John Scotus Erigena.
The most pronounced Pantheist among the schoolmen was John Scotus Erigena. Little is known of his origin or history. From his name Scotus and designation Erigena (son of Erin), it has been generally assumed that he was an Irishman. It is known that he enjoyed the protection and patronage of Charles the Bald of France, and that he taught in Paris and perhaps in England.
His principal work is that " De Divisione Naturae." By nature he means all being. The fourfold divisions which he makes of nature, are only so many manifestations or aspects under which the one Being is revealed or is to be contemplated. Those divisions are : (1.) That which creates and is not created. (2.) That which creates and is created. (3.) That which does not create but is created. (4.) That which neither creates nor is created. " This division of nature," says Ritter,^ " is made simply to show that all is God, since the four natures are only revelations of God."
Scotus agreed with most philosophers in making philosophy and religion identical, and in admitting no higher source of knowledge than human reason. " Conficitur," he says, " veram esse philo- sophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam." ^
The leading principles of his philosophy are the following: (1.) The distinction with him between being and not-being, is not that between something and nothing, between substantial ex- istence and non-existence, but between affirmation and negation. Whatever may be affirmed is ; whatever is denied is not. (2.) All being consists in thought. Nothing is but as it exists in the mind and consciousness. (8.) With God, being, thought, and creating are identical. God's being consists in thinking, and his thoughts are tilings. In other words, the thought of God is the real being of all that is. (4.) Consequently the world is eternal. God and the world are identical. He is the " totum omnium"
His system is, therefore, a form of idealistic Pantheism. Ritter devotes the ninth book of his " Geschichte der Christlichen Philo- sophie," 3 to the exposition of the philosophy of Scotus. The few following passages from the " De Divisione Naturae," are sufficient to show the correctness of the above statement of his principles.
" Intellectus enim omnium in Deo essentia omnium est. Siqui- ■Jem id ipsum est Deo cognostere, priusquam fiunt, quae facit, et
1 Geschichte der Christlichen Philosophic, vol. iii. p. 224.
> De Prxdest. cap. i. 1, Migne, Patr. vol. cxxii. p. 358, a. 8 Vol. iii. pp, 206-296.
380 PART L — THEOLOGY. [Ch. HI. — Anti-Theism.
facere, qusB cognoscit. Cognoscere ergo et facere Dei unum est." ^ " Maximus ait : Quodcunque intellectus comprehendere potuerit, id ipsum fit." 2 " Intellectus enim rerura veraciter ipsse res sunt, di- cente Sancto Dionysio, ' Cognitio eorum, quae sunt, ea, quae sunt, est. ' " 3 " Homo est notio qusedam intellectualis in mente diAnna geternaliter facta. Verissima et probatissima definitio hominis est ista : et non solum hominis, verum etiam omnium quae in divina sapientia facta sunt." * Omnis visibilis et invisibilis creatura Theo- phania, i. e., divina apparitio potest appelari.^ " Num negabis cre- atorem et creaturam unum esse ? " ^ " Creation [with Erigena] is nothing else than the Lord of creation ; God in some ineffable manner created in the creation." "*
Scotus translated the works of the so-called St. Dionysius, the Areopagite, and in so doing prepared the way for that form of mys- tical Pantheism which prevailed through the Church down to the period of the Reformation. The pseudo-Dionysius was a Neo- Platonisi. His object was to give the doctrine of Plotinus a Chris- tian aspect. He adopted the principle of the unity of all being. All creatures are of the essence of God. But instead of placing the self-manifestation of God in nature, in the world-soul, he placed it principally in the hierarchy of rational being, — cherubim, ser- aphim, thrones, principalities, and powers, and souls of men. The destiny of all rational creatures, is reunion with God ; and this reunion, as the Neo-Platonists taught, was to be attained by ecstasy and the negation of Self. It was this system, which, in common with all other forms of Pantheism, precluded the idea of sin, which was reproduced by the leading mystics of .the Middle Ages, and which, when it found its way among the people as it did with the Beghards and Brethren of the Free Spirit, produced, as substan- tially the same system has done in India, its legitimate fruits of evil. Of the inystical Pantheism of the Middle Ages, however, enough has already been said in the Introduction, in the chapter on Mysticism.
E. Modern Pantheism. ^
Spinoza.
The revival of Pantheism since the Reformation is principally
due to Spinoza ; he was born at Amsterdam in 1634, and died at
Ghent in the forty-fourth year of his age. He wa» descended from
a wealthy Jewish Portuguese family, and enjoyed the advantage of
1 De Divisione Naiurce, ii. 20; edit. Westphalia, 1838, p. US.
2 Ibid. I. 9, p. 9. 3 Jbid. II. 8, p. 95. •• Joul. iv. 7, p. 330.
6 Ibid. III. 19, p. 240. 8 Jbid. II. 2, p. 88. i Ritter, vol. iii. p. 234