Skip to content
Back to the Library

The Medieval Church · 1458

On the Beryl

De Beryllo

Nicholas of Cusa · 1401–1464

What it is

A short work using the image of a lens through which the invisible becomes visible, on how the mind may glimpse the coincidence of opposites in God.

Why it lasted

The clearest statement of Cusa's method, and a favourite of later thinkers from Bruno to the German idealists.

Where to read it

This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

Read next

Close to this one