Form and Transformation: Christiformitas in Nicholas of Cusa

Abstract

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) was a fifteenth-century German thinker and ecclesiastic best known today for his philosophical/theological writings, in particular De docta ignorantia (On learned ignorance). With the recent completion in 2005 of the Heidelberg critical edition of his works, all of his 293 sermons have been published. These varied sermons fill out a picture of his pastoral thinking and practices that complements the more theoretical treatises and dialogues. In this essay, a single pervasive theme, conformity to Christ (christiformitas), may illustrate both the richness of Nicholas’s sermons and the back-and-forth between his more theoretical ideas and his preaching. “Conformity to Christ”—christiformitas—is mentioned by Nicholas of Cusa from his earliest writings and preaching. He remarked near the end of his best-known work, De docta ignorantia, that the power of faith is such that it brings it about (efficit) or transforms a human being so that she or he is “christiform” (bk. 3, chap. 11). Two other themes in his preaching and writing go hand-in-hand with christiformitas, that of theosis/deificatio/filiatio and that of fides formata caritate (literally, “faith formed by love”). Just how does Nicholas develop the theme of christiformitas in his sermons?