We begin with the statement of K.-O. Apel, repeated by João Maria André (1986, p. 400), that "[…] it is in the ‘mystic' of the ‘logos' and in the negative theology of pseudo-Dionysus that, in a determinate manner, Cusa would receive the fundamental features of his philosophy of language". Based on De filiatione Dei (1450), we reflect on the fundamental and constitutive relationship between the mental human word and the eternal Word or Logos. The importance of this text in the context of the problem of language in Cusa is recognized by Casarella (1992), specifically for its Christological inflection in relation to Cusa's first sermons. In opposition to the intra-Trinitarian reflection of the sermons, in De filiatione Dei the humanly visible image of Christ becomes the mirror of language; that is, it is in Christ that we see the perfect mode that can be expressed by means of language. Cusa's text is a meditation on John 1:12: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name". Of principal interest to us are the examples adduced by Cusa that make explicit the way in which we intellectually receive the divine unity, as it is in these examples or enigmas that the author reflects on the constitutive relation between the mental human word and the ineffable mental word.
Cusa; De filiatione Dei ; Mystic; Verbum ; Logos