Periphyseon (The Division of Nature)

Introduction

A Latin dialogue in five books between a teacher (Nutritor) and a pupil (Alumnus), written around 862–866 at the court of Charles the Bald. Eriugena draws on Greek authors he had translated or read in the original, above all Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, which was very rare in the Latin West at the time. Book I discusses the categories and the God who is beyond them; Books II–V follow the four divisions of nature, ending with the return of all things to God. Pope Honorius III condemned the work in 1225 and ordered copies to be burned, but it survived in manuscripts and was printed in 1681.

Connections

Builds on

• The Divine Namesc. 500 · Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite