Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/590

 BRIU6EKA

520

ERIUGENA

Greek is evident from his translations, and is also proved by tlie poems which he wrote. It is doubtful, on the other hand, whether he possessed the knowletlge of Hebrew and other Oriental languages which is sometimes ascribed to him. In any case there is no evidence of his having travelled extensively in Greece and Asia Minor. After leaving Ireland he spent the rest of his days in France, probably at Paris and Laon. There was, as we know from the MSS., an important colony of Irish scholars at the latter place. The tradi- tion that after the death of Charles the Bakl he went to England at the invitation of Alfred the Great, that he taught a school at Malniesbury, and was there put to death by his pupils, has no support in contemporary documents and may well have arisen from some con- fusion of names on the part of later historians. It is probable that he died in France, but the date is un- known. From the evidence available it is impossible to determine whether he was a cleric or a lajinan, although it is difficult to deny that the general condi- tions of the time make it more than probable that he ■was a cleric and perhaps a monk.

AVritixgs. — 1. Translations of the works of Pseudo- Dionysius: "De Ccelesti Hierarchia"; "De Ecclesias- tical Hierarchia ' ' " De Divinis Xominibus " ; " De Mys- tic4 Theologia"; "Epistolae"; translations of the "Ambigua" of St. Maximus. — 2. Commentaries: "Homiha in prologum S. Evangelii sec. Joannem", and a commentary on the Ciospel of St. John, of which a few fragments only have come down to us; commen- taries on the "Celestial Hierarchy" and the "Eccle- siastical Hierarchy" of Pseudo-Dionysius; glosses on the work of Martianus Capella (still in MS.), and on the theological opuscula of Boethius (Rand ed., JIu- nich, 1906), with which is connected a brief " Life" of Boethius (Pieper ed., "Consolatio Philos.", Leipzig, 1871). — .3. Theological works: "Liber de Praedestina- tione", and very probably a work on the Eucharist, though it is certain that the tract " De Corpore et San- guine Domini", at one time believed to be Eriugena's, is the work of Paschasius Radbertus. — 1. Philosophical works: "De Divisione Naturit", his principal work, and a treatise, "De Egressu et Regressu Animae ad Deum", of which we possess only a few fragments. — 5. Poems: These are written partly in Latin and partly in Greek. Many of them are dedicated to Charles the Bald. The most complete edition of Eriugena's works is that of Dr. Floss, which is printed as Vol. CXXII of Migne's P. L. A new edition embodying the results of recent discoveries of manuscripts is often spoken of, and will doubtless be forthcoming before long.

Doctrines. — Although the errors into which Eriu- gena fell both in theology and in philosophy were many and serious, there can be no doulit that he him- self abhorred heresy, was disposed to treat the heretic with no small degree of harshness (as is evident from his strictures on Gotteschalk), and all through his life believed himself an unswervingly loyal son of the Church. Taking for granted the authenticity of the works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, he con- sidered that the doctrines he discovered in them were not only philo.sophically true, but also theologically acceptable, since they carried with them the authority of the distinguished Athenian convert of St. Paul. He did not for a moment suspect that in those writings he had to deal with a loosely articulated system of thought in which Christian teachings were mingled with the tenets of a subtle but profoundly anti-Chris- tian pantheism. To this remark shoukl be added another in order that we may fully understand Eriugena's attituile towards orthodoxy. He was accused by his contemporaries of leaning too much towards the Greeks. And, in fact, the C5reek Fathers were his favourite authors, especially Gregory the Theologian, and Basil the Great. Of the Latins he prized .\ugustine mo.st highly. The influence of these

on the temperament of the venturesome Celt was to- wards freedom and not towards restraint in theological speculation. This freedom he reconciled with his respect for the teaching authority of the Church as he understood it. However, in the actual exercise of the freedom of speculation which he allowed himself, he fell into many errors which are incompatible with orthodox Christianity.

The " De Prceilcslinatione" seems to have been writ- ten after the translation of the works of Pseudo-Dio- nysius. Nevertheless there is in it only one allusion to the authority of the (!reek Fathers and very little of the obtrusion of Greek words and phrases w-hich so abound in the later works. It deals with the problem raised by Gotteschalk regarding the doctrine of predestination, and, more specifically, undertakes to prove that predestination is single, not double — in other words, that there is no predestination to sin and punishment but only to grace and eternal happiness. The authority of Augustine is used very e.xtensively. In the philosophical setting of the problem, however — namely, the discussion of the true nature of evil — Eriugena appears to go back farther than St. Augus- tine and to hold the radical neo-Platonic view that evil is non-existent. He is thus compelled to go even farther than St. Augustine in rejecting the doctrine of a double predestination. That he exceeded the bounds of orthodoxy is the contention of Prudentius of Troyes and Florus of Lyons who answered the " Liber de Prs- destinatione" in works full of bitter personal attacks on Eriugena. Their views prevailed in the Councils of Valencia (S55) and Langres (859), in which Eriugena's doctrine was condemned.

W'hUe the " De Corpore et Sanguine Domini" is not Eriugena's, though ascribed to him, there can be no doubt that in some work, now lost, on that subject he maintained doctrines at variance with the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. From the fragment which has come down to us of his commentary on St. John we infer that he held the Eucharist to be merely a type or figure. At least he insists on the spiritual, to the exclusion, apparently, of the physical, "eating of the Flesh of the Son of Man".

In the " De Divisione .Vo^urir", his most important and systematic work, Eriugena treats in the form of a dialogue the principal problems of philosophy and theology. The meaning of the title is evident from the opening sentences in which he outlines the plan of the work. "Nature", he says, "is divided into four spe- cies": (1) "Nature which creates and is not created" — this is God, the Source and Principle of all things; (2) "Nature which is created and creates" — this is the world of primordial causes or (Platonic) ideas; (.3) "Nature which is created and does not create" — this is the world of phenomena, the world of contingent, sense-perceived things; (4) "Nature which neither creates nor is created ' ' — this is God, the Term to which all things are returning.

(1) "Nature", then, is synonjTnous with reality, and also with God. For, whatever reality the world of ideas and the world of phenomena possess, is, in the truest and most literal sense, the reality of God Himself. "The being of all things is the over-being of God" {esse omnium est superessc Divinitatis) is a saying which he never tires of quoting from the works of Pseudo- Dionysius. So supremely perfect is the essence of the Divinity that God is incomprehensible not only to usbut also to Himself. For if He knew Himself in any ade- quate sense He should place Him.self in some category of thought, which would be to limit Himself. God is above all categories. When, therefore, we speak about Him we are safer in using the negative (djro^aTi/o)) than the positive (icoTa^aTtKiJ) mode of predication. That is, we are safer in preilicating %vhat He is not than in venturing to predicate what He is. If we have recourse to positive predication, we imist use the prefix hyi>cr and say (!od is h>ii>ersuhstuntia, i. e. more-than-