The Early Irish Monastic Schools / A study of Ireland's contribution to early medieval culture

by Hugh Graham

JOHANNES SCOTUS ERIUGENA (d. 877 A.D.):

This was by far the greatest Irish scholar of the ninth century. Indeed in many ways he was the most remarkable man of his age. Of his early life we have no details. He was born between the years 800–815 A.D. The general opinion of scholars is that he was born in Ireland as his name would indicate.[516] His learning itself is sufficient proof that he was educated in Ireland where alone he could get the benefit of such an education as the continental schools could no longer have furnished.[517]

About the middle of the ninth century he appeared at the court of King Charles the Bald by whom he was placed at the head of the Palace School. Though in some respects a worthless sovereign, Charles had at least one redeeming quality inasmuch as he emulated the example of his grandfather (Charlemagne) as a patron of letters. During his reign Irish scholars flocked in great numbers to the Continent. The monarch was fond of discussing knotty questions, and had a keen taste for the subtle disputations to which Irish dialectitians were devoted. Encouraged by his patronage the Irish monks emigrated in so great numbers to France that hostelries were built for their exclusive use.[518] The most eminent of these exiles[519] was Eriugena. No sooner had he reached France (c. 845 A.D.) than he was recognised as a remarkable linguist. Certain reputed works of Dionysius the Areopagite had been sent by Pope Paul I. to Pepin-le-Bref, and a splendid MS. of the mystical writings of the same author was subsequently presented to Louis the Pious by the Byzantine Emperor Michael. The works were of course in the Greek language and the greatest scholars of France were unable to translate them or to interpret their meaning.[520] The task was finally entrusted to Eriugena and he produced a satisfactory version. The learned Anastasius, the papal librarian, on reading the version of Eriugena, wrote to King Charles expressing his surprise that “a barbarian who hailed from the extreme confines of the world and who might have been deemed to be as ignorant of Greek as he was remote from civilization could have proved capable of comprehending the mysteries of the Greek tongue.”[521]

Great as was his fame as a linguist his reputation as a philosopher is still greater. His philosophical speculations gave rise to discussions and controversies which even to the present day occupy the attention of the greatest thinkers. In his own day his views were nothing short of sensational. In addition to his translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius already referred to, Eriugena wrote a comprehensive philosophical work De Divisione Naturae[522] and a treatise De Egressu et Regressu Animae ad Deum of which only a fragment has come down to us.[523] He also contributed a treatise De Predestinatione to a theological controversy that was waged at that time. This work seems to have given offence to both parties. His expositiones or commentaries on the Pseudo-Dionysius are helpful in determining his philosophical views. He also wrote a commentary on the work of Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis.

It is as a philosopher, however, that Eriugena stands without an equal during his own time. It has been remarked that Eriugena appears to have been born subject to a strange fatality whereby men’s opinions are always changing in regard to his philosophical views and the position to be assigned to him among philosophers. In the criticisms by Maurice Milman, Staudenmaier, St. Rene, Tailander, Christlieb, Hauréau, and Huber the view of each writer differs in some important respect from the views of the rest.[524] This is no less true of the criticism of living philosophers as the following quotations from two standard works on the History of Philosophy go to show. De Wülf writes: “In opposition to the majority of historians who describe Eriugena as the first of scholastics, we have no hesitation in calling him the first of anti-scholastics—and the most formidable at the present epoch. For his teaching propounds principles which are opposed to those of scholasticism and which form the starting-point of opposition movements.”[525] Turner, on the other hand, says that Eriugena illustrates the many sidedness of the scholastic movement and proceeds as follows: “To classify as anti-scholastic whatever does not agree with the synthetic systems of the great masters of scholasticism is to break the line of continuous historical development which led through failure and partial success of Eriugena, Abelard, and other philosophers to the philosophy of the thirteenth century. Scholasticism in its final form is the outcome of the forces of Christian civilization which in different conditions and in less favourable circumstances produced the imperfect scholasticism of the period of beginning and the period of growth.”[526]

Whatever may be the difference of opinion as to his place in a particular school or system of philosophy there can be but one as to his abilities as a scholar and an original thinker. According to De Wülf, “he must be regarded as one of the most striking personalities in the world of culture and learning in the early Middle Ages. He was far in advance of his time. While his contemporaries were only lisping in philosophy and his successors for centuries did little more than discuss a small number of disconnected philosophical questions, Eriugena in the ninth century worked out a complete philosophical synthesis. … He was at once a scholar and a man of genius. What was altogether unique in the ninth century, he knew Greek, of which Alcuin scarcely knew the alphabet.”[527] Turner while wishing to give a fair estimate of his place in history, warns us “not to let his brilliant qualities blind us to the enormity of his errors,”[528] but the same writer acknowledges that “he was without doubt the most learned man in his century, he was the first of the representatives of the new learning to attempt a system of constructive thought and he brought to his task a truly Celtic wealth of imagination and a spiritual force which lifted him above the plane of his contemporaries—mere epitomisers and commentators. His philosophy has all the charm which pantheism always possesses for a certain class of minds. It is subtle, vague, and poetic. When we come to examine its contents and method we find it dominated with the spirit of Neo-Platonism. Through the works of Pseudo-Dionysius and of Maximus, Eriugena made acquaintance with the teaching of Plotinus and Proculus; and when he came to construct his own system of thought he reproduced the essential traits of Neo-Platonic philosophy—pantheism, the doctrine of intuition, and universal redemption.”

The sentence enunciated by Eriugena in his work on Predestination[529] as well as elsewhere that the true religion is also the true philosophy and vice versa is the theme of the entire scholastic philosophy. The consequences that follow from this maxim as enunciated that every doubt in regard to religious matters can be refuted by philosophy appeared so preposterous that a meeting of French clergy declared it to be insanity or blasphemy.[530] Religion is to Eriugena in its relations to philosophy what authority is to reason. In respect to rank reason precedes so also in respect to time, since what is taught by authority of the Fathers was discovered by them with the help of reason. The weak must naturally subject themselves to authority, but those who are less weak should be content with this all the less because the figurative nature of many expressions and further the undeniable accommodation exercised by the Fathers toward the understanding of the uneducated demand the use of reason as a corrective.[531] By reason is to be understood, however, not mere subjective opinion but the common thought which reveals itself in conversation when out of two reasons both are made one, each of the speakers becoming as it were the other.[532] While he maintains the priority of reason he is far from being a rationalist. Indeed he is more inclined to take side with the mystics—to belittle all reason unless it is illumined from on high. “Instead of rationalising theology, he would theosophise philosophy.”[533]

Thus we see how Eriugena’s philosophical speculations naturally became the basis for innumerable controversies which are still far from being definitely decided. Such controversies, however, have served a useful purpose in the history of philosophy. Eriugena assigns to philosophy the fourfold task: to divide, to define, to demonstrate, to analyse. This may be described as Eriugena’s definition of the applicability of dialectic to philosophy and theology—a notion which, like the union of faith and science, is destined to develop in the subsequent growth of philosophy.[534]

Eriugena’s knowledge of Greek, and fondness for Greek dogma and Alexandrine philosophy, led to the report that he made several journeys to Greece. But this conjecture has no foundation in fact.[535] Indeed the evidence we have collected with reference to the course of studies pursued in the Irish monastic schools would point to Ireland as the most likely place where he laid the foundations of his classical scholarship.