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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2 - Contents
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    II. Cusa-Scholar, Philosopher, Churchman, and Reformer

    NICHOLAS OF CUSA (Nicholas Cusanus, de Cusa, von Cusa, or Nicholas Krebs of Cusa) (1400?-1464)—theologian, mathematician, scientist, and scholar—often credited by later writers with establishing the year-day principle as applied to the 2300 days—derived his name from the place of his birth, Cusa, or Cues (Rues), near Treves, or Trier. His father was a boatman named Krebs (Krypffs). Not wishing to follow his father’s vocation, he left home and found employment with the count of Manderscheid, who sent him first to school at Deventer, and then to the University of Padua. 3M’Clintock and Strong, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 611, art. “Cusa”; and similar biographical sketches. He studied law, as well as Greek, Hebrew, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, and in later years, Arabic. At the age of twenty-three Cusa became a Doctor of Laws. But he turned from law to theology, which he studied at Cologne, likewise becoming a Doctor of Theology. After holding several ecclesiastical benefices, he was present as archdeacon of Liege at the Council of Basel.PFF2 125.1

    1. CHAMPIONS AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS OVER THAT OF POPE

    In 1432 the Council of Basel (convoked in 1431, and continuing intermittently until 1449) became a constitutional battle over the absolutism of the pope versus conciliar supremacy. Cusa, taking the antipapal side along with the Bohemian Hussites, was among the most distinguished champions of the authority of the general council over that of the pope, although he later changed his views. 4R. Schmid, art. “Cusa,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. 3, p. 327; Johann von Mosheim, Institues of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 3, p. 41; David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, pp. 170, 224, 225. The battle was fought with pen as well as by debate, Cusa there issuing his famous De Concordantia Catholica (Concerning Catholic Harmony), dedicated to the council in 1433. 5David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, pp. 170, 224, 225; Neander, op. cit., vol. 5, p. 130. Cusa’s works were publlished in Latin at Paris in 1514. A more complete edition is the Opera of Basel, 1565. Cusa’s most important works were put into French and German, only a few into English. In this—one of the ablest works of its kind—he contended that Peter had no more authority than the other apostles, that all bishops are equal, and that ecclesiastical authority is not confined to the Roman See. The Basel council renewed the decrees of Constance concerning the superior authority of the councils-which, of course, threatened the very foundations of the Papacy.PFF2 125.2

    Cusa, having been won over to the adherents of the pope, was entrusted with a number of important missions by the church, being sent to Constantinople to bring about a union of the Eastern and Western churches, for the reunion of Christendom took precedence over all other church objectives. 6David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, pp. 175, 224. The Greek emperor John VIII (Palaeologus, 1425-1448) and his leading prelates were prevailed upon to attend the Council of Florence (1439), which was a continuation of the Council of Ferrara (1438), to which place the Council of Basel had been transferred. 7M’Clintock and Strong, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 611, art. “Cusa”; Schroeder, op. cit., pp. 467-470.PFF2 126.1

    2. PRESSES REFORM OF ECCLESIASTICAL ABUSES

    Cusa came back to Germany as papal delegate to the diets between 1441 and 1446. In 1447 he arranged the concordat of Vienna, and in recognition of his services was created a cardinal. 8Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 901, art. “Cusanus”; David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 225. About 1450 he was made bishop of Brixen, in the Tyrol, and traveled throughout the larger part of Germany, insisting on reforms of ecclesiastical abuses. 9David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 225; R. Schmid, op. cit., The New Schaff-Herzog, vol. 3, p. 327; M’Clintock and Strong, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 611, 612, art. “Cusa”; John Fletcher Hurst, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2, p. 95. In 1451, pursuant to the purpose of effecting reforms, he prohibited all “bleeding Hosts.” 10Gieseler, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 383, 384; Robertson, op. cit., vol. 8, p. 375. He preached in the vernacular, and in Magdeburg secured the condemnation of the sale of indulgences for money. At Salzburg he effected reforms in the convents, and established a thirty-three-bed hospital at Cues, 11David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 226. to which he bequeathed his manuscript library and his scientific instruments. 12R. Schmid, op. cit., The New Schaff-Herzog, vol. 3, p. 327; J. G. Hagen, “Nicholas of Cusa,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11, p. 61.PFF2 126.2

    He protested against the despotism and covetousness of the church, predicting that it would sink still deeper, to the point of extinction, before rising triumphantly again. 13Dollinger, Prophecies, pp. 74, 75, citing Cusa’s De Concordantia Catholica. Cusa was one of the first to break with Scholasticism, and revealed the influence of the ideas on faith that he received during his early schooling at Deventer. 14The Brethren of the Common Life (or Common Lot), who flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Netherlands and northwest Germany, were practical mystics akin in some ways to the later pietists. They were associated in voluntary groups without monastic vows or garb, although they renounced worldly goods and remained single, and supported themselves in common by their toil. They also preached in the vernacular, explained the Scriptures to small groups in private homes, copied manuscripts (and later employed printing), translated portions of the Bible and devotional books, and engaged in teaching. They broke away from Scholasticism and combined the crafts and Bible study with a general education given chiefly in the mother tongue. Their schools laid the foundation for the modern literature of those regions, and prepared the ground for the Reformation to come. The school at Deventer, one of the famous grammar schools in the history of education, trained Thomas & Kempis, Nicholas of Cusa. Wessel Gansfort, and Erasmus, who learned his Greek there. (See David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, pp. 278-284; C. Ullman, Reformers Before the Reformation, vol. 2, pp. 57-184.)PFF2 127.1

    Though remaining a son of the church, Cusa definitely influenced Faber Stapulensis, who was himself a French forerunner of Luther on justification by faith. 15David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 225.PFF2 127.2

    3. DENOUNCES SCHOLASTICISM; EXPOSES FORGED CONSTANTINE “DONATION.”

    Cusa, whom Dollinger denominates the most profound thinker of his time, denounced perverted Scholasticism in De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance). He held that man’s wisdom lies in recognizing his ignorance, and that escape from skepticism lies in sensing the reality of God. 16Ibid. Of liberal views and wide mental horizon, he facilitated the transition from Middle Age scholastic theology to the Renaissance. He was interested in the Jews, and sought to lead them to a recognition of the Trinity.PFF2 127.3

    Cusa’s De Concordantia Catholica, presented to the Basel assembly, was recognized as one of the ablest works of the Middle Ages. In it he favored the subservience of the pope to the council, 17M’C’lintock and Strong, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 611, art. “Cusa.” and insisted on reformation of the church. He and two other men (Reginald Pecock and Lorenzo Valla), 18LORENZO VALLA (d. 1457) was the initiator of historical criticism. In 1440, while in the employ of the king of Naples, who was then at odds with the pope, Lorenzo demonstrated the spurious character of the celebrated Donation of Constantine. Later, Nicholas V, a great scholar, summoned Valla to Rome as secretary to the papal court. Valla continued his exposure of historical frauds, correcting mistranslations, and stamping as worthless certain popular documents. (Ault, op. cit., p. 680.) Pecock and Valla were regarded as heretical in various aspects of their writings, and barely escaped the stake-one through abjuration, and the other through the intercession of the king. (Robertson, op. cit., vol. 8, pp. 138, 351, 352.) in the middle of the fifteenth century, proved on historical grounds that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery. 19Dollinger, Fables Respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, p. 174; David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 226. He made little use, however, of the discovery.PFF2 128.1

    Christopher B. Coleman says:PFF2 128.2

    “Nicholas Cusanus some seven years earlier [1433] in his De Concordantia Catholica covered part of the same ground even better than Valla did, and anticipated some of his arguments. But Valla’s treatise is more exhaustive, is in more finished and effective literary form, and in effect established for the world generally the proof of the falsity of the Donation.” 20Christopher B. Coleman, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine, Introduction, p. 3.PFF2 128.3

    4. ANTICIPATED FEATURES OF COPERNICAN THEORY BY A CENTURY

    In the field of science Cusa presented to the Council of Basel in his Reparation Kalendarii (Restoration of the Calendar), published 1436, a proposed correction of the Julian calendar similar in method to the one later adopted by Gregory XIII. 21Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 6, p. 901, art. “Cusanus.” Moreover, Cusa anticipated Copernicus in part by nearly a hundred years in holding that the earth is not the center of the universe, but is in motion, and that the heavenly bodies do not have strictly spherical form or circular orbits.” 22Ibid.; David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 226; Hurst, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 96; The New International Encyclopaedia, vol. 6, p. 379, art. “Cusa”; Hagen, op. cit., The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11, p. 62. He was likewise conspicuous as a mathematician, stressing arithmetical and geometrical complements, the “quadrature of the circle,” and so forth. 23Mosheim, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 41. Schaff calls him the “most universal scholar of Germany.” 24David S. Schaff, The Middle Ages, part 2, p. 225.PFF2 128.4

    These were the intellectual attainments and the achievements of this scholar of the fifteenth century, who was influential in establishing the application of the year-day principle to the 2300 days. 25Indebtedness is here expressed to Dr. Raymond Klibansky, formerly of Heidelberg University and later lecturer on philosophy at the University of London, later of Oxford, authority on Cusa, writer of the article “Niccolo da Cusa,” in Enciclopedia Italiana, co-editor with Ernst Hoffmann of Cusa’s Opera Omnia (1932-), and cataloger and reconstructor of his library. From Dr. Klibansky, photostat copies were obtained of certain original Cusa manuscripts, in his own signed handwriting (Codex Cusanus 220), and a portion of an important sermon preached in 1440-“Paulus apostolus ad Galathas scribens.” Also, secured from the same source, is a page from Cusa’s theory of planetary motion, antedating the position of Copernicus, and illustrated by a diagram-similarly in Cusa’s handwriting. Perhaps most significant of all is a page from an old manuscript containing Villanova’s Introditction in librum de semine scripturarum (Codex Cusanus 42, fol. 194-201). Obviously Cusa had acquaintance with Joachimism, and more specifically, with this commentary on pseudo-Joachim which pioneered in applying the year-day prophetic time measure to the 2300 days.PFF2 129.1

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