Cusanus' Concordantia: A Re-Interpretation

Published date01 June 1962
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9248.1962.tb00989.x
Date01 June 1962
Subject MatterArticle
CUSANUS’
CONCORDANTZA:
A
RE-INTERPRETATION
PAUL
E.
SIGMUND,
JR.
Harvard University
I
IT
has been many years since Otto von Gierke and, on
a
more popular
level, John Neville Figgis called attention to the theories of consent and
representation in the
Concordaniia
Catholica
of
Nicholas
of
Cusa.l Since
then, the contribution of medieval theories
of
church organization
to
the
development of certain key concepts
of
Western political thought has
become increasingly recognized.2 Yet the published work on Cusanus as
a
political thinker has only rarely subjected the judgments of Gierke and
Figgis to critical scrutiny and the complex and subtle character
of
the work
of the greatest of the medieval conciliar theorists has not been adequately
represented in current accounts of his theory. Perhaps this is not possible
in anything less than
a
full-length study, but certain elements in his thought
which have not received adequate attention in the conventional summaries
can give
a
more accurate view of the political and ecclesiastical system
which he was proposing, and help to explain his later transfer of allegiance
from conciliarism to the side of the papacy.
While Otto von Gierke was aware of the hierarchical and authoritarian
elements in the
Concordantia,
the main burden of his treatment was placed
on Cusanus’ theory of consent as the embodiment
of
‘the principle of
Popular Sovereignty in the ChurcV.3 More influential on English and
American audiences was John Neville Figgis’ recently reprinted work,
Fron?
Gcrson
to
Crotius.
Figgis saw the conciliar controversy as
a
conflict
between the forces of constitutionalism and ‘papalist reaction’ and attri-
buted to the
Concordantia
the theory that ‘the consent and agreement of
the Christian community is the origin of Papal authority which is a delega-
tion from the people and may be removed at their will’.4 Figgis was followed
by
others and his judgment that ‘the far-off legacy’
of
the councils was the
Glorious Revolution becomes in its most recent version the assertion that
‘the road from the church councils
of
the fifteenth century to
1688,
to
1776,
and to
1789
is a direct
1
Otto
Gierke,
PoIitical Theories of
the
Miaiile Ages,
trans.
by
F.
W.
Maitland (Cambridge,
1900).
John
Neville Figgis,
From
Gerson
to
Grotius
(New
York,
1960) (reprint
of
1916 edition).
2
e.g.,
Ernest Barker,
The Dominica6 Order
and
Convocation,
Emst Kantorowicz,
The King’s
Two
Bodies
(Princeton, 1957).
Gierke,
p.
56.
Frederick
B.
Ant,
The Mind
ofthe
Middle Ages
(New
York,
1954), pp.
303-4.
Others
who
Figgis, p. 69.
Political
Studies,
Val.
X.
No.
2
(1962.
110-197).
PAUL
E.
SIGMUND
JR.
181
The same emphasis on the ‘democratic’ aspects of Cusanus’ thought is
maintained in the excerpts from the
Concordantiu,
available in Enghsh.
Most discussions of Cusanus quote only the lines in chapter
xiv
of
the
second book of the
Concorduntia
which derive the necessity
of
consent to
law
and government from the original equality and freedom of all men.
The single lengthy translated excerpt, the section on Nicholas of Cusa
in
Coker’s
Readings in Political Philosophy,
includes only the various state-
ments
of
the theory of consent, and Nicholas’ proposal for the incorpora-
tion of system of representative councils in the medieval empire.’
Sabine’s
History
of
Political Theory
presents
a
more balanced account
in treating Cusanus
as
a theorist of the ‘mixed constitution’, but he fails
to
resolve (and says that Cusanus fails to resolve) the contradiction between
a
theory of harmonious coordinate powers in the church and the doctrine
which he also attributes to Nicholas that ‘the whole body
of
the church,
the congregation of the faithful,
is
the source of its own law and the pope
and the hierarchy are
its
organs
or
servants’.Z
There are tensions and ambiguities in Cusanus’ thought but it is not
contradictory.
As
the title implies, it is an attempt to arrive at a harmonious
synthesis of differing views of the structure and justification of the Christian
community.
This
means that at the same time that his work includes
theories of consent, equality, and representation, which appear as striking
anticipations of Hobbes and
Rousseau,
it is based upon theological and
philosophical ideas derived from a medieval world-view which is funda-
mentally hierarchical and anti-equalitarian in outlook. With only rare
exceptions, discussion of Cusanus has tended to ignore this aspect
of
his
thought.3
Nicholas of Cusa’s life and education provide an insight into the
influences
on
his political philosophy.
Born
in
1401
at Kues on the Mosel
follow Figgis include
G.
P.
Gooch.
English Democratic
Ia’eas
in
the
Seventeenth Century,
New York. 1959
(reprint
of 1927 edition). p. 18;
C.
H. McIlwain,
ne
Growrh of Political
Tlloyght
in
rhc
West
(New York, 1932). pp. 348
ff.;
Harold
Laski,
Cambree Medieval History.
vol.
VIII
(Cambridge, 1936), p. 638.
1
Francis
W.
Cokcr.
Readings
in
Political Philosophy
(New
York, 1938), pp. 257-76.
s
George
Sabine,
A
History
of
Political %ory
(New York. 1950),
pp.
3
18-24.
Only Ewart Lewis
in
a brief paragraph
in
Medeval Polirienl
Ia’eas
(New York, 1954).
vol.
I,
p.
161, and
E.
F.
Jacob
in
F.
J.
C.
Hcarnshaw
(ed.),
Social
and
Political Ideas of Some
Great Thinkers
of
rhe
Renaissance
and
Reformation
(London, 1924). pp. 32-60, give adequate
attention
to
this
aspect
of
Cusanus’
political thought.
The
standard works in other languages
also
exaggerate
the
democratic
elements
in the
Concordantia.
Paolo Rotta
(Nicolo
Cusano
(Milan,
1942),
p.
27)
speaks
of
a ‘conceziom, diremo
mi,
dernocratico della Chiesa’, and
Edmond
Vanstetnbcrghe’s
brilliant biography
(Lc
Cardnul
Nicok
a’e
Cues
(Lille,
1920))
asserts
without
evidence
that
Nicholas was influenced ‘par
les
idces dc dtmocratique indepcnd-
ance
dont
It
pays rhenan fut longtemps un
ternin
de predilection’. In German. the study
of
the
Concordrrnria
by
Andreap
Posh (Paderborn. 1930) represents
Cusanus
as
teaching that ‘das
Volk
ist
scin
cigener Souvedn
(p.
94) and
states
that the doctrine
of
popular sovereignty ‘ist
Gemingut der meisten mittelalterlichen
Denker’.
More
recently,
Rudolf
Schultz
(Die Sraats-
philosophh
des
Nikoluus
Yon
Kucs
(Meisenbeim am
Glan,
1!348),
p. 16)
spcaks
of
his ‘demokrati-
sicrender Optimismus.’

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