John Scotus Eriugena
All of nature flows out of God and will return to him – and reason, not mere authority, should guide how we understand this.
Placement
Irish scholar at the Carolingian court: translated Pseudo-Dionysius and conceived all reality as nature proceeding from God and returning to him.
Key ideas
- Fourfold division of nature
- Procession and return
- Reason before authority
Influence
Influenced by 3
Origen
influenced by
Eriugena took up Origen’s doctrine of the return of all things to God in Periphyseon V, qualifying it with Augustinian elements. John Scottus Eriugena, Periphyseon V; D. Heide, ‘Ἀποκατάστασις: The Resolution of Good and Evil in Origen and Eriugena’, Dionysius 33 (2015); SEP “John Scottus Eriugena”
Evidence: AI draft
Origen › c. 185–253
Augustine
influenced by ✓
In On Divine Predestination (851) Eriugena argued from Augustine against Gottschalk’s double predestination; Periphyseon weighs Augustine against the Greek Fathers. John Scottus Eriugena, De divina praedestinatione (851); Periphyseon; SEP “John Scottus Eriugena”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Augustine › 354–430
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
influenced by
Eriugena translated the Dionysian corpus into Latin around 860–62 and built Periphyseon on its procession and return and its affirmative and negative theology. John Scottus Eriugena, Versio Dionysii; Periphyseon; SEP “John Scottus Eriugena”
Evidence: AI draft
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite › c. 480–530
Works
A dialogue on nature in four forms: from the God who creates, through creation, back to God.
Position
Eriugena’s Periphyseon is one of the boldest systems of the Middle Ages. It divides nature into four forms: what creates and is not created (God as origin), what is created and creates (the primordial causes), what is created and does not create (the world of things), and what neither creates nor is created (God as final goal). All reality flows from God and returns to him; creation is God’s self-manifestation, while God himself, beyond all being, may be called “nothing”. True authority, Eriugena held, cannot contradict right reason. Condemned in 1225, the work still influenced Nicholas of Cusa and has been read as anticipating German idealism.
Life & context
John Scotus Eriugena – the name means “born in Ireland” – came in the 840s to the court of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald, where he taught the liberal arts. In 851 he wrote a treatise on predestination that church synods later condemned. Around 860, at the king’s request, he translated Pseudo-Dionysius from Greek into Latin. He probably died around 877.
Further main works
- On Divine Predestination (De divina praedestinatione, 851)
- Latin translation of Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 860–862)
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