Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 2006 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

36 PIM VALKENBERG
religions.
These considerations determine the structure of this article.
Its main goal is to show how Nicholas of Cusa applied his insight in
the paradoxical nature of our knowledge of God - often called his
'perspectivism' or 'coincident theology' by scholars" - to the
possibility of being taught by religious others. Therefore, I will give
an interpretation of some important texts from his De pace fidei and
his Cribratio alcorani after having discussed his De docta ignorantia.
But, in order to show what is new in Cusanus and what is
continuation of an already established tradition of negative theology
and religious hermeneutics, I want to begin with Dionysius the
Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas.
1. Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas
The tradition of not-knowing in theology has been named 'negative'
or 'apophatic' theology. Its ancestor is Dionysius, nicknamed 'the
Areopagite' because he tried to pass himself off as the Dionysius who
converted to Christianity after having heard St. Paul's famous speech
at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17,34). As Bernard McGinn states,
"[t]his pious fiction gave the writings a quasi-apostolic reputation that
made them the authority in matters mystical for most writers in East
and West down to modem times [... ].,,4 In fact, Dionysius was
probably a monastic writer from fifth century Syria who used Neo­
Platonist philosophical traditions to deepen his Christian mysticism.
The God whose names he tried to enumerate in the work that became
known in the West as De divinis nominibus is a God who may be
worshiped as "an unknown God", just like the Athenians did
according to Paul (Acts 17,23); and yet Dionysius would agree with
Paul that Christians have the duty to proclaim the identity of this God
in words derived from the Scriptures. In the first paragraph of his
treatise On the Divine Names, he shows that Scripture serves as
guideline for our language about God, yet God transcends our
3 See Louis Dupré, The Question of Pantheism from Eckhart to Cusanus, in
Casarella (2006), o.c., 74-88; Bernard McGinn, Seeing and Not Seeing:
Nicholas of Cusa's De visione Dei in the History of Western Mysticism, in
Casarella (2006), o.c., 26-53.
4 Bernard McGinn (ed.), The Essential Writings afChristian Mysticism, New
York 2006,283.