DOI Artikel:
Johnson, Timothy J.: Place, Analogy, and Transcendence
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31468#0096
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Place, Analogy, and Transcendence | 95
try) and the accurate measurement of the space, at times seemingly infinite, between
them (mathematics and astronomy)?
Are we nevertheless now out of place and lost in space …? Perhaps Pascal feared
just such a reality, when he claimed, “The eternal silences of these infinite spaces
terrifies me.” ⁴³
Epilogue
Steeped in the Franciscan traditions of Bonaventure and Bacon, Christopher Columbus
is one of many figures who mark the transitus to modernity. ⁴⁴ Selected
echoes of his claim ring with a certainly familiarity:
“I have had commerce and conversation with knowledgeable people of the
clergy and the laity, Latins and Greeks, Jews, and Moors, and with many
others of different religions. Our Lord has favored my occupation and has
given me an intelligent mind, He has endowed me with a great talent for
seamanship; sufficient ability in astrology, geometry and arithmetic; and the
mental and physical dexterity required to draw spherical maps of cities, rivers
and mountains, islands and ports, with everything in its proper place. During
this time I have studied all kinds of texts: cosmography, histories, chronicles,
philosophy, and other disciplines.” ⁴⁵
While other echoes are no longer seem intelligible:
“Through these writings, the hand of Our Lord opened my mind to the possibility
of sailing to the Indies and gave me the will to attempt this voyage.
With this burning ambition I came to your Highnesses. Everyone who heard
about my enterprise rejected it with laughter and ridicule. Neither all the
sciences that I mentioned previously nor citations I have drawn from them
were of any help to me. Only Your Highnesses had faith and perseverance.
Who could doubt that this flash of understanding was the work of the Holy
Spirit as well as my own?” ⁴⁶
43 From the Penseés and quoted in Casey, Getting Back (note 1 above), p. x.
44 On Columbus, the Franciscans, and the New World, see Timothy J. Johnson, The Apocalypse in St.
Augustine. Christopher Columbus, Religion, and the New World, in: The Cord, 63/3, 2013, pp. 209 –233.
45 The “Book of Prophecies” edited by Christopher Columbus, ed. Ruberto Rusconi/trans. Blair Sullivan
(Repertorium Columbianum 3), Berkeley 1997, p. 67.
46 The “Book of Prophecies” (note 45 above), p. 67.
try) and the accurate measurement of the space, at times seemingly infinite, between
them (mathematics and astronomy)?
Are we nevertheless now out of place and lost in space …? Perhaps Pascal feared
just such a reality, when he claimed, “The eternal silences of these infinite spaces
terrifies me.” ⁴³
Epilogue
Steeped in the Franciscan traditions of Bonaventure and Bacon, Christopher Columbus
is one of many figures who mark the transitus to modernity. ⁴⁴ Selected
echoes of his claim ring with a certainly familiarity:
“I have had commerce and conversation with knowledgeable people of the
clergy and the laity, Latins and Greeks, Jews, and Moors, and with many
others of different religions. Our Lord has favored my occupation and has
given me an intelligent mind, He has endowed me with a great talent for
seamanship; sufficient ability in astrology, geometry and arithmetic; and the
mental and physical dexterity required to draw spherical maps of cities, rivers
and mountains, islands and ports, with everything in its proper place. During
this time I have studied all kinds of texts: cosmography, histories, chronicles,
philosophy, and other disciplines.” ⁴⁵
While other echoes are no longer seem intelligible:
“Through these writings, the hand of Our Lord opened my mind to the possibility
of sailing to the Indies and gave me the will to attempt this voyage.
With this burning ambition I came to your Highnesses. Everyone who heard
about my enterprise rejected it with laughter and ridicule. Neither all the
sciences that I mentioned previously nor citations I have drawn from them
were of any help to me. Only Your Highnesses had faith and perseverance.
Who could doubt that this flash of understanding was the work of the Holy
Spirit as well as my own?” ⁴⁶
43 From the Penseés and quoted in Casey, Getting Back (note 1 above), p. x.
44 On Columbus, the Franciscans, and the New World, see Timothy J. Johnson, The Apocalypse in St.
Augustine. Christopher Columbus, Religion, and the New World, in: The Cord, 63/3, 2013, pp. 209 –233.
45 The “Book of Prophecies” edited by Christopher Columbus, ed. Ruberto Rusconi/trans. Blair Sullivan
(Repertorium Columbianum 3), Berkeley 1997, p. 67.
46 The “Book of Prophecies” (note 45 above), p. 67.