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Johannis Scoti Erigenae De Divisione Naturae Libri Quinque: Accedunt Tredecim Auctoris Hymni Ad Carolum Calvum Ex Palimpsestis Angeli Maii
Johannes Scotus (c. 800-c. 877), who signed himself as "Eriugena" in one manuscript, and who was referred to by his contemporaries as "the Irishman" is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period. He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher of the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm. Since the seventeenth century, it has become usual to refer to this Irish philosopher as John Scottus (or 'Scotus') Eriugena to distinguish him from the thirteenth-century John Duns Scotus. Myra Uhlfelder (Bryn Mawr PhD 1952) taught classical and medieval Latin at Bryn Mawr.
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Johannes Scotus Eriugena
59 books29 followersJohn Scotus Eriugena, or Johannes Scotus Erigena (/dʒoʊˈhæniːz, -ˈhænɪs/ /ˈskoʊtəsˌ ˈskɒtəs/ /ɪˈrɪdʒənə/; c. 815 – c. 877) was an Irish theologian, neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He wrote a number of works, but is best known today for having written The Division of Nature, which has been called the final achievement of ancient philosophy, a work which "synthesizes the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries."
Erigena argued on behalf of something like a pantheistic definition of nature. He translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, and was one of the few European philosophers of his day that knew Greek, having studied in Athens. Famously, he is said to have been stabbed to death by his students at Malmesbury with their pens.
Erigena argued on behalf of something like a pantheistic definition of nature. He translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, and was one of the few European philosophers of his day that knew Greek, having studied in Athens. Famously, he is said to have been stabbed to death by his students at Malmesbury with their pens.
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March 9, 2019
This work was certainly good, but this edition is insufficient and a bit frustrating. It is largely an abridgment of a work that consists of five volumes. Volume 1 is translated in full; volume 2 is almost completely summarized. The rest of the volumes consist of summaries and extracts. It does serve as a good introduction to Eriugena though, if nothing else. This edition was originally published in 1976 and was translated by Myra Uhlfelder. It was republished by Wipf & Stock Publishers in 2011. For some reason, Goodreads librarians have insisted on combining very disparate editions with this one.
John Scotus Eriugena is a bit of an anomaly, philosophically speaking. He is usually grouped with the Scholastics, even though his Aristotelianism is only very slight. His dependence on Plato and the Neo-Platonists is far more evident, but it is difficult to determine how much his Neo-Platonism is due to his dependence on Christian Platonists like the Pseudo-Dionysius, and how much may be due to actual Neo-Platonists like Plotinus and Proclus. The Pseudo-Dionysius' dependence on Proclus is commonly accepted as self-evident, so Eriugena could have received much of his Neo-Platonist tendencies from this source. Eriugena was undoubtedly familiar with Plato though because he refers to works like the Timaeus directly. That he was familiar with Aristotle is also obvious, though his dependence on him is nowhere near as pervasive, as I related above. He often refers to Aristotelian categories in passing, but there seems to be very little else that Eriugena took from him; although, a possible Aristotelian influence maybe found in his discussion regarding causes and effects and how they play out in creation.
Besides the philosophical, the other facet of his work is theological. His affinities are largely akin to mine when it comes to this subject. He quotes the Cappadocians, Augustine and Maximus Confessor regularly. Even though he never refers to Origen directly (given the bad reputation Origen had received because of the Origenists by this point, the silence is understandable), through the Cappadocians, both Origen and Philo of Alexandria are indirect influences at the very least. As I intimated above, he also quotes the Pseudo-Dionysius regularly. He apparently considered the former a church father because he quotes him with the same frequency as the recognized fathers I mentioned. This influence also seems to be the one that was more decisive for his cosmological and philosophic positions.
Eriugena was active during the mid 9th century. This places him significantly after Encyclopedists like Boethius, Calcidius and Macrobius, and also after Damascius and the closing of the Platonic Academy; but he is also significantly prior to Scholastics like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Eriugena found himself somewhere between the Encyclopedists and the Scholastics. Indeed, he almost seems to be a bridge between them. I'm not sure any other writer could be so described. He often quotes Boethius and shares some commonalities with him, but, at the same time, his theological affinities puts him more inline with the Scholastics. Many of the same subjects will be revisited by subsequent Scholastics. Still, Eriugena is a bit too Platonic and mystical to be simply a Scholastic. Too philosophical and speculative to be an ecclesiastic theologian, but too theological to simply be a philosophical thinker. He reminds me of Ramon Llull. Like Llull, he is too anomalous to fit exclusively into a single category. Both Llull and Eriugena could roughly be considered Scholastics, but their mystical tendencies put them on the fringes of such a category. This does make them fascinating as idiosyncratic thinkers. Their works certainly deserve close scrutiny and probably repeated readings in sufficient translations/editions to be fully appreciated.
Eriugena does attempt to put himself in continuity with accepted church authorities such as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor, but many would still consider his reading of the former fathers to be open to criticism. The factor that probably plays the biggest role in his strained orthodoxy is his dependence on the Pseudo-Dionysius and in positions that were often considered fringe, like apocatastasis. Even after finishing this, I still wasn't clear as to whether Eriugena believed in universal salvation/restoration. He sometimes seems to support such a reading, and at other times to not. Even his supposed pantheism, or panentheism, is difficult to take at face value when one takes into account his apophatic tendencies. He is often profound though. Like the Encyclopedists, he will recount ideas associated with previous philosophical schools such as the Pythagoreans. His adopting of a very mystical approach to geometry I found quite interesting. I hadn't encountered (that I am aware of at any rate) someone likening ousia to a point in geometry. Like a point, ousia, according to Eriugena, is incorporeal. Eriugena seems to hold that ousia is a spiritual substance.
In his attempt to reconcile the uncreated with the created, he reminds me of more modern thinkers like Sergei Bulgakov. Bulgakov's system of sophiology is rather involved, but in broad outline it seems to have been foreshadowed by Eriugena. The concept of Wisdom (i.e. Sophia) plays a role in Eriugena's system just as it does in Bulgakov's. But Eriugena seems to hold that Wisdom/Sophia is just another name for the Logos. This was certainly the tendency of the Alexandrians. The most likely influence here was the intertestamental biblical work, the Wisdom of Solomon. It's Wisdom's relationship to nature that makes Eriugena's system reminiscent of Bulgakov's. In both systems, there is an attempt to deify creation through intermediaries. It's the eastern concept of theosis that is formative in this kind of thought.
As it stands, I think this work would be better appreciated by reading the complete five volumes. They are available in bi-lingual editions by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Eriugena primarily wrote in Latin, but was very comfortable with Greek, and he refers to Greek terms regularly throughout this work. I did purchase volume 2 of the set because I already knew that the editors of this edition hardly translated any portion of that volume here. Eventually, I do plan on reading all the volumes in their entirety. I can tell though that this work is incredibly important in the history of philosophy, if not theology as well.
John Scotus Eriugena is a bit of an anomaly, philosophically speaking. He is usually grouped with the Scholastics, even though his Aristotelianism is only very slight. His dependence on Plato and the Neo-Platonists is far more evident, but it is difficult to determine how much his Neo-Platonism is due to his dependence on Christian Platonists like the Pseudo-Dionysius, and how much may be due to actual Neo-Platonists like Plotinus and Proclus. The Pseudo-Dionysius' dependence on Proclus is commonly accepted as self-evident, so Eriugena could have received much of his Neo-Platonist tendencies from this source. Eriugena was undoubtedly familiar with Plato though because he refers to works like the Timaeus directly. That he was familiar with Aristotle is also obvious, though his dependence on him is nowhere near as pervasive, as I related above. He often refers to Aristotelian categories in passing, but there seems to be very little else that Eriugena took from him; although, a possible Aristotelian influence maybe found in his discussion regarding causes and effects and how they play out in creation.
Besides the philosophical, the other facet of his work is theological. His affinities are largely akin to mine when it comes to this subject. He quotes the Cappadocians, Augustine and Maximus Confessor regularly. Even though he never refers to Origen directly (given the bad reputation Origen had received because of the Origenists by this point, the silence is understandable), through the Cappadocians, both Origen and Philo of Alexandria are indirect influences at the very least. As I intimated above, he also quotes the Pseudo-Dionysius regularly. He apparently considered the former a church father because he quotes him with the same frequency as the recognized fathers I mentioned. This influence also seems to be the one that was more decisive for his cosmological and philosophic positions.
Eriugena was active during the mid 9th century. This places him significantly after Encyclopedists like Boethius, Calcidius and Macrobius, and also after Damascius and the closing of the Platonic Academy; but he is also significantly prior to Scholastics like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Eriugena found himself somewhere between the Encyclopedists and the Scholastics. Indeed, he almost seems to be a bridge between them. I'm not sure any other writer could be so described. He often quotes Boethius and shares some commonalities with him, but, at the same time, his theological affinities puts him more inline with the Scholastics. Many of the same subjects will be revisited by subsequent Scholastics. Still, Eriugena is a bit too Platonic and mystical to be simply a Scholastic. Too philosophical and speculative to be an ecclesiastic theologian, but too theological to simply be a philosophical thinker. He reminds me of Ramon Llull. Like Llull, he is too anomalous to fit exclusively into a single category. Both Llull and Eriugena could roughly be considered Scholastics, but their mystical tendencies put them on the fringes of such a category. This does make them fascinating as idiosyncratic thinkers. Their works certainly deserve close scrutiny and probably repeated readings in sufficient translations/editions to be fully appreciated.
Eriugena does attempt to put himself in continuity with accepted church authorities such as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor, but many would still consider his reading of the former fathers to be open to criticism. The factor that probably plays the biggest role in his strained orthodoxy is his dependence on the Pseudo-Dionysius and in positions that were often considered fringe, like apocatastasis. Even after finishing this, I still wasn't clear as to whether Eriugena believed in universal salvation/restoration. He sometimes seems to support such a reading, and at other times to not. Even his supposed pantheism, or panentheism, is difficult to take at face value when one takes into account his apophatic tendencies. He is often profound though. Like the Encyclopedists, he will recount ideas associated with previous philosophical schools such as the Pythagoreans. His adopting of a very mystical approach to geometry I found quite interesting. I hadn't encountered (that I am aware of at any rate) someone likening ousia to a point in geometry. Like a point, ousia, according to Eriugena, is incorporeal. Eriugena seems to hold that ousia is a spiritual substance.
In his attempt to reconcile the uncreated with the created, he reminds me of more modern thinkers like Sergei Bulgakov. Bulgakov's system of sophiology is rather involved, but in broad outline it seems to have been foreshadowed by Eriugena. The concept of Wisdom (i.e. Sophia) plays a role in Eriugena's system just as it does in Bulgakov's. But Eriugena seems to hold that Wisdom/Sophia is just another name for the Logos. This was certainly the tendency of the Alexandrians. The most likely influence here was the intertestamental biblical work, the Wisdom of Solomon. It's Wisdom's relationship to nature that makes Eriugena's system reminiscent of Bulgakov's. In both systems, there is an attempt to deify creation through intermediaries. It's the eastern concept of theosis that is formative in this kind of thought.
As it stands, I think this work would be better appreciated by reading the complete five volumes. They are available in bi-lingual editions by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Eriugena primarily wrote in Latin, but was very comfortable with Greek, and he refers to Greek terms regularly throughout this work. I did purchase volume 2 of the set because I already knew that the editors of this edition hardly translated any portion of that volume here. Eventually, I do plan on reading all the volumes in their entirety. I can tell though that this work is incredibly important in the history of philosophy, if not theology as well.
March 15, 2012
John Scotus Eriugena, an Irishman transplanted to France, translated early Greek church scholars into Latin.
Whew! You don't see many of them these days.
What Scotus talks about – the nature of God, man and the Trinity – generally drives me nuts. Yet the man himself, his underlying sense of hope and humor, a certain restrained passion.... I can't justify my interest through philosophy; it's a personal reaction to someone I'd love to share a few beers with across the table. I see the Irishman peeking through – fearfully erudite, voluble, puckish, uncertain, windbaggy at its best.
For exposition, Scotus uses the time-honored student-teacher interchange. Often, the argument seems to be developing in the teacher's head, with the student is an internal voice that Scotus uses to question and expand himself. At times he reaches a point where he finds himself cornered mentally – there's no final answer, a fact that he admits, if somewhat sheepishly.
Much of Scotus's writing seems like muck on the first reading (or second or third), but in most cases there's actually a clear, lovely through-line, often a pretty amazing one:
God creates Himself and all else continually, and creation as we know it had no physical, temporal start but has always existed in God's mind. All of creation is in God, all is God, there is nothing but God. Man is in and of God – is God in that sense. At the ultimate level, both Man's soul and God exhibit unity and simplicity; Like God, in our spirit, we have no parts, no divisions.
There's also a mystical side to him with an Asian slant:
Of God: "It is Form; It is not Form. It is Formlessness; It is not Formlessness." This is next door neighbor to the Buddhist "form is emptiness, emptiness is form."
Scotus is a firm believer that all nature is cyclical – for which he gives endless examples – and that mankind will return to God and blessedness as a matter of course.
Some of his expoundings on God and the universe would fit well with modern cosmology. The closest cosmologists have come to "explaining" why there is a universe, rather than just nothing, is that particles spontaneously pop into existence and wink out again. Basically, there can't be "nothing"; it must manifest as "something." Scotus says pretty much the same thing in his discussions of cycles and of God's continually creating all, including Himself. Throughout creation, something and nothing roll over each other like puppies.
Scotus – working in the Dark Ages, multi-lingual and multi-scriptoral at a time when European kings were illiterate – was centuries ahead of his time in many of his arguments.
Whew! You don't see many of them these days.
What Scotus talks about – the nature of God, man and the Trinity – generally drives me nuts. Yet the man himself, his underlying sense of hope and humor, a certain restrained passion.... I can't justify my interest through philosophy; it's a personal reaction to someone I'd love to share a few beers with across the table. I see the Irishman peeking through – fearfully erudite, voluble, puckish, uncertain, windbaggy at its best.
For exposition, Scotus uses the time-honored student-teacher interchange. Often, the argument seems to be developing in the teacher's head, with the student is an internal voice that Scotus uses to question and expand himself. At times he reaches a point where he finds himself cornered mentally – there's no final answer, a fact that he admits, if somewhat sheepishly.
Much of Scotus's writing seems like muck on the first reading (or second or third), but in most cases there's actually a clear, lovely through-line, often a pretty amazing one:
God creates Himself and all else continually, and creation as we know it had no physical, temporal start but has always existed in God's mind. All of creation is in God, all is God, there is nothing but God. Man is in and of God – is God in that sense. At the ultimate level, both Man's soul and God exhibit unity and simplicity; Like God, in our spirit, we have no parts, no divisions.
There's also a mystical side to him with an Asian slant:
Of God: "It is Form; It is not Form. It is Formlessness; It is not Formlessness." This is next door neighbor to the Buddhist "form is emptiness, emptiness is form."
Scotus is a firm believer that all nature is cyclical – for which he gives endless examples – and that mankind will return to God and blessedness as a matter of course.
Some of his expoundings on God and the universe would fit well with modern cosmology. The closest cosmologists have come to "explaining" why there is a universe, rather than just nothing, is that particles spontaneously pop into existence and wink out again. Basically, there can't be "nothing"; it must manifest as "something." Scotus says pretty much the same thing in his discussions of cycles and of God's continually creating all, including Himself. Throughout creation, something and nothing roll over each other like puppies.
Scotus – working in the Dark Ages, multi-lingual and multi-scriptoral at a time when European kings were illiterate – was centuries ahead of his time in many of his arguments.
March 9, 2024
Absolutely gorgeous. Erigena's vision of creation being restored, some to theosis and eternity with God, and others to their original state of nature, is breathtaking in its scope.
At the heart of Periphyseon is a conviction that God is radically Good and that there will be a day when all evil is done away with. If he does not think about Hell in the same way that traditional Western Christians do, and ultimately lands somewhere in the camp of Universalism, and if this makes some of us uncomfortable (myself included), then it is important to recognize that the reasons for his arrival there are sincere. They flow from an outworking of the problem of evil - That evil itself is deprivation, that is to say, evil itself does not, properly speaking, exist (Which he gets from Augustine) - and from carrying to its conclusion the radical love of God. All creatures subsist in God, and those that do evil merely negate their own being. But one day, all will be restored. Evil, insofar as it is nothing, will be punished, but those who do evil, being made in God's image, will not be able to completely annihilate their essence. In other words, Hell can't really exist for Erigena, because it seems to suggest that we can destroy the Imago Dei.
We can't, he suggests. All in all, this book is one I've been meditating on since December and am considering picking up the unabridged (700+-page) version now that I've read this abridgement. Erigena's philosophy borrows heavily from Neoplatonists and from Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Though ultimately attempting to straddle the Orthodox/Catholic divide in a way that no one before him ever had, Erigena seems to lean more Orthodox, and perhaps that is why the Catholic Church later condemned him.
I'm not sure. I'm no historian. Systems of philosophy are necessarily hubristic. Kant and Hegel once enamored me, until I realized the deep problems I had with their overly mind-centered ontologies.
Erigena, on the other hand, is playful, romantic, and full-bodied. Like Chesterton, he is a joy to read, and though he alludes often to other writers, he is a true original. He pairs well with Cusanus, the German mystic who lived several centuries later.
One more note: Philosophy is dangerous. I have no illusions about this. St. Paul specifically warned against it, and Ecclesiastes tells us that "much study is a weariness of the flesh". The Christian Western world needs to reclaim Erigena if only for the sense of wonder he brings to the cosmos, but pair him with someone practical in your reading life. Thomas Kempis, maybe, or Brother Lawrence.
If you do, you will certainly enjoy the journey.
At the heart of Periphyseon is a conviction that God is radically Good and that there will be a day when all evil is done away with. If he does not think about Hell in the same way that traditional Western Christians do, and ultimately lands somewhere in the camp of Universalism, and if this makes some of us uncomfortable (myself included), then it is important to recognize that the reasons for his arrival there are sincere. They flow from an outworking of the problem of evil - That evil itself is deprivation, that is to say, evil itself does not, properly speaking, exist (Which he gets from Augustine) - and from carrying to its conclusion the radical love of God. All creatures subsist in God, and those that do evil merely negate their own being. But one day, all will be restored. Evil, insofar as it is nothing, will be punished, but those who do evil, being made in God's image, will not be able to completely annihilate their essence. In other words, Hell can't really exist for Erigena, because it seems to suggest that we can destroy the Imago Dei.
We can't, he suggests. All in all, this book is one I've been meditating on since December and am considering picking up the unabridged (700+-page) version now that I've read this abridgement. Erigena's philosophy borrows heavily from Neoplatonists and from Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Though ultimately attempting to straddle the Orthodox/Catholic divide in a way that no one before him ever had, Erigena seems to lean more Orthodox, and perhaps that is why the Catholic Church later condemned him.
I'm not sure. I'm no historian. Systems of philosophy are necessarily hubristic. Kant and Hegel once enamored me, until I realized the deep problems I had with their overly mind-centered ontologies.
Erigena, on the other hand, is playful, romantic, and full-bodied. Like Chesterton, he is a joy to read, and though he alludes often to other writers, he is a true original. He pairs well with Cusanus, the German mystic who lived several centuries later.
One more note: Philosophy is dangerous. I have no illusions about this. St. Paul specifically warned against it, and Ecclesiastes tells us that "much study is a weariness of the flesh". The Christian Western world needs to reclaim Erigena if only for the sense of wonder he brings to the cosmos, but pair him with someone practical in your reading life. Thomas Kempis, maybe, or Brother Lawrence.
If you do, you will certainly enjoy the journey.
Want to Read
May 16, 2021[Not sure if it's this book but discusses the nature of dialectic.]
October 18, 2022
Eriugena is a hermetic king
May 21, 2011
Let me begin by saying that the only reason this book receives four stars as opposed to five is due to the fact that it is heavily abridged. Aside from that, it is an excellent summation of the key themes found in what has been referred to as the greatest speculative and philosophical achievement of the early Middle Ages.
November 9, 2014
Masterpiece of mysticism/rationalism.
October 26, 2016
Eriugena has given us another classic work of Christian Platonism, true, profound, difficult and destined to be ignored by all lightweight church historians (falsely so-called).
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews