Chapter 6 Ignorantia Non Docta: John Calvin and Nicholas of Cusa’s Neglected Trinitarian Legacy
In: Nicholas of Cusa and the Making of the Early Modern WorldSearch for other papers by Gary W. Jenkins in
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Cusanus’ 1453 treatise De visione Dei, written as an exercise in mystical theology, marks a final stage in Cusanus’ Trinitarian theology, one developed from his initial statements in De docta ignorantia. Far from being based on a mere reworking of Latin Trinitarianism, Cusanus demonstrates a detailed and imaginative theology that is at once Augustinian and Dionysian. Cusanus had been impacted both in his reading of Dionysius and his understanding of God by his time in Constantinople, and this impact can be traced through his works, beginning with De concordantia catholica (written before his embassy to Constantinople and thus forms the baseline for his understanding of the Areopagite) and through such late works as De apice theoriae. This presents a strange legacy for Cusanus in subsequent thought, since most of the Reformers rejected Dionysius’ hierarchical theology, they would blatantly disdain Cusanus’ ecclesiology in De concordantia catholica; and since they held to the medieval inheritance of God as first actus purus they could never extricate themselves from the interminable debates about relationships within the Trinity. they could never extricate themselves from the interminable debates about relationships within the Trinity.