You love, O loving God, all things in such a way that you love each single thing. You stretch forth your love to all. Yet many do not love you but prefer another to you... But you are so magnanimous, my God, that you will for rational souls to be free to love you or not to love you.... You, therefore, my God, are united to all by a bond of love, for you stretch forth your love upon all your creatures. But not every rational spirit is united to you, because it extends its love not to your lovableness but to another to which it is united and bound.
... Human nature ... cannot be united to you as loving God {i.e. God the Father}, for as such you are not its object, but it can be united to you as its lovable God {i.e. the Son}, since the lovable is the object of the one who loves...
...For I now perceive the faith which the Catholic Church holds by the revelation of the apostles: that you who are loving God beget of yourself lovable God and that you who are begotten lovable God are absolute Mediator... For you who are loving and willing God enfold all things in yourself, who are lovable God... all things have their cause or reason for being in your lovable concept. Nor is there another cause of all things except that it so pleases you... You, therefore, lovable God, are the Son of God, the loving Father. For in you is all the Father's pleasure. Thus, all createable being is enfolded in you who are lovable God...
... a person can understand you, the Father, only in your Son, who is intelligible and is the mediator, and ... to understand you is to be united to you.
(pp. 271 - 273)
But to love Christ most ardently is to hasten toward him by spiritual movement, for he is not only lovable but is love itself. When by the steps of love the spirit hastens to love itself, it is engulfed in love itself not temporally but above all time and all worldly movement.
(pp. 193-194)
Select a new topic, or explore this topic further within Christianity or across religions.
Browse additional quotations from Nicholas of Cusa.
Refer to bibliography.
Go to home page.