SCOTUS
460
SCOTUS
him open to the charge of heresj' and provoked fresh Icomachy. His polemic was denounced by Prudentiiis of Troves and Florus of Lyons, who invited the censnres of tlie Church on nineteen propositions corresponding to the nineteen chapters of the essay De Pradestinatione. We shall not enter into the nice distinctions of the dif- ferent species of predestination, which lead, by so many slightly divergent routes, to heresy. The controversial- ists, like " the infernal peers,"
"Reason'd hicrh Of providence, foreknowledge, will, iuid fate; Fix'd fiite, fiee-will, forekiiowledi^e al)soiuie; And found no end, in wandei'iiig mazes lost."
The master of the Palatine School added to his version of The Celestial Hierarchy translations of the other works credited to Dionysius the Areopagite. At some subsequent time he completed his own system of philos- ophy under the title De Dicisione Naturie, or, rather, with the Greek designation ITtpi (pvcriKFjc: fiipiaixov. The controversial tracts of John had raised up antag- onists and enemies; his philosophical tenets occasioned perplexity and alarm. Pope Nicholas, in 867, com- ])lained to Charles the Bald that works of doubtful ten- dency—the versions of Dionysius Areopagita — had been promulgated by John Scotus without having been first submitted to the approval of the apostolic see. He re- quired the king, tlierefore, to send Scotus to Pome to explain and justify his procedure, or, at least, to dismiss him from the superintendence of the Palatine School. The king's action is unknown : silentium ieijit altiim. That he did anything is improbable; but Scotus Erig- ena drops almost entirely out of view after 8G7. He is sometimes said to have withdrawn into seclusion in France. He is otherwise said to have returned to Eng- land after the death of Charles, and to have been placed by king Alfred at the head of his new school at Oxford, whence he was driven by the commotions of the stu- dents. According to ^Matthew of Westminster and Roger de Hoveden, he was intrusted with the school at the monastery of ^Meldun, where, having enraged his pupils by his severity, he was murdered by them with their styles (stilettos). This last story has, however, beeti transferred to the philosopher from another and some- what later Joannes Scotus, who taught at Athelney. John Erigena seems to have ended his days in France, and to have died before STfi. A letter written in that year to Charles the Bald by Anastasius Bibliothecarius speaks of him as if he were dead. He passed away like a bright meteor flashing through the midnight dark- ness, visible only in a brief transit, undiscoverable in its earlier and in its later course.
H. Works. — The principal works of Scotus Erigena — the works which gave him re()iitation and provoked censure — have been already mentioned, and will have to be noticed again in examining his doctrine. Several other tractates were written l>y him, or have been as- signed to him. We cannot detertnine the dates or the sequence of his intellectual lal)ors. His translations were probably communicated, in their progress, to the circle of curious incpiirers with whom he was associated in the royal court, and might thus become partially known long before their completion. There was no such definite chronology in respect to literary produc- tions in the days of manuscript as has Ix-en usual since the introduction of printing. We cannot, tlierefore, ar- range the works of ICrigena according to any chron- ological scheme. He translateil all tiie works of the alleged Areopagite: The (Mes/ial Hierarchji : — The Ec- clesiastical llierarchi/ : — The Hook of the /Hrine Karnes: — The Myslical Theolor/y : — and his Ten Letters. Some of these may have been previously rendered into Latin. He translated the Scholia of ^faximus on the writings of Dionysius. He composed a tractate On the Eucha- rist, in which he denied the dogma of the real presence, and aniic'ipated the position of Palph Cudworth, that the sacrament of the Lord's supper is only a commemo- ration ol his sacrifice: tantum memoria vert corporis et
sanguinis ejus. It is not obvious how this opinion is consistent with the realistic or the pantheistic character of the philosophy of Scotus, but its coherence may be detected. Erigena is said to have left behind him a work On the Vision of God, and other disputations, which have been lost. The reveries of Plotinus, and tlie rev- ery upon reveries of Marcilius Ficinus, might enable us to recompose some image of the theory of the Vision of God if we could imitate the German fashion of recon- structing the unknown out of our inner consciousness. A treatise On the Duties of Man was ascribed to him by the abbot Trithemius, and several other productions have been attributed to him with little reason.
HL Philosophy. — It is not proposed to enter further into the theological positions of Erigena than may be necessary to show their relations to his speculative doc- trine and to interpret it, or to be interpreted by it. There is a close correspondence between his theology and his philosophy, as must always be the case when different lines of thought are pursued bj' the same per- son with earnestness and sincerity. Moreover, the dis- tinctive character of any philosophical doctrine is easily and briefly determined, notwithstanding variety of man- ifestations and multiplicity of details, by detecting the fimdamental or cardinal principle, which must control those manifestations and details if there be honesty of purpose and consecution of thought. Such a principle may be readily discerned in the tenets of Scotus Erige- na and in their developments. The essential unity of the divine nature is his central dogma, whence every- thing proceeds, and whence arises his heterodoxy in regard to the Trinity. Whether he reached this posi- tion by independent reflection, or deduced it from logical postulates, or derived it from Neo-Platonic suggestions, or from all sources unconsciously combined, this seems to be the prolific germ of his whole system. He dis- tinctly acknowledges his obligation to Dionysius; yet the obligation was not one of servile acceptance, but of original development. However the spirit may be dis- guised under hard dialectical forms and under derivative arguments and phrases, there is a genuine and vigorous originality in John Scotus which is evinced in many ways. The unity of the divine nature is his point of departure. Hence, all things proceed from God; all things subsist in (lod ; all things terminate in God. The procedure of Erigena is this, and it gives the title to his work On the Division of Nature. The generic division of nature is fourfold: (1) the nature that cre- ates and is not created; (2) the nature that is created and creates; (3) the nature that is created, but does not create; (4) the nature which is neither created nor cre- ates. It will be observed that there is a gradual and delusive sliding of meanings in the application of the slippery and perplexing word "nature," and that the term cannot be strictly applied to that which is not cre- ated ; therefore neither to the first nor to the fourth genus. It is necessary to note this, as the errors and heresies charged upon Erigena are in part due to the insufficiency and indistinctness of all language — defects which he strenuously asserts himself. Turning to his four divisions, it is obvious that the nature which cre- ates and is not created is the divinity; but the divinity as an abstract conception, a metaphysical entity, the Neo-Platonic Unnm or Unitas, not a personal God: that the nature which is created but creates is also a vague abstrjiction, but nnist mean the forces, or laws, or ideas regulating all secondary creation — operating, therefore, simply by the impidse and constraint of their Creator: that the nature which is created but does not create is the only one which corresponds with the ordinary con- ception of the term, and signifies the concrete result of the action of the laws imposed and of the forces com- municated by the Supreme Nature — sustained, therefore, tiy him, and subsisting in him because supported by his laws and by his continuous action : and that the nature which neither creates nor is created is a nonentity, an unknown and indefinable potentiality, possible but un-