Albertson, David (Author)
Oxford University Press
Physical Details: xii + 483 pp.
Language: English
This book uncovers the lost history of Christianity's encounters with Pythagorean religious ideas before the Renaissance. The writings of Thierry of Chartres (d. 1157) and Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) represent a robust Christian Neopythagoreanism that reconceived the Trinity and the Incarnation within the framework of Greek number theory. Platonist theologies of the divine One and the decad had developed slowly between the Old Academy and Plotinus and were preserved in different ways in late antique Neoplatonism. By reading Boethius and Augustine in radically new ways, Thierry activated a suppressed potential in ancient Christian traditions that harmonized the divine Word with notions of divine Number. Although he was influential in his lifetime, his ideas remained outside the mainstream in subsequent centuries. When Nicholas of Cusa encountered fragments of Thierry's works---and those of Thierry's medieval readers---he drew on them liberally in his first major mystical treatise. Yet tensions within this dossier of Chartrian sources spurred Cusanus to find ways to reconcile their competing understandings of Word and Number. In this way over three decades, Nicholas demonstrated how to articulate Christian doctrines within a Neopythagorean cosmology, or mathematized nature. These two examples of mathematical theologies challenge contemporary assumptions about the relation of religion and modern science and about the nature of modernity itself.
...MoreReview Richard J. Oosterhoff (2016) Review of "Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 158-160).
Review Izbicki, Thomas M. (2015) Review of "Mathematical Theologies: Nicholas of Cusa and the Legacy of Thierry of Chartres". Renaissance Quarterly (pp. 664-665).
Similar Citations
Book
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, ;
Gierer, Alfred;
(2004)
Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues: Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken
(/isis/citation/CBB000410017/)
Book
Gierer, Alfred;
(2002)
Cusanus: Philosophie im Vorfeld moderner Naturwissenschaft
(/isis/citation/CBB000410018/)
Book
Enrico Peroli;
(2022)
Niccolò Cusano: La vita, l'opera, il pensiero
(/isis/citation/CBB973196536/)
Book
Koetsier, Teun;
Bergmans, Luc;
(2005)
Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study
(/isis/citation/CBB000500288/)
Book
Böhlandt, Marco;
(2009)
Verborgene Zahn -- Verborgener Gott: Mathematik und Naturwissen im Denken des Nicolaus Cusanus (1401--1464)
(/isis/citation/CBB001023242/)
Thesis
Acar, Rahim;
(2002)
Creation: A Comparative Study between Avicenna's and Aquinas' Positions
(/isis/citation/CBB001562516/)
Chapter
Gregory, Tullio;
(2008)
Cosmogonia biblica e cosmologie cristiane
(/isis/citation/CBB001020553/)
Book
Edson, Evelyn;
Savage-Smith, Emilie;
(2004)
Medieval Views of the Cosmos
(/isis/citation/CBB000501459/)
Chapter
Nicolaïdis, Efthymios;
(2006)
La cosmologie “Savante” de l'Eglise Chrétienne Orientale
(/isis/citation/CBB001022413/)
Chapter
Gary B. Ferngren;
(2011)
Christianity and Science
(/isis/citation/CBB676270378/)
Book
Hiscock, Nigel;
(2007)
The Symbol at Your Door: Number and Geometry in Religious Architecture of the Greek and Latin Middle Ages
(/isis/citation/CBB000774599/)
Chapter
Carlo Toffalori;
(2018)
Lo Cielo del Sole: la Matematica e Dante
(/isis/citation/CBB188109492/)
Article
Clelia Vittoria Crialesi;
(2016)
Le opere dei sei giorni: artimetica ed esegesi secundum physicam in Teodorico di Chartres
(/isis/citation/CBB753678029/)
Article
Bialas, Volker;
(2003)
Cusanus, ein Denker an der Grenze der Welten: Die spekulative Kosmologie des Nikolaus von Kues
(/isis/citation/CBB000501803/)
Article
Gal, Ofer;
Chen-Morris, Raz;
(2005)
The Archaeology of the Inverse Square Law: (1) Metaphysical Images and Mathematical Practices
(/isis/citation/CBB000773905/)
Book
Kremer, Klaus;
(2004)
Praegustatio naturalis sapientiae: Gott suchen mit Nikolaus von Kues
(/isis/citation/CBB000701225/)
Chapter
Aris, Marc-Aeilko;
(2008)
Das Sein der Dauer und die Ordnung der Zeit: Nikolaus von Kues über den Jüngsten Tag und die Tage zuvor
(/isis/citation/CBB000952995/)
Book
Dino Boccaletti;
(2020)
The Waters Above the Firmament: An Exemplary Case of Faith-Reason Conflict
(/isis/citation/CBB686932770/)
Chapter
Heldman, Marilyn E.;
(2012)
Cosmos Imagery in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia
(/isis/citation/CBB001553654/)
Book
Boustan, Raʿanan S.;
Reed, Annette Yoshiko;
(2004)
Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions
(/isis/citation/CBB000741038/)
Be the first to comment!