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In 1551, Cusanus’ De doctra ignoranti was read by the prior of the monastery at Tegernsee, Bernhard von Waging who in a tract entitled, Laudatorium doctae ignoranti, written the same year, praised the work lavishly. The next year, Cusanus was a visitor at Tegernsee and an exchange of letters was initiated that continued up until 1456 (Rossmann, 1982, p. 18). As a Bendictine involved in the Melk Reform, Bernhard von Waging was also in contact with Johannes Schlittpacher at Melk, who in turn was not only in contact with Cusanus, but also with Vincent of Aggsbach (circa 1389-1464) at a charterhouse only eleven Kilometres downstream from Melk. When Schlittpacher passed Bernhard von Waging’s Laudatorium on to Vincent of Aggsbach, the latter felt compelled to write a tract on mystic theology in which he voiced criticism at those who, like Cusanus advocated the use of intellectual techniques as a starting point for mystic theology. This initiated the “Controversy of the Doctrine of Learned Ignorance” which lasted up until 1460, with Vincent of Aggsbach being a key player and Schlittpacher playing an essential role as coordinator ensuring that tracts and the replies to tracts were copied and sent out to participants. As Vincent of Aggsbach was German speaking and is known to have preferred wine to beer, it is assumed that he came from a wine-growing area in Austria and he may even have come from the Wachau. Joining the Aggsbach Charterhouse at the age of 20 or 21, he spent the rest of his life there. From 1435-1448 he was prior and it was during his period of administration that the Aggsbach Charterhouse flourished and was at its heyday both materially and as a spiritual institution (Rossmann, 1982, p. 16). Not having a university education, when it came to theology Vincent of Aggsbach was self-taught and was critical of universities and empty erudition. Nevertheless during the twelve and a half years that he was prior, the charterhouse library was expanded and although most of the books and tractates were of a religious nature, the sciences, natural history and philosophy were all represented (Rossmann, 1982, p. 16, Gottlieb, 1990, p.89 & 97-98). Although the number of non-religious volumes was not large, the titles were well chosen. A book that may well have been acquired by the charterhouse whilst Vincent of Aggsbach was prior, was Lucretius’ De reum natura, which whilst discovered in 1417 was not ………. by Poggio Bracciolini until 1429 and only began circulating in ………… (……….). In this work, which was written in Latin in metred verse, Lucretius gave a ruthlessly materialistic account of the universe in which everything was explained in terms of physical atoms that moved about in space. Gods, if gods there were, were so far away that Lucretius saw them as having no reason to be interested in human affairs (…………….).

In the Controversy of the Doctrine of Learned Ignorance, although it was agreed among participants that God could only be encountered and experienced when rational ways of thinking had been abandoned, the question still remained of what sort of ignorance or innocence it was, that had to be cultivated if God was to be approached in a way that transcended earthly knowledge and experience (Rossman, 1982, p. 14). Where contemplation is a rising up of the human spirit towards God that is accompanied by thought, the aim of the mystic theology advocated by Vincent of Aggsbach was to achieve this without thought (Rossmann, 1982, p. 28). The intention of mystic theology is thus to nurture an innate and sub-consciously present “affect”, or love of God, which is capable of manifesting itself without the intervention of intellect. Where contemplation without love was not something that Vincent of Aggsbach saw as even deserving to be called contemplation, mystic theology consists only of affect (Rossmann, 1982, p. 27). Nevertheless contemplation still had a role to play and combined with love was seen by Vincent of Aggsbach as being akin to the six working days of the week, with mystic theology being the Sunday (Rossmann, 1982, p. 28). Through a continual striving for things such as goodness, truth, unity, et cetera, Vincent of Aggsbach saw God as being approachable in a process in which thinking ceased and pure experience took over.

In De doctra ignoranti Cusanus had seen the contradictions that arise when we contemplate the infinite as indicating that God lay beyond anything that the intellect was capable of formulating and apprehending. Over the course of the 1550ies however, he revised his position. Circles and spheres were capable of containing that which was straight even though fundamental aspects of their nature lay beyond that which they contained. Conversely that which was straight was limited could never fully attain the status of that which it was contained by. This made the circularity of the circle equitable with the all-enclosing divinity of God. Daily life Cusanus realised, was organised according to a logic in which the law of identity was absolute (Fiamma, 2025, §13). Each and every thing was self-identical and at any time, nothing could be both one thing and another. When it came to God however, this ceased to be the case and the essence of God included an ability to absorb and unite contradictions just a circle was able to contain the jagged lines of that which was straight and angular. As the Controversy of the Doctrine of Learned Ignorance unfolded, Cusanus saw each step towards knowledge of that which was circular as having the potential to be the beginning of a step towards God. The contradictions that the circles, straight lines and triangles of De doctra ignoranti had engendered were no longer signs that the rational had to be abandoned completely, only that a certain kind of rational thinking was not applicable when it came to thinking about God. Although a polygon, no matter how many sides it had, would always be a polygon and the moment it became a circle, would cease to be a polygon, nevertheless, the more sides it acquired, the more it would come to resemble a circle with the process of resemblance being something that was nevertheless real. During the 1550ies, Cusanus saw this as an indication that although that which was curved transcended that which was straight, that which was straight could, could be turned back on itself and used as a means by which the closed and locked-in nature of the world of the straight lines and linear thought could be prepared and adapted to receive something transcendent. To this effect, he developed a number of ways by which the circumference of a circle could be approached when different polygons were compared with one another with a view to approaching the circularity of a circle. This amounts to finding a value for π and is the age-old problem of squaring the circle and of how, via a geometry of straight lines, π and the circle can be approximated to and drawn closer to.

In his De visione dei of 1453 and his De beryllo of 1458, as well as in other works in between, Cusanus articulated his view that via intellectual methods, a framework could be erected that prepared the way for a beatific vision, or meeting with God in which the divine was encountered (Fiamma, 2025, §3). This took place through a union of the soul with God, with the transformation taking place from within (Fiamma, 2025, §4 & 22). This was because God was in the deepest recesses of the soul of each and every human, nevertheless in order to rise up within the soul of a person, some form of structure was necessary with which to facilitate and encourage the rising, with Cusanus arguing that a mathematical structure was capable of providing what was needed. Being short-sighted Cusanus wore glasses made of beryl as glass at that time was not clear enough. In De beryllo, Cusanus used his myopia as a metaphor for the human mind which although good at seeing things at close range, was unable to distinguish things at a distance (Fiamma, 2025, §9-16). In a pair of glasses the opposites of concave and convex forms are combined so that that which is unclear might be seen clearly. For Cusanus, an important aspect of God was his ability to unite opposites in ways that defied and were beyond everyday rational thought. Just as short-sightedness could be overcome through the knowledge and craftsmanship involved in the making of a pair of glasses, so Cusanus saw the mathematical models that he developed over the years, as aids to help the mind work its way along unaccustomed paths that lead to pointed to where God was. To this effect they were images that through thought and meditation enabled a person to make their soul of a person more receptive and conducive for the presence of God to rise up into and manifest himself (Fiamma, 2025, §21).  In its ability to absorb the light of God and true understanding, the soul was thus akin to a piece of beryl (Fiamma, 2025, §22), with the ground mineral combining the opposites of  concave and convex in a way that was godly and which transcended the rationality of the everyday. As seen, Cusanus considerations of the ultimate nature of that which is infinitely small and that which is infinitely large lead to him seeing them as one, resulting in the truly infinite being able to absorb and merge opposites together.  In this way the lessons of De doctra ignoranti are brought to bear on the metaphor of the soul as a piece of beryl with the former being filled out and given new meaning. By using a new form of mathematics to achieve inner effects, the conundrums of De doctra ignoranti come into their own and return with a renewed justification and vengance they did not have before.

As something that is arrived at through the use of intellect, both the sceptical position advocated by Cusanus in his De doctra Ignoranti as well as his later, revised positions, were diametrically opposed to the position of Vincent of Aggsbach, who denied that the methods advocated by Cusanus could be of any assistance in a search for God. Where The One in Plato is the sum total of the world of Ideal Forms and all that can be logically deduced from them, another position is to see God as the sum total of creation as a whole, with this including both the physical, the spiritual and the intellectual. This would make science a means by which God could also be approached. Yet for Vincent of Aggsbach, even this position was too intellectualised and missed the point of what God really was. Through a continual striving for things such as goodness, truth, unity, et cetera, Vincent of Aggsbach saw God as being approachable in a process in which thinking ceased and pure experience took over. For Carthusian monks this was achieved through silence and being alone. In a Carthusian charterhouse, monks known as “hermits” spend much of their time in their cells, praying, studying and meditating. Their only contact with other brothers (or sisters in the case of nuns) is when they gather together in order to pray or celebrate Mass and once a week, when they eat a meal together in silence and are allowed to go for a long walk, conversing with their brothers along the way. Otherwise eating alone, meals are delivered twice a day through a kind of dumb-waiter known as a “turn”, which ensures that the recipient has no contact with whoever brings the food. This simple way of living, combined with meditative exercises, was designed to lead to a mystical experience of God and his love. For Vincent of Aggsbach, this was a tried and tested method whereas the techniques proposed by Cusanus were replete with pitfalls and dangers as a result of having over intellectualised starting points. After eight years of views being aired in the form of publications, the result of the controversy was that mystical, or contemplative theology was acknowledged as being distinct from the speculative theology, with both approaches being seen as valid. In his last reply, The Refutation, Vincent of Aggsbach said that he did not want to write another word on mystic theology and true to his word, spent the rest of his life in contemplation. The result of the controversy was that speculative theology and mystic theology were seen as being two very different approaches, that whilst both valid, were not to be conflated.

 

Fiamma, A., Per beryllum intueamur: The Metaphor of ‘Beryl’ in Nicholas of Cusa and the Cologne School in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, in Metaphor Papers #17, 1475 “Metaphors of Religion”, Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Karlsruher Institut für Technologie Collaborative Research Center, Bochum/Karlsruhe, 2025