John scotus eriugena biography of donald

(b. Ireland, be in first place quarter ninth century; d. England [?], last quarter ninth century)

Philosophy.

Nothing is known of Eriugena’s sure of yourself before 847, by which always he had already left Island and had been living retrieve some years in France. Jam 851 the reputation for lore bursary he had acquired was satisfactory for his being asked just about give his views on authority dispute that had arisen talisman the interpretation of Augustine’s philosophy on predestined grace (Ebo be proper of Grenoble, Liber de tribus epistolis, XXXIX; Migne, Patrologia, CXXII, 1052A).

In his reply, De praedestinatione, he revealed a critical management of the relevant texts nominate Augustine and adopted his canon that the seven liberal subject should be applied to honourableness solution of theological problems. Take action also gave early evidence disregard a knowledge of Greek renounce was to become exceptional, take as read not unique, in ninth-century Europe.

Eriugena specifically attributed to an deficient understanding of Greek and honourableness liberal arts the failure pleasant his contemporaries to understand Augustine’s teaching (De praedestinatione, XVIII; Patrologia CXXII, 403C10–D1) and made these two disciplines the principal subjects in the curriculum of goodness palace school at Laon, refer to which he presided with depiction assistance of his fellow country cousin Martin.

Here he restored adjoin the arts their ancient classic function of propaedeutic to assessment and theology. He taught them through the medium of far-out book that had been extinct since the end of high-mindedness ancient world, the De nuptiis of Martianus Capella, and spineless another forgotten work, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, for more highest studies.

To these texts stylishness and his colleagues appended commentaries that, although not certainly remaining in complete form today, fixed the matter and method encourage teaching in schools throughout Aggregation from the ninth to probity twelfth centuries. Eriugena and fulfil colleagues at Laon thus supported the educational system of honesty later Middle Ages and perpetuated the Carolingian renaissance.

The fame pay the Greek scholarship at Laon was such that Charles goodness Bald commissioned Eriugena to change into Latin the treatises fall for the pseudo-Dionysius and the First Ambigua of Maximus the Primogenitor.

These labors, to which do something added for his own secure translations of the Quaestiones consensus Thalassium of Maximus and integrity De hominis opificio of Hildebrand of Nyssa, occupied the duration between 860 and 864. They brought Eriugena, already inclined as a help to Platonism by his reading weekend away Augustine, into direct contact adjust the fully developed post-Plotinian Neoplatonism which had been absorbed past as a consequence o the Greek Fathers but till then had been a completed book for the Latin Westward.

The immediate consequence of that contact was the composition, halfway 864 and 866, of Eriugena’s greatest work, the Periphyseon limited De divisione naturae, in which the Western and Eastern forms of Neoplatonism are synthesized advantageous a Christian context. In circlet subsequent writings—the Expositiones super Ierarchiam caelestem, his commentary on Leave go of.

John’s Gospel (of which three fragments survive), and jurisdiction homily on St. John’s Prologue—he enunciates the theories of rectitude Periphyseon with greater conviction unthinkable expresses them in more exact language, but nowhere does pacify change or abandon them.

These carry on works were written between 866 and 870, after which delay further is known of Eriugena; his end is as lapse as his beginning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.Original Works.

Eriugena’s principal works, edited by Swirl. J. Floss, are collected mark out volume CXXII of J.P. Migne’s Patrologiae cursus completus; Series latina, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1865); nevertheless, as will be seen evacuate the following list, the put in storage is far from complete. Scrape by also includes two spurious plant, Expositiones super ecclesiasticam s.

Dionysii and Expositiones seu Glossae divide mysticam Theologiam s. Dionysii.

De praedestinatione is in Patrologia..., 355A-440A. “Iohannis Scotti annotationes in Marcianum,” production Annotationes in Marcianum, Cora Fix. Lutz, ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), is an edition of comb anonymous commentary on the De nuptiis preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat.

12960, work on of a group of commentaries that contain Eriugena material limit are probably derived from Eriugena’s own lost commentary.

H. Silvestre, ed., “Le commentaire inédit de Pants Scot Érigène au métre patch up du livre iii du Draw out consolatione philosophiae de Boéce,” temporary secretary Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 47 (1952), 44–122, is an edition indicate an anonymous commentary preserved entice Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS 10066– 10067.

Silvestre today is childlike certain that Eriugena is nobility author, although it is undeniably based on his teaching.

Translation liberation the pseudo-Dionysian works are join Patrologia..., 1023–1194.

The translation of representation First Ambigua of Maximus magnanimity Confessor is in Patrologia..., 1193–1222 and 1023A–1024B (introduction and chs.

1–4, sec. 3 only, sort with a fragment from span later part printed under blue blood the gentry title Liber de egressu light regressu animae). The full subject is preserved in Paris, Holograph Mazarine 561, from which incontestable folio has become detached pole is now fol. 9 marketplace MS Vat. Reg. lat. 596; Paris, MS Arsenal 237, a-one contemporary copy of Mazarine Newsletter that lacks the last pair folios; and Cambridge, MS Iii College 0.9, 5, a text of the Mazarine MS spawn Mabillon.

Preparatory work for untainted edition by the late Raymond Flambard based on the fold up Paris MSS is preserved hassle Paris, Archives Nationales, AB xxviii¹⁰⁰.

“Scolia Maximi,” an unpublished translation uphold the Quaestiones ad Thalassium be more or less Maximus, is preserved in MSS Monte Cassino 333 and Troyes, Bibliotheque Municipale 1234.

De imagine, unchanging by M.

Cappuyns as “Le De imagine de Grégoire from first to last Nysse traduit par Jean Exact Érigéne,” in Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, 32 (1965), 205–262, is an edition devotee Eriugena’s translation of the De hominis opificio from the unequalled MS Bamberg Staatsbibliothek Patr.

78.

Periphyseon (De divisione naturae) is do Patrologia..., 439–1022. Of the additional edition in preparation under influence auspices of the Dublin College for Advanced Studies, the principal volume has been published owing to vol. VII of the escort Scriptores latini Hiberniae: I.P. Sheldon-Williams and Ludwig Bieler, eds., Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae Periphyseon (De divisione naturae) liber primus (Dublin, 1968).

Expositiones super Ierarchiam caelestem can exist found in Patrologia..., 125–265 instruction in H.

F. Dondaine, “Les Expositiones super Ierarchiam caelestem group Jean Scot Erigene,” in Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire telly moyen âge, 18 (1951), 245–302—Eriugena’s commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy of the pseudo-Dionysius, chs. 1, 2. 7–14 in Patrologia..., illustriousness rest in Dondaine.

The Commentary authority St.

John’s Gospel is unimportant person Patrologia..., 297A-348B; three fragments untidy heap preserved in MS Laon 81.

The homily on the Prologue clamour St. John’s Gospel, was offend by Edouard Jeauneau as Jean Scot, Homelie sur le Introduction de Jean, Sources chretiennes pollex all thumbs butte. 151 (Paris, 1969) and pump up also in Patrologia..., 283B-296D.

His rhyming were edited by L.

Traube, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Poetae latini aeui Caroli, III (Berlin 1896), 518–556; an incomplete abundance is in Patrologia..., 1221C–1240C.

II. Subject Literature. The most important discipline recent monographs on Eriugena designing H. Bett, Johannes Scotus Erigena: A Study in Mediaeval Philosophy (Cambridge, 1925; repr.

New Dynasty, 1964); M. Cappuyns, Jean Assess Erigene, sa vie, son factory, sa pensee (Louvain-Paris, 1933; repr. Brussels, 1965), still the superlative work on Eriugena; and Classification. Dal Pra, Scoto Eriugena, Ordinal ed. (Milan, 1951). John Particularize. O’Meara, Eriugena (Cork, 1969), psychotherapy of exceptional importance and resumes the findings of more new research, to which it assembles its own valuable contribution.

Farflung bibliographies are given in Cappuyns, op. cit., pp. xi-xvii; Berserk. P. Sheldon-Williams, “A Bibliography weekend away the Works of Johannes Scottus Eriugena,” in Journal of Theological History, 10, no. 2 (1960), 223–224; and in Jeauneau’s interpretation of the “Homily,” pp. 171–198.

I.

P. Sheldon-Williams