Erigena, John Scotus

John Scotus Erigena, also called Johannes Scotus Eriugena, (born 810, Ireland—died c. 877), theologian, translator, and commentator on several earlier authors in works centring on the integration of Greek and Neoplatonist philosophy with Christian belief.

From about 845, Erigena lived at the court of the West Frankish king Charles II the Bald, near Laon (now in France), first as a teacher of grammar and dialectics. He participated in theological disputes over the Eucharist and predestination and set forth his position on the latter in De predestinatione (851; “On Predestination”), a work condemned by church authorities. Erigena’s translations of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Epiphanius, commissioned by Charles, made those Greek patristic writings accessible to Western thinkers.

Erigena’s familiarity with dialectics and with the ideas of his theological predecessors was reflected in his principal work, De divisione naturae (862–866; “On the Division of Nature”), an attempt to reconcile the Neoplatonist doctrine of emanation with the Christian tenet of creation. The work classifies nature into (1) that which creates and is not created; (2) that which creates and is created; (3) that which does not create and is created; and (4) that which does not create and is not created. The first and the fourth are God as beginning and end; the second and third are the dual mode of existence of created beings (the intelligible and the sensible). The return of all creatures to God begins with release from sin, physical death, and entry into the life hereafter. Man, for Erigena, is a microcosm of the universe because he has senses to perceive the world, reason to examine the intelligible natures and causes of things, and intellect to contemplate God. Through sin man’s animal nature has predominated, but through redemption man becomes reunited with God.

Though highly influential upon Erigena’s successors, notably the Western mystics and the 13th-century Scholastics, De divisione naturae eventually suffered condemnation by the church because of its pantheistic implications. The works of Erigena are in J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Latina, Vol. 122.