ii NICOLAUS OF CUSA 141 



any one thing, the knowledge of all and any others is 

 necessarily contained, requiring only a proper method 

 for its extraction, as out of the seed may be brought 

 the great tree. Therefore, to Bruno, the hermit Lully 

 seemed "omniscient and almost divine," his method an 

 inspiration from above. 1 There is little, however, to 

 connect Bruno with the substantive teaching of Lully, 

 apart from the method. He explicitly rejects, for 

 example, the main contention of Lully, that the Christian 

 dogmas are capable of demonstration by reason. 

 " Those relations (i.e. between God and man), which 

 have been revealed to the worshippers of Christ alone, 

 are contrary to all reasoning, philosophy, other faiths 

 and superstitions, and allow of no demonstration but of 

 faith only, in spite of what Lully in his madness 

 (delirando) attempted to do, in face of the opinion of 

 the great theologians." 2 



Foremost of all, however, of the influences which 

 directed Bruno's thought was that of the Cardinal Cusanus - 

 Nicolaus of Cusa (Nicholas ChrypfFs). A " pre-refor- 

 mation reformer," he stands both in theology and 

 philosophy between the old and the new eras, summing 

 up in his own theory the purest theology and the most 

 refined philosophy of the Middle Ages, yet inevitably 

 pointing forwards to a scientific and religious reform 

 which should transcend both. " Where," cried Bruno 

 in his oration at Wittenberg, " will you find his equal ? 

 and the greater he is the fewer are they to whom he is 

 accessible. Had not the robe of the priest infected his 

 genius it would have been not merely equal to but far 

 superior to that of Pythagoras." 3 " He knew and 



1 Op. Lot. ii. 2. 329, 3. 297. 2 De Comp. Arch. ii. 2. 42. 



3 i. i. 17. On Cusanus v. Falckenberg, Grundzuge der Philosophic des Nicolaus 

 Cusanus, 1880, Uebinger, Philosophic des N. C., 1880, and Gotteslehre des N. C., 



