Johannes Scotus Eriugena

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Johannes Scotus Eriugena : biography

815 – 877

Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815 – c. 877) was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He wrote a number of works, but is best known today, and had most influence in subsequent centuries, for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.

Life

Johannes Scottus Eriugena was an Irishman, educated in Ireland. He moved to France (about 845) and took over the Palatine Academy at the invitation of Carolingian King Charles the Bald. He succeeded Alcuin of York (735–804) as head of the Palace School.. The reputation of this school, part of the Carolingian Renaissance, seems to have increased greatly under Eriugena’s leadership, and the philosopher himself was treated with indulgence by the king. Whereas Alcuin was a schoolmaster rather than a philosopher, Eriugena was a noted Greek scholar, a skill which, though rare at that time in Western Europe, was used in the learning tradition of Early and Medieval Ireland, as evidenced by the use of Greek script in medieval Irish manuscripts. He remained in France for at least thirty years, and it was almost certainly during this period that he wrote his various works.

The latter part of his life is unclear. There is a story that in 882 he was invited to Oxford by Alfred the Great, labored there for many years, became abbot at Malmesbury, and was stabbed to death by his pupils with their styli. Whether this is to be taken literally or figuratively is not clear,. and some scholars think it may refer to some other Johannes.. Figuratively, present day professors might recognize the irony in dying from the results of their students’ pens. He probably never left France, and the date of his death is generally given as 877.The nineteenth-century French historian, Hauréau advanced some reasons for fixing this date. From the evidence available, it is impossible to determine whether he was a cleric or a layman; the general conditions of the time make it likely that he was a cleric and perhaps a monk.

Influence

Eriugena’s work is distinguished by the freedom of his speculation, and the boldness with which he works out his logical or dialectical system of the universe. He marks, indeed, a stage of transition from the older Platonizing philosophy to the later scholasticism. For him philosophy is not in the service of theology. The above-quoted assertion as to the substantial identity between philosophy and religion is repeated almost word for word by many of the later scholastic writers, but its significance depends upon the selection of one or other term of the identity as fundamental or primary. For Eriugena, philosophy or reason is first, primitive; authority or religion is secondary, derived.

His influence was greater with mystics than with logicians, but he was responsible for a revival of philosophical thought which had remained largely dormant in western Europe after the death of Boethius.

After Eriugena another medieval thinker of significance was Berengar of Tours, professor at the monastic school in the French city. Berengar believed that truth is obtained through reason rather than revelation. St. Peter Damian agreed with Tertullian that it is not necessary for men to think because God has spoken for them. Damian was prior of Fonte Avellana and afterward Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. He died in 1072. Lanfranc (1005–89) was prior of Bec in Normandy. Like Damian he believed mostly in faith, but admitted the importance of reason. St. Anselm was a pupil and successor of St. Peter Damian.

Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish Marx scholar, has mentioned Eriugena as one of the primary influences on Hegel’s, and therefore Marx’s, dialectical form. In particular, he called De Divisione Naturae a prototype of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit..

Name

The spelling "Eriugena" is perhaps the most suitable surname form as he himself uses it in one manuscript. It means ‘Ireland (Ériu)-born’. ‘Scottus’ in the Middle Ages was the Latin term for "Irish or Gaelic", so his name translates as "John, the Irish-born Gael." The spelling ‘Scottus’ has the authority of the early manuscripts until perhaps the 11th century. Occasionally he is also named ‘Scottigena’ ("Scot-born") in the manuscripts.