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John Scotus Eriugena, also known as Johannes Scotus Erigena, John the Scot, or John the Irish-born was an Irish Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most astonishing person of the ninth century". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that he "is the most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period. He is generally recognized to be both the outstanding philosopher of the Carolingian era and of the whole period of Latin philosophy stretching from Boethius to Anselm".He wrote a number of works, but is best known today for having written De Divisione Naturae , or Periphyseon, which has been called the "final achievement" of ancient philosophy, a work which "synthesizes the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries". The principal concern of De Divisione Naturae is to unfold from φύσις , which John defines as "all things which are and which are not" the entire integrated structure of reality. Eriugena achieves this through a dialectical method elaborated through exitus and reditus, that interweaves the structure of the human mind and reality as produced by the λόγος of God.Eriugena is generally classified as a Neoplatonist, though he was not influenced directly by such pagan philosophers as Plotinus or Iamblichus. Jean Trouillard stated that, although he was almost exclusively dependent on Christian theological texts and the Christian Canon, Eriugena "reinvented the greater part of the theses of Neoplatonism".He succeeded Alcuin of York as head of the Palace School at Aachen. He also translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite and was one of the few Western European philosophers of his day who knew Greek, having studied it in Ireland. A later medieval tradition recounts that Eriugena was stabbed to death by his students at Malmesbury with their pens, although this may rather be allegorical. Wikipedia  

✵ 810 – 877
John Scotus Eriugena photo

Works
De divisione naturae
John Scotus Eriugena
John Scotus Eriugena: 8   quotes 2   likes

Famous John Scotus Eriugena Quotes

“Pultes Scotorum.”

John Scotus Eriugena

Irish porridge.

Verdict of the Fourth Council of Valence, 855, on his De Divina Praedestinatione, cited from Ferdinand Christian Baur Die christliche Kirche des Mittelalters in den Haupmomenten ihrer Entwicklung (Tübingen: Fues, 1861) p. 56; translation from Andrew Gibson James Joyce (London: Reaktion, 2006) p. 62.
Criticism

“Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena

George Bosworth Burch Early Medieval Philosophy (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1951) p. 5.

Of De Divisione Naturae.
Criticism

“No one enters heaven except through philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena

Annotationes in Marciam, no. 64; translation from John Joseph O’Meara Eriugena (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) p. 30.
Original: (la) Nemo intrat in caelum nisi per philosophiam.

“The breadth of the table.”

John Scotus Eriugena

Original: (la) Tabula tantum.

William of Malmesbury Gesta Pontificum, Bk. 5; translation from Helen Waddell The Wandering Scholars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1927] 1954) p. 78.

His reply to Charles the Bald's taunt, as they sat at the same table, "Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?", (How far is an Irishman from a drunkard?).

“What, then, is it to treat of philosophy, unless to lay down the rules of the true religion by which we seek rationally and adore humbly God, who is the first and sovereign cause of all things? Hence it follows that the true philosophy is the true religion, and reciprocally that the true religion is the true philosophy.”

John Scotus Eriugena

Original: (la) Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.

De Divina Praedestinatione, ch. 1; translation from Kenelm Henry Digby Mores Catholici, vol. 8 (London: Booker & Dolman, 1837) p. 198.

“For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.”

John Scotus Eriugena book De divisione naturae

Original: (la) Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indigent.

De Divisione Naturae, Bk. 1, ch. 69; translation by I. P. Sheldon-Williams, cited from Peter Dronke (ed.) A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) p. 2.

“When we are told that God is the maker of all things, we are simply to understand that God is in all things – that He is the substantial essence of all things.”

John Scotus Eriugena book De divisione naturae

Original: (la) Cum ergo audimus, Deum omnia facere, nil aliud debemus intelligere, quam Deum in omnibus esse, hoc est, essentiam omnium subsistere.

De Divisione Naturae, Bk. 1, ch. 72; translation from Hugh Fraser Stewart Boethius: An Essay (London: William Blackwood, 1891) p. 255.

“One man stands head and shoulders above his contemporary scholars: head and shoulders, some hold, above the Middle Ages: John Scotus Erigena.”

John Scotus Eriugena

Helen Waddell The Wandering Scholars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1927] 1954) pp. 77-78.
Criticism

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