ERIUGENA
521
ERIUGENA
substance, etc. Similarly, when we say that God is the
"Creator" of all things we should iniderstand that
predicate in a sense altogether distinct from the mean-
ing which we attach to the predicate "maker" or
"producer" when applied to finite agents or causes.
The " creation" of the world is in reality a theophnnia,
or showing forth of the Essence of God in the things
created. Just as He reveals Himself to the mind and
the soul in higher intellectual and spiritual truth, so
He reveals Himself to the senses in the created world
around us. Creation is, therefore, a process of unfold-
ing of the Divine Nature, and if we retain the word
Creator in the sense of "one who makes things out
of nothing", we must understand that God "makes"
the world out of His own Essence, which, because of
its incomprehensibility, may be said to be " nothing".
(2) Nature in the second sense, " Nature which cre- ates and is created ", is the world of primordial causes, or ideas, which the Father "created" in the Son, and which in turn " create", that is detemiine the generic and specific natures of concrete visible things. These, says Eriugena, were called " prototypes", Beia. eeXritiara, and "ideas", by the Greeks. Their function is that of exemplar and efficient causes. For since they are, though created, identical with God, and since their locus is tlie Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, they are operative causes and not merely static types. They are coetemal with the Word of God. From this, however, it is not necessary to infer, as some critics have done, that according to Eriugena the primordial causes are identical with the Word. As examples of primordial causes Eriugena enumerates goodness, wisdom, intuition (insight), understanding, virtue, greatness, power, etc. These are united in God, partly separate or scattered in the Word, and fully separate or scattered in the world of phenomena. For there is underlying all Eriugena's doctrine of the origin of things the image to which he often referred, namely, that of a circle, the radii of which are united at the centre. The centre is God, the radii at a point near the centre are the primordial causes, the radii at the circumference are phenomena.
(3) These phenomena are "Nature" in the third sense, "which is created and does not create". The stream of reality, setting out from the centre, God, passing through the ideas in the Word, passes next through all the genera suprema, media, and infima of logic, then enters the region of number and the realm of space and time, where the ideas become subject to multiplicity, change, imperfection, and decay. In this last stage they are no longer pure ideas but only the appearances of reality, that is phenomena. In the region of number the ideas become angels, pure incor- poreal spirits. In the realm of space and time the ideas take on the burden of matter, which is the source of suffering, sickness, and sin. The material world, therefore, of our experience is composed of ideas clothed in matter — here Eriugena attempts a reconcil- iation of Platonism with Aristotelean notions. Man, too, is composed of idea and matter, soul and body. He is the culmination of the process of things from God, and with him, as we shall see, begins the process of return of all things to God. He is the image of the Trinity in so far as he unites in one soul being, wis- dom, and love. In the state of innocence in which he was created, he was perfect in body as well as in soul, independent of bodily needs, and without differentia- tion of .sex. The dependence of man's mind on the body and the subjection of the body to the world of sense, as well as the distinction of male and female in the human kind, are all the results of original sin. This downward tendency of the soul towards the con- ditions of animal existence has only one remedy. Divine grace. By means of this heavenly gift man is enabled to rise superior to the needs of the sensuous body, to place the demands of reason above those of bodily appetite, and from reason to ascend through
contemplation to ideas, and thence by intuition to
God Himself. The three faculties here alluded to as
reason, contemplation, and intuition are designated by
Eriugena as internal sense {Siamia), ratiocination
(XAyos), and intellect (voOs). These are the three de-
grees of mental perfection which man must attain if
he is to free himself from the bondage into which he
was cast by sin, and attam that union with God in
which salvation consists.
(4) Not only man, however, but everything else in- nature is destined to return to God. This universal resurrection of nature is the subject of the last portion of Eriugena's work, in which he treats of "Nature which neither creates nor is created". This is God, the final Term, or Goal, of all existence. W^hen Christ became man. He took on Himself body, soul, senses, and intellect, and when, ascending into Heaven, He took these with Him, not only the sold of man but his senses, his body, the animal and the vegetative na- tures, and even the elements were redeemed, and the final return of all things to God was begun. Now, as Heraclitus taught, the upward and the downward ways are the same. The return to God proceeds in the' inverse order through all the steps which marked the downward course, or process of things from God. The elements become light, light becomes life, life becomes sense, sense becomes reason, reason becomes intellect, intellect becomes ideas in Christ, the Word of God, and through Christ returns to the oneness of God from which all the processes of nature began. This "incorporation" in Christ takes place by means of Divine grace in the Church, of which Christ is the invisible head. The doctrine of the final return of all things to God shows very clearly the influence of Ori- gen. In general, the system of thought just outlined is a combination of neo-Platonic mysticism, emanation- ism, and pantheism which Eriugena strove in vain to reconcile with Aristotelean empiricism. Christian cre- ationism, and theism. The result is a body of doc- trines loosely articulated, in which the mystic and idealistic elements predominate, and in which there is much that is irreconcilable with Catholic dogma.
Influence. — Eriugena's influence on the theologi- cal thought of his own and immediately subsequent generations was doubtless checked by the condemna- tions to which his doctrines of predestination and of the Eucharist were subjected in the Councils of Val- encia (855), Langres (8.59), and Vercelli (1050). The general trend of his thought, so far as it was discerni- ble at the time of his translations of Pseudo-Diony,sius, was referred to with suspicion in a letter addressed by Pope Nicholas I to Charles the Bald in 859. It was not, however, until the beginning of the thirteenth century that the pantheism of the "De Divisione Naturpe" was formally condemned. The Council of Paris (1225) coupled the condemnation of Eriu- gena's work with the previous condemnations (1210) of the doctrines of Amalric of Chartres and David of Dinant, and there can be no doubt that the pantheists of that time were using Eriugena's treatise. While the great Scholastic teachers, .4belard, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, and Albert the Great knew nothing, apparently, of Eriugena and his pantheism, certain groups of mystical theologians, even as early as the thirteentli century, were inter- ested in his work and drew their doctrines from it. The Albigenses, too, sought inspiration from him. Later, the Mystics, especially Meister Eckhart, were influenced by him. And in recent times the great transcendental idealists, especially the Germans, rec- ognize in him a kindred spirit and speak of him in the highest terms.
MioNE, P. L.. CXXII; Rand. Jnhnnnrx Srnhi.t (Munich, 19061: r.ARnNER, Sludiex in John Ihr Scot (I,„n,lun 1900); Poole, lUuslralions of the Hislow oj M,.h.ml Thnu„hl (I.nnrion, 1884), .53 sq., 311 sq.; Townsend. Th,- Unat Scluml men (.Lon- don, 18811, 3.5 sq.; Staudenmaier. Juhnmws i^colus t.riaetM (Frankfort, 1834); Christlieb, Lebcn und Lehre dcs J. S. h.
