Nicholas of Cusa wrote about philosophy with reserve, even some dislike, and defi ned it as idle chatter and earthly knowledge that leads to excessive pride. On the other hand, he associated philosophy with the most important human task, i.e. the pursuit of truth. The objective of this paper is to explain this disparity in the understanding of philosophy by means of a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Analyzing passages from selected works by Nicholas of Cusa, the paper presents Cusanus’ (...) concept of wisdom and emphasizes its Christocentric character and the close relationship between wisdom and immortality. (shrink)

The article discusses one of the early sermons by Nicholas of Cusa—Sermo VII Remittuntur ei peccata multa, written in a dialogue form, uncharacteristic of the sermon genre. The main protagonist is Mary Magdalene, who was described on the basis of biblical and apocryphal stories. According to Sermo VII she is an allegory of the soul’s love for God. The article contains the analysis of Cusanus’ concept and terminology of love as well as the description of the image of three and (...) seven stages of love. Moreover, there have been identified intertextual relations between the sermon and sources attributed to Bonaventura such as De diaeta salutis by Guillaume de Lanicia and De septem itineribus aeternitatis by Rudolf von Biberach. Finally, there are also deeper semantic analyses of more difficult fragments. (shrink)