There was also a Siadhail, abbot and Bishop of Roscommon, who died in A.D. 813.[427] Another Siadhail, or Sedulius, who died in A.D. 828, was abbot of Kildare; and according to Lanigan he was ‘unquestionably’ the author of the Commentaries, which are ascribed by all the learned to some Irishman of that name, who flourished about this period. Lanigan, however, has given no satisfactory evidence of this ‘unquestionable’ fact; and although it is quite possible that Sedulius of Kildare may have been the author of the Commentaries on St. Paul’s Epistles, it is just quite as possible that he was Sedulius, the Bishop-abbot of Roscommon, or some Hibernian exile of the same period, who flourished in the Schools of France or Italy.
Whoever he was, he was certainly a learned man. Montfaucon has preserved a Greek psalter,[428] written by this Sedulius, which is of itself quite satisfactory evidence of his Greek scholarship. He was besides an accomplished Latin poet, and his patristic lore is simply marvellous. No doubt his work as a commentator consists, to a very large extent, of extracts from the Fathers of the Church, both Greek and Latin; but so does every commentary of the kind worth reading. Where commentators begin to be original, they generally cease to be orthodox. At best their learning can only succeed in putting the old truths in a new way. It has been insinuated[429] that Sedulius in his Commentaries on St. Paul adopted what are now called Calvinistic views about grace and predestination. There is not a shadow of foundation for the charge, except that Sedulius quotes and approves of the teaching of St. Augustine. But how far St. Augustine was from holding such views, it is quite unnecessary to show in this place. These Commentaries on St. Paul are really very valuable, and even at this day are worthy of careful study.
Besides the Commentaries on St. Paul, Sedulius also wrote a Commentary on St. Matthew, the proper title of which is—Collectaneum Sedulii in Mattheum ex diversis Patribus excerptum. He is also said to have written a grammatical commentary on Priscian, and on the Secunda Editio of Donatus, works which were both in common use in the ancient schools of Ireland. He was somewhat of a politician also, and wrote a treatise on Politics in Aristotle’s sense, not referred to by Lanigan, for it was only discovered in comparatively recent times by Cardinal Mai in the Vatican, and has been published by him in the ninth tome of his Nova Collectio Scriptorum. Everything goes to show that he was a man of the very widest culture attainable in that age, and that he, like Virgilius and John Scotus Erigena, of whom we are now about to speak, acquired that culture in the schools of his native land.
III.—John Scotus Erigena.
John Scotus Erigena, a man of Irish birth and education, was by far the most distinguished scholar of the ninth century in Western Europe. He was at once theologian, philosopher, and poet; he could write Greek verses and expound the Scriptures in the Hebrew and the Septuagint; he was familiar with Aristotle and Plato, as well as with St. Basil and St. Augustine, and was not only rector of the Royal School of Paris, but is also said to have been professor of dialectics and mathematics. He was known as the “Master” by excellence, and was spoken of as a “miracle of knowledge.” Even in our own time critics of great name have ranked Scotus with Chrysostom, Dante, and Thomas of Aquin, partly from the beauty and sublimity of his thoughts, partly from the originality, depth, and subtlety of his philosophical speculations. No doubt he erred seriously, and was censured justly. He erred, however, not in the spirit of Luther and Calvin, but of Origen and St. Cyprian; for one who ought to know, and was no great friend to the Irish stranger, has attested that he was in all things a holy and humble man, filled with the Spirit of God. But he sailed through unknown seas where there was no chart to guide him. His daring spirit, soaring on strong pinions, essayed untravelled realms of thought, and in the quest of truth he often followed wandering fires; yet, as he himself tells us, in the light of God’s revelation and the strength of His grace, the wearied spirit always found its homeward way again. He was in reality the first of the schoolmen, and his very errors, like the wanderings of every explorer of a new country, served to guide those who came after him. Moreover, he has been censured not only for his real errors, but for doctrines which he never held, although condemned under his name; and so it came to pass that he was unduly blamed by those who knew little of his history and less of his teaching, and unduly praised, we think, by those who are much more ready to eulogise him for his errors than for his virtues.
Like many other good things which Ireland has produced, both England and Scotland have striven to make Scotus their own. Thomas Dempster, the saint-stealer, in his Menologium Scotorum, published in A.D. 1621, and dedicated to Cardinal Barberini, has endeavoured to prove that Scotus Erigena was a native of North Britain; as, however, his arguments are founded on the similarity in sound between Ayr and Erigena and between Scotus and Scot, we need not now refute them at length. Thomas Gale, an Englishman, who was the first to publish at Oxford, in A.D. 1681, Scotus’ treatise, De Divisione Naturae, maintains that he was of English birth, and was born at a place called Eringen or Ergerne, in Herefordshire, as that name is very like Erigena—for he gives no other shadow of positive proof! It is now superfluous to show at length, what all modern scholars admit, that “Scotus,” in the ninth century, and even down to the eleventh century, was exactly equivalent to “Irishman” now, although of course even then they sometimes spoke of the “Scoti of Alba” as we speak of the “Irish of Glasgow” at present. But when used alone in those early centuries the terms “Scoti” and “Scotia” were applied exclusively to the primitive race and their dwelling-place—the Milesian Scots of Ireland, of whom the Albanian Scots were a colony. In A.D. 812, before the birth of Scotus, Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne, says that a fleet of Normans invaded Ireland, “the island of the Scots;” and, after the death of Scotus, Alfred the Great, in his translation of Orosius, speaks of Ireland as “Hibernia, which we call Scotland.” So the very name John Scotus is the same as John the Irishman, and this name was given to him by all his contemporaries. Pope Nicholas I. calls him, in a letter to King Charles, “Joannes genere Scotus,” and Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who knew him intimately, calls him “Scotus” and “Scotigena,” or Irish-born. But what settles the question is the way in which Prudentius, in his treatise on Predestination, speaks of Scotus, for Prudentius says he was himself the friend of Scotus—quasi frater—he lived some time with him in the palace of the king, and no one could know better whence Scotus came. “Te Solum,” says Prudentius, “omnium acutissimum Galliae transmissit Hibernia.” So it was Ireland, then, and not England or Scotland, sent him over to France. Later on in the eleventh century when, after the fusion of the Picts and Scots into one nation, Scotia came to signify Scotland, the cognomen Erigena was given to Scotus to signify that he was not an Albanian but an Irish Scot. We do not find, however, that any of his contemporaries gave him that name, and the form Erigena, from which Dempster infers his Caledonian origin, is not found in any existing MS. copy of his works. In most of them it is written Ierugena, which Dr. Floss, the learned editor of the works of Scotus, published in Migne’s Patrology, thinks is derived from the Greek, and signifies “native of the sacred isle”—insula sanctorum. But although Scotus himself was certainly fond of Greek compounds, very few scholars of the tenth and eleventh centuries were able to make them. For our own part we should prefer to adopt the reading Eirugena, which is found in the Florentine and Darmstad manuscripts as being a far simpler and more natural form. Eriu is the older nominative, and its vowel termination would render it better adapted to form a compound than the genitive form Erin, and thus we get Eriugena, which no doubt would very soon be contracted into Erigena.
Unfortunately we know neither the exact date of Erigena’s birth, nor where he was born and educated. We find him an inmate of the palace of Charles the Bald in A.D. 851, when he published his book on Predestination. He must have been at that time some time in France, for he was then well known as a distinguished scholar, so that if we assume that he was born about A.D. 820, and came to France about A.D. 850, we cannot be very far astray. We know from a letter of Eric of Auxerre to Charles the Bald, that a crowd of Hibernian philosophers came to France, attracted by the liberality of that prince, and driven out of their own country by the invasion of the Danes.[430] All the Irish annalists tell us that from A.D. 815 to 845 the Danes under Turgesius plundered, desolated, and burned the whole country, but especially the churches, monasteries, and schools. In A.D. 843 “Turgesius plundered Connaught, Meath, and Clonmacnoise with its oratories;” in the same year “Forannen, the Primate of Armagh, was taken prisoner, with his relics and people” (to the number of 3,000), “and they were carried by the Danes to their ships at Limerick.” It is easy to see how young Scotus might be captured by the foreigners, and succeed in making his escape to France, or seek an asylum there, most probably either in this or the next year.
Charles the Bald, son of Louis le Debonaire, and grandson of Charlemagne, was at this time king of Northern France and Burgundy. He had few of the kingly virtues of his great grandsire, but he was a zealous patron of literature, very fond of theological discussions, was present at many French Councils, and on the whole, was far better fitted by nature to be a monk than a monarch. He received the young Irish scholar with great kindness, and treated him with marked distinction. Scotus had apartments in the palace, was made Capital, or head, of the Scholæ Palatinæ, and frequently admitted to the royal table. He was a great Greek scholar, and the king wanted him to translate into Latin the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, a task which none of his subjects was able to accomplish. Moreover, the Irishman was witty as well as wise, and the king loved a joke quite as much as he loved learning. William of Malmesbury has preserved two of the witticisms of Scotus. On one occasion, when the wine was going round the table, the Irishman by some word or act offended against the etiquette due to royalty. The king, who was sitting opposite to Scotus, good-humouredly rebuked him by asking—“Quid interest inter Scottum et Sottum?” “Tabula tantum,” says the witty Hibernian, and the monarch greatly enjoyed this turning of the tables against himself. On another occasion, Scotus was dining at the table of the king with two other clerics. We cannot, indeed, ascertain for certain whether Scotus himself was a cleric or not; he certainly does not appear to have been a priest. These two clerics were very big men, and Scotus was, like some other great men, very small. Three fishes were brought in by an attendant—one small and two large ones. The king beckoned Scotus to divide the fish with his companions. Scotus did so, giving them the small one, and keeping for himself the two big ones. The king protested against the unfair division. “It is perfectly fair, my Lord the King,” said Scotus, “for here,” pointing to himself and his plate, “we have one small and two big, and there,” pointing to his companions, “they have two big and one small.” The king laughed, and probably a fairer division was afterwards made by Scotus.
He might have long enjoyed his honours and emoluments in the palace in peace if he were prudent. But just at this period two fierce theological disputes arose in France, and either his friends at court, or his Irish blood, prompted him to mingle in the mêlée.
Just about the time when Erigena arrived in France, began the first and the warmest controversy of the ninth century concerning the abstruse question of Predestination. Most of the French bishops and theologians took part in this discussion, which was hotly debated for twelve years. Its author was a Benedictine monk, of the famous abbey of Fulda, who was called Gotteschalk, or Servant of God. Raban Maur, one of the most learned men of his own time, and for many years head of the great School of Fulda, who was now Archbishop of Mayence, cited Gotteschalk to appear before a Synod and account for his doctrinal novelties. The Council was held on the 1st of October, A.D. 848. Gotteschalk did appear in person, and handed in a profession of faith, which, according to Hincmar, was undoubtedly erroneous.