Marica COSTIGLIOLO

Original title: Interreligious Dialogue before and after Nicholas of Cusa: an Exegetical Approach

Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue 

Keywords: Exegesis, Hermeneutic, Interreligious Dialogue, Nicholas of Cusa, Rites.

In this article my aim is a philosophical reflection on a history of interreligious dialogue from the perspective of the dialectical relation between rites of different religions: given that rite is one of the most essential aspects of religions, it should be profitable to examine the significance of rites in light of interreligious dialogue. First, I will explain some theories about religions' difference. I will analyse texts written by Christian and Jewish authors from the Middle Ages to the Modern period in order to compare the crucial role of rite in philosophical and religious discourse among different chronological and cultural panoramas. Among the authors who wrote outstanding works focused on the relations between Islam and Christendom, I wish to mention in particular Nicholas of Cusa, who wrote the De pace fidei, one of the most famous interreligious dialogue in the Middle Ages. The following paragraph of my article is on a 12th century Jewish scholar, Judah Halevi, who wrote the book Kitab al Khazari (Sefer ha-Kuzari, in Hebrew), which is considered one of the most polemical and well-known medieval works and a source of Ramon Llull (1235-1315), the most relevant source of the De pace fidei. The second paragraph is on Aberlard, who, like Cusanus, wrote his Dialogus inter philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum in a period of conflicts and violence. Like De pace fidei Abelard’s dialogue is a work of the author’s maturity which deals with the theme of rational and intellectual knowledge as an instrument of confrontation between different confessions. I will analyse the theme of rites in this Abelard's work. I will also take a look of the work of Lessing, to highlight the fundamental role of transmission of traditions and rites for the construction of a specific religious identity.