by Andrew Kuiper

We are continuing Andrew Kuiper’s series on religious freedom and religious dialogue. For the previous posts, see here and here.

1.Introduction

In a previous installment of this series, I suggested that Wilken’s account of the Christian origins of religious liberty becomes rather thin when treating the medieval period. Most noticeably absent are Raymond of Llull and Nicholas of Cusa whose writings The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men and On the Peace of Faith, respectively, provide material which is still significant for contemporary reflection on interreligious dialogue and continue to receive academic attention. Since Raymond of Llull was the subject of the previous post, we now turn to his admirer from a later era, Nicholas of Cusa. 

2.Biography

The minor basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli houses the wonder that is Michaelangelo’s statue of Moses as well as the tomb of one of the most infamous popes in history, Julius II. But off to the side of the church, along the left wall, one can also discover the final resting place of Nicholas Cusanus. Though he reserved his heart for burial in his native Kues which lies along a tributary of the Rhine, Rome claims his body. And it is fitting that Cusanus, who was fond of using examples of Roman architecture like the Pantheon and Trajan’s Column as models to explicate his metaphysical insights, is now himself a permanent architectural feature in Rome. (For the Pantheon see De docta ignorantia I.25; for Trajan’s Column see De li non aliud.) The relief on his tomb displays him kneeling before St. Peter.

Opposite, an angel holds the chains from the apostle’s imprisonment in Jerusalem (the very same chains that this fifth-century church was built to contain).  

The symbolism of Peter in his throne is especially significant considering that Cusanus was involved in practically every controversy over ecclesiastical governance in the fifteenth century. Not only was he a prominent figure at the council of Basel (eventually siding with the papal party), but he was also a legate to Constantinople in an attempt to resolve the East-West schism. It was on the return voyage from this ecumenical mission in 1437, a ship brimming with theological luminaries like Basilios Bessarion and Mark of Ephesus, that Cusanus reportedly had a divine illumination of such intensity that it became the subject of his writings until his death. In an astounding number of spiritual, philosophical, and theological treatises from De docta ignorantia (1440) to De apice theoriae (1464), he explicated, refined, and revised his meditations on how the unity of God relates to the multiplicity of creation. His speculative gifts were never at odds with his practical virtues, and he remained an active voice for reform throughout his tenure as cardinal. As late as 1459 he was urging moral and institutional reform in his Reformatio generalis (1459) written at the personal request of Pope Pius II. 

Like Raymond of Llull, many of whose manuscripts were contained in his personal library, Cusanus was a brilliant polymath whose interests extended from mathematics to cosmology as well as art, linguistics, philosophy, and theology.  Before Bruno, Galileo, or Copernicus, this high-ranking churchman posited, on essentially theological grounds, that the cosmos was neither finite nor geocentric. Political theorists have noted that De concordantia catholica is one of the first texts to contain arguments for the centrality of consent in making governments legitimate. Cusanus writes in the second book of this work: “Since all are by nature free, every governance—whether it consists in a written law or living law in the person of a prince … can only come from the agreement and consent of the subjects. For if men are by nature equal in power and equally free, the true properly ordered authority of one common rule who is their equal in power can only be constituted by the election and consent of the others, and law is also established by consent” (II, 14, no. 127). It was these same principles of freedom and consent that Cusanus brought to bear on questions of ecumenism in his famous work urging peace among religions: De pace fidei. 

3. De Pace Fidei

Cusanus was more familiar than most of his contemporaries with Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam. He must have felt more keenly than others the horrifying news of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. And though this may come as a surprise to devotees of Samuel Huntington, Cusanus did not seize upon this event as a warrant for a clash of civilizations. He did not, as some theorists of international relations have projected on earlier politics, interpret Mehmet II as representative of an utterly alien cultural-religious paradigm against which European civilization was doomed to struggle. As a former envoy to Constantinople tasked with world-wide ecclesial reconciliation, he would have been even more bewildered by Huntington’s characterization of nations primarily influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy (or even Eastern Catholicism) as foreign civilizations. Cusanus desired, in all realms, a catholicity that harmoniously arranges diversity within unity which manifests the divine simplicity shining through multiplicity. Because of this, his horror at the destruction of Constantinople is not channeled into calls for a crusade, but for a engagement of intellect and will in the difficult practice of dialogue and reform. Cusanus expresses his position in a dialogue which takes the visionary form of a heavenly council. 

The dialogue begins by describing how “a certain man” who had journeyed to Constantinople was so grieved by the cruelties of the Turkish invasion that he pleaded with God for peace. He was granted a vision from which, after meditating upon it, “he educed the following: the few wise men who are rich in the experiential knowledge of all such differences as are observed throughout the world in the [different] religions can find a single, readily-available harmony; and through this harmony there can be constituted, by a suitable and true means, perpetual peace within [the domain of] religion” (I). The vision itself was of angels bringing the  moanings of the oppressed to the divine throne and reporting “that for the sake of religion very many [men] were in armed conflict with one another, and that by physical force men were either compelling [their fellow-men] to renounce their long-adhered-to religious sect or were inflicting [upon their fellow-men] death.” The archangelic head of these messengers then pleads with God to end this violence by manifesting Himself so that all will know that, despite the various prophets and religious customs, there is only “one religion in a variety of rites.” God replies that he has made humanity capable of knowing him and that by exercise of the intellect and free choice they can attain to Him. Even more, he has sent many prophets and teachers culminating with His Son: “The Word assumed a human nature in order that no man would doubt that in accordance with the election of free choice he can obtain—in his own human nature, through that man who is also the Word—the immortal food of truth” (II). This divine reply is significant both for what it does and does not say.

God does not say that unbelief is being inflicted on Jews or Muslims as a punishment or that everyone is incapable of coming to God unless drawn by an unutterably secret election. He does say that the intrinsic structure of humanity is one of free choice that seeks the truth and desires eternal life. And He also says that the truth which “nourishes the intellect is nothing but the Word Himself, in whom are enfolded all things and through whom all things are unfolded” (II). No one, then, is exempt from being implicated in the desire for the Logos or cut off from means to pursue divine wisdom. The divine reply ends with the question: What more could I have done? Christ Himself comes forth to answer this question. He agrees that humanity possesses free choice but that the unstable nature of the sensible world causes a dizzying array of opinions and customs , conjectures, and interpretations. The continuous power of grace is needed to correct errors and guide all into the truth. In other works, Cusanus makes clear that grace is not simply a divine intervention but spirit-filled cooperation that includes all human creative activity: “And let us draw our answer from the things that we have said. For grace imitates nature, just as art imitates nature, as best it can” (Sermon on Epiphany at Brixen “Where is he who is born king of the Jews?”). Because Cusanus understands that nature, art, and grace intermingle in bringing us to divine truth, he has Christ propose a council of learned men to engage in a erudite and pious discourse which will bring effectual peace. God the Father agrees with this plan and summons the wise men of every tribe, language, and religion to Jerusalem where Christ, Peter, and Paul preside over an ecumenical search for truth and unity in religious matters. 

The phrase introduced by the archangel’s initial speech religio una in rituum varietate has ended up being one of Cusanus’ most famous and lasting contributions. Yet, it remains a difficult formula to unpack since in the context of the dialogue it is clear that Cusanus considers belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation to be non-negotiable elements of true faith. At the same time, he has a very generous understanding of what is contained, explicitly and implicitly, in other religious traditions and the flexibility that might be granted in the realm of ritual observance. He even goes so far as to make a positive case for the diversity of religious observances saying that a certain non-aggressive rivalry could lead to an increase of devotion and piety amongst believers everywhere. Cusanus is certainly capable of polemics, as seen in his critical engagement with the Koran in the Cribratio Alkorani, and his desire for unity should not be confused with an uncritical toleration or syncretism. He certainly thinks there is such a thing as true religion and it has a definite shape and contour which must be defended. What makes Cusanus so unique is how he combines theological dogmatics with a generous understanding of contingency and diversity within a providential framework. To give one instance, when St. Paul is speaking with the Bohemian (meant no doubt to represent the Hussite position), he allows that many will not be able to accept the doctrine of the transformation of the eucharistic elements into the body and blood. In light of the inherent difficulties, the apostle allows for a kind of standing dispensation: “This sacrament, insofar as it pertains to the perceptible signs (provided faith itself be maintained) is not of such necessity that there is no salvation without it. For believing—and thereby eating of the food of life—suffices for salvation” (XIX). A similar kind of discretion is given to local religious leaders with respect to the other sacraments, holy days, fasting, etc.  In all things, the apostle to the gentiles declares near the end of the dialogue that “it is necessary to make great allowances for the weakness of men, unless [doing so] militates against eternal salvation. For to seek exact conformity in all respects is rather to disturb the peace” (XIX).

4. Conclusion

There is no real emotional equivalent we can draw on to understand the fall of Constantinople. Perhaps imagining the overnight destruction of Paris, London, and Washington D.C. by the hands of Wahhabist-Salafist terrorists at least gives us some sense of scale. Not only was this event a political-cultural catastrophe, but a hostile and immense standing army remained at the borders of Europe with the ability to invade and colonize its inhabitants. This is a quality of fear we have never experienced. But from correspondence between Juan de Segovia and Cusanus, we see that even after 1453 he and others were hoping for peace through persuasion and an interreligious council of the wise rather than war. Though Cusanus was not opposed to limited defensive military action, he thought that outright invasions and crusades would incur the condemnation of Christ that those who live by the sword shall also die by them. To many it must have been astonishing to see someone closely involved with several councils that failed to achieve their objectives (Basel, Ferrera, Florence) continue to refuse more coercive methods to achieve order and unity. But it was his very closeness to these efforts that allowed him to realize how they could have gone otherwise and how close they actually came to peace. Cusanus embodied Christ’s exhortation that all might be one under the Fatherhood of God. His ecumenical ambitions were not limited to intra-Christian disputes but expressed a profound theological metaphysics of the cosmos: the glory of God is most visible to us when maximum diversity and maximum unity ineffably meet.