Cusa "On the Vision of God" - Preface

On the Vision of God by Nicholas of Cusa To the Abbot and Brothers of Tegernsee I will now explain, dearest brothers, what I had earlier promised you about the facility of mystical theology, for I know that you are led by a zeal for God, and I count you worthy for the uncovering of this most precious and bountiful treasure. But I pray first, the word from on high and the all-powerful discourse will alone, which alone, can disclose itself, may be given to me in order to set forth, according to your grasp, the wonders which are revealed beyond all sensible, rational, and intellectual sight. But by means of a very simple and commonplace method, I will attempt to lead you experientially into the most sacred darkness. While you abide there, feeling the presence of the inaccessible light, each of you, in the measure granted him by God, will of himself endeavor to draw continuously nearer and in this place to foretaste, by a most delicious sampling, that feast of eternal happiness to which we have been called in the word of life, through the gospel of the ever-blessed Christ. Preface In the effort to transport you to divine things by human means, I must use some kind of similitude. But among human works, I have found no image more suitable for our purpose than that of an all-seeing figure. Through the painter's subtle art, its face is made to appear as if looking on all around it. Many excellent pictures of this kind may be found, such as that of the archeress in the Forum of Nuremberg, that of the great artist Roger in the very valuable painting which hangs in the court at Brussels, that of Veronica in my chapel at Koblenz, that of the angel holding the arms of the church in the castle at Brixton, and many others elsewhere. However, so that you not be deficient in the exercise which requires a sensible image of this kind, I am sending to your charity a painting that I was able to acquire containing an all-seeing image which I call an icon of God. Hang this up someplace, perhaps on a north wall, and you, brothers, stand around it, equally distant from it, and gaze at it, and each of you will experience that from whatever place one observes it, the face will seem to regard him alone. To a brother standing in the east, the face will look eastward. To one in the south, it will look southward, and to the one in the west, westward. First, therefore, you will marvel at how it is possible that the face looks on all and each one of you at the same time, for the imagination of the one who is standing in the east cannot conceive that the icon's gaze is turned in any other direction, such as the west or the south. Next, let the brother who was in the east place himself in the west, and he will experience the gaze as fastened on him there, just as it was before in the east. Since he knows that the icon is fixed and unchanged, he will marvel at the changing of its unchangeable gaze. Even if, while fixing his gaze on the icon, a brother walks from west to east, he will discover that the icon's gaze continuously follows him, and if he returns from east to west, it will likewise not leave him. He will marvel at how its gaze was moved, although it remains motionless, and his imagination will not be able to grasp how it is moved in the same manner with someone coming forth to meet him from the opposite direction. If he wishes to experience this, let him have one of his brothers pass across from east to west while looking at the icon as he himself moves from west to east. When they meet, let them ask the other whether the icon's gaze continuously turns with him, and he will hear that it moves just the same in the opposite direction. He will believe him, but unless he believed him, he would not imagine this to be possible, and when he is shown this by his brother, he will discover that the face looking unfailingly on all who walk before it, even from opposite directions. Therefore, he will experience that the immobile face is moved toward the east in such a way that it is also moved simultaneously toward the west. That it is moved toward the north in such a way that it is also moved towards the south. That it is moved toward a single place in such a way that it is also moved simultaneously toward all places, and that it beholds a single movement in such a way that it beholds all movements simultaneously. And while the brother observes how this gaze deserts no one, he will see that it takes diligent care of each, just as if it cared only for the one on whom its gaze seemed to rest, and for no other, and to such an extent that the one whom it regards cannot conceive that it should care for another, he will also see that it has the same very diligent concern for the least creature as for the greatest, and for the whole universe. It is by this sensible appearance that I propose to uplift you, very beloved brothers, through a certain devotional exercise, to mystical theology, and to this end I will first discuss three important premises.