Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 2006 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

NICHOLAS OF CUSA 55
work, Nicholas tries to sift the materials of the Qur'än like a
prospector sifts the water of a river in hopes of fmding nuggets of
gold between the silt. The image is striking insofar as Cusanus
generally displays a negative attitude towards the contents of the
Qur'än; for that reason, some scholars oppose the polemical nature of
this work to the peaceful nature of De pace fidei.45 In this respect,
Cusanus' approach is not too different from Raymond Martin's
approach to the Talmud two centuries before in which he speaks
about pearls to be found on the dunghill." But, as the prologue to the
Cribratio tells us, Cusanus went to great length in order to obtain
good copies and good translations of the "book-in-law of the Arabs".
He describes the goal of his work as follows:
I applied my mind to disclosing, even from the Koran, that the
Gospel is true. And in order that this [disclosure] may readily
be made, I will here set forth in a few words my overall
conception. We recognize that in ourselves there is a certain
appetite which is called spirit because of the motion present in
it. Moreover, [we recognize] that the explanation for this
motion is the Good, for by reason of the Good the appetite is
moved. [... ]
But Jesus, the son of the Virgin Mary and the Christ who was
foretold by Moses and the Prophets to be coming, did come
and did reveal most perfectly - according to the testimony
even of Muhammad the oft-mentioned way, for He was
ignorant of nothing. Therefore, it is certain that anyone who
follows Christ and His way will attain unto an understanding
of the desired Good. Hence, if Muhammad in any respect
disagrees with Christ, then it follows either that he does so out
of ignorance, because he did not know Christ and did not
understand Him, or that there is perverse intent, because he
bei Nikolaus von Kues, Frankfurt/M. 1976; Nikolaus von Kues im Gesprach
mit dem Islam, Altenberge 1983; Christenturn contra Islam: eine Geschichte
gescheiterter Beziehungen. Darmstadt 1999. For pia interpretatio in the
Cribratio Alcorani, see the literature mentioned in footnote 42 and Walter
Andreas Euler, An Italian Painting from the Late Fifteenth Century and the
Cribratio alkorani of Nicholas ofCusa, in Casarella (2006), o.c., 127-42.
4S Armour (i002), o.c., 109; Euler (2006), o.c., 131.
46 For Raymond Martin and his approach to the Talmud, see Syds Wiersma's
article' Aquinas' Theory on Dialogue put into Practice: Trinity in Raymond
Martin' in Jaarboek 2005 Thomas Instituut te Utrecht 25 (2006),9-41.