‘Metabolism’ as Metaphor of Appropriation in Nicholas of Cusa’s Sermones

In his sermons, Cusanus provides a variety of metaphors encouraging the audience to pursue their relation to God and to become aware of God’s recognizability in everyday life. Besides the employment of metaphors of genealogical relations (family), matrimony, education (master-disciple-relation), artes mechanicae (everyday-life professions concerning craftsmanship), Cusanus offers a wide-ranging repertoire of metaphors that include several steps of digestion. The focus of this paper will be on selected metaphors that appear to be linked to metabolism.