CUSANUS ON DIONYSIUS: THE TURN TO SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY1

Nicholas of Cusa owed a substantial debt to Dionysius the Areopagite. The debt is present in On Learned Ignorance (1440) and intensifies in the later works. This essay explores the nature of the debt, focusing on the way in which Cusanus re‐writes the vision he receives from the Areopagite. One discovers in his reading a certain anticipation of the Hegelian dialectic (with which it is ultimately not identical) and a deep continuity with patristic and medieval authorities in areas such as christology and pneumatology. All in all, Cusanus reads the work of Dionysius as the ideal form of speculative theology.