That He Might Fill All Things: Creation and Christology in Two Treatises by Nicholas of Cusa

Abstract:  Theology in modernity is especially assisted by elements of Christian tradition which work to reunify, after Louis Dupré's formula, the lost synthesis of self, world and God. This article examines the tradition of Christ's immanence in creation, as seen in two short treatises by Nicholas of Cusa from 1445–46. Read together, these treatises illumine Cusa's 'pan-Christic ontology'. The first describes the prospect of 'filiation', the intellect's virtual participation in the Word's sovereignty over created being; the second explains how all beings are lesser theophanies participating in the theophany of God which is the body of Jesus.