Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/87

 NICHOLAS

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NICHOLAS

His new dignity was frauglit with labours and crosses. The Diocese of Brixen, the see of which was vacant, needed a reformer. The Cardinal of Cusa was appointed (1450), but, owing to the opposition of the chapter and of Sigmund, Duke of Austria and Count of the Tyrol, could not take possession of the see until two years later. In the meantime the cardi- nal was sent by Nicholas V, as papal legate, to Northern Germany and the Netherlands. He was to preach the Jubilee indulgence and to promote the crusade against the Turks; to visit, reform, and cor- rect parishes, monasteries, hospitals; to endeavour to reunite the Hussites with the Church; to end the dissensions between the Duke of Cleve and the Archbishop of Cologne; and to treat with the Duke of Burgundy with a view to peace between England and France. He crossed the Brenner in January, 1451, held a provincial synod at Salzburg, visited Vienna, Munich, Ratisbon, and Nuremberg, held a diocesan synod at Bamberg, presided over the pro- vincial chapter of tlie Benedictines at Wiirzburg, and reformed the monasteries in the Dioceses of Erfurt, Thuringia, Magdeburg, Hildes- heim, and Minden. Through the Nether- lands he was accom- panied by his friend Denys the Carthu- sian. Inl452hecon- cluded his visitations by holding a provin- cial synod at Co- logne. Everywhere, according to Abbot Trithemius, he had appeared as an angel of light and peire, but it was not to be so in his own duH i ^e The troubles ixgui with the Pool ( Ui< s of Bri.xen and the Benedictine nuns of Sonnenburg who needed reform ition, but were shielded b> Duke Sigmund. The cardinal had to take refuge in thestronghold of Audraz, at Buchcnstein, and finally, by special authority re- ceived from Pius II, pronounced an interdict upon the Countship of the Tyrol. In 1460 the duke made him prisoner at Burneck and extorted from him a treaty unfavourable to the bishopric. Nicholas fled to Pope Pius II, who excommunicated the duke and laid an interdict upon the diocese, to be enforced by the Archbishop of Salzburg. But the duke, himself an immoral man, and, further, instigated by the anti- papal humanist Heimburg, defied the pope and ap- pealed to a general council. It needed the strong in- fluence of tbe emperor, Frederick III, to make him finally (1464) submit to the Church. This took place some days after the cardinal's death. The account of the twelve years' struggle given by Jager and, after him, by Prantl, is unfair to the "foreign reformer" (see Pastor, op. eit. infra, II). The cardinal, who had accompanied Pius II to the Venetian fleet at Ancona, was sent by the pope to Leghorn to hasten the Genoese crusaders, but on the way succumbed to an illness, the result of his ill-treatment at the hands of Sig- mund, from which he had never fully recovered. He died at Todi, in the presence of his friends, the phy- sician Toscanelli and Bishop Johannes Andreie.

The body of Nicholas of Cusa rests in his own titu- lar church in Rome, beneath an effigy of him sculp- tured in relief, but his heart is deposited before the altar in the hospital of Cues. This hospital was the

cardinal's own foundation. By mutual agreement with his sister Clare and his brother John, his entire inheritance was made the basis of the foundation, and by the cardinal's last will his altar service, manuscript library, and scientific instruments were bequeathed to it. The extensive buildings with chapel, cloister, and refectory, which were erected in 1451-56, stand to this day, and serve their original purpose of a home for thirty-three old men, in honour of the thirty-three years of Christ's earthly life. Another foundation of the cardinal was a residence at Deventer, called the Bursa Cusana, where twenty poor clerical students were to be supported. Among bequests, a sum of 260 ducats was left to S. Maria dell' Anima in Rome, for an infirmary. In the archives of this institution is found the original document of the cardinal's last will. The writings of Cardinal Nicholas may be classified under four heads: (1) juridical writings: "De concor- dantia catholica" and "De auctoritate prjesidendi in conciho generali " (1432-35), both written on occasion of the Council of Basle. The superiority of the general councils over the pope is maintained; though, when the majority of the assembly drew from these writings start- ling conclusions un- favourable to Pope Eugene, the author seems to have changed his views, as appears from his art ion after 1437. The political reforms )>iii]iosed were skil- liillv utilized bv I .urresin 1814. (2") In his philosophical -'iitings, composed liter 14.39, he set aside the definitions and methods of the "Aristotelean Sect" antl replaced them by deep speculations and mystical forms of his own. The best known in his first treati.se, "De docta ignorantia" (1439-40), on the finite and the infinite. The Theory of Knowledge is critically examined in the treatise "De conjecturis" (1440-44) and espe- cially in the "Compendium" (1464). In his Cosmol- ogy he calls the Creator the Possest (]>osse-est, the possible-actual), alluding to the argument: God is possible, therefore actual. His itiicrocosmos in created things has some similarity with the "monads" and the "emanation" of Leibniz. (3) The theological treatises are dogmatic, ascetic, and mystic. "De cribratione alchorani" (1460) was occasioned by his visit to Constantinople, and was written for the con- version of the Mohammedans. For the faithful were written: "De quaerendo Deum" (1445), "Defiliatione Dei" (1445), " De visione Dei " (14.53), "Excitationum libri X" (1431-64), and others. The favourite sub- ject of his mystical speculations was th(! Trinity. His concept of God has been much disputed, and has even been called pantheistic. The coni cxf of his writ- ings proves.however, that they are all st rict ly Christ ian. Scharpff calls his theology a Thomas a Kcnipis in phil- osophical language. (4) The scientific writings con- sist of adozen treatises, mostly short., of which the " Re- paratio Calendarii" (1436), with a correction of the Alphonsine Tables, is the most important. (For an ac- count of its ('ontents and its results, see Lilius, Aloi- sius.) The shorter malheinalical treati.scs are ex- amined in Kiistner's "History of Mathematics", II. Among them is a claim for the exact quadrature of the