John Scotus Eurigena: “The Most Astonishing Person of the Ninth Century”

Fascinating, thank you. J S E is linked with Platonism and I am struck also with the echoes of some pre-Socratic philosophy. The title Periphyseon - 'on Natures' - pluralises a title used by Anaximander and Empedocles - peri physeos. That's just a title. This passage on what can and cannot be spoken of and thought about seems to be a response to Parmenides, who also used the title 'Peri Physeos', who thought that all you can truly say of anything is that 'it is'. On the contrary:-

Eriugena:For whatever negation you make about Him will be a true negation, but not every
affirmation you make will be a true affirmation : for if you show that He is this or that you will be proved wrong, for He is none of the existing things that can be spoken of or understood. But if you
declare: “He is not this nor that nor anything”, you will be seen to speak the truth, for He is none of the things that are or of those that are not, and no one may draw near Him who does not first, by
persevering in the way of thought, abandon all the senses and the operations of the intellect, together with the sensibles and everything that is and that is not, and, having achieved a state of not-knowing,
is restored to the unity — as far as is possible — of Him Who is above every essence and understanding, of Whom there is neither reason nor understanding, Who is neither spoken nor understood, for Whom there is neither name nor word.

https://ia801709.us.archive.org/31/items/periphyseon-the-division-of-nature-by-johannes-scotus-erigena-john-joseph-omeara/Periphyseon%20-%20The%20division%20of%20nature%20by%20Johannes%20Scotus%20Erigena%20John%20Joseph%20OMeara.pdf

Why was he banned? Is it Eriugena or Eurigena or Erigena?

Reply to Cuthbert

“Eriugena” is generally how it is spelt. “Scotus” meant “Gael” as in one who comes from the Gaelic culture originating out of Ireland. His full name would mean something like “John the Gael born in Éire” (Éire being Gaelic for Ireland). Honorius III accused him of pantheism, the belief that God and the universe are one in the same entity. If you know anything about the intellectual history of Dark Age Europe then you know that whenever someone got accused of this it generally was an ad ignorantiam regarding their work so this is why. Prior to this Eriugena was criticized at the Fourth Council of Valence in 855, his work getting called “Irish porridge.” Eriugena for all intents and purposes was an Orthodox Christian; there was no Roman Catholic Church yet and Orthodoxy seems to me to be the most original version of Christianity. His beliefs line up with Orthodoxy very well. I’m a Catholic and enjoy my faith but I’m sympathetic to Orthodoxy (conversion right now in my life would be too big of a change). Conservative members of the papacy around this time accused Eastern Orthodoxy in particular of being full of pantheism or even polytheism. This certainly is not the case. Even St. Thomas Aquinas got condemned for a little while. Many modern philosophers have called Eriugena “The Hegel of the Ninth Century.” Now that I think of it, Hegel I believe was influenced by Eriugena to an extent.

Also thank you for the pdf of the Periphyseon. I’ve looked everywhere for this specific version and have found that it’s quite expensive.

Reply to Dermot Griffin :clap: Yeah, not only has Eurigena been long "underrated", I also think his fourfold conception of nature might have influenced Spinoza (re: natura naturans (i.e. substance of infinite & eternal attributes) + natura naturata (i.e. in/finite modes of attributes)), although I wouldn't classify Spinoza a platonist. For my filthy lucre, btw, both thinkers can be conceived of sub specie durationis as speculative pandeists (i.e. "philosophers of immanence" ~G. Deleuze).

I was delighted to read his account of Eratosthenes's calculation of the earth's circumference and compare it with a twenty-first century version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yaYDOHL1Gg - Jonny Ball on Eratosthenes

Eriugena:Now, scaphia are circular vessels of bronze which indicate the passage of hours from the height of a rod that is set up in the midst of their base. This rod is called a gnomon, and from it as centre lines are drawn to the rims of the vessels, and these lines divide the whole circle of the sundial into twenty-four segments, that is to say, into the twenty-four intervals of hourly duration through which the circumference of the whole celestial sphere revolves about the earth until it returns to the position of the natural horizon which it held on the previous day. Therefore the aforesaid Eratosthenes by careful observation of the movement of the rod’s shadow through the segments of the sundial came to a clear understanding that the movement of the shadow through the hourly intervals about the rod [716D] of the sundial was proportionate [to the circuit of the night through the same hourly intervals about the earth’s circumference], so that whatever is observed in the vessels of the sundial [which represents
the sky] by analogous contemplation may be understood of the motion of the heavenly bodies. Thus, at the Vernal Equinox the length of the rod’s shadow is equal to half the length of the gnomon on Meroe, which is an island in the Nile, and at Syene, a city of Egypt. But the diameter of the whole circle of the sundial is also [717A] equal to half (the length of) the rod, and therefore both the shadow [of the rod at the Equinox] is (equal in length to) the diameter of the sundial ; and, because every diameter is doubled by [the very] sphere or circle of which it is the diameter, the shadow of the rod must describe a circle that is double (its own length)..... [etc.]

Reply to 180 Proof

Would Spinoza have read Eriugena? I can definitely see the similarities between the two. A lot of Orthodox Christian philosophers and theologians definitely respect him. From OrthodoxWiki:

“His masterpiece, the Periphyseon, attempted a synthesis between Latin and Greek Fathers on issues of cosmology and soteriology. Long labeled a heretic and pantheist or proto-Scholastic by Roman Catholic scholars, and kept out of the community of patristic writers by 20th-century scholars of the Orthodox diaspora, more recent studies have recognized his alleged heresy and eccentricity in the West as a reflection of his likely early Irish monastic educational background combined with his involvement with the Greek Fathers. His approach recently has been called one of ‘energeia entis,’ a focus on the ‘energy of being,’ an experiential sense of noetic life rooted in Orthodoxy, rather than the later Roman Catholic Scholastic ‘analogia entis,’ or emphasis on Creation as a conceptualizable analogy to the divine. His definition of Nature as a mystery incorporating ‘that which is’ and ‘that which is not’ highlights what has been described as his iconographic view of Creation, in a theophanic cosmology paralleling Orthodox teachings on the uncreated energies of God… Eriugena's Periphyseon today is considered by some both the last great Orthodox writing of the medieval West and also the last great work of ancient philosophy in Latin, and as a potential non-modern Christian bridge between the contemporary West and Orthodox intellectual life. His persona lingers on in perhaps the best joke to survive from the Latin Early Middle Ages.”

The Celts definitely have a different understanding of Christianity. The Gregorian Reforms in the eleventh century as I understand did not reach Ireland and the rest of the British Isles until much later. When you look at the division of Christianity in that part of the world there is definitely a much older feel. We here in the States in my opinion have a hard time comprehending that.

Quoting Dermot Griffin

Are his metaphysics still valid in today’s world?

If you consider everything created, only what is created can create. That what's created by what's created might create or not but it can never reach the level of that what's created by the primary creatures.
The primary creatures have their idiosyncratic creations, non-reproducable by other creatures.

Quoting Dermot Griffin

When you look at the division in Christianity in that part of the world there is definitely a much older feel.

Ninth century is a little after my time, as you might guess from my name...:pray:

Reply to EugeneW

Very important idea in intellectual history. I wonder if the church will ever absolve Eriugena’s condemnation.

Reply to Dermot Griffin

It depends what he meant with things not created. Everything is indirectly created.

Reply to EugeneW

I think what he meant by things not created is God, as classical theism states God cannot be created. But I’m just speculating. What I know of Eriugena is from presentations and secondary books. I just started reading the Periphyseon.

Quoting Dermot Griffin

I wonder if the church will ever absolve Eriugena’s condemnation

Not until he apologises for calling the Frankish king a drunkard. https://twitter.com/iamreddave/status/1191325868553060354

Reply to Dermot Griffin

That sounds reasonable. I think so too. So God can create, obviously. Just look around. What they created can create too. Even what we created can create, but that's actually us creating.

Reply to EugeneW

I think it’s time we all reconsider Eriugena, then. Pope Benedict XVI gave an address years ago praising his thought.

John Scotus Eriugena (proud Irishman), known for dividing reality into the following 4 categories:

1. Nature uncreated and creating (God in creation)

2. Nature created and creating (The intellect, Platonic ideas, our minds)

3. Nature created and uncreating (The world as such, our bodies)

4. Nature uncreated and uncreating (God in the end times, apocalypse)