On Learned Ignorance

Introduction

Nicholas of Cusa completed the three Latin books in Kues in February 1440 and dedicated them to Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini. In the dedication he says the central idea came to him at sea on his way back from Constantinople in 1437–1438. Book I treats God as the absolute maximum, Book II the universe as a “contracted” maximum, Book III Christ as the union of both. Mathematical images serve as guides: an infinite circle would coincide with a straight line. The Heidelberg theologian Johannes Wenck attacked the work as pantheistic, and Cusanus replied in 1449 with an “Apology of Learned Ignorance”.

Connections

Builds on

• Elements of Theologyc. 470 · Proclus
• German Sermons and Treatisesc. 1320 · Meister Eckhart

Taken up in

• On the Infinite Universe and Worlds1584 · Giordano Bruno