Up to Five Books of God: The Metaphorical and Theological Background of Herborn Encyclopaedism

Abstract

Early modern encyclopaedism is generally known as a pedagogical endeavour striving to achieve not only universal access to scientific information and universal education, but also universal science and knowledge. Its intellectual-historical genealogy and historicaltheological background, however, deserve much more scholarly attention than they have received hitherto. This paper illuminates the intellectual sources of Herborn encyclopaedism in terms of some key cognitive metaphors from the field of Christian theology. I not only show some traces of Bonaventuran and Cusan philosophical theology in Herborn encyclopedism, but I also argue that this encyclopaedism must be contextualised according to theological loci, i.e. generation, incarnation of the Word, and deification (generatio, incarnatio Verbi, theosis).