what he longs to do, that is to say, a woman who is fragile and unstable like the male, and is eager for earthly lusts.8 Although ventriloquizing God’s voice, the Teacher’s very language tumbles and spins, suggesting the instability and intensity of sexual desire. Foreseeing Adam’s sleepy desires and fantasies, God grants him his wish. Sexual difference splits human nature in two,9 and Adam’s claim that God gave him the woman to multiply the species becomes true. The Teacher finds this point anticipated in Genesis’ first chapter when it says, “‘Male and female he created them,’ vessels, that is, for carnal procreation of offspring, since the dignity of the spiritual propagation and of the Divine Image is now despised.”10

7 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, IX, 5, CSEL 28, 1, 293. 8 Periphyseon IV, 846B-C, CCCM 164: 148. On this irony, see E. Jeauneau, “Jean Scot et l’ironie,” in Jean Scot Écrivain, ed. G.-H. Allard (Montreal/Paris: Bellarmin/J. Vrin, 1986), 15–17; reprinted in Jeauneau, Études érigéniennes (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1987), 326–327. 9 See Periphyseon IV, 817D, CCCM 164: 108. 10 Periphyseon IV, 846C, CCCM 164: 149.

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Eriugena supports this view in his earlier allegorical reading of the making of Eve (Gn. 2: 21–22). In the removal of Adam’s rib, he sees “the tearing (scissura) of his nature into two sexes,” and the removal of his “guardianship of the universal inner virtue which was within him before he had sinned.”11 Similarly, the flesh which the Creator puts in place of the rib signifies a devastating exchange of “the guardianship of virtue and blessedness . . . for the deadly folly of vice and wretchedness.” Echoing Paul and Augustine, John sees here “a prophetic prefiguring of Christ and the Church.” Specifically, Adam’s sleep and the making of Eve parallel Christ’s death and the birth of the Church.12 As Christ is the new Adam, the Church becomes the new Eve. This parallel had a long history, as we see in an illustration from a thirteenth-century Bible moralisée, which places a scene of Eve’s creation above one showing the figure of a crowned Ecclesia emerging from the wound in the crucified Christ’s side.13 (Figure 1.2) Eriugena stands within this tradition when he describes Adam as “an inverse figure” of Christ – the one bringing exile, weakness and death, and the other bringing reconciliation, strength and life. But John adds his own spin when he includes two other comparisons: Adam introduces the split between the sexes which Christ overcomes; and in Adam “human nature puts on tunics of skin (Gn 3:21), that is to say, mortal bodies,” while Christ removes these tunics and restores humanity to its naked, original state.14 By taking these comparisons together, we see the key point of John’s entire gloss: sex becomes the marker for the fallen and corruptible body.

Eriugena’s Exegesis This interpretation of Adam’s sleep and the making of Eve is remarkable both for its unusual exegesis of Genesis, and for its role in Periphyseon’s speculative program. Let us first examine it more closely as exegesis. Eriugena agrees

11 Periphyseon IV, 836B-C, translation modified, CCCM 164: 134–135. 12 Periphyseon IV, 836D, CCCM 164: 135, citing Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus IX, xx, 33–36 (CCEL 36: 96). 13 The top image combines both scenes from Genesis 2, as the Creator’s right hand holds Adam’s rib while his left grips the emerging Eve’s wrist. Similarly, the image below retains details of the crucifixion – the sun and moon above the cross, and Mary and John mourning on the right – as the Creator receives the Church from Christ’s wound. See A. Laborde, La Bible moralisée illuststrée, conservée à Oxford, Paris, et Londres (Paris: Société française de la reproduction des manuscrits à peintures, 1911–1927), vol. 1, fol. 6r; and Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst (Gütersloh: G. Mohr, 1976), vol. 4, pt. 1, 89–92 & plates 217–220. 14 Periphyseon IV, 836D–837A, CCCM 164: 135–136; see Periphyseon II, 584A, CCCM 162: 79, and Periphyseon IV, 818C, CCCM 164: 109–110, where John cites Origen, In Genesim (PL 12, 101A) and Epiphanius, Ancoratus 62 (PG 43, 128–129), and mistakenly claims that “Almost all authors, Greek and Latin, follow Origen.” In La tradition de l’allégorie de Philon d’Alexandrie á Dante (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1987), vol. II, pp. 158–159, Jean Pépin says that Eriugena finds Origen’s gloss in Epiphanius; tracing the gloss to Philo and gnostic sources, he suggests that although Origen’s critics often attribute the gloss to him, he actually discusses it “avec les plus grandes reserves.”

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Figure 1.2 Creation of Eve & birth of the Church. Bible Moralisée, French, thirteenth century. The University of Oxford, Bodl. 270b, f. 6r, detail.

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with today’s biblical scholars on one basic point: that Genesis contains two creation accounts. But while these scholars carefully sort out different textual and historical strands – e.g., P and J, Priestly and Yahwist – patristic and medieval commentators sought to harmonize these accounts into a single, coherent narrative and interpretation. And Eriugena does this in ways that are peculiar even by medieval standards. With Augustine, he sees the paradise story as charged with symbolic meaning, but he disputes Augustine’s reading of this story as a history of actual events in an earthly garden. Claiming to follow Ambrose, John interprets paradise as human nature, and all that occurs within it as allegory. Within this exclusively symbolic focus, he insists that the paradise narrative adapts to human “sluggishness,” and narrates “as though in space and time” what actually occurs simultaneously.15 This view frees Eriugena to re-arrange texts and events into a larger – some might say arbitrary – theological scheme, as he compresses humanity’s creation, sin and its consequences into a single, timeless event. For example, we have seen him claim that when Genesis 1:27 declares that God created humanity “male and female,” it does not insert sexual difference into God’s image, but anticipates the fleshly, gendered making of Adam and Eve in Chapter 2. John justifies these transpositions by emphasizing a crucial difference of perspectives: When we say “before and after sin” we are demonstrating the multiplicity of our thought processes which is due to the fact that we are still subject to temporal conditions: but to God the foreknowledge of sin and the consequence of sin itself are contemporaneous [simul]. For it is in man, not God, that sin was a future event.16 Hence, not only were Adam and Eve in paradise for no time at all, but their creation in all its facets – in God’s image and as earthly, sexual beings – occurred all at once. For within God’s foreknowledge, “at the same time [simul] as He created man, He created the consequences of sin even before he had sinned.”17 Indeed, the term “fore-knowledge” is a misnomer, since it suggests the human perspective of looking toward the future, rather than holding everything in a simple, eternal present.18 Eriugena’s discussion of creation and Paradise also differs from contemporary Bible scholarship on another, more specific score: the feminist struggle against interpretations reflecting biases against women. In her influential commentary, Phyllis Trible considers it a sexist mistake to speak of creating “man” in Genesis.

15 Periphyseon IV, 848A, CCCM 164: 151. 16 Periphyseon IV, 808A-B, CCCM 164: 94: “Nam cum dicimus ‘ante’ et ‘post’ peccatum, cogitationum nostrarum mutabilitatem monstramus, dum adhuc temporibus subdimur. Deo autem simul erant et peccati praescientia eiusque consequentia. Homini siquidem, non deo, futurum erat peccatum.” 17 Periphyseon IV, 807B-C, CCCM 164: 93–94. 18 See Boethius, Consolatio philosophiae V, pr. 6 (CSEL 67: 122–124).

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For in Genesis 2, the Lord simply forms an “earth-creature” (hā-’ā dām) out of dust, and sexual differentiation first occurs when Eve is built from Adam’s rib. Only with the making of the woman does Adam become male.19 This reading could fit within Eriugena’s scheme, if he too considered human nature sexless until Eve’s creation. But he tells a different story. Earlier in Book IV, he notes that his favorite sources – Ambrose and the Greek Fathers – distinguish “two creations of man” in Genesis. The first highlights sexless human nature as created “in the Image of God, in which there is neither male nor female but only universal and indivisible humanity most like the angelic nature.” So far, so good. But the second creation, “added as a result of the foreknowledge of the Fall of the rational nature,” makes Adam indisputably male. For this creation, from the clay of the earth, occurs outside Paradise and adds “the male sex . . . to the nature created in the Image of God.”20 Similarly, in another scene from the San Marco mosaic, the nude Adam’s masculinity is on full display as God animates him via a winged soul.21 (Figure 1.3) Thus, for Eriugena it is a male Adam who is placed in Paradise where “the second sex, called by the name of woman, and drawn from the side of the first, is added to it as an assistant in the procreation of offspring.”22 Familiar sexual politics follow. In line with his broader exegesis of the paradise narrative, Eriugena insists that Adam’s creation as male has priority not in time, but in honor and rank. Therefore, he concludes that “the man, although made outside Paradise (that is, outside the dignity of his primordial creation), is better than the woman who was created, as it were, within Paradise (that is, after the union that added sex to the simplicity of the divine image).”23 Priority thus confers on men a superior, ruling position, and on women a secondary and submissive one. Disappointing as this patriarchal outcome may be for us, it is hardly surprising in medieval exegesis and theology. More unusual – and perhaps truly “erigenal”, as James Joyce might say24 – is John’s commentary on Adam’s sleep. Here he gives a striking, minority view that does violence to the Genesis narrative.25 Where Genesis says that the Lord puts Adam to sleep, Eriugena attributes this sleep to Adam’s own distraction and 19 Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 79–81 & 96–99. 20 Periphyseon IV, 817A-B, CCCM 164: 107–108. 21 Weitzmann and Kessler, Cotton Genesis, 53 note that the unusual Animation of Adam scene reflects “antique depictions of the Prometheus legend,” which portray “Athena holding a butterfly over the newly formed man.” 22 Periphyseon IV, 817B, CCCM 164: 108. 23 Periphyseon IV, 817B-C, my translation, CCCM 164: 108: “. . . uirum, etiam extra paradisum (hoc est extra primordialis conditionis dignitatem) conditum, meliorem esse muliere, quae ueluti intra paradisum (hoc est post superaddititi sexus simplicitate diuinae imaginis adunationem) condita est.” 24 Joyce puns on “Erigena” several times in Finnegans Wake; see R. J. Schork, Greek and Hellenistic Culture in Joyce (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998), 155. 25 Another example occurs at Periphyseon V, 859D, CCCM 164: 3, where John glosses Genesis 3:22b not as forever banning humanity from Paradise, but as promising “the Return of human nature to that same bliss which in sinning it had lost.” See D. F. Duclow, “Denial or Promise of the

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Figure 1.3 Animation of Adam. Detail of the Creation Cupola, San Marco, Venice. Otto Demus’ San Marco Mosaics, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

fatigue. Acknowledging this problem, John looks closely at the text of Genesis 2:21 and notes a two-stage process: “After God sent the trance (soporem) upon Adam, Adam slept (obdormiuit).” First comes the trance, then Adam sleeps. Eriugena describes the trance as “both the cause of sin and also sent, or rather permitted, after sin.”26 A crucial shift in wording occurs here – from ‘sent/immissus’ to ‘permitted/permissus’ – which allows John to invoke an exegetical rule: Scripture’s use of “a figure of speech which describes what God permits as though He Himself does it.”27 With this rule, Eriugena can finesse Genesis’ literal meaning, and attribute the trance to Adam’s doing and God’s permitting. The trance thus becomes “the deflection of the mind’s intention”28 from the creator to worldly pleasures and sexual desire. The sleep that follows completes this deflection, as Adam “separates himself entirely from the vigour of eternal and blessed contemplation and . . . falls Tree of Life? Eriugena, Augustine and Genesis 3:22b,” in Duclow, Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 85–100. 26 Periphyseon IV, 836A, translation modified, CCCM 164: 134. 27 Periphyseon IV, 835C, CCCM 164: 133. 28 Periphyseon IV, 835C-D, CCCM 164: 134: “animi intentionis . . . reflexio.” At San Marco, Adam’s posture and reclining on a grapevine [Figure. 1] echo Noah’s drunkenness, which is portrayed nearby; see Weitzmann and Kessler, Cotton Genesis, 54, and Jolly, Made in God’s Image?, 32.

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into the delights of sensible things, abandoning completely the spiritual senses.”29 With this reading of Adam’s trance and sleep, Eriugena again shows his exegetical dexterity. To see how unusual John’s exegesis of Adam’s sleep is, let us see what his sources say. Eriugena’s principal authority on sexual division is no help here. As Jeauneau has shown, John relies heavily on Gregory of Nyssa when discussing humanity’s creation and sexual division.30 In De opificio hominis, Gregory distinguishes sharply between humanity’s creation in God’s image, and its distinction into male and female.31 He attributes sexual difference to God’s foreknowledge of human sin, but does not discuss Adam’s sleep in this context. Rather, Gregory focuses his analysis exclusively on Genesis 1:27 – “God created man to his own image: . . . Male and female he created them.” When he later discusses the making of Adam from the earth in Genesis 2, he sees the creator responding not to Adam’s dreamy turn toward sex, but to humanity’s general “bias towards evil” and “voluntary fall from equality with the angels,” and on this basis adding the distinction between male and female.32 By focusing on Adam’s sleep, however, Eriugena describes a human failure that precedes the unfortunate incident of the forbidden fruit.33 When Gregory identifies divine foreknowledge of sin as the source for human sexuality, he provides Eriugena with a basic insight. But John goes further when he rolls this insight into his account of Adam’s sleep, and re-thinks the making of Eve in his own provocative way. Nor does Eriugena cite Augustine’s discussions of Adam’s sleep – and with good reason. For Augustine sees nothing worldly or sexual in Adam’s sleep. Rather, he emphasizes the opposite, viewing this sleep as given by God and revealing wisdom and prophecy to Adam. In the early De Genesi contra Manicheos, Augustine claims that Adam’s sleep signifies “hidden wisdom,” which one sees more clearly by “withdrawing from these visible things into the interior realm of the intelligence.”34 His later work De Genesi ad litteram interprets Adam’s sleep as

29 Periphyseon IV, 836A, CCCM 164: 134. 30 E. Jeauneau, “La division des sexes chez Gregoire de Nysse et chez Jean Scot Érigène,” in Eriugena: Studien zu seinen Quellen, ed. W. Beierwaltes (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1980), 33–54; reprinted in Jeauneau, Études érigéniennes, 343–354; and E. Jeauneau, “Érigène et Grégoire de Nysse,” in Jeauneau, “Tendenda vela”: excursions littéraires et digressions philosophiques à travers le moyen âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 204–209. On these issues in Gregory, see also Peter Brown, The Body and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 293–296. 31 Gregory of Nyssa, De opificio hominis, XVI–XVII (PG 44, 177D–192A); trans. W. Moore and H. A. Wilson in Select Writings and Letters of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, Select Library of Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, 1892; reprint edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 404–407. 32 Gregory of Nyssa, De opificio hominis, XXII, 3–4 (PG 44, 204C-205B), trans. Moore and Wilson in Select Writings, 411–412. 33 See also Periphyseon IV, 811C-D, CCCM 164: 99–100. 34 Augustine, De Genesi contra Manicheos XII, 12, 16; PL 34, 205; trans. R. Teske, in Augustine, On Genesis (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 112–113. Here Augustine discerns the “knowledge by which we understand that what rules within us by reason is distinct from what obeys reason.” Identifying reason as masculine and bodily desires and senses as feminine, he describes self-rule as “presiding over the marriage in oneself” where flesh is “subject to

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an ecstasy, given to him “so that his mind . . . might participate with the host of angels, and entering into the sanctuary of God, understand what was finally to come.” When he awakes, Adam declares the woman to be “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” and proclaims that “a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh.”35 Augustine comments that out of his ecstasy, Adam spoke “as a prophet under divine guidance.” In both of Augustine’s commentaries, Adam falls asleep to the world, not to God. The contrast with Periphyseon could not be clearer. However, Eriugena’s reading does echo Ambrose’s De paradiso, which he had previously cited describing Adam’s sleep as “turning our mind for a while to sexual intercourse, when we seem to fall asleep to divine matters.”36 But John seems to misread Ambrose, who views these thoughts of sex more positively. Discussing the parade of animals before Adam while he named them, Ambrose says that he would observe the distinction of male and female among them all, and learn that for him too “association with a woman was a necessity.” Ambrose then links Adam’s sleep to thoughts of sex, but unlike Eriugena he moves immediately to Eve’s creation and the good that follows from it – namely, the household of man and wife, which points toward “a state of full perfection.”37 On this view, sexual difference, marriage and procreation build God’s kingdom. Yet Eriugena disregards this wider context, and instead invokes Ambrose’s authority to support his own idiosyncratic account of the sleep of Adam.

Sin, Sex and Cosmos If John’s discussion of the Adam’s sleep and the making of Eve is novel exegesis, so are its theological implications. For it shifts sin’s origin from Genesis’ fruit tree incident to Adam’s sleep. John confirms this displacement in a commentary on the Good Samaritan parable, where the Teacher says that “man fell himself before he was tempted by the devil,” and finds it incredible that

the spirit.” The Pauline hierarchy follows, with man as the head of woman, and Christ the head of man (1 Cor 11:13). The Glossa ordinaria (PL 113, 90A-B) picks up this interpretation, and cites Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob XXX, xvi, 54; CCSL 143B, 1528. 35 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram IX, xix, 36; CSEL 28, 1, 294; trans. J. H. Taylor, in Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (New York: Newman Press, 1982), vol. 2, 95. 36 Periphyseon IV, 835D, CCCM 164: 134, citing Ambrose, De paradiso, XI, 50; CSEL 32, pt. 1, 307; trans. J. Savage, in Ambrose, Hexaemeron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1961), 328–329. On Eriugena’s use of this text, see E. Jeauneau, “Le De paradiso d’Ambroise dans le livre IV du Periphyseon,” in Jeauneau, Tendenda vela, 219–229. 37 Ambrose, De paradiso, IX, 50; CSEL 32, pt. 1, 307; trans. Savage, Ambrose, Hexaemeron, 329. See Elizabeth A. Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1986), 376: “In De Officiis Ministrorum, Ambrose’s interest in explaining the Eden tale revolves around social commentary: God’s creation of a woman for the man shows the divine intent that humans live in society.”

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the same man could both have been abiding in the contemplation of eternal Peace and also have fallen at the persuasion of a woman corrupted by the poison of a serpent; or that that serpent, I mean the Devil, . . . could have prevailed over a man who was not yet in a state of sin and was not himself already falling from the sublimity of the divine image.38 As we have seen, Adam’s sleep signals this initial fall – a narrative shift that alters the relation between sin and creation. For in this account, sin is no longer simply a human failing that leaves the created order pristine and intact. Rather, since Eve has yet to be made, sin becomes – quite literally – a fault line within creation itself. This fault line shapes Eriugena’s conception of the human body – or more precisely, of human nature’s two bodies. In Book II of Periphyseon, he tells us that the first, “essential” body was created with the rational soul, and “would have adhered eternally and coeternally with soul had it not sinned.”39 This spiritual, incorruptible body endures, and is the one in which human beings will be resurrected. The second, more familiar body is the “corruptible and material body,” made from the earth. Once again Eriugena glosses Genesis 2:7, but adds two peculiar details: this making occurs “after sin and as a punishment for sin,” and is the work of the human soul.40 Here too John alters Genesis’ sequence of events, but views the mortal body itself – not only its sexual division – as a consequence of sin. The other detail seems even more surprising. This body “was created and is daily being created as though (veluti) by some proper action of the soul.” Although Genesis says that God formed the human body from clay, John considers it reasonable “that the action of the creature should be referred to Him from whom every natural action originates.”41 To support this claim, he appeals to the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies, where God acts through angels and bishops. More basically, he finds it no surprise that the first man, once he turned from the “spiritual body created by God,” should “create for himself from the clay of the earth a fragile and mortal habitation on the advice of Divine Providence.”42 In addition, Periphyseon offers systematic reasons for extending human creativity to its own mortal flesh. For dwelling among the primordial causes, humanity too creates and is created. This creativity displays God’s image in the “trinity created in our nature” – namely, intellect, reason and interior sense. Yet precisely as a created image, human nature does not create out of nothing, but rather arranges existing realities in a novel way, by assembling incorporeal qualities into a mortal body.43 Hence, Eriugena includes the qualifying term “as 38 39 40 41

Periphyseon IV, 811C-D, CCCM 164: 100–101. Periphyseon II, 582A-B, CCCM 162: 76–77. Periphyseon II, 582C, CCCM 162: 77. Periphyseon II, 582C-D, CCCM 162: 78. Other texts assert that God creates both bodies; see Periphyseon IV, 802A. 42 Periphyseon II, 583B, emphasis added, CCCM 162: 79: “fragile atque mortale de luto terrae sibimet habitaculum crearet diuina prouidentia admonitus.” 43 Periphyseon II, 580B, CCCM 162:74. Concerning the mechanics of this making, see Periphyseon II, 581B-C, CCCM 162: 75–76.

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though/veluti” in describing this creating. He adds that this making and on-going care of the mortal body mirror God’s providential care for all creation.44 As we have seen, the corruptible body begins as male, and divides into the two sexes. This division takes on cosmic importance in John’s discussion of Maximus the Confessor, his second Greek authority for linking sin and human sexual difference. Book II of Periphyseon includes a long commentary on Maximus’ cosmic scheme of five divisions: first, uncreated and created nature; second, creation’s division into the intelligible and sensible; third, the sensible realm’s distinction into heaven and earth; fourth, earth’s separation between paradise and the inhabited world; and fifth, the division of humanity into male and female.45 This last division is problematic, because Maximus writes that it does not conform to “the divine intention (propositum) [that] there would be simply man, not to be divided by the names male and female.”46 Created as the officina, the workshop or agent unifying and mediating all creation, humanity was designed to harmonize creation’s opposites and turn them toward their divine source. But instead it acts “contrary to nature [and] is voluntarily moved in ignorance around those things that are beneath it, . . . and has abused the natural power of uniting what is divided.”47 The results will now be familiar to us. Foreknowing that man would sin, God permits human nature to split into male and female. If humanity is to multiply but refuses “the divine mode of multiplying himself,” God provides the alternative of sexual reproduction. But this is a compensating mechanism, not part of humanity’s original program. Still following Maximus, John notes another, larger compensating move: the Incarnation, as Christ assumes the task of restoring human nature and all creation to God. His resurrection begins this process by overcoming sexual division, as Maximus confirms by citing Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is neither male nor female.”48 But where Maximus gives a crisp summary of Christ’s reintegration of the remaining four divisions of his scheme, Eriugena expands on the implications of sin, divine foresight and sexual division. In Periphyseon, sin and sex signal only the start of a very busy game. When Maximus says that in God’s original plan humanity would not be “divided into those sections which now exist in him,” Eriugena extends these “sections” to all human variety and difference: The diversity of men among themselves by which the form of each is distinguished from the others and the measure of stature is varied does 44 Periphyseon II, 581C-582A, CCCM 162:76. 45 Periphyseon II, 530A-C, CCCM 162: 9–10; and Eriugena’s translation of Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua 37, CCSG 18, 180; translated as Difficulty 41 in A. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, (London: Routledge, 1996), 156–162. See Jeauneau, “La division des sexes,” 52–53. 46 Periphyseon II, 532C, CCCM 162:12–13. 47 Maximus, Ambigua 37, CCSG 18: 180; trans. in Louth, Maximus, 158; cited at Periphyseon II, 536D-537A, CCCM 162: 17–18. 48 Periphyseon II, 537D-538A, CCCM 162: 19. See Periphyseon V, 894A-895C, CCCM 165: 49–52, where John discusses Maximus’ account of Christ’s restoration of all five divisions.

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not proceed from nature but from defect and the diversity of places and times, of lands, of waters, of airs, of diets, and of other circumstances of this sort of their birth and breeding. Of the diversity of manners and opinions it is superfluous to speak for it is obvious to all that these took their origin from the division of nature after sin.49 Sexual propagation not only produces millions of people – seven billion and counting – in all their physical variety, but also yields the many societies and cultures that they develop and require in order to flourish. We thus owe all our diversity – of environment, breeding, culture and opinion – to sin, or more precisely to God’s provisions for dealing with it. Eriugena suggests still wider consequences when he links sin not only to sexual division, but to the two prior divisions of Maximus’ scheme: between Paradise and the inhabited globe, and between heaven and earth. He finds “very obscure/ualde obscura” the Greek Father’s claim that “by bringing together . . . paradise and the inhabited globe, he [Christ] would make the earth one, not divided in him by difference of parts, but rather so gathered together that none of its parts suffers loss.”50 Eriugena suggests two ways to understand Maximus’ text, and both highlight division as a consequence of sin. In the first, the entire inhabited globe in all its parts becomes paradise, just as unifying human nature “recalls the division of the sexes into the simplicity of man.”51 For both cases follow the rule that lower divisions move into a higher, better unity – namely, male and female into human nature, and the inhabited globe into paradise. John’s second reading suggests unifying two of Maximus’ divisions at once, so that paradise and the inhabited globe become one earth – namely, the earth that Maximus’ third division distinguishes from heaven within sensible creation. This earth “will be recalled into a simplicity of nature so as to be believed to be a spiritual rather than a corporeal nature such as it would be if man were not in a state of sin.”52 On this account, sin extends the very dialectic of nature’s division into the material universe. As Eriugena goes on to say, “This world would not have burst forth into its variety of both sensible species and the divers multiplicities of their parts if God had not foreseen the fall and ruin of the first man when he abandoned the unity of his nature.”53 Here not only human sexual difference but much of Periphyseon’s third division of nature – created and not creating – results from the creator’s efforts to compensate for human sin.54 49 50 51 52 53

Periphyseon II, 533A-B, CCCM 162:13. Periphyseon II, 533C, emphasis added, CCCM 162: 13–14. Periphyseon II, 534A, CCCM 162: 14. Periphyseon II, 534A-B, emphasis added, CCCM 162: 14. Periphyseon II, 540A, CCCM 162: 21–2 and 192–193 (Versiones I-II, III, IV and V). See Avital Wohlman, L’homme, le sensible et le péché dans la philosophie de Jean Scot Erigène (Paris: J. Vrin, 1987), especially 24–41. 54 These cosmic implications apparently disturbed the scribe of Periphyseon’s Paris manuscript (Bibl. Nat. Lat. 12964), who attempted to confine their impact to humanity. Where the other manuscripts attribute “the cause of the division of nature” to Adam’s sin, this scribe inserted the word

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We may ask what motivates such far-reaching efforts to compensate for sin. Eriugena gives two answers. Unlike his Greek sources, he speaks of the corruptible, sexual body as punishment.55 He tells us that like the demons’ aerial bodies, “the earthly and mortal members of men” must be understood as “the penalty for transgression (poenam peccati), which has been added (adiuncta) to the simplicity of the nature created by God.”56 Invoking sin’s cosmic consequences, Eriugena asserts that God “superimposed/supermachinatus” sexual propagation on human nature, so that “this world might be extended in space and time to allow man to pay for his general offence a general penalty (poenam), by being born like the rest of the animals from a corruptible seed.”57 The entire spatio-temporal world thus becomes the arena and vehicle for repentance. Following Gregory and Maximus more closely, John emphasizes a second motive when he argues that the creator acts not from anger, but out of a kind of ineffable teaching and incomprehensible mercy, so that man, who, by the judgement of his free will, had refused to maintain himself in the status of his nature, might, having learnt from his punishments, seek the grace of his Creator, and by becoming through it obedient to the Divine Laws . . . . might return to his first state.58 Sexuality, corruptible bodies and the entire physical universe thus both mark humanity’s descent and become the school for working out creation’s return to its divine source. Here the dialectic of creation and nature’s divisions becomes history – a saturated, sacred history whose course moves toward fulfillment at the end of time. This eschatology will complete nature’s dialectic of return, but its course is perilous and uncertain. For running the project of nature’s return – like its creation – through humanity incurs enormous risks.59 Today we have hardly outgrown Adam’s sleepy distraction, fantasy life and desires, which make it so difficult for us to see clearly, order our lives rightly, and move towards a renewed paradise. To describe our efforts in this direction, Eriugena again turns to Genesis. In the penalties imposed on Eve, he sees the “labors of study, which Scripture calls

55 56 57 58

59

‘humanae’ into the phrase to make it read “the cause of the division of human nature/diuisionis humanae naturae causam” (Periphyseon II, 537B, Version IV, CCCM 162: p. 183). See P. Brown, Body and Society, 296: Gregory of Nyssa “never spoke of it [sexual difference] in any way as a punishment for the fall.” Periphyseon IV, 852B-C, CCCM 164: 157. Periphyseon IV, 799B-C, emphasis added, CCCM 164: 82. Periphyseon II, 540B-C, emphasis added and translation modified: ‘mercy’ rather than SheldonWilliams’s ‘clemency’ for ‘misericordia’, CCCM 162: 22: “sed modo quodam ineffabilis doctrinae incomprehensibilisque misericordiae, ut homo qui libero uoluntatis arbitrio in suae naturae dignitate se custodire noluerat conditoris sui gratiam suis poenis eruditus quaereret et per eam diuinis praeceptis obediens . . . ad suum pristunum statum . . . rediret.” See Willemien Otten, The Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 113–116.

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the sorrows of woman,” through which the mind achieves “many conceptions, that is, the rudiments of an understanding of intelligible beings, and the procreation of sons, that is to say, of right judgments concerning nature.”60 Within this allegorical scheme, Eve may be punished, but her sorrows and labor effect humanity’s return. Indeed, they mark Periphyseon’s path to the eschaton, a hallmark of which will be the erasure of the sexual, mortal body. For the end mirrors the beginning, and only natures or substances will endure in the return – not compensatory accidents added to human nature. These will be so thoroughly transformed as to vanish – or more precisely, to “be dissolved and changed into . . . spirit and stable substance.”61 But the sexual body will not endure, because it is contingent and inherently perishable.

Controversies and Condemnations Eriugena knew that his views on the human body and sexuality were controversial. Let us note two instances within Periphyseon itself. Following the Teacher’s dialogue with Adam, he responds to those who see an attack on marriage and procreation in his teaching that sexual distinction and begetting are penalties for sin. He affirms “wedlock so long as it is for the procreation of children and not for the gratification of lust.”62 But he realistically notes the impossibility of intercourse without “the lustful itch of the flesh,” and reaffirms that sexual reproduction results from the human decision to multiply like beasts rather than like angels.63 Another, more dramatic and detailed objection occurs in Book II. After the Teacher discusses Maximus’ five-stage cosmic scheme of division and return, the Student raises a question that would be widely shared. He strongly objects to the claim that the division into male and female “did not proceed from the first creation of man in the image of God but from the punishment for sin, and that again after the general resurrection of all bodies . . . at the end of the world the division will no longer remain but will return to the unity of the primordial creation of nature.”64 He asks “who would not be horrified” to hear this, and is especially alarmed by the notion of a sexless humanity following the resurrection. He reminds the Teacher

60 Periphyseon IV, 854D–855B, CCCM 164: 160–161. Jeauneau notes the originality of Eriugena’s “optimistic” reading of Eve’s penalties in Periphyseon IV (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1995), 337, n. 309. 61 See Periphyseon V, 884A–885C, CCCM 165: 35–37: Mortal bodies “shall be dissolved and changed into something better (solvetur et in melius mutabitur), into spirit and stable substance.” As concentrations of incorporeal qualities, these bodies will “return to the condition of an incorporeal object.” See also Periphyseon V, 986C–987C, CCCM 165: 177–178, and the more detailed account glossing Gregory of Nyssa, at Periphyseon IV, 800D-803A, CCCM 164: 84–87: the external body will resolve into the elements, and its “species, hoc est, notio” will remain in the soul. 62 Periphyseon IV, 846D–847A, CCCM 164: 149. 63 Periphyseon IV, 847A, CCCM 164: 149. He echoes Augustine when he adds that children thus “inherit the guilt of everlasting death from which they are freed only by baptism into the Catholic Church.” 64 Periphyseon II, 542C-D, CCCM 162: 24–25.

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that “all or almost all holy masters of the Latin tongue . . . unanimously declare that after the resurrection of all things each sex will have its integrity, so that man returns into the form of a man, woman into the form of a woman.”65 Similarly, he rejects the claim that the resurrected Christ is neither male nor female, and affirms the common faith to the contrary: “We believe that Christ rose again in the same sex in which He lived in the flesh, and that He remains in it eternally.” Here the Student gives voice to critiques that were to haunt Periphyseon and eventually lead to its condemnation. Eriugena’s most sympathetic readers shared the Student’s concerns. In the twelfth century, Honorius Augustudonensis is strangely schizoid on these issues. As Caroline Walker Bynum notes, his Clavis physicae faithfully reproduces Periphyseon’s account of sexual difference, but his popular Elucidarium presents very different views. Here Honorius explains the resurrection in materialist terms and imagery, and portrays a heaven populated by beautiful men and women who will “appear with their ‘eyes and faces’ and ‘all their interior and exterior members.’”66 Another sympathetic reader was Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) who left us extensive marginal comments to manuscripts of Periphyseon’s Book I and Honorius’ Clavis. These glosses usually note texts that attract Nicholas’ attention; they occasionally praise Eriugena, but rarely criticize him. Yet Cusanus writes “error” beside passages tracing the origin of sexual difference and procreation to sin.67 Similarly, he writes “nota quod male” when Eriugena claims that sexual division will vanish “when human nature shall be restored to its pristine state.”68 In the thirteenth century, harsher critics noticed Periphyseon’s views on sexual division, and – rightly or wrongly – linked them to the doctrines of Amalric of Bène.69 Amalric’s teachings were condemned at the 1210 synod of Paris, and Pope Honorius III condemned Periphyseon in 1225.70 Although the documents of

65 Periphyseon II, 543B-C, CCCM 162: 25. 66 Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 150, citing Honorius, Elucidarium, Bk. 3, q. 106, 467–470. 67 Paolo Lucentini edits Nicholas’ glosses to Clavis physicae in Platonismo medievale: Contributi per storia dell’ Eriugenismo (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1980, 2nd revised edition), 108, n. 115 (Periphyseon IV, 799B, CCCM 164: 82) & n. 118 (Periphyseon V, 896A-C, CCCM 165: 52–53). On Nicholas’ marginalia to Periphyseon I, see D. F. Duclow, “Coinciding in the Margins: Cusanus Glosses Eriugena,” in Eriugena Cusanus, ed. A. Kijewska, R. Majeran and H. Schwaetzer (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011), 83–103; reprinted in this book. 68 Lucentini, Platonismo medievale, 90, n. 36 (Periphyseon II, 532A-B, CCCM 162: 12). 69 Whether Amalric and his followers used Periphyseon is a disputed question. For affirmative views, see Maïeul Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigène, reprint ed. (Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1969), 247–250; and G. C. Capelle, Amaury de Bène: Etude sur son panthéisme formel (Paris: J. Vrin, 1932), which includes relevant Latin texts, 89–111. For more critical views, see M. Th. d’Alverny, “Un fragment du procès des Amauriciens,” AHDLMA 18 (1950–51), 325–336; and P. Lucentini, “L’eresia di Amalrico,” in Eriugena Redivivus, ed. W. Beierwaltes (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1987), 174–191. 70 See Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle and A. Chatélain (Paris: Delalain 1889), vol. I, 70–72, 106–107.

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1210 and 1225 affirm no link between Amalric and Eriugena, Henry of Ostia later traced Amalric’s teachings to “the book of Master John the Scot called Periphyseon,” and highlighted three condemned doctrines. The third is that at the end of time “there will be a union of the sexes, or there will be no distinction of sex, which union he says to have begun in Christ.”71 The fusion or abolition of sexual difference here ranks just behind major charges of pantheism – “that all things are God” – and that the primordial causes’ creative activity compromises God’s exclusive power to create. Matthew of Poland provided a longer list when discussing Innocent III’s condemnation of Amalric, and included not only the end of sexual difference, but also its source: “that if man had not sinned he would not have been divided into the twofold sexes.”72 Both Henry and Matthew thus considered Periphyseon’s deviant sexual views a major doctrinal threat, serious enough to condemn alongside the ontological error of identifying creatures with God. Bynum sees the resurrection as central to the condemnations of Amalric and Periphyseon, and comments that “one of the most threatening elements of the Erigenist position was the claim that with the loss of materiality and [bodily] integrity there would be a blurring of the sexes at the end of time.”73 Yet for Eriugena this problem goes back to the beginning, since the resurrection will simply undo the making of the sexual body. The contested issue thus becomes the status of the mortal body – and of sexual difference which is its defining marker. Is this body integral to human nature, or not? Periphyseon’s thirteenth-century critics said yes, and Eriugena clearly disagreed and placed humanity above its sexual, mortal body: “homo melior est quam sexus.”74 Surely the ghost behind this controversy is Augustine. His early De Genesi contra Manicheos asks how to understand sexual difference and the commands to “increase and multiply,” and proposes an answer similar to Gregory of Nyssa and Eriugena: “We are permitted to understand it spiritually and to believe that it was changed to carnal fecundity after sin. For there was first the chaste union of male and female” which produced spiritual offspring and effortless self-control, and after sin turned to “carnal generation.”75 However, around the year 400 Augustine repudiated this view for another, more literal reading. In De Genesi ad litteram, his emphasis on paradise as history fit neatly with – if not required – his insistence on the concrete, fleshly reality of Adam and Eve who, if they had not

71 Cited in Alice Gardner, Studies in John the Scot (Erigena): A Philosopher of the Dark Ages (London and New York: H. Frowde, 1900), 136–137; Capelle, Amaury de Bène, 93–94. Interestingly, Henry notes that Eriugena cites “the authority of a Greek master named Maximus.” 72 Gardiner, Studies, 137–138, translation modified; Capelle, Amaury de Bène, 105. 73 Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, 155. 74 Periphyseon II, 533A, CCCM 162: 13. See also Periphyseon V, 893D, CCCM 165: 49: “. . . inferior est sexus homine.” 75 Augustine, De Genesi contra Manicheos 19, 30; PL 34, 187; trans. R. Teske in Augustine on Genesis, 77. See Teske’s illuminating note.

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sinned, would have reproduced sexually in paradise.76 On this view, sexuality, marriage and procreation form part of humanity’s original program, rather than being added to accommodate a sin-induced handicap. Further, this same, sexual body will not disappear at the resurrection, but will itself become “spiritual.” Peter Brown emphasizes how novel this exegesis was and the controversies it provoked with Augustine’s contemporaries.77 Yet it became canonical in the Latin West. Having absorbed his Greek sources, Eriugena struggled against Augustine’s later view, and nowhere more clearly than when he gives up his attempt to reconcile Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa. The Teacher accurately sums up Augustine’s teaching: “that in the First Man male and female were created in the image of God, and the animal bodies themselves with which they were endowed before the Fall were not the result of punishment for sin, but of the necessity of nature, that is to say, for the fulfillment by procreation of the predestined number of holy men” to complete the heavenly company of angels and saints.78 He then cites De civitate Dei’s lyrical description of the first humans’ emotional lives and “wedlock love” in paradise, including the possibilities of their sexual union and begetting children “without the disease of lust” and eventually entering “the bliss of angels.” The Teacher expresses his “astonishment that it can be believed that animal bodies have dwelt in such a height of bliss.”79 Here Jeaneau detects the irony – “fine et cruel” – as Eriugena declares Augustine’s historical account of paradise “too good to be true.”80 Yet this signals a deeper disagreement. For John not only insists on the animal body’s limitations, but he also argues that it is added to human nature and will perish at the resurrection. Hence, this body is an accident, and as such neither substantial nor integral to humanity. Only the original, incorruptible body – created with the rational soul – will endure and be restored. Since sexual difference defines the animal body, it too will perish, just as there is “neither male nor female” in the resurrected Christ.

Conclusion Now that we have completed our pornographic tour of Periphyseon, it is perhaps surprising to find sex so central to Eriugena’s project. But when Adam sleeps, interesting things begin to happen. His dreamy desire disrupts the dialectic of nature’s division, inscribes sin into creation, and requires compensating moves by both God and humanity. Thanks to divine foresight and human creativity, Eve

76 Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram IX, 3, 5–6; CSEL 28, 1, 271–272. On Augustine’s changing views, see Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith, 362–373; and Gillian Clark, “Adam’s Engendering: Augustine on Gender and Creation,” in Gender and Christian Religion, ed. R. N. Swanson (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 1998), 18–21. 77 P. Brown, Body and Society, 399–408. 78 Periphyseon IV, 805A-B, CCCM 164: 89–90 and 440–441 (Versions I-II and IV). 79 Periphyseon IV, 806A-D, CCCM 164: 91–92. 80 Jeauneau, “Jean Scot et l’ironie,” 23–24, and reprinted in Études érigéniennes, 333–334.

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comes into being, and humanity takes on a sexual and mortal body. Further consequences follow: Nature’s third division extends into the sensible world, and cosmic dialectic becomes sacred history centered on human dreams, desires, willing and knowing. As this story unfolds, it moves towards a conclusion that will complete nature’s dialectic by leading all things into the divine nature that neither creates nor is created. As anticipated in the risen Christ, humanity’s resurrection will complete this transition, when sexual difference will disappear as humanity attains the paradise intended in its original creation. Hence, while Adam’s sleep initiates human sexuality and the animal body, the resurrection marks their erasure and the fulfillment of human nature.81 By weaving together exegesis, the Neoplatonic dialectic of nature’s divisions, and sacred history, Eriugena develops this powerful new account of sin, sex, creation and resurrection. This is among the stranger things in Periphyseon, and leads us to read the work from a different angle. For we observe John not only drastically refashioning the Genesis narrative, but also skewing nature’s very dialectic to accommodate his novel vision of human sexuality’s origins and ultimate overcoming. We have seen how controversial his revisionist project has been. Indeed, Eriugena invited controversy by pointedly rejecting Augustine’s authoritative views on the sexual and mortal body. Nor did his frequent appeals to Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus and Ambrose do much to quiet the furor. Already in Periphyseon the Student expresses his alarm, and later sympathetic readers like Honorius and Cusanus distanced themselves from John’s views on sexual difference. The controversies came to a head in the thirteenth century, when Eriugena’s account of sexuality seems to have figured in the condemnations of both Periphyseon and Amalric of Bène. Not for the first or last time, sex became a burning issue.

81 As Otten notes, “Man’s return to his original state in fact involves a continuing processio rather than an actual return, because man has not yet fully realized his character as imago Dei” (Anthropology of Eriugena, 153).

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2 COINCIDING IN THE MARGINS Cusanus Glosses Eriugena*

We have clear evidence that Cusanus read Eriugena’s works. He knew the Homily on the Prologue to the fourth Gospel, but under its long-standing attribution to Origen. And the Apologia doctae ignorantiae mentions “Johannes Scotigena” as a commentator on Dionysius’ Mystical Theology, and as the author of “Peri physeos”.1 More telling, however, is a letter from Nicholas to Bernard of Waging, the prior of Tegernsee abbey. Dated 9 September 1454, the letter thanks Bernard for sending gifts, “especially the precious little gift” of a book which “contains everything in brief. I think the text was extracted from Johannes Scoterigena, who first translated Dionysius at the time of Charlemagne, in the book Peri fiseas. I recall having read it there according to the letter.”2 Although Nicholas errs in dating Eriugena to the period of Charlemagne rather than Charles the Bald, he correctly notes his translations of Dionysius the Areopagite. But what is the book which “contains everything in brief”? Werner Beierwaltes and Édouard Jeauneau suggest that it is the Clavis physicae, Honorius Augustodunensis’ twelfth-century abridgement of Periphyseon.3 For the Clavis best fits Nicholas’ claim that he had previously read Periphyseon and recognizes it “ad litteram” in the book from Bernard. Confirming Jeauneau’s identification are Cusanus’ two manuscripts of the Clavis: one survives in his library in Kues, and the other in Paris with his own marginal comments.4 * This essay was presented at the International Conference Eriugena – Cusanus at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, September 22–24, 2009, and published in Eriugena-Cusanus, ed. A. Kijewska et al. (Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011), pp. 83–103. 1 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, nn. 30 & 43. Nicholas seems to refer to a commentary on Dionysius’ Mystical Theology whose attribution to Eriugena is no longer accepted; see Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” p. 115. Nicholas’ Opera omnia will be cited as “h”, followed by volume and section (n.). 2 Nicholas of Cusa, Letter 26, in Vansteenberghe, “Correspondence,” pp. 150–151: “Ago gracias pro muneribus, et maxime pro munusculo precioso, nam complectitur omnia quam breviter; puto ex Iohanne Scoterigena, qui primo transtulit Dionysium tempore Karoli magni, in libro peri fiseas esse abstracta; memor sum me illa ibi ad litteram legisse.” Unpublished translation by Thomas Izbicki. 3 Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” p. 117, where he credits Jeauneau with proposing this identification. 4 Codex Cusanus 202 and Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 6734. See Marx, Verzeichnis, p. 188; and Lucentini, “Introduzione” to Honorius, Clavis physicae, pp. ix–xv. Lucentini edits Nicholas’ marginal glosses to the Paris manuscript in Platonismo medievale, pp. 77–109.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-2

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While we do not know if Nicholas read Periphyseon itself in its entirety, he certainly read its first Book with great care. For a manuscript in the British Library – Cod. Addit. 11035 – contains Book I with extensive marginal glosses, which Raymond Klibansky identified as written in Cusanus’ hand.5 Composed in the eleventh century at St. Eucharius (now St. Matthias) monastery in Trier, the manuscript is a miscellany. In addition to Periphyseon I – identified as “Liber phisiologiae Iohannis Scottigenae” (Figure 2.1) – the manuscript includes Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, excerpts from Prudentius, and what Klibansky describes as “a philosophical poem based on Periphyseon.”6 But it was Periphyseon that attracted readers eager to leave their own marks. For Cusanus was not the first to gloss this portion of the manuscript, which also contains comments and changes by two eleventh-century readers. With all these glosses and the poem on Periphyseon, this manuscript offers rich testimony to Eriugena’s legacy. Here I shall focus on Nicholas’ glosses. Because he marked up books, Cusanus was the kind of reader whom librarians dread but scholars cherish. For his marginalia allow us to read over his shoulder as he responds to passages which draw his attention. Josef Koch edited his marginal glosses to Cod. Addit. 11035, and because they occur in three inks throughout the manuscript, he suggests that Nicholas wrote them during “two or perhaps three” successive readings.7 Several glosses appear on nearly every leaf of Periphyseon. Cusanus signals points of interest with vertical lines alongside the text, occasionally draws a hand with a long finger pointing to a passage (51v, 70v, 81v, 84v), and often writes “nota” in the margins to highlight Eriugena’s key themes. For example, in the early leaves Nicholas emphasizes God’s unknowability and creation as theophany, when he writes, “nota quomodo deus exsuperat omnem intellectum” (12v, 446B), and “nota quomodo fit theofania” (15r, 449A). He carefully tracks John’s methods of affirmation and negation, as when he notes that “no name applies to God properly,” but also “in what way [the term] ‘superessential’ does apply to God properly” – namely, Eriugena’s claim that the divine nature “is not essence, but more than essence.”8 Similarly, Cusanus attends closely to the technical details Periphyseon’s arguments throughout Book

5 Raymond Klibansky, handwritten note placed at beginning of British Library, Cod. Addit. 11035 and dated 29 June 1935. According to Jeauneau, the codex is one of several manuscripts containing only Book I or Book I and part of Book II; he includes these texts with Paris, BNF, lat. 12964 as Version IV in his edition of Periphyseon (pp. LVII–LVIII, & LXXXIII–LXXXIV). But Cod. Addit. 11035 re-arranges Periphyseon 459D–472D as follows: 459D breaks off at f. 25r; 25r–29r contain 468C–472C; 29r-33r contain 464A–468C; 33r–37r contain 459D–464A; 472D resumes at 37r. 6 Klibansky, handwritten note. The poem focuses on Periphyseon’s first Book. In “Theodoric von Trier,” Silagi edits the poem and attributes it to Theodoric. Following Bischoff, he dates the manuscript to the second third of the eleventh century, and suggests that the poem was written earlier because Theodoric entered St. Eucharius in 1006 at an advanced age (p. 296). 7 Nicholas of Cusa, Marginalien, pp. 84 & 86. Koch’s edition of Nicholas’ glosses will be cited as “Marg” by leaf and the corresponding Periphyseon texts in PL 122. 8 Nicholas of Cusa, Marg.: “nota nullum nomen proprie deo convenire” (33r, 460A); “nota quare superessenciale deo proprie conuenit” (35v, 462C).

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Figure 2.1 British Library, Cod. Addit. 11035, f. 9r. Courtesy of the British Library Board.

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I, and also notes its sources: Dionysius, “Gregory the theologian” (Nazianzus), and Maximus’ Ambigua.9

Aristotle’s Categories, Place, and ‘God’ Much of Periphyseon’s first Book analyzes Aristotle’s categories in terms of their (in)applicability to God and the created universe. Like his contemporaries, Eriugena knew Aristotle’s treatise only through its Latin paraphrase, the Decem categoriae, and Porphyry’s Isagoge in Boethius’ translation and commentaries.10 Praising Aristotle as “the shrewdest among the Greeks . . . in discovering the way of distinguishing natural things,” John says that he included all created things “in ten universal genera, which he called the categories, that is, predicables.”11 Yet the categories have their limits, since Augustine writes that they fail utterly in theology, “the study of the divine essence.”12 Following both Porphyry’s Platonizing lead and Augustine’s caution, Eriugena uses the categories to develop Periphyseon’s themes of divine transcendence and immanence through nature’s divisions. The result is the most elaborate revision and expansion of the categories of the early Middle Ages. In the manuscript’s margins, Cusanus’ traces this development closely. He notes texts on specific categories and terms – ousia or essence, quantity, body, form, matter, the elements, etc. – and repeats basic points: “vsia solo intellectu cernitur” (58v, 495C), and all the categories are interrelated (concathenate, 28v, 472D). To illustrate John’s analysis of the categories and Cusanus’ glosses, let us look briefly at Periphyseon’s distinctive account of place. Place defines all finite creatures. As the Student says, “Place is simply the natural definition of each creature, within which it is wholly contained and beyond which it by no means extends; and from this it is given to understand that whether one calls it place or limit or term or definition or circumscription, one and the same thing is denoted, namely, the confine (ambitus) of a finite creature.”13 The Teacher states the correlation even more directly, saying that “place is definition and definition is place” – which Nicholas repeats in the margin (48v, 485B). Here place becomes not simply a mat-

9 For Dionysius, see Nicholas of Cusa, Marg. 34v, 461D and 84v, 522D; for Gregory, 17r, 451A; and for Maximus’ Ambigua, 77r, 415C. 10 See Marenbon, “John Scottus and the ‘Categoriae Decem’”. 11 For Eriugena’s Periphyseon, I shall quote Jeauneau’s edition of the Latin text and Sheldon-Williams’ English translation. I shall cite the column and section of PL 122 – as here: 463A, “Aristoteles, acutissimus apud Graecos, . . . naturalium rerum discretionis repertor, omnium rerum . . . in decem uniuersalibus generibus conclusit, quae decem kategorias (id est praedicamenta) vocauit.” 12 Periphyseon 463B: “theologiam, hoc est ad diuinae essentiae inuestigationem.” See Augustine, De Trinitate V, i.2–ii.3. Augustine does, however, affirm ousia or substance of God. 13 Periphyseon, 483C: “nihil esse locum . . . nisi naturalem uniuscuiusque creaturae diffinitionem, intra quam tota continetur et extra quam nullo modo extenditur. Ac per hoc datur intelligi, siue locum quis dixerit, siue finem, siue terminum, siue diffinitionem, siue circunscriptionem, unum id ipsumque significare, ambitum uidelicet finitae naturae.” See also 470C, 474B.

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ter of spatial boundaries, but a defining, intellectual act – a point that Cusanus also notes, “locus actio est intelligentis” (49r, 485D). In this sense, dialectic assigns the natures of things their “proper places” (486C). But who does this defining and assigning? The Student suggests that when an intellect understands and defines itself, it seems to be its own place. The Teacher, however, describes a hierarchy of intellects, where “every intellect except God is defined not by itself but by that which is above it.” As in Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy, each intellect defines what is below it but finds its own definition – and therefore its place – within the higher intellectual ranks. Predictably, this hierarchy culminates in God, “Who is called the Intellect of all things.”14 For this reason ‘place’ also functions as a divine name. Like all the categories, it cannot provide a proper name for God who is ‘superessential’ and beyond being. Yet it does provide a useful symbolic name. Hence, the Teacher says, “God is neither place nor time, and yet metaphorically He is called the Place and Time of all things because He is the Cause of all places and all times. For the definitions of all things subsist in Him as places, as it were.”15 And we may add, they subsist in God as the Intellect that defines all things. In Cusanus’ writings we find intriguing parallels to Periphyseon’s account of place and definition. Beierwaltes has discussed similarities to De non aliud, but notes a key difference from Eriugena. The non-aliud appeals to Nicholas because its basic formula – “non aliud est non aliud quam non aliud/not-other is not other than not-other” – defines itself as well as all others, and thus describes God’s absolute self-consciousness. Eriugena, however, denies not only self-definition to God (468D-469A), but self-knowledge as well; God cannot know what (quid) He is, because the divine nature is not a what, but rather nihil or nothing (589A-B). As Beierwaltes notes, when Nicholas read this passage in Honorius’ Clavis physicae, he was not pleased: in the margin he wrote, “male.”16 In this respect, Eriugena’s negative theology is more radical than Nicholas’. Another parallel occurs in Cusanus’ Sermon 216 for the feast of the Epiphany, 1456, on the Gospel text, “Ubi est qui natus est rex Iudeorum? Where is he that is born king of the Jews?”17 Here Nicholas plays a fugue on the terms “ubi/where” and “place”. The king of the Jews himself becomes “‘where’ or ‘place’ in an absolute sense.” For the “essence” from which all created things proceed “is the place which all things seek.” Nicholas therefore says that God, as beginning and end, “is not unfittingly said to be place” 14 Periphyseon 486A: “. . . deum, qui intellectus omnium dicitur . . . Si autem omnis intellectus praeter deum non a se sed a superiori se circumscribitur . . .” 15 Periphyseon 468B-C, emphasis added: “Non enim deus locus neque tempus est, attamen locus omnium translatiue dicitur et tempus, quia omnium locorum temporumque causa est. Omnium enim diffinitiones quasi quidam loci in ipso subsistent.” 16 Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” pp. 142–143. See Lucentini, Platonismo medievale, p. 96, #64; Nicholas also rejects Eriugena’s account of humanity’s division into sexes as a result of the Fall (p. 90, #36; p. 108, #115, #118, #119). 17 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo 216, h. XIX, pp. 82–96; Miller translates the Sermon as an “Appendix” to his article “Meister Eckhart,” pp. 115–125.

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for all created things.18 He then follows the Psalmist and Augustine in describing God as “the place of the soul,” which comes to rest in God alone. More specifically, “Jesus is the place where every movement of nature and grace finds rest.”19 Although this fugue’s first themes echo Eriugena, their immediate source is not Periphyseon, but Meister Eckhart’s Commentary on John.20 Once again, as with De non aliud, we must be careful not to tie this sermon too directly to Nicholas’ reading of Eriugena.21 For Eriugena, Aristotle’s categories are not the broadest, all-encompassing terms. Rather, he subsumes all ten categories under “two higher and more general genera, namely motion and rest.”22 Maximus and others had used stability and motion to distinguish between substance and accidents. But John divides the categories themselves into two groups: “Four are at rest, that is ousia, quantity, situation, place; while six are in motion, quality, relation, condition, time, action and passion.”23 Summarizing this division, Cusanus notes that “motion and rest encompass all predicables/motus et status comprehendunt omnia predicamenta” (25v). This reduction of the ten categories to two illustrates Eriugena’s logic of analysis, which moves from multiplicity to unity (472B). Following this logic, rest and motion themselves are not ultimate, but are “gathered into that most general genus which is usually called by the Greeks TO PAN, but by our writers Universitas.”24 Eriugena’s analysis leads still further, beyond cosmological generality and into God, where stability and motion coincide. This move too gets Cusanus’ attention. When John writes that God is “motus stabilis et status mobilis/motion at rest and rest in motion,” Nicholas comments, “Nota contraria de deo dicit” (18v, 452C). Eriugena links this coincidence with the dual etymology of the Greek term theos from “theoro, hoc est video” and “theo, hoc est curro” so that God both sees and runs through all things. When the Teacher discerns “one and the same meaning (intellectus)” in the two interpretations, Cusanus repeats his conclusion: “currere et videre in deo sunt idem/in God to run and to see are the same” (18v, 452D). The Student then wonders where God – who is everywhere – can run. The Teacher

18 Sermo 216, h XIX, n. 4: “Rex Iudeorum, qui natus est, est ubi sive locus absolute . . . Essentia igitur a qua omnia quae sunt exiverunt, est locus, ad quem omnia tendunt . . . Deus non inconvenienter potest dici locus”; trans. Miller, “Meister Eckhart,” p. 116. 19 Sermo 216, h XIX, n. 14: “Iesus itaque est locus, ubi omnis motus naturae et gratiae quiescit”; trans. Miller, “Meister Eckhart,” p. 119. 20 Eckhart, Expositio, pp. 168–186, nn. 199–222. 21 See Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” pp. 151–152. 22 Periphyseon 469B: “. . . decem genera praedicta aliis duobus superioribus generalioribusque comprehendi, motu scilicet atque statu.” See Plato, Sophist 255e ff. 23 Periphyseon 469A: “Horum decem generum quattuor in statu sunt, id est ousia, quantitas, situs, locus; sex uero in motu, qualitas, relatio, habitus, tempus, agere, pati.” See Gersh, Iamblichus to Eriugena, p. 247. 24 Periphyseon 469B: “. . . generalissimo colliguntur genere quod a Graecis TO PAN, a nostris uero uniuersitas appellari consueuit.”

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explains that the names ‘motion’ and ‘rest’ describe God not properly, but metaphorically. Hence, “God is called ‘He Who runs’ not because He runs beyond Himself, Who is always immutably at rest in Himself . . .; but because he makes all things run from a state of non-existence into one of existence.”25 In the margin, Cusanus duly notes, “quomodo dicitur deus currens” (18v). Nicholas also restates the dual etymology twice in his own work, De quaerendo Deum (1445), but with a difference. One passage reiterates Eriugena’s ontological emphasis on God’s presence as seeing and running throughout creation, but the other stresses the human need “to hasten by means of sight” in seeking God.26

Motion, God and Creation We could continue to list Nicholas’ marginal comments on brief passages and specific terms. However, it may be more helpful to follow his glosses to a longer portion of Periphyseon, since this will give us a fuller, more precise sense of both Eriugena’s argument and Nicholas’ responses to it. For our purposes, an especially revealing section of text occurs near the end of Book I’s long discussion of Aristotle’s categories, where Eriugena again discusses motion. In good Aristotelian fashion, he says that every motion requires a beginning and an end where it comes to rest (514B). But he then follows Maximus the Confessor, and describes God as the beginning and end of all natural motion. In the margin Nicholas repeats the Teacher’s summary: it is “God from Whom and through Whom and towards Whom all things are moved.”27 Yet as ‘anarchos’ and infinite, God has neither beginning nor end. Rather, as “the Limit of all things beyond which nothing proceeds,” God “does not admit any motion. For He has nowhere to move Himself, since He is the Fullness and Place and the Perfection and the Station and the Whole of all things” – claims which Cusanus also notes, and which the Teacher immediately qualifies by naming God as “More-than” fullness, place, etc., and exalting him beyond anything “which is said or understood of Him.”28 The Student agrees, only to have the Teacher insult him by asking if he is “so slow-witted as to attribute making or suffering (facere vel pati) to Him from Whom you exclude all motion when you have . . . admitted . . . that these two

25 Periphyseon 453B: “Deus ergo currens dicitur non quia extra se currat, qui semper in se ipso immutabiliter stat, qui omnia implet, sed quia omnia currere facit ex non existentibus in existentia.” 26 Nicholas of Cusa, De quaerendo Deum, h IV, n.19: “Currere igitur debet quaerens per visum . . .”; trans. Hopkins, Complete Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, vol. I, pp. 315, 320. See also De quaerendo Deum, h IV, n. 31; and Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” pp. 130–132. 27 Nicholas of Cusa, Marg.: “deus a quo, per quem et ad quem omnia mouentur” (78v, 515D). See Nicholas of Cusa, De quaerendo Deum, h IV, n. 31. 28 Periphyseon 516A: “. . . terminus omnium sit, ultra quem nihil progreditur. Nullum igitur motum recipit; non enim habet quo se moueat, dum plenitudo et locus et perfectio et statio et totum omnium sit, immo etiam plus quam plenitudo et perfectio, plus quam locus et statio . . . Plus enim est quam quod de se dicitur et intelligitur.”

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cannot occur save in those things which are in motion?”29 This question invokes Aristotle’s contrast between the categories of action and suffering, which receives or undergoes action. The Student is quick-witted enough to explain this distinction and to deny suffering to God. He replies, “By suffering I mean that which is opposed to making, that is, being made. For who would say or believe, still less understand, that God suffers being made when He is the Creator, not a creature?” The Student then clarifies the sense in which Periphyseon often describes God as being made or created. These descriptions are “obviously by a figure of speech. For He is held to be made in His creatures generally because in them He, without Whom they cannot be, is not only understood to be, but also to be their Essence.” Nicholas summarizes this in a marginal gloss, “quomodo deus dicitur fieri/how God is said to be made.” The Student then cites Dionysius for a common proof text, “The Being (Esse) of all things is the Divinity that is beyond being.”30 Here Cusanus notes “dionysius” in the margin, and inserts an inter-linear correction: ‘superesse/beyond being’ for the manuscript’s ‘semper esse/being always.’ In the margin Nicholas also writes, “deus est omnia/God is all things” (79r). Having clearly excluded suffering from God and explained his being-made, the Student still faces a dilemma concerning divine making. For he “cannot allow motion to God,” nor can he “deny Him making since he is the Maker of all things.”31 Yet making is inseparable from motion, so that God’s creative activity seems to require motion. The Teacher responds with what at first seems an irrelevant question, “Did God exist before He made all things?” When the Student says that God existed before creating, the Teacher concludes that “making was accidental to Him. For that which is not co-eternal and co-essential with Him is either some other thing outside Him or an accident to Him.”32 From this point on, the argument moves toward identifying God’s making with his being. Quickly recovering his philosophical legs, the Student says that if anything were outside or accidental to God, “then surely He is neither infinite nor simple” (Figure 2.2). Launching into an eloquent and densely paradoxical summary of Periphyseon’s central themes, the Student says that both faith and reason declare God to be “the Infinity of infinites and . . . the Simplicity of all simple things.” Integrating nature’s most basic divisions, he describes God as “the periphery (ambitus) of all

29 Periphyseon 516B: “. . . tantaene tarditatis es ut ei, a quo omnem motum abstrahis, facere uel pati tribuas cum ista duo indubitanter non nisi in his quibus motus inest fieri posse . . . dederis?” 30 Periphyseon 516BC: “Passionem dico quae opponitur facere, id est fieri. Quis enim dixerit aut crediderit, quanto magis intellexerit deum pati fieri, dum creator sit, non creatura? Dum enim . . . fieri deus dicitur, figurata quadam locutione dici manifestum est. Fieri siquidem aestimatur in creaturis suis uniuersaliter, dum in eis non solum intelligitur esse, sine quo esse non possunt, sed etiam eorum essentia sit. ‘Esse omnium est super esse diuinitas,’ ut sanctus ait Dionysius.” Citing Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy 4.1. 31 Periphyseon 516D-517A: “Motum deo dare non possum . . .; facere uero auferre non possum, cum sit factor omnium.” 32 Periphyseon 517A: “Num deus erat, priusquam omnia faceret? . . . . Accidens ergo ei erat facere. Nam quod ei coaeternum non est atque coessentiale aut aliud extra eum est aut ei accidens.”

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things that are and that are not, and that can be and that cannot be, and that appear to be either contrary or opposite to Him, not to say like and unlike: for He is the Likeness of like things and the Unlikeness of unlike things, the Oppositeness of opposites, the Contrariness of contraries.” This infinitely simple God harmonizes the apparently opposed and contrary features of the universe “into a single concord.”33 This portion of the text attracted Cusanus’ attention and praise. His marginal glosses repeat the key phrases “deus infinitas infinitorum” and “deus contrariorum contrarietas.” In addition, he marks off much of the text with a vertical line, draws a hand with its index finger pointing to the text, and comments, “nota istud singularissime/note this most extraordinar[il]y” (80r). Nicholas not only agrees with this passage, but clearly finds it exciting. The Teacher likewise affirms the Student’s account, but returns to his question: “God, then, did not exist before He made all things?” Reversing his first answer, the Student replies, “He did not exist. For if He did, the making of all things would be accidental to Him; and if making all things were accidental to Him, motion and time would be understood [to be] in Him, for He would move Himself to make things He had not yet made, and would be prior in time to His action.”34 At this point our manuscript seems corrupt (Figure 2.3).35 First, the scribe failed to mark the start of the Student’s reply with either punctuation or a sign identifying him as the speaker – a large Δ in the left margin – and thereby merged two sentences into one. Readers then attempted to correct the text. An erasure – likely of ‘nerat’ – yielded one reasonable sentence: Deus ergo [erasure] priusquam omnia faceret non erat./God, then, before He made all things, did not exist.” So far, so good. But an eleventh-century reader inscribed ‘non’ over the erasure to produce a puzzling sentence with a double negative: “Deus ergo non priusquam omnia faceret non erat.” A rough, literal translation might read, “God, then, not before he made all things, did not exist.” Another possibility could be: “Nor, then, before God made all things, did He not exist.” Either way, the double negatives affirm God’s existence prior to creation. To be consistent, this reader changed the following sentences by adding more negations, as follows: “If He [God] did not exist, the making of all things would not be accidental to Him; and if making all things

33 Periphyseon 517BC: “. . . profecto neque infinitus est neque simplex . . . Fatetur enim deum infinitum esse plusque quam infinitum – infinitas enim infinitorum est – et simplicem et plus quam simplicem; omnium enim simplicium simplicitas est . . . Ipse est ambitus omnium quae sunt et quae non sunt et quae esse possunt et quae esse non possunt et quae ei seu contraria seu opposita uidentur esse, ut non dicam similia et dissimilia. Est enim similium similtudo et dismilitudo dissimilium, oppositorum oppositio, contrariorum contrarietas. Haec enim omnia pulchra ineffabilique armonia in unam concordiam colligit atque componit.” 34 Periphyseon 517CD: “N. Deus ergo non erat, priusquam omnia faceret? / A. Non erat. Si enim esset, facere omnia ei accideret; et si ei accideret omnia facere, motus et tempus in eo intelligerentur. Moueret enim se ad facienda quae iam non fecerat, temporeque praecederet actionem suam.” Sheldon-Williams’ translation has been modified. 35 I thank Elaine Beretz and Wilhelm Dupré for their helpful comments on the manuscript’s puzzles at this point.

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Figure 2.2 British Library, Cod. Addit. 11035, f. 80r. Courtesy of the British Library Board.

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Figure 2.3 British Library, Cod. Addit. 11035, f. 80r, Detail. Courtesy of the British Library Board.

were not accidental to Him, motion and time would not be understood [to be] in Him. For He would not move Himself to make things. . . .”36 The disadvantage of these changes is that they reverse the entire argument, as Cusanus comments in the margin: “The corrector destroyed the text by adding negations. It [the text] means to show that God did not exist before He made all things, because God’s making and being are one.”37 Here Nicholas also captures the argument’s main point, which the Teacher and Student re-state when they affirm that divine making is co-eternal and co-essential with God. Further, since God is beyond number as the cause of all numbers, God and his making are not two things, but one. Hence, being and making coincide within God, as Cusanus’ gloss repeats, “Note: God’s making and being are the same.”38 The Teacher then explains, “When we hear that God makes all things we ought to understand nothing else than that God is in all things, that is, that He is the Essence of all things,” which receive their being “by participation of Him, the One, who alone by Himself truly is.”39 This interpretation leads back to the discussion of the categories when the Teacher says that “true reason completely excludes 36 Periphyseon 517C, Cod. Addit. 11035, f. 80r, as edited by Koch: “Si enim non esset, facere omnia ei non accideret, et si ei non accideret omnia facere, motus et tempus in eo non intelligerentur. Moueret enim se non ad ea facienda . . .” Emphasis added. 37 Nicholas of Cusa, Marg.: “corrector destruxit textum negaciones apponendo. Intendit ostendere deum prius non fuisse antequam omnia faceret, quia facere et ei [corrected by Koch: esse] dei vnum sunt” (80r, 517C). 38 Nicholas of Cusa, Marg.: “nota: facere et esse dei sunt idem” (80v, 518A). 39 Periphyseon 518A-B: “Cum ergo audimus deum omnia facere, nil aliud debemus intelligere quam deum in omnibus esse, hoc est essentiam omnium subsistere . . . Quodcunque autem in eo uere intelligitur participatione ipsius unius qui solus per se ipsum uere est accipit.”

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the category of making from the Divine Nature,” and limits it to things that change in time. Having tied making to motion, the Student then draws the discussion of Aristotle’s categories to a close, saying, “Now at last I understand without doubt that no category applies to God.”40 Now that we have followed this long stretch of the manuscript, what does it tell us about Periphyseon’s vision and argument? And about Cusanus’ reading? First, Eriugena. As early as De praedestinatione, his focus on divine simplicity led to strong, controversial conclusions – specifically, to affirming that God’s undivided will intends all humanity for salvation. In the texts we have surveyed, this focus yields Periphyseon’s insistence on God’s radical transcendence and unknowability “beyond being.” Yet it also yields John’s distinctive view of creation as theophany, as divine self-disclosure where God becomes – in Dionysius’ terms – the “essence of all things.” As we have seen, the infinitely simple God makes and is made in all things – and this making and being-made are one. Books II and III of Periphyseon develop this pattern into a doctrine of divine self-creation, where God becomes the nothing/nihil from which all things are made.41 Riccati and Beierwaltes have discussed Cusanus’ attraction to Eriugena’s vision, and how he made it his own. Nicholas emphasizes God’s infinite simplicity and transcendence, which he expresses in paradoxical terms identical to Eriugena’s – “oppositio oppositorum.” Although Nicholas attributes this phrase to Dionysius, Beierwaltes suggests that Cusanus’ phrasing and context are closer to Periphyseon.42 For both thinkers, the phrase marks the divine nature as beyond all contrast and opposition, but also as the creative ground or source for finite distinctions and contrasts. Nicholas develops this paradox through many variations and images, including the coincidence of opposites, the non-aliud, and De visione Dei’s wall of paradise. Yet he expounded it most often through Thierry of Chartres’s polarity of complicatio and explicatio – enfolding and unfolding. Riccati scarcely exaggerates when he says “Toute l’oeuvre du Cusain n’est qu’une meditation sur le couple ‘complicatio-explicatio’.”43 For example, when Wenck complained that Nicholas had abolished the distinction between God and creatures, Cusanus replied that Wenck had missed this polarity, and therefore “did not understand that in the mode of enfolding (complicative) [God] is all things but that in the mode of unfolding (explicative) He is not any of these things.”44 For as enfolded within God, all things are God precisely as divine unity; as unfolded in creation, they emerge in 40 Periphyseon 518B: “N. Videsne ergo quemadmodum uera ratio kategoriam faciendi ex natura diuina penitus segregat . . .? / A. Et iam nunc nullam kategoriam in deum cadere incunctanter intelligo.” 41 See Duclow, “Divine Nothingness.” 42 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, n. 21, citing Dionysius, On the Divine Names V, 10; and Beierwaltes, “Deus Oppositio Oppositorum,” p. 184. 43 Riccati, “Processio” et “Explicatio”, p. 115. See also McTighe, “Meaning of the Couple ‘Complicatio-Explicatio’,” pp. 206–214. 44 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, n. 46: “non intelligit, quomodo est complicative omnia et nihil omnia explicative”; trans. Hopkins, vol. I, p. 482. See also Apologia, h II, n.28.

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all their multiplicity and contrasts. Moreover, this unfolding marks a theophany, as the divine nature shines forth in all created things. With Eriugena and Dionysius, Nicholas thus affirms that “God is the essence of all things” in a twofold sense: as their transcendent, enfolding source, and as manifest in their unfolding diversity and multiplicity.

Placing Eriugena within Cusanus’ Quest By tracing some of Cusanus’ glosses in the British Library’s manuscript, we have found him to be a shrewd, sympathetic and careful reader of Periphyseon’s first Book. Along with Nicholas’ other books that survive in Kues, Brussels and London, the manuscript and its glosses testify to his long career as a voracious book collector and reader. For Nicholas was a man of many books, whose manuscripts, correspondence, speculative works and sermons tell us a great deal about what he read, and when and how he read it. Here the very extent and variety of evidence raise a final question for us: What place does Periphyseon occupy within Cusanus’ wide-ranging reading and writing? He cites Eriugena by name only three times, unlike his frequent references to Dionysius, Proclus and others. Yet one citation in the Apologia doctae ignorantiae may clarify Eriugena’s role among Nicholas’ sources. For he places Periphyseon in interesting company alongside not only Dionysius’ writings, but also Marius Victorinus’ Ad Candidum Arrianum, the Clavis Physicae, David of Dinant’s books, and Berthold of Moosburg’s commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology.45 Nicholas highlights the issues of reading and judgment that these difficult texts raise. Recognizing that they are easily misunderstood, he proposes light censorship, and recommends that they be withheld from “those with weak mental eyes” who, failing to understand “views to which they are unaccustomed,” condemn their authors as “ignorant and erring.”46 Such misreading had indeed been the fate of Periphyseon, which Pope Honorius III in 1225 condemned as “swarming with worms of heretical perversity”47 – a judgment which I suspect few of us today would share. And since the Apologia replies to the Heidelberg theologian Johannes Wenck’s indictment of De docta ignorantia for heresy, Nicholas may have wished that he had concealed it too from weakeyed critics. The Apologia’s list includes a chain of readers and authors whose works form a major strand within the medieval Christian Neoplatonic tradition. For Eriugena’s Periphyseon recycled and reshaped the entire Dionysian corpus into a new

45 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, n. 43. Cusanus discusses David of Dinant in De non aliud (Acerca de lo no-otro), ch. 17, n. 81. Victorinus develops a dialectic of modes of being and not-being which likely influenced Eriugena; see Piemonte, “L’Expression ‘Quae sunt et quae non sunt’.” 46 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, n. 43: “Sunt alii, qui illos videntes sapientes putant ignorantes et errantes, quando in eis legunt eis insolita . . .”; trans. Hopkins, vol. I, p. 480. 47 Cited by Beierwaltes, “Theophanie,” p. 105.

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systematic whole. Honorius’ Clavis physicae not only edited and adapted major portions of Periphyseon, but permitted it to pass under the ecclesiastical radar after its condemnation. In the fourteenth century the Dominican Berthold read the Clavis, which influenced his monumental Expositio of Proclus’ Elements of Theology.48 By a remarkable coincidence, Cusanus not only knew Berthold’s commentary, but also read and glossed the same manuscript of the Clavis that the Dominican had used.49 In this way and by listing all these works, Nicholas places himself within this chain as their reader and their authors’ kindred spirit. Yet the Apologia’s list remains flexible and incomplete, since it includes works by Marius Victorinus and David of Dinant that fit less directly into the Dionysian tradition, and Nicholas expands it by adding “other such books” that must be kept from weak-eyed readers. Among the latter, works by two authors seem especially prominent: Meister Eckhart and Proclus. The Apologia defends Eckhart against Johannes Wenck, who aimed to tar De docta ignorantia with the brush of heresy by associating it with his condemned teachings, and Nicholas suggests restricting Eckhart’s books to insightful readers who “find in them many subtle and useful things.”50 And we now know that Proclus provided a key source for Dionysius, as well as the subject for Berthold’s commentary. Moreover, Nicholas twice commissioned translations of Proclus’ Theologia platonis,51 and we have his annotated manuscripts of works by both Eckhart and Proclus.52 However, we do not have such clear, direct evidence for all of Cusanus’ reading. For example, although Thierry of Chartres supplied Nicholas with the complicatio-explicatio polarity, scholars have found no manuscripts of his works with Cusan connections.53 Hence, while Nicholas read Periphyseon with care and sympathy, it influenced his own writing as a part of a wider Platonizing tradition. Nicholas self-consciously places his own reading and thinking within this tradition and the broader history of philosophy in two late works, De non aliud and De

48 See Lucentini, Platonismo medievale, pp. 80–81. 49 Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 6734. On Cusanus and Berthold, see Flasch, “Einleitung” to Berthold von Moosburg, Expositio, vol. I, pp. XXXV–XXXVIII. 50 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, h II, n. 36: “intelligentes multa subtilia et utilia in ipsis reperiant”; trans. Hopkins, vol. I, p. 477. 51 On Cusanus’ requests to translate Proclus’ Theologia Platonis, see Senger in Nicholas of Cusa, Exzerpte und Randnoten, vol. 2.1, pp. 13 & 16–17. In 1439 Nicholas wrote that he gave a manuscript of the work to AmbrosiusTraversari for translation; but Traversari died shortly thereafter. Cusanus later approached Pietro Balbi, who completed the translation in 1461/62; Nicholas’ De non aliud (Acera de lo no-otre, ch. 1, n. 1) mentions it as a work in progress. 52 Codex Cusanus 21 contains Eckhart’s Latin works with Nicholas’ marginalia. See Marx, Verzeichnis, pp. 15–17; Frost, Nikolaus von Kues und Meister Eckhart; and Duclow, “Cusa in the Margins.” On Nicholas’ Proclus manuscripts and marginalia, see Senger in Nicholas of Cusa, Exzerpte und Randnoten, vol. 2.1, pp. 29–39; Senger edits the marginalia to the Theologia Platonis and Elementatio theologica. Bormann edits Cusanus’ marginalia to the Expositio in Parmenidem Platonis in Exzerpte und Randonten, vol. 2.2. 53 On Cusanus and the Chartrian tradition, see David Albertson, Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres, pp. 169–276.

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venatione sapientiae. De non aliud (1462) takes the form of a conversation among four friends who speak from their personal engagement with specific works and thinkers.54 Nicholas portrays himself as a student of Dionysius, and contributes a long dossier of texts from the Corpus Areopagiticum in Ambrosius Traversari’s recent translation.55 He is joined by the abbot John Andrea Vigevius who has worked with Plato’s Parmenides and Proclus’ commentary on it, and Peter Balbus who has translated Proclus’ Theology of Plato at Cusanus’ request. Ferdinand Matim, Nicholas’ physician, broadens the conversation with his expertise in Aristotle. The speakers are not simply intellectual antiquarians, but rather apply their ancient sources to a novel speculative purpose: to probe Cusanus’ discovery of ‘non-aliud’ as a self-defining concept which clarifies major issues of knowledge, metaphysics and theology. As we might expect, Nicholas’ interlocutors confirm the value of his discovery and claim that their ancient sources would agree. Ferdinand even says that if Aristotle had known the non-aliud, “he would have spared us and himself great labor” because there would have been no need to develop his “elaborate logic or difficult art of definition.”56 Although Cusanus and his friends may be too optimistic about the ancients’ agreement with the Cardinal’s novel program, their dialogue becomes a Renaissance symposium that brings traditional sources to life in a new speculative moment. De venatione sapientiae (1463) extends Cusanus’ historical horizon to the whole of ancient philosophy. Feeling the weight of his age at 62, he sought to review his speculative career “for posterity.” Energized by reading Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Philosophers, he decided to link his own “hunts for wisdom” to those of the ancient Greeks.57 The result is an intellectual autobiography which tracks Cusanus’ development and critically surveys its connections with ancient philosophy. While Plato, Proclus and Dionysius figure prominently in this story, they are joined by Thales and Parmenides, Pythagoreans and Stoics. Aristotle provides the work’s consistent theme, when Nicholas announces that all philosophers agree on a principle from his Physics: “quod impossibile fieri not fit” – “what cannot become, does not come to be,” or “what is impossible to be made is not made.”58 In light of this principle, Nicholas explores the dynamics of becoming and creation through the “regions” of eternity, time and the perpetual, and in

54 Nicholas of Cusa, Non aliud (Acerca de lo no-otro), ch. 1, n. 1. 55 Non aliud (Acerca de lo no-otro), ch. 14, nn. 54–71. 56 Non aliud (Acerca de lono-otro), ch. 19, n. 86: “magno quidem se et nos labore liberasset . . . Neque enim laboriosa logica nec difficili definiendi arte opus habuisset”; trans. Hopkins, vol. II, p. 1149. 57 Nicholas of Cusa, De venatione sapientiae, h. vol. XII, ch. 1, n. 1. Nicholas read and glossed a copy of De philosophorum vitis in Ambrosius Traversari’s translation; today the manuscript is in the British Library, Cod. Harl. 1347. See Institut für Cusanus-Forschung, “Kritisches Verzeichnis,” pp. 25–32. 58 De venatione sapientiae, h XII, ch. 2, n. 6; citing Aristotle, Physics VIII, 9, 265a, 19. See also Aristotle, De caelo I, 7, 274b, 13ff. Nicholas transforms Aristotle’s principle into an infinitive which he uses as a noun: ‘posse-fieri’ or the ‘capacity or possibility to become or be made,’ in contrast to ‘posse-facere’ or the ‘possibility or power to make.’

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ten “fields” including learned ignorance, Possest, Non-aliud, unity and equality. Throughout the work, he takes a more critical stance toward other thinkers than in De non aliud, as he occasionally favors Plato over Aristotle, and criticizes specific views of Proclus and others.59 In this personal review of his speculative career and ancient predecessors, Nicholas displays a historical self-awareness uncommon among fifteenth-century thinkers. As Pauline Watts comments, “What Cusanus himself is doing in the De venatione sapientiae, giving his own individual interpretation of the interrelationships of the positions of various important pagan and Christian philosophers and theologians and of the historical developments they produce, is itself an enactment of his whole conception of the historical nature of philosophy and theology.”60 In conclusion, since Cusanus makes no mention of Eriugena’s Periphyseon in these late works, it would seem to occupy an obscure place in the background of his speculative and historical vision. Yet as we have seen, that place is neither entirely hidden nor unimportant. For when Cusanus does mention Eriugena in his Apologia and letters, and densely glosses his manuscripts of Periphyseon’s first Book and Honorius’ Clavis physicae, he maps out John’s place within his lifetime of book collecting and reading. From the perspective of Eriugenian studies, that modest place is of crucial importance. For as Beierwaltes has commented, “The thought of Eriugena found in Cusanus its most intense and most appropriate reception from the 12th century until German Idealism.”61 The manuscript evidence for that reception also justifies efforts to compare Nicholas and John’s shared themes and strategies. Following the lead of Riccati, Beierwaltes and others, we may therefore explore parallels between Periphyseon and Nicholas’ works. As we do so, we shall find further evidence that Nicholas is an active reader who doesn’t stop at marginal comments, but rethinks and adapts what he reads into his own works in new, creative ways. Indeed, this revision and adaptation complete the reception of Eriugena that Beierwaltes highlights. What, then, might be the moral of this story? Let us hope that we may read Eriugena and Cusanus with the kind of care, insight, and sense of speculative adventure that the Cardinal himself displayed in reading and rethinking Periphyseon. In this way, we may mark out our own places – obscure, to be sure – within the living tradition of inquiry to which Eriugena and Cusanus give such abundant witness.

59 While Aristotle mistakenly denies a beginning (initium) to the posse-fieri, Plato correctly describes time as “imaginem sempiterni” (De venatione sapientiae, h XII, ch. 9, n. 26). Proclus exerts “supervacuos labores” by placing multiple gods between the one God and the posse-fieri (ch. 21, n. 62). 60 Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus, p. 209. 61 Beierwaltes, “Cusanus and Eriugena,” p. 152; and Beierwaltes, “Theophanie,” p. 108. See also David Albertson, “Echoes of Eriugena in Renaissance Philosophy,” pp. 401–413 on Cusanus.

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Bibliography Albertson, David. Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). ———. “Echoes of Eriugena in Renaissance Philosophy: Negation, Theophany, and Anthropology,” in A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena, ed. Adrian Guiu (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 386–418. Beierwaltes, Werner. “Deus Oppositio Oppositorum (Nicolaus Cusanus, De visione dei. XIII),” Salzburger Jahrbuch für Philosophie 8 (1964): 175–185. ———. “Cusanus and Eriugena,” Dionysius 13 (December, 1989): 115–152. ———. “Theophanie: Nicolaus Cusanus und Johannes Scottus Eriugena,” in Nikolaus von Kues in der Geschichte des Platonismus, ed. Klaus Reinhardt & Harald Schwaetzer (Regensburg: Roderer, 2007), pp. 103–133. Berthold von Moosburg. Expositio Super Elementationem Theologicam Procli, vol. I, edited by M. R. Pagnoni-Sturlese, L. Sturlese, & “Einleitung” by K. Flasch (Hamburg: Meiner, 1984). Duclow, Donald F. “Divine Nothingness and Self-Creation in John Scottus Eriugena,” in Duclow, Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006), pp. 23–39. ———. “Nicholas of Cusa in the Margins of Meister Eckhart: Codex Cusanus 21,” in Masters of Learned Ignorance, pp. 293–305. Eckhart. Expositio sancti Evangelii secundum Iohannem, edited by Karl Christ et al., in the critical edition of Meister Eckhart’s Lateinischen Werke, vol. III (Stuttgart & Berlin: Kohlhammer, 1994). Eriugena. Periphyseon (The Division of Nature), translated by I. P. Sheldon-Williams, revised by John J. O’Meara (Montreal: Bellarmin & Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987). ———. Iohannis Scotti seu Eriugenae Periphyseon, Liber Primus, edited by Édouard Jeauneau (CCCM 161; Turnhout: Brepols, 1996). Frost, Stefanie. Nikolaus von Kues und Meister Eckhart: Rezeption im Spiegel der Marginalien zum Opus tripartitum Meister Eckharts (Münster: Aschendorff, 2005). Gersh, Stephen. From Iamblichus to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Honorius Augustodunensis. Clavis physicae, edited & “Introduzione” by Paolo Lucentini (Rome: Edizione di Storia e Letteratura, 1974). Institut für Cusanus-Forschung. “Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues,” Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 3 (1963): 16–100; with Josef Koch’s edition of Nicholas’ marginalia to Cod. Addit. 11035, pp. 84–100. Lucentini, Paolo. Platonismo medievale: Contributi per la storia dell’Eriugenismo (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1979; revised ed. 1980). Marenbon, John. “John Scottus and the ‘Categoriae Decem’,” in Eriugena: Studien zur seinen Quellen, ed. W. Beierwaltes (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1980), pp. 117–134. Marx, J. Verzeichnis der Handschriften-Sammlung des Hospital zu Cues (Trier: Hospital zu Cues, 1905). McTighe, Thomas P. “The Meaning of the Couple ‘Complicatio-Explicatio’ in the Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 32 (1958): 206–214.

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Miller, Clyde Lee. “Meister Eckhart in Nicholas of Cusa’s 1456 Sermon: Ubi est qui natus est rex Iudeorum?” in Nicholas of Cusa and His Age: Intellect and Spirituality, ed. T. M. Izbicki & C. M. Bellitto (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 105–125. Nicholas of Cusa. Opera omnia iussu et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Heidelbergiensis (Leipzig & Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1932–2010. Cited as ‘h”). ———. Marginalien to Cod. Addit. 11035, ed. Josef Koch, in Institut für CusanusForschung, “Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues” (listed above), pp. 84–100. ———. Die Exzerpte und Randnoten des Nikolaus von Kues zu den lateinischen Übersetzungen der Proklos-Schriften, 2 vol., ed. Hans Gerhard Senger & Karl Bormann, Cusanus-Texte III: Marginalien (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1986). ———. Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols., translated by Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001). ———. Acerca de lo no-otro o de la definición que todo define, critical edition & Spanish translation of De non aliud, edited by Claudia D’Amico et al., translated by Jorge M. Machetta (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2008). Piemonte, Gustavo. “L’Expression ‘Quae sunt et quae non sunt’: Jean Scot et Marius Victorinus,” in Jean Scot écrivain, ed. G.-H. Allard (Montreal: Bellarmin & Paris: Vrin, 1986), pp. 81–113. Riccati, Carlo. “Processio” et “Explicatio”: La doctrine de la création chez Jean Scot et Nicolas de Cues (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983). Silagi, Gabriel. “Theodoric von Trier, Physica,” Aeuvum 79 (2005): 293–350. Vansteenberghe, Edmond, ed. “Correspondence de Nicolas de Cues avec Gaspard Aindorffer et Bernard de Waging,” in Vansteenberghe, Autour de la docte ignorance, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 14, n. 2–4 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlag, 1915), pp. 107–162. Watts, Pauline Moffitt. Nicolaus Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man (Leiden: Brill, 1982).

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3 M E I S T E R E C K H A RT Preaching the Annunciation*

“If Mary had not first borne God spiritually, he would never have been born of her physically.” Eckhart, Sermon 22

The Annunciation is among the most familiar of all Christian dramas. In a stained glass panel we see an angel addressing the Virgin Mary and bearing a scroll with the greeting, “Ave, gratia plena/Hail, full of grace.” (Figure 3.1). Not only does this panel glowingly illustrate the scene, but we can also count Meister Eckhart among its viewers. For the panel is at the base of a large lancet window from the church of the Dominican community in Cologne,1 where Eckhart lived from 1323/24 to 1327.2 Yet if this panel’s image is familiar, what Eckhart saw in it and the Gospel narrative that it illustrates is another matter. Here we shall explore two Middle High German sermons that he preached on Luke’s Annunciation narrative: Sermons 22 and 38.3 Luke’s verses appear in the Dominican lectionary for the Annunciation * This article develops papers from two conference sessions: one organized by the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society at Kalamazoo (2011), and the other at Villanova University’s Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance conference (2018). 1 Albert the Great and Siegfried of Westerburg, archbishop of Cologne, donated the window, which was installed in the Dominican church’s new choir c. 1280. Today it is in the St. Stephen Chapel of Cologne Cathedral, where it is known as the “Later Bible Window (Jüngere Bibelfenster).” The Dominican Church was demolished in 1804, and “some of its glass – including the Later Bible window – came into the possession of the cathedral in 1823” (website of Cologne Cathedral, www. koelner-dom.de/fenster/juengeres-bibelfenster-um-1280, accessed December 28, 2022). See Herbert Rode (1974), pp. 83–91. The window has been heavily restored, and five of its 22 panels are nineteenth-century replacements. But the medallion of the Annunciation panel survives “in exquisite condition” (Rode, p. 86). Above the angel and Virgin appear the prophets Isaiah and Hosea with identifying scrolls. 2 On Eckhart’s biography, see McGinn (2001), pp. 2–19; and Senner (2013), especially 38ff on his years in Cologne. 3 The critical edition of Eckhart’s works is Eckhart (1936–); the German works will be cited as DW and the Latin Works as LW. Predigt 22 appears in DW 1, pp. 371–389; and Predigt 38 in DW 2,

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-3

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Figure 3.1 The Annunciation. Detail of the “Jűngere Bibelfenster,” Cologne Cathedral. . . .

(March 25) and two Marian liturgies in Advent. Because Sermon 22 describes its occasion in unusual detail, most scholars agree that it was preached at the Cistercian convent of St. Mariengarten in Cologne, and Joachim Theisen dates it to December 7 or 14, 1325 for the Mass honoring Mary on a Saturday in Advent.4 As we shall see, its use of liturgical texts for the Christmas season confirms that it is an Advent sermon looking ahead to Christmas. However, the context for Sermon 38 – like most of Eckhart’s preaching – is harder to pin down. Its precise analysis of Luke’s verses indicates that it was preached on the feast of the Annunciation,5 and it is likely an earlier sermon, since it appears in the Paradisus anime intelligentis,

pp. 224–245. I shall cite M. O’C. Walshe’s translations of the German works in Eckhart (2009) as ‘Walshe’; for Pr. 22, see Walshe, pp. 279–284; for Pr. 38, see Walshe, pp. 177–182. The sermons will be cited as Pr. 22 and Pr. 38, followed by pages in DW and in Walshe’s translation. A third, brief sermon on the Annunciation is Pr. 78, DW 3, pp. 347–357; Walshe, pp. 175–176. 4 Theisen (1990), p. 413. Sermon 22 is among several sermons thought to have been preached in Cologne, but Kurt Ruh argued that Eckhart preached these sermons in Strasbourg – a claim that has been criticized. See Ruh (1999), pp. 42–46; Senner (2013), pp. 40–41; and Witte (2008), pp. 83–88. 5 Theisen (1990), p. 222.

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a collection of German sermons associated with the Dominican house in Erfurt, where Eckhart served as prior 1305–1311.6 Yet in both sermons, Eckhart merges the Annunciation with one of his favorite themes: the birth of the divine Word in the human soul.7 His rationale is clear: “I say that if Mary had not first borne God spiritually, he would never have been born of her physically.”8 She thus becomes the model for the Word’s birth in “every good soul that desires God.”9 This birth becomes the focus of both sermons as Eckhart sets aside literal, historical commentary to proclaim a mystical or anagogical message calling his hearers to receive and bear Christ, the divine Word, within their own souls and lives. I shall begin with Sermon 38, which follows Luke’s Annunciation narrative more closely than Sermon 22 and presents a more systematic account of the Word’s birth in the soul. I shall then turn to Sermon 22 where Eckhart highlights love’s key role in the Annunciation and birthing the Word in the soul.

Sermon 38 Eckhart begins with the day’s Gospel text: “At that time the angel Gabriel was sent by God: ‘Ave, full of grace, the Lord is with you’” (Lk 1:26, 28). This citation, we may note, severely edits the narrative: the Gospel’s timing “in the sixth month” becomes “at that time”; and by skipping verse 27, the preacher omits the place of Nazareth in Galilee and the name of Mary, the virgin betrothed to Joseph of the house of David. Although Eckhart goes on to mention the time as “‘in the sixth month,’ when John the Baptist was in his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:36), this is the sermon’s only nod toward a literal, historical reading of the text. Rather, following his usual method, he fragments the text and glosses each word or phrase in order to proclaim a theological and mystical theme: “that God may be born in the soul and the soul be born in God.”10 He announces this theme’s centrality in unmistakable terms. Not only does the mutual birthing of God and the soul underlie all Christian prayer and practice, it is also the reason why the Incarnation takes place, “the reason why all the Scriptures were written, the reason why God created the world and all angelic natures.” Sermon 38 will therefore proclaim this message through every fragment and shard of Luke’s brief Annunciation text.

6 The work’s two manuscripts (c. 1340) contain 64 sermons, and attribute 31 to Eckhart; Sermon 38 is the collection’s fourth sermon. See Steer (2009), pp. 25–31, 36, and 53. 7 For Hugo Rahner, Eckhart’s contribution was not the content of his teaching on God’s birth in the soul, but “die geniale Form, die grossartige Eintönigkeit, mit der er die Lehre von der Gotttesgeburt zum unermüdlich umkreisten Mittelpunk seines mystischen Systems macht”; Rahner (1964), pp. 80–81; on Eckhart’s sources, see pp. 80–87. 8 Pr. 22, 375; 279. See also Pr. 78, DW 3, 351–352; 211. Regarding this claim, Quint’s notes (DW 1, 375–376, and DW 3, 352) cite Leo the Great, Sermo 1 In nativitate domini (PL 54, 191), and Augustine, Sermo 215, n. 4: “Christum prius mente quam ventre concipiens” (PL 38, 1074). 9 Pr. 22, 375; 279. See Jäger (2008), pp. 174–175. 10 Pr. 38, 227–228; 177.

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Glossing the first phrase – “at that time” – Eckhart turns to the human mind and speech. He says, “When a word is first conceived in my intellect (vernunft), it is so pure and subtle that it is a true word,” which then “takes shape in my thought (gedanke)” before it “is spoken out loud by my mouth.” Similarly, “the Eternal Word is spoken inwardly, in the heart of the soul, . . . in the intellect, and therein the birth takes place.”11 Having identified the birth’s place with this analogy, the preacher then asks about its timing and cites Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “In the fullness of time God sent His Son.”12 But what is this “fullness of time”? Eckhart gives two answers. One follows Augustine, who says that it occurs when “there is no more time,” because “the day is full when there is no more day.”13 This reading confirms the preacher’s claim that both God and the soul – or at least the intellect, its highest power – are beyond time. Hence, he says, “For God to be born in the soul, all time must have dropped away from her, or she must have dropped away from time with will or desire.” In a paradox typical of Eckhart, we enter time’s fullness not by clinging to it, but by cutting ourselves loose from it. His second answer, however, suggests fullness more directly. He says, “If anyone had the skill and the power to gather up time and all that has happened in six thousand years or that will happen till the end of time, into one present Now, that would be the ‘fullness of time’.”14 This inclusive embrace marks “the Now of eternity” – that is, God’s own presence, wherein He “is making the world just as on the first day, when he created the world. Here God is rich and this is the kingdom of God.” As the soul enters this kingdom, it comes to know as God knows. For here “the soul knows all things in God new and fresh and present and as joyous as I have them now present to me.”15 In this sense, we encounter the fullness of time here and now. As Eckhart next discusses the phrase, “the angel was sent,” he notes how many angels there are. Their multitude, he says, is “beyond all numbering” and human thought. This mention of number opens a brief excursus on conceiving “distinctions without number and quantity.” From this point of view, “Even if there were a hundred Persons in the Godhead, a man . . . would perceive them only as one God.”16 Here the preacher cannot resist mocking the view of the Trinity held by “some priests . . . [who] take three in the sense of three cows or three stones,” whereas anyone who “can conceive of distinction in God without number or quantity, knows that three Persons are a single God.” Eckhart then affirms his Dominican brother Thomas Aquinas’ teaching that “each angel has a complete nature”

11 Pr. 38, 229–230; 177; emphasis added. 12 Pr. 38, 230; 177; citing Gal 4:4. See also Pr. 11, DW 1, 177–180; Walshe, 347; Pr. 24, DW 1, 422–433; Walshe, 450; and Largier (1989), pp. 127–134. 13 Pr. 38, 230; 177; citing Augustine, Enarrationes in Ps. 72, n. 16; PL 36, 922. 14 Pr. 38, 231; 178. 15 Pr. 38, 231–232; 178, translation modified. Similarly, the soul embraces all space, so that in the intellect, “I am as near to a place a thousand miles away across the sea as to the spot where I am standing now” (Pr. 38, 233; 178). 16 Pr. 38, 234; 178.

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and that their very multitude proclaims God to be “the Lord God of hosts.”17 We finally come to the point in question, the sending of the angel. For “all this multitude of angels . . . cooperate and help when God is born in the soul.” Yet “God performs this birth alone,”18 since the angels serve less as midwives than as cheerleaders, who take “pleasure and joy and delight in the birth, but do not act.” Eckhart’s gloss on the angel’s name begins by asserting that “he was no more called Gabriel than Conrad.” For angels seem to be like God and the human soul who in themselves are nameless, but are named for their actions. In this respect, they are like carpenters who take their name from their craft. This angel’s name, however, derives not from what he himself does, but “from the work of which he was the messenger, for Gabriel means ‘power (kraft)’. In this birth God works powerfully or exerts power.”19 Here the preacher turns to nature and biology, and asks, “What is the object of all the power of nature?” His answer, “daz sie sich selben würken wil” – literally, “to produce itself” or in this context to reproduce or propagate itself. Eckhart’s example makes this clear when he says, “The nature of my father wanted to reproduce a father in his nature.”20 But since this was not possible, it “produced one that was as like (glîchest) as possible – a son.” He follows this Aristotelian biology further by saying that when a father’s nature “is still less strong, or some other accident occurs, then it produces a human being still less like itself” – namely, a daughter. We shall not linger over the sexist assumptions of this biology, since these are well-known and justly derided. Rather, let us note that this scheme begins with a desire for perfect self-reproduction – like cloning or live 3D printing – and recognizes that weakening natural powers produce increasingly distinct, “unlike” self-copies. The preacher’s point emerges when he contrasts this biological scheme with divine begetting. For “in God . . . there is a plenitude of power, therefore in His birth he produces His like (würket er sîn glîch in sîner geburt). All that God is in power, truth and wisdom, He bears altogether in the soul.”21 Hence, as Eckhart often proclaims – and as his accusers and Pope John XXII noted with alarm – the Father’s begetting of the divine Son occurs within the human soul, which in turn begets God and becomes God. This mutual birthing is indeed our sermon’s main point, and we shall see Sermon 22 proclaim it in dramatic detail. Here Eckhart explains it by playing on the term ‘glîch’, which means both equal and like or similar. Both meanings inform his biological analogy, where a human father produces similar and unequal likenesses, while divine power produces its complete and ‘equal’ likeness within the soul. 17 Pr. 38, 235; 178–179. In scholastic terms, every angel is a distinct species; see Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, I, q. 50, a. 4, ad 4. Eckhart’s brief Sermon 78 on Luke 1:26 – “An angel was sent from God” – discusses the Church Fathers’ accounts of angels. It says that “the soul must be like an angel . . . if the Son is to be sent to her and born in her,” but does not develop this theme (Pr. 78, DW 3, 351–357; Walshe, 176). 18 Pr. 38, 236; 179. 19 Pr. 38, 237–238; 179. 20 Pr. 38, 238; 179. 21 Pr. 38, 328; 179–180.

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Eckhart knows how controversial his claims are, and calls upon Augustine for support. Interestingly, this appeal also gives the sermon an affective turn, as the preacher shifts his focus to love. For Augustine tells us that “the soul grows to be like (glîch) what she loves. If she loves earthly things, she becomes earthly.” Since love yields likeness, Eckhart then asks the obvious question: “If she [the soul] loves God, does she then become God? If I said that, it would sound heretical to those whose intelligence is weak and cannot understand it.”22 But Eckhart confirms the point by noting Augustine’s agreement and his citation of Psalm 82, “I have said that you are gods!” (Ps 82:6) Thus sanctioned by authority, the lesson is clear: “Never was there born anything so akin, so like (glîch), so one with God as the soul becomes at this birth.”23 When this likeness fails, when it falls short of equality, the fault lies with us, not God. For “that a carpenter is unable to build a fine house out of worm-eaten wood is not his fault; the trouble lies in the wood. And thus it is with God’s work in the soul.”24 But as the soul sheds her failings, God makes her like himself. Recalling that he has been discussing the angels, Eckhart says, “If the least of the angels were able to take shape or be born in the soul, the whole world would be as nothing to that. . . . But God performs this birth himself; the angel can do no work here except ministering.”25 This confirms what we heard earlier, but through the lens of Augustine’s authority, we now see the birth occurring in love as well as in intellect – a theme that Eckhart develops at length in Sermon 22. Returning to his Gospel text, Eckhart glosses the angel’s greeting ‘Ave’ etymologically as ‘âne wê/without pain’ – a reading also found in Eckhart’s Latin works (‘sine vae’).26 The preposition ‘âne/without’ provides the interpretive key for what follows. For the preacher says, “Whoever is without creaturehood is without pain and without hell, and he who is least creature and has least of it, has the least pain.”27 This leads to a typically Eckhartian paradox. Where the Gospels weigh gaining the whole world against losing one’s soul as an either/or proposition (Mark 8:36), Eckhart asserts that the soul gains the world precisely by letting it go. He says, “He who has the world least, has it most. No one possesses the world so truly as he who has abandoned all the world.”28 Such detachment mirrors God’s own relation to the world. For as Eckhart says in another sermon, God is

22 Pr. 38, 238–239; 180; translation modified. Eckhart cites Augustine, In epistolam Joannis ad Parthos, tr. 2, n. 14 (PL 35, 1997). 23 Pr. 38, 239; 180. 24 Pr 38, 239–240; 180. 25 Pr 38, 240; 180. 26 Eckhart, Sermones et lectiones super Ecclesiastici, n. 39, LW 2, 267. Eckhart was not alone in reading ‘ave’ as ‘sine vae’. In a sermon on the Annunciation, the thirteenth-century Franciscan John de la Rochelle says, “Ave idem est quod sine vae, quod verbum terroris, verbum miseriae, vebum damnationis”; John de la Rochelle (1958), p. 18. 27 Pr. 38, 240; 180, translation modified, and emphasis added. 28 Pr. 38, 241; 180.

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all things by being free of all things.29 Here he simply affirms that God “is God because he is without creature.” The preacher then leads us back to his earlier discussion of time, as he notes that God is not named in time, but that “creatures and sin and death are in time.” As attachment to creatures yields pain and suffering, the soul’s detachment or “dropping away” from time and the world liberates her and turns her sorrow into joy. Yet every conceivable joy fades to “no joy at all” when compared to “the bliss which is in this birth.”30 Following the angel’s proclamation, Eckhart glosses the phrase, ‘full of grace,’ exalting grace above the angels and all creation. He again invokes the authority of Augustine, who says that “a work of grace performed by God, such as when he converts a sinner, . . . is greater than if God created a new world.” To emphasize this point, the preacher gives an analogy: “It is as easy for God to turn around heaven and earth as it is for me to turn an apple around in my hand.”31 Creative work is thus easy for God. When the preacher turns to grace, we are not surprised to hear him link it with the sermon’s dominant theme by saying, “Where grace is in the soul, that is so pure and so like [glîch] and akin [sippe] to God, and grace is without works just as in the birth of which I spoke before there is no work. Grace performs no works. St. John [the Baptist] ‘performed no sign’.”32 As Frank Tobin notes, grace here is not identical with the Word’s birth, but rather its parallel or analogue. In light of Eckhart’s reference to John the Baptist, Tobin suggests that grace prepares the way towards the goal of the birth in the soul.33 The sermon then elaborates the contrast between grace and works. It first stresses the angels’ work within God. “From this work there falls a chip . . . – a lightning flash, which is where the angel touches heaven with its lowest part – and from that there shoots and blossoms and springs into life everything that is in the world.” This angelic work is thus productive and vivifying. The preacher then discusses two springs [brunnen]: grace flows from the first spring, “where the Father bears forth His only-begotten Son,” while the second “is where creatures flow out of God.”34 Grace thus flows directly from Trinitarian life, and is set against God’s creative overflow. Indeed, Eckhart declares the two springs to be as far from each other “as heaven is from earth.” He then repeats that “grace does not perform works,” and explains this claim with an example from physics. In its nature, fire “does no harm and burns nothing. The heat of fire burns here below.” Heat thus burns and works, 29 30 31 32 33

See Eckhart, Pr. 52, DW 2, 497; Walshe, 423. Pr. 38, 241; 180. Pr. 38, 241–242; 180–181. See Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium, tractatus 72, PL 35, 1823. Pr. 38, 242; 181; citing John 10:41. Tobin (1986), p. 209, note 74. See Tobin’s overview of Eckhart’s texts on grace, pp. 105–112; and McGinn (2001), pp. 127–130. 34 Pr. 38, 243–244; 181. Elsewhere Eckhart gives us a similar but hotter image of water boiling up and boiling over – bullitio and ebullitio – where the persons of the Trinity “boil up” within the Godhead, and this intense bubbling “boils over” into creation. See Expositio Libri Exodi, LW 2, n.16; and Eckhart’s most sustained discussion of grace, Latin Sermon XXV, LW 4, nn. 258–259; both are translated by Bernard McGinn in Eckhart (1986), pp. 46 and 218–219.

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not fire itself, “yet when heat is in the nature of fire, it is as far from the fire’s true nature as heaven is from earth.”35 The comparison’s point is that like fire’s nature, grace too is free of works and creative – or destructive – activity. Hence, Eckhart invokes the heaven/earth contrast for a third time, but now to separate grace and works: “Grace performs no works, it is too delicate for this, work is as far from grace as heaven is from earth.” With this settled, the preacher finally gives us his definition grace: “An indwelling, an attachment and a union with God – that is grace, and God is ‘with’ that, for there immediately follows: ‘God be with you’ – and there the birth occurs.”36 This definition completes Eckhart’s commentary on the angel’s greeting, “Ave, full of grace, God be with you.” For grace becomes the inner, unifying place where “God is with” the soul, and where the divine Son comes to birth. After this long exposition, the sermon takes on a more pastoral tone, as Eckhart assures his audience that they themselves can live out the Annunciation message as he has proclaimed it. He asks, “What matters the hardship to me, if God does the work?” So it becomes easy to fulfill God’s commandments – indeed, so easy that the preacher says, “Let Him [God] bid me to do what He will, I care not at all, it is all a trifle to me, if He gives me His grace.”37 Once again, it is God who gives grace and works within and through us. The preacher then creates a brief dialogue with those who say they lack this grace. He replies, “‘I am sorry. But do you want (begerst) it?’ – No. – ‘Then I am sorrier’.” Since not wanting or yearning assures a dead-end, Eckhart urges us to desire grace. If that too seems beyond us, then we can follow David’s example (Ps. 119: 20) and “at least desire to desire it.”38 The sermon ends with a brief prayer: “That we may so desire God that He may be willing to be born in us, so help us God. Amen.” Sermon 38 thus illustrates Eckhart’s single-minded focus on God’s birth in the soul, and his ingenuity – or perversity? – in finding this theme throughout Luke’s account of the Annunciation. In the end, the sermon fuses the Annunciation and Incarnation in the soul’s timeless reception of the divine Son – a reception that effects their unity. As we have seen, Eckhart places this reception within the intellect (vernünfticheit). Since the divine Word comes to birth in the soul, he explains it in terms of speech: a word is first “conceived (enpfangen)” in the human intellect, then is formed or gestates in thought, and finally breaks forth in speech as “a manifestation of the interior word.” Similarly, “the Eternal Word is spoken inwardly, in the heart of the soul, . . . in the intellect, and therein the birth takes

35 Pr. 38, 244; 181. See Lossky (1973), pp. 186–187, commenting on Eckhart, Expositio Evangelii secundum Iohannem, LW 3, 449–450, n. 521. 36 Pr. 38, 244–245; 181. 37 Pr. 38, 245; 181. 38 Pr. 38, 245; 181: “Emmac man der begerunge niht gehaben, sȏ beger man doch eine begerunge.”

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place.”39 This analogy is common in Eckhart, and also appears in Sermon 22.40 By privileging intellect in this way, Sermon 38 recalls Eckhart’s Parisian Questions, where he defended the common Dominican view of intellect and understanding’s priority over will and love against the Franciscan Gonsalvo of Spain, who argued the opposite.41 Yet Sermon 38’s emphasis on intellect does not exclude will and affect. Rather, the sermon speaks of becoming God in love as well as intellect, and concludes with a strong call for desire.

Sermon 22 Although Eckhart’s Sermon 22 has received a great deal of scholarly attention, Bernard McGinn and Charlotte Radler are among the few to place it among his most detailed and powerful statements on love within the mystical life.42 For this sermon addresses the Annunciation narrative and the divine birth in the soul in strikingly affective terms. Eckhart accents this affective focus by framing the sermon’s exposition between two narratives: the first, a secular story of love, and the second composed of bridal themes in the Song of Songs. I shall sketch this sermon’s liturgical context and highlight its two narratives. Eckhart again preaches on the Gospel of Luke 1:28: “Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.” This verse from the Annunciation narrative leads into several texts from the Christmas season – clearly marking this as an Advent sermon looking towards Christ’s birth. Eckhart announces this focus at the outset. After translating “Ave gratia plena” into German as “Hail to you, full of grace, the Lord is with you,” he adds: “the Holy Spirit shall descend from above, from the lofty throne, and shall come into you from the light of the eternal Father.”43 This expands the angel’s greeting with texts from the Christmas season: the Book of Wisdom 18:15, where “the word leaps down from heaven from thy royal throne,” and the letter of James 1:17, where “every gift . . . comes down from the father of lights.”44 Later Eckhart will cite the prologue of John’s Gospel (Jn. 1:1), “In principio/In the beginning,” and Isaiah 9:6, “Unto us a child is born.” Eckhart shifts the sermon’s focus further when he declares, “I say that if Mary had not first borne God spiritually, he would never have been borne of her physically.”45 This claim echoes Sermon 38 and extends the Incarnation to the 39 Pr. 38, 229–230; 177; translation modified, and emphasis added. See Duclow (2006), pp. 141–150. 40 Pr. 22, 376–377; 279. See Eckhart, Expositio in sancti Evangelii secundum Iohannem, nn. 641–642; LW 3, 557–558; and Augustine, De Trinitate, XV, x, 19–xi, 20 (PL 42, 1071–1073). 41 Eckhart, Quaestiones Parisienses 3, LW 5, 55–71; translated by Maurer in Eckhart (1974), pp. 55–67. See Pr. 70, DW 3, 188; Walshe, 229. 42 McGinn (1980), p. 385; and Radler (2010), pp. 193–194. See also Haug (1998); Enders (2003); and Mills (2003). 43 Eckhart, Pr. 22, DW 1, pp. 371–389; 279, translation modified. 44 See Theisen (1990), pp. 376–378. 45 Pr. 22, 375; 279. See also Pr. 78, DW 3, 351–352; Walshe, 175; and Pr. 23, DW 1, 397; Walshe, 286: “When the Godhead gave itself totally into the mind (vernunft) of our Lady, because she was

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Word’s birth in “every good soul that desires God.” Once again the preacher calls his audience to receive the divine Son within themselves, and to recognize that “we are an only son, whom the Father has eternally borne.” With this project in view, we find the sermon’s first narrative as Eckhart tells a peculiar and disturbing story (maere): There was once a rich man and a rich lady. The lady had an accident (unval) and lost one eye, at which she grieved exceedingly. Then the lord came to her and said, “Wife, why are you so distressed? You should not be so distressed at losing your eye.” She said, “Sir, I do not mourn because I have lost my eye, I mourn for fear you might love me less.” Then he said, “Lady, I love you.” Not long afterwards he put out one of his own eyes, and going to his wife, he said, “Lady, so you may know I love you I have made myself like you: now I too have only one eye.”46 Eckhart quickly explains the story’s point: “This is like man, who could scarcely believe that God loved him so much, until God put out one of His own eyes and assumed human nature. This is ‘made flesh’.”47 Half-blinded by sin, we cannot believe God’s enduring love; so God wounds himself by taking on human nature and flesh to become “like us”. The preacher then returns to the Annunciation narrative: “Our Lady asked: ‘How can this be?’ and the angel replied: ‘The Holy Spirit will come down into you from on high’ (Lk. 1:34–35), from the highest throne, from the Father of eternal light” – again citing Wisdom 18:15 and James 1:17. By highlighting love’s centrality to the Annunciation, Incarnation, and Word’s birth in the soul, the story announces the sermon’s key theme. Yet the tale and its theology of self-wounding remain problematic. Concerning the story’s sources, Josef Quint, the editor of Eckhart’s German works, finds analogues in two thirteenth-century narrative poems: “The Faithful Wife/Diu getriu kone” by the Minnesanger Herrand von Wildonie, and the anonymous “The Eye/Das Auge” which may have been Herrand’s source.48 While the association with Herrand may suggest links between Sermon 22 and “courtly” literature, there are problems with these links.49 First, since Herrand’s poem survives only in the Ambraser Heldenbuch, a sixteenth-century manuscript, we cannot assume that it circulated widely or that Eckhart read and used it. A second problem concerns their stories’ different contexts. While Herrand tells of a courtly “Ritter” – a noble

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bare and pure, then she conceived God: and from the superabundance of the Godhead there broke forth and flowed over into our Lady’s body (lîp) and formed a body (lîchame) in our Lady’s womb (lîbe) from the Holy Ghost. And if she had not borne the Godhead in her mind (vernunft), she could never have conceived him physically.” Pr. 22, 377–378; 279–280. Pr. 22, 377–378; 280; citing Jn. 1:14: “The Word was made flesh.” Quint, Pr 22, 378, nt. 1. For Herrand’s poem, see Herrand von Wildonie (1959), pp. 1–9; and Herrand von Wildonie (1972), pp. 37–44. For “Das Auge,” see von der Hagen (1967), pp. 244–250. I thank Claire Taylor Jones for pointing out these problems.

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or knight – Eckhart’s sermon about “a rich man/ein rîcher man” and his “rich” wife suggests a commercial, urban setting rather than a courtly one. Closer to the sermon is the poem “The Eye”, where the hero is simply “a man/ein here” – neither rich nor a knight. However, as Quint notes, we cannot be sure that Eckhart knew either of the poems. So the poets and the preacher may have adapted a common folktale or urban legend for their own purposes. Eckhart thus takes up a secular tale of uncertain origin and puts it to extraordinary use. But the most obvious difference between Eckhart’s sermon and the poems concerns gender. In both poems, the women are paragons of beauty, virtue and honor, while the men are virtuous but so homely that only their wives could love them. Herrand tells the “simple truth” about his hero: “His form was slight, his face was seared,/and to others he appeared/a hundred years old or more,/but didn’t to his lady, for/she thought that Absalom could not be/as fair or Samson as strong as he.”50 So when they lose an eye in battle, these men understandably fear their wives will no longer love them; nevertheless, the women pluck out an eye to prove their enduring love. Hence Herrand’s title, “The Faithful Wife”. Sermon 22 reverses this: the wife loses an eye, and her husband proves his love by gouging out his eye. Why this gender reversal? For Eckhart’s commentary to work, the tale must conform to the traditional imagery of God as male and the human soul – anima – as female. The Song of Songs shaped this imagery, as commentators from Origen through Bernard of Clairvaux identified the bridegroom as Christ and the bride as the soul.51 Yet Eckhart’s linking the story to the Incarnation remains puzzling. For the husband’s self-wounding seems more appropriate to Christ’s passion and death than to his becoming flesh. Indeed, Eckhart uses the story to discuss the Passion in his Commentary on John, where it illustrates how Christ’s love (dilectio) led him to take on poverty and death. Eckhart explains this with a familiar text from Philippians: Christ “did not cling to his equality with God, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. . . . He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the cross.”52 By focusing on Christ’s kenosis or “emptying” himself, Philippians establishes continuity between the Incarnation and the Passion. In Eckhart’s Commentary, the husband’s self-wounding provides an analogue for Christ’s voluntary suffering and death. In Sermon 22, it gives graphic, violent focus to this kenotic Christology at its beginning in the Incarnation and the Word’s birth in the soul. The preacher therefore follows the story by glossing Isaiah (9:6): “‘A child is born to us, a Son is given to us,’ a child in the smallness of its human nature, a Son in its everlasting divinity.” As we may expect, Eckhart focuses not on the Christ child but on divine sonship, as he invokes the standard teaching that the incarnate Word takes on human nature – not this or that human being – and highlights the Word’s birth in all

50 Herrand von Wildonie (1972), p. 38, lines 46–49. 51 See Matter (1990). 52 Eckhart, In Ioh., LW 3, n. 683, glossing Jn. 18:19, and citing Ph. 2:6–7.

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humanity and every human soul.53 This theme occurs in provocative variations throughout the Dominican’s works, and Sermon 22 develops it in striking detail: We are an only Son whom the Father has been eternally begetting out of the hidden darkness of eternal concealment, indwelling in the first beginning of the primal purity. There I have been eternally at rest and asleep in the hidden understanding of the eternal Father, immanent and unspoken. Out of that purity He has been begetting me, his only-born Son, in the very image of His eternal Fatherhood that I may be Father and beget him of whom I am begotten.54 In virtue of the Incarnation, we are transformed and drawn into the inner life of the Trinity. We become the divine Son, and enter the cycle of birthing and being born as we join the Father in begetting the Son. Recalling the Annunciation, Eckhart says that this reciprocal birthing “is no different from God’s bearing an angel, and being born again by the Virgin.” While Sermon 38 places this birth within the intellect, Sermon 22 describes it in terms of love: “What God gives is his being, and his being is his goodness, and his goodness is his love.”55 Noting that “all sorrow and all joy come from love,” Eckhart adds a personal note: walking to the convent, “I was thinking on the way, when I was supposed to come here, that I did not want to come here because I would become wet with tears of love.” Although some take this as a joke about walking in the rain, Eckhart is acknowledging the emotional power of the occasion as he goes to preach a Marian sermon to Cistercian nuns. Love will be central to his audience and agenda. Yet he sets tears aside and addresses two issues. First, one should love, not fear God. For “one who fears God flees from him,” but this does not work because “he runs into his arms. God gives birth to his Only-Begotten Son in you whether you like it or not; whether you are asleep or awake, God does his work.”56 This leads to Eckhart’s second question: if we cannot escape this divine birth within us, why do we not “taste” or experience it? Because one’s “tongue is coated with some extraneous filth, that is to say, with creatures” – like a person who finds all food bitter. So we need “the salt of divine love.” With this salt, “we would savor God, and all the works that God ever performed, we would receive all things from God, and do all the works that He does. In this sameness (glîcheit) we are all his only Son.”57 In short, divine love transforms our taste and leads us to savor God and creation, to share God’s work, and to live as the Only-Begotten Son.

53 See Pr. 46, DW 2, 379–380; Walshe, p. 255; Woods (2011), pp. 72–74; McGinn (2001) pp. 124–125; Jäger (2008), p. 217; and Raviolo (2012), p. 81. 54 Pr. 22, 382–383; 281. 55 Pr. 22, 385; 281–282. 56 Pr. 22, 385–386; 282, translation modified. 57 Pr. 22, 387; 282, translation modified.

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There follows the sermon’s second narrative, where Eckhart composes a symbolic fugue on the Song of Songs. God created the soul to be the bride of his Only-Begotten Son, who, knowing this full well, decided to go forth from out of the treasure chamber of his eternal Fatherhood where he had eternally slept, remaining unspoken within. In principio. In the first beginning of the primal purity, the Son set up a tent of his eternal glory and came forth from the Most High, so as to elevate his beloved, to whom the Father had eternally wedded him, and to bring her back into the Highest whence she had come. And in another place it says: “Lo, your king is coming to you” (Zc. 9:9). For this reason he went forth and came leaping like a young stag (Sg. 2:9) and suffered the pangs of love; and he did not come out except with the wish to return to the chamber with his bride. This chamber is the silent darkness of the hidden Fatherhood. When he went forth from the Most High, he wanted to go in again with his bride to the purest place, and wanted to show her the hidden secret of his hidden Godhead (gotheit), where he is at rest with himself and all creatures.58 Eckhart clearly knows his audience. Preaching to Cistercian nuns, he incorporates St. Bernard’s bridal mysticism into his own mystical dialectic,59 which here becomes a tale of betrothal and union. The Bernardine elements are unmistakable: the Son as the Song’s bridegroom, the human soul as the bride, the groom’s zeal in “leaping like a young stag” to join his bride, his “suffering pangs of love,” and their return to the bridal chamber. Equally unmistakable are Eckhart’s common images: the “silent darkness” of the Father and divine unity, where the Son lies “in principio” – concealed and silent – before emerging and becoming incarnate in order to lead humanity and all creation back into the “silent darkness of the hidden Fatherhood.” Most remarkable, however, is how skillfully the preacher merges these elements into a seamless narrative and a stunning symbolic fugue. The “hidden darkness of the Father” becomes the “treasure chamber” and “tent of eternal glory” where the bridegroom rests. When the Son leaps forth, his suffering for love recalls the earlier story’s husband who gouges out his own eye. Love provides the theme for this fugue, which concludes with the Son leading the bride into “his hidden Godhead.”

Conclusion Eckhart’s sermons have taken us a long way from Cologne’s stained-glass panel of the Annunciation where we started (Figure 3.1). While the panel and sermons

58 Pr. 22, 387–388; 282–283, translation modified. 59 See McGinn (1980), p. 385.

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respond to the same verses of Luke’s Gospel, they could hardly be more different. The panel offers us a luminous reminder that the late Middle Ages were the highwater mark for devotion to the Virgin Mary.60 Churches and cathedrals across Europe were dedicated to Our Lady, Notre Dame; her feast days were prominent in the liturgical calendar; and the office of the Virgin Mary became the core of Books of Hours, the best-selling books for private prayer. As stories of her miracles and saving powers flourished, Marian devotion became intensely personal and rich in images. She appears in sculptures, paintings, manuscript illuminations and stained glass windows beyond number. And the Annunciation is among the most frequently illustrated scenes from the Virgin’s life.61 In this context, Eckhart’s Annunciation sermons appear austere and puzzling, as he shifts our attention from Mary and Jesus’ birth – when “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14) – to a spiritual birth. As we have seen, the preacher says that “if Mary had not first borne God spiritually, he would never have been born of her physically.”62 Indeed, Mary’s very pregnancy results “from the overflow of that begetting whereby the Heavenly Father begot his only-begotten Son in her soul.”63 While Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux had made similar claims,64 Eckhart goes beyond them by inserting his teaching on the Word’s birth in the soul into Luke’s Annunciation narrative. This insertion, moreover, privileges the mystical, spiritual birth by making it the condition and source for Christ’s birth into human flesh and history. Sermons 22 and 38 thus illustrate the peculiar inversion of Marian piety that Rosemary Drage Hale finds throughout Eckhart’s vernacular preaching. She writes that he “develops a unique view of the superiority of the spiritual birth over the physical birth. He does so by elevating the generic good and just person to a place above Mary herself.”65 Eckhart explains this inversion by citing Luke 11:27–28, “A woman said to the Lord, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you.’ And our Lord replied, ‘Not only is the womb blessed that bore me: blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it’.” The preacher then goes beyond his own translation of the Gospel text. Where Luke’s Jesus simply affirms that both the Virgin’s womb and the faithful soul are blessed, Eckhart exalts one above the other 60 See Johnson (1987), pp. 392–414. 61 Jaroslav Pelikan notes that throughout Church history, “Among all the scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary that have engaged the piety of the devout and the creativity of the artists, the Annunciation has been predominant”; Pelikan (1996), p. 81. 62 Pr. 22, DW 1, 375–376; 279. 63 Pr. 78, DW 3, 351–352; 175. See also Pr. 23, DW 1, 397; Walshe, 286. 64 See Hale (1998), pp. 82–84. 65 Hale (1998), p. 84. Similarly, Loris Sturlese and Markus Vinzent note that since Eckhart admits no mediation between God and the soul, in his “homilies saints do not mediate between God and human beings”; hence, “Even Mary, . . . despite her important role in the history of salvation, is exclusively the spiritual servant in which she is matched by all creatures that give birth to the Son”; Sturlese and Vinzent, “Introduction” to Eckhart (2021) pp. 5 and 7. Michael Sells takes a more radical view: for Eckhart “the virgin soul, the Virgin Mary, has a real role in the birth of the deity. She is revealed to be the mother of God in a literal sense, rather than the ‘catatonic’ virgin whose motherhood of God is so often treated as a kind of purely formal title”; Sells (1994), p. 199.

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when he comments, “It is more precious [werder] to God to be born spiritually of the individual virgin or soul, than that he was physically born of Mary.”66 Eckhart knows how unusual this message is. In another sermon he acknowledges Mary’s place of honor, but exalts those who “hear God’s word and keep it” above her: The whole of Christendom pays our Lady great honor and respect because she is the bodily mother of Christ, and that is right and proper. Holy Christendom prays to her for grace that she is able to obtain, and that is right. And if holy Christendom pays her such honor, as indeed is fitting, nevertheless holy Christendom should pay even greater honor and glory to that man who hears God’s word and keeps it, for he is even more blessed than our Lady is through being the bodily mother of Christ, as Christ himself has told us. All that honor, and immeasurably more, is accorded to that man who hears God’s word and keeps it.67 Hale comments that ‘the physical mother Mary is replaced by a spiritual mother, the soul turned from the world and silently facing God.’68 Yet the Virgin does not disappear from view. By first birthing God spiritually, she remains the model for receiving and bearing Christ within oneself. In silence she hears the Word, and in humility and detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) from all created things and images, she conceives the divine Son. Eckhart calls his hearers to do likewise. If we recall that he preached Sermon 22 in Advent, we see that his treatment of Mary fits neatly with the Christmas sermons where Eckhart ignores the child in the crèche and calls his hearers to welcome the Son’s birth within themselves.69 Indeed, Eckhart links the Annunciation and Christmas in just this way: The master says, “I sometimes think of what the angel said to Mary: ‘Hail, full of grace!’ What good would it do me for Mary to be full of grace if I were not also full of grace?” And what would it profit me that the Father gives birth to His Son unless I bear Him too? God begets His Son in the perfect soul and is brought to bed there so that she may bear him forth again in all her works (in allen irn werken).70

66 Pr. 22, 376; 279, translation modified and emphasis added. 67 Pr. 49, DW 2, 432; Walshe, 433. Eckhart’s Pr. 93 (DW 4, 124–137) is a more conventional Marian sermon and does not exalt one “who hears God’s word and keeps it” above the Virgin. 68 Hale (1998), p. 86. Hale rightly notes the soul’s turn toward God, but we may question whether Eckhart encourages turning from the world. 69 Bernard McGinn considers “why the Dominican preacher made geburt so central. One might hazard a guess that the birthing motif was Eckhart’s response to the widespread late medieval devotion to the infant Jesus in the manger, that is, the Dominican wished to redirect his audience’s attention to the essential meaning of Word’s taking flesh, not to peripheral issues”; McGinn (2005), p. 177. See also McGinn (2001), p. 142. 70 Pr. 75, DW 3, 300–301; Walshe, 429. We may suspect that Eckhart himself is the “Master” he cites.

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By bringing the Son to birth “in all her works”, the soul does not simply turn from the world to God, but places her works in a new relation to both God and the world. To clarify this issue, let us consider two questions: who were Eckhart’s audiences, and how does he describe the fruits of the Word’s birth in the soul? As we have seen, Eckhart preached Sermon 22 at the Cistercian convent in Cologne. This seems an ideal audience for the sermon: a cloistered community of women, dedicated to lives of contemplation and prayer. Preaching on the Annunciation, Eckhart plays on the Cistercians’ affective tradition, invokes Bernard of Clairvaux’s bridal mysticism, and urges the nuns to enact the Virgin’s spiritual birthing of the divine Son within themselves. Yet Eckhart proclaimed the Word’s birth in the soul not only to nuns, but to widely different audiences. For example, it is central to the cycle of Christmas and Epiphany sermons which he addressed to his Dominican brothers in Erfurt.71 The Dominicans are not cloistered monks, but the Order of Preachers with an intensely public mission. They preached to lay audiences, and by Eckhart’s time they were charged with the cura monialum, the spiritual care of women’s religious houses and beguines – hence Sermon 22. By proclaiming the Word’s birth in the soul in such different settings, Eckhart was clearly not steering all his hearers into a cloistered, contemplative life. Rather, he considered this birth to be available to every faithful Christian. Sermon 22 makes this clear when he says that the angel at the Annunciation “addressed not Mary alone, but a great multitude: every good soul that desires God.”72 Preaching this message to different audiences led Eckhart to vary his imagery of the Word’s birth, and to emphasize the active living out of this birth. We see this in Sermon 2 on the virgin-wife, which Eckhart preached on another Marian feast, the Assumption.73 Having loosely translated the Gospel pericope to say that Jesus “was received by a virgin who was a wife,”74 he presents a complex analogy of the soul as virgin and wife. A virgin is detached, “void of alien images” – that is “without attachment (âne eigenschaft), whether in doing or in leaving undone, without before and after but standing free in this present Now ready to receive God’s most beloved will and to do it continually.” Here Eckhart highlights his core ethical theme of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit) which does not exclude images and deeds, but frees us from clinging to them, and thereby opens the soul to receive and do God’s will. As the preacher says, “being a virgin by no means deprives a man of works (werken) that he has done”; he rather becomes “a maiden, 71 Pr. 101–104, DW 4, 279–610; Walshe (29–61) translates the sermons from Franz Pfeiffer’s 1857 edition. On these sermons, see McGinn (2001), pp. 53–70. 72 Pr. 22, 375, 279; translation modified. 73 See Theisen (1990), pp. 252–254. 74 Eckhart, Pr. 2, DW 1, 24; Walshe, 77. In the Vulgate, Luke 10:38 says, “mulier quaedam Martha nomine excepit illum in domum suum”; in Eckhart’s German, this becomes: Christ “wart empfangen von einer juncvrouwen, diu ein wîp was.” See Theisen (1990), pp. 252–254; and McGinn (2001) pp. 139–140. Among the many discussions of Sermon 2, see Schürmann (1978), pp. 3–47; Hollywood (1995), pp. 145–172; and Milem (2002), pp. 50–85.

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a virgin, who would receive the virgin Jesus”75 – and acts and lives accordingly. Detachment then becomes more active than we have seen in Sermons 22 and 38 which focus on virginal receptivity and humility.76 For Eckhart emphasizes wifely fruitfulness: “If a man were to be ever virginal, he would bear no fruit. If he is to be fruitful, he must be a wife. ‘Wife’ is the noblest title one can bestow on the soul – far nobler than ‘virgin’” – because the wife is “fruitful” and gives birth to the Son.77 Like Mary herself, one must be both virgin and wife – receptive and fruitful – and both terms together describe detachment, which leaves one “free to wait on God in the here and now and to follow Him alone in the light wherein He would show you what to do and what not to do, every moment freely and anew.”78 By giving birth to the Son, the virgin-wife shares in God’s own fecundity and brings forth fruit “daily a hundred and a thousandfold!”79 If Sermon 22 addresses contemplative nuns, Sermon 2 thus suggests an audience engaged in active, working lives. These issues become clearer in Sermon 86. Here Eckhart discusses the same Gospel text as Sermon 2, but this time he focuses directly on Luke’s narrative: Jesus “went into a little town, where he was received by a woman named Martha, and she had a sister named Mary who sat at the feet of our Lord and listened to his words, but Martha moved about, waiting on the Lord.”80 Since Origen and Augustine, the sisters were seen as representing the active and contemplative lives: Mary sitting attentively at Jesus’ feet becomes the model contemplative, focused on love of God; and Martha busily attending to Jesus and her guests, models a life of charitable service to one’s neighbors. While medieval commentators recognized both contemplation and action as essential to Christian life, many – especially in the mystical tradition – gave pride of place to the contemplative life because Jesus says that Mary “chose the best part (optimam partem elegit).”81 Not surprisingly, Eckhart disagrees. He gives new priority to Martha and the active life by describing Mary as a young student beginning her journey, and Martha as her elder sister who “stood maturely and well grounded in virtue, with untroubled mind, not 75 Eckhart, Pr. 2, DW 1, 24; Walshe 77. 76 See Pr. 22, 385, 281. On Mary’s humility and detachment, see Eckhart, Vom Abgescheidenheit (On Detachment), DW 5, 405–406; Walshe 567–568. 77 Eckhart, Pr. 2, DW 1, 27; Walshe 78; emphasis added. Eckhart’s virgin-wife recalls patristic controversies about virginity and marriage that centered on Mary as virgin and mother. On Jerome and Ambrose, see Pelikan (1996), pp. 113–122. 78 Eckhart, Pr. 2, DW 1, 29; Walshe 78. Reiner Schürmann comments that Eckhart “describes a manner of moving in this world, not evading it. Detachment carries a mark of ‘worldliness,’ since it designates a being among things, without restraint”; Schürmann (1978), p. 15. 79 Eckhart, Pr. 2, DW 1, 30–31; Walshe, 78. 80 Lk 10:38–42. Eckhart, Pr. 86, DW 3, 481; Walshe, 83. Noting the Dominican missal’s use of this pericope for the Assumption and the feast of St. Martha (27 July), Theisen assigns Pr. 86 to the feast of St. Martha; Theisen (1990), pp. 293–296. On this sermon, see McGinn (2001), pp. 157–161. 81 For this common reading of Lk 10:38–42, see the Glossa ordinaria, PL, vol. 114, 287. On the history of Mary and Martha in the Middle Ages, see Constable (1995).

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hindered by things.”82 Mary needs to grow up and become a virgin-wife like Martha. The preacher even joins Martha in criticizing Mary: “We suspect that she sat there a little more for her own enjoyment than for spiritual growth.”83 Martha thus “feared that her sister would stay dallying with joy and sweetness and wished her to be like herself. Therefore Christ spoke as if to say, ‘Never fear, Martha, she has chosen the best part, but this will pass. The highest thing that can befall a creature will be hers: she shall be blessed like you’.”84 Here Eckhart stretches the Gospel text by acknowledging Mary’s choice of the “best part,” and adding that she will grow into “the highest that can befall a creature.” For she will join “Martha and all the friends of God” who act with detachment and whose “temporal work is as noble as any communing with God.”85 While the exegetical tradition viewed action as inferior and leading to contemplation, Eckhart flips this relation: Mary’s contemplation prepares her for Martha’s active life.86 By valorizing the active life in this way, he dramatically broadens access to mystical life and insight. As Bernard McGinn comments, “Eckhart wanted his audience, simple laity as well as pious women and learned clerics, to do the same thing – to be so dedicated to fulfilling the will of God, so unconcerned with self, that every action proceeds from the ‘well-exercised ground’ in which God and human are one.”87 Therefore, the preacher means exactly what he says in Sermon 22: the angel at the Annunciation “addressed not Mary alone, but a great multitude: every good soul that desires God.”88 Indeed, as we have seen in Sermons 22 and 38, Eckhart joins the angel in calling everyone listening to him – and us who read him – to receive and bear the divine Son within themselves, their lives and their actions.

Bibliography Constable, G. (1995) The Interpretation of Mary and Martha, in Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–141. Duclow, D.F. (2006) Hermeneutics and Meister Eckhart, in Duclow, Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, pp. 141–150. Eckhart, M. (1936–) Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke (edited by Koch, J., Quint, J., Steer, G., et al.). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

82 83 84 85

Pr. 86, DW 3, 489; Walshe, 87. Pr. 86, DW 3, 483; Walshe, 84; translation modified. Pr. 86, DW 3, 489; Walshe, 88; translation modified. See also Pr. 86, DW 3, 483; Walshe, 84. Eckhart, Pr. 86, DW 3, 488; Walshe 87. Eckhart reports that in later life Mary “travelled overseas and preached and taught, acting as a servant and washerwoman to the disciples” (Pr. 86, DW 3, 492; Walshe, 89). Following common medieval practice, Eckhart here merges the stories of Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalen. 86 Constable notes that Eckhart’s view is “unusual but not unprecedented”; Constable (1995), p. 116. 87 McGinn (2001), p. 161. 88 Pr. 22, 375, 279; translation modified.

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Eckhart, M. (1974) Parisian Questions and Prologues (translated by Maurer, A.). Toronto: PIMS. Eckhart, M. (1986) Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher (edited and translated by McGinn, B. with the collaboration of Tobin, F. and Borgstadt, E.). New York: Paulist Press. Eckhart, M. (2009) The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (translated and edited by Walshe, M. O’C; revised with a foreword by McGinn, B.). New York: Crossroad. Eckhart, M. (2021) Meister Eckhart, The German Works, Vol. 2, De Sanctis (edited and translated by Sturlese, L. and Vinzent, M.). Leuven: Peeters. Enders, M. (2003) Das göttliche Wesen der Liebe im Vertsändnis Meister Eckharts, Erbe und Auftrag 79, pp. 27–44 Hale, R.D. (1998) The “Silent” Virgin: Marian Imagery in the Sermons of Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler, in Hamesse, J., Kienzle, B.M., Stoudt, D.L., and Thayer, A. (eds.) Medieval Sermons and Society: Cloister, City, University. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 77–94. Haug, W. (1998) Predigt 63: “Got Ist Mynne”, in Steer, G., and Sturlese, L. (eds.) Lectura Eckhardi, vol. I. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, pp. 202–217. Herrand von Wildonie (1959) Vier Erzählungen (edited by Fischer, H.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Herrand von Wildonie (1972) The Tales and Songs of Herrand von Wildonie (translated by Thomas, J.W.). Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Hollywood, A. (1995) The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete and Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Jäger, S. (2008) Meister Eckhart – ein Wort im Wort. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. John de la Rochelle (1958) Eleven Marian Sermons (edited by Lynch, K.F.). St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute. Johnson, E.A. (1987) Marian Devotion in the Western Church, in Raitt, J. (ed.) Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation. New York: Crossroad, pp. 392–414. Largier, N. (1989) Zeit, Zeitlichkeit, Ewigkeit: Ein Aufriss des Zeitproblems bei Dietrich von Freiburg und Meister Eckhart. Bern: Peter Lang. Lossky, V. (1973) Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart. Paris: Vrin. Matter, E.A. (1990) The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. McGinn, B. (1980) St. Bernard and Meister Eckhart, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses 33, pp. 373–386. McGinn, B. (2001) The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart. New York: Crossroad. McGinn, B. (2005) The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany. New York: Crossroad. Milem, B. (2002) The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart’s German Sermons. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Mills, J.O. (2003) The Affective Eckhart, Eckhart Review 10, pp. 26–35. Pelikan, J. (1996) Mary Through the Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press. Radler, C. (2010) “In Love I am More God”: The Centrality of Love in Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism, Journal of Religion 90, pp. 171–198. Rahner, H. (1964). Die Gottesgeburt: Die Lehre der Kirchenväter von der Geburt Christi aus dem Herzen der Kirche und der Gläubigen, in Rahner, Symbole der Kirche: Die Ekklesiologie der Väter. Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, pp. 13–87. Raviolo, I. (2012) La relation entre nature humaine et nature divine dans la personne du Christ, in Vannier, M.A. (ed.) La christologie chez les mystiques rhénans et Nicolas de Cues. Paris: Cerf, pp. 63–87.

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Rode, H. (1974) Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien des Kölner Domes. Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Deutschland, IV, 1. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft. Ruh, K. (1999) Zu Meister Eckharts Kölner Predigten, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterum und deutsche Literatur 128, pp. 42–46. Schürmann, R. (1978) Meister Eckhart Mystic and Philosopher. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; reprinted as Schürmann (2001), Wandering Joy: Meister Eckhart’s Mystical Philosophy. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books. Sells, M. (1994) Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Senner, W. (2013) Meister Eckhart’s Life, Training, Career, and Trial, in Hackett, J. (ed.) A Companion to Meister Eckhart. Leiden: Brill, pp. 7–84. Steer, G. (2009) Die dominikanische Predigtsammlung “Paradisus anime intelligentis”, in Hasebrink, B. et al. (eds.) “Paradisus anime intelligentis”: Studien zu einer Dominkanischen Predigtsammlung aus dem Umkreis Meister Eckharts. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, pp. 17–67. Theisen, J. (1990) Predigt und Gottesdienst: Liturgische Strukturen in den Predigten Meister Eckharts. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Tobin, F. (1986) Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. von der Hagen, F.H. (1967) Neues Gesamtabenteuer: das ist, Fr. H. von der Hagens Gesamtabenteuer in neuer Auswahl: Die Sammlung der mittelhochdeutschen Mären und Schwänke des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1 (edited by Simon, W.). Dublin: Weidmann. Witte, K.H. (2008) Von Strassbourg nach Köln: Die Entwicklung der Gottesgeburtslehre in den Kölner Predigten, Meister-Eckhart-Jahrbuch 2, pp. 65–94. Woods, R. (2011) Meister Eckhart: Master of Mystics. New York: Continuum.

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4 THEOLOGIES OF SUFFERING Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming*

Eckhart says, ‘A life of rest and peace in God is good; a life of pain in patience is still better; but to have peace in a life of pain is best of all’.1 While Eckhart is a master of puzzling statements, this one is bewildering even for him. If we consider our preferences, he seems to have things badly scrambled. A life of rest and peace without pain is good, and if God is there, all the better; a life patiently enduring pain may be tolerable, but not one we would choose for ourselves; and who can possibly have peace in a life of pain? Yet Ursula Fleming signals this passage’s importance by placing it at the beginning of her selection of Eckhart’s texts on suffering. Introducing these texts, she makes an astonishing statement of her own: ‘Most of what I know and teach about pain control comes from the study of Meister Eckhart’ (Fleming, 1990a, p. 83). So here are two of my questions today: how does Eckhart understand pain and suffering, and how does Fleming integrate his teachings into her program for pain control? Another response to Eckhart’s teaching on pain can be seen in his disciple Henry Suso, whose autobiography contains excruciating accounts of self-torture. Although he must have known a great deal about pain control to survive, he seems to have learned different lessons from Eckhart than Ursula Fleming did. Hence,

* This essay was presented at the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Eckhart Society, Plater College, Oxford in August, 2004. I thank Suella Dawkins, Paul Dietrich and Frank Tobin for their helpful comments. 1 Fleming (1990, p. 85); see also Fleming (1995, p. 117). Fleming uses C. de B. Evans’ translations of Eckhart from the edition of F. Pfeiffer. The on-going critical edition of Eckhart (1936–) supersedes Pfeiffer’s and forms the basis for more recent translations by Walshe (Eckhart, 2009), Colledge and McGinn (Eckhart, 1981), and McGinn and Tobin (Eckhart, 1986). Except when quoting Fleming, I shall follow the newer translations. In all cases, I will refer to the critical edition as DW for the German works and LW for the Latin works, with appropriate volume and page numbers. To ease confusion, I shall also list Pfeiffer’s sermon numbers as Pf. The passage that Fleming cites in this note appears in Sermon 68 (DW 3, p. 145; Pf. 69). Pfeiffer’s edition of this passage differs from DW 3, which Walshe translates: ‘For a man to have a peaceful life is good, but for man to have a life of pain in patience is better; but that man should have peace in a life of pain is best’ (Eckhart, 2009, p. 353).

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-4

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my third question is: how could two people who read Eckhart so closely respond so differently to his teachings? Running through all three questions, however, will be Fleming’s quote from Eckhart and the practical issue it raises: how can one find peace in a life of pain? To address this broader issue, we shall need to probe the theologies of suffering that Suso, Eckhart and Fleming develop.

Henry Suso Henry Suso knew Eckhart well. By early 1324 both men had arrived at the Dominican house of studies (studium generale) in Cologne, Eckhart as master and Suso as student. Their relationship left a deep imprint on Suso’s writings, especially the Little Book of Truth’s vigorous defence of Eckhart and his teaching on detachment. A more personal influence becomes clear from two incidents in Suso’s autobiographical Life of the Servant. The first testifies to Eckhart’s counselling skills, as he delivered Suso from an ‘excessive fear’ of damnation that had plagued him for 10 years.2 Second, after his death Eckhart appeared to Suso in a vision, announcing that ‘he (Eckhart) lived in overflowing glory in which his soul had been made utterly godlike in God’ (75/23). The context for this vision is important. For during his last years in Cologne Eckhart defended himself against charges of heresy before heading to the papal court in Avignon, where he died early in 1328 before Pope John XXII condemned his teachings.3 Yet in Suso’s vision not only has the Master been saved, but he also continues to teach. When Suso inquires about those who sought ‘the eternal truth in true detachment’, Eckhart says that words cannot describe how they ‘were taken within the limitless abyss’ (75/23). When asked how to attain this state, Eckhart replies that one should ‘withdraw from himself in deep detachment and should receive all things from God and not from creatures, and should adopt an attitude of calm patience toward all wolfish men’ (75/23). In a vision that literally sanctifies Eckhart’s authority, Suso summarizes his message of detachment and shrewdly identifies it with patience towards the wolves who brought Eckhart condemnation and would assail Suso’s reputation as well. Suso’s theology of suffering places Eckhartian detachment within a wider context of devotion to Christ’s passion that was typical of the era. His Little Book of Eternal Wisdom concludes with one hundred meditations on Christ’s passion, which were to be recited ‘devoutly every day’ (294/314). Addressed to Christ 2 The critical edition of Suso’s German works remains Seuse (1961). I shall cite F. Tobin’s translations in Suso (1989). References to this translation will be by page, followed by italicized page numbers in Seuse (1961) as follows: 105/62–63. Most references will be between parentheses within the text. ‘Henry Suso’ is the English spelling for the German ‘Heinrich Seuse’. 3 McGinn (2001, p. 18) suggests 28 January 1328 as the date of Eckhart’s death. John XXII published the bull In agro dominico condemning Eckhart’s teaching on 27 March 1329. Due in part to this condemnation, E. Colledge (Eckhart, 1981, pp. 18–19) argues that another, younger Dominican named Eckhart, not the Meister, appeared in Suso’s vision; F. Tobin, and most scholars, disagree (Suso, 1989, pp. 378–379).

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as Eternal Wisdom, they begin with Jesus in Gethsemane ‘drenched in bloody sweat because of the anguish of your tender heart’ (294/315). They proceed to the scourging – ‘Your fair body was brutally torn open and mutilated by the frenzied lashes of the scourge’ (295/315) – and crucifixion, where ‘Your whole body was riddled with wounds and racked with pain’ (297/317). Mockery, hanging between criminals, and the presence of his grieving mother intensified Jesus’ suffering, so that ‘besides the outward pain of bitter death you were also inwardly abandoned completely by any sweetness or comfort’ (299/319). After death, as the lance pierced Jesus’ side, ‘How rose-colored blood spurted forth from it. How living water ran out of it. O Lord, and with what difficulty you redeemed me’ (300/320). For all their cinematic vividness, Suso’s images are designed as more than subjects for meditation. For his accompanying prayers make clear that he seeks to participate in Christ’s passion, and invites his readers to do so as well. Viewing the bleeding ‘divine body’ on the cross, Suso prays, ‘O dear Lord, I . . . ask that I be nailed motionless to you in joy and sorrow, that all the faculties of my body and soul be stretched out on your cross, and that my mind and desires be riveted to you . . . I ask that there be no part of my body that does not bear a special mark of your death’ (296/316–17). Suso’s autobiography, The Life of the Servant, shows how literally he took this call to identity with Christ’s suffering. Like many would-be saints of the late Middle Ages,4 he sought to imitate the passion in his own body. Entrusted to the Dominican house in Constance when he was 13 years old, Henry experienced a conversion at age 18 and began an ascetic program that was extreme even by fourteenth-century standards. In addition to fasting, sleep deprivation and flagellation, he devised new ways to inflict pain on himself. With a pen he cut the name of Jesus – IHS – into his chest above his heart where it could never be erased (70/16). Even his clothes were designed to induce pain. He wore not only a hair shirt, but also a spiked chain around his waist ‘until he bled like a fountain and had to give it up’ (87/39). For the lower body, his undergarment combined hair ‘with thongs worked in to which a hundred and fifty pointed nails had been attached. They were brass and had been filed sharp. The points of these nails were always turned toward his body’ (87/39). Yet Suso most literally imitated Christ’s passion with the cross that he fixed to his back. Into this cross – ‘as long as the breadth of a man’s outstretched hand and proportionately wide’ – he ‘hammered thirty iron nails . . . [and] fastened the cross to his bare back on the skin between the shoulders and carried it night and day for eight years to praise the crucified Lord’ (89/41). Suso’s account goes on in excruciating detail about this cross, but we have seen enough for its purpose to become clear. For in all these exercises, he sought ‘to nail himself to Christ, never to leave him’ (89/42). Meditation’s virtual reality and imaginatively placing himself in the presence of Christ’s suffering were not enough for him. Nor was he satisfied with vicarious

4 Kieckhefer (1984) and Bynum (1987) discuss these saints and their practices in detail.

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suffering, as though Christ’s death meant that he need not suffer himself. Rather, his intense piety demanded that he experience the passion in his own flesh. And he did so for 22 years until it nearly killed him. When he stopped these practices at the age of 40, God informed him that they had simply been ‘a good beginning and a breaking of the undisciplined man within him. He instructed him that he must make further progress, but in a different manner, if he were to reach his goal’ (97/53). Suso was now to follow the Eckhartian path of detachment, where one learns to become ‘so utterly nothing, no matter how God treats him . . . that he strives continually to be in the state of going away from his “self” . . . and he aims only at God’s praise and honor’ (98/54, translation modified). While he first rejoiced to be rid of his harsh practices, he soon found his new path to be even more difficult because, he was told, ‘You are still not detached enough to accept adversity coming from outside you’ (98/54). He no longer had to hurt himself because others did it for him. He was accused of poisoning a well and fathering a child; he faced charges of heresy within his own order; he searched for his wayward sister and convinced her to return to her convent; he found himself walking along the Rhine hearing the confession of a murderer; a canon’s bastard son threatened to kill him; and perhaps not least, he assumed administrative burdens as prior of the Dominican house in Constance during hard times. Throughout these trials Suso testifies to his shame, fear and anxiety – and hence to his need to cultivate the detachment and calm patience that he obviously lacked. As Suso moved from self-inflicted pain to these new afflictions, he advised others not to follow his early example, but to practice moderation in their penitential exercises. This can be seen in The Life of the Servant’s account of his instruction of Elsbeth Stagel, a Dominican nun in the Swiss convent at Töss. As his ‘spiritual daughter,’ she knew Suso’s story well. In fact, she wrote the first draft of his biography, having drawn out his life story in conversation and written the text which Suso himself later revised and expanded.5 When he sent her images and excerpts from the desert fathers, she began to follow their – and Suso’s – example and ‘to torture herself with hair shirts, ropes and terrible bonds, with pointed iron nails and many other things’ (139/107). Suso, however, urged her to ‘put aside such exaggerated severity because of your weakness as a woman and your physical well-being . . . You should not aim at achieving the severities of the desert fathers or the austere practices of your spiritual father’ (139–140/107). He did not ask her to abandon the practices altogether, but to scale them back to what she can handle. Challenging this sexist, condescending advice, Stagel asked why Suso did these things but now advises her against them. He replied 5 63/7–8 and 132/96. The composition of the Life has been a subject of controversy, since Suso burned much of Stagel’s manuscript until ‘a celestial message from God’ stopped him. He credits her as having written most of the Life, except for materials he added after her death. See Tobin’s ‘Introduction’ to Suso (1989, pp. 38–40); and Wiethaus (2002, pp. 216–222).

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with a detailed argument for moderation. Not all of the desert fathers went to these extremes, because paths to perfection differ, with some taking on severe practices and others unable to do so. He generalizes that ‘austerity practiced in moderation is better than immoderate practices’, and then broadens the context: ‘God has many kinds of crosses with which he chastens his friends. I expect that God will place a different kind of cross on your back that will cause you greater pain than all possible austerities. When this cross comes, accept it with patience’ (140–141/108). Indeed, Stagel soon came down with ‘an extended illness that kept her sick in body and in need of help until her death’ (141/109). Like Suso’s own afflictions at the hands of others, Stagel’s illness suggests the need for an art of suffering wider than his early re-enactments of Christ’s passion. The issue is no longer inflicting torments on oneself, but submitting to God’s will in all one’s afflictions. This art of suffering requires a conversion or basic shift in orientation. For how we live and perceive pain determines how we suffer. As long as we cling to the self and our own will, suffering provokes anxiety, complaints and grief. But by abandoning self-will, detachment leads us to accept suffering as God’s will. In other words, those ‘who live totally for the world for worldly reasons’ suffer pointlessly and without consolation, while those who suffer for God find meaning and benefit in their affliction (159/133). They atone for sin and guilt, are spared greater torments in purgatory, etc. Yet Christ’s passion remains central: ‘The noblest and best suffering is . . . suffering in conformity with Christ (cristformig liden). I mean that suffering that the heavenly Father gave his onlybegotten Son and still gives to his dear friends’ (160/134; see Haas, 1996, p. 148). This conformity to Christ occurs because, as Suso has Christ say elsewhere, ‘A person in suffering resembles me . . . Suffering estranges one from the world, but it affords constant intimacy with me’ (247/250–251; see Ulrich, 1994). Although affliction and pain provide the condition for this intimate union, they do not yield it automatically. Rather, this art of suffering must be learned. And here the second point comes into play. For the Father’s ‘dear friends’ receive the harshest afflictions, so that by looking to them as models, those less capable of suffering may learn how to suffer well. As Suso emphasizes the patience shown by Christ and those who suffer with him, the imitation of Christ now consists in patient acceptance of God-given suffering. He therefore advises Stagel that she ‘should not suffer unwillingly, because wherever suffering comes from it can be beneficial for a person if he knows how to accept it all from God, bring it back to God, and together with him overcome it’ (160/134). The acceptance towards which Suso urges Stagel and his readers is less Stoic endurance than an active embrace which takes suffering into God and ‘overcomes’ it (Kieckhefer, 1984, pp. 50–52). To describe this overcoming, Suso guides Stagel along a ‘more lofty path of intellect’ toward perfection (p. 174) – a path that completes detachment’s itinerary. He summarizes this itinerary in one provocative sentence: ‘A detached person must be freed from the forms of creatures, formed with Christ, and transformed 63

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into the Godhead/Ein gelasener mensch muss entbildet werden von der creatur, gebildet werden mit cristo, und uberbildet in der gotheit’.6 This formula uses form or image (bild) to mark out three phases of detachment. The first includes the bodily discipline that Suso himself took to extremes and urged more moderately on others. By ‘un-forming’ or breaking one’s outer nature, these practices help to sever attachment to the physical self and to creatures. They also lead to the second stage, as imitation of Jesus’ passion broadens into ‘Christ-formed’ suffering throughout the full range of human pain and affliction. These first two phases then yield the final, ‘transforming’ move into the Godhead. Responding to Stagel’s question about ‘where and how’ one enters the divine abyss, Suso comments on a gospel text where Jesus promises, ‘Where I am, my servant shall be’ (Jn. 12:26). By following ‘the harsh “where” that the Son took upon himself in his humanity in dying upon the cross’, one may experience ‘the delightful “where” of the naked divinity of the Son, enjoying it in spiritual joy both in time and in eternity’ (196/184). Passion mysticism thus becomes not a masochistic end in itself, but a vehicle for entry into the divine life (Haas, 1996, p. 168). By conforming to Jesus’ passion, one moves with Christ into the Trinity and the ‘brilliant light of divine unity’ – the ‘nothingness’ or ‘stillness in being’ within which the divine Son plays his own creative role as ‘the is-ness giving being to all things’ (196–197/184). In short, the detached person enters God’s one, trinitarian and creative life. Suso’s account of this final phase marks him most clearly as Eckhart’s student. In a veritable fugue on Eckhartian themes, he writes, ‘Being detached from the mist and bustle of lower things’, the spirit gazes toward the naked unity into which the Trinity of Persons plunges in oneness and where all multiplicity loses itself. This must be understood in the sense that the flowing out of Persons who have poured forth is at the same time a returning to the unity of this same being. And all creatures according to their imminent flowing out are eternally in the One. (197/186) This passage neatly captures Eckhart’s ‘metaphysics of flow’ (McGinn, 2001, pp. 71–113) where God’s unity, Trinity and creativity form a dynamic whole, and creatures enjoy an enduring ‘pre-existence’ within God. Suso also follows Eckhart by plunging the human spirit itself – stripped of creatures and ‘unconscious of itself’ – directly into this dynamic flow. Here the spirit disregards the Trinity’s personal distinctions ‘in a simplicity that excludes modes of being’ – literally, ‘in a simple wayless way/in einvaltiger wiseloser wise’ (198/186; see 309/328). As the spirit loses itself, it seems to shed its own mode or way of being, and ‘takes on 6 184/168. See Eckhart, Sermon 40: ‘In joining himself nakedly to God in loving, a person becomes unformed, informed, and transformed in the divine uniformity in which he is one with God’ (Eckhart, 1986, p. 302; DW 2, p. 278).

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certain qualities of the Godhead’. Here, though, Suso adds a clarifying, cautionary note not always found in his teacher. For the detached spirit ‘does not become God by nature. What happens to the spirit happens by grace because it is a something created out of nothing that remains forever’ (199/188). A similarly nuanced play on Eckhart’s imagery occurs in Suso’s account of the spirit’s travels within the Godhead: In this wild mountain region of the ‘where’ beyond God there is an abyss full of play and feeling for all pure spirits . . . This is a deep, bottomless abyss for all creatures and is intelligible to God alone. It is hidden for everything that is not God, except for those with whom he wants to share himself. And even these must seek him in detachment and in some manner know as he knows . . . Here the spirit dies, living utterly in the marvels of the Godhead. The spirit dies because, in its withdrawal, it is not aware of the distinction of its real being. When it returns to itself, it holds to the distinction according to the Trinity of Persons and respects the differences and separate existences of things. (199–200/188–189) While using Eckhart’s mystical geography (Dietrich, 1994), Suso again tempers his teacher’s language by distinguishing between the spirit’s perceptions and its being or nature. In the mountain wilds and abyss, the spirit loses awareness of itself and the divine Persons, but their distinctions of being remain. For as Suso says, ‘The annihilation of the spirit, with its withdrawal into the simple Godhead . . . is not to be understood as a changing of its own nature or what it is into that same thing that God is . . . Rather, it is due to his [man’s] being carried off in rapture and forgetting himself in contemplation’ (180/162–163). By powerfully reshaping perception and experience, this rapture completes Suso’s theology of suffering. For as detached persons sink within the abyss – the wayless way – all boundaries of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow give way. Here their perception and delight fuse with God’s own, so that they ‘feel no sadness in their hearts regarding anything’, because sorrow requires a selfassertive, resisting will that they have left behind (130/94). Their ‘breakthrough’ overcomes suffering by taking it radically ‘back to God’. Yet Suso realistically notes that pain and disasters do not disappear; what changes is how we respond to them: Externally, such people do indeed feel pleasure and pain like other people, and it affects them even more than others because of their refined spirit of gentleness. However, there is no place for it to remain within them. Outwardly, they remain steadfast in turmoil. Because they have withdrawn from self, they are lifted up . . . so that their joy is whole and constant in all things. For in the divine being, where their hearts have 65

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lost themselves, there is no place for suffering or sadness, but only for joy and peace. (130/94) Hence, eternal Truth addresses Suso, ‘For you suffering is not suffering nor [is your] sorrow sorrow but rather all things exist in true peace’.7 He thus finds peace in a life of pain. This peace, however, remains unstable. For Suso insists on the difficult, backand-forth movement between the finite, embodied world and the utterly simple, wayless way of God’s inner life. While rapture carries the spirit beyond distinctions, it nevertheless returns to itself. Similarly, detachment does not happen once and for all, but requires continual renewal. Hence, Suso develops finely tuned distinctions between ways of being detached, such as that between preceding and subsequent detachment. The former looks ahead, as people resolve to ‘forsake themselves completely and remain in preceding detachment and never take it back’ (179/162). But ego is resilient so that even the most detached among us slip occasionally, and then ‘subsequent detachment . . . restores a person where he should be; that is, where a person finds himself to be still a human being and puts up with himself as such for the glory of God’ (179/162). With this candid resignation comes the realization that suffering still hurts, because we shuttle between the ‘external’ sensitivity of our limited, bodily selves and the inner power of detachment that carries us into divine life.

Meister Eckhart Eckhart often discusses issues of pain and suffering, detachment and consolation. Indeed, as Ursula Fleming’s wide-ranging selection of his texts on suffering indicates, it is hard to find a German work that does not touch on these themes (Fleming, 1990a, pp. 83–90). She cites ten sermons, six passages from The Book of Divine Consolation, and others from the Discourses on Discernment and the treatise On Detachment. Throughout these texts Eckhart sketches a consistent program: love for creatures and self produces suffering; our ills and afflictions must be accepted as God’s will; this acceptance transforms our pain and suffering by leading them into God, who bears them with us; and because everything in God is God, our suffering then becomes divine and we suffer as God suffers – ‘without suffering’ and with joy.8 Henry Suso knew this program well, and we have seen his long struggle to put it into practice. For Eckhart, however, the path seems easier. There are no extravagant self-mutilations, nor does he dwell on the blood and gore of Christ’s passion. Instead, he emphasizes a radical shift in attitude or perspective that places human suffering directly within God. This shift is possible

7 130/95; see 246/249, and Haas (1989, p. 149). 8 Duclow (1983); Haas (1989, pp. 132–138).

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because we retain the capacity to receive God within us – a capacity that Eckhart highlights in his core teachings: the Word’s birth in the soul, breakthrough, and the common ‘ground’ of the soul and God. His theology of suffering plays out within these broad teachings. I have elsewhere discussed the Book of Divine Consolation as a precise statement of Eckhart’s theology of suffering (Duclow, 1983). Here I would like to explore this theology’s distinctive place within fourteenth-century spirituality. Toward this end, I shall discuss how Eckhart handles the issues central to Suso’s account of suffering. First I shall look briefly at Eckhart’s critique of ascetic practices, and then focus on two sermons about Christ’s passion and the cross. Throughout these discussions, detachment will be a continuing thread, which will lead into the comments on Ursula Fleming that will follow. Eckhart sets limits to the ascetic practices that figure prominently in Suso and so many late medieval saints. In Sermon 103 (Pf. 4) he acknowledges that fasting, prayer, hairshirts, and scourging bring the flesh under the spirit’s control. Yet he subordinates these practices to love, saying, ‘If you would capture and curb it [the flesh] in a thousand times better fashion, then put on it the bridle of love!’ (Eckhart, 2009, p. 60; DW 4, p. 491) Similarly, in the Counsels on Discernment Eckhart notes the variety of religious practices and refuses to privilege the ascetic path. While some, like Suso, may be called to external works and harsh mortifications, others are not, because ‘God has not made man’s salvation depend on any such particular way of life’.9 Rather, one’s inner state – the ‘true devotion’ that informs a person’s practices – matters more than the deeds themselves. Hence, when Eckhart is asked how to imitate Christ, his reply moves away from physical re-enactments and towards spiritual imitation. We should ‘imitate him [Christ] with our reason, for he values our love more than our works. Each of us ought in our own ways to imitate him’.10 For example, no one should attempt to repeat Christ’s fast of forty days. Rather, Eckhart advises refraining from the things ‘you are most inclined and ready to do’ because this may be ‘more profitable to you . . . than to go without any food’.11 Today we may find this advice obvious, but a glance at Suso and the ‘holy anorexia’ of many medieval women (Bell, 1985; Bynum, 1987) suggests Eckhart’s critical stance towards the era’s heroic fasting and mortification. Yet we must not draw the lines too sharply between master and student. For neither Eckhart nor Suso repudiates ascetic practices, and they both place Christ’s passion and cross at the center of their theologies of suffering, albeit in different ways. Eckhart rarely comments on Christ’s passion and death. Even the sprawling Commentary on John largely ignores the passion narrative, and few sermons focus on it. Yet he often returns to biblical texts on the cross, especially Matthew 16:24 about taking up one’s cross. Two sermons clarify these themes: Latin Sermon 45 9 Eckhart (1981, p. 267); DW 5, p. 251. 10 Eckhart (1981, p. 268); DW 5, p. 253. 11 Eckhart (1981, p. 268); DW 5, p. 254.

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discusses the verse from Matthew in detail, and German Sermon 49 presents a concentrated account of Jesus’ passion and death. Eckhart composed his Latin sermons to instruct young Dominicans in the art of preaching (McGinn, 2001, p. 7). While many of these works survive as brief sketches, Sermon 45 is among Eckhart’s longest, with fully developed commentary on its biblical texts and detailed citations from the church Fathers. As a professional teaching tool, it seems more formal and conventional than his German preaching. Yet it also highlights key themes in Eckhart’s approach to suffering when he comments on Matthew 16:24: ‘If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me’. Applying his usual method, he considers each word and phrase in turn. The phrase ‘If anyone’ opens salvation to all and puts ‘everyone on the same footing, servant and lord, rich and poor, noble and base’.12 The word ‘wishes’ highlights the will and choice as central to Eckhart’s theology of suffering, because ‘a person who serves God does so in completely voluntary fashion’ (230/460). The phrase ‘after me’ suggests how difficult this willing can be, since few are eager to follow Christ all the way through his passion and death to resurrection and glory. Yet we must follow or ‘come after’ Christ who is himself ‘the way, the truth and the life’ (Jn. 14:6). ‘Let him deny himself’ requires detachment by turning from the world to Christ, and from the sensual life to reason and intellect. ‘Let him take up his cross’ leads Eckhart back to the problems of willing. He notes that ‘many carry the cross, but not really, because they carry it unwillingly under compulsion’ (231/463). Unlike the man from Cyrene who was compelled to carry the cross (Mt. 27:35), and unlike beasts driven by force, ‘a human being ought to raise and exalt his cross freely’ (231/463). Indeed, the virtuous should ‘rejoice to suffer for Christ’ (231/463). Finally, the Gospel emphasizes that each person should carry his or her ‘own’ cross to criticize ‘those who exalt and praise Christ’s cross and those of others, but will not touch one “with their own finger”’ (231/463, citing Mt. 23:4). Like Suso, Eckhart does not let us rest as spectators who vicariously benefit from the suffering of Jesus and his saints. We too must suffer with them. Eckhart then evokes the sermon’s communal setting by speaking ‘in the manner of a collation’ – an evening talk in Dominican houses – about four ways ‘to carry Christ’s cross and our own’. He offers this practical advice to his brothers. The first way is a common medieval technique that we have seen in Suso: ‘frequent and devout remembrance of the Lord’s passion’. Eckhart cites a text attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux that recalls Suso’s meditations on the passion: ‘Consider the indignity of the blows, the force of the scourges, the crown of thorns, the labor of the cross, the mockery of spitting.’ (231–232/464). Concerning the second way, ‘hatred of sin’, Eckhart quotes Paul, ‘They belong to Christ who have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires’ (Ga. 5:32). In these ‘passions and desires’, 12 Latin Sermon 45, translated by McGinn in Eckhart (1986, pp. 227–233); LW 4, pp. 374–387, nn. 448–468. I shall cite this sermon, generally within parentheses in the essay, by page in Eckhart (1986), followed by the section numbers in LW 4 in italics, as here: 230/460.

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he finds carnal and spiritual sins, or exterior and interior acts. Third, Eckhart counsels ‘giving up the world’s pleasures’ and cites Augustine’s advice that ‘“we who celebrate the passion of the crucified Lord ought to make ourselves a cross of fleshly pleasures to be repressed . . . The Christian ought always to hang on this cross”, so that he is fixed with nails’.13 While the young Suso took this literally, Eckhart identifies the nails in spiritual terms as fear of damnation and hope for salvation. The fourth way, however, fits neatly with Suso’s penitential practices: ‘mortification of the flesh (carnis maceratione) and compassion for our neighbor’ (233/468). If Eckhart elsewhere criticizes ascetic exercises, here he affirms their limited role in the spiritual life. The sermon’s concluding paragraph moves into bolder, more speculative territory, as Eckhart uses the physics of light to explain the cross’ transforming power. Earlier in the sermon he had quoted Romans, ‘Let us put on the armor of light’ (Ro. 13:12), and identified this armor as ‘the cross, not on a colored ground, but in light itself’.14 As he now explains this point, although colors contrast with one another, they ‘lose their opposition in the medium’ of light (233/468). As colors coincide within light’s unity, our suffering becomes joy within Christ. Eckhart says, ‘So every contrary and everything hostile loses its evil and ill nature in the soul that has been clothed with the armor of light, so that the soul no longer feels it but rejoices and delights in suffering for the love of Christ’ (233/468, translation modified). Like Suso’s plunge into the abyss of the Godhead, this move into light overcomes affliction – ‘the soul no longer feels it’ – and transforms suffering into joy. Both Suso and Eckhart claim that one ‘suffers without suffering’. Here one can indeed find peace in a life of pain. Eckhart’s German Sermon 4915 is a long, complex sermon on hearing God’s word, the Incarnation, and participation in Christ’s suffering and death. It begins with Luke’s Gospel, where a woman proclaims, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and blessed are the breasts that you sucked’, and Jesus replies, ‘You are right . . . But more blessed is the man who hears my word and keeps it’ (Lk 11:27–28). Eckhart takes literally this exaltation of hearing God’s word above Mary’s role as Christ’s mother in the flesh, and throughout the sermon he probes this contrast. For the ‘word’ one hears is Christ himself in his full divinity and incarnate reality. Eckhart cites Gregory the Great’s advice about how to hear and keep this word: one should mortify oneself ‘to all stirrings of the flesh’, be raised up in God with ‘true inwardness’, follow the Golden Rule, and generously

13 232/467. Citing Augustine, Sermon 205, 1; Migne, Patrologia Latina 38, 1039. 14 230/459. Here Eckhart signals a different aesthetic than Suso, whose meditations portray the cross awash in blood. Suso reflects the busy, cruel realism emerging in fourteenth-century German paintings of Calvary, while Eckhart’s insistence on light recalls the iconic gold background of earlier medieval crucifixion paintings. 15 Sermon 49, translated by Walshe in Eckhart (2009, pp. 432–440); DW 2, pp. 427–451; Pf. 89. I shall cite the translation by page, followed by the italicized page numbers in DW 2. See the commentary on this sermon in McGinn (2001, pp. 121–123).

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give material and spiritual goods (432–433/429–430). The preacher then turns to a favorite theme, as he identifies hearing the Word with its birth in the human spirit. As the Father hears and speaks his Word in eternity, each of us becomes ‘the natural son of God just like the Word itself’ (434; 435). Elsewhere Eckhart discusses this birthing and the shared identity of the soul and Word at length, but here he connects them to Christ’s passion and death. He takes up the sermon’s second main text, John 12:24: ‘Unless the grain of wheat falls to earth and perishes, it will remain alone and bear no fruit. But if it falls to earth and perishes there, it brings forth fruit a hundredfold’. After linking this text to Christ’s conception and Incarnation, Eckhart turns to his passion and death. Christ’s soul becomes the grain of wheat ‘which perished in the earth of his noble humanity in suffering and action, in grief and in death’ (436/440). Eckhart distinguishes two perspectives within this experience. One is that of Christ’s lower powers which united his created spirit ‘to the senses and life of his blessed body’ (436/441). Speaking from this fully embodied perspective, he anticipated his passion and said, ‘My soul is grieved unto death’ (Mt. 26:38). As part and parcel of his incarnate humanity, Christ suffered, grieved and died along with all the rest of us. But Eckhart insists that this is not the whole story because another, radically different perspective was available to Jesus. For in the ‘highest power’ of intellect, Christ did not grieve, but continued to contemplate ‘the highest good, with which he is united in person and which he is according to union and person’.16 As the eternal Word and Son, the incarnate Christ retains his divine nature, and by gazing upon this reality he places himself beyond suffering and grief. Speaking of this perspective, Eckhart says, ‘No sorrow or pain or death could penetrate there. So it is in truth, for when his body died in agony on the cross, his noble spirit lived in this presence’ (436/440). Here Eckhart affirms the patristic and mediaeval view that in his divinity Christ’s spirit remains unchanged and ‘impassible’ throughout his passion and death. What fruit, then, does this grain of wheat yield by its perishing? Eckhart finds the answer in the two ways in which Christ gave ‘honour and glory to the Father and to all divine nature’: first by his sustained contemplation of the Godhead throughout his earthly life and passion; and second by offering to the Father ‘all the fruitful suffering of his sacred humanity’ (437/443). Finally, by glorifying the Father through his human suffering, Christ extends this bounty ‘to the sanctification of human nature’. For human nature is sanctified in Christ himself, who offers it to all ‘who wish to follow him in their life by his grace and with all their might’ (437/444). As McGinn (2001, p. 122) comments, this account of the passion confirms the central point of Eckhart’s functional Christology: that ‘God became man so that man can become God’.

16 436/440. In the Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, Suso portrays Christ enjoying the Godhead in his ‘highest powers’ and suffering in the ‘lower powers’ (Suso, 1989, p. 262; Seuse, 1961, p. 272).

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The preacher then applies Christ’s suffering to his hearers. How are we to cast our souls – like grains of wheat – ‘into the field of Christ’s humanity that [they] may perish therein and so become fruitful’ (437/444)? How, in short, are we to live out this Gospel passage? The answer is through suffering and dying as Christ did. Eckhart identifies two ways for this to happen, one physical and the other spiritual. The physical way requires accepting a wide range of afflictions and linking them to Christ’s suffering: Whatever a person suffers from hunger, thirst, from cold or heat, or from being scorned and suffering unjustly, in whatever way God sends it, he must accept it willingly and gladly, just as if God had never created him except to endure suffering, discomfort and travail, not seeking anything for himself therein nor desiring anything in heaven or earth, and he should consider all his suffering as trifling, as a mere drop of water compared to the raging sea. That is how you should regard all your suffering compared to the great suffering of Jesus Christ. Then the grain of wheat, your soul, will become fruitful in the noble field of Christ’s humanity and will perish there so as to abandon self completely. (437/445, translation modified) Like Suso, Eckhart here joins our suffering to Christ’s, but he does so in different ways. While both advocate an acceptance of suffering, Eckhart makes no mention of self-inflicted pain, but begins with the afflictions that God sends through nature and the malice of others. There are also differences regarding detachment, as Eckhart’s assault on self-will is more consistent than Suso’s. Whereas Suso finds benefits in suffering with Christ, Eckhart flatly rejects any self-seeking or rewards ‘in heaven or earth’. Finally, Eckhart connects our suffering with Christ by comparing our trifling pains to the ‘raging sea’ of Christ’s suffering; yet he presents this comparison as a conceptual leap, not the intensely emotional response to the passion that Suso advocated in meditation and acted out in practice. Eckhart’s second or spiritual way into Christ’s fruitfulness extends detachment further. Anticipating John of the Cross’ dark night of the soul, Eckhart speaks of patiently enduring ‘all the spiritual hunger and bitterness that God permits to invade’ a person (438/446). Beyond this endurance, he advocates desiring nothing at all – not even one’s own existence or salvation: Even if God wanted to annihilate him or cast him into hell, he should neither wish nor desire that God should preserve him in existence or save him from hell. You should let God do what He will with you, what He will – just as if you did not exist: God’s power should be as absolute in all that you are as it is within His own uncreated nature. (438/446) As Jesus overcame suffering by an intellectual vision of his divine nature, we too should recall our virtual, ‘pre-existent’ state within the Godhead. And as we 71

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enter this divine unity – the nothing of the Godhead – all distinctions fade away, including those between existence and non-existence and between the saved and the damned. Utterly empty of self and desire, we should let God act within us as he will. And if instead of damning or obliterating us, God offers the gifts of intense union and rapture, Eckhart also insists that ‘you should hold yourself free of these riches and give the glory to God alone, just as your soul remained empty when God created it from nothing into something’ (438/446–447). Neither sorrow nor joy affects the detached person. In Sermon 49 Eckhart thus calls us to identify our stance toward suffering with Christ’s toward his passion and death. Not only must we too suffer and die, but we also share his two perspectives and their hundredfold fruit. For we can offer to God the anguish and grief we suffer in our flesh and lower powers, and we can also – in the ‘highest power’ of intellect – enter Christ’s own detachment and vision within the Godhead. Christ becomes the source, role model and goal for suffering well (439/449). The Book of Divine Consolation brings this Christ-centered art of suffering into sharper focus when it connects the cross and sonship. Eckhart again cites Matthew 16:24, but in a German translation that lends itself to a novel interpretation. In this version, Jesus says, ‘Let him deny himself and lift up his cross and come to me’.17 To come to Christ – not simply to follow or come after him – offers a promise as well as a command. For it now means, as Eckhart has Christ declare, ‘Let him become a Son, as I am a Son, and let him become that same one which I am’ (230/46). Detachment and bearing one’s cross thus yield an identity with the divine Son, and this carries us to where the Son dwells as ‘one in the One in the Father’s bosom and heart’ (230/46). For Eckhart as for Suso, suffering with Christ leads into the Trinity and Godhead. But Eckhart then takes one more dramatic step when he identifies suffering as the very motive for the Incarnation: ‘It is part of our being a son for us to suffer. Because God’s Son could not suffer in his divinity and eternity, the heavenly Father therefore sent him into time, to become man and to be able to suffer’ (231/48). Therefore, Eckhart concludes, ‘If God himself is willing to suffer, then I ought fittingly to suffer’ (233/51). Our acceptance of God’s will in affliction thus fuses with God’s own reason for taking on human flesh. God’s suffering and ours then form a dynamic cycle: ‘Since God suffers so willingly with us and for our sake, if we suffer only for love of him, he suffers without suffering. Suffering is for him so joyful that it is for him not suffering. And therefore, if we thought rightly, suffering would not be suffering for us; it would be our joy and consolation’ (233/51). Suffering provides the motive for the Incarnation which achieves its fruit through Christ’s passion and death. As we bear Christ’s cross and our own, we suffer with him and become sons as he is the divine Son. Sonship and Incarnation thus establish the context for Eckhart’s entire theology of suffering. 17 ‘Komen ze mir’; The Book of Divine Consolation in Eckhart (1981, pp. 209–239); DW 5, pp. 8–61. I shall cite page number in Eckhart (1981), followed by italicized page number in DW 5, as here: 230/45. Eckhart uses a similar translation of Mt. 16:24 in Sermon 107, DW 4, p. 719.

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Ursula Fleming Like Henry Suso, Ursula Fleming developed an art of suffering informed by Eckhart’s teachings. But unlike the younger Suso, she sought to limit rather than intensify pain. She makes this difference clear when she describes three responses to pain. For her first option is one that neither Eckhart nor Suso mentions: to remove or escape from the pain’s source – for example, by putting out a fire or removing one’s hand from it. Similarly, commenting on John of the Cross’ escape from prison and beatings at the hands of his Carmelite brothers, Fleming wryly notes that ‘he did not remain in prison suffering for suffering’s sake’ (Fleming, 1995, p. 115). This option changes the whole landscape of suffering within which Eckhart, Suso and their contemporaries travelled. Taking pain and suffering as given, they never considered Fleming’s ‘common sense’ response of escaping or changing the circumstances that cause suffering. For this reason, a tinge of ‘Christian masochism’ (Soelle, 1975, pp. 9–32) marks even Eckhart’s acquiescence in avoidable suffering, to say nothing of Suso’s self-torture. Yet when Fleming describes responses to pain that we cannot escape, she moves into territory familiar to Eckhart and the mature Suso. She distinguishes between enduring such pain and accepting it – two attitudes which yield very different experiences. Endurance externalizes and intensifies pain. It involves ‘awaiting change and expecting that change will come from outside. The pain will be removed by drugs, by the doctor, by one’s jailers, by God. You wait, fighting the pain because you think that it is wrong, that it shouldn’t be happening’ (Fleming, 1995, p. 115). As tension spreads through the body, endorphins – the body’s self-anaesthetizing hormones – are blocked and pain intensifies. Anxiety and fear blossom into panic, and a devastating cycle is set in motion: we anticipate pain, which arrives and spreads, and we then anticipate more and greater pain, which comes as predicted . . . In this cycle our attitudes and expectations shape the experience of pain in ways that recall the self-involved, ‘worldly’ attitudes that Suso and Eckhart challenge and seek to change. For here too a fearful, defensive ego asserts its own will and assumes ‘that God has made a mistake and that what is happening is not according to his will’ (Fleming, 1990a, p. 83). The ego wants a future where the pain will end, but feeling defeated and helpless, it instead looks to a future of increasing misery – and not surprisingly, finds it. With Eckhart, Fleming seeks to unravel this devastating pattern, and to move toward accepting pain. This acceptance, she writes, sees pain and suffering as ‘an inevitable part of life itself. It is not a punishment sent from God to torment us’ (Fleming, 1995, p. 115). If endurance builds on bad theology and distrust in God’s will, ‘accepting means total trust’. But to accept and trust in this way, we must change our basic attitudes – what Fleming calls our preconceptions – about pain. She says, ‘There is no point in blaming God or any externalized malum [evil]. We are responsible for our reactions, to pain as to any other thing. . . . It is we who must change, not God, we must transform evil into good, pain into peace’ (Fleming, 1990b, p. 137; emphasis added). Here Fleming follows Eckhart

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and Suso, who claim that our response to suffering can transform it from within so that we may find ‘peace in a life of pain.’ Since attaining this acceptance and peace requires training, Fleming developed her method of relaxation. Indeed, she claims that ‘acceptance is a state of relaxation’ (Fleming, 1990a, p. 84). And significantly, she places Eckhart at her method’s center. As I noted at the start, she tells us, ‘Most of what I know and teach about pain control comes from the study of Eckhart’ (Fleming, 1990a, p. 83). What, then, did she learn? In a word, she learned detachment – as letting go all distractions and ego, as relaxing into the present and accepting reality in the here and now, and as opening ourselves so that God’s Word may be born within us. This is a difficult and powerful lesson. It is difficult because the reality we accept often hurts, so that Fleming insists on ‘grasping the nettle’ of pain and suffering. It is powerful because it eases our pain and transforms our suffering in ways that lead to healing and peace. Fleming writes, As soon as we learn to accept pain, to tolerate it . . . to stop fighting and to let go, we are pushed out from the dark bowels of discontent into the sun. The endorphin mechanism comes into play. We are not ‘cured’ in the sense that cancerous tissue falls away . . . but are ‘healed’ . . . We are ‘wholed,’ we are in place, in harmony with ourselves and God. (Fleming, 1995, p. 116) Fleming distinguishes two ways to approach her relaxation method: ‘as therapy and as a way to truth’ (Fleming, 1995, p. 139). Its therapeutic success can be seen in her many stories of working with patients in pain clinics, hospices, the Royal Free Hospital, and her private practice.18 The second approach spells out the religious – dare I say, mystical? – features of the method. While Fleming carefully avoided imposing this perspective on her patients, some embraced it for themselves and she herself considered it essential.19 Here we are concerned mainly with this second approach, where Fleming took Eckhart as her guide in the practice of detachment and the search for truth. Perhaps her relaxation method and study of Eckhart came together most clearly in the Eckhart Retreat that she offered with Fergus Kerr in 1978. In the retreat’s first session, Fleming quotes Eckhart on how the Word’s eternal birth from the Father occurs ‘now here in time, in human nature’.20 To allow this birth and union with God to occur, she prescribes – with Eckhart – a turn within ourselves. Citing one of his sermons, Fleming says, ‘Learning relaxation is a method for curbing the tendency we all have of running out through the senses into the manifoldness of creatures, and instead becoming altogether within and harmonized. Tension is caused by fear and conflict, by lack of 18 Fleming (1990b); Horrigan (1997, pp. 109–132). 19 Compare the discussion of Fleming’s theologically rich Eckhart Retreat below with the first two clinical lessons in Horrigan (1997, pp. 16–34). 20 Fleming (1995, p. 146); Eckhart, Sermon 101, DW 4, p. 335; Pf. 1.

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harmony. Controlled quiescence is achieved through practice and training’.21 She therefore asks the Retreat participants to do what Eckhart says. When he calls for stillness and extinguishing ‘natural light’ so that God may speak and shine within us, Fleming has the group lie on the floor and close their eyes. In quiet and darkness, she invites them to ‘feel each moment in its entirety’ by following the rhythm of their breathing through every limb and organ of their bodies. With their bodies relaxed, the next task follows easily – stilling and centering the mind.22 Fleming directs them, ‘Let your memory, your understanding, your will, rest inside your head and go down into your heart, to the source of your breathing. There you will find stillness’. Here they find what Eckhart calls ‘potential receptivity’23 which opens us to God’s action. Fleming notes the courage this process requires – ‘the courage to go on and never stop letting go’, to continue moving into ‘the darkness inside you’. She then cites one of Eckhart’s more remarkable claims: once you enter ‘absolute stillness . . . God is bound to act as soon as ever He shall find you ready. He is obliged to act, to overflow into you; just as the sun must needs burst forth when the air is bright and clear, and is unable to contain itself’.24 From this compelling attraction, Fleming concludes the session with this advice: Make room for Him. Still your mind and calm your body. God is in reality, not in any fantasy of the mind, of your own making. Don’t reach out for Him. Let go and let Him reach you. Every time you breathe let energy drain away from you down to the earth and as you breathe in delight in the miracle of re-birth which is happening within you in every moment of time. (Fleming, 1995, p. 149) In this session Fleming’s relaxation techniques become a precise, practical application of Eckhart’s teachings. This is a deeply physical process that enacts his mystical program. From his proclamation of the divine Word’s birth here and now in the soul, Fleming crafts an exercise that cultivates concentration in silence and darkness, and that follows breathing into the present moment’s ‘miracle of re-birth’ – of ourselves and of God’s Word within us.

21 Fleming (1995, p. 147), citing Eckhart, Sermon 101, DW 4, p. 340. 22 Horrigan (1997, p. 27) notes that the Fleming method begins with relaxing the body and the mind then follows. Meditative techniques ‘work in the opposite direction’ by first stilling the mind with a repeated sound or mantra, and ‘relaxing the body as a consequence’. 23 ‘Potential receptivity’ is a translation of Eckhart’s ‘mügelich enfenclicheit’ (Sermon 103, DW 4, p. 478–479; Pf. 4). Eckhart coins this phrase ‘to describe the nature of the ground of the soul in the language of the schools taken over into the vernacular’ (McGinn, 2001, p. 63). By linking the phrase to intellect, he invokes Aristotle’s ‘possible intellect’; see Largier (1995, pp. 435–443), and Dobie (2002, pp. 45–46). 24 Fleming (1995, p. 148); Eckhart, Sermon 103, DW 4, pp. 483–484.

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Conclusion We have seen three theologies of suffering, but what are we to make of them? All three work within a common Christian tradition, but present striking differences. Eckhart proclaims a powerful theology of suffering, and the two sermons we have examined lay out its Christological framework: by taking up our cross, we share both Christ’s human pain and his divine impassibility, and move with him into the Godhead. And as we accept our afflictions as God’s will, our detachment comes to mirror Christ’s impassibility and we too ‘suffer without suffering’. Eckhart preaches this message eloquently and with full confidence that we can achieve it. Yet he leaves us – or at least me – with a problem: how are we to do this? He gives us little specific guidance, and what advice he does give seems blandly conventional in comparison to his startling rhetoric and the radical outcomes he seeks. We have seen him list the traditional practices of meditating on Christ’s passion, disciplining the flesh, etc. Eckhart’s criticisms of extreme fasting and literal imitation of Jesus’ suffering also reflect the teachings of the fourteenth-century institutional church – teachings which the young Suso and many contemporaries, especially women, considered too weak and cowardly for their heroic spiritual ambitions (Bynum, 1987, p. 47). In this area Eckhart thus seems old-fashioned, while Suso was on the cutting edge in more senses than one. Yet even Eckhart’s conventional prescriptions and critiques are the exception. More often he calls us to a subtle mind game, a shift in point of view: from the body and the mind’s ‘lower powers’ to the ‘highest power’ of intellect or to the soul’s ‘ground’ prior to all its powers. He calls this shift detachment (Dobie, 2002), the release from distracting concerns and desires into a state of mind at once sharply focused and utterly empty where the eternal birth and breakthrough occur. He intellectualizes this process in the precise sense of making it a matter of insight and understanding – of intellect itself as the ‘highest power’ available to Christ even on the cross and to us in our suffering. Hence, my question remains: how are we to attain this understanding and live within it? This is the question that Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming address. As they respond to Eckhart’s vision, they apply his teachings in the daily human realities of action and practice, pain and suffering. But Suso adapted Eckhart within the wider pain-embracing culture of fourteenth-century Germany,25 while Fleming engaged the very different world of the late twentieth century. Their approaches to pain and detachment highlight these cultural differences. Fleming’s notion of ‘grasping the nettle’ of pain and suffering seems radical in our medicalized culture that seeks to ‘kill’ pain as an avoidable, meaningless evil, rather than to face it squarely and thereby ease its sting. The young Suso, however, sought to intensify pain’s sting. He viewed his brutal self-discipline as the beginning for a detached 25 Cohen (1995) discusses the era’s ‘philopassianism’ or ‘the deliberate, conscious attempt to feel as much physical anguish as possible’ (p. 52) in the fields of law, theology and medicine. See also Kieckhefer (1984) and Bynum (1987).

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life – inflicting pain on himself both to imitate Christ’s passion and to cut attachments to the body and its desires (Ulrich, 1994). Suso here emphasized detachment as ‘Abgeschiedenheit’, a cutting off or separating oneself from all earthly ties. When he later moderated his views and practice, detachment became patient acceptance of afflictions, and this in turn led him to plunge with Christ into the life of the Godhead. In contrast, Fleming saw detachment as ‘Gelassenheit’ or ‘leaving,’ which means both leaving behind and giving permission or letting go.26 Hence, her detachment becomes relaxation, a letting-go and letting-be that eases pain, heals and brings us into ‘harmony with ourselves and God’. Yet Fleming and Suso agree on a key point that Eckhart generally neglects: the need to practice detachment in the body, whether through self-inflicted pain or through disciplined relaxation. As they offer precise, detailed answers to the question of how to become detached and to suffer well, their theologies of suffering become practical arts of suffering. This achievement places Ursula Fleming and Henry Suso among Meister Eckhart’s most creative heirs.

Bibliography Bell, R. M. (1985) Holy Anorexia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bynum, C. W. (1987) Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Religious Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cohen, E. (1995) Towards a History of European Sensibility: Pain in the Later Middle Ages. Science in Context, 8(1), pp. 47–74. Dietrich, P. A. (1994) The Wilderness of God in Hadewijch II and Eckhart and His Circle, in McGinn, B. (ed.) Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics. New York: Continuum, pp. 31–43. Dobie, R. (2002) Meister Eckhart’s Metaphysics of Detachment. The Modern Schoolman, 80(1), pp. 35–54. Duclow, D. F. (1983) ‘My Suffering is God’: Meister Eckhart’s Book of Divine Consolation. Theological Studies, 44(4), pp. 570–586; reprinted in Duclow (2006). Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, pp. 187–204. Eckhart, M. (1936–) Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke (edited by Koch, J., Quint, J., Steer, G. et al.). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Eckhart, M. (1981) Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense (translated and introduction by Colledge, E. and McGinn, B.). New York: Paulist Press. Eckhart, M. (1986) Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher (translated by McGinn, B., Tobin, F. and Borgstadt, E.). New York: Paulist Press. Eckhart, M. (2009) The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (translated and edited by Walshe, M. O’C.; revised and with a Forword by McGinn, B.). New York: Crossroad.

26 Regarding Eckhart’s vocabulary for detachment, see McGinn (2001, pp. 133–39) and Haas (1996, pp. 247–269). Like Fleming, Schürmann (1978, pp. 15–16) emphasizes ‘Gelassenheit’ as letting things be ‘in their autonomy,’ and translates the term as ‘releasement’.

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Fleming, U. (ed.) (1990a) Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Nothing Hid. Springfield, IL: Templegate. Fleming, U. (1990b) Grasping the Nettle: A Positive Approach to Pain. Glasgow: Collins/ Fount. Fleming, U. (1995) The Desert and the Marketplace: Writings, Letters, Journals (edited by Fleming, A.). Leominster: Gracewing. Haas, A. M. (1989) ‘Trage Leiden geduldiglich’: Die Einstellung der deutschen Mystik zum Leiden. In Haas, Gott Leiden – Gott Lieben: Zur volksprachlichen Mystik im Mittelalter. Frankfurt: Insel, pp. 127–152. Haas, A. M. (1996) Kunst rechter Gelassenheit: Themen und Shwerpunkte von Heinrich Seusses Mystik, 2nd ed. Bern: Peter Lang. Horrigan, C. (ed.) (1997) Relaxation for Concentration, Stress Management and Pain Control: Using the Fleming Method (from the work of Fleming, U., compiled by Fleming, A.). Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Kieckhefer, R. (1984) Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Largier, N. (1995) ‘Intellectus in deum ascensus’: Intellekttheoretische Auseinandersetzungen in Texten der deutschen Mystik. Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 64(3), pp. 423–427. McGinn, B. (2001) The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing. New York: Crossroad. Schürmann, R. (1978) Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; reprinted as Schürmann (1997) Wandering Joy: Meister Eckhart’s Mystical Philosophy. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books. Seuse, H. (1961) Deutsche Schriften (edited by Bihlmeyer, K.). Frankfurt: Minerva (reprint of 1907 edition, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). Soelle, D. (1975) Suffering (translated by Kalin, E.). Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Suso, H. (1989) The Exemplar with Two German Sermons (edited, translated and introduction by Tobin, F.). New York: Paulist Press. Ulrich, P. (1994) Zur Bedeutung des Leidens in der Konzeption der philosophia spiritualis, in Blumrich, R. and Kaiser, P. (eds.) Heinrich Seuses Philosophia spiritualis. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, pp. 124–138. Wiethaus, U. (2002) Thieves and Carnivals: Gender in German Dominican Literature of the Fourteenth Century, in Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R., Robertson, D. and Warren, N.B. (eds.) The Vernacular Spirit. New York: Palgrave, pp. 209–238.

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5 J O H A N N E S TA U L E R Preaching the Exaltation of the Cross*

Meister Eckhart expressed a powerful new vision of the spiritual life, but gave little practical guidance on how to achieve and live this life. The Strasbourg Dominican, Johannes Tauler (c.1300–1361) knew Eckhart and his works well and was a powerful preacher and theologian in his own right. Proclaiming Eckhart’s teaching to a new generation, he incorporated Eckhartian themes into vernacular sermons often addressed to monastic communities, especially Dominican nuns. In the process, he transformed the Meister’s mystical program by anchoring it in popular devotion and monastic life. This in turn informed monastic and broader devotional practices with a novel and distinctive vision. Tauler’s sermon for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross1 illustrates this dynamic. By reading this sermon closely, we shall see the preacher in action and trace how he links medieval Passion devotion and monastic practice to Eckhart’s ethic of detachment and mysticism of the abyss or ground. For taking up one’s cross requires detachment which leads into “the divine abyss,” as Christians “enter

* An early version of this article was presented in a session of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society at Western Michigan University’s 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2014, and appeared in the Eckhart Society Newsletter (Advent 2019). I thank Frank Tobin for his helpful comments during the article’s revision. 1 Sermon 65 in Die Predigten Taulers, ed. Ferdinand Vetter (Berlin: Weidmannsche, 1910), 353– 358; English translation by Maria Shrady in Johannes Tauler, Sermons (New York: Paulist, 1985), 163–168. This is one of Tauler’s three sermons for the feast. For the others, see Sermon 51 in Vetter (230–234) and the sermon edited by Dick Helander in Johann Tauler als Prediger (Lund: Almqvist & Wicksells, 1923), 346–351. Shrady bases her translation of Sermon 65 on Georg Hofmann’s modern German translation in Johannes Tauler, Predigten (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), 452–459. See also E. Hugueny, G. Théry and A. L. Corin’s French translation in Sermons de Tauler, 3 vols. (Paris: Desclée, 1927–35), vol. 3, 43–53. The French translators renumber the sermons and identify five sermons (56–60) for the Exaltation of the Cross, but the first two (56 and 57) are for the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lady. Hofmann and Shrady follow the French translation’s numbering of Vetter’s Sermon 65 as Sermon as 59. I shall cite Shrady’s translation (S), modified in light of Vetter’s edition (V).

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-5

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the true ground where Christ has gone before us.”2 With his strong pastoral sense, Tauler notes the obstacles and difficulties in this process in some detail. The sermon may also clarify why Tauler became the Rhineland mystic most widely read by Luther and other reformers. Perhaps they were drawn precisely to his Eckhartian view of the cross.

“If I be Lifted Up, I Will Draw All Things to Myself.” Let us turn to the sermon. Tauler begins by stressing the dignity of the day’s feast: the Exaltation of the Cross, which is still celebrated on September 14.3 In honoring the cross, we honor him who died upon it. Therefore, religious communities – like the nuns to whom Tauler often preached – are called to “take up their cross” and begin their fast with joy. The preacher then tells the story of the feast: In the seventh century, “a Christian king [the Byzantine emperor Heraclius] rescued the Holy Cross from the pagan king [Chosroës of Persia] and returned it to Jerusalem.”4 But as the king approached the city gate, he found it closed, and an angel rudely explained, “You come riding up in all your majesty bringing the Cross. He, however, who died upon it was driven out of this city in bitter shame and disgrace, walking barefoot and carrying the Cross on his shoulders.” So the king dismounted, stripped down to his shirt, “and took the Cross on his own shoulders.” (S 163–64; V 353) Immediately, the gate flew open, and the king carried the Cross into the city, where many healing miracles followed. Tauler then turns to the lectionary’s Gospel verse that becomes the sermon’s focus: “If I am lifted up, I shall draw all things to myself” (Jn. 12:32). In the Gospel, Jesus foretells his crucifixion by which he will gather all humanity to himself. Tauler discusses the two themes of lifting up or exalting and drawing together to proclaim a theology of suffering and monastic practice. He says that people “are led to the cross by God with many pains and trials, whereby God draws them to Himself.” The problem is that we come reluctantly, not gladly. It is easy enough to “find the cross . . . twenty times a day in many painful incidents and afflictions,” but it must also be lifted up or “exalted”. For this to happen, “one should assume that burden freely, lift it right up to God, and then accept it as one’s very own. . . . Thus one is drawn into God, into Him who will draw all things up.”5 2 S 168; V 358. On Tauler’s Christology and focus on the cross, see Bernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (New York: Crossroad, 2005), 271–275. 3 The feast appears under different names in the calendars of the Byzantine, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal and Anglican churches. 4 S 163; V 353. Tauler relies on the standard medieval account of the feast: Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. W. G. Ryan & Introduction by E. Duffy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 554–559. 5 S 164; V 354. Tauler links Eckhart’s theology of suffering with devotion to Christ’s passion while avoiding the ascetic extremes of Henry Suso. See D. Duclow, “Theologies of Suffering: Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming,” Eckhart Review 14 (2004), 41–61 [reprinted as Article 4 in this volume].

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The difficult question remains: how to do this? Tauler criticizes those in his audience who only “carry the cross outwardly” in their chanting and reading, and asks, “Do you suppose that God created you to be his songbirds? He wants you to be his beloved brides and friends.” The latter roles require a deeper, interior embrace of the cross. Yet these religious carefully avoid letting the cross enter into them, and thus “bear the cross not with our Lord, but with . . . Simon, who was forced to carry it” (Lk 23:26). Ever the practical pastor, Tauler nevertheless notes the value of monastic practices, which – he says – “protect against vice and frivolity, and save from the terrible pains of purgatory, perhaps even from eternal hell itself.” The preacher’s point is to internalize and deepen these practices, not to dismiss or denigrate them. Indeed, as Claire Taylor Jones has shown, Tauler places liturgical practice – especially chanting the Psalms – at the center of his mystical thought.6 Attentively performed, liturgical song yields a particular state of mind: an Eckhartian detachment (gelossenheit) which strips away not things and practices, but our attachments to them.7 This detachment in turn enriches liturgical practice as a vehicle for union with one’s community and God. Tauler explains detachment when he turns to the Gospel phrase, “I will draw all things to myself.” The Lord, he says, calls us back from our vagaries and distractions, our external business, the use of our senses, and faculties, words and actions. He calls us back from our interior preoccupations and opinions, our phantasies and desires, our inclinations and perceptions, our willing and love. . . . God draws us to Himself only after all the things we cling to internally and externally have been shed. This whole process is indeed a heavy cross, all the heavier in proportion to our attachments. For we must rid ourselves of the pleasure and love we have in created things, no matter how godly or holy they may seem, if we are to be truly exalted and drawn into God. (S 164–65; V 354) So far, so good. But the process is still not complete, since – as Tauler shrewdly notes – his hearers can enjoy their spiritual progress itself. Indeed, religious “highs” were common and widely sought after in the late Middle Ages, especially in women’s communities.8 Hence, the preacher’s advice: “renounce interior delight, all spiritual attachments and joys, even those arising from acts of 6 Claire Taylor Jones, Communal Song and the Theology of Voice in Medieval German Mysticism (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2012), 165; and C.T. Jones, Ruling the Spirit (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 36. 7 Scholars have written widely on Eckhart’s two terms for detachment – ‘Abgeshiedenheit’ and ‘Gelassenheit’ in modern German. Tauler prefers ‘Gelassenheit’; see Alois Haas, “Gelassenheit – Semantik eines mystischen Begriffs,” in Haas, Kunst rechter Gelassenheit (Bern: Peter Lang, 1995), 257–265. See also Ian Alexander Moore, Eckhart, Heidegger, and the Imperative of Releasement (Albany: SUNY Press, 2019), 61–87. 8 See Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 150–179.

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virtue” (S 165; V 354). His audience is to set aside even the desire “to feel and taste [God] and comprehend [him] rationally.” Returning to the feast day’s theme, Tauler reminds them “to find the cross in trials and temptations rather than in the full bloom of sweetness. For we must always continue to carry the cross.” (S 165; V 355) Reinforcing the point, the preacher takes the itinerary still further when he says, Whatever light or joy occurs within you, let it go and pay it no mind. Do not ask what it is, but sink into your nothingness (din nicht), look toward your not-being (nicht sin), and cling to this and nothing else. Our Lord said, ‘If someone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.’ It is not by well-being but by the cross that we follow God.9 Here Tauler fuses the themes of the cross and the abyss. Denying oneself becomes radical detachment, which leads into our “nothing/nicht” – and this is how we take up the cross. To ask an impossible question, what is this nothing? It suggests at least two meanings. The first echoes Augustine’s analysis of evil and sin as nothing.10 Later in the sermon, the second will reflect Eckhart’s teaching that we are nothing in the divine ground or abyss. Taking up the Augustinian strain, the preacher counsels his hearers to “make an accounting of your sins and failings, and if you fall seventy times a day, rise just as often and return to God so that you will not fall too often.” Rather than overwhelming them, these repeated failures “should lead you to knowledge of your own nothingness (dines nichtes) and despising yourself in detachment (gelossenheit), not in despondency” (S 166; V 355–56). Here awareness of one’s weakness and sins becomes itself a cross, but one to be borne lightly, since “To them who love God with mind and heart, this cross works all for the good” (S 166; V 356). Yet not everyone in Tauler’s audience seems to qualify, as he follows this reassurance with a stern warning: “If you allow creatures to absorb you, and that with your full consent, and if you seek occasions of sin, then it will work toward your condemnation.” Attachment remains a problem, and even with repentance, bitter purgatory looms. But things can get even worse. For if one receives the Eucharist “in this state . . . ‘it would be like trampling a delicate, young child under your feet in a cesspool.’ This is how you treat the living Son of God who gave himself up for you out of love.”11 Nor does confession necessarily help. For if one confesses “without having freely resolved to avoid the occasions of sin, the Pope and all his

9 S. 165; V 355. With minor variations in the Vulgate, the Gospel text is Mt. 16:24, Mk. 8:24, and Lk. 9:23. On Mt. 16:24, see Eckhart’s Latin Sermon 45 in the critical edition of Eckhart’s Latin works, Die lateinischen Werke IV, 374–387; trans. Bernard McGinn in Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher (New York: Paulist, 1986), 227–234; and Duclow, “Theologies of Suffering,” 49–51. 10 See also Tauler, Sermon 67 (V 322), cited in McGinn, Harvest, 266. 11 S 166; V 356. Tauler credits the saying to an unnamed “great saint.”

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cardinals could not absolve you because you lack true repentance.” In contrast to these shortcomings, Tauler again cites the Gospel’s call – “If anyone come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” – and notes the radical self-denial practiced by “many noble friends of God.”12 This appeal to the “friends of God” is more than a metaphor, since it designates a spiritual reform movement in the Rhineland that included both religious and lay people – a point which Tauler underlines by adding that they practice extraordinary self-denial “in whatever state of life they find themselves.” Interestingly, this wider group provides the preacher’s model for his monastic audience. We perhaps hear the preacher’s frustration when Tauler asks, “What is the point of saying all this to you if you won’t let go of your old ways and habits, and hold fast to the effectiveness of external devotions – the Psalter, vigils and similar practices.” Rather than entering more deeply into the Dominican Rule and its liturgies, they cling to additional practices of their own choosing.13 Since these are egodriven attachments, the preacher again urges complete detachment: “Truly, you must give yourself up and die to your own self in the ground [ze grunde]. The Lord said: ‘Follow me!’” This denial and following require surrendering one’s will, as Tauler emphasizes by citing John 12:24, “The grain of wheat must die before it can bring forth fruit,” and adding, “you too must die utterly to your own will.”14 The sermon could easily end here, but Tauler goes on to outline the anthropology within which detachment and mystical union occur. He says, “The human being is in a certain sense three persons: an animal person who lives according to his senses, a rational person, and finally the highest person – deiform, the image of God [gotformiger, got gebildeter]” (S 167; V 357). While this scheme is conventional, Tauler’s third level takes on an Eckhartian tone when he continues, “It is on this highest level that we should turn to God and, prostrate before the divine abyss [abgrúnde], abandon ourselves and give ourselves entirely to God as captives.” Detachment thus leads into the “abyss” or “ground” that is God.15 As the sermon has made clear, this process is not easy. St. Bernard emphasizes “what a heavy cross” it is to “withdraw the sensual part of ourselves,” and to draw “the exterior self inward, from the visible to the invisible world.” Tauler then invokes

12 S 167; V 356. On Tauler and the Friends of God, see McGinn, Harvest, 410–413. 13 S 167; V 356–357. As Jones notes, Tauler “criticizes paraliturgical or private contemplative practices that do not form part of the Divine Office according to the Dominican Rule” which he considers essential (Ruling the Spirit, 50). 14 S 167; V 356–357, citing Jn. 12:24. Eckhart preaches on this text in German Sermon 49 in the critical edition of Eckhart’s German works, Die deutschen Werke II, 427–451; trans. M. O’C. Walshe in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (New York, 2009), 414–422. See Duclow, “Theologies of Suffering,” 51–53. 15 McGinn sees the ground (grunt) as a “master metaphor” for Eckhart and Tauler. See B. McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 35–52; and McGinn, Harvest, 254–264. Loris Sturlese emphasizes Proclus’ influence on Tauler’s teaching; L. Sturlese, “Tauler im Kontext,” in Sturlese, Homo divinus: Philosophische Projekte in Deutschland zwischen Meister Eckhart und Heinrich Seuse (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007), 189–190.

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Augustine to re-name the “ground” and goal of this process as the “abditum mentis,” the mind’s hidden place.16 The preacher urges his hearers to “accept as a God-given cross all the incidents and trials that afflict our lower two natures, . . . [and] gladly leave them behind.” Inviting them “to rise with all your might to our highest nature,” he describes a powerful but unusual mystical itinerary that follows Abraham and Isaac – not Moses – up the mountain.17 Like Abraham, they must leave behind the ass or animal man, and the servant or natural reason. Tauler then says, Ascend with your son, that is your mind and heart [gemuete] toward that secret place, the Holy of Holies, to offer your sacrifice there. Give yourself entirely to God, enter, and hide your hidden mind [verborgen gemuete], as Augustine calls it, in the hiddenness of the divine abyss [verborgenheit des goetlichen abgrúndes]. Thus, the prophet says in the Psalms, “Lord, you will hide them in the hiddenness of your countenance” (Ps. 30:21). In this hiddenness the created spirit [geist] is borne back into its uncreated state where it was eternally before it was created. There it knows itself in God as God, yet in itself as creature and created. But in God all things which find themselves in this ground are God.18 In these lines, Tauler composes an extraordinary fugue on hiding and hiddenness (verbirgen/verborgenheit) that moves into some very secret places. His hearers are to hide or conceal their already hidden mind – Augustine’s abditum mentis – in the still darker “hiddenness of the divine abyss.”19 By design, it is hard to keep our bearings here. Yet the fugue continues, as the preacher sounds a theme common among theologians of the “ground” and “abyss”: the return to a virtual reality, a state prior to creation. This priority is less temporal than ontological, as one who is totally stripped, “hidden,” and reduced to “nothing” enters the undifferentiated ground where all is simply God. This return radically shifts perspectives: from seeing ourselves as distinct, created beings, to seeing ourselves as God within the

16 Augustine, De Trinitate, XIV.vii.9 (PL 42, 1043). On this theme in Augustine, Dietrich of Freiburg and Eckhart, see Andreas Speer, “Abditum Mentis,” in Per perscrutationem philosophicam: Neue Perspektiven der mittelalterlichen Forschung, ed. A. Beccarisi et al. (Hamburg: Meiner, 2008), 447–474. On Tauler, see McGinn, Harvest, 255. 17 Tauler’s use of Abraham as his model for spiritual ascent is unusual. Moses on Sinai was the standard model, following Dionysius the Areopagite’s Mystical Theology, 1.3 (PG 3, 1000C–1001A). 18 S 167; V 358. Tauler uses ‘gemuete’ as a key technical term, translating the Latin ‘mens’ or ‘mind’. Yet in English ‘mind’ is too vague and abstract to capture the depth, power and God-directedness of ‘gemuete’ for Tauler. Hence Shrady’s “mind and heart”. McGinn translates it as “essential inclination”; see McGinn, Harvest, 253–257. 19 S 168; V 358. By sinking into God’s own abyss, Tauler goes beyond Augustine and Dietrich of Freiburg. Yet this is also one of the occasions when he is more cautious than Eckhart in distinguishing the spirit’s knowing itself both as God “in God” and as created “in itself.” See McGinn, Harvest, 255 and 258–259.

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divine abyss. Returning to the ground also brings a new attitude toward suffering, as the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus confirms: “When one enters here, a person pays no attention to what may befall the outer person – poverty, sickness or suffering, disease, of whatever kind they may be.”20 For Tauler, this equanimity reaffirms his account of bearing our cross. Hence, the sermon ends: “May we be drawn into our Lord the way he wished to draw all things to himself. May we take up our cross in such a way that we enter the true ground [grunt] where he has gone before us, he who died for all on the cross. May God grant this. Amen.” (S 168; V 358)

Conclusion: From Tauler to Luther In Tauler’s sermon on the Exaltation of the Cross, we hear an engaged and engaging preacher. We also clearly recognize his debt to Eckhart in his ethic of detachment and his language of the ground, abyss and nothingness. A shrewd moral psychologist, he probes his hearers’ difficulties in taking up their crosses and achieving detachment. Acknowledging the importance of monastic practice, he criticizes those who cling to external devotions of their own choosing. An inward turn is required, but this brings other perils if one takes pride in one’s spiritual achievements, or – more insidiously – if one desires joyful experiences of God. For these too are attachments, ways of having things one’s own way, and must be set aside. Tauler therefore directs his audience’s attention back to suffering and the cross and urges them to “sink into your nothingness (din nicht)” in two ways: first by recalling their sins, and then by immersing themselves in the divine ground or abyss. This final move completes detachment because there is no longer anything to cling to. In this way, one is drawn into Christ and enters “the true ground where he has gone before us” by dying on the cross. The sermon’s fusion of Eckhart’s themes with the Exaltation of the Cross may also cast light on Tauler’s reception during the Reformation. Here Martin Luther is central, because he read Tauler closely, and left us his marginal glosses to the sermons.21 In 1516, he advised a friend, “If reading a pure and solid theology, which is available in German and is of a quality closest to that of the Fathers, might please you, then get yourself the sermons of Tauler, the Dominican.”22 I suggest that 20 S 168; V 358. On Tauler’s use of Proclus, see McGinn, Harvest, 246–248; and Sturlese, “Tauler im Kontext,” 188–192, where Sturlese traces Tauler’s use of Proclus to Berthold of Moosburg. 21 See Luthers Randbemerkungen zu Taulers Predigten in Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. J.F.K. Knaake et al. (Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1833–2009), vol. 19: 95–104. Luther’s relation to Tauler has been a disputed question – a dispute often fueled by opposing evangelical faith to a generic “mysticism.” For opposing views, see Stephen Ozment, Homo Spiritualis (Leiden: Brill, 1967), and Bengt R. Hoffman, Theology of the Heart (Minneapolis: Kirk House, 1998), esp. 76–88 and 182–183. 22 Martin Luther, Letter to George Spalatin, Wittenberg, December 14, 1516, in Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 vols., ed. J. Pelikan and H. Lehmann (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–1986), vol. 48: 35–36. In the 1518 Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (Luthers Werke,

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among the things which drew Luther to Tauler was how he deepened late medieval devotion to the crucified Jesus by fusing it with Eckhart’s radical language of nothingness and the abyss or ground, and by insisting on radical detachment as the way into this abyss. From there it was an easy step to Luther’s theology of the Cross. For in detachment and sinking into nothingness, the Reformer saw that one “must utterly despair of one’s own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”23 In Tauler’s terms, since we are nothing, we contribute nothing to our salvation, but can only receive it as sheer gift and grace. In addition, Luther located “true theology and recognition of God . . . in the crucified Christ.”24 And like Tauler, he insisted on a personal response that lives out this recognition. In his sermon at Coburg, Luther declared, “God decided not only that we should believe in the crucified Christ, but that we should also be crucified with him and suffer with him.” We too must take up our cross – not like the “fanatics who choose their own crosses” – but in the suffering that “we would gladly be rid of, that the devil or world gives us. Then it is important . . . that we hold fast and stick to the knowledge that we must suffer to be conformed to Christ.”25 As we have seen, Johannes Tauler would surely agree.

vol. 1: 557), Luther praises Tauler’s “solid and pure theology” above all the Scholastic theologians. Given Luther’s opinion of the Scholastics, this is not high praise. 23 Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation” (1518), thesis 18, Luther’s Works, vol. 31: 40. 24 Luther, “Heidelberg Disputation,” gloss on thesis 20: 53. 25 Luther, “Sermon at Coburg on Cross and Suffering” (1530), in Luther’s Spirituality, ed. and trans. Philip Krey and Peter Krey (New York: Paulist, 2007), 152–153.

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6 E C K H A RT A N D N I C H O L A S OF CUSA Eucharist and Mystical Transformation*

We are told that Eckhart taught the following: ‘We shall all be transformed totally into God and changed into him. In the same way, when in the sacrament bread is changed into Christ’s Body, I am so changed into him that he makes me his one existence, and not just similar. By the living God it is true that there is no distinction here’. So reads the tenth article that Pope John XXII condemned as heretical in his infamous bull on Eckhart’s teachings, In agro dominico.1 The article is surely provocative. Unlike much late medieval piety, it does not say that receiving the Eucharist unites us with Christ, but rather sets two transformations side by side: bread into Christ’s body, and the human self into God’s very being. It therefore seems that mystical union can occur without the sacrament – on a parallel track, so to speak. Yet what alarms Eckhart’s critics is not that he sets the Eucharist aside, but that the parallel between the sacrament and mystical transformation appears to abolish all distinction. For we become God as completely as Eucharistic bread becomes Christ’s body. Bernard McGinn describes this parallel as an ‘unfortunate analogy’,2 and indeed it was for Eckhart’s reputation. However, I find it a useful comparison for two reasons. First, it leads us to examine more closely Eckhart’s views on the Eucharist and its relation to his broader mystical themes. Second, in the fifteenth century Nicholas of Cusa – who knew Eckhart’s work well – created a similar analogy, which thus provides a focus to compare two of my favorite thinkers. My task is not to rehabilitate Eckhart, which – thanks in large measure to the Eckhart Society – has already been done. Rather, I shall discuss his theology of the Eucharist and mystical transformation, and compare it with Nicholas of Cusa’s. As we shall see, both emphasize a ‘spiritual’ understanding of the sacrament as receiving the divine Son or Word.

* This essay was presented at the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Eckhart Society in Oxford in 2007. 1 Eckhart, 1981, p. 78. In the critical edition of Eckhart’s works (Eckhart, 1936–), the papal bull In agro dominco is included as Acta Eckhardiana 46 (LW 5, pp. 597–600). I shall cite the critical edition as follows: LW for the Latin Works by volume and section number (n.), and DW for the German works by volume and page. 2 McGinn, “Theological Summary” in Eckhart, 1981, p. 52.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-6

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As we perpetually hunger for and eat this extraordinary food, we undergo powerful transformations as we enter union with God and immortal life.

Meister Eckhart To begin, let us look at the condemned article’s source: Eckhart’s German Sermon 6 on the text, ‘The just shall live forever’ (Wis 5:16). The sermon does not focus on the Eucharist, but introduces the sacramental analogy briefly, almost as an aside to illustrate its broader themes (Weiss, 1965, p. 159). The context is Eckhart’s familiar theme of the divine Son’s birth in the human soul, which effects a union ‘without any distinction’ between them. Citing 2 Corinthians – ‘We shall be completely transformed and changed into God’ – Eckhart claims Paul’s authority concerning the mystical transformation, and then introduces the comparison: In the same way, when in the sacrament bread is changed into the Body of the Lord, however many pieces of bread there were, they still become one Body. Just so, if all the pieces of bread were changed into my finger, there would still not be more than one finger. But if my finger were changed into the bread, there would be as many of one as of the other. What is changed into something else becomes one with it. I am so changed into him that he produces his being in me, not just similar. By the living God, this is true! There is no distinction.3 Here Eckhart gives more detail than the condemned article, as he identifies two features of the parallel changes. The first – that Christ’s one body is undivided and fully present in all consecrated hosts at every Mass – is standard within Eucharistic literature. When Eckhart adds the comparison to his finger, he emphasizes a second point: the direction of the change. If bits of bread were changed into his finger, they would become one finger; but if his finger were transformed into bread, it would divide into many bits and pieces. Direction thus matters, as he confirms in the principle that ‘what is changed into something becomes one with it’. The Eucharist effects a change of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood – a change so complete that it is called ‘transubstantiation’. On these points there was little dispute in the fourteenth century, at least in Dominican circles, since Eckhart here echoes Thomas Aquinas’ Eucharistic theology. Controversy enters, however, when he links the Eucharist to our transformation into God. ‘I am so changed into him that he produces his being in me as one, not just similar . . . . There is no distinction’. Similar claims of identity occur often in Eckhart’s works, as In agro 3 Eckhart, 1981, p. 188; DW 1, pp. 110–111. Eckhart’s translation of 2 Cor 3:18 edits and alters the Vulgate text, where Paul contrasts Moses’ and the Jews’ veiled vision of God with Christians’ unveiled faces which reflect ‘like mirrors the brightness of the Lord . . . as we are turned into the image that we reflect’. Eckhart’s version speaks not of mirrors, reflections and image – all mediating terms – but of a more immediate and total transformation into God.

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dominico also notes with alarm. Yet the condemned article and Sermon 6 state this claim with unusual force because they seem to affirm the ‘transubstantiation’ of human beings into God. So extreme a claim clearly worried Eckhart’s critics and John XXII. Eckhart did explain his teaching in more moderate terms when responding to his earlier accusers in Cologne. They too had used Sermon 6 in their indictment. Article 39 in their second list begins with the preacher’s proclamation of the Son’s birth in the soul and their identity ‘without any distinction’, and then quotes Eckhart’s Eucharistic comparison (LW 5, pp. 237–39). In his Defense Eckhart explains the text’s ‘true meaning’. After affirming that ‘the same Son is God himself in each one of us’ and in all that he does, he introduces important qualifiers into the Eucharistic example. We must be clear about how the comparison itself works – the ‘just as’ (sicut) which connects the two transformations. ‘For in the sacrament of the altar the whole is changed into the whole, but it is not so in us. Whence it does not follow that we are God, as in Christ the first-born man is God, begotten the idea and likeness of the Father-God – for we are after the idea and likeness, and created’.4 Hence, the union which occurs as the Son is born in the human soul retains key distinctions after all: only the Son who becomes incarnate in Christ is the divine ‘idea and likeness’ of the Father, while we are created after or according to this image and likeness. Nor does the transubstantiation of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood precisely parallel our mystical transformation. We are not changed whole and entire into God. Eckhart thus gives a perfectly orthodox interpretation of his bold sermon’s claim and analogy. Passages like this in the Defense have led earlier commentators to claim, with relief, that Eckhart proposes a moral union between God and the soul, not a substantial – or ‘transubstantial’ – identity between them. Yet the matter may not be so simple, as a survey of Eckhart’s other Eucharistic texts will make clear. His Latin Sermon V, 2 for the feast of Corpus Christi clarifies the sacramental theology underlying the parallel with mystical transformation. Eckhart repeats portions of Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on John, which glosses Jesus’ claim to be ‘the bread of life’.5 Christ himself is heavenly, incorruptible food, and shares his body in the Eucharist. Comparing the Jews’ manna in the desert to the Christians’ consecrated bread, Thomas says that both symbolize Christ and ‘our spiritual food’. But manna ‘was only a symbol’, while the Eucharistic bread ‘contains what it symbolizes (figurat), that is, Christ himself’ (n.37/379). Jesus said, ‘This is my body,’ not ‘This signifies my body’. For the Eucharist contains ‘the whole of Christ” – his body through bread’s conversion, and his soul and divinity by ‘natural concomitance’ (n.48/381). Although Thomas sketches the sacrament’s effects – destroying 4 Eckhart, 1941, p. 297; LW 5, p. 342. 5 Jn 6:47–52. Eckhart, Sermo V (LW 4, nn. 31–51) consists of three sermon sketches for the feast of Corpus Christi; the longest is the second (nn. 34–50), which edits Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on John, Lecture 6 (Aquinas, 1980, pp. 377–382). This sermon will be cited between parentheses in the text by section number and corresponding page in Thomas’ Commentary.

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death, restoring life, atoning for the world’s sins – he does not include mystical transformation among them. Nor does Eckhart in this sermon. Indeed, the sermon adds little to Thomas’ analysis, except for the finger example (n.31) that we saw in Sermon 6. Sermon V, 2 thus confirms Eckhart’s agreement with Thomas on the Eucharist, but does not explore the parallel between the sacrament and mystical union. For that, we need to look at his other works: the Counsels on Discernment and two German sermons.

Counsels on Discernment Early in his career Eckhart wrote the Counsels on Discernment for the young Dominicans in Erfurt. Here he addresses their concerns about the Eucharist, and – in contrast to Sermon 6 – describes the sacrament itself as a vehicle for mystical transformation. At a time when many worried about receiving communion unworthily to their damnation, and hence seldom received at all, Eckhart urges frequent communion – the more often, the better. Through frequent communion the young men’s ‘love for the sacrament and for the Lord’ will grow, and they will achieve union with Christ: ‘We shall be changed into him and wholly united, so that what is his becomes ours, and all that is ours becomes his, our heart and his one heart, our body and his one Body’.6 Here the Eucharist effects a full reciprocity between Christ and ourselves – a reciprocity of bodies as well as hearts. Strong as this claim is, Eckhart goes further. Urging the young Dominicans to ‘receive the sacrament worthily and often’, he says, So you will become one with him and ennobled through his Body. Yes, in the Body of the Lord the soul is joined so close to God that not even the angels, not the cherubim or seraphim, can tell the difference between them. For as angels approach God they approach the soul, as they approach the soul they approach God. There was never a union so close; for the soul is far more closely united with God than are the body and soul that form one man. The union is far closer than if one were to pour a drop of water into a cask of wine; there we still have water and wine, but here we have such a changing into one that there is no creature who can find the distinction. (272/268) The Eucharist thus vaults the human soul above all the ranks of angels. Paradoxically, receiving Christ’s body unites the human soul to God. Indeed, this union surpasses that between one’s own body and soul. This is a powerful claim, because Eckhart follows Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ view that one’s soul and body form a substantial union – they are, as he says elsewhere, ‘one in being’.7 Yet the soul’s 6 Eckhart, 1981, p. 271; DW 5, p. 266. The Counsels will be cited between parentheses within the text by page numbers in Colledge’s translation and DW. 7 Sermon 7; Eckhart, 1986, p. 253; DW 1, p. 119.

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union with God is still closer and more intimate. Nor does the image of water in wine suffice, although it had been a standard one for soul’s immersion in God since the Fathers. These analogies fail because we can tell body from soul, and water from wine. But mystical transformation is so complete that no creature – not angels, and surely no theologian or Pope – can distinguish between God and the soul. As in Sermon 6, Eckhart moves beyond distinction, but this time he qualifies his claim. To say that ‘no creature can find the distinction’ leaves room for distinctions that limited creatures cannot grasp. If we do not experience or feel this transforming union, Eckhart says that faith matters more than feeling. When the young Dominicans find their faith weak because they are ‘distracted by many things’, Eckhart directs their attention to ‘two properties’ that we share with Christ: superior and inferior powers. Christ’s ‘superior powers possessed and enjoyed everlasting blessedness’, while ‘on earth his inferior powers were engaged in the greatest suffering and strife’ (273/270–71). Even during Christ’s passion and death, his higher powers remained in bliss with the Father.8 Eckhart advises the young men to follow a similar course and direct their superior powers toward God. He says, ‘If you wish to receive your God worthily, be sure that your superior powers are directed toward your God and that your will is seeking his will, that you are intending him, and that your trust is based on him’ (273/272). The will thus becomes the higher power which conforms to God’s will, directs our intention and trust, and thereby opens us to receive the divine. Here, then, we enter that union beyond any distinction which creatures can discern. Receiving the sacrament in this way brings ‘extraordinary . . . graces’. To emphasize frequent reception, Eckhart suggests a competition. Overlooking his earlier exaltation of the soul’s union with God above all the angels, he says that receiving the sacrament devoutly and often may lead one to a higher place within the angelic ranks. He then adds another comparison. ‘If there were two men alike in their whole lives, and one of them had received the Body of the Lord once more than the other, through that he could appear like a shining sun in comparison with the other, and could receive a singular union with God’ (273/273). Elsewhere, proclaiming detachment and living ‘without why’, Eckhart criticizes this kind of counting and reward-seeking as mercenary and using God as a cow for our own benefit.9 Yet even here the competition changes drastically as Eckhart shifts from the external to the spiritual consuming (geistlîchen niezenne) of the Eucharist. Taking up a common medieval theme, he focuses on ‘spiritual communion’ which occurs within ‘a heart that yearns and in a union of devotion’ (273/273). Because of the higher powers’ role in the Eucharist, spiritual communion becomes the condition for worthy reception of the sacrament and raises the competition’s stakes. When someone receives in such intense faith, ‘he becomes richer in graces than 8 See Duclow, 2005, pp. 51–52. 9 Sermon 16b, Eckhart, 1986, p. 278; DW 1, p. 274: ‘You love a cow because of milk and cheese and because of your own advantage. This is how all these people act who love God because of external riches or internal consolation. They do not love God rightly; rather they love their own advantage’.

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any other man on earth’ (273/273). Yet one need not eat the consecrated bread to receive in this way. For many communed spiritually by gazing at the elevated host during Mass – a visual ‘consuming’ or feast for the eyes linked to the feast of Corpus Christi, its processions, and the rite of benediction.10 Bypassing these practices, Eckhart turns directly to the desire and faith which make this communion available always and everywhere. He says, ‘A man may receive spiritually, wherever he may be, a thousand times and more a day, whether he be sick or well’ (273/273–74, translation modified). Here we lose count, as frequent reception of the Eucharist multiples into a ‘thousand and more’ communions each day. This spiritual communion thus reaches beyond the Eucharist into the practice of prayer as the everyday, ongoing welcoming of God within us.

Sermons 20a & 20b Eckhart’s fullest discussion linking the Eucharist and mystical transformation occurs in two closely related Sermons – 20a and 20b – on Luke’s parable for the feast in God’s kingdom (Lk 14:15–24). The story is familiar. ‘A man had made a great supper or evening feast’. But when everything was ready, the invited guests did not attend and sent their excuses: one had purchased a village, another had bought five yoke of oxen, and a third had married. So the master sent his servant ‘into the narrow and broad streets and by the hedges and main roads’ to bring ‘the blind and the lame, the sick and the feeble’ to the feast. When Eckhart’s sermons link this parable to the Eucharist, they depart from the mainstream commentaries on the parable. For the Glossa ordinaria and Thomas Aquinas’ Catena aurea focus on the heavenly banquet, not the Eucharist.11 Let us look closely at what Eckhart says. Following Gregory, he notes that this evening meal comes at the end of the day, after which ‘there is no more food. He to whom God gives this food finds it so sweet and delicious that thereafter he hankers after no other food’.12 The preacher identifies this food with Christ in the Eucharist and its institution at the Last Supper: ‘Here in Christendom we celebrate today the evening feast that our Lord prepared for his disciples, his intimate friends, when he gave them his blessed body for food’ (196/342). Eckhart then announces a central theme of the sermon when he says, ‘When the soul tastes the food at the 10 See Caspers, 1995; Macy, 1986, pp. 87–89. 11 Glossa ordinaria, cols. 308–309; and Thomas Aquinas, 1997, vol. 3, pp. 508–516. Nor does Eckhart’s Latin Sermon VIII (LW 4, nn. 84–95) on this parable mention the Eucharist. For Nicholas of Cusa’s marginalia to this sermon, see Frost, 2006, pp. 106–108 and marg. nn. 182–197. 12 Sermons 20a and 20b appear DW 1, pp. 322–352; Walshe translates them as numbers 32a and 32b in Eckhart, 2009, pp. 191–199. My discussion will draw on both sermons. Citations will be to Walshe’s translation and DW 1, as here: 191/327; hereafter they will appear between parentheses in the text. Since the Dominican lectionary specifies Luke’s parable for the Second Sunday after Trinity, Theisen, 1990, p. 188 links both sermons to this Sunday; he views Sermon 20b’s reference to Holy Thursday not as identifying the sermon’s occasion, but as sharpening its focus on the Eucharist.

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evening feast, and the spark (vünkelîn) of the soul comprehends the divine light, then it needs no more food, it does not seek outside things and cleaves entirely to the divine light’ (196/343). The focus will be less on bread and wine and Christ’s body and blood as ‘transubstantiated’ physical realities and more on the soul and its spark which feast on them and move into God. Yet before developing this theme, the preacher first highlights the Eucharist’s sacramental features. Playing on Christ’s absence and presence, he notes that Christ withdrew himself from the disciples at the Ascension, and ‘gave himself to them again as God and man, but in another guise and form. Just as we do not let a precious relic be handled or seen bare, but enclose it in crystal or something else, so did our Lord when he gave himself as another self. God gives Himself, all that He is, in the supper as food to his dear friends’. (196/343–44) Christ becomes fully present in the Eucharist, yet remains hidden like a relic within its reliquary. This hiding requires faith and insight – acts of the soul and its spark – to discern Christ within the bread. Eckhart then signals a major difference between everyday eating and the Eucharist when he cites Augustine, who heard a voice proclaim, ‘I am the food of great people. Grow and become great and eat me. But you should not suppose that I shall be turned into you. You will be turned into me’.13 In a striking reversal of ordinary eating where we assimilate food into ourselves, the Eucharist transforms us into the food that we eat – Christ himself. Eckhart dramatically extends this comparison to stress the union which Eucharistic eating effects: ‘What I ate a fortnight ago is as much one with my soul as what I received in my mother’s womb. So it is that whoever receives this [Eucharistic] food purely becomes as truly one with it as my flesh and blood are one with my soul.’ (192/328) Both processes involve separation and purification. In digestion food’s baser parts are discarded and excreted, while ‘one power of my soul took the purest and subtlest part and carried that into my body and united it with everything that is in me’ (197/344). Thus it is not quite true that we are what we eat, because digestion refines only our food’s purest elements into what we are. The preacher continues the analogy, ‘Just as truly does the power of the Holy Ghost take the purest and the subtlest and the highest, the spark in the soul, and bear it all aloft in the brand of love.’ As the sun’s power draws the subtlest elements in a tree’s root up through its branch to blossom in the light of day, so this spark ‘is borne up in the light and in the Holy Ghost and carried right up into the primal source (ursprunc), and it becomes so wholly one with God, and seeks so wholly the One, and is more truly one with God than the food is with my body – indeed far more, inasmuch as it is much more pure and noble’ (197/345, emphasis added). While the Counsels on Discernment also compare sacramental eating to the union of soul and body, these sermons develop – indeed, exaggerate – the eating metaphor that drives the comparison, and finally shift the analogy itself. For now the body’s assimilation of food provides the comparison for the spark’s union with God. Here we may hear a distant

13 Augustine, Confessions 7.10.16; Augustine, 1992, p. 124.

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echo of the medieval piety which emphasized the Eucharist’s physical reality, as when Angela of Foligno tasted meat in the host, and pilgrims flocked to see miraculous, bleeding hosts.14 Eckhart, however, immediately proclaims the difference and distance between bodily digestion and mystical union, which is vastly ‘more pure and noble’. Like the Counsels on Discernment, these sermons place the sacrament within a broader context. This time the context is Eckhart’s mature mystical theology, as the terms ‘spark’, ‘primal source’, and ‘wholly one’ suggest that the Eucharist effects the breakthrough into the Godhead. The sermons’ following sections highlight this mystical context. Returning to the text of Luke’s parable, they discuss the ‘man’ who offers the feast. He is not named because he is the God beyond names and language. Yet God discloses himself, so that Luke’s ‘man’ seems to be Christ, God incarnate who ‘is one and is a man, like none, transcending all’ (198/347). Who, then, can announce this God and his feast? ‘The Lord sent out his servants’, whom earlier commentators identified as the order of preachers and as angels. Eckhart, however, interprets the servant psychologically as the intellect and especially the spark within it, which ‘stands bare, untouched by any pain, directed to God’s being’ (198/348, translation modified). For only here does the human soul reflect and meet the God beyond names. Further, this spark ‘resembles the good angels, being created without distinction by God, a transcending light and an image of the divine nature and created by God. . . . It always hangs upon God, and it never wills any evil. . . . [It] continually invites to the feast’. (198/348–49) Eckhart cites masters who describe this spark as synteresis, a scholastic term taken from the Greek which means ‘a binding and a turning away’. For it repels impurity and evil, and ‘ever attracts to the good’ (193/334). Yet Eckhart denies that this spark or synteresis is among the soul’s distinct powers, and rather places it above them all. This marks a change from the Counsels on Discernment, where union occurs in the will as the soul’s higher power. Yet these sermons follow the same logic of seeking union with God at the highest point within us, although here that point has shifted from the will to the intellect and its spark or synteresis.15 And this invites us to the feast. If we seem to have drifted far from the Eucharist, Sermon 20b quickly takes us back. The parable says that the guests were summoned, ‘for all was ready’. This readiness signals the spark’s openness and God’s continual self-giving. ‘Nobody need ask what he is to receive in our Lord’s body. The spark, that stands ready to receive our Lord’s body, stands evermore in God’s being. God gives Himself to the soul ever anew in one becoming’ (198/349, translation modified). Having announced the feast, the spark now receives and consumes Christ’s body and the transcendent God within it. And it does so by dwelling within God’s being 14 See Bynum, 2007, pp. 25–81; and Angela of Foligno, 1993, p. 186 (Memorial, ch. 7). Angela’s Instructions 30, 32 and 33 (pp. 290–299) present a fuller account of her Eucharistic theology. 15 Nor are the two sermons consistent. In Sermon 20b the servant is the intellect and the spark within it, while in Sermon 20a it is simply the spark which is above all the soul’s powers – and hence above the intellect as well.

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or essence, which gives itself to the soul ‘all new and fresh as in one becoming without cessation’ (198/349). In this cycle of giving and receiving, both the soul’s spark and God are ‘ready’ for the feast now and always. Yet the invited guests do not come, and Eckhart follows the exegetical tradition’s moral commentary on their refusal. Immersed in earthly things and bound to the five senses, they will never taste the Lord’s feast (199/350–51). So the rebuffed host sends the servant to invite others along ‘the narrow and wide roads’ and ‘into the hedges and main roads’. Having identified the servant with the soul’s spark, Eckhart resumes his psychological commentary. The narrow and wide roads become the ‘collected’ or in-gathered soul which is at once narrow and wide. Among the soul’s powers, the senses are ‘hedged in, in the eyes and the other senses’, while ‘the other powers are free . . . unbounded and unhindered by the body. All these he invites in, and he invites the poor and the blind and the lame and the feeble. These come to the feast, and no one else’. (199/352) Eckhart then concludes by praying, ‘That we may come to this feast, so help us God. Amen.’ (199/352) In the Counsels and these sermons, Eckhart develops a Eucharistic theology that focuses on the conditions for receiving the sacrament ‘worthily’ and rightly, and on the powerful transformation which this reception effects. In doing so, he traces the Eucharist’s rich symbolic range, and its associations with biblical images of food, feasts and eating. Hence, when he concludes Sermon 20b by asking God’s help in bringing us to ‘this feast’, Eckhart invokes the Gospels’ heavenly banquet, which is available to us in the Eucharist and spiritual communion. And these in turn provoke and reflect the mystical transformation which Eckhart never stops proclaiming and which, if accepted, brings the heavenly banquet into our lives daily – indeed, always and everywhere.

Nicholas of Cusa Now let us turn to Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), the German cardinal, philosopher and theologian who read Eckhart’s works closely, defended his orthodoxy, and used him as a major source for his own theology. In the Defense of Learned Ignorance (1449), Nicholas writes that he had seen many of the Dominican’s biblical commentaries, sermons and disputations.16 Indeed, his personal library in Bernkastel-Kues contains a manuscript of Eckhart’s Latin works with marginalia in Nicholas’ own hand.17 He also knew documents from the controversy over the Dominican’s orthodoxy, including the Defense.18 So Cusanus gives an informed judgment when he affirms that ‘he had never read that Eckhart thought the creation to be the creator’, and praises his ‘genius and ardor.’Yet Nicholas also recognizes how easily Eckhart can be misunderstood, and wishes that ‘his books 16 Apologia doctae ignorantiae in Nicholas of Cusa, 1932, Opera omnia, vol. 2, n. 36; trans. Hopkins, 1981, p. 58. Nicholas’ Opera omnia will be cited by volume and section numbers (n.). 17 See Frost, 2006; and Duclow, 2006, pp. 293–305. 18 See Steer, 2005, pp. 149–150.

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would be removed from public places; for the people are not suited for [the statements] which Eckhart often intersperses . . .; nevertheless, intelligent men find in them many subtle and useful points’.19 Here Nicholas concedes two points in John XXII’s bull: the danger in Eckhart’s preaching ‘before the uneducated crowd’, and the possibility that some articles which sound heretical might be orthodox if explained properly.20 Cusanus clearly placed himself among the Dominican’s intelligent readers who probe his subtle themes correctly. Further, he adapts these themes in many of his own works.

Letter to Nicholas, a Novice of Monte Oliveto21 A striking adaptation occurs in Cusanus’ long letter to his namesake Nicholas, a young novice at the monastery of Monte Oliveto. Here, as Bernard McGinn (2005, p. 669) notes, the elder Nicholas compares the Eucharist and human transformation in ways that echo Eckhart’s analogy which Pope John XXII had condemned. He begins with ordinary eating, which converts the substance of bread into the bodies of the living beings which consume it. This change occurs constantly in created nature, as commanded by divine wisdom. Yet God’s wisdom is not limited to the created order, and might also effect this change by uttering a word – as in the Eucharist. For ‘the word of omnipotent wisdom . . . converts by His will bread into His body, and did this by speaking. Truly He created it when He said, having taken bread, “This is my body”’ (n. 56). Having connected bread’s life-giving changes in eating and the sacrament, Nicholas then proposes a further, Eckhartian transformation. He asks, ‘If the substance of bread, although not alive, is transformed into the fellowship of immortality by the word, how can the substance of a human being, alive with spiritual life, hesitate when it can be transformed by Christ’s word into the fellowship of immortality?’22 Here Cusanus goes farther than Eckhart by describing both changes in bluntly ‘substantial’ terms: bread’s substance and ours wind up in the identical place, ‘the fellowship of immortality’. Indeed, he elsewhere speaks of a ‘transubstantiation by which we shall be transferred from mortal nature to immortal’.23 Yet Nicholas’s language seems more cautious than Eckhart’s

19 Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia, Opera omnia, vol. 2, n. 36; trans. Hopkins, 1981, p. 59. 20 Eckhart, 1981, pp. 77 & 80; LW 5, pp. 597 & 600. See Steer, 2005, pp. 158–160. 21 Nicholas of Cusa 2006a, translated by Thomas Izbicki from the Latin text edited by Von Bredow, 1953; citations to the Letter’s section numbers (n.) will generally be given within parentheses in the text. I thank Thomas Izbicki for use of his unpublished translation. Von Bredow identified the novice as Nicholas Albergati, the nephew of Cusanus’ friend, the cardinal also named Nicholas Albergati. However, this identification has been questioned. 22 Nicholas of Cusa, 2006a, n. 56, translation modified. ‘Sic igitur verbo in consortium immortalitatis panis substantia, licet non viva, transvivit, quomodo haesitari potest substantiam hominis vivam vita intellectuali in consortium immortalitatis per verbum Christi posse transferri?’ 23 Sermon 235; Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 19, n. 5. Here Cusanus may echo 1 Cor. 50–57 about the general resurrection, when the mortal shall put on immortality.

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in specifying the outcome of this transformation – namely, our transfer into the ‘fellowship of immortality’ rather than into a mystical union without distinction. This analogy completes an intricate discussion of the immortality which we desire, but ‘which only God possesses’ (n. 29). Since Cusanus understands immortality to mean eternal life in God,24 the divide between mortal and immortal signals the distance between ourselves and God; bridging that divide therefore requires uniting the human and divine. Nicholas strikes another Eckhartian note when he says that ‘since we have nothing from ourselves nor are we anything’, God alone confers immortality on ‘those who ask it of Him in informed faith’ and who ‘grasp onto nothing but give all things for immortality’ (n. 29). Detachment mirrors our creaturely nothingness, and joins faith in preparing us to receive God’s gift. Further, the gift of immortality requires the Incarnation: ‘It is necessary that human nature, common to all humanity, first be united substantially in some one [person] to the immortal divine nature by a union than which none can be greater. In him all the blessed are united similarly to the divine in its proper nature’. (n. 34) By uniting the human and the divine, Christ takes mortality into God’s own life. He thus fulfills our desire for immortality, as the blessed enter this very union. Although this may not be Eckhart’s union without distinction, it boldly proclaims what Cusanus elsewhere describes as theosis or deification: a union with God so intimate that none can be closer.25 Christ effects this union. By his earthly life, death and resurrection, he ‘showed Himself to be the master of making mortal men immortal’ (n. 53). Like a master weaver who introduces a willing apprentice into the art of weaving, Christ welcomes us ‘into the fellowship of his art’ of transforming the mortal into the immortal so that we ourselves may ‘become blessed and live well’ (nn. 51–52). When the Eucharistic analogy leads into the ‘fellowship of immortality’, it thus completes our initiation into Christ’s mastery and life within the Trinity. Nicholas then traces the analogy’s implications. Since the change of bread into Christ’s immortal life becomes the model for our transfer into that same life, the Eucharist provides ‘the exemplar of consummated Christian faith’ (n. 57). For as Nicholas explains, the sacrament feeds ‘anyone who knows that Christ said, “I wish, Father, where I am, there shall also my servant be” [Jn 12:26], and that those who believe are one in Him as He is in the Father. This is the omnipotent will, which nothing can resist. But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to be sons of God [Jn 1:12]’. (n. 57) This passage ties the analogy to central themes in the Gospel of John: Christ’s will to dwell in the same ‘place’ as his servant, the believer’s summons into Christ’s own union with the Father, and the power to be not only servants but sons and daughters of God. In this setting, the phrase ‘as many as received him’ suggests both the sacrament and a broader reception like Eckhart’s birth of the Son in the soul.

24 See von Bredow, 1953, p. 89. 25 See McGinn, 2005, pp. 479–480; and Hudson, 2006.

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`Nicholas concludes this section of the letter by linking faith to the Eucharist’s ecclesial dimensions. Receiving the sacrament demands faith because the senses cannot perceive the substance of Christ’s body and blood. For this reason, ‘the infidel and the beast do not come to it although they touch the species’ of bread and wine.26 In contrast, The Christian approaches, believes and eats it [the substance] by faith under the species and without them. And to eat it is to be incorporated into Christ and pass by participation in his body into union with Him, so that Christ is in him and in all the faithful. He thus united to Himself as head all the members so that they are not one unless there is one Christ, in whom all united to immortality possess eternal life. (nn. 58–59) Here Nicholas adds another meaning to sacramental eating: ‘incorporation’ into the church as Christ’s body, which yields union with him in eternal life. Union with Christ thus becomes a collective, communal affair as well as a personal and spiritual one. In Cusanus’ analogy between the Eucharist and human transformation, we find themes that Eckhart also develops: the changing of bread into Christ’s body and of ourselves into God’s life, the comparison between eating and spiritual transformation, and the distinctive nature of the spiritual eating which turns us into Christ. Yet we also find significant differences between Cusanus and Eckhart. Nicholas focuses more narrowly on immortality than mystical union, and uses the term ‘fellowship’ or consortium to indicate enduring differences rather than a union beyond distinction. He also accords the Incarnation a more explicit role as the hinge on which the whole analogy turns, and highlights the comparison’s communal, ecclesiastical features in ways that Eckhart does not. Here we cannot explore Nicholas’ understanding of the Eucharist in more detail.27 But let us glance at two themes which will clarify his relation to Eckhart and their Eucharistic analogies: intellect and hunger.

Intellect and Hunger Like Eckhart, Nicholas gives the intellect a central role in his mystical theology.28 For intellect marks us as created in God’s image, and provides the locus for the Incarnation. Since humanity’s perfection consists in understanding, in Christ ‘the divine Word is united to the intellect in its highest and the intellect is the place

26 n. 58; see Macy, 1999, pp. 38ff. 27 See Casarella, 2004, pp. 361–366; and Kandler, 2004. 28 See Duclow, 2006, pp. 307–325.

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where the Word is received’.29 This reception in turn shapes Cusanus’ mystical theology, where theosis and sonship occur as our intellect moves into Christ.30 Nicholas’ vernacular sermon on the Lord’s Prayer31 focuses these issues in the image of eating Christ, ‘our daily bread’. As the divine Word that nourishes the human intellect, Christ becomes food and the bread of life. The preacher says, The intelligent, spiritual nature is fed immortally with the truth and the Word of God, that is, with the eternal Son of God, who is wisdom. Therefore, we ask that the Word become food for our human nature. Now food must be united with that which is being fed. Otherwise, it isn’t food. Therefore, we ask that truth, or God’s Word, be united with our nature, be given to us. And our bread is of our nature. Therefore, we ask that God give us our bread – that is, Jesus Christ – into our heart of life as a food of life. (n. 25) In this richly symbolic fugue, Nicholas identifies divine truth, Word, Son, wisdom and Christ with the food – the ‘daily bread’ – for which we pray. Like Eckhart, Nicholas emphasizes the unity between food and those who eat. He then adds that this bread and its eating require joining the Word and human nature; that is, they require the Incarnation. While the incarnate Christ offers himself as ‘the food of foods’, relieving all human weakness (n. 26), he can only nourish those who eat. Faith provides the hungry response – the eating, if you will – that is essential if this bread is to become the ‘food of life’ within the human heart. Only through faith does this bread nourish us, so that ‘our life unites itself in our own human nature in Christ, in whom our nature is fed immortally with divine life’ (n. 25). Cusanus then follows Augustine and Eckhart in noting how oddly this eating and union work. For while ordinary digestion transforms our food into us, this spiritual feeding takes us into Christ’s own reality. As in Nicholas’ letter, Christ ‘is a food of life that unites us in itself and makes us alive in his life’ (n. 28). To support this claim, the preacher further extends his food metaphor. Eckhart claims that the soul’s union with God is closer than that between one’s soul and body. Here Nicholas says, ‘Your soul is a food of natural life for your body and all your members. The soul does not turn itself into the body and take upon itself corporeal nature. Rather, the soul unites in itself your body and all its members. In this union the body lives in the life of the soul’ (n. 28, emphasis added). The human soul does 29 Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei, Opera omnia, vol. 4, n. 100; trans. Nicholas of Cusa, 1997, p. 281. 30 See Hudson, 2006, pp. 136–137 and 156–166. 31 Sermon 24 on the Lord’s Prayer is Cusanus’ only sermon in both Latin and a German transcription. Nicholas’ Opera omnia, vol. 16 publishes the German and Latin versions as parallel texts, pp. 387–433. I shall cite Frank Tobin’s translation of the German (Nicholas of Cusa, 2006b) by section number in the notes and parentheses in the text. At nn.31–32, Cusanus discusses Christ’s presence in the Eucharist ‘under the form of bread’. See Eckhart’s glosses on ‘our daily bread’ in his Tractatus super Oratione Dominica (LW 5, nn. 10–13); and Steer, 2005, p. 166.

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not dwell in the body, but nourishes the body within its own life. Similarly, Christ as bread feeds our intellectual, spiritual nature. In both cases, food assimilates the consumer to itself, and this process moves upwards – from body to soul, and from the human mind to the divine Word. The focus on the intellect’s reception of Christ leads both Cusanus and Eckhart to notice a peculiar dynamic of hunger and eating. Eckhart comments on Ecclesiasticus 24:29, where divine Wisdom proclaims, ‘They that eat me shall yet hunger’. He emphasizes the differences between how we hunger and thirst for bodily and spiritual things. With ordinary food and drink, hunger and thirst increase our pleasure in eating and drinking, so that ‘drunks eat salted things to increase their thirst’ – and their pleasure.32 Thirst and hunger then fade as we become satisfied; and as the drunks also illustrate, to continue drinking and eating becomes gluttony and ‘disgusting’ (179/n.56). However, Ecclesiasticus describes a different state of affairs. With God as the object of its desire, the intellect finds itself eating and hungering all at once. For as we feed on divine Wisdom, our hunger increases. ‘In divine things as such eating causes hunger. The more and the purer the eating, the greater and purer the hunger. Eating and hunger proceed apace’. (180/n.57) And because God is infinite, there can be no end to the intellect’s hunger and eating, desire and fulfillment. Yet this is not a program for perpetual frustration. For hunger signals a continual lack and yearning, which our eating of God continually satisfies. Indeed, Eckhart says, those who eat God ‘still hunger not because they are not satiated . . ., but on the contrary they are satiated because they hunger and because eating and hungering are the same’ (180/n.58; emphasis added). Nor does Eckhart confine this cycle to the intellect and its desire for God. Rather, he develops it into a parasitic ontology where God is ‘the meat of everything that is’ and creatures, which in themselves are nothing, exist by continually feeding on divine being.33 Cusanus’ manuscript of Eckhart’s works includes detailed marginalia to this Lecture on Ecclesiasticus.34 But more telling is Nicholas’ similar commentary on the intellect’s cycle of hunger and feasting. His treatise On Learned Ignorance focuses on the relation between the human intellect and divine infinity. Late in the work this relation shapes his discussion of the church triumphant, where Nicholas anticipates the life of the saved. Playing on the Bible’s heavenly banquet, he develops images of hunger and thirst, food and drink. The meal’s ‘immortal food is life itself’, which we continually desire and consume as it transforms us into itself. Specifically, ‘our intellectual desire is to live intellectually, which is to enter more and more into life and joy. And because that life is infinite, the blessed, in their desire,

32 Eckhart, 1986. Cited by page in Eckhart, 1986, and by section number in LW 2, as here: p. 179/n.55. Following citations will be between parentheses in the text. 33 See Duclow, 2006, pp. 216–220. 34 See Frost, 2006, pp. 72–76.

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are brought more and more into it’.35 To illustrate this progress, Nicholas appeals to drinking and feasting. The thirsty blessed drink from ‘the fountain of life’, which forever fills them as they continue to thirst. He then makes a move which Eckhart did not make, and links the heavenly banquet – the ‘evening meal’ of Luke’s parable – with the Dominican’s gloss on Ecclesiasticus’ dynamic of hunger and eating. It is as if someone who was hungry were seated at the table of a great king where one was served the food that one longed for, so that one did not desire any other nourishment. The nature of the food would be of such a kind that while filling it would also sharpen one’s appetite. If such food never gave out, clearly, the individual always consuming it would always be filled, would always desire the same food, and would always be eagerly brought to it.36 Cusanus’ commentary highlights the intellect’s capacity for change, so that ‘in receiving life into itself it is turned into life’. He follows this with one of Eckhart’s favorite images: the intellect here behaves like air, which ‘in receiving into itself the sun’s ray, is turned into light’. Similarly, the intellect turns toward the intelligible and enters incorruptible truth ‘in eternity in Christ Jesus’ (204/259). Neither Cusanus nor Eckhart explicitly links this cycle of intellectual hunger and eating to the Eucharist.37 Yet it fits neatly with their focus on receiving the divine Word or Son within the intellect and spark, and clarifies how they understand this reception and the transformation that it effects. Both are convinced that Christ offers himself as the infinitely tasty food which we hunger for and eat without end. Hence, when they speak of our transformation into God, the cycle of hunger and eating signals a joyful dependence and fulfillment. For Cusanus, the cycle means endless progress as we continually grow in likeness to Christ himself, where human and divine life coincide. And for Eckhart, the dependence is complete, as the cycle describes the state of all creatures, which in themselves are nothing and which exist by eating of God’s being. With such hunger and dependence in play, Eckhart’s and Cusanus’ views of mystical transformation become clearer. The soul’s union with God cannot be a static, fixed state of identity – with or without distinction. It rather becomes an event or process, a dynamic cycle of hungering and devouring, feeding and being eaten. For those who believe and understand, the Eucharist simultaneously represents and effects their initiation into this unusual feast.

35 On Learned Ignorance 3.12; Nicholas of Cusa, 1997, p. 203; Latin text in Nicholas of Cusa, 1932, vol. 1, p. 258. Hereafter citations will be between parentheses in the text by translation page and the page in the Latin edition. 36 203–204/259; see McGinn, 2005, p. 465. 37 Others did establish this link, notably William of St. Thierry and Hadewijch. Writing on the ‘spiritual eating of Christ’s body’, William says, ‘Hunc autem cibum plus manducat, qui plus amat, et plus amando rursum, plus et plus manducat, et plus et plus amat’ (cited in Bazelaire, 1953, col. 1297) Concerning Hadewijch, see Duclow, 2006, pp. 206–214.

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Conclusion Within the Christian tradition, it may be hard to find a better symbol for mystical transformation than the Eucharist. For in its liturgical reality and symbolic resonance, this sacrament is all about transformation. Eckhart and Nicholas are convinced that word and liturgy change bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood. Eckhart seems to accept Thomas Aquinas’ account of transubstantiation to explain this change, while Cusanus uses Pseudo-Dionysius’ categories: bread and wine’s essence changes, but not their power and operation.38 Yet their concern is less with the mechanics of change within the elements than with the Eucharist’s purpose and effects – that is, how we receive Christ’s full presence within ourselves.39 Theirs is a theology of Eucharistic reception and its transforming power within us. Hence, they remind us that eating and digestion change food into ourselves, but that sacramental eating carries us into Christ’s life. What matters is receiving Christ in faith, intellect and the spark of the soul – a reception that yields union with God, deification and the ‘fellowship of immortality’. In this way Nicholas and Eckhart continue the tradition of ‘spiritual communion’ developed by Hugh of St. Victor, Alexander of Hales and Nicholas of Lyra. As Gary Macy notes, ‘this form of communion could and did take place apart from the sacramental reception’.40 This broader reception enables Eckhart to praise those who ‘receive spiritually a thousand times and more a day,’ and Cusanus to understand the Eucharist as embracing ‘all forms of spiritual nourishment that offer genuine sustenance to the Christian believer’.41 As they proclaim this broader reception, Eckhart and Nicholas amplify the Eucharist’s symbolic associations: the heavenly banquet of Luke’s parable and related biblical texts; the bread of life and ‘our daily bread’ of the Lord’s Prayer; and the divine Wisdom which increases the hunger of those who eat. These are standard patristic and medieval associations, embedded in biblical glosses and theological authorities. We have, however, observed Eckhart and Cusanus work them into new and remarkable arrangements. And none is more startling and provocative than their analogies between the Eucharist and mystical transformation – analogies which bring their whole enterprise into sharply sacramental focus. Here Cusanus and Eckhart achieve something more than a theology of the Eucharist. For they lead us to re-imagine and rethink our Christian faith, the human condition and reality itself in Eucharistic terms. In short, they present us with a sacramental view of reality and program for living.

38 39 40 41

Nicholas of Cusa, Sermon 235, Opera omnia, 19, pp. 196–197. See Weiss, 1965, pp. 150–151. Macy, 1999, p. 179. See Macy, 1984, pp. 73–105. Casarella, 2004, p. 361.

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Bibliography Angela of Foligno (1993) Complete Works (translated by Lachance, P.). New York: Paulist Press. Aquinas, Thomas (1980) Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part I (translated by Weisheipl, J.A. and Larcher, F.R.). Albany, NY: Magi Books. Aquinas, Thomas (1997) Catena aurea (edited by Newman, J.H.), reprint of 1841 ed. Southampton: Saint Austin Press. Augustine (1992) Confessions (translated by Chadwick, H.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bazelaire, Louis de (1953) Communion spirituelle, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 2. Paris: Beauchesne, cols. 1294–1300. Bynum, Caroline W. (1987) Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Religious Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bynum, Caroline W. (2007) Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Casarella, Peter J. (2004) Sacraments, in Bellitto, C.M., Izbicki, T.I. and Christianson, G. (eds.) Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man. New York: Paulist Press, pp. 347–372. Caspers, Charles (1995) The Western Church During the Late Middle Ages: Augenkommunion or Popular Mysticism? in Caspers, C., Luken, K. and Rouwhorst, G. (eds.) Bread of Heaven: Customs Surrounding Holy Communion. Kampen: Kok Pharos, pp. 83–97. Duclow, Donald F. (2005) Theologies of Suffering: Eckhart, Henry Suso and Ursula Fleming. Eckhart Review, 14, pp. 41–61; reprinted as article 4 in this volume. Duclow, Donald F. (2006) Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Aldershot: Ashgate. Eckhart, Meister (1936–) Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke (edited by Quint, J., Koch, J., Steer, G. et al.). Stuttgart and Berlin: Kohlhammer. Eckhart, Meister (1941) Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (translated by Blakney, R.B.). New York: Harper & Row. Eckhart, Meister (1981) The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (translated and Introductions by Colledge, E. and McGinn, B.). New York: Paulist Press. Eckhart, Meister (1986) Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher (translated by McGinn, B., Tobin, F. and Borgstadt, E.). New York: Paulist Press. Eckhart, Meister (2009) The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (translated by Walshe, M.O’C., revised with a Foreword by McGinn, B.). New York: Crossroad. Frost, Stefanie (2006) Nikolaus von Kues und Meister Eckhart: Rezeption im Spiegel der Marginalien zum Opus tripartitum Meister Eckharts. Münster: Aschendorff. Glossa ordinaria (1879) Patrologia Latina, vol. 114. Paris: J.-P. Migne. Hopkins, Jasper (1981) Nicholas of Cusa’s Debate with John Wenck. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press. Hudson, Nancy (2006) Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Kandler, Karl-Hermann (2004) Cibus mentis: Nikolaus von Kues über das heilige Abendmal. Kerygma und Dogma, 50, pp. 184–200. Macy, Gary (1984) The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Macy, Gary (1999) Treasures from the Storeroom: Medieval Religion and the Eucharist. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. McGinn, Bernard (2005) The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany. New York: Crossroad. Nicholas of Cusa (1932–) Opera omnia issu et auctoritate Academiae Heidelbergensis, 20 vols. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Nicholas of Cusa (1997) Selected Spiritual Writings (translated by Bond, H.L.). New York: Paulist Press. Nicholas of Cusa (2006a) Letter to Nicholas, a Novice of Monte Oliveto (translated by Izbicki, T.I., from von Bredow [1953]). Unpublished translation for the American Cusanus Society’s conference at Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, October, 2006. Nicholas of Cusa (2006b) Nicholas of Cusa’s Sermon on the Pater Noster (translated by Tobin, F.), in Casarella, P.J. (ed.) Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, pp. 5–25. Steer, Georg (2005) Die Predigten des Nikolaus von Kues im Vergleich mit dem Predigtwerk von Meister Eckhart. Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 30, pp. 145–169. Theisen, Joachim (1990) Predigt und Gottesdienst: Liturgische Strukturen in den Predigten Meister Eckharts. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. von Bredow, Gerda (1953) Das Vermächtnis des Nikolaus von Kues: Der Brief an Nikolaus Albergati nebst der Predigt in Monteoliveto (1963). Cusanus-Texte IV – Briefwechsel des Nikolaus von Kues. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Weiss, Bardo (1965) Die Heilsgeschichte bei Meister Eckhart. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald.

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7 “ O U R S U B S TA N C E I S G O D ’ S COIN” Nicholas of Cusa on Minting, Defiling and Restoring the Imago Dei*

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) understood money. It was central to his rise from bourgeois beginnings in Kues on the Mosel River to Cardinal of the Church, bishop of Brixen, and leading figure in the Curia in Rome. As a young cleric in his twenties, he began accumulating and managing benefices with élan – a habit that continued throughout his career, to the benefit of himself and his staff.1 As prince-bishop of Brixen, he shrewdly reclaimed church property, increased mining activity and income, and led the diocese from debt to prosperity. The surviving diocesan registers written in his own hand show that he was very much a hands-on manager. Yet his very success provoked conflict with Sigmund, Archduke of Austria and Duke of the Tyrol, and in 1458 Nicholas fled to Rome in fear for his life. Then in 1459, he served as legate and vicar-general overseeing Rome and the papal states’ temporal affairs, including the Vatican bank and mint. But the final, enduring testimony to Cusanus’s fiscal and legal skill is St. Nicholas Hospital in Kues – a retirement community established to care for 33 poor, elderly men. With his brother Johannes, he established the hospital, and endowed it with much of his income. While the hospital has grown and today includes women as well as men, it still functions under its much-amended original charter (1458).2 And it is here that Nicholas’s heart and mind came to rest – his heart beneath the chapel, and his mind in his personal library. While these biographical details are interesting in and of themselves, I mention them as background for something more unusual: Cusanus’s symbolic use of * Portions of this article were presented in sessions of the American Cusanus Society at meetings of the Renaissance Society of America in Washington (2011) and Berlin (2015). I thank Thomas Woelki for directing me to sources in the Acta Cusana and elsewhere about Nicholas’ financial management of the Brixen diocese. 1 This is a consistent theme in Erich Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography, trans. David Crowner and Gerald Christianson (Washington, DC: 2010), pp. 21–24, 82–85, 115–116, 135–136. 2 See Morimichi Watanabe, Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to His Life and His Times, eds. Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki (Farnham: 2011), pp. 355–362; and Marco Brösch, “Das St. Nikolaus-Hospital in Kues,” in Handbuch Nikolaus von Kues: Leben und Werk, eds. Marco Brösch, Walter Andreas Euler, Alexandra Geissler and Vicki Ranff (Darmstadt: 2014), pp. 117–128.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-7

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money and coins in his theology. Following Augustine and medieval exegetes, he speaks of human beings as coins stamped with God’s image. However, Cusanus develops this metaphor in extraordinary detail. In his hands, coins – their metals and minting, the images and inscriptions they bear, and how they are valued and counted, tarnished through use, and burnished anew – become a central, organizing symbol for an entire economy of creation and salvation. We shall see this numismatic theology on full display in two of Nicholas’s works: the dialogue De ludo globi (The Game of Spheres) and Sermon 249. The final pages of De ludo globi focus on the minting of coins and assessing their value to analyze the relations among God’s unity, Christology, the human intellect and creation. God becomes the mint-master and the human intellect a coin-broker or banker, who bears God’s image and judges the values imprinted on all creatures. Further, God and the intellect are themselves living coins. Here Nicholas provides the speculative framework for his mystical numismatics. Sermon 249 comments on a key Gospel source for the coin symbol: Matthew 22:15–22, where Jesus is asked about paying tribute to Caesar. Taking a Roman coin, he asks “Whose image and inscription is this?” When told “Caesar’s,” he replies, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s.” Church Fathers and medieval commentators often linked this story to humanity’s creation in God’s image, comparing us to coins minted with the divine image and name.3 Cusanus’s sermon follows this tradition, as he first analyzes the incident in historical and legal terms, and then traces its ethical and anagogical implications at length. As we shall see, the sermon centers on humanity as God’s coin, which is corrupted through misuse and the alloys of sin, and requires cleansing and polishing to return it to mint condition. Sermon 249 thus develops the practical and spiritual consequences of being God’s coin.

De ludo globi De ludo globi is among Nicholas of Cusa’s last works, written in Rome in 1462–63. It consists of two dialogues featuring the Cardinal – Nicholas himself – and two young men, John of Bavaria in the first Book, and his cousin Albert in the second. Near the end of the second dialogue, the Cardinal says, “There is no better way to say farewell (valere) than to speak of value (de valore).”4 By punning on 3 The metaphor of humanity as coin is found in antiquity but became prominent among the Latin Church Fathers. See Dieter Lau, “Nummi Dei summus: Beitrag zu einer historischen Münzmetaphorik,” Wiener Studien: Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie und Patristik, n.s. 14 (1980), 192–228, especially 212–228. On Mt 22:15–22 and the history of its interpretation, see Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, (Minneapolis: 2005), pp. 61–67; and Christopher J. Nygren, “Titian’s Christ with the Coin: Recovering the Spiritual Currency of Numismatics in Renaissance Ferrara,” Renaissance Quarterly 69 (2016): 449–488, especially 460–471. 4 Nicholas of Cusa, De ludo globi, ed. Hans-Georg Senger in the Heidelberg Academy’s critical edition, Nicolai de Cusa opera omnia, IX (Hamburg: 1998); this edition of Cusanus’ works will be cited as “h” and De ludo globi as DLG. I shall cite two translations: Pauline M. Watts, The Game

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farewell and value, valere and valor, he extends their leave-taking into a discussion of value. Affirming that “Being is good and noble and valuable (pretiosum),” Nicholas expands the Platonic identification of being and the good into a novel mix of ontology and value. Every existing thing has distinct but relative value within a sliding scale, where there can always be something of greater or less worth. Nothing finite can be of maximum or minimum value. For, he says, “only . . . the value of values, which is in all things and in which all things that have value exist, enfolds (complicat) in itself all value and is unable to have a value that is more or less.” This “absolute value” is the source and cause of all finite beings and relative values. Here Cusanus rephrases his teaching on the absolute maximum and finite creation that he first developed in De docta ignorantia (1440). But things get more interesting when Albert asks about “the price of value (pretium valoris),” and the conversation turns to money and coins – whose making and exchange take on symbolic and theological weight. The Cardinal notes that as a florin is worth a thousand denarii, and a double florin is worth two thousand, “so in the optimal florin than which none could be higher there would necessarily be the value of an infinity of denarii.”5 He then asks about the value of the mind’s “eye,” which enables us to see and judge the values of all things. For while “value is in God as [in] the essence of value,” it exists “in the mind as notional being” – that is, as known by the intellect.6 Since God creates both value and the mind, they are entia realia and actually exist. However, value becomes a conceptual being or ens notionale precisely as the mind discerns and judges it. In turn, this ability to discern and judge leads the mind to recognize its own worth, as the Cardinal declares that “the value of the intellectual nature is supreme after the value of God. For the value of God and of all things is in its power notionally and by distinctions.”7 Cusanus then presents a paradoxical argument: it is not enough for value to exist. Rather, it needs to be appreciated – to be valued – by the mind. For, he says, “without the intellect even the existence of value cannot be discerned.” And because judgment requires the mind’s “rational and proportioning power,” without this power both judgment and value “would cease.” Apart from perception and discriminating attention, value

of Spheres (New York: 1986); and Jasper Hopkins, The Bowling Game, in Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: 2001), 2:1179–1274. Citations will be to DLG, section number, page in h IX, followed by the page in the translation of Watts or Hopkins, as here: DLG, 110 (h IX, 137), Watts 115. 5 DLG, 111 (h IX, 138), Watts 115. 6 DLG, 112 (h IX, 139), Watts 115–117. See Cusanus, De coniecturis I, 1, 5 (h III, 7–8); and Julián Giglio, “Esbozo de una teoría monetaria en Nicolás de Cusa,” in Actas del II Simposio Internacional de Jóvenes Medievalistas 2015, eds. Gerardo Fabián and Juan Francesco Jiménez Alcazar (Mar del Plata, Argentina: 2015), pp. 177–196, especially 183–187; http://giemmardelplata.org/ wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Rodr%C3%ADguez-Gerardo-y-Jim%C3%A9nez-Alc%C3%A1zarJuan-Francisco-comp-Actas-del-II-Simposio-Internacional-de-J%C3%B3venes-Medievalistas.pdf, accessed November 16, 2022. 7 DLG, 114 (h IX, 140), Watts p. 117.

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becomes in a sense worthless. For although it would exist and be known by God, it would not be recognized within creation.8 Therefore, the Cardinal concludes, “if God wished that his work be judged to be worth something, it was necessary for him to create the intellectual nature among his works.” God thus creates the human mind to appreciate and discriminate among the values of creation. Albert, the Cardinal’s young conversation partner, then proposes a striking pair of metaphors: God as a mint-master (monetarium), and the intellect as a coinbroker or banker (nummularius). Cusanus develops these metaphors playfully and at length, with the Cardinal describing God as “an omnipotent coiner of money who, from his high and omnipotent power can produce all money.” This divine mintmaster would then appoint “a coin-broker having in his power the distinction of all monies and the knowledge of their numbering.” In turn, the coin-broker’s task is to “reveal the value, number, weight, and measure which the money had from God, so that the price and value of his money and through it the power of the mint-master would be known.”9 Not to be outdone, Albert adds more variations to this symbolic fugue. He says that the mint-master, holding “the treasure of all coinages” within his power, could produce all varieties and values of money, yet the treasure would “always remain the same, infinite, inexhaustible and unconsumable.”10 Unfortunately, earthly economies like America’s and the Eurozone lack access to this kind of treasure, although they occasionally behave as if they do, with disastrous results. But in Cusanus’s symbolic economy, there is no such problem. And here the coinbroker would exercise enormous “discretion . . ., discerning all the various kinds of coinages and numbering, weighing, and measuring every value of all of them.” Yet Albert stresses the superiority of God’s art to that of the coin-broker, “because the art of God would make things exist, and the art of the coin-broker would only make them known.” To the broker’s calculating power, Albert thus adds that of publicity – announcing currency values, exchange rates, etc. He does not make the money, but monitors and controls its circulation – key functions of a central bank like the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England. Money exists in different ways (modi essendi) in the mint-master’s art, in the gold or metals from which it is made, etc. The Cardinal focuses on how it exists “in reason discerning money.”11 Here “the coin is the image or sign of him who makes” it, so that a mint-master’s coin bears “the likeness of his face.” At this point Cusanus cites the Gospel story of the coin of tribute, with Jesus’ question, “Whose image and inscription is this?” Since it bears Caesar’s image and name, he says, 8 See Hopkins’s commentary, Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, 2:1273, notes 342 and 344. 9 DLG, 115 (h IX, 140–141), Watts p. 117. The first leaf of Codex Cusanus 50 in the library of St. Nicholas Hospital in Kues contains a note in Nicholas’s hand with a similar metaphor; see Ulli Roth, “Geld und Begriffskunst bei Nicolaus Cusanus (1401–1464): Erläuterungen zu einem bisher unveröffentlichten Cusanischen Fragment,” www.hottopos.com/convenit4/ulli.htm (n.d.), accessed November 16, 2022. On Codex 50, see Jakob Marx, Verzeichnis der HandschriftenSammlung des Hospitals zu Cues (Trier: 1905), pp. 45–46. 10 DLG, 115 (h IX, 141), Watts p. 117. 11 DLG, 116 (h IX, 142), Watts p. 117.

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“Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22:15–22). We shall see Cusanus gloss this Gospel incident at length in Sermon 249, but here it simply introduces the Cardinal’s numismatic discussion of face, image and likeness. He links face with knowledge, since we identify coins by the faces stamped on them – Lincoln on an American penny or Queen Elizabeth and King Charles on British pounds and banknotes. By portraying reigning monarchs, the pound illustrates Cusanus’ model where coins make known the face of the authority who issues them. Yet the Cardinal adds an initially puzzling claim that the mint-master’s own face “reveals him who would otherwise be invisible and unknowable.”12 The likeness (similitudo) of this face then appears on many coins, where it becomes widely recognized. Referring again to the tribute coin’s “image and inscription,” Cusanus then identifies the image with the name inscribed on the coin. His rationale for these distinctions and claims becomes clear in the theological discussion that follows. For the mint-master becomes God the Father, while the Son becomes his face, name and “living image,” through whom the Father or mint-master “makes money and puts his sign on everything.”13 Here the Cardinal sketches a three-part scheme: 1) the Father – hidden and invisible in himself – as Oneness or Being; 2) the Son as Equality, which images or “figures” the Father and becomes the exemplar and “formal cause of beings”14; and 3) created beings marked, like coins, with the sign and likeness of the Son’s face. Because this scheme is translucent, it can be seen the other way around: the many created “coins” display the face of the Son, which reveals the hidden substance or “quiddity” of the Father and mint-master. All creation thus becomes a treasury of coins signifying their divine exemplar and origin. The Cardinal then sketches a metaphysical scheme for coining creation. Stamping metal with “the sign of the likeness of its signer” makes it a coin.15 As matter, copper has the potential to take various forms. Minting fixes on one of these, namely “its possibility of being (possibilitas essendi) a coin.” With this example in view, Nicholas outlines a dialectic of possibility and necessity. Using terms of the twelfth-century thinker Thierry of Chartres, he distinguishes four modes of being.16 Its two extremes are marked by God as “infinite actuality [or] absolute necessity,”

12 13 14 15

DLG, 116 (h IX, 142), Watts p. 117. DLG, 117 (h IX, 143), Watts p. 119. DLG, 117 (h IX, 143), Watts p. 119. DLG, 118 (h IX, 144), Watts p. 119. Here Cusanus follows medieval economic theory. Jean Buridan writes that coins must be “impressed with the stamp of some prince, for otherwise anybody might fabricate and falsify money”; Buridan, as cited by Odd Langham, Wealth and Money in the Aristotelian Tradition (Bergen: 1983), p. 80. Marco Brösch notes that St. Nicholas Hospital’s library has a fifteenth-century manuscript (Codex Cusanus 311) with six German texts on coinage, but “it is not quite clear whether the manuscript belonged to Nicholas of Cusa or if it came to the Cusanus library after his death” (personal communication, October 26, 2016); see Marx, Verzeichnis, p. 304. 16 On Cusanus’ adaptation of Thierry’s modes in De ludo globi, see David Albertson, Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres (Oxford: 2014), pp. 272–273.

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and matter as “absolute and indeterminate possibility.” Between these extremes are two middle states. The first, “necessity of combination” draws necessity into a complex of differentiated natures. For example, “the necessity of being contracted to man enfolds (complicat)” everything necessary to the “mode of being which is called humanity.”17 The second mediating state works from the other extreme, and “elevates possibility into act through determination.” This “determinate possibility” marks particular things, for example, “this florin or that man.” Having set out this broad speculative scheme, the Cardinal returns to the human intellect with a thought experiment. He asks Albert to consider a coin, a papal florin, and “in your conception make it alive with an intellectual life, and make it look into itself mentally.”18 This experiment telescopes the terms of its analogy, as the living, introspective coin becomes the intellect itself. For this coin “finds within itself concepts of all things.” As we see sunlight and an indivisible point only “negatively” or indirectly, the intellect sees “negatively” the ontological poles of God’s “infinite actuality” and matter’s “infinite possibility.” But it sees “positively” the entire middle range of things marked by “necessity of combination” and “determinate possibility.” The Cardinal adds yet another analogy, when he compares the intellect to a living mirror, which “contemplates in itself the modes of being, insofar as they are intelligible.”19 By giving life to coins and mirrors, Cusanus thus highlights the intellect’s comprehensive reach, as it extends to all four of the Chartrian modes of being. He concludes by identifying both God and the intellect as living coins: “Therefore, the intellect is that coin which is also a banker or money-broker, even as God is that coin which is also the mint-master.”20 Specifically, as the intellect discovers “its inborn power of knowing and numbering every coin,” it thereby finds “all things to be present within itself in an intellectual way.”21 Similarly – although Nicholas does not say this – as mint-master and living coin, God enfolds all values within the treasury of divine unity, and by knowing and numbering distributes them throughout creation. 17 DLG, 118 (h IX, 145–146), Watts p. 119. In De docta ignorantia, II, 9, 141–150 (h I, 90–96), Nicholas discusses “necessitas complexionis” in connection with the Platonists’ world-soul. He concludes that the “necessity of connection” indicates no intermediate mind between God and the created universe, but rather names the divine Son or creative Word, who is the “essence of all things.” 18 DLG, 118 (h IX, 146), Hopkins 2:1246, translation modified. “Considera . . . papalem florenum, et facito ipsum in quo conceptu vivum vita intellectuali et quod in se mentaliter recipiat.” See Augustine, Sermo IX, viii, 9 (PL 38, 82), where Augustine contrasts the emperor’s image on a coin with God’s image in human beings: “Tu nummus Dei es, ex hoc melior, quia cum intellectu et cum quadam vita nummus Dei es, ut scias etiam cujus imaginem geras, et ad cujus imaginem factus sis: nam nummus nescit se habere imaginem imperatoris.” 19 DLG, 119 (h IX, 147), Hopkins 2:1247. 20 DLG, 119 (h IX, 147), Hopkins 2:1247, translation modified. “Est igitur intellectus ille nummus, qui nummularius, sicut deus illa moneta, quae et monetarius.” 21 DLG, 119 (h IX, 147), Hopkins 2:1247, translation modified. “Quare intellectus reperit sibi congenitam virtutem omnem monetam cognoscendi et numerandi. Quomodo autem vivus ille nummus, qui intellectus, in se omnia intellectualiter quarens reperiat.”

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De ludo globi thus expands the coin metaphor into a richly symbolic field. Here Nicholas’s mathematical symbolism – which often works in splendidly abstract isolation – takes on concrete, monetary focus in the making and circulation of coins. Not only are we minted as God’s living coins, but the human intellect acts as a banker who calculates and assesses the values of all creatures. But what are the practical consequences of this numismatic theology? What does it suggest about how we are to live? How might it guide a believer toward salvation and union with Christ? Since Cusanus addresses these questions in his preaching, let us turn to one of his sermons.

Sermon 249 During his years as prince-bishop of Brixen in the Tyrol (1452–58), Nicholas’s agenda included preaching and rebuilding the diocese’s finances. He did both with considerable skill. As we shall see, Cusanus dealt with Duke Sigmund’s minting of new coins and shifting currency policy, secured the bishopric’s mining rights, and oversaw the production of silver and other metals. With coins and their metals very much on his mind, they came to figure in several of his sermons.22 One of these is Sermon 249, which he preached on the vigil of All Saints in 1456. Nicholas discusses the Gospel reading of the day, Matthew’s account of Jesus’s encounter with the Pharisees and Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar (Mt 22:15–22). They ask, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” Jesus replies, “Show me the coin.” Given a Roman denarius bearing Caesar’s face and name, Jesus asks, “Whose image and inscription is this?” When the Pharisees reply, “Caesar’s,” he says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”23 Sermon 249 offers a wide-ranging analysis of this familiar story, and again focuses on humanity as God’s coin, created in the divine image. Cusanus explains that as a minter impresses an image onto a coin, God’s intellect forms human beings by impressing its own image upon us. Since justice demands giving to each its own, we owe to the temporal world its due coin, and to God our spirit and very selves. Like the Glossa ordinaria and Thomas Aquinas before him, Nicholas first discusses the Gospel narrative’s literal and historical meaning.24 He notes the political divide between the Pharisees who thought tithes should only be given to God, and others who favored paying tribute to the Romans. Hence, the question about trib22 See James E. Biechler, The Religious Language of Nicholas of Cusa (Missoula: 1975), pp. 95–96. 23 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo 249, (h XIX, 307–318). Citations of this sermon will be by section number and page in h XIX, as here: Sermo 249, 10–11 (h XIX, 310–311). Jasper Hopkins translates the sermon in Nicholas of Cusa’s Didactic Sermons: A Selection (Loveland, CO: 2008), pp. 60–74; I shall cite this translation, with occasional modifications. For a useful survey of Cusanus’s sermons, see Walter Andreas Euler, “Sermones: Die Predigten des Nikolaus von Kues,” in Brösch et al., Handbuch Nikolaus von Kues, pp. 306–352. 24 Glossa ordinaria, PL 114, 156B-C; and Thomas Aquinas, Catena aurea, ed. Angelico Guarienti, 2 vols (Turin: 1953), 1:32.

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ute was a trap, since the Pharisees expected that Jesus “would either speak against those who were zealous for keeping God’s Law or against Caesar.”25 They set this trap by first praising Jesus as a teacher who spoke truth candidly, without respect for his hearers’ rank or person. But Jesus denounces his questioners’ hypocrisy, shrewdly asks to see the coin, and says to honor both Caesar and God. Cusanus goes on “to reflect on the Master’s teaching (doctrinam)” in two stages.26 The first is historical, philosophical and juridical, and the second, moral and anagogical. Nicholas begins by emphasizing Jesus’s demand to be shown the coin, and analyzing rules of evidence, judgment and naming. He states his “thesis (conclusio) that there can be no erring in judgment when the thing is shown about which a judgment is sought” – like Caesar’s coin. To clarify this thesis, Nicholas turns to names and their ‘whatness’ or essential meaning.27 When this is made clear, it settles any doubt by disclosing the quiddity or whatness of the matter (quiditas rei) in question. Hence, when the issue is paying tribute money, to display the coin with its image and inscription removes doubt as to whether a Jew or Christian may serve the world and its prince. Highlighting the Gospel’s symbolic meaning, the preacher says, “We know that we, being a coin of Christ, bear his image and inscription – as the name ‘Christian’ teaches. Accordingly, we belong not to this world, but to Christ.”28 So we must live and act according to this name, as Nicholas underlines with a string of parallel examples: a canon must follow the rules of his calling; a rector must live rightly; a teacher must instruct; members of a state – that is, “a oneness of citizens” – should live in concord and harmony.29 Nicholas’s comments on marriage are depressingly conventional, when he defines marriage (coniugium) as a “uniting together” where “the husband is as form or head, and the wife as matter or body.”30 The thesis leads to two corollaries. First, when a defendant produces the evidence himself, the judgment goes against him because of the evidence he has introduced. The Pharisees present a denarius, a coin whose very name yields “a perfect unfolding of the rationale” for Jesus’s judgment. As Cusanus explains, 25 Sermo 249, 8 (h XIX, 310), Hopkins p. 62. 26 Sermo 249, 12 (h XIX, 311), Hopkins p. 64. 27 Sermo 249, 13 (XIX, 311), Hopkins p. 64. Cusanus’s phrase is ‘quid nominis,’ literally ‘the what of a name.’ Hopkins renders it as ‘the essential meaning of a name,’ which interprets the phrase accurately, but obscures its echo in ‘quiditas rei’ which follows: “Quoad primum sciendum quod ostensionem claram quid nominis, solvitur omne dubium; nam quiditas rei coincidit cum veritate et unitate eiusdem.” Nicholas here assumes an immediate link between ‘quid nominis’ and the ‘quiditas’ of the thing named. See also Sermo 249, 17 (h IX, 313): “Non est aliud quiditas rei iudicandae quam diffinitio quid nominis.” 28 Sermo 249, 14 (h XIX, 311–312), Hopkins p. 64. 29 Sermo 249, 14–16 (h XIX, 312–313), Hopkins p. 65. Nicholas similarly links etymologies to offices or ways of life in Reformatio generalis, 11 (h XV, 33–34); trans. Thomas M. Izbicki, Nicholas of Cusa: Writings on Church and Reform (Cambridge, MA: 2008), p. 565. See also Richard J. Serina, Jr., Nicholas of Cusa’s Brixen Sermons and Late Medieval Church Reform (Leiden: 2016), pp. 216–219. 30 Sermo 249, 16 (h XIX, 312–313), Hopkins p. 65; citing Eph. 5:23.

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“When metal is brought forth from a mine, it is purified by fire, and finally engraved and imprinted. The imprint shows the metal’s quiddity [or whatness] and value,” so that anyone who sees the coin knows its value.31 As the coin of tribute, the denarius is plainly a Roman coin, stamped with the image and name of Caesar. The term ‘denarius’ also stimulates Nicholas’ fascination with the number ten, as we see in the examples which follow: showing the Ten Commandments answers questions about sin against the Law; and exhibiting the number ten resolves questions about number, because every number is unfolded from ten. According to the second corollary, “distributive justice gives to each what is his own.” Hence Jesus’s judgment to render appropriate tribute to both Caesar and God. To conclude this section of the sermon, Cusanus summarizes the Gospel text’s “primary teaching.” By offering Jesus the denarius, “the Jews themselves showed that they were subject to Caesar, . . . [and] obligated here on earth to pay tribute to Caesar as to their overlord. Nevertheless, they are not for that reason free from the Law of God.”32 For heavenly and earthly rulers are to be honored in different ways. Nicholas distinguishes between the denarius’s “accidental” features – Caesar’s image and inscription – which are “of this world,” and the “substance of the metal [which] was from God.” Tribute follows this distinction. If the Jews “were obliged to pay Caesar a tribute of accidental things, then [we are obliged to pay] to God tribute of substantial things. For we are obliged to render to God not only external and accidental goods but also all that we have from Him and all that we are from Him – namely, our being, living, and understanding.” Cusanus therefore insists that we “give to the world that which is its own, and give to God that which is His own.”33 If the sermon’s first section seems pitched to academics and lawyers, the second suggests a wider lay audience, probably in Brixen’s cathedral. Here Nicholas explores the coin symbol’s moral and anagogical dimensions, and – in one of his few texts about gender – addresses men and women separately. He begins by reaffirming the sermon’s theme: “Our substance is God’s coin. For in accordance with the image of God we are what we are. And for this reason the likeness in us of the Son of God – which is the image of the Living God – receives from God the 31 Sermo 249, 17 (h XIX, 313), Hopkins p. 66; translation modified. “Nam quando metallum ex minera educitur, purgatur per ignem et finaliter figuratur et signatur. Signum ipsum ostendit quiditatem et valorem metallis.” Nicholas seems to merge two medieval views of money: “firstly, an artificial measure of value, authorized by the state, against which all things could be gauged . . . Secondly, since it was given physical reality by coinage made of precious metal, it came to be seen as a commodity with a value that could rise and fall”; Diane Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: 2002), p. 70. 32 Sermo 249, 19 (h XIX, 314), Hopkins p. 67. See Nicholas Oresme’s gloss on Mt. 22:20: Christ “does not say that the money was due to Caesar because it bore his image, but because it was ‘tribute.’ . . . Christ therefore showed that the stamp was the means of knowing to whom the tribute was due”; De Moneta, ch. VII, 11, in The De Moneta of Nicholas Oresme and English Mint Documents, trans. Charles Johnson (London: 1956), p. 11; and Adam Woodhouse, “‘Who Owns Money?’ Currency, Property, and Popular Sovereignty in Nicole Oresme’s De moneta,” Speculum 92 (2017): 107–108. 33 Sermo 249, 19 (h XIX, 314), Hopkins p. 67.

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Father the imprint of its being.”34 But as coins suffer from wear, use and currency manipulation,35 sin corrupts God’s image within us. “Defiled and unrecognizable on account of the contracted rust,” this image “was cleansed and reformed by the true image of God, the Son of God.”36 Having stated this broad theme, Nicholas develops a symbolic fugue on metals, defiling and restoring the coins that we are. Here gender makes a difference, as he distinguishes men and women according to their coins’ metals. He says, “We men can show ourselves in no other way than as a coin of true gold – and you women in no other way than as a coin of pure silver,” and speaks to each group in turn.37 When men offer themselves as coins of true gold, bearing God’s image and Christ’s inscription, they render to God what belongs to God. But through sin, their coin becomes an alloy, mixed with “other, more imperfect metals.” Hence, the preacher declares, “You have adulterated the purity of your gold and changed the image of the Creator into an image of the creature, or lost the inscription of Christ the Redeemer and now bear the inscription of the Prince of this world, to whom you have dedicated yourself.” The consequences can be dire: “Your money will be valueless in the Kingdom of God, where there can be nothing that is diminished, defiled, or corruptible. Nor will you be able to deceive God, since He is a Refining Fire (Mal. 3:2). For in the fire gold shows whether it is true gold. If it is true gold, it endures in the fire and seems to be turned into fire. If it is false gold, it gives off smoke, and its loveliness is transformed into blackness, and its cohesiveness turned into ashes.”38 What are we to do when our coin’s image is defiled? Nicholas advises that we learn from minters and goldsmiths how to remove the blemishes and how to make [the coin] shine anew: namely, heat it with the fire of your spirit’s affliction . . . [Then] throw yourself into the salty and corrosive water of tears, and wipe them away with your hands – i.e., with . . . works of penance such as fasting, abstinence, and so on. Then polish and dry [the coin] with soft cloths – i.e., the works of mercy – and the clear image will return, and the Devil’s inscription will be blotted out, and the Savior’s inscription will reappear.39

34 Sermo 249, 21 (h XIX, 314–315), Hopkins p. 68: “Nostra substantia est numisma Dei. Secundum enim Dei imaginem id sumus quod sumus, et ob hoc in nobis similitudo Filii Dei, quae est imago Dei vivi, recipit impressionem sui esse a Deo Patre, qui nos configuravit Filio.” See Lau, “Nummi Dei summus,” p. 220. 35 Wood notes two ways that rulers could manipulate currency: changing the ratio of precious and base metals in coins, and “reducing the weight of the coins while retaining their face value” (Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 101–102). Both provoked strong criticism (102–109), and Oresme’s De moneta was a sustained critique of these practices; see Woodhouse, “‘Who Owns Money?’” pp. 85–116. 36 Sermo 249, 21 (h XIX, 315), Hopkins p. 68. 37 Sermo 249, 22 (h XIX, 315), Hopkins p. 68. 38 Sermo 249, 23 (h XIX, 315–316), Hopkins pp. 68–69. 39 Sermo 249, 24 (h XIX, 316), Hopkins p. 69.

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Although corruption and restoration reduce the coin’s weight, the “cleansing in the fire of divine love” makes the coin shine more brightly than other gold, and thus compensates for the value lost in weight. Throughout all this, Nicholas assures his male listeners that their “coin remains gold,” and that they may expect “a measure of glory” in the life to come. The term ‘measure’ leads Cusanus to note that these gold coins vary in value (valor), and yield different “lodgings (hospitia)” in God’s house (Jn 14:2) – from the spare but satisfactory accommodations for those who simply profess Christ without undergoing “the fire of improvement,” to the five-star suites reserved for martyrs.40 The preacher therefore urges men to work steadily at their assigned tasks so that they may “merit to enter into joy.”41 Nicholas then compares the origins of gold and humanity – or male humanity. He recalls “how from black and ugly ashes hidden in the hills (i.e., our first parents) God has brought gold to light through successive veins, and how . . . He has brought to those foul ashes the fire of His love, and by the power of His omnipotence elevated us into His own image and granted us to be the ones who have incorruptible gold in our rational spirit.” This analogy seems to fuse humanity’s creation and redemption, since the ashes suggest fallen, sinful humanity. Echoing Augustine, the rational spirit’s powers of memory, understanding and will reflect the Trinity and lead us into its life. To conclude his address to the men, Nicholas exhorts them, saying, “We must preserve our gold-piece’s durability and constancy amid adversities; . . . its luster by means of honesty (sinceritas); its malleability, so that we may be . . . capable of change and compassionate; and its weightiness (ponderositas) by means of seriousness of morals and humility of spirit.” Turning to the congregation’s women whose coin is silver, Nicholas urges them to heed what he has said about men’s gold coin, because “there is one [and the same] image and inscription in women as in men. And their silver coin is not of less value than a gold coin; rather it is white gold.”42 Having recognized this equality, the preacher nevertheless plunges into familiar gender stereotypes centering on purity. Like gold, pure silver is “incorruptible, solid, weighty, bright, appealing.” Women must preserve their coin’s purity and avoid alloys. They should not mix their silver with quicksilver, lead, or tin. Quicksilver or mercury renders their coin unstable and changeable, as we see in the wandering seductress of the book of Proverbs (7:10–23). Mixture with lead – “heavy, crude and impure” – leads “a woman at leisure” to “lose her splendor and fall into idleness and vice.”43 So women must get the lead out, and “keep busy so that their silver may keep its image clean and pure and bright.” Mixture with tin is especially worrisome,

40 Sermo 249, 25–27 (h XIX, 316), Hopkins pp. 69–70. 41 Sermo 249, 28 (h XIX, 317), Hopkins p. 70. 42 Sermo 249, 30 (h XIX, 317), Hopkins p. 71. Nicholas’s metallurgy is faulty, since white gold is not silver, but “an alloy of gold and at least one white metal, usually nickel, silver or palladium” (“Colored Gold,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_gold; accessed November 17, 2022). 43 Sermo 249, 31–32 (h XIX, 317–318), Hopkins p. 71

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because tin “corrupts other metals, and is not easily separated [from them] – just as when a woman mixes the preciousness of her chastity with shameful licentiousness.” As the prophet Isaiah says, “her silver is turned into dross” (Is. 1:22). With this moral metallurgy in place, Nicholas advises a woman to keep active; to “be gracious and compassionate so that the malleability of her silver not become too great amid temptations”; to preserve her reputation; to avoid being quarrelsome; and finally, “to safeguard her silver so that it does not come into contact with anyone, since it leaves black streaks.” The preacher then advises, “If you defile your image, you should purify [yourself]” by following the same advice given to the men. This leads Cusanus to re-affirm gender equality, saying, “Do not believe that in the Kingdom of Heaven your [silver] coin has less value than a gold coin, because the value of both coins is the same: for in the Kingdom of Christ there is no distinction between male and female.”44 The sermon concludes by noting two points. First, since “few coins – whether of gold or silver – are pure and unmixed,” the Gospel says that “many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt. 22:14). Second, perhaps speaking from his life experience of 55 years, Nicholas notes that “a good coin does not long pass through the world without becoming worse . . . It is scarcely possible for a human being not to defile himself if he lives in the world for very long.”45 The preacher therefore emphasizes safeguarding the coins that we are, and recaps his advice to the women: “Silver is white through modesty and chasteness; it is pure through innocence; it is sonorous through acceptable behavior,” and so on.

Conclusion Cusanus was hardly the first to comment on the Gospel texts about the coin of tribute. Exegetes and preachers had regularly seen humanity as a coin minted in God’s image. Indeed, this reading was enshrined in the Glossa ordinaria: “Just as Caesar demands what is impressed with his image, so also God [demands] the soul stamped with the face of his light.”46 In the Catena aurea Thomas Aquinas cites Hilary of Arles about what is owed to God: “It is necessary to return to God what is his own, that is, [our] body, soul and will . . . God’s coin is the human being, in whom the image of God is formed.”47 Thomas’s own Commentary on Matthew summarizes the text’s “mystical” or spiritual meaning: “We have a soul which is

44 Sermo 249, 32 (h XIX, 318), Hopkins pp. 71–72; citing Gal. 3:28. 45 Sermo 249, 33 (h XIX, 318), Hopkins p. 71. 46 Glossa ordinaria, PL 114, 156C on Mt. 22:21: “Reddite ergo. Vel sicut Caesar exigit impressionum suae imaginis, sic et Deus animam lumine sui vultus signatam.” The parallel gloss on Mk. 12:17 (PL 114, 224) identifies the Vulgate Ps. 4:7 as the source of the phrase “signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui.” The gloss on Psalm 4 (PL 113, 849) similarly links verse 7 to the Gospels, “. . . signatur, ut denarius imagine regis.” 47 Thomas Aquinas, Catena aurea, 1:322.

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in the image of God; so we must return it to God.”48 Augustine extended the coin metaphor into an itinerary: “We are God’s money; a coin, we have wandered away from the treasury. What had been stamped upon us was worn off by our wandering. He comes that he may reform us because he had formed us; he himself seeks his own coin, as Caesar sought his coin. Thus he says, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,’ to Caesar his coins, to God yourselves.”49 Yet exegetes gave few details about what this imaging means and how to return to God the soul engraved with the divine image. Among the exceptions is Meister Eckhart who, preaching on the same Gospel text, addressed these questions by developing a powerful theology of the image which unites the divine Son and the human soul.50 But none of these commentators mentions any details about minting and restoring coins or assessing their worth. Cusanus is thus unusual – perhaps unique – in working the tribute coin into the elaborate schemes we have seen. In Sermon 249 he affirms the exegetical tradition’s basic claim that Christians “are obliged to render to God . . . all that we have from Him and all that we are from Him – namely, our being, living, and understanding.”51 But he clearly went much further. Where Augustine had suggested the coin’s wanderings from God’s treasury and its return, Nicholas describes this journey at length by creating his own symbolic alloy, fusing metals, coins and the crafts of minters and goldsmiths with the moral and spiritual lives of men and women. In a later sermon, he returns to the denarius and takes it to new symbolic heights, describing Christ as “the true and living Denarius” who bears the Father’s image: “This Denarius gives himself to those believing in Him . . . By means of this Denarius, a believer purchases (emit) the Kingdom from God the Father. Christ is the Mediator, or the Means of exchange.”52 Here Christ himself becomes money, the sovereign coin of salvation. We have also seen De ludo globi’s elaborate coin metaphors: God as the creative mint-master, creation as a treasury of coins stamped with the image the divine Son, and the human intellect as the coin-broker or banker that distinguishes “all 48 Thomas Aquinas, Commentum in Matthaeum et Joannem Evangelistas (Opera omnia, vol. 10; Parma: 1861), p. 202. 49 Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 24–54, trans. John W. Rettig (Washington, DC: 1993), Trac. 40, 9, p. 133; In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 36: Turnhout: 1956), p. 355; and Trac. 41, 2, 137; In Ioh., p. 358. See also Lau, “Nummi Dei summus,” p. 220. 50 Meister Eckhart, Sermo XLIX, Die lateinische Werke 4 (Stuttgart: 1956), pp. 421–427. See Donald F. Duclow, “‘Whose Image is This?’ in Eckhart’s Sermones,” in Duclow, Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus (Aldershot: 2006), pp. 175–186; and Bernard McGinn’s commentary, “Sermo XLIX: ‘Cuius est imago et superscription?’,” in Lectura Eckhardi III, ed. G. Steer and L. Sturlese (Stuttgart: 2008), pp. 218–237. 51 Sermo 249, 19 (h XIX, 314), Hopkins p. 67. 52 Cusanus, Sermo 268, 36–37 (h XIX, 477); trans. Hopkins, Nicholas of Cusa’s Last Sermons, 1457–1463 (2011; downloaded Nov. 17, 2022 from http://jasper-hopkins.info/), pp. 104–105. Here Nicholas glosses Mt. 20:1–15, the parable of the vineyard where all workers are paid one denarius, regardless of the hours they worked.

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the various kinds of coinages and numbering, weighing, and measuring every value of all of them.”53 In all these texts, Cusanus travels far from the Gospel story of Jesus and the Pharisees, but his preaching and thinking spin ever wider circles around a single symbol: the coin that we are, stamped with God’s own image. The biblical coin of tribute thus yields a richly metaphorical and speculative play. Yet money and coins remain problematic Christian symbols. For other Gospel texts say that we cannot serve God and money (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13), and ‘nummularius’ – De ludo globi’s term for the human intellect as banker – is the Vulgate’s term for the ‘money-changers’ whom Jesus drove out of the temple.54 Nor is the coin of tribute itself above suspicion, since exegetes associated it not only with legitimate taxation, but also with the world and devil. For example, Aquinas cites Origen: “The prince of the world, namely the devil, is called Caesar. We cannot give to God what is God’s unless we first give to the prince what is his, that is, unless we give away all wickedness.”55 Money was indeed worldly, the medium of exchange in every marketplace, and the focus of scholastic debates about usury and “just price.” As the economy monetized in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, everything came to have its price. Indeed, one scholastic commentator wrote that “money is the measure of all things.”56 Joel Kaye sees striking parallels between this economy and the “measuring mania” among the Oxford Calculators and Parisian masters, who sought mathematical measures for “every ‘quality’ capable of increase or decrease, whether physical or mental,” from velocity and whiteness to charity and grace.57 Nicholas Oresme wrote both the economic treatise De moneta (1355–60) and works analyzing motion and change in relativistic, quantitative terms.58 Yet there has been a reluctance to recognize that economic models influenced fourteenth-century thinkers’ natural philosophy, and Jean Buridan himself explicitly denied this.59 Cusanus, however, embraces the economy and the passion for measurement with few qualms. He describes money itself as “a certain grace,” adding regretfully that “man abuses it through avarice.”60 Hence, James Biechler writes of

53 DLG, 115 (IX, 141), Watts p. 117. 54 See Mt. 21:12; Mk. 11:15–17; and Jn. 2:14–15. Preaching on Mt. 21, Nicholas strikes a conventional note when he condemns avarice and says, “Est enim idolatria quia praefert denarium deo”; Sermo 147, 6 (h XVIII, 119). 55 Aquinas, Catena aurea, 1:322. Thomas also cites Chrysostom on “diaboli tributum.” 56 “Omnia enim mensurat. Quare et superabuntiam et defectum,” cited by Langholm, Wealth and Money, p. 69. 57 Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: 1998), pp. 166–167. For the phrase “measuring mania,” Kaye cites John Murdoch, “The Involvement of Logic in Late Medieval Philosophy,” in Studies in Medieval Natural Philosophy, ed. Stefano Caroti (Florence: 1989), p. 19. 58 See Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 235–245; and De Moneta of Nicholas Oresme. 59 Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 8–9. 60 Cusanus, Sermo 158, 4 (h XVIII, 174): “pecunia est quaedam gratia, sed homo abutitur illa ea per avaritiam.”

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money “reaching, in Cusanus’ psyche, to that very depth at which religious symbol functions.”61 Indeed, we have seen Nicholas’s numismatic theology transform money and coins into rich symbols for God, the human intellect, our spiritual lives and commerce with God. This theology reflects Cusanus’s biography and illustrates key features of his speculative thought. Throughout his career Nicholas skillfully managed his benefices and income. But his fiscal responsibilities expanded greatly in 1452 when he took up residence in Brixen as prince-bishop. In this new role, he approached his pastoral duties as bishop and his temporal obligations as prince with equal zeal.62 Managing the bishopric’s properties and finances immersed Cusanus in currency issues and mining rights. Duke Sigmund issued new coins and changed currency values and policy, which Nicholas had to publicize and implement in areas under his control. This tested and sharpened his skills as coin-broker and financial manager. In addition, as Hermann Hallauer notes, Cusanus shifted the bishopric’s economic base from agriculture’s meager revenues to mining, which was flourishing elsewhere in the Tyrol.63 At his request, Emperor Frederick III renewed the bishopric’s mining rights to silver, other metals and salt within its borders.64 Legally secure, Cusanus then brought in experts from Bavaria to search for mineral deposits,65 and offered investors tax-free privileges in new and established mines for ten years.66 As a result of these efforts, the diocese came to prosper, but this success also led Nicholas into conflict with Duke Sigmund over mining rights.67 In this context, we can understand how Nicholas transferred his intense work with money and mining to his preaching, as Sermon 249 clearly illustrates. Cusanus’s symbolic play with coins and money also reflects his longstanding interest in mathematics and measuring. This concern was both practical and speculative. Early in his career at the Council of Basel, he proposed a reform of the calendar,68 and he later wrote a series of works on the problem of squaring the

61 Biechler, Religious Language of Nicholas of Cusa, p. 97. 62 Hermann Hallauer, “Nikolaus von Kues as Bischof und Landesfürst,” in Hallauer, Nikolaus von Kues Bischof von Brixen 1450–1464, eds. Erich Meuthen, Josef Gelmi and Alfred Kaiser (Bolzano: 2002), p. 17. 63 Hallauer, “Nikolaus von Kues as Bischof,” pp. 19–20. 64 Acta Cusana, vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 277–278, no. 2940; Dec. 7, 1452. I thank Thomas Woelki for this and the following reference, and for guiding me through the literature on Cusanus’s work with coinage and mining. 65 Acta Cusana, vol. 2, pt. 1, pp. 313–314, no. 3026; Jan. 28, 1453. 66 May, 1455; in Hallauer, “Nikolaus von Kues as Bischof,” pp. 32–33. 67 For an overview of this conflict, see Albert Jäger, “Beitrag zur Tirolisch-Salzburgischen Bergwerks-Geschichte,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 53 (1875): 356–364. The silver mine at Garnstein became a flashpoint for Nicholas’s disastrous meeting with Sigmund at Bruneck in 1460; see Jäger, “Beitrag,” pp. 363–364; and Hallauer, “Bruneck 1460: Nikolaus von Kues–der Bischof sheitert an der weltlichen Macht,” in Hallauer, Nikolaus von Kues, pp. 158–159, 168–170, and 183. 68 Nicholas of Cusa, Die Kalenderverbesserung: De correctione kalendarii, eds. and German trans. Viktor Stegemann and Bernhard Bischoff (Heidelberg: 1955).

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circle – a problem whose theological implications he explored repeatedly.69 In De ludo globi the Cardinal asserts that the soul “invents (invenit)” the quadrivial arts – arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy – and “creates (creat)” tools and measures like the astrolabe and the year, months and hours.70 We see Nicholas’s fascination with these issues in the Idiota dialogues (1450), featuring an unlettered Layman – a woodcarver in Rome – who guides a Philosopher and an Orator in discussions of wisdom, the mind, and experiments with weights. Among many experiments, the Layman describes weighing blood and urine in medicine, and using a water-clock to measure time more precisely. Especially interesting for our purposes, the Orator applies the relative weights of metals to assaying coins’ alloys, since these weights are “useful for determining how much copper was mixed with the gold or the silver.”71 Similarly, the dialogue on wisdom begins in a marketplace, the Roman Forum, where the Layman proclaims, “Wisdom cries out in the streets, and her cry is that she dwells in the highest.”72 For in the market, they see “money being counted, . . . goods being weighed, . . . oil and other things being measured.” These activities mark the mind as God’s image, following divine Wisdom herself who “ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight” (Ws. 11:21). Indeed, the Layman defines mind (mens) in terms of measure (mensurare) and number: it is a living number that enumerates and calculates, and “a living measure that fulfills its own capacity by measuring other things.”73 For “the mind remains the limit, measure, and determination of all measurable things,” and invents instruments to measure even the motions of the heavens.74 In so doing, it seeks to know itself and to approach its own exemplar and measure, the divine mind.75 Yet for all its scope and power, the human mind remains created in the image of God, who alone is the infinite measure and number.76 Here, as David Albertson comments, God becomes “the prime mathematician, and the mind fulfills its destiny when it grasps its own mathematical categories as reflections of God’s mathematizing self-measure.”77 This pattern reappears in De ludo globi where the Cardinal describes the human intellect’s value as “supreme after God. For the value of God and of all things are in its power notionally and by distinctions.”78 To clarify this point, Nicholas introduces the metaphor of the mint-master and coin-broker or banker. The divine

69 Nicholas of Cusa, Scripta mathematica, h XX (2010); and Les écrits mathématiques, Latin edition and French trans. Jean-Marie Nicolle (Paris: 2007). 70 DLG, 93–94 (h IX, 115–118). 71 Nicholas of Cusa, Idiota de staticis experimentis, 171 (h V, 227); trans. Hopkins, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 1: 611. 72 Nicholas of Cusa, Idiota de sapientia, I, 3 and 5 (h V, 6 and 8), citing Prov. 1:20 and Sir. 24:7; The Layman on Wisdom and the Mind, trans. M. L. Führer (Ottawa, Canada: 1989), pp. 21–22. 73 Nicholas of Cusa, Idiota de mente, 123 (h V, 173), Führer p. 87. See also Idiota de mente, 57 (h V, 90). 74 Idiota de mente, 157 (h V, 214), Führer p. 104. 75 Idiota de mente, 133 (h V, 186). 76 Idiota de mente, 158 (h V, 216). 77 Albertson, Mathematical Theologies, p. 238. 78 DLG, 114 (h IX, 140), Watts p. 117.

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mint-master creates beings as coins, and appoints the human intellect to act as a banker who discerns, calculates and makes known their values, and thereby proclaims the mint-master’s creative power. To conclude, Nicholas not only understood money and coins, he also used them well and developed them into the mystical numismatics of De ludo globi and Sermon 249. While commentators like Karl Jaspers have emphasized tensions and contradictions between Nicholas’ career and later writings,79 here they merge seamlessly. For once, his practical, worldly concerns bear remarkable theological and mystical fruit.

79 See Karl Jaspers, Anselm and Nicholas of Cusa, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: 1966), p. 178: “To an ever greater extent in the course of his life, his acts were incompatible with his ideas . . . Did his philosophical pursuits become for him a sort of refuge from the cares of everyday life, an edifying distraction for his leisure moments, comparable to the occasional retreat of a man of the world to a monastery?” Cusanus’s sermons offer ample evidence to refute this schizoid view; see Serina, Nicholas of Cusa’s Brixen Sermons, pp. 226–229.

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8 CUSANUS, WENCK, AND THE A R T O F T H E I N S U LT *

Not everyone liked Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64). This is not surprising since controversies were part and parcel of his career as a lawyer and churchman.1 A dispute over candidates for archbishop of Trier led him to the Council of Basel, where he lost his case but went on to perform wide-ranging work and wrote De concordantia catholica (1434). Then, in a move that produced lasting resentment, he left the council to support Pope Eugenius IV, whose cause he defended throughout German lands so fiercely that Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini dubbed him the “Hercules of the Eugenians.” As prince-bishop in Brixen (1452–58) he stirred controversy and enmity aplenty. His determined efforts to reform the diocese, build its finances, and reclaim its rights and property provoked intense conflict with Duke Sigismund of Austria – whom Cusanus accused of plotting to kill him. Sigismund’s legal advisor Gregor of Heimburg penned a scathing invective against Nicholas.2 Nor did Cusanus’ attempts at religious reform always succeed. His repeated efforts to reform the Benedictine convent of Sonnenburg failed spectacularly when Sigismund supported its abbess, Verena von Steuben, and both appealed to the pope against the meddling bishop. Yet Nicholas’ activities in ecclesiastical affairs were not the only source of controversy. In addition, his philosophy and theology were not always well received. In the 1450s Vincent of Aggsbach attacked his writings during the Tegernsee debate on mystical theology.3 Here, however, we shall discuss an earlier dispute between Cusanus and the Heidelberg theologian Johannes Wenck. In De ignota litteratura or Unknown Learning (1442–43), Wenck sharply criticized Nicholas’ De docta ignorantia, and Cusanus replied with the Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449).4

* I thank Tilman Borsche, Marco Brösch, Rita Copeland, Johannes Helmrath and Thomas Izbicki for their assistance with this article. 1 On Cusanus’ life and career, see E. Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa; and W.A. Euler, “Biographie des Nikolaus von Kues.” 2 G. Heimburg, “Invectiva.” See H.J. Becker, “Der Streit der Juristen.” 3 See E. Vansteenberghe, ed., Autour de la docte ignorance. 4 I shall cite Jasper Hopkins’ edition of De ignota litteratura and his translations (with modifications) of it and Cusanus’ Apologia doctae ignorantiae in Nicholas of Cusa’s Debate with John Wenck. De

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While these works have been analyzed by Rudolph Haubst, Kurt Flasch, Meredith Ziebart and others, little attention has been given to their rhetoric – specifically, how Wenck and Cusanus describe themselves and insult each other. Here we shall view Cusanus’ and Wenck’s dueling works as invectives. With roots in the classical and patristic eras, invective is a rhetorical genre opposed to eulogy: eulogies praise their subjects, while invectives attack and insult them. Petrarch revived the genre, and later Italian humanists took this art of the insult to extraordinary heights and vitriolic depths.5 Unknown Learning and the Apologia are modest, remarkably tame examples of the genre, but invectives nonetheless. Since the following pages will focus on the works’ rhetoric and insults, they will only touch lightly on the weighty philosophical and theological issues in dispute.

De ignota litteratura/Unknown Learning Wenck addresses Unknown Learning to John of Gelnhausen, “formerly abbot of Maulbronn.” The abbot is a central figure in the Cusanus-Wenck debate, since he corresponded with both men, and Nicholas had sent him a copy of Learned Ignorance, which probably found its way to Wenck. Yet Wenck simply says that he “was recently presented with Learned Ignorance” without naming his source, and Nicholas suggests that Gelnhausen had given the book to “another religious,” who passed it on the Wenck.6 In Unknown Learning Wenck launches a frontal assault on Nicholas’ Learned Ignorance. At the outset, he sounds the alarm about the work’s whole agenda – its “harmful” teachings on God, the universe and Christ. Feeling “called upon” to write his response, Unknown Learning, he positions himself as a “clarifier of truth” who takes comfort in the assurance of eternal life (Ecclus. 24:31). He thus presents himself as defending biblical truth, and takes up “spiritual weapons . . . to rebut certain statements from Learned Ignorance as being incompatible with our faith, offensive to devout minds, and vainly leading away from obedience to God” (IL 19). To guide his critique, Wenck turns to the Psalmist’s command, “Be still and see that I am God,”7 and distinguishes ways of being still and seeing. Those

ignota litteratura will be cited as IL, followed by marginal page numbers that Hopkins lists from E. Vansteenberghe’s edition. Apologia doctae ignorantiae will be cited as Ap, followed by page in Hopkins’ translation and section numbers in Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 2: e.g., Ap 43/1. Note that Hopkins’ marginal numbers are the page numbers, not the section numbers of the Opera omnia. 5 See Petrarca, Invectives; E.I. Rao, Curmudgeons in High Dudgeon; J. Helmrath, “Streitkultur: Die ‘Invektive’ bei den italienischen Humanisten”; and M. Laureys and R. Simons, “Toward a Theory of the Humanistic Art of Arguing.” Moving beyond Renaissance invective, the Collaborative Research Centre 1285 at Dresden University studies ‘invectivity’ as an umbrella concept for “vituperation and disparagement, humiliation and derision . . . from a cross-cultural, epoch-spanning perspective.” 6 IL 19; Ap 45/6. Gelnhausen’s role as a third figure between two opponents is a common feature of Humanist invective as a social process; see Helmrath, “Streitkultur,” 268–269. 7 Ps. 46:10 & 45:11 (Vulgate): “Vacate et videte quoniam ego sum Deus.”

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who are simply idle see “not unto salvation, . . . but with regard to curiosity and vanity.”8 Others heed the divine call to stillness and turn not to “a mere cognitive seeing (scientia visionali) which puffs up,” but to an “unbusied sight directed toward that which is truly God” (IL 20; trans. modified). With these distinctions in place, Wenck glosses the Psalmist’s call to “see that I am God” as follows: “Here ‘I’ singularizes and openly excludes every creature from divinity – distinguishing God from every creature, since God is creator, not creature.” Wenck thus announces the core themes of his critique: Nicholas’ curiositas leads to the vain speculations of Learned Ignorance which blur the boundaries between God and creation – and thereby court heresy. Indeed, charges of heresy become central to Unknown Learning. Where Cusanus credits his shipboard experience of “supernal light” with leading him to “embrace . . . incomprehensible things incomprehensibly” in learned ignorance,9 Wenck emphasizes testing whether spirits and revelations come from God, since false prophets and apostles abound. Among the latter is “this man of learned ignorance, who under the guise of religion cunningly deceives those not yet having trained senses” (IL 20). He then places Nicholas in the dubious company of “Waldensians, Eckhartians, and Wycliffians,” whose teachings “have previously shown from what spirit this learned ignorance proceeds” (IL 20–21). Expanding Nicholas’ guilt by association, Wenck links “the great evils [that] swarm and abound” in Learned Ignorance with the “Beghards and sisters” tried for heresy by John, bishop of Strasbourg in 1317 (IL 25). Amid this cloud of heretics, it is Meister Eckhart who stands out, as Wenck finds detailed parallels between his teachings and Cusanus’ work (IL 24–26, 30). Indeed, Meredith Ziebart suggests that Wenck “selected . . . particular statements from De docta ignorantia because they appear to express ‘Eckhartian’ notions.”10 The “clarifier of truth” thus portrays himself as the hunter of heresy and Learned Ignorance as a cesspool of heretical doctrine. This is rhetoric with real bite, as the invective of Unknown Learning takes on the air of an inquisitor’s brief. Wenck sharpens his critique with his most inventive rhetorical move: his work’s title, De ignota litteratura, On Unknown Learning. For this not only parodies Cusanus’De docta ignorantia, On Learned Ignorance, but also points towards a very different unknowing. While Wenck notes that both works move from the known to “manifesting what is unknown” (IL 23), he lays claim to a scriptural path and goal. He takes his title from two texts: Isaiah 29:11, “a sealed book was given to one who did not know letters”; and Psalm 70:15–16, where “David states that he does ‘not know learning’ but nevertheless ‘will enter the powers of the Lord’ and ‘will be mindful of God’s justice alone’.” Isaiah’s unknown learning “repels

8 Curiositas as a sinful “lust of the eyes” for knowledge was a medieval commonplace dating back to Augustine, Confessions X, xxxv, 54–55. 9 IL 20. See the dedicatory letter to Cesarini in Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 1, De docta ignorantia, n. 263; translated by J. Hopkins as On Learned Ignorance in Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Treatises, vol. 1, 151. 10 K.M. Ziebart, Cusanus on Faith and Intellect, 79.

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human teaching,” since it is “sealed” to the “wise” or learned, but open to those who – like David – “know not letters.” In this “still”, pious unknowing, one can receive the sealed book, which Wenck identifies as Christ (IL 31). He says that Cusanus takes a different path. By claiming that learned ignorance enables him to “see most simple Being [entitatem] itself, which is the essence of all things,”11 he ignores the need to ascend to God symbolically through creatures. He “vanishes amid thoughts (evanescit in cogitationibus) . . . [and] does not glorify God at all. Rather, going about in his own darkness, he leaves behind and disregards the peak of divine praise to which all psalmody is brought. Who among the faithful does not know that this is unbelieving and most impious?” (IL 24) For Nicholas “leads men away from sincere and fitting devotion, . . . and alienates men from the true mode of theologizing” – that of “holy scripture, handed down from God” (IL 32). Since Cusanus deviates not only from biblical theology, but also from the Aristotelianism of the universities, Wenck portrays himself as defending the academic fusion of theology and Aristotle’s philosophy.12 From this perspective, he argues that Nicholas’ impiety and heresy are driven by a logical error: the coincidence of opposites, which – according to Wenck – identifies God and creation, and lifts the human mind to direct vision of God’s simplicity. Coincidence is a “strategy (cautela)” designed to rule out disagreement and critique. For by fusing all contrasts and opposites into simple unity, coincidence leaves critics nowhere to stand, and in fact “destroys the fundamental principle of all knowledge: namely, the principle that it is impossible both to be and not to be the same thing” (IL 21–22). In short, it abolishes the principle of non-contradiction, and with it “Aristotle’s entire doctrine” (IL 29). Wenck attributes this catastrophic error to Cusanus’ “meagerness of instruction in logic,” which led him to think that “by way of logic he had received an adequate and precise comparative relation (proportionem) to God that would be a means for pursuing and knowing God” (IL 24). While this claim mocks Nicholas’ education, it ignores Learned Ignorance’s statement that “the most simple Being . . . as infinite, escapes and transcends all proportion” – a text cited by Wenck in the previous paragraph.13 Perhaps the professor’s rhetoric got the better of his own logic. At this point Unknown Learning’s method becomes scholastic, as Wenck criticizes ten “theses (conclusiones)” and their “corollaries” excerpted and adapted from Learned Ignorance. Dialectic dominates in these critiques, which take up most of the treatise (IL 24–40), as the Heidelberg professor of theology attacks Cusanus’ damning errors about God, creation and Christology. Yet rhetorical sparks occasionally fly within Wenck’s ponderous criticisms. Some of these elaborate on the insults found in Unknown Learning’s opening pages. For example, 11 IL 23. See Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia in Opera omnia, vol. 1, n.51. 12 See K.M. Ziebart, Cusanus on Faith and Intellect, 72: “Wenck’s attack is thus wholly directed from the perspective of a defence of Aristotelian philosophy as this was used in support of theology in the universities.” 13 IL 23. See Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia, in Opera omnia, vol. 1, nn. 3 and 102.

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when he sees Nicholas teaching that “God is a creature,” Wenck writes that by failing to “be still and . . . see what God says, ‘that I am God’,” Nicholas “is more foolish than the Beghards of Strasbourg who were condemned by the bishop” for making a string of Eckhartian claims: their identity with the divine nature, its perfections and eternity, and saying “‘If you worship God, worship me’” (IL 29–30). Wenck enters new rhetorical territory when he compares Cusanus with Socrates. “Socrates, in stating that he knew nothing, admitted that he had knowledge,” but not complete knowledge, “thereby implying that he desired to know what he did not yet know.” Since “knowledge, acquired, causes a desire for greater knowledge . . . . how could knowledge which expels ignorance, arise from ignorance? For a privation is productive of evil.” For Wenck, these considerations make it “clear how much poisoning of knowledge and of practices has been introduced by this very abstract understanding [abstractissima illa intelligentia] called learned ignorance or, in the vernacular, living in detachment [abgeschieden leben], in which there is a fading away of the senses and in which the glorifying of God is neglected.”14 Here Wenck shrewdly interprets docta ignorantia in terms of ‘abstractio’ (separation, removal), which enables him to translate it into Eckhart’s German, ‘abgeschiedenheit’. By fusing Cusanus’ learned ignorance with Eckhart’s program of detachment, Wenck leads the comparison with Socrates back to familiar ground: Nicholas is the heir not of Socrates, but of the heretical Meister Eckhart. Other insults follow. Wenck eloquently declares, “Behold a confused man, walking about in darkness, who by means of a perverse comparative relation (proportione) by which he was supposed to ascend unto understanding walks the pathway to foolishness and to foolish ignorance” (IL 33). Ridiculing Nicholas’ wide reading, Wenck suggests, “Perhaps various undigested perusals of ancient books have deceived this learned-ignorant author” (IL 34). When the professor judges Cusanus’ cosmology, innovation is clearly not on his agenda. He notes that Nicholas’ thesis about God as the center and circumference of the universe “contradicts our knowledge of the heavens.” And Nicholas’ description of the earth is “a noble star” is dismissed as “a comment never heard before” (IL 37).15 Cusanus’ Christology “exceedingly dishonors Jesus by universalizing him” (IL 39), and “he speaks most deviantly about the church” (IL 40). Having refuted Learned Ignorance’s many errors, Wenck concludes Unknown Learning with a virtuosic rhetorical flourish: I do not know whether in my whole lifetime I have ever seen a writer as dangerous as this one when it comes to the divinity and the trinity of the Persons, the issue of the universe, the issue of the incarnation of Christ, 14 IL, 31. See Meister Eckhart, Von Abgeschiedenheit; translated as “On Detachment,” in Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, 285–294. 15 For Vansteenberghe, this dismissal marks Wenck as “un homme de tradition”; in Le “De ignota litteratura” de Jean Wenck, 13–14.

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the issue of the theological virtues, and the issue of the church. Now, whoever says that from this learned ignorance he himself is more intensely inflamed with desires is presumably speaking about the infernal inflammation of the indomitable, unbridled tongue and of vain religion – about which James 3 [speaks]. With all your might flee from him, venerable Father, lest your senses (being seduced by this pseudo-apostle and deceptive writer who transforms himself into an apostle of Christ – seduced by the cunning Serpent) be corrupted and fall away from the purity and simplicity of the faith which is Jesus our Lord. To His honor and glory I decided to write this Unknown Learning for your devout religiosity. Together with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit He lives as eternally blessed. Amen. (IL 41) After emphasizing Cusanus’ dangerous teachings, Wenck turns to their source and outcome – hellish desires inflaming the tongue, which the Epistle of James describes as “a fire, a world of iniquity, . . . an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison” (Jm 3:6–8). Wenck then cautions John of Gelnhausen to flee this seductive author, whom he calls a “pseudo-apostle.” This is a loaded term, echoing both Paul (2 Cor 11:13) and the Italian lay movement, the Order of Apostles (1260–1307) which had been condemned for heresy and violent insurrection.16 While Wenck quotes 2 Corinthians directly, we cannot be sure that he knowingly added the Order of Apostles to the cloud of heretics surrounding Cusanus. If he did so, it would not be surprising; if not, the Pauline label would retain its sting. Unknown Learning then ends as it began, restating the dedication to John of Gelnhausen, and reaffirming Wenck’s faith and piety. Unknown Learning is a book review that no author would welcome gladly. Let us see how Cusanus responded.

Apologia doctae ignorantiae/A Defense of Learned Ignorance In 1449 Cusanus replied to Wenck in Apologia doctae ignorantiae. Why did it take six or seven years for him to respond? Rudolf Haubst notes De ignota litteratura’s limited circulation in only two surviving manuscripts, and suggests that Nicholas first saw Wenck’s work shortly before writing his Apologia.17 However, Kurt Flasch proposes a different scenario: facing Unknown Learning’s accusations of heresy, Nicholas delayed responding until he attained the secure position

16 See the inquisitor Bernard Gui, “De secta pseudo-apostolorum.” For a broader study, see J.B. Pierce, Poverty, Heresy and the Apocalypse. 17 R. Haubst, Studien zur Nikolaus von Kues und Johannes Wenck, 112.

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of Cardinal serving the humanist pope Nicholas V.18 Indeed, the Apologia’s opening sentence supports this scenario by introducing Nicholas as “now added to the College of Cardinals” (Ap 43/1). The assured, casual tone of the Apologia reflects Cusanus’ newfound security. The work’s title and form recall Plato. By taking the title from Plato’s Apology, Nicholas presents himself as a latter-day, Christian Socrates beset by his accuser, Wenck.19 Its rhetorical form is unique among Nicholas’ writings, and echoes Plato’s Phaedo and Symposium, where Socrates’ young followers report his conversations to a third party. For as Ziebart notes, the Apologia builds on a “curious narrative conceit”20: an unnamed student or disciple writes to a fellow student about his conversation with their “common teacher, master Nicholas of Cusa, now added to the College of Cardinals.”21 Only this opening line identifies Nicholas by name; in the dialogue that follows, he becomes the Teacher (praeceptor) conversing with the Student/narrator. Cusanus thus does not respond to Wenck directly, but sets himself doubly above the fray – first by writing the Apologia in the voice of an anonymous Student, who is outraged by Wenck’s critique and attacks him harshly; and secondly by taking the role of the Teacher, who responds as the Student reads and comments on passages from Unknown Learning.22 The Student thus leads the polemical charge, while the Teacher reluctantly joins the conversation. When the Student goes on to address his fellow student (condiscipulus), we see how Nicholas wished his works to be read. For the second student is praised for understanding the “coincidences” in De docta ignorantia, and for his evangelical zeal in getting “many who had despised this study to break for a short while with their long-standing habit of laboring with the Aristotelian tradition” and to consider Cusan perspectives, even leading many to “behold with the mind’s eye all mysteries (arcana) – in the manner in which [this seeing] is progressively granted to a man.” The Student/narrator then notes “certain points capable of misleading those who are not fully instructed,” and expects that his colleague will “know how to oppose the insults” such misunderstandings provoke. The stage is now set to face a very different reader, Johannes Wenck.

18 K. Flasch, “Wissen oder Wissen des Nicht-Wissens,” 228. See also V. Ranff, “Ein christlicher Sokrates?”, 171. 19 K. Flasch, “Wissen,” 236; V. Ranff, “Ein christlicher Sokrates?”, 181–182. The Teacher urges Wenck “to look at Plato’s book De Apologia Socratis, where Socrates pleads his own cause at the trial, and he will discover his own fantasies, which are devoid of all truth” (Ap 62/45). 20 Ziebart, Cusanus on Faith and Intellect, 89. See also T. Borsche, “Der Dialog bei Nikolaus von Kues”, 419–420. 21 Ap 43/1: “communis praeceptor noster, magister Nicolaus Cusanus, nunc coetui cardinalis adiunctus.” 22 By distancing himself in this way, Cusanus goes beyond the claim, common in Petrarch and others, that the author is reluctant to pen an invective. See V. Ranff, “Ein christlichere Sokrates?”, 172. J.-M. Counet sees a theological motive for Cusanus’ distancing: Nicholas’ apophatic theology leads him to respond to Wenck not in his own voice, but in that of the Student; Counet, “The Meaning of Apology and Reconciliation for an Apophatic Theology,” 200–201. While this clarifies the Apologia’s rhetorical voicing, the work remains Nicholas’ response to Wenck.

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Whether accurately (with Haubst) or for dramatic effect (with Flasch), the Student/narrator reports his shock when opening the day’s mail and finding Unknown Learning: Today there came into my hands a treatise by a certain man who is not only undiscerning but also extremely arrogant – a man by the name of Johannes Wenck, who calls himself a teacher (magistrum) of theology. To this treatise he gave the title Unknown Learning. After I read in it the grave reproaches (invectivarum) and wrongs against our teacher and his books of Learned Ignorance, I went to our teacher – my mind distressed with great displeasure. I stated the reason of my coming and described the content of the reproaches. (Ap 43/2) With the discovery so fresh, the Student is more than distressed, he is irate and sneering: in his arrogance Wenck calls himself – se nominat – a master of theology. In this mood, the Student describes Wenck’s criticisms as “invectivae” and places the controversy within the flourishing Humanist genre of the same name.23 But the unruffled Teacher smiles and says, “Don’t be troubled, friend, but thank the Creator, who gave you so much light that you excel this man in wisdom as Socrates excelled the intelligentsia of his day” (Ap 43/2). As the Teacher explains that Socrates’ wisdom consisted of knowing that he was ignorant, Nicholas thus reclaims the mantle of Socrates that Wenck denied him. The Teacher goes on to criticize academic theologians whose ignorance is anything but learned. They rely on second-hand teachings, and when they know how to speak like the others they set up as their authorities, they think they are theologians. They do not know that they are ignorant of that “inaccessible Light in whom there is no darkness” [1 Jn 1:5]. By contrast, those who by means of learned ignorance are brought from hearing to mental sight, rejoice at having attained, by more certain experience [experimento], a knowledge of their ignorance. (Ap 44/3) Extending this critique to their study of the Bible, the Teacher takes aim at Wenck: Very many teachers (magistri) of our day, who possess the field of the Scriptures (where they have heard that the treasure of God’s kingdom is hidden), boast that they are rich – as does the man who wrote Unknown Learning. But whoever recognizes that the treasure remains hidden from the eyes of all the wise, glories in the knowledge that he is poor. And he

23 See also Ap 64/49; and Rao, Curmudgeons, passim.

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sees that in knowing he is poor – something the others do not know [about themselves] – he is richer than they are. Accordingly, because he knows of his poverty he humbles himself; but the other, because of his presumed riches, vaunts himself – even as this ignorant man, inflated with vanity of verbal knowledge, does not hesitate . . . to promise to elucidate wisdom. (Ap 45/5) The Teacher thus undercuts Wenck’s claim to biblical grounds for attacking Learned Ignorance, and shrewdly reverses his charge of intellectual pride. Here Wenck becomes the one who vainly exalts his knowledge and piety, while Cusanus humbly acknowledges his limits in learned ignorance of Scripture’s depths. Later the Apologia sharpens this contrast when the Teacher says, “Mystical theology leads to a rest and a silence where a vision of the invisible God is granted to us. But the knowledge exercised in disputing looks for a victory of words and is puffed up” (Ap 47/10). Whereas Learned Ignorance moves into mystical theology, Unknown Learning is a model of polemical disputation. Hence, it is Nicholas, not Wenck, who heeds the Psalmist’s call to “be still and know that I am God.”24 The discussion takes a political turn when the Student asks about the abbot of Maulbronn, John of Gelnhausen. The Teacher describes the abbot as “a man of keen intelligence and holy conduct, who cherished the books of Learned Ignorance, especially because the Apostolic Legate and many other great men praised them for containing something important” (Ap 45/6). The Legate to the council of Basel was Julian Cesarini, to whom Nicholas had dedicated Learned Ignorance. The Teacher adds that in the dispute between Basel and Pope Eugenius IV, he, the abbot and Cesarini supported the papal cause, while Wenck remained loyal to “the condemned men of Basel, in which cause he presumably is tenaciously continuing.” For this reason, Wenck – now called the ‘Adversary’ – “spoke from emotion (ex passione)” and called “the defender of the truth [Cusanus] a pseudo-apostle. For he was concerned to make him hateful and of little importance to the Abbot and all others. But the deceitfulness did not prevail, the truth triumphed.”25 In this view, Wenck is driven less by a passion for orthodoxy than by political resentment. Yet the Teacher’s boast about truth’s triumph seems overblown. Yes, Nicholas’ efforts were key to assuring Eugenius’ recognition as pope over Basel’s claimant, Amadeus of Savoy. But the Teacher is just beginning to address Wenck’s new attack in Unknown Learning, and will need more than this ad hominem, political rhetoric to triumph.

24 See Counet, “The Meaning of Apology and Reconciliation,” 203–204. 25 Ap 45–46/6. Haubst agrees that politics was among the motives behind Unknown Learning, and documents Nicholas’ and Wenck’s opposing roles at the Mainz Reichstag in 1441; Haubst, Studien, 95–98. If Wenck’s conciliarism led him to accuse Cusanus of heresy, this reverses the politics of an earlier exchange where Poggio Bracciolini’s opposition to conciliarism fueled his attack on Lorenzo Valla for heresy (Helmrath, “Streitkultur,” 276–277). Since Helmrath emphasizes Renaissance invective’s social and political contexts (“Streitkultur,” 280–284), it is not surprising that Church politics fueled both the Cusanus-Wenck debate and Poggio’s attack on Valla.

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When the Student reads Wenck’s accusations aloud, the Teacher groans and notes that the “sages of antiquity . . . took great precautions that mystical [teachings] not come into the hands of the unlearned” – especially those “minds bound by the authority which long-standing custom possesses.” A case in point is “the Aristotelian sect [which] now prevails . . . and regards the coincidence of opposites as heresy, although endorsing it is the beginning of mystical theology. . . . It would be like a miracle for them to reject Aristotle and to leap higher.” (Ap 46/7) Such a miracle was unlikely to befall Wenck who, as we have seen, argues that coincidence destroys Aristotle’s entire doctrine and displays Nicholas’ ignorance of logic. Concerning the latter charge, the Teacher later quotes a prayer attributed to Ambrose, “Lord deliver us from dialecticians,” and adds that “chattering logic harms rather than benefits very sacred theology.”26 This makes clear, as Ziebart notes, “Cusanus’ refusal to enter into debate with Wenck or to argue on the latter’s terms.”27 They are playing different games, with different methods of argument and invective. To set the argument in motion, the Student suggests that while he reads Unknown Learning aloud, the Teacher “arouse his mind to refuting the work.” But like Petrarch and many authors of invectives, the Teacher portrays himself as reluctant to respond. He appears sluggish, and says that “it did not seem to him that the writing was of such significance that it was suitable to be either read or reproached. As evidence that a serious man should not attend to the refutation of the ignorant,” he cites Dionysius the Areopagite’s reluctance to debate the magician Elymas out of fear of ridicule for being a fool who tries to demolish children’s sandcastles; or for behaving like “inexperienced wrestlers who . . . fight mock battles against absent [opponents] and constantly beat the air with useless blows” and then declare victory.28 By comparing Unknown Learning to a sandcastle and caricaturing a reply to Wenck as faux wrestling, the Teacher belittles Wenck and brushes off the Student’s proposal as beneath him and a waste of time. But when the Student notes that Dionysius nevertheless refuted Elymas, the Teacher quickly agrees as the Student says, “I overcame his kindness.” We may suspect that while Cusanus the author may have been hesitant and kind, he was also eager to move the dialogue forward. So the conversation proceeds, with the Student reading passages and discussing them with the Teacher. Detailed comments on Learned Ignorance and its sources mingle with repeated attacks on Wenck’s motives and ignorance. When Wenck claims that Nicholas uses the coincidence of opposites as a “stratagem to escape

26 Ap 56/31. The prayer has not been found in Ambrose. 27 Ziebart, Cusanus on Faith and Intellect, 104. 28 Ap 46–47/8. See Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names, VIII, 6 (PG 3, 893B); translated by C. Luibheid in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 112. As Viki Ranff comments, the Apologia cites Dionysius as “der Garant . . . dass Cusanus innerhalb der erlaubten Grenzen verbleibt und er widerspricht mit seiner ‘apostolische’ Autorität dem Vorwurf Wencks an Cusanus”; V. Ranff, “Mit Dionysius gegen Wenck,” 53.

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all attack,” the Teacher laughs, and replies that this “shows that he is moved by envy (invidia) against my person” and misunderstands coincidence (Ap 51/19– 20). The Teacher, summarizing the Apologia’s invective, says that Wenck “has read the books of Learned Ignorance only in order to refute, if he can, what is correctly expressed [in them]. Hence, he has understood nothing of what he has read” (Ap 56/31). Ill will thus fuels Wenck’s ignorance and attacks. Indeed, “If emotion (passio) had not overpowered our adversary, he would not have falsified my writings. But it seems that he was set in his desire to roundly attack these writings. Because of this desire, he is found to be a falsifier (falsarius) in regard to meaning as well as words” (Ap 53/23). A key example is Unknown Learning’s first thesis: “All things coincide with God” (IL 24). When the Student reads Wenck’s discussion of this thesis linking it to Eckhart and the Beghards, the Teacher asks, “Should not this falsifier be ridiculed rather than refuted? Why does he not state the place where this thesis is found in the books of Learned Ignorance?” The Student gives the obvious answer: because it is not there (Ap 57/32–33). By this point, the Teacher has abandoned the pose of a cool, reluctant respondent, and become an impatient and engaged participant in their invective. We see that the Apologia revolves around how to read Learned Ignorance when the Teacher contrasts two ways of reading: “Whoever examines the mind of someone writing on some point ought to read carefully all his writings and ought to resolve [his statements on this point] into one consistent meaning. For from truncated writings (truncatis scripturis) it is easy to find something which by itself seems inconsistent, but which when compared to the whole corpus is consistent” (Ap 53/24). The Teacher refers to Cusanus’ other works and sources, while Wenck extracts theses and corollaries. Speaking loosely, we may contrast Nicholas’ ‘humanist’ reading program with Wenck’s ‘scholastic’ method of “truncating” the text into fragments for disputation. According to the Student and Teacher, Wenck misreads Learned Ignorance by cutting it into bits and – driven by emotion and envy – “falsifying” these bits into heretical snippets which he then condemns. The conversation heats up when the Student reads Wenck’s fourth thesis, that “there is a single nature for image and exemplar.” The Teacher “cries out: ‘God forbid! This is the detestable outrage of a shameless falsifier!’ And seizing a copy of Learned Ignorance,” he quotes a long passage, and comments that “the falsifier alleges to be affirmed of all diminished images what according to Paul is stated exclusively of the only begotten Son, who is the image which is consubstantial with the Father.”29 Then the Student, “very greatly aroused, adds: ‘Let this lying truncator of books go away and hide himself. For he who offends against the light – something which I consider to be the sin against the Holy Spirit – is not worthy of the light.’” By making no attempt to temper the Student’s anger, the Teacher seems to agree that Wenck is bound for hell, since sinning against the Spirit cannot be forgiven (Mt 12:31). When the Student goes on to read Wenck’s following points, the Teacher

29 Ap 62/44–45, translation modified; citing IL 30, Col. 1:15 and Heb. 1:3.

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summarizes their invective by showing “how the Adversary used falsity, truncation, mendacity and perverse interpretation with regard to them all.” The Student then personalizes the attack: “It is astonishing that this grey-haired man of advanced age, who considers himself one of the intelligentsia, writes such childish foolishness” (Ap 62/45). Since the Apologia abounds in similar complaints and insults, the Teacher – like us – grows weary and “wants to turn to more useful pursuits” (Ap 64/49). When he finally refuses to discuss Wenck’s last theses, the Student asks him “to comment on the fact that the Adversary, with sheer impudence and in an abusive way, disdains him as being wretched, impoverished, blind and empty of understanding.” Sidestepping personal issues, the Teacher replies, “I openly acknowledge all that he says about the blindness of the intellect,” but asserts that he himself “excelled the Adversary in that he knew that he was blind” (Ap 64/51). After dismissing Wenck’s claim that Nicholas dishonors Jesus as “a statement characteristic of a madman (dementis),” the conversation returns to learned ignorance, which the Teacher explains and encourages the Student to pursue. The Apologia ends on a positive note when the Student/narrator addresses his fellow student – whom we saw at the outset as Learned Ignorance’s ideal reader and evangelist. The narrator sends his colleague the Apologia “so that in your fervor there may grow that admirable seed by which we are elevated to seeing things divine,” and looks forward to that seed bearing fruit “throughout Italy . . . because of your solicitous cultivation” (Ap 66/55). His confidence leads the narrator, flying on wings of hyperbole, to declare that Cusanus’ learned ignorance “will surely conquer all the modes of reasoning of the philosophers.” In hindsight, we know that this did not happen, although Nicholas has found followers from Charles de Bovelles and Giordano Bruno to ourselves.30 Wenck’s irate response suggests how unlikely such a triumphant scenario was. Indeed, since the Teacher himself said it would be “like a miracle” for the “Aristotelian sect” to leave the Philosopher and “leap higher” (Ap 46/7), the Student apparently believes in miracles. He then concludes with a statement of faith, as he aspires “through learned ignorance” and God’s grace to “the fruition of that life which I now behold from afar and which I strive to approach ever closer” (Ap 66/55). Wenck to the contrary, learned ignorance thus moves deeply into piety and mystical theology.

Conclusion Although Wenck replied to the Apologia in his De facie scolae doctae ignorantiae, this work has not been found.31 So Unlearned Learning and the Apologia are our only records for the Cusanus-Wenck debate. Having looked closely at these works’ rhetoric, let us now place them more precisely within the Renaissance 30 On Nicholas’ reception, see S. Meier-Oeser, Die Präsenz des Vergessenen; and D. Duclow, “Charles de Bovelles on God, Nihil and Negative Theology.” 31 See Haubst, Studien, 102–103; and Ziebart, Cusanus on Faith and Intellect, 87.

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genre of invective. While Petrarch revived the classical invective, the genre changed as later Humanists attacked each other with increasing ferocity, inventiveness and obscenity. We can be grateful that Wenck and Cusanus do not impugn each other’s parentage, attack their sex lives (real or invented) or engage in scatological assaults. If their attacks are more measured than their Italian counterparts’, they nevertheless work with many of the same tools. Invectives took many forms, including commentary and dialogue. In Wenck’s Unknown Learning we see a “commentary, or textual exegesis, consisting in the quotations of excerpts from the opponent’s work, followed by comments of a grammatical, stylistic or other nature.”32 Wenck blends this form with scholastic disputation to accuse Nicholas of heresy – a charge also hurled at Lorenzo Valla and others. Cusanus’ Apologia adapts the dialogue form in novel ways. More typical were Valla and Poggio Bracciolini, whose dialogues “vilify and confound the opponent by putting into his mouth weak and ridiculous arguments from which he could not extricate himself.”33 But in the Apologia, as the Student and Teacher discuss Wenck in absentia, he becomes the object of their conversation, not a participant. And rather than putting words in the Adversary’s mouth, they criticize what Wenck has written in Unlearned Learning. While criticisms and insults abound, the Apologia’s ventriloquized dialogue allows Nicholas to portray himself above the fray as the Teacher who reluctantly joins the Student’s attack on Wenck and his work. Cusanus further distances himself by having the Student report this conversation in a letter to a fellow student. By merging dialogue and epistolary forms,34 the Apologia becomes a more artful invective than Wenck’s frontal attack and rare – perhaps unique – among Renaissance invectives.

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Duclow, Donald F. “Charles de Bovelles on God, Nihil and Negative Theology.” Aither: Journal for the Study of the Greek and Latin Philosophical Tradition, International Issue 7/8 (2020): 24–38. Eckhart, Meister. “Von Abgeschiedenheit.” In Eckhart, Deutschen Werke, vol. 5. Stuttgart/ Berlin: Kohlhammer, 1963. Pp. 400–461. ———. Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. Edited and translated by E. College and B. McGinn. New York: Paulist Press, 1981. Euler, Walter Andreas. “Die Biographie des Nikolaus von Kues.” In Handbuch Nikolaus von Kues. Edited by M. Brösch, W.A. Euler, A. Geissler and V. Ranff. Darmstadt: WHG, 2014. Pp. 31–103. Flasch, Kurt. “Wissen oder Wissen des Nicht-Wissens: Nikolaus von Kues gegen Johannes Wenck.” In Flasch, Kampfplätze der Philosophie. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 2008. Pp. 227–241. Gui, Bernard. “De secta pseudo-apostolorum.” In Manuel de l’inquisiteur. Edited by G. Mollat, vol. 1. Paris: Champion, 1964, pp. 84–107. Haubst, Rudolf. Studien zur Nikolaus von Kues und Johannes Wenck. Münster: Aschendorff, 1955. Heimburg, Gregor. “Invectiva.” In Monarchia S. Romani imperii. Compiled by Melchior Goldast. Gratz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1960; reprint of first edition, 1611–1614. Vol. 2, pp. 1424–1431. Helmrath, Johannes. “Streitkultur: Die ‘Invektive’ bei den italienischen Humanisten.” In Die Kunst des Streitens. Edited by M. Laureys and R. Simons. Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2010. Pp. 259–293. Hopkins, Jasper. Nicholas of Cusa’s Debate with John Wenck: A Translation and Appraisal of De ignota litteratura and Apologia doctae ignorantiae. Minneapolis: Banning Press, 1981. Laureys, Marc and Roswitha Simons. “Toward a Theory of the Humanistic Art of Arguing.” In The Art of Arguing in the World of Renaissance Humanism. Edited by M. Laureys and R. Simons. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013. Pp. 1–25. Meier-Oeser, Stephan. Die Präsenz des Vergessenen: Zur Rezeption der Philosophie des Nikolaus Cusanus vom 15. Zur 18. Jahrhunderts. Münster: Aschendorff, 1989. Meuthen, Erich. Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography. Translated by D. Crowner and G. Christianson. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. Nicholas of Cusa. “Opera omnia iussu et auctoritate Acadamiae Heidelbergensis.” Leipzig and Hamburg, 1932–2010: www.cusanus-portal.de/ (accessed February 24, 2023). ———. Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 2 vols. Translated by Jasper Hopkins. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001: https://jasper-hopkins.info/ (accessed February 24, 2023). Petrarca, Francesco. Invectives. Edited and translated by David Marsh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pierce, Jerry B. Poverty, Heresy and the Apocalypse: The Order of the Apostles and Social Change in Medieval Italy 1260–1307. London: Continuum, 2012. Ranff, Viki. “Mit Dionysius gegen Wenck: Areopagitisches in der ‘Apologia doctae ignorantiae’ des Nikolaus von Kues.” In Die Modernitäten des Nikolaus von Kues. Edited by T. Müller and M. Vollet. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2013. Pp. 43–56. ———. “Ein christlicher Sokrates? Dialogische Selbstverteidigung in der Apologia doctae ignorantiae des Nikolaus von Kues.” In Nikolaus von Kues – Denken im Dialog. Edited by W.A. Euler. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2019. Pp. 167–183.

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Rao, Ennio I. Curmudgeons in High Dudgeon: 101 Years of Invective (1352–1453). Messina: EDAS, 2007. Vansteenberghe, Edmond, ed. Le “De ignota litteratura” de Jean Wenck de Herrenberg contre Nicolas de Cuse. Münster: Aschendorff, 1910. ———, ed. Autour de la docte ignorance: une controverse sur la théologie mystique au XVe siècle. Münster: Aschendorff, 1915. Ziebart, K.M. Nicolaus Cusanus on Faith and the Intellect. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

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9 CUSANUS’ CLOCK Time and Eternity in De visione Dei*

In the history of technology, few inventions rival the mechanical clock. From modest beginnings, this medieval discovery spread widely and quickly. As the historian Lynn White, Jr. writes, Suddenly, towards the middle of the fourteenth century, the mechanical clock seized the imagination of our ancestors. Something of the civic pride which earlier had expended itself in cathedral-building now was diverted to the construction of astronomical clocks of astounding intricacy and elaboration. No European community felt able to hold up its head unless in its midst the planets wheeled in cycles and epicycles, while angels trumpeted, cocks crew, and apostles, kings, and prophets countermarched at the booming of the hours.1 For example, Padua was an early center for clock making and display. In 1364 Giovanni de’ Dondi completed the Astrarium, the most elaborate and best documented astronomical clock of the Middle Ages. A Visconti duke later acquired the Astrarium and displayed it in his library in Pavia. Giovanni’s father, Jacopo de’ Dondi had built a clock for the tower of the city’s Palazzo Capitaniato in 1344. Although destroyed in 1390, it was replaced in 1434 with the present clock featuring the sun, moon and zodiac.2 When Nicholas of Cusa arrived at the University of Padua in 1416, both the original tower clock and the Astrarium were long gone. Yet he surely heard the popular and academic discussions that led the city council to approve replacing

* I thank Elaine Beretz, Thomas Eser, John Heffner, Thomas Izbicki and Elly Truitt for their helpful comments, especially concerning early clocks. 1 Lynne White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford 1962), 124. The article, “Turret Clock” in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turret_clock, accessed 14/11/2022) includes a table of public clocks installed in the 13th and 14th centuries. 2 See Silvio A. Bedini and Francis R. Maddison, Mechanical Universe: The Astrarium of Giovanni de’ Dondi (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, NS, LVI, part 5, Philadelphia 1966); for Jacopo’s tower clock, see 17–19.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-9

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Jacopo’s tower clock in 1423, the year he received his law degree. He must also have seen and heard other clocks during his years in Basel, Brixen and Rome, and in his travels throughout Germany on behalf of Pope Eugenius IV (1438–47) and his later legation tour (1450–52). Indeed, in Frankfurt a large astronomical clock – 10 meters high – stood in the north transept of the Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus from the late fourteenth-century.3 Nicholas visited Frankfurt often in support of Eugenius, and knew St. Bartholomäus as the city’s major church and the site for imperial elections and political functions. The Acta Cusana informs us that he attended the Heilig-Geist-Messe in St. Bartholomäus that opened the Reichstag on 14 September 1446.4 Unfortunately, a major fire in 1867 devastated the church and destroyed the clock. As the fate of this clock illustrates, very few medieval clocks survive. But Orvieto – where Cusanus lived during the summer from 1461 to 14635 – claims that the mechanized bell and bell ringer atop its clock tower date to the fourteenth century. Although we may question Orvieto’s claim, we can be confident that Nicholas encountered one clock that still survives: the “Sebalder Schlaguhr” currently at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.6 This modest clock told the time keeper in Nuremberg’s St. Sebaldus church tower when to strike the bell that announced the hour to the city. When Nicholas processed to the church in January 1441 and preached there in April 1451,7 he probably did not climb the tower stairs to see this clock, but he certainly heard its effects as the bell rang the hours. But before this essay turns into “Clocks Cusanus Might Have Seen or Heard,” let us turn to more stable ground in Nicholas’ richest symbolic work, De visione Dei. He sent the treatise and a painting to the monks at Tegernsee abbey in 1453. The painting becomes the work’s central image as an “icon of God,” a portrait whose eyes seem to focus on each of the brothers even when they move in opposite directions. This icon has received much attention – for example, at the Trier

3 “Die Monumentaluhr im Frankfurter Dom,” in Uhrzeiten. Die Geschichte der Uhr und ihres Gebrauches, ed. Ivor A. Jenzen (Frankfurt am Main and Marburg 1989), 37–49 & 259. 4 Acta Cusana (Hamburg, 1976) will be cited as AC, followed by volume, part, entry number and date, as here: AC I/2, n. 705 (1 Sept. – 16 October 1446). St. Bartholomäus also figures in Nicholas’ correspondence during the legation; see especially AC I/3b, n. 2394 (19 March 1452). 5 See Erich Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography, trans. D. Crowner and G. Christianson (Washington, DC 2010), 136–138. 6 For details about this clock, see the Germanisches Nationalmuseum website, https://objektkatalog. gnm.de/wisski/navigate/66987/view (accessed 14/11/2022). I thank Dr. Thomas Eser of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (personal communications, September 2012) for clarifying many aspects of this clock, which seems to have been Nuremberg’s principal timepiece. When St. Sebaldus’ tower keeper struck the bell, ringers in three other towers – St. Lawrence church, the Weisser Turm, and the Laufer Schlagturm – followed. In Konrad Celtis’ Norinburgia (1502), a woodcut shows a cityscape with bell ringers clinging to the four towers and swinging hammers. 7 AC I/2, n. 453 (5 January 1441), and AC I/3a, nn. 1189 & 1190 (11 April 1451). The 1451 sermon is Sermo LXXX in the Heidelberg Academy’s critical edition, Nicolai de Cusa Opera Omnia (LeipzigHamburg, 1932), h XVII, 489. This edition will be cited as “h” and volume number.

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Figure 9.1 Sebalder Schlaguhr, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, inventory no. WI999. By permission of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

Symposion in 1986 and in its MFCG proceedings.8 Here I shall discuss one of the work’s less familiar images: a clock that strikes the hours. Cusanus uses this image to clarify the relation between time and eternity. Specifically, he asks this question: since God conceives and speaks only once and eternally, “how is it . . . that all things do not exist simultaneously, but many come into being successively? How do so many diverse things exist out of a single concept?”9 In other words, how can we reconcile the eternity of God’s creative “concept” with time’s multiplicity and succession? This question occurs within Nicholas’ discussion of yet another image: the book of Genesis’ wall of paradise, whose entrance is guarded by an angel with the flaming sword of reason. The enclosed garden and its surrounding wall suggest a 8 Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft (MFCG) 18 (1989): Das Sehen Gottes nach Nikolaus von Kues. 9 Cusanus, De visione Dei. 10: h VI, n. 41, lin. 5–6; translated by H. Lawrence Bond, in: Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings (New York 1997), 253. Hereafter abbreviated as De vis.

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three-part structure: the outside region of finitude and exile with its many distinctions and contrasts; the wall itself, where opposites coincide; and the paradise garden within, where the infinite God dwells beyond all opposites and their coincidence.10 Placing himself at the threshold of the garden door, Cusanus analyzes the relation of time and eternity in terms of perspective: “Infinite duration, which is eternity itself, embraces all succession. Everything . . . that appears to us in succession in no way exists subsequent to (post) your [God’s] concept, which is eternity.”11 Hence, while we perceive events one after another, God’s concept or Word grasps them differently. “For in eternity, where you [God] conceive, all temporal succession coincides in the same now (nunc) of eternity. Therefore, nothing is past or future where future and past coincide with the present.”12 Because God creates by conceiving and speaking, Nicholas’ perspectival analysis takes on ontological weight. He writes, “That things in the world exist according to earlier and later stems from the fact that you did not conceive such things earlier so that they would exist. Had you conceived them earlier, they would have existed earlier. But one is not almighty in whose thought earlier and later occur, so that one first conceives one thing and afterward another.”13 Here Cusanus struggles with the limits of thought and language, which – since they are immersed in time – require distinctions of earlier and later, and can express time’s relation to eternity only in a paradox of equivocation and negation. The paradox centers on the very terms that Aristotle had used to define time as “the measure of motion according to earlier and later.”14 This distinction marks successive events outside the garden’s wall, while God dwells “in paradise inside its wall,” and the wall itself “is that coincidence where later coincides with earlier, where the end coincides with the beginning, and where alpha and omega are the same.”15 This pattern seems clear enough until Nicholas presses the point about when God speaks and creates. “Things exist always because you [God] tell them to exist, and they do not exist earlier because you do not earlier speak.” But if God 10 See Rudolf Haubst, “Die erkenntnistheoretische und mystische Bedeutung der ‘Mauer der Koinzidenz’,” MFCG 18 (1989), 167–191; and Donald F. Duclow, “Anselm’s Proslogion and Nicholas of Cusa’s Wall of Paradise,” in Duclow, Masters of Learned Ignorance (Aldershot 2006), 283–292. 11 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 41, lin. 9–10; trans. Bond, p. 253; “Ambit igitur infinita duratio, quae est ipsa aeternitas, omnem successionem.” Throughout his works, Nicholas relates eternity and duration in very different ways. Here he defines eternity as “infinita duratio.” But elsewhere he speaks of eternity as the measure of duration (De theolologicis complementis, h X/2A, n. 8, lin. 20–21). And in De ludo globi he distinguishes between “absoluta duratio” and “duratio successiva” (De ludo globi II, h IX, n. 88, lin. 5–8). See also De non aliud 16, h XIII, 40, lin. 32 – p. 41, lin. 11; commenting on this text, Maurice de Gandillac speaks of “l’équivoque meme d’une duratio qui serait la forme idéal commune au temps et à l’éternité” in La Philosophie de Nicolas de Cues (Paris 1941), 303. 12 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 41, lin. 19–22; trans. Bond, p. 254. 13 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 42, lin.1–6; trans. Bond, p. 254. 14 Aristotle, Physics II, 11, 219b–220a. 15 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 42, lin. 7–9; trans. Bond, p. 254, emphasis added.

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conceives eternally without any succession, in what sense does God also speak earlier or later? Cusanus sharpens the paradox with an example. He writes, “When I read that Adam existed so many years ago and that one such as he was born today, it seems impossible that Adam existed then because you then willed it, and that nevertheless you did not earlier will Adam to exist than you willed the one born today to exist.”16 Rather than evade this contradiction, Nicholas underlines it when he says, But that which seems impossible is necessity itself. For now and then exist after (post) your word. And, therefore, to one approaching you [God], now and then meet in coincidence within the wall that surrounds the place where you dwell. For now and then coincide in the circle of the wall of paradise. But it is beyond now and then that you, my God, who are absolute eternity, exist and speak.17 Cusanus thus invokes the wall of paradise to affirm the paradox as “necessity itself”: God speaks once and eternally, and Adam and the child born today come to be in time’s then and now. But how are we to understand this? At this point Nicholas introduces his clock metaphor, saying, You [God] have inspired a likeness pleasing to me about the unity of your mental word or concept and its variety, successively, in appearances. The simple concept of a most perfect clock directs me so that I might be more delightfully caught up to the vision of your concept and your word. For the simple concept of a clock enfolds all temporal succession. If, let us assume, the clock were a concept, then although we hear the sixth hour strike before the seventh, nevertheless, the seventh is heard only when the concept orders it. The sixth hour is not earlier in the concept than the seventh or eighth, but in the single concept of the clock, no hour is earlier or later than another, although the clock never strikes the hour except when the concept orders it. It is true to say upon hearing the sound of the sixth hour that the sixth strikes then because the concept of the master wills it so.18 16 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 42, lin. 11–14; trans. Bond, p. 254, emphasis added. 17 De vis. 10: h VI, n. 42, lin. 14–19; trans. Bond, p. 254. 18 De vis. 11: h VI, n. 43, lin. 5–17; trans. Bond, pp. 254–255, emphasis added: “Inspirasti similitudinem mihi gratam circa unitatem verbi mentalis et seu conceptus tui et varietatem eiusdem in successive apparentibus. Nam simplex conceptus horlogii perfectissimi me ducit, ut sapidius rapiar ad visionem conceptus et verbi tui. Conceptus enim simplex horlogii complicat omnem successionem temporalem. Et esto, quod horlogium sit conceptus. Tunc licet prius audiamus sonum sextae horae quam septimae, non tamen auditur septima, nisi quando iubet conceptus, neque sexta est prius in conceptu quam septima aut octava, sed in unico conceptu horologii nulla hora est prior aut posterior alia, quamvis horologium numquam horam sonet, nisi quando conceptus iubet, et verum est dicere, quando audimus sextam sonare, quod tunc sex sonat, quia conceptus magistri sic vult.”

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Here Nicholas distinguishes between the clock and its concept. We hear the clock strike the hours one after the other – six, seven, etc. But as soon as we think of the clock itself, our concept includes all the hours it can strike. In Cusanus’ terms, this concept “enfolds all temporal succession/complicat omnem successionem temporalem” within itself. In this sense it is timeless, since within it “no hour is earlier or later than another.” Yet this concept – the very idea of measuring time’s passing mechanically – also governs the design and making of the clock. For not only do we conceive hours and times as a simple unity, but medieval clock makers made this concept more specific and operational. For they ingeniously thought out the clock’s organizing principle, and devised the clock’s drive and escapement mechanism to mark the hours in succession. Hence, a clock strikes, say, the seventh hour only when its concept or program “orders” or “wills” that it do so. Cusanus then turns the clock and its concept into a metaphor to explain his larger speculative problem: Since in God’s concept the clock is the concept, we perceive to some small extent how succession is in the clock without succession being in the word or concept; that in this most simple concept are enfolded all motions and sounds and whatever we experience in succession; that everything that occurs successively does not in any way evade the concept, but is the unfolding of the concept, so that the concept gives being to each; and that nothing existed before it occurred, since it was not conceived before it existed.19 If, therefore, the concept of the clock were as though eternity itself, in the clock the movement is succession. Eternity, therefore, enfolds and unfolds succession. For the concept of a clock, when the concept is eternity, equally enfolds and unfolds all things. Nicholas’ metaphor and commentary rely on the polarity of enfolding and unfolding, complicatio and explicatio. This polarity, which he adapts from Boethius and Thierry of Chartres, is central to Cusanus’ entire speculative scheme.20 Here

19 De vis. 11: h VI, n. 44, lin. 1–12, trans. Bond, p. 255 (translation modified & emphasis added); h VI, n. 44: “Et quia horologium in conceptu dei est conceptus, tunc aliquantulum videtur, quomodo successio in horlogio est sine successione in verbo seu conceptu et quod in simplicissimo illo conceptu complicantur omnes motus et soni et quidquid in successione experimur, et quod omne illud, quod successive eveniet, non exit quo vis modo conceptum, sed est explicatio conceptus, ita quod conceptus dat esse cuilibet et quod propterea nihil prius fuit quam eveniat, quia prius non fuit conceptum ut esset. Sit igitur conceptus horologii quasi ipsa aeternitas; tunc motus in horologio est successio. Complicat igitur aeternitas successionem et explicat. Nam conceptus horologii, quae est aeternitas, complicat pariter et explicat omnia.” Similarly, see Augustine, Confessiones XI, vii, 9–viii, 10: “Omne, quod esse incipit et esse desinit, tunc esse incipit et tunc desinit, quando debuisse incipere et desinere in aeterna ratione cognoscitur, ubi nec incipit aliquid nec desinit.” 20 See Maurice de Gandillac, “Explicatio-Complicatio chez Nicolas de Cues,” in Concordia Discors: Studi su Nicolò Cusano e l’umanesimo europeo offerti a Giovanni Santinello, ed. Gregorio

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the concept of the clock “enfolds” or contains all times within itself, whereas the clock “unfolds” this concept as it strikes the hours in succession. Similarly, God’s concept “enfolds” all motions, sounds and times within a simple, eternal unity which “unfolds” in creation’s multiplicity and time’s successive hours. With this polarity of enfolding and unfolding, Nicholas places time and eternity in a reciprocal relation, where time’s very succession unfolds or manifests God’s own eternity. This relation pivots on the present or “now.” Like Augustine and Boethius, Nicholas capitalizes on the present’s ambiguity as the boundary of time and eternity. For “now and then” mark time’s succession outside the wall of paradise, yet they coincide in the wall and the “now of eternity”. In De docta ignorantia, Nicholas explains this relation in terms of enfolding and unfolding, when he writes, The now, or the present, enfolds time. The past was the present, the future will be the present; nothing is found in time except the ordered present. Consequently, the past and the future are the unfolding of the present; the present is the enfolding of all present times, and present times are the unfolding of the present in a series, and only the present is found in present times. Therefore, there is one enfolding of all times – which is the present, and the present, indeed, is unity.21 Cusanus goes on to identify this unity with eternity. Similarly, in Sermon CCXVI, he asks, “What being appears in time except the present? . . . . The now, therefore, from which and to which all time flows is the essence or being of time.”22 Elizabeth Brient comments, “As the unfolding of eternity, each moment participates in the ‘now of eternity’ in a contracted and limited way. There are not many nows strung together composing time. There is only the now of eternity, which is the being of each finite moment, in that finite moment.”23 Hence, we may say that the temporal now embodies or incarnates the eternal present. Yet it does so neither fully nor exhaustively, but rather in the limited and contingent ways appropriate to time’s succession of earlier and later. For example, precisely as hours, 6:00

Piaia (Padua 1993), 77–106; Thomas P. McTighe, “Eternity and Time in Boethius,” in History of Philosophy in the Making, ed. Linus J. Thro (Washington, DC 1982), 35–62; and Jean-Marie Counet, “Le temps comme explication de l’éternité chez Nicolas de Cues,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 101 (2003), 319–339. 21 Cusanus, De docta ignorantia, Book II, ch. 3: h I, n. 106; trans. Bond, Selected Spiritual Writings, 135, emphasis added. 22 Cusanus, Sermo CCXVI: h XIX, n. 5, lin. 4–13; trans. C. L. Miller, “Meister Eckhart in Nicholas of Cusa’s 1456 Sermon, Ubi est qui natus rex Iudeorum?” in Nicholas of Cusa and His Age: Intellect and Spirituality, ed. Thomas Izbicki and Christopher Bellitto (Leiden 2002), 116; “Nam quid esse in tempore nisi praesentia? . . . Nunc, igitur, a quo et ad quod fluit omne tempus, est essentia seu esse temporis.” 23 Elizabeth Brient, “Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa on the ‘Where’ of God,” in Nicholas of Cusa and His Age, 139.

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yesterday and noon today mark distinct times, yet manifest a single eternal now within which they coincide. Here Nicholas’ image and commentary differ from typical metaphors of a clockwork universe. These describe the maker as designing a clock which moves on its own, without the maker’s continuing intervention; on this model, God created the universe, which then moves perpetually with clockwork precision. Already in the fourteenth century, Nicole Oresme had suggested such a metaphor, when he compared the frictionless movement of the heavenly sphere to a mechanical clock, whose maker “lets it go and be moved by itself.”24 This metaphor has a long history, well known to students of Newton, deism, Paley’s natural theology, Hume’s critique, and the contemporary arguments – especially in the United States – over “intelligent design.” However, Nicholas’ image works quite differently. Rather than focusing on the clock as an independent, perpetual motion machine, it emphasizes the interplay between the clock and its concept. The clock’s concept plays a dual role: 1) it holds the clock and all times within its unified present; and 2) it itself remains present and orders the clock’s striking of the successive hours. In this sense, the clock incarnates the clockmaker’s unifying concept as it marks each moment and hour. Consequently, the image’s theological message also differs. For it underlines the eternal God’s intimate presence throughout time’s unfolding succession, instead of a divine clock maker who observes the universe’s movements from afar. Nicholas emphasizes this intimacy in De visione Dei when he compares two ways of reading: his own and God’s. He reads “successively, . . . one word after another” – as you are reading this essay. And when two people “read the same book, one more quickly and the other more slowly, you [God] read with us both, and you seem (videris) to read in time with those reading. And beyond time you see and read all things at once (simul).” Here God reads not only over our shoulders, but through our eyes and at our individual pace. Yet God also reads one and the same text eternally, and does both readings “in the same way (eodem . . . modo), because you [God] are not changeable but are fixed eternity.”25 Underlying these comparative readings is Cusanus’ view of time and eternity. For he affirms that “because eternity does not forsake (deserit) time, it seems to be moved with time, although in eternity motion is rest.”26 As reading clarifies the relation between human and divine activity, Nicholas’ clock metaphor highlights human knowing and creativity. In the dialogue, Idiota de mente (1450), he defines ‘mind/mens’ in terms of ‘measure/mensurare’, and describes the human mind in terms of a technical metaphor that reflects his

24 Nicole Oresme, Livre du ciel, cited in Marshall Clagett, “Introduction” to N. Oresme, Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motions, ed. and trans. M. Clagett (Madison, WI 1968), 6–7. 25 De vis. 8; h VI, n. 29, lin. 9–20; trans. Bond, 248–249, emphasis added. This comparison occurs in Nicholas’ discussion of providence. 26 De vis. 8; h VI, n. 29, lin. 20–22; trans. Bond, 249.

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mathematical interests: “The mind is a living measure that measures by means of itself, as if a living pair of drawing-compasses [circinus] were to measure by means of itself.” The goal of this activity is self-knowledge, as the mind “achieves its own capacity by measuring other things.”27 In De ludo globi (1463), Nicholas similarly links measuring, technical creativity and self-knowledge. He says that the soul “creates new instruments in order to discern and to know,” and cites the examples of Ptolemy’s astrolabe and Orpheus’ lyre. The mechanical clock fits neatly into this scheme, as does Cusanus’ statement about the measures of time themselves. He asserts that the “year, month, hours are instruments of a temporal measure created by man. Thus, since time is the measure of motion, it is the instrument of the measuring soul.”28 Here Nicholas invokes Aristotle to draw a novel conclusion. Where Aristotle gave priority to the physical motion and change which time measures, Nicholas privileges the human activity of measuring. Echoing fourteenth-century Scholastic debates, he emphasizes time as numerus numerans over time as numerus numeratus. Consistent with this view, he then follows Augustine and claims that the soul does not depend upon time, but that time depends on the soul which measures it and which is itself “not subject to time; rather it exists antecedently to time.”29 By measuring motion using time as its instrument, the human mind dwells at the threshold of time and eternity, in a kind of “eternal” or “timeless time.”30 Indeed, only from this vantage point at the door in the wall surrounding paradise – where perspectives themselves coincide – can we create both the “concept of a most perfect clock” and clocks themselves. Let us note that Nicholas’ concern with time’s measurement was not limited to his philosophy and theology. Already at the Council of Basel he proposed a major reform of the calendar in the Reparatio kalendarii (1436).31 He was also

27 Cusanus, Idiota de mente 1 & 9: h V, n. 57, lin. 5–6; n. 123, lin. 5 – n.124, lin. 7; trans. Jasper Hopkins, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, (Minneapolis 2001), vol. I, 535–536 and 569, emphasis added. Nicholas wrote several works on the mathematical problem of squaring the circle; see Cusanus, Scripta mathematica, h XX (2010); and Nicolas de Cues, Les Écrits mathématiques, ed. and French trans. by Jean-Marie Nicolle (Paris 2007). 28 Cusanus, De ludo globi II: h IX, n. 94, lin.5–7; trans. Hopkins, vol. II, 1232. 29 De ludo globi II, n. 94: h IX, n. 9–10; trans. Hopkins, vol. II, 1232. See Aristotle, Physics II, 14, 223a; and Augustine, Confessions XI, xxvi, 33–XI, xxviii, 37. Medieval natural philosophy struggled with this difference between Aristotle and Augustine; see Anneliese Maier, “Die Subjektivierung der Zeit in der scholastischen Philosophie,” Philosophia Naturalis 1 (1950–52), 361–398. 30 Cusanus discusses the soul as “timeless time/intemporale tempus” in De aequalitate.: h X/1, nn. 11–13, passim. See Norbert Fischer, “Die Zeitbetrachtung des Nikolaus von Kues in De aequalitate,” Trierer theologische Zeitschrift 99 (1990), 170–192; and Elizabeth Brient, “Between Time and Eternity: Neoplatonic Precursors to Cusanus’ Conception of ‘Non-Temporal Time’ in De aequalitate,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Times of Transition, ed. Thomas Izbick, Jason Aleksander and Donald Duclow (Leiden 2019), 242–261. 31 Cusanus, Die Kalenderverbesserung: De correctione kalendarii, ed. & German trans. Viktor Stegemann & Bernhard Bischoff (Heidelberg 1955). Although the council did not act on Nicholas’ recommendations, they were so far reaching that Arno Borst writes, “For the first time since

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a collector of scientific instruments and gadgets, including a wooden celestial globe, an astrolabe, and a torquetum or device “to measure the daily movement of the sun parallel to the celestial equator and thus establish coordinates of the sun and stars.”32 Unfortunately for my purposes, he does not seem to have owned a mechanical clock. Indeed, the only trace of these clocks left in Cusanus’s writings occurs in De visione Dei’s reflections on the clock metaphor, since the term ‘horologium’ appears nowhere else in his works.33 Nicholas’s only other discussion of clocks occurs in the Idiota dialogue on experiments with weights, where the Layman describes using the clepsydra or water-clock for several purposes, including measuring time – both the day of the month throughout the year, and the hour of the day.34 To conclude, in De visione Dei Nicholas introduces the concept of a perfect clock to clarify the difficult speculative question of time and eternity. He presents the metaphor quickly, and once it has done its work he abandons it just as quickly. Yet we have found that this metaphor suggests a great deal about Cusanus. For it illustrates his imaginative skill and ease in creating novel symbols to carry forward his thinking. And the clock metaphor not only clarifies Nicholas’ views about time and eternity, but also reflects his fascination with the practical problems and instruments of measurement. Indeed, we may wonder why – at a time when cardinals were lavishly renovating their titular churches in Rome – Cusanus did not have a clock made for his church, San Pietro in Vincoli. If he had, the Eternal City would have entered the competitive ranks of late medieval and Renaissance cities – like Padua and Frankfurt – that boasted of their elaborate clocks. Or at least San Pietro in Vincoli would have measured up to Nuremberg’s St. Sebaldus church with its tower clock and bell ringer. But as it happened, Nicholas seems to have been satisfied with his metaphorical play around the concept of a perfect clock, and left us no record of any mechanical clock of his own.

Augustus, a new calendar marked the beginning of a new age”; A. Borst, The Ordering of Time (Chicago 1993), 100. 32 Klaus Kremer, Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), trans. F. & H.-J. Kann (Trier 2002), 42. These instruments remain at St. Nikolaus Hospital in Bernkastel-Kues. Nicholas bought them in Nuremberg in 1444, along with 16 books on astronomy; see Alois Krchňák, “Die Herkunft der astronomischen Handschriften und Instrumente des Nikolaus von Kues,” MFCG, 3 (1963), 109–180, especially 110–114 and 166–168 on the instruments. 33 A search of the Cusanus-Portal yields no other occurrences of ‘horologium’ and its variants. 34 Cusanus, Idiota de staticis experimenti,: h2 V, nn. 184–185, p. 235, lin. 1–9.

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10 “ETERNAL TIME” Nicholas of Cusa on World, Time and Eternity*

One of Nicholas of Cusa’s last works, the dialogue De ludo globi1 (1462–63) concerns a bowling game like boules or bocci. But this game uses an unusual ball from which a concave section has been cut, so that it swerves and spirals when rolled. The object of the game is for the ball to rest at the center of ten concentric circles. Throughout the dialogue Nicholas and his young companions explore the game’s speculative and symbolic implications for metaphysics, cosmology, the moral life and Christology. Here I shall discuss only one of the dialogue’s many issues: the relation of time, eternity and the perpetual. For in De ludo globi Cusanus engages the ever controversial topic of the eternity of the world2 and clarifies the cosmology that he first sketched in De docta ignorantia. In addition, when he identifies time as an “instrument of the measuring soul,”3 he links it to his distinctive teaching on the human mind. As they discuss the ball’s shape, Nicholas’ young companion John asks about “the world’s outermost spherical roundness.”4 As the context makes clear, ‘world/mundus’ here refers not to the earth, but to the universe. In good Platonic fashion, Cusanus distinguishes between absolute roundness and things which can be more or less round – like the ball. Yet the universe is maximally round in the sense that “no other roundness is actually greater.”5 The sphere of the universe

* An early version of this article was presented in a session of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (SMRP) at the Renaissance Society of America’s annual meeting in Los Angeles (2009). 1 Nicolas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 9, De ludo globi. De ludo globi will be cited as DLG followed by section number (n). I shall cite the translations of Jasper Hopkins in Nicholas of Cusa, Collected Treatises, vol. 2, and Pauline Watts in Nicholas of Cusa, De ludo globi. De ludo globi is in two Books, where the “Cardinal” – Cusanus himself – speaks with two young noblemen: Iohannes of Bavaria in Book I, and his cousin Albert in Book II. For overviews of the work, see Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus, pp. 191–207; and K. Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, pp. 576–602. 2 See, for example, H.S. Lang, “Perpetuity, Eternity, and Time,” pp. 150–169; and Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and Bonaventure, On the Eternity of the World. 3 DLG, n. 94; Hopkins, p. 1232. 4 DLG, n. 9; “mundi sphaerica rotunditas”; Hopkins, p. 1185. 5 DLG, n. 16; Hopkins, p. 1189; emphasis added.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-10

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thus becomes “an image of absolute roundness,” which is “the cause and exemplar of the world’s roundness.”6 These reflections echo Nicholas’ earlier move toward an infinite universe in De docta ignorantia, where he describes the universe as a “contracted maximum”; it is not the divine, absolute maximum, but its actual, contracted image. This universe is “privatively infinite” because it lacks spatial limits and there is “nothing actually greater than it, in relation to which it would be limited.”7 In De ludo globi, however, Cusanus turns from the universe’s extension in space to its relation to time and eternity. Taking his cue from a circle which has neither beginning nor end, the Cardinal says, “I call absolute roundness eternity; the world’s roundness is an image of eternity.”8 When John asks if we can also call the world eternal, Nicholas agrees, but notes that only the creator is eternity itself, while anything else is called eternal “because it exists by means of a partaking [participatione] of Eternity, i.e., because it is derived from Eternity.” He goes on to specify how the world images God’s eternity – namely, in its “never endable or perpetual” duration.9 The Cardinal later develops this point. Because the “form of roundness is most suited for perpetual motion” and the universe approximates this roundness, the heavens’ “ultimate sphere” naturally moves “without violence and fatigue.”10 While De docta ignorantia describes a universe without spatial limits as an image of divine infinity, De ludo globi highlights perpetual duration as an unfolding image of God’s eternity. Cusanus’ universe thus mirrors divine infinity both in its limitless space and by enduring without end. As perpetual, the universe exists at the limit or boundary between time and eternity. Nicholas articulates this boundary from both sides. On the one hand, he places the world’s eternity within God by saying that “the eternity of the world since it is the eternity of the world also exists prior to (ante) the eternal world.”11 Here the accent falls on eternity rather than on the world, as Nicholas identifies its eternity with God. Because there is only one eternity which is God, the world’s ‘eternity’ describes its virtual existence within God, ontologically prior to its unfolding in the eternal world – which itself is prior to that world’s unfolding in time. Similarly and more clearly, the Cardinal claims that “the Creating-Eternity-of-the-world 6 DLG, n. 16; Hopkins, p. 1189. See E.J. Butterworth, “Form and Significance of the Sphere,” pp. 89–100. In the extensive literature on the infinite sphere in Cusanus, see E. Brient, Immanence of the Infinite, pp. 184–242. 7 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 1, De docta ignorantia, II, ch. 1 (n. 97); trans. in Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, pp. 130–131. 8 DLG, n. 16; Hopkins, p. 1189. 9 DLG, n. 17; Hopkins, p. 1189; emphasis added. 10 DLG, n. 21; Watts, p. 65. Although this account seems conventional, the Cardinal then ventures into impetus theory. When John asks, “How did God create the ultimate sphere and its motion together?” Nicholas compares creation to the ball game. He says that God does not continually move the outermost sphere, but rather sets it in motion like a player who throws the ball and thereby gives it the impetus “by which the ball is moved as long as the impetus endures” (DLG, n. 22; Watts, p. 65). The difference consists in the perpetual motion of the universal sphere. See K. Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, p. 589. 11 DLG, n. 17; Watts, p. 63; translation modified and emphasis added.

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is God, who made all thing as He willed.”12 On the other hand, Nicholas places the accent on time when he cites the prophet Baruch: “Sometimes time is called eternal; so the prophet spoke of ‘eternal time’, since time did not have its beginning in time. Time did not precede time, but eternity did.”13 In the Vulgate, Baruch says that divine Wisdom “prepared the earth in eternal time – praeparavit terram in aeterno tempore.”14 Since this preparation occurs within God’s own mind or Wisdom, it leads time back to its eternal, divine origin: “Time is called eternal because it flows from Eternity,”15 and does so without end. The world’s beginning (initium) is thus not temporal, but ontological. For it begins not in time, but in God’s own eternity, yet it endures forever as the image of that absolute eternity. Hence, the universe and time itself are not like the act of reading this essay, which began in time and will soon end; it only seems to be taking forever. In Book II of De ludo globi Nicholas returns to these issues when his young companion Albert asserts that “God existed from eternity and creatures came into being.”16 The Cardinal corrects him, saying, You imagine that before the creation of the world God was and not creatures. But . . . God is not properly said to have existed before creatures. For it is not possible for something to have been when time did not exist since ‘to have existed (fuisse)’ is in the past tense. Time is a creature of eternity for it is not eternity, which is entirely simultaneous, but the image of eternity since it exists in succession.17 Here Cusanus echoes Augustine and Boethius, and like them he notes that our powers of imagining and thinking make it hard for us to speak clearly about eternity. Because the word ‘before/ante’ suggests a continuum, Albert “imagines” a time prior to creation. But following Augustine, Nicholas shows that time cannot precede creation, but rather begins with it.18 For eternity exists all at once – “tota simul” – with no before or after, whereas time flows from eternity which it images in a “succession” of past, present and future. The Cardinal then clarifies the epistemological difficulties: We do not conceive (concipimus) eternity without duration. We can in no way imagine (imaginari) duration without succession. Hence succession which is temporal duration manifests itself when we strive to conceive 12 13 14 15 16 17

DLG, n. 19: “Aeternitas igitur mundi creatrix deus est, qui ut voluit cuncta fecit”; Hopkins, p. 1190. DLG, n. 18; Watts, p. 63; emphasis added. Ba 3:32. DLG, n. 18; Watts, p. 63. DLG, n. 87, Watts, p. 103. DLG, n. 87, Watts, p. 103; translation modified. Nicholas develops this point in Opera omnia, vol. 19, Sermo 216 (nn. 21–25); translated in C.L. Miller, “Meister Eckhart in Nicholas of Cusa’s 1456 Easter Sermon,” pp. 121–123. 18 See Augustine, Confessiones XI, xii–xiv.

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of eternity. But the mind (mens) says that absolute duration, which is eternity, naturally precedes successive duration. And thus duration which is in itself free of (absolutus) succession appears in successive duration as though in an image, just as truth appears in an image.19 Here the term ‘duratio’ mediates our understanding of time and eternity. Yet this mediation is ambiguous. We conceive eternity in terms of duration, while imagination links duration to succession. Semantics supports our imagination, since temporal thickness seems built into ‘duratio’ – a word akin to ‘durare’ and ‘durabilis’ that suggest continuing process, lasting or enduring. The description of time as “successive duration” spells out this feature of the term. However, the mind (mens) sees differently, and frees the concept of duration from its association with succession. It thus enables us to conceive eternity as “absolute duration” or “duration in itself,” which time’s succession expresses as image. Like the prophet Baruch’s “eternal time,” Cusanus’ “absolute duration” plays at the boundary of time and eternity. For it compresses into an oxymoron the features which Boethius described as simultaneous and everlasting when he defined eternity as “the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life.”20 Further, by linking eternity with duration – even “absolute duration” – Nicholas seems to depart from Augustine, who places eternity’s “now” altogether beyond time and its ever-vanishing present. This discussion in Book II highlights the perspectival shifts required as we conceive, imagine and speak about time and eternity. Yet it retains a binary focus on time and eternity, and makes no mention of a third, perpetual kind of duration. For this we need to return to Book I’s analysis of the eternity of the world. Nicholas says that the world not only derives from eternity, but is also “called eternal, since it was never true to say ‘Eternity is’ but that it was also true to say ‘the world is,’ although from Eternity the world is that which it is.”21 The argument shifts when Cusanus introduces Aristotle’s notion of time as the measure of

19 DLG, n. 88: “in successiva tamquam in imagine videtur duratio in se a successione absoluta”; Watts, p. 103. The editors of Nicholas’ Opera omnia note a parallel passage in Duns Scotus, and J.-M. Counet writes that Nicholas “se situe dans le sillage de Guillaume d’Ockham” (Counet, “Le temps comme l’explication de l’éternité,” p. 322. In Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol.13, Directio speculantis sive de non aliud (n. 77) Nicholas similarly uses ‘duratio’ to name the ‘substantialitas’ that is perceived in eternity and time. See also de docta ignorantia (n. 63) on the maximum as “unissima duratio”; and Opera omnia, vol. 6, De visione Dei (n. 41) on eternity as “infinita duratio.” But elsewhere Cusanus distinguishes eternity from duration, as in Opera omnia, vol. 19, Sermo CCIV (n. 2): because we can measure duration but not eternity, “ideo de aeternitate dicimus ipsam non esse durationem, sed supra omnem durationem.” 20 Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy V, pr. 6: “Aeternitas igitur est interminabilis vitae tota simul ac perfecta possessio”; trans. V. Watts, p. 132. See T.P. McTighe, “Eternity and Time in Boethius,” pp. 48–55. 21 DLG, n. 17; Hopkins, p. 1189.

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motion. He considers the name ‘eternal’ better suited to the world than to time because, he says, The duration of the world does not depend upon time. For if the motion of the heavens, and time, which is the measure of motion, were to cease, the world would not cease to exist. But if the world were to utterly cease, time would cease. Therefore, it is more appropriate for the world to be called eternal than for time to be called eternal.22 By turning to motion and its measure Cusanus thus grants the universe conceptual priority to time. This turn leads him to explore some basic themes underlying motion – namely, creation, possibility and becoming. He first addresses the question of God’s creative power and the world’s limited perfection. Creating as He willed (voluit), God made this particular universe, which does not exhaust his ability to create. Yet Nicholas tells us that “the world was made just as perfect as it could have been made.”23 The point is that while “God could make (potuit facere) a more perfect and rounder and even a more imperfect and less round world,” nevertheless “the world was made as perfect as it could be. For it was made in the way that it was able to be made and its capacity to be made was [itself] made. But this capacity to be made (fieri posse) that was made is not the omnipotent God’s absolute capacity to make (facere posse).”24 Here Nicholas distinguishes between posse-facere or God’s power to make and create, and posse-fieri or the world’s possibility and capacity for being made. Translators struggle to render these terms in English: Pauline Watts gives us “capacity to make” and “capacity to be made,” while Jasper Hopkins prefers “power-to-make” and “possibility-ofbeing-made.” Although the terms ‘capacity,’ ‘power,’ ‘possibility’ and, we may add, ‘ability’ and ‘potency’ accurately express meanings of ‘posse,’ they miss the Latin term’s verbal force which only impossible English can capture – ‘can-make’ for posse-facere, and ‘can-be-made’ or ‘can-become’ for posse-fieri. They also miss the deliberate vagueness that allows ‘posse’ to compress the many meanings which its English translators render as nouns. Variations on ‘posse’ reflect what Wilhelm Dupré calls a “dynamization” in Cusanus’ later writings,25 including De ludo globi. For beginning with the Trialogus de possest (1460), Nicholas increasingly focuses on power, possibility and becoming, until his final work De apice theoriae (1464) names God as ‘Posse ipsum’ – sheer possibility

22 DLG, n. 18; Watts, p. 63; emphasis added. Note that although perpetual, the world, its motion and time can be thought to end. For the classic definition of time as the measure of motion, see Aristotle, Physics II, 219b-220a. 23 DLG, n. 19; Watts, p. 63. 24 DLG, n. 19; Watts, p. 63; translation modified. 25 Wilhelm Dupré, personal communication.

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or power itself.26 Within this a rich and complex story, let us see how Nicholas views motion, time, eternity and the perpetual. The term ‘Possest’ fuses ‘posse’ and ‘est’ into a new name for God which affirms the coincidence within God of possibility or potency and actuality or being, since “God alone is what (He) is able to be.”27 This coincidence plays out in Cusanus’ account of the eternity of Possest as infinite motion. He again gives us a playful example: a boy spins a top, which at its fastest rotation seems “to be motionless and at rest.”28 Here maximum motion seems to coincide with stability or minimum motion.29 Nicholas describes the top as turning around a central point, a, and with two points, b and c, on opposite sides of the top’s spinning edge. On the ground below is a fixed circle, centered around point a, with points d and e on its circumference. If we conceive the top to move as fast as it can – that is, at infinite speed – then points b and c become identical with each other and indistinguishable from the stable points d and e beneath them. Commenting on this image, Nicholas compares eternity to the spinning circle b c, and time to the stable circle d e. He concludes that there is no contradiction in saying “that eternity as a whole is at once present at every point of time,” and “that God as the Beginning and the End is at once and as a whole present in all things.”30 As Hopkins notes, Cusanus here reverses the traditional Platonic and Boethian schemes.31 Where Boethius imagines eternity as the unmoving center around which the circle of time moves, Cusanus views time as the relatively stable image of moving eternity. While both thinkers affirm eternity’s presence throughout time, Nicholas privileges motion in ways that lead him to explore more closely the structure of becoming and time. To do this, he uses the terms ‘posse-fieri’ and ‘posse-facere’. Advertising pitches to the contrary, we human beings rarely live up to our potential or “become all that we can be”. Similarly, we can and do make things, but in ways limited by the possibilities we envision and the materials at our disposal. So our capacities to become and make are clearly limited. But as Possest or absolute Posse, God has no such limitations and “creates not from any other, but from Himself; for He is everything which is possible to be.”32 Cusanus describes God’s creative power as ‘posse-facere’ – an infinite creative energy that is identical with divine

26 On this development, see A. Brüntrup, Können und Sein, especially pp. 131–133; and Peter J. Casarella, “Nicholas of Cusa and the Power of the Possible,” pp. 7–34. 27 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 11, De Possest (n.7): “solus deus sit id quod esse potest”; trans. Hopkins in Complete Treatises, vol. 2, p. 917. By inserting ‘(He)’ Hopkins highlights the ambiguity of ‘possest’ which for Cusanus also means that God is simply all that can be; see note 30 below and Brüntrup, Können und Sein, pp. 44–48. 28 De Possest, n. 18; Hopkins, pp. 923–924. Hopkins reproduces the geometric image of the fixed and moving circles from the margin of the manuscript of Nicholas’ works that he commissioned and corrected (Cod. Cus. 219) at the St. Nikolaus-Hospital in Bernkastel-Kues. 29 Cf. De possest, n. 19. 30 De possest, n. 19; Hopkins, p. 924. 31 Hopkins, Complete Treatises, vol. 2, p. 959, note 32. 32 De possest, n. 73; Hopkins, p. 953.

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being itself, and therefore eternal. ‘Posse-facere’ thus becomes Nicholas’ term for divine omnipotence. We have seen him distinguish this posse-facere from the ‘posse-fieri’ – the possibility of becoming or being made from which all creatures come to be. This posse-fieri functions like Aristotelian (prime) matter, but with key differences: it is neither eternal nor infinite possibility, but rather created and restricted.33 In De ludo globi Nicholas defines matter as “possibility or the capacity to be made or variability (possibilitas seu fieri posse sive variabilitas)”34 He compares God’s creating with the wood-turner’s making of the ball: conceiving the form of the ball within his mind, the craftsman turns the wood on his lathe to bring the ball’s possibility into actuality. Similarly, “the divine mind conceived the world within itself,” and God wished to manifest the beauty of his conception. He created the possibility that the world could be made beautiful and the motion by which the world would be led forth from possibility so that this visible world would come to be. In the world, the possibility of the world’s being the world (possibilitas essendi mundum) was actually determined just as God intended it and as it was able to become.35 Here posse-fieri is not a reservoir from which God may choose to make any of an infinite number of possible worlds.36 Rather, God creates posse-fieri as the capacity to become the particular universe which the divine mind intends. Further, God creates the motion which transforms posse-fieri into this universe. The Cardinal associates this motion with what some call the world’s soul, or nature, “which nourishes, unites, connects, warms, and moves all things from within.” This “world-force (vis mundi) . . . moves itself and all things [and] is perpetual. Because its motion is round and circular, it has in itself all motion, just as the circular figure enfolds all other figures in itself.”37 This circular motion thus makes perpetual duration appropriate to the sphere of the universe. In De venatione sapientiae, written shortly after De ludo globi, Nicholas clarifies posse-fieri’s role within the three-part scheme of eternity, the perpetual and time. He describes the posse-fieri as perpetual. As created, it has a beginning

33 See H. Schnarr, Modi essendi, pp. 104–106 and 114–116. 34 DLG, n.46; Watts, p. 77. Nicholas adds that “matter is not something actually existent; rather a thing that is made is said to be made from matter because it was able to be made (quia fieri potuit)”; DLG, n. 46; Hopkins, p. 1205. As early as De docta ignorantia II, c. 7–8, (nn.130–132), Nicholas had noted that the ancients discussed matter as “absolutam omnis essendi possibilitatem,” a concept which in his later works becomes “posse-fieri”. 35 DLG, n. 45; Watts, p. 77; emphasis added. 36 Concerning Cusanus’ critique of Aristotelian prime matter in De docta ignorantia, see M. van der Meer, “World without End,” pp. 331–332; and E. Brient, Immanence of the Infinite, pp. 205–208. 37 DLG, n. 40; Watts, p. 75; translation modified, using Hopkins’ “world-force” for Watts’ “power of the world.” Nicholas also notes other terms for this world-force: ‘necessity of connection’ and ‘fate in substance’.

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and cannot, strictly speaking, be eternal. Nor can it perish, since nothing sets limits to it except God’s own capacity for making (posse-facere). For the possefieri to be destroyed, its destruction would have to be possible – and would thus require the very possibility that it aims to destroy. So Cusanus declares that it “is perpetual, since it has a beginning but cannot be annihilated and since its endpoint is its beginning.”38 God creates the posse-fieri from nothing, and fashions all subsequent things from this capacity or possibility of becoming or being made. Of created things, some share more directly in its perpetual character than others. For celestial and intelligible creatures are all they can be – that is, they exercise fully their specific, created capacities and move perpetually: the heavens in their circular motion, and the angels in their intellectual motion.39 Other creatures – like ourselves – are not all they can be, but exhibit a gap between their actual states and their capacities and possibilities. Hence, they “are never constant, and they perish. Therefore, they imitate perpetual things but will never attain them. Therefore, they are temporal and are called earthly things and perceptible things.”40 Returning to Cusanus’ terms in De ludo globi, we may summarize his scheme in terms of duration. Eternity marks God’s “absolute duration” and unlimited creative power or posse-facere. Time becomes the “successive duration” of ever-changing earthly creatures that come into being and perish. Between these, Cusanus discerns the perpetual duration of the posse-fieri and those creatures which participate in it most fully – in particular, the “world-force” and the motion it imparts to the universe. In this sense, perpetual duration marks the moving boundary of time and eternity. This everlasting duration echoes the prophet Baruch’s oxymoron “eternal time,” and seems peculiarly appropriate to the “finite infinity” of Cusanus’ universe. In De ludo globi Cusanus adds a final, anthropological twist to this discussion when he combines Aristotle’s description of time as the measure of motion with a theme from his earlier dialogue, Idiota de mente: the definition of ‘mind/mens’ in terms of ‘measure/mensurare’.41 He says that the soul “creates new instruments in order to discern and to know,” such as Ptolemy’s astrolabe and Orpheus’ lyre. What, then, of the measures of time? The Cardinal asserts that the “year, month, hours are instruments of a temporal measure created by man. Thus, since time is the measure of motion, it is the instrument of the measuring soul.” On this basis, he then argues that the soul does not depend upon time. Instead, time depends on the soul which measures it and which is itself “not subject to time; rather it exists

38 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 12, De venatione sapientiae, ch. 39 (n. 116); trans. Hopkins, Complete Treatises, vol 2, p. 1351. See also De venatione sapientiae, ch. 3 (n. 7). Concerning posse-fieri’s relation to time and eternity, see Schnarr, Modi essendi, pp. 106–114. 39 Concerning the hierarchy among the angels and their ways of knowing, see DLG, nn. 77–78. 40 De venatione sapientiae, ch. 3, n.8; Hopkins, p. 1284. 41 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 5, Idiota de mente (n. 57).

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antecedently to time.”42 By now we can guess where this discussion is going: as it measures motion using time as its instrument, the soul’s own movement becomes perpetual. Like the universe, the human mind lives at the threshold of time and eternity, in a kind of “eternal” or “timeless time.”43 Perhaps only from this vantage point can we conceive of time, create its measures, and reflect on its relations to eternity and the perpetual.

Bibliography Boethius. Consolation of Philosophy, translated by V. Watts. London: Penguin, 1999. Brient, Elizabeth. The Immanence of the Infinite. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2002. Brient, Elizabeth. “Between Time and Eternity: Neoplatonic Precursors to Cusanus’ Conception of ‘Non-Temporal Time’ in De aequalitate,” in Nicholas of Cusa and Times of Transition, edited by T. M. Izbicki et al. Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 242–261. Brüntrup, Alfons. Können und Sein: Der Zusammenhang der Spätschriften des Nikolaus von Kues. Munich: A. Pustet, 1973. Butterworth, Edward J. “Form and Significance of the Sphere in Nicholas of Cusa’s De ludo globi,” in Nicholas of Cusa: In Search of God and Wisdom, edited by G. Christianson & T. M. Izbicki. Leiden: Brill, 1991, pp. 89–100. Casarella, Peter J. “Nicholas of Cusa and the Power of the Possible,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1990): 7–34. Counet, Jean-Michel. “Le temps comme l’explication de l’éternité chez Nicolas de Cues,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 101 (2003): 319–339. Duclow, Donald F. “Cusanus’ Clock: Time and Eternity in De visione Dei,” Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 34 (2016): 135–146. Flasch, Kurt. Nikolaus von Kues: Geschichte einer Entwicklung. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1998. Lang, Helen S. “Perpetuity, Eternity, and Time in Proclus’ Cosmos,” Phronesis 50 (2005): 150–169. McTighe, Thomas P. “Boethius on Time and Eternity,” in History of Philosophy in the Making, edited by Linus J. Thro. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982, pp. 35–62. Miller, Clyde Lee. “Meister Eckhart in Nicholas of Cusa’s 1456 Easter Sermon: Ubi est qui natus rex Judeorum?” in Nicholas of Cusa and His Age: Intellect and Spirituality, edited by T. M. Izbicki and C. M. Bellitto. Leiden: Brill, 2002, pp. 105–125. Nicholas of Cusa. Opera omnia iussu et auctoritate Academiae Heidelbergensis. Leipzig and Hamburg, 1932–, www.cusanus-portal.de/ (accessed 21 February 2023). ———. De Ludo Globi: The Game of the Spheres, translated by Pauline Watts, with reprint of the Latin text of the Paris edition (1514). New York: Abaris, 1986.

42 DLG, n. 94; Hopkins, p. 1232. On Cusanus’ views on time in relation to the soul, see K. Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, p. 599; I. Wikström, “The Notion of Time in Cusanus’ Work De ludo globi,” pp. 249–263; and Duclow, “Cusanus’ Clock,” pp. 144–145 [reprinted as Article 9 in this book]. 43 Cusanas discusses the soul as “intemporale tempus” in Opera omnia, vol. 10, De aequalitate (nn. 11–13). See E. Brient, “Between Time and Eternity,” pp. 249–260.

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———. Selected Spiritual Writings, translated by H. Lawrence Bond. New York: Paulist Press, 1997. ———. The Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, translated by Jasper Hopkins, 2 vols. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001, https:// jasper-hopkins.info/ (accessed 21 February 2023). Schnarr, Hermann. Modi essendi. Münster: Aschendorff, 1973. Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and Bonaventure. On the Eternity of the World, translated and Introduction by C. Vollert, L. H. Kendzierski and P. M. Byrne. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964. Van der Meer, Matthieu. “World without End: Nicholas of Cusa’s View of Time and Eternity,” in Christian Humanism: Essays in Honor of Arjo Vanderjagt, edited by. A. MacDonald et al. Leiden: Brill, 2009, pp. 317–337. Watts, Pauline. Nicolaus Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man. Leiden: Brill, 1982. Wikström, Iris. “The Notion of Time in Cusanus Work De ludo globi,” in Eriugena Cusanus, edited by A. Kijewska et al. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2011, pp. 249–263.

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11 CUSANUS’S PHILOSOPHICAL T E S TA M E N T De venatione sapientiae/The Hunt of Wisdom (1462)*

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) was a leading churchman, philosopher, and theologian of the fifteenth century. The son of a boat owner and ferryman in Kues – today Bernkastel-Kues – on the Mosel River, he studied canon law at Padua and began a long and often controversial career. Milestones along the way included the Council of Basel, where his De concordantia catholica (1433–34) defended the conciliar movement; a dramatic switch to the papal cause, and travel to Constantinople to accompany Byzantine representatives to the Council of Ferrara/Florence; successful work in Germany on behalf of Pope Eugenius IV against Basel’s anti-pope, Felix V; appointment as Cardinal, and the legation tour through German-speaking lands (1451–52); six tumultuous years as resident bishop of Brixen/Bressanone (1452–58); and service in the Curia during his last years in Rome.1 In the midst of this busy career, Nicholas wrote a series of speculative works, beginning with De docta ignorantia (1440) and ending with De apice theoriae (1464). These works reveal a restless, inquiring mind as Cusanus rethinks issues of human knowing, cosmology, mathematics, perspective, and religious tolerance. His core theme of “learned ignorance” – knowing that we cannot know God – required a “conjectural” view of thinking as always approaching truth without ever grasping it precisely. Consistent with this view, Nicholas recognized the limits of his own inquiries, and continually sought newer, more precise ways to speak of God. Hence, as F. Edward Cranz and Kurt Flasch have shown, we can follow the development of Nicholas’s thought by attending to shifts in his vocabulary and arguments, and to what his writings and library tell us about his reading.2 While this developmental approach is hardly novel for intellectual historians, more unusual is the material Cusanus gives us by self-consciously highlighting his own evolving views and insights. This * An early version of this essay was presented at American Cusanus Society’s Fourteenth Biennial Conference, United Lutheran Seminary’s Gettysburg campus in October, 2014. 1 For Cusanus’s biography, see Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa; and Euler, Studien, 9–78, especially 69–78 on Nicholas’s last years in Rome. 2 Cranz, Cusa and the Renaissance, 1–18; and Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, passim.

DOI:10.4324/9781003371922-11

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process becomes especially clear in his intellectual autobiography, De venatione sapientiae (The Hunt of Wisdom), and suggests his place at the edge of modernity. In his last years, Nicholas’s vision and health were failing. As Erich Meuthen notes, he nearly died in June, 1461, and gout pained him for the last three years of his life.3 So it is not surprising that he worked to build his legacy. With his family’s foundation – St. Nicholas Hospital in Kues4 – nearly complete, he commissioned and corrected manuscripts of his works, which reside in his library at the Hospital and in the Vatican Library.5 Similar concerns for his reputation led him to write De venatione sapientiae late in the year 1462. In the Prologue he tells us, My purpose here is to leave for posterity a summary record of my hunts for wisdom – which up until this present state of old age I have considered, on the basis of mental insight, to be quite true. For I do not know if perhaps a longer and better time for reflecting will be granted to me, since I have now passed my sixty-first year.6 Two related images will guide his efforts: wisdom as sapida scientia, the tasty knowledge that feeds the intellect, and philosophy as the hunt (venatio) for this food.7 Nicholas develops these venerable tropes in unusual detail throughout the book, as he maps out wisdom’s three “regions” – eternity, the perpetual, and time – and revisits ten “fields” where he has hunted for it: learned ignorance, Possest or actualized possibility, non-aliud or not-other, light, praise, unity (unitas), equality, connection or union (connexio), delimitation (terminatio), and order.8 Of these fields, the first three refer to specific works, while the others are themes that have guided Cusanus’s inquiries – for example, his favorite Trinitarian scheme of unity, equality and connection. Yet this review is shaped by two complicating factors. First, Nicholas tells us that it has been prompted by his reading of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the

3 Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa, 136. 4 See Watanabe, Nicholas of Cusa, 355–362; and Brösch, “Nachleben und Erbe,” 117–126. 5 After Cusanus’s death, most of his personal library was sent to St. Nicholas Hospital in Kues, where Codices 218 and 219 contain his speculative works; see Brösch, “Nachleben und Erbe,” 126–128; and Marx, Verzeichnis, 212–217. The Vatican Library’s Latin Codices 1244 and 1245 contain his sermons. 6 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 12, De venatione sapientiae, translated by Hopkins as On the Pursuit of Wisdom in Complete Treatises, vol. 2; hereafter cited as DVS, followed by chapter, section title or number in the Opera omnia, and page number in Hopkins, as here: DVS, Prologue.1.1280; translation modified. Cusanus’s other works will be cited by chapter (where applicable) and section number in the Opera omnia. For an insightful commentary on De venatione sapientiae, see Miller, Reading Cusanus, 206–240. 7 DVS, Prologue.1.1280. Hopkins obscures these images by translating “sapida scientia” as “wise knowledge,” and “venatio” as “pursuit.” On “sapida scientia,” see Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 5, Idiota de sapientia 1.10–11; and DVS’s Editors’ Note 3, pp. 149–150. 8 DVS, 11.30.1298.

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Philosophers.9 He had also read two recent translations that he had commissioned: Pietro Balbi’s translation of Proclus’s Theology of Plato, and George of Trapezunt’s of Plato’s Parmenides. Recalling the ancient philosophers’ hunts for wisdom, he recounts his own modest catches and insights, “in order that more acute thinkers may be motivated to deepen their minds further.”10 The second factor is that De venatione sapientiae does not simply review Cusanus’s earlier writings and themes, but reframes them in light of a new principle: “quod impossibile fieri non fit” – “what is impossible to be made is not made” or “what is impossible to become does not become.”11 Nicholas uses this principle from Aristotle to advance the novel approach to possibility and potency that he began in De possest (1460). De venatione sapientiae thus has a complex agenda: it presents Nicholas’s intellectual autobiography, reflects on the ancient philosophers and their heirs – especially Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite – and carries forward his own speculative agenda. Nicholas thus inserts himself into the history of philosophy with his fellow hunters for wisdom, and continues to pursue their common prey into still newer fields. Here we cannot deal with this entire project, but we shall highlight two strands within the work: 1) how Cusanus develops his thinking about the dynamics of possibility and potency, and 2) how he reads Plato, Proclus and Dionysius on God and the One. In the process, we shall observe Nicholas marking out his own place within an ongoing history of philosophy.

The Dynamics of Posse Possibility and actuality, becoming and making are central to De venatione sapientiae, as we see in the second field where Cusanus hunted wisdom: “Possest” – a name for God that he coined in the Trialogus de possest (1460). Fusing the infinitive “posse” (to be possible or able) and the verb “est” (is), the term is difficult to translate. Matthieu van der Meer suggests “the-possibility-to-be-is,” while Jasper Hopkins prefers “actualized-possibility.”12 Yet “possibility’ misses other connotations of “posse”: ability, capacity, potential, and power. So I suggest that we avoid the translation issue and stay with Nicholas’s paradoxical term “Possest.” His point is clear: like many of Cusanus’s names for God, “Possest” places the divine prior to all distinctions, even those “between something and nothing, being and non-being, and prior to the difference between difference and

9 Written in the third century CE, Diogenes Laertius’s De vitis philosophorum blends gossipy biography and summary of teachings. Today Cusanus’s manuscript of Ambrosio Traversari’s Latin translation, with Nicholas’s marginal comments, is in the British Library, Codex Harleianus 1347; see Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, 603. 10 DVS, Prologue.1.1280. 11 DVS, 6.16.1283. 12 van der Meer, “World without End,” 326. Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 11, De possest, trans. Hopkins, Complete Treatises, 2: 914ff; and DVS, 13.34–36.1300–1301.

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non-difference.”13 It specifically emphasizes the coincidence of act and potency or possibility within God, who transcends and grounds this very contrast. For, as Nicholas tells us, “Possest is actually everything possible – Possest est actu omne posse.”14 Simply stated, Possest is all that can be. In De possest, Nicholas had emphasized that actuality precedes possibility, but also affirmed that “absolute possibility (potentia), absolute actuality, and the union (nexus) of the two are coeternal. . . . They are eternal in such a way that [they are] Eternity itself.”15 Within Possest, possibility, act and their coinciding union thus express the eternal Trinity. In their hunting, many philosophers avoided the field of Possest because they sought God among opposites, rather than “prior to a difference of contradictory opposites.” For them, the principle of non-contradiction became a “No Trespassing” sign closing off the field of the Possest, “where possibility-of-existing and actually existing do not differ – ubi posse esse et actu esse non differunt.”16 This had been Nicholas’s complaint since the Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449), where he lamented Johannes Wenck and the “Aristotelian sect’s” refusal of the coincidence of opposites.17 As Nicholas re-thinks De possest’s scheme in De venatione sapientiae, he removes potency or possibility from the eternal Trinity, and describes it as created and perpetual. He introduces the discussion in Chapter 2, where he cites Diogenes Laertius’s life of Thales, “the first of the wise, [who] says that God is very ancient because he is unbegotten, and that the world is very beautiful because it is made by God.”18 This broad claim leads Nicholas to consider how God shines forth in the world’s beauty and order, and to ask himself about “the designer (artificem) of this very admirable work.” Seeking a secure basis for his inquiry, he recalls a principle so certain that it is “presupposed and undoubted” by all philosophers: “quod impossibile fieri not fit – what is impossible to be made is not made.”19 Nicholas finds this principle in Aristotle’s Physics,20 but uses it to explore possibility, becoming and making in ways that would have surprised Aristotle. Thales and Aristotle thus launch a distinctively Cusan hunt for wisdom. Chapter 3 begins by stating the obvious: “Since what is impossible to be made does not come to be, nothing has been made or will come to be which was not

13 14 15 16 17

DVS, 13.35.1301. DVS, 13.36.1301. Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 11, De possest, 6; Hopkins, Complete Treatises, 2:916. DVS, 13.38.1302; translation modified. Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 2, Apologia doctae ignorantiae, 7; see also Apologia, 31: “Nam garrula logica sacratissimae theologiae potius obest quam conferrat.” 18 DVS, 2.6.1283. 19 DVS, 2.6.1283. 20 Aristotle, Physics, 8.9.265a19. Comparing circular and rectilinear motion, Aristotle says that only circular motion is infinite. An infinite straight line does not exist, but if it did, nothing could traverse it in motion, since “the impossible does not happen, and it is impossible to traverse a distance without end.”

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or is not possible to be made.”21 This tautology becomes more interesting when Nicholas sets it against another claim: “That which is, but which has been neither made nor created, neither was nor is possible to be made or created. For it precedes the possibility-of-being-made (posse-fieri) and is eternal, because it is neither made nor created and cannot be made other [than it already is].” Here we have De venatione sapientiae’s key contrast between the posse-fieri – the potential or possibility of becoming or being made – and its “one absolute beginning and cause,” which is so fully actual that “it is all that can be – est omne quod esse potest.”22 All making presupposes the posse-fieri, which therefore cannot be itself “made (factum).” But as a “passive potency,” it can neither make itself nor bring itself to actual being.23 It therefore requires a beginning or principium, and Nicholas says, “We speak of it as created, for it does not presuppose anything from which it exists, except its Creator.”24 The posse-fieri is created from nothing – de nihilo.25 Here the posse-fieri is no longer the co-eternal “absolute possibility” of De possest. Rather, Nicholas distinguishes between the creator as eternal and the posse-fieri as created and perpetual, having a beginning but no end. To complete the scheme, Cusanus says that the creator produces “all things subsequent to the posse-fieri” out of it. Although created, the posse-fieri thus functions like Aristotle’s prime matter, a reservoir of potential and possibilities.26 Indeed, Nicholas says that Aristotle erred in claiming that posse-fieri has no beginning (initium).27 He goes on to note how differently created things realize their potential. Celestial and intelligible things – the heavens and angels – fully exercise their specific, created capacities and are perpetual. Other creatures – like ourselves – are not all that they can become; these “are never constant, and perish . . . They imitate perpetual things but will never attain them . . . They are temporal, and are called earthly and perceptible things.”28 Nicholas thus presents a three-part structure: 1) the fully actual and eternal Creator, 2) the perpetual posse-fieri, along with heavenly and angelic beings, and 3) the shifting, sublunary world of time where we dwell. He explains this structure in terms of enfolding and unfolding, complicatio and explicatio. Looking toward the eternal, Nicholas sees “Actuality itself (ipsum actum)” and “all things as enfolded in their absolute cause.” Gazing at “the everlasting and perpetual,” he sees the posse-fieri and within it “the nature of each and every thing as it ought to be made in accord with the perfect unfolding of the divine mind’s

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

DVS, 3.7.1283–1284; translation modified. DVS, 3.7.1284. DVS, 7.17.1290. DVS, 3.8.1284; emphasis added. See Brüntrup, Können und Sein, 75–83; and Hopkins, “Die sieben Paradoxen,” 75–77. DVS, 39.119.1350. See van der Meer, “World without End,” 331–332; and Manzo, “Possibilitas – Materia,” 198. DVS, 9.26.1295. DVS, 3.8.1284.

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predestining.” Finally, looking into time, he perceives “that all things are unfolded in a succession, in imitation of the perfection of things perpetual.”29 Since the posse-fieri runs like a thread through the whole fabric of De venatione sapientiae, we cannot trace it completely here. Let us look at only two sections. First, in Chapter 10, Nicholas returns to Diogenes Laertius to discuss “how the wise name the posse-fieri.” Thales saw it in water, and Zeno the Stoic similarly focused on air as the medium between fire and water. But Nicholas objects that “the posse-fieri precedes all the elements and whatever has been made.”30 Second, in the Epilogue, Cusanus recasts his three-part scheme into a hierarchy of powers and possibilities. He distinguishes 1) posse-facere, God’s power to make and create, 2) posse-fieri, the possibility and capacity for being made, and 3) posse-factum, potential or “possibility-made-[actual].”31 The fully actual creator God becomes the posse-facere, which Nicholas describes in a familiar litany: like Possest, it “is all that can be”; it is maximal and minimal; like the non-aliud, it cannot be other. Finally, “it is the efficient, formal or exemplary, and final cause of all things, since it is the limit (terminus)” – the ninth field of wisdom’s hunt – “and end of the posse-fieri and therefore of the posse-factum.”32 The posse-facere is, in a word, omnipotent. As such, it contains all that can be within itself “antecedently” or virtually, and “is present in all things” as their absolute cause. Since it alone creates the posse-fieri “from nothing” and sets its limits, the posse-fieri cannot perish and is perpetual. Sketching the relation between the posse-fieri and the posse-factum, Nicholas says, “in all things that are made (factum), the posse-fieri is the respective thing which has been made, but in a different mode of being: in potency in a less perfect mode, and in actuality in a more perfect mode. Therefore, the possefieri and the posse-factum do not differ in essence. But the posse-facere . . . is not essence, but the cause of essence.”33 To illustrate this scheme, Cusanus takes the example of heat. In all hot things, the posse facere calidum or power-of-making-hot precedes the posse fieri calidum, the possibility-of being-made-hot; and from this possibility, it brings everything hot into actuality.34 Citing Plato, Nicholas then says that “what we call fire . . . is fiery or something on fire,” while “fire-per-se precedes, and is the cause of, every ignitable thing and everything that has been set afire.” Yet this fire-per-se is not simply an “Idea,” but rather – as Dionysius explained – “a likeness of the First Cause.” For Paul describes God as “a consuming fire.”35 Cusanus signals his creative use of sources when he claims that Proclus, Aristotle and the Platonists – if their state29 DVS, 3.8.1285; emphasis added. See DVS, 11.30.1298 listing Wisdom’s three “regions”: eternity, the perpetual, and time. 30 DVS, 10.27.1296. 31 DVS, 39.115.1349. See Miller, Reading Cusanus, 208–211. 32 DVS, 39.115.1350; translation modified. 33 DVS, 39.116.1350. 34 DVS, 39.118.1351. 35 DVS, 39.119.1352; citing Heb. 12:29.

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ments are “correctly understood (sane intelligi)” – confirm his analysis of the one cause and the order which unfolds from it. Nicholas also explored these issues in De ludo globi (1462–63), and returned to them in his last work, De apice theoriae (1464). Here he drastically simplifies De venatione sapientiae’s scheme by naming God and the “quiddity” of all things as posse ipsum – possibility, potential or power itself. As ‘posse’ drops its qualifiers – est, facere, fieri and factum – its very simplicity attracts Nicholas. Because, he says, “nothing can be more powerful (potentius), earlier or better,” posse ipsum excels Possest and every other name for God.36 In this compressed view, there are only posse ipsum and its appearances or manifestations. Commentators have noted the “dynamization” in Nicholas’s late works that culminates in De apice theoriae. As Peter Casarella notes, here “Cusanus achieves an outright reversal of the Aristotelian-Thomist priority of God’s actuality” over potentiality, which he had retained – with qualifications – in De possest and De venatione sapientiae.37

Cusanus on Plato, Unitas, and History Let us now look at another strand in the fabric of De venatione sapientiae: the Neoplatonic theme of the One or unity. Plato is central to Cusanus’s history of philosophy. As Raymond Klibansky notes, De venatione sapientiae is Nicholas’s first work that shows his reading of the whole Parmenides in the Latin translation that he had commissioned from George of Trapezunt.38 So he no longer interprets Plato mainly through Proclus’s eyes, but occasionally against him as well. For example, he tells us that “Plato affirmed that the First Beginning, God, is One through itself and Good through itself. And the beginnings of other things – namely, of being, of life, of intellect, and the like – he called being through itself, life through itself, intellect through itself; they are the beginnings and causes of existing, living, and understanding.”39 Nicholas then criticizes Proclus’s handling of these issues. For in The Theology of Plato, Proclus correctly affirms “the first God of gods” to be “the one good [unum bonum],” but errs when he multiplies gods. He does so by considering the traditional triad of being, life, and intellect to be distinct “makergods (conditorios deos).” The first of these, “the cause of beings,” he calls “a second god, namely, the Creator-Intellect,” which he identifies as “Jove, the king and ruler over all things.”40 Complicating matters further, Proclus 36 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 12, De apice theoriae, 5; trans. Hopkins, Complete Treatises, 2:1424. 37 Casarella, “Power of the Possible,” 27. See Brüntrup, Können und Sein, 124–126; and Duclow, Masters, 250–253. 38 Klibansky, “Plato’s Parmenides,” v-vi, 27–28. 39 DVS, 8.20.1292. 40 DVS, 8. 21.1292; translation modified. Yet in the next chapter (9.24.1294), Nicholas notes with approval that the Platonists call the divine Word a “Maker-Intellect,” which Proclus describes as

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posits celestial and mundane gods and various other likewise eternal gods . . . Nevertheless, at the head of all [these gods] he placed the Godof-gods, the universal Cause of all things. And so, those attributes which we ascribe to our good God – attributes which are different only in conception and not in reality – Proclus is seen to assert of different gods, because of different distinctions among the attributes.41 For Cusanus, Proclus thus mistakes the names or attributes of God for many gods. He traces this error to his basic assumption that “nothing is intelligible unless it actually exists . . . And so, everything that is understood, he affirmed to [really] exist. Thus, he asserted to exist intellectually . . . an intelligible man, an intelligible lion, and whatever else he saw to be abstract and free-of-matter.”42 On these issues, Nicholas sides with Aristotle and the Peripatetics, who “recognize that conceptual being (ens rationis) is constituted by our intellect and does not attain the status of real being.”43 They also have the advantage of not declaring the Good to be more ancient than being, but rather to affirm “that one, being, and good are interchangeable.”44 Yet Aristotle in turn errs by limiting the first cause’s governing role to the heavens, rather than to entire cosmos. As we have seen, Proclus gets this point right by affirming that Jove, rules all things. Later in the work Nicholas sharpens his critique of Proclus on these issues, saying that he “engaged in utterly futile efforts (supervacuos labores)” to describe many “eternal gods” and their complex relations to “the one God of gods.”45 This critique and its concomitant telescoping of Plato’s Ideas and the Neoplatonic triad of being, life and intellect into the Christian Godhead are a familiar story, going back at least to Pseudo-Dionysius.46 But one more text will clarify Cusanus’s perspective on this story. Discussing De venatione sapientiae’s sixth field, unity or oneness, Nicholas sees a common focus on transcendence and negation in Plato, Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite. He tells us that Plato, by “denying all things of the One . . . saw it ineffably before all things.” In the Parmenides he hunted for the One “by means of

41 42 43 44 45 46

“the Only Begotten and the Lord of all things.” See Proclus, Théologie Platonicienne, Book 5.3.15. As here, citations of Proclus’s work include book number, section number, and page number. See also Nicholas’ marginal gloss to Théologie Platonicienne 5, 20, 73: “nota totum de conditorio intellectu, quem dicit vnigentum et simulacrum perfecti dei/regem vniversi et regem regum” (Marginalien, n. 366, pp. 105–106). See also D’Amico, “Nikolaus von Kues as Leser von Proklos,” 59–60. DVS, 8.21.1292–1293; translation modified and emphasis added. DVS, 8.21.1293. DVS, 8.22.1293. Cusanus’s editors trace this analysis not to Aristotle or his ancient commentators, but to the “via moderna” and William of Ockham (Quodlibet 3, q. 3). DVS, 8.22.1293. However, Plato describes the Good as more ancient than being (Rep. 508e). DVS, 21.62.1317. See Gersh, “Berthold of Moosburg, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino as Historians of Philosophy,” 488–489. See Gersh, Iamblichus to Eriugena, 153–167. In contrast, Eric Perl argues for a close fit between Proclus and Dionysius’s metaphysics; see Perl, Theophany, 65ff.

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logic,” an approach that Proclus summarizes when he says that “those who believe Plato remain among negations.”47 Explaining this negative turn, Cusanus again follows Proclus, noting that any “addition to the One contracts and diminishes the excellence of the One,” and in fact displays not the One, but its other or not-One.48 The Cardinal here puts us on the familiar metaphysical turf of the Parmenides’s first hypothesis, but he also highlights the work’s dialectic. For as Klibansky comments, Nicholas “is primarily interested in the dialogue as demonstrating the process of thought by which the mind approaches its highest object” – its “hunt for the One through logic.”49 Cusanus then adds Dionysius’s negative theology to the mix. Imitating Plato, the Areopagite paradoxically claims that when speaking about God, “Negations that are not privative assertions, but excellent and abundant affirmations, are truer than [simple] affirmations.”50 Nicholas says that Proclus follows Dionysius in denying that the ineffable “First is one and good” – although we have seen Plato and Proclus himself affirm this elsewhere. Finally, Cusanus praises all three thinkers as “marvelous hunters (mirandos venatores)” of wisdom, whose writings merit close study. In light of this passage, we cannot ignore the ghost in the room – Dionysius the Areopagite. As John Monfasani has shown, Nicholas knew the suspicions concerning the dating and authorship of the Dionysian corpus that emerged in Rome beginning in the 1450s.51 Lorenzo Valla challenged the works’ authenticity, but made no mention of their similarity to Proclus. Yet in Cusanus’s dialogue De non aliud (1462), Pietro Balbi – who was translating the Theology of Plato – asks the Cardinal to explain precisely these similarities. He replies, “It is certain that your Proclus was later in time than Dionysius the Areopagite. But it is uncertain whether he saw the writings of Dionysius.”52 Here Nicholas leaves open the question of his influence on Proclus. Balbi and the Cardinal then discuss the two thinkers’ similar statements placing the “existing one” after “the unqualifiedly One,” and note Proclus’s reliance on Plato for this view. A year later in De venatione sapientiae, Nicholas reaffirms Dionysius’s apostolic dating, and states that 47 48 49 50

DVS, 22.64.1318; translation modified. DVS, 22.64.1318. See Proclus, Théologie platonicienne, 2.10.63. Klibansky, “Plato’s Parmenides,” 32; emphasis added. DVS, 22.64, my translation following the Opera omnia: “negationes, quae sunt privationes, sed . . . affirmationes.” Hopkins’s translation (1318–19) alters the text to read “negations that are not privative assertions but . . . [negative assertions]” – which erases the passage’s dialectic and paradox. See Dionysius, Mystical Theology 1, 2 (PG 3, 1000B); Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 10 De principio, 34: “Affirmatio melius est in negatione, cum negatio sit eius principium”; and Eckhart, Expositio, n. 207, p. 175. 51 Monfasani, “Pseudo-Dionysius,” 197–204. Cusanus’s manuscript of Traversari’s translation of Dionysius (Cod. Cus. 44, fol. 1v; Marx, Verzeichnis, 39–40) contains his note stating that Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome do not mention Dionysius, while Pseudo-Athanasius, John Damascene and Gregory the Great cite him (Monfasani, “Pseudo-Dionysius,” 203–204; and DVS’s Editors’ Note 10, p. 155). 52 Nicholas of Cusa, Opera omnia, vol. 13, De non aliud, 90; trans. Hopkins, Complete Treatises, 2: 1151; emphasis added.

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Proclus – who cites Origen – comes later. In the passage cited above, Nicholas then makes the stronger historical claims that Dionysius “imitates” Plato and that Proclus “follows (sequendo)” Dionysius’s teaching. On this view, the Areopagite becomes a key intermediary between Plato and Proclus. We now know that Cusanus gets this chronology wrong, and with it his chain of readers and influence. Dionysius – now Pseudo-Dionysius – relies on Proclus, not the other way around. Yet a curiously tangled and revealing web remains in Nicholas’s reading of these two thinkers. Werner Beierwaltes stresses that we cannot neatly separate Proclus from Dionysius in Cusanus’s thought and works. Indeed, he suggests that Nicholas unwittingly reads Proclus through the “mask” of Dionysius.53 Yet we may also note that Nicholas also uses Proclus to clarify and accent the Neoplatonic themes and structures within Dionysius’s writings. On this view, the two thinkers’ reciprocal influence on Cusanus, and what he makes of them become more compelling issues than their scrambled chronology. For we can trace what Hans-Georg Gadamer calls their “effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte)”54 in Cusanus’s commissioning of translations, his reading and marginal glossing, and his writing De non aliud and De venatione sapientiae. The latter work, indeed, calls attention to Nicholas’ reading of Plato’s Parmenides, Proclus and Dionysius within his broader history of philosophy in the Platonic vein. As Pauline Watts says, “What Cusanus himself is doing in De venatione sapientiae, giving his own individual interpretation of the interrelationship of various important pagan and Christian philosophers and theologians and of the historical developments they produce, is itself an enactment of his whole conception of the historical nature of philosophy and theology.”55 In this respect, Nicholas shares the historical awareness that Eugenio Garin considers central for the Italian humanists.56 This is hardly surprising since Cusanus moved in humanist circles from his student days in Padua through his later years in Rome, and adapted their attitudes and practices in his own projects. Early in his career his haunting of libraries and archives led him to discover twelve comedies of Plautus, and to judge the Donation of Constantine apocryphal.57 He not only commissioned translations of Plato 53 Beierwaltes, “‘Centrum Totius Vite’,” 633–634. See also Riccati, “La Presenz di Proclo,” 23–38; and Cranz, Cusa and the Renaissance, 95–108. 54 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 267–274. 55 Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus, 209; emphasis added. See also Gersh, “Berthold of Moosburg, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino as Historians of Philosophy,” 454. 56 Garin, Italian Humanism, 14–15. For example, Lorenzo Valla viewed history “as the synthesis of all branches of knowledge” (Garin, 54–55), and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s wide-ranging search for “concord” among texts and traditions “amounted to something like a critical history of philosophy” (Garin, 106–107). 57 See Watts, Nicolaus Cusanus, 3–4; Watts, “Renaissance Humanism,” 174; and Meuthen, Nicholas of Cusa, 28. Nicholas rejects the Donation of Constantine in Opera omnia, vol. 14, De concordantia catholica 3.2.294–301; trans. Sigmund, The Catholic Concordance, 216–219. Finding no evidence in early texts, Nicholas considers the story that “Constantine gave the Western Empire to the Roman pontiff Sylvester” to be “invented and false.” This critique may have influenced Lorenzo Valla’s De falsa credita et ementita Constantini Donatione (1440).

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and Proclus, but also learned sufficient Greek to correct George of Trapezunt’s translation of Plato’s Parmenides against the Greek text.58 These humanist habits inform De venatione sapientiae throughout. Its very title echoes the Renaissance quest for “prisca sapientia (ancient or primal wisdom),” a search which mined ancient texts not for historical curiosities or isolated bits of useful doctrine, but for live items within a perennial tradition of unified truth.59 This is the wisdom, the sapida scientia or tasty knowledge that for Nicholas nourishes the intellect and leads to God. The work thus takes its start from Nicholas’s reading of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers, which he folds into his own studies of Plato’s Parmenides, Dionysius, and Proclus to trace a history of philosophy in the Platonic vein. As Cusanus negotiates this history, he gives it a strongly self-conscious turn by reviewing his own hunts for wisdom. For he adapts and criticizes not only earlier thinkers, but also his own previous conjectures and methods. He thereby inserts himself into this story, and makes the whole into a remarkably personal history.60 Nor is this history simply retrospective, since De venatione sapientiae introduces the posse-fieri which opens a new “field” for Nicholas’s ongoing hunt for wisdom. Hence, as Wilhelm Dupré comments, for Cusanus “the philosophical tradition . . . becomes the concrete starting point for a further development of thought.”61 Further, Nicholas sees this development extending beyond himself, as he offers his book to future readers in the hope that it will stimulate “more acute thinkers . . . to deepen their minds further.”62 This self-conscious historical turn has received little attention, although it fits well with Nicholas’s views of knowledge, perspective, and creativity. In all these areas, Cusanus emphasizes human subjectivity – knowing that we don’t know (learned ignorance); highlighting visual perspective and its limits; and viewing mathematics, measures and tools as creations of the human mind. Since Cassirer, this focus on subjectivity has fueled heated debates about Nicholas’s place at the edge of modernity: is he “medieval” or “modern”?63 While Cusanus’s selfhistoricizing has not figured in these debates, it casts a peculiar light on them. For it clearly differs from the “modernity” of Descartes, who claimed to discard tradition and to ground philosophy in an ahistorical act of thinking, “cogito ergo sum.” In contrast, Nicholas starts not with a clean slate, but in conversation with Plato, Dionysius and Proclus as partners in the hunt for wisdom. Philosophy is indeed an historical enterprise. But this turn suggests another, more recent strand of 58 Monfasani, “Cusa, the Byzantines, and Greek Language,” 223–224. 59 See Leinkauf, “Prisca scientia vs. prisca sapientia,” 135–142. 60 See Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, 605. This history is selective even in terms of Nicholas’s own readings and concerns. It sets aside theological themes like Christology and does not mention his principal medieval sources: Thierry of Chartres, Raymond Lull, and Meister Eckhart (Flasch, Nikolaus von Kues, 622). Following Diogenes Laertius, it focuses on Nicholas’s “ancient” sources. 61 Wilhelm Dupré, “Aufbau,” in Nicholas of Cusa, Philosophisch-Theologische Schriften, 1: xxxi. 62 DVS, Prologue.1.1280; see also DVS, 39.124.1354. 63 See Cassirer, Individual and Cosmos; Cubillos, “Nicholas of Cusa,” 239–249; Gadamer, “Cusanus and the Present”; and Moore, Kairos of Modernity.

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modernity or post-modernity: Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer writes that “Real historical thinking must take account of its own historicity.”64 History is not just one damned thing or text after another, but requires that we acknowledge and rethink our own relation to the events and texts that we study. Hence, Gadamer writes, “The horizon of the past, out of which all human life lives and which exists in the form of tradition, is always in motion. The surrounding horizon is not set in motion by historical consciousness. But in it this motion becomes aware of itself.”65 Like the Renaissance pursuit of prisca sapientia, Gadamer sees continuity between early texts and their contemporary readers. But since tradition’s horizon continues to shift, he recognizes that understanding remains forever incomplete and open. Cusanus is aware of how “conjectural” his reading and thinking are. Hence we see him correcting himself and continually seeking more adequate names for God, as he moves from De docta ignorantia’s “Maximum” to “Possest,” “Non-aliud,” and “Posse ipsum.” This process bears fruit in De venatione sapientiae, where Nicholas reviews the fields where he and his forebears have hunted for wisdom. Yet Cusanus may place himself so firmly within this continuing philosophical tradition that he pays little attention to the tensions between the texts he reads and his own perspective on them. Hence, he may fail Gadamer’s test of “guarding against overhastily assimilating the past to our own expectations of meaning.”66 For example, he transforms Aristotle’s obvious dictum that “the impossible does not happen” into the posse-fieri, a principle central to De venatione sapientiae’s metaphysical scheme which clearly differs from Aristotle’s. But even when Cusanus attends closely to his sources, he often takes them in new and idiosyncratic directions. Perhaps F. Edward Cranz gives us the most radical view of Nicholas’s creative reading. Discussing the late works, Cranz argues that “if Cusanus at the end accepts almost the whole of the philosophic tradition he does so only by translating it entirely into his own new terms.”67 Dionysius the Areopagite becomes Cranz’s Exhibit A. While Nicholas praises no thinker more highly than Dionysius, “the greatest of theologians,”68 the two men work with such different assumptions and goals that Cranz speaks of the “Cusanizations of Dionysius.”69 Where Dionysius begins with beings and moves toward mystical union, Cusanus

64 65 66 67 68

Gadamer, Truth and Method, 299. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 303. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 304. Cranz, Cusa and the Renaissance, 58. Cusanus, De non aliud, 14.54: “Dionysius, theologorum maximus.” See also DVS, 30.89–90.1334, where Nicholas speaks of Dionysius as “keener (acutior) than all others,” and quotes De divinis nominibus 7.3 (PG 3, 870C-871B) as “containing very fully the entire pursuit of that divine man (illius divini viri).” He often speaks of “divinus Dionysius”: Apologia, 13; DVS, 14.41.1304 and 31.94.1337. 69 Cranz, Cusa and the Renaissance, 143. See also Casarella, “Cusanus on Dionysius,” 146: “In the end, Cusanus sees the [Dionysian] corpus through the lens of his own program of learned ignorance.”

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begins with meanings and intentions and moves toward an “absolute concept” and vision of the divine.70 For Cranz these differences mark Cusanus not only as a selfaware “Renaissance” thinker, but also as continuing a major “reorientation” that began around the year 1100 when Western thought turned from thinking beings to thinking meanings and intentions.71 More conventional historians date this shift to late medieval nominalism and Quattrocento humanism. Within either scheme, Cusanus plays a pivotal and inevitably controversial role. Whether or not Cranz is right, he certainly forces us to re-examine the assumptions – what Gadamer calls “prejudices” – that drive our own readings of Cusanus, his sources, legacy and position at the edge of modernity.

Bibliography Beierwaltes, Werner. “‘Centrum Totius Vite’: Zur Bedeutung von Proklos’ Theologia Platonis im Denken des Cusanus,” in Proclus et la Théologie Platonicienne, edited by A. Ph. Seconds and C. Steel. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000, pp. 629–651. Brösch, Marco. “Nachleben und Erbe,” in Handbuch: Nikolaus von Kues – Leben und Werk, edited by Marco Brösch, Walter Andreas Euler, Alexandra Geissler and Viki Ranff. Darmstadt: WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), 2014, pp. 105–128. Brüntrup, Alfons. Können und Sein: Die Zusammenhang der Spätschriften des Nikolaus von Kues. Munich: Anton Pustet, 1973. Casarella, Peter J. “Nicholas of Cusa and the Power of the Possible,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64 (1990): 7–34. ———. “Cusanus on Dionysius: The Turn to Speculative Theology,” in Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, edited by Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Strang. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, pp. 137–148. Cassirer, Ernst. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, translated by Mario Domandi. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963; 1st German edition, 1927. Cranz, F. Edward. Nicholas of Cusa and the Renaissance, edited by Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2000. ———. Reorientations of Western Thought from Antiquity to the Renaissance, edited by Nancy Struever. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006. Cubillos, Catalina M. “Nicholas of Cusa between the Middle Ages and Modernity,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2012): 237–249. D’Amico, Claudia. “Nikolaus von Kues as Leser von Proklos,” in Nikolaus von Kues in der Geschichte des Platonismus, edited by Klaus Reinhardt and Harald Schwaetzer. Regensburg: Roderer, 2007, pp. 33–64. 70 See Cranz, Cusa and the Renaissance, 111: “Dionysius starts from a symbolic structure of beings and knowings, and he moves to the Ground as the Beyond which is above beings and knowings and which guarantees them. Cusanus starts from a symbolic structure of meanings and intentions, and he will eventually move to an Absolute which is beyond meanings and intentions and which guarantees them.” And p. 129: “Dionysius thought that the Ground could come into human experience only through union; Cusanus finds that man becomes directly aware of it through intellectual vision, even if one beyond comprehension.” For a different view of Cusanus on language, thought, and things, see Gadamer, Truth and Method, 432–436. 71 See Cranz, Reorientations, especially Article 9, pp. 14–17.

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Duclow, Donald F. Masters of Learned Ignorance: Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusanus. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2006. Eckhart, Meister. Expositio sancti Evangelii secundum Iohannem, Die lateinischen Werke, vol. 3, edited by Karl Christ et al. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994. Euler, Walter Andreas. Studien zur Biographie und Theologie des Nikolaus von Kues. Berlin: Lit, 2022. Flasch, Kurt. Nikolaus von Kues: Geschichte einer Entwicklung. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1998. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. 2nd revised edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2004; 1st edition, 1975. ———. “Nicolaus Cusanus and the Present,” Epoché 7 (2002): 71–79. Garin, Eugenio. Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance, translated by Peter Munz. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Gersh, Stephen. From Iamblichus to Eriugena. Leiden: Brill, 1978. ———. “Berthold of Moosburg, Nicholas of Cusa, and Marsilio Ficino as Historians of Philiosophy,” in The Renewal of Medieval Metaphysics: Berthold of Moosburg’s Expositio on Proclus’ Elements of Theology, edited by Dragos Calma and Evan King. Leiden: Brill, 2021, pp. 453–501. Hopkins, Jasper. “Cusanus und die sieben Paradoxen von posse,” Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 32 (2010): 67–82. Klibansky, Raymond. “Plato’s Parmenides in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.” Reprinted with The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages. Millwood, NY: Kraus International, 1982. Leinkauf, Thomas. “Prisca scientia vs. prisca sapientia: Zwei Modelle des Umgangs mit der Tradition,” Mediterranea: International Journal for the Transfer of Knowledge 2 (2017): 121–143. Manzo, Silvia. “Possibilitas – Materia,” in Manuductiones: Festschrift zu Ehren Jorge M. Machetta und Claudia D’Amico, edited by Cecilia Rusconi. Münster: Aschendorff, 2014, pp. 191–209. Marx, Jakob. Verzeichnis der Handschriften-Sammlung des Hospitals zu Cues bei Bernkastel a./Mosel. Trier: Hospital zu Cues, 1905. Meuthen, Erich. Nicholas of Cusa: A Sketch for a Biography, translated by David Crowner and Gerald Christianson. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. Miller, Clyde Lee. Reading Cusanus: Metaphor and Dialectic in a Conjectural Universe. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Monfasani, John. “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in Mid-Quattrocento Rome,” in Supplementum Festivum: Studies in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, edited by James Hankins, John Monfasani and Frederick Purnell, Jr. Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1987, pp. 189–219. ———. “Nicholas of Cusa, the Byzantines, and the Greek Language,” in Nicolaus Cusanus zwischen Deutschland und Italien, edited by Martin Thurner. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002, pp. 215–252. Moore, Michael Edward. Nicholas of Cusa and the Kairos of Modernity: Cassirer, Gadamer, Blumenberg. Brooklyn: Punctum Books, 2013. Nicholas of Cusa. Opera omnia iussu et auctoritate Academiae Heidelbergensis. Leipzig and Hamburg: Nicholas of Cusa, 1932–2010.

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———. Philosophisch-Theologische Schriften, edited by Leo Gabriel; German translation and commentary by Dietlind and Wilhelm Dupré, 3 vols. Vienna: Herder, 1964–1967. ———. Marginalien: Proclus Latinus: Die Exzerpte und Randnoten des Nikolaus von Kues zu den lateinischen Übersetzungen des Proklos-Schriften. Vol. 2, 1, Theologia Platonis, Elementatio theologica, edited by Hans Gerhard Senger. Cusanus-Texte 3. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1986. ———. The Catholic Concordance, translated by Paul E. Sigmund. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ———. Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, translated by Jasper Hopkins. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001; and http://jasperhopkins.info (accessed February 21, 2023). Perl, Eric. Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. Proclus. Théologie Platonicienne, edited and French translation by Henri-Dominique Saffrey and Leendert Gerrit Westerink. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1968–1987. Riccati, Carlo. “La Presenz di Proclo tra Neoplatonismo arabizzante e tradizione Dionisiana,” in Concordia Discors, edited by Gregorio Piaia. Padua: Antenore, 1993, pp. 23–38. van der Meer, Matthieu. “World without End: Nicholas of Cusa’s View of Eternity and Time,” in Christian Humanism: Essays in Honor of Arjo Vanderjagt, edited by Alisdair A. MacDonald, Zweder R.W.M. von Martels and Jan R. Veenstra. Leiden: Brill, 2009, pp. 317–338. Watanabe, Morimichi. Nicholas of Cusa: A Companion to His Life and His Times, edited by Gerald Christianson and Thomas M. Izbicki. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Watts, Pauline Moffitt. Nicolaus Cusanus: A Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man. Leiden: Brill, 1982. ———. “Renaissance Humanism,” in Introducing Nicholas of Cusa: A Guide to a Renaissance Man, edited by Christopher M. Bellitto, Thomas M. Izbicki and Gerald Christianson. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2004, pp. 169–204.

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Abraham and Isaac 84 Adam and Eve 1–20, 141; see also creation; Genesis Albergati, Nicholas 96n21 Albertson, David 120 Alexander of Hales 102 Amadeus of Savoy 130 Amalric of Bène 17–18 Angela of Foligno 94 angels 10, 11; beasts and 4, 16; Eckart 42–45; God acting through 12; good 94; human souls ranked above 90, 91; multitude of 42–43 Annunciation: Christmas and 53; Cistercian tradition and 40, 50, 51, 54; Cologne Cathedral, stained window of 39, 40, 51; Eckert’s preaching on 39–56; feast of 40; Gospel of Luke 39–41, 46, 47, 52; love’s centrality to 48 apostles and pseudo-apostles 124, 127, 130, 137 Aquinas, Thomas 42, 88–90, 111, 118; Catena aurea 92, 116; Commentary on John 89; Commentary on Matthew 116; transubstantiation 102 Aristotle: categories, place, and ‘God’ 24–27, 32; Cusanus (Nicholas da Cusa) on 162, 164, 168; Nicholas’ use of “quod impossibile fieri not fit” 159–160; non-aliud and 35, 36; on posse-fieri 161, 168; ‘possible intellect’ 75n23; principle of non-contradiction and 125; on time 140, 145, 150–151, 154; on union of soul and body 90; Wenck on 131 Aristotelianism 125 Assumption, feast of 54 astronomical clocks 137, 138 astronomy 120

Augustine 7; De Genesi contra Manicheos 18; Eckhart invoking authority of 42, 44, 45, 69, 93; Eriugena’s struggle with legacy of xii, 4, 5,10–11, 19–20, 24; on Eucharist 93, 99; on evil and sin, analysis of 82; on God as ‘place of the soul’ 26; human beings as coins stamped with God’s image 106, 110n18, 117; the mind’s hidden place 84; on time 143, 145, 149; Trinity and rational spirit, understanding of 115 Balbi, Pietro 34n51, 35, 159, 165 Balbus, Peter see Balbi, Pietro Baruch the prophet 149 Beierwaltes, Werner 21, 25, 32, 36, 166 bells and bell ringers 138, 146 Bernard Gui 127n16 Bernard of Clairvaux 49, 52, 54, 68 Bernard of Waging 21 Berthold of Moosburg (Berthold von Moosburg) 33–34, 85n20 birth of the Word/Son 41, 42, 45–55, 67, 70, 74 body: animal (mortal) 19, 20; detachment, as practiced in 77; ‘divine’ (Christ) 61; fallen and corruptible 5, 12–13; Fleming’s relaxation techniques 75; pain, as experienced by 73; sexual and corruptible 15, 16, 18–20; two bodies of human nature 12 body of Christ (Eucharist, transubstantiation, and communal sacrament) 87–102 Boethius 24, 142–143, 149, 150, 152 Bracciolini, Poggio 130n25, 134 bread: Christ as 100; consecrated 89, 92; daily, as ‘food of life’ 99; Eucharistic

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creation as theophany 22, 32, 33 crucified Christ 5, 61, 68, 69, 86; Christ’s foretelling of 80; see also Passion of the Christ; Tauler Cusanus see Nicholas of Cusa Cusanus-Wenck debate 123–134; see also invective

89; sacrament 87, 88; transubstantiation of 89, 93, 96–98 bridal mysticism 51, 54 bridal themes, Song of Songs 47 bride as soul 49, 51 bridegroom as Christ 49, 51 Brient, Elizabeth 143 Brösch, Maro 109n15 Brown, Peter 19 Bynum, Caroline Walker 17–18, 61n4 Caesar 106, 108–109, 111–113, 116–118; rendering to Caesar that which is 106, 109, 111 Casarella, Peter 163, 168n69 Cassirer, Ernst 167 Cesarini, Julian 124n9, 130 Charlemagne 21 Charles de Bovelles 133 Charles the Bald xii, 21 Christ see Annunciation; birth of the Word/ Son; crucified Christ; Passion of the Christ Christology 106; Cusanus 125–126; Eckhart’s function 70; kenotic 49; Nicholas 147, 167n60; Tauler 80n2 Cistercians 40, 50, 51, 54 Clavis physicae (Honorius Augustodunensi) 17, 21, 25, 33, 34, 36 clock maker 142, 144; God as 142 clocks: astronomical 137, 138; concept of 142; Cusanus and 137–146; perfect 134; water-clock 120 clockwork universe 144 coincidence, coincidences 128, 140; defining 125; within God 152, 160; see also Possest coincidence of opposites 32, 125, 131, 150, 152 complicatio 32, 32, 142, 161 Cohen, E. 76n25 conciliarism 130n25 Corinthians, book of 88, 127 Counet, Jean-Marie 128n22, 150n19 Cranz, Edward 157, 168–169 Creation Cupola, San Marco, Venice 1, 3, 9 creation (Genesis) 1; as ball game (Nicholas) 148n10; Eve 3, 5, 6, 8, 11; God and 50, 51, 124, 125; God prior to 29, 149; motion, God, and 27–33; as treasury of coins 109, 117 creation of man 16; in God’s image 106; redemption of man and 115

David (Biblical) 124–125; House of 41, 46 David of Dinant 33–34 deism 144 Descartes, René 167 detachment: Abgeschiedenheit (humility and detachment) 53, 54, 77, 81n7, 126; abgeschieden leben (living in detachment) 126; of Christ 72; Eckhart 53–56, 60, 67–68, 71–72, 74, 76, 79, 85, 91, 126; Fleming 74, 77; Gelassenheit (detachment) 54, 77, 78, 81–82; of God from the world 44; as mirror of creaturely nothingness 97; Nicholas 97; nothing/nicht 82, 85; radical 82, 86; of the soul 45; suffering and 63; Suso 62–66; Tauler 81–83; three phases of 64 Dietrich of Freiburg 84n16, 64n19 Diogenese Laertius 35, 148, 159n9, 160, 162, 167 Dionysius the Areopagite 28, 32–35, 131, 159, 152, 166–168; Celestial Hierarchy 25; Elymas the magician, refutation of 131; Mystical Theology 21, 84n17; negative theology of 65; Nicholas as student of 35; Proclus as key source for 34; see also Pseudo-Dionysius Dondi, Giovanni de’ 137 Dondi, Jacopo de’ 137–138 Dupré, Wilhelm 151, 167 Eckhart, Meister: Annunciation sermons of xii, 39–56; Book of Divine Consolation 66–67, 72; Commentary on John 26; Counsels on Discernment 67, 90–91, 94; Cusanus’ defense of 34; Eucharist and mystical transformation of 87, 88–95, 102; theology of suffering of 59–77; see also detachment Elymas the magician 131 Eriugena, John Scottus: as Johannes Scotigena 21; as John the Scot 18; Nicholas of Cusa’s glosses on 21–36; sin and creation addressed by 1–20; see also Periphyseon

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eternity see time and eternity Eucharist 82; mystical transformation and 87–10 Eugenius IV (Pope) 122, 130, 138, 157 eulogy 123 explicatio 32, 34, 142, 161 Felix V 157 Flasch, Kurt 123, 127, 129, 157 Fleming, Ursula xii, 59–60, 66–67, 73–77; on detachment 74, 77; relaxation method of 74–75, 77 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 166–169 Galatians 13 Garin, Eugenio 166 Genesis, book of 1–20; on Eve and the sorrows of women 15–16; gendering humanity and 2–5; on making of Adam 10; on sleep of Adam 8–9, 11; on sin and the fruit tree 11; two creation accounts in 7; wall of paradise, in Book of Genesis 139 George of Trapezunt 159, 163, 167 Glossa ordinaria 92, 111, 116 Gonsalvo of Spain 47 Gospel of John 47, 83, 97, 117 Gospel of Luke of 39, 41, 47, 52, 55, 69 Gospel of Matthew 68, 106, 111 Gospel story of Jesus and the Pharisees 118 Gregor of Heimburg 122 Gregory of Nyssa 10, 15n55, 16n61, 18, 19, 20 Haas, Alois 81n7 Hale, Rosemary Drage 52–53 Hallauer, Hermann 119 Haubst, Rudolph 123, 127, 129, 130n25 Helmrath, Johannes 130n25 Henry of Ostia 18 heresy 33–34, 60, 72, 124–125, 127, 131 Herodians 111 Herrand von Wildonie 48–49 Hilary of Arles 116 Honorius III (Pope) 17, 33 Honorius Augustodunensi see Clavis physicae (Honorius Augustodunensi) Hopkins, Jasper 122n4, 147n1, 151, 152, 153n37, 158n12, 159, 165n50 Horrigan, C. 74n19, 75n22 Hugh of St. Victor 102 Hume, [David] 144

image (bild) 65 image of God (gotformiger) 83 Image of God (Imago Dei) 20n81, 105–121 immortal life, immortality 88, 96–100, 102 Incarnation, the 13, 41, 46–50, 69–70, 72, 97–99 intelligent design 144 invective: claims of reluctance to pen 128n22; classical 134; Cusanus and Wenck 123, 131–134; eulogy versus 123; by Gregor of Heimburg against Nicholas 122; as rhetorical genre 123; of Unknown Learning 124 Jaspers, Karl 121 Jeauneau, Édouard 16n60, 21, 22n5, 24n11 Jesus see Christ John see Gospel of John John XXII (Pope) 43, 60, 87, 89, 96 Johannes Scotigena see Eriugena, John Scottus John, bishop of Strasbourg 124 John de la Rochelle 44n26 John of Bavaria 106 John of Gelnhausen 123, 127, 130 John of the Cross 71, 73 John the Baptist 41, 45, 47 John the Scot see Eriugena, John Scottus Jones, Claire Taylor 81, 83 Kaye, Joel 118 Kieckhefer, Richard 61n4 Klibansky, Raymond 22, 163 Last Supper 92; see also Eucharist Lord’s Prayer 99, 102 love: in the Annunciation and birthing the Word into the soul 41; of carnal spouse 2–3; of Christ 67, 69; Christ’s love for mankind 51, 82; divine 115; of God 72; God as 50; God’s love of mankind 48, 115; likeness yielded by 44; of the Lord 90; Mary as model for love of God 55; in mystical life 47; as source of suffering 68; wedlock 18; wives’ love for their husbands 49 Lucenti, Paolo 17n67, 21n4 Luke, Gospel of 39, 41, 47, 52, 55, 69 Lull, Raymond 167n60 Luther, Martin 80, 85–86 Macy, Gary 102 manna in the desert 89

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thinker 169; on technical creativity and self-knowledge 145; Trinitarian scheme favored by 158; Trinity and 97, 115, 160 Nicolas of Lyra 102 non-contradiction, principle of 125, 160

Martha, sister of Mary 55–56 Matim, Ferdinand 3 Matthew: Gospel of 68, 106, 111; Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on Matthew 116 Matthew of Poland 18 maximum and finite creation, Cusanus on 107 maximum motion 152 Maximus the Confessor 1, 13–16, 20, 24, 26–27 McGinn, Bernard 47, 53n69, 56, 60n15, 70, 87, 96; on Eckart’s death date 60n3 measure/mensurare 144, 154 measuring soul 145, 147, 154 Meuthen, Erich 105n1, 158 Miller, Clyde Lee 25n17 mind/mens 120, 144, 150, 154 Monfasani, John 165 mystical: birth 52; dialectic 51; geography 65; life 47, 56; meaning 116; message 41; method 74; numismatics 106, 121; program 75, 79; theology 99, 122, 130, 131, 133; thought 81; tradition 55; transformation 87–102; union xii, 84, 94, 97–98, 168 mysticism: bridal 51, 54; generic 85n21; passion 64

Oresme, Nicholas 113n32, 114n35, 118, 144 Origen 21, 49, 55, 118, 166 Orpheus’ lyre 145, 154 Otten, Willemien 20n81

Nicholas, a Novice of Monte Oliveto 96–98 Nicolas of Cusa: Apologia doctae ignorantiae 127–133, 160; on bread and wine, transubstantiation of 102; Cusanus-Wenck debate 122–134; De apice theoriae 151, 157, 163; De docta ignorantia 33–34, 107, 110n17, 122, 124, 143, 147–148, 157, 168; De ludo globi 106, 111, 117–118, 120–121, 140n11, 145, 147–149, 151, 153–154, 163; De venatione sapientiae/The Hunt of Wisdom 157–169; De Visione Dei 137–146; Eckhart and 95–96; on eternal time 147–155; Eucharist and human transformation, analogy between 98; on Eucharist and mystical transformation 95–102; failing health of 158; glosses on Eriugena 21–36; on Image of God (Imago Dei) 105–121; on hunger and eating 100, 101; immortality, understanding of 97; on intellect and hunger 98–100; Letter to Nicholas, a Novice of Monte Oliveto 96–98; matter, definition of 153; as Renaissance

Paley, [William] 144 pantheism 18 Parminedes (Plato) 35, 159, 163–167 Passion of the Christ 49, 60–64, 66–72, 76–77, 80n5, 91; medieval Passion devotion 79 Paul the Apostle 5, 68, 132; letter to the Galatians 42; on the mystical transformation 88 Pauline 11n34, 127 Pelikan, Jaroslav 52n61 Peripatetics 164 Periphyseon (Eriugena) xii, 1–2, 11–20; dialectic of creation 1–2; Nicholas of Cusa’s reading of xiii, 17, 21–22, 24–29, 31–34, 46; see also Clavis physicae (Honorius Augustodunensi) Perl, Eric 164n46 Petrarch 123, 128n22, 131, 134 Pharisees 111–112, 118 Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius 122 Plato and Platonism 36, 107, 162; Apology 128; Cusanus on 163–169; Ideas 164; Neoplatonism 20, 33, 85, 163, 164; Parminedes 35, 159, 163–167; Phaedo 128; Symposium 128; Theology of Plato (Proclus) 34n51, 35, 159, 165 Porphyry 24 posse 151, 163 posse-faceri 35n58, 151–154, 162 posse-factum 162 posse-fieri 35n58, 151–154, 161–162, 167 posse ipsum 163, 168 Possest 36, 152, 158–163, 168 Proclus 33–36, 83n15, 159, 162–167; Theology of Plato 34n51, 35, 159, 165 Pseudo-Dionysius 102, 164, 166 Ptolemy’s astrolabe 145, 154 Pythagoreans 35 Radler, Charlotte 47 Rahner, Hugo 41n7

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137–146; enfolding and unfolding of succession 142; Nicholas of Cusa and eternal time 147–155; Now (nunc) of eternity 42, 140; timeless time 155 time, the perpetual, and eternity 35, 153, 155; wisdom’s three regions as 158, 162n29 Tobin, Frank 45, 60n2, 60n3, 99n31

Ranff, Viki 131n28 Riccati, Carlo 32, 36 Rode, Herbert 39n1 Ruh, Kurt 40n4 Schürmann, Reiner 55n78 Scoterigena, Johannes 21 Sells, Michael 52n65 Seuse, Heinrich 60n2 Sigismund of Austria 122 Silagi, Gabriel 22n6 Socrates 126, 128–129 sonship 72, 99 Stagel, Elsbeth 62–64 St. Bernard 51, 83 Steuben, Verena von 122 Stoics 35, 63; Zeno the Stoic 162 Suso, Henry xii, 59–72, 73, 74, 76, 77; on detachment 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 71, 77; Life of the Servant 60, 61, 62; on suffering 67, 71, 72 Synod of Paris 1210 17 synteresis 94

Valla, Lorenzo 130n25, 134, 165,166n56 van der Meer, Matthieu 159 Vansteenberghe, Edmond 126n15 Victorinus, Marius 33–34 Vigevius, John Andrea 35 Vincent of Aggsbach 122 Virgin Mary 39, 41, 50, 52 virgin soul 53 virgin-wife, Eckhart’s sermon on 54–55; Martha 56; Mary 54–56 Von Bredow, Gerda 86n21

Tauler, Johannes xii, 79–86; on the abyss 82, 83, 84–85, 86; on hiding and hiddenness 84; from Tauler to Luther 85–86 Tegernsee abbey 21, 138 Tegernsee debate Theisen, Joachim 40, 55n80, 92n12 Theodoric of Trier 22n6; theophany, creation as 22, 32, 33 theos 26 theosis 97, 99 Thierry of Chartres 32, 34, 142, 167n60 time and eternity: Boethius 152; De Visione Dei (Cusanus/Nicholas of Cusa)

Watts, Pauline 36, 147n1, 151 Wenck, Johannes 33–34, 122–134; Unknown Learning 122–132, 134 William of Ockham 150n19, 164n43 William of St. Thierry 101n37 wisdom: Book of Wisdom 47; De venatione sapientiae/The Hunt of Wisdom (Cusanus) 35, 157–169; divine 100, 102, 120, 149; God as 96, 99; hidden 10; Little Book of Eternal Wisdom (Suso) 60–61, 70; as sapida scientia 158; Socratic 129 Word see birth of the Word/Son Zeno the Stoic 162 Ziebart, Meredith 123, 124, 128, 131n26

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