Cusa, Nichoi^as de, or Cusanus, a cardinal of great learning. His name was properly Nicholas Khbypfps (Kbebs), but he was named Cusaniu or De Cum, from Cues on the Mosel, where he was bom in 1401. He was the son of a poor fisher, who wished him to learn the same trade. Rather than comply with this request, Nicholas left the paternal home, and found employment with the count of Manderscheid, who, having discovered the eminent talent of his ser- vant, sent him to the school of the Brothers of Common Life at Deventer, and subsequently to the University ^__ of Padua. At the age of 28
Nicholas became doctor of law, but when he lost his first lawsuit he left the pro- fession of law for the study of theology. Possessing a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages, and a rare de- gree of eloquence, he soon attracted attention. After holding several ecclesiasti- cal benefices at St. Wendel and Coblentz, he was pres- ent as archdeacon of the ca- thedral church of Liege at the Council of Basel, where he presented to the assem- bled bishops the celebrated work De Conoordawtia Co^ (holica. This is one of the ablest works published dur- ing the Middle Ages in fa- vor of the opinion that the pope is subordinate to an oecumenical council ; it at- taclss the pretended dona- tion of Constantino, and the authority of the false de- cretals, and insists on the reformation of the Church and the Germanic empire. Cusa was opposed to the dissolution of the council which was attempted by Eu- gene IV, and showed himself favorable to the reforms which the council decreed. But soon after be left the reformatory party and became an adherent of the pope, who added him to the legation which was sent over to Constantinople to dissuade the Greeks from going to Basel, and to induce them to go to Ferrara. After the rupture between the pope and the council, Cusa ac- companied the papal legate, Thomas de Sarzana, on his missions to Germany and France. When the latter became pope, under the name of Nicholas Y , Cusa was made a cardinal (1449), and bishop of Brixen, in the
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Tyrol, in 1459. He wu also sent on important mis- dona to Germany, England, and Pmssia. Being charged with the re-establishment of eodesiastical discipline in Holland, he acquitted himself of this task with great firmness. His reform measures in his own diocese involved him in a quarrel with the archduke Sigismond of Austria. Cnsa excommunicated the archduke, who, in his turn, imprisoned the cardinal, and compelled him to agree to a compromise. The matter was not fully settled when the cardinal died at Todiinl464.
The transition of Cusa from the reform party to the adherents of the court of Rome has by some writers been charged to ignoble motives ; but, in view of the purity of his life, and the honesty of lids purposes ex- hibited in all Ms public acts, most of the writers con- sider it as an honest change of opinion. It is thought that Cusa himself discovered the inconsistency of some of his views on the unity of the Church, the pa- pal prerogatives, and the authority of the councils, as laid down in the work De ConcordcaiHa CcUhoUea, and that, finding it necessary to discard the one or the other, he laid greater stress on the monarchical gov- ernment of the Church than on the representative councils. This agrees with the strong attachment which Cusa shows to the monarchical principle in generaL See Brockhaus, NiookU Cusa$d de conciiU ttmvertaUi poieaUUe seiUetUia expUcahur (Lpzg. 1867).
As a philosopher, Cusa was among the first to aban- don the scholastic creed. ** He arranged and republish- ed the Pythagorean ideas, to which he was much in- clined, in a very original manner, by the aid of his math- ematical knowledge. He considered God as the uncon- ditional Maximum, which at the same time, as AbtokUe Umttfj is also the unconditional Minimum, and begets of himself and out of himself equality and the combi- nation of equality with unity (Son and Holy Ghost). According to him, it is impossible to know directly and immediately this absolute unity (the Divinity), because we can make approaches to the knowledge of him only by the means of number or plurality. Consequently he allows us only the possession of very imperfect no- tions of God, and those by mathematical symbols. It must be admitted that the cardinal did not pursue this thought very consequently, and that his view of the universe, which he connected with it, and which repre- sented the universe as the maximum condentedy and thus hecomefimtey was very obscure. Nor was he more successful in his view of the oneness of the Creator and of creation, or in his attempt to explain the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation by means of this panthe- istic theism. Nevertheless, numerous profound though undeveloped observations on the faculty of cognition are found in his writings, interspersed with his pre- vailing mysticism. For instance, he observes that the principles of knowledge possible to us are con- tained in our ideas of numbo- (ratio explicata) and their several relations ; that absolute knowledge is unattainable to us (jtrecmo verUatU inattingibUis, which he styled docta ignoranUa), and that all whicli is attainable to us is Aprobabk knowledge (conjecturd). With such opinions he expressed a sovereign contempt for the dogmatism of the schools.*' The works of Cusa were published in 1514 at Paris (8 vols, fol.), and again in 1565 at Basel (8 vols. fbl.). The latter edi- tion is the more complete. See Tennemann, Manwd Hut, Pha. § 286; Scharpff, Der Cardinal vnd Bishop Nic. von Cusa (vol. i, Mainz, 1848 ; the 2d vol. has not appeared) ; DQx, Der detOsche Cardinal Nic, von Cusa (Katisbon, 1847, 2 vols.) ; Clemens, G. Bruno vnd N. von Cusa (Bonn, 1847) ; Zimmermann, Ciua als Vor- idufer LetbwUzens (Vienna, 1852).