The universe of created things, as we have seen, is twofold:—first,
that which is created and creates—the primordial ideas, archetypes,
immutable relations, divine acts of will, according to which individual
things are formed; second, that which is created and does not create,
the world of individuals, the effects of the primordial causes, without
which the causes have no true being. Created things have no
individual or self-independent existence; they are only in God;
and each thing is a manifestation of the divine, theophania, divina
apparitio.
God alone, the uncreated creator of all, has true being. He is the true universal, all-containing and incomprehensible. The lower cannot comprehend the higher, and therefore we must say that the existence of God is above being, above essence; God is above goodness, above wisdom, above truth. No finite predicates can be applied to him; his mode of being cannot be determined by any category. True theology is negative. Nevertheless the world, as the theophania, the revelation of God, enables us so far to understand the divine essence. We recognize his being in the being of all things, his wisdom in their orderly arrangement, his life in their constant motion. Thus God is for us a Trinity—the Father as substance or being (οὐσία), the Son as wisdom (δύναμις), the Spirit as life (ἐνέργια). These three are realized in the universe—the Father as the system of things, the Son as the word, i.e. the realm of ideas, the Spirit as the life or moving force which introduces individuality and which ultimately draws back all things into the divine unity. In man, as the noblest of created things, the Trinity is seen most perfectly reflected; intellectus (νοῦς), ratio (λογος) and sensus (διάνοια) make up the threefold thread of his being. Not in man alone, however, but in all things, God is to be regarded as realizing himself, as becoming incarnate.
The infinite essence of God, which may indeed be described as nihilum (nothing) is that from which all is created, from which all proceeds or emanates. The first procession or emanation, as above indicated, is the realm of ideas in the Platonic sense, the word or wisdom of God. These ideas compose a whole or inseparable unity, but we are able in a dim way to think of them as a system logically arranged. Thus the highest idea is that of goodness; things are, only if they are good; being without well-being is naught. Essence participates in goodness—that which is good has being, and is therefore to be regarded as a species of good. Life, again, is a species of essence, wisdom a species of life, and so on, always descending from genus to species in a rigorous logical fashion.
The ideas are the eternal causes, which, under the moving influence of the spirit, manifest themselves in their effects, the individual created things. Manifestation, however, is part of the being or essence of the causes, that is to say, if we interpret the expression, God of necessity manifests himself in the world and is not without the world. Further, as the causes are eternal, timeless, so creation is eternal, timeless. The Mosaic account, then, is to be looked upon merely as a mode in which is faintly shadowed forth what is above finite comprehension. It is altogether allegorical, and requires to be interpreted. Paradise and the Fall have no local or temporal being. Man was originally sinless and without distinction of sex. Only after the introduction of sin did man lose his spiritual body, and acquire the animal nature with its distinction of sex. Woman is the impersonation of man’s sensuous and fallen nature; on the final return to the divine unity, distinction of sex will vanish, and the spiritual body will be regained.
The most remarkable and at the same time the most obscure portion of the work is that in which the final return to God is handled. Naturally sin is a necessary preliminary to this redemption, and Erigena has the greatest difficulty in accounting for the fact of sin. If God is true being, then sin can have no substantive existence; it cannot be said that God knows of sin, for to God knowing and being are one. In the universe of things, as a universe, there can be no sin; there must be perfect harmony. Sin, in fact, results from the will of the individual who falsely represents something as good which is not so. This misdirected will is punished by finding that the objects after which it thirsts are in truth vanity and emptiness. Hell is not to be regarded as having local existence; it is the inner state of the sinful will. As the object of punishment is not the will or the individual himself, but the misdirection of the will, so the result of punishment is the final purification and redemption of all. Even the devils shall be saved. All, however, are not saved at once; the stages of the return to the final unity, corresponding to the stages in the creative process, are numerous, and are passed through slowly. The ultimate goal is deificatio, theosis or resumption into the divine being, when the individual soul is raised to a full knowledge of God, and where knowing and being are one. After all have been restored to the divine unity, there is no further creation. The ultimate unity is that which neither is created nor creates.
Editions.—There is a complete edition of Erigena’s works in J. P. Migne’s Patrologiae cursus completus (vol. cxxii.), edited by H. J. Floss (Paris, 1853). The De divina praedestinatione was published in Gilbert Mauguin’s Veterum auctorum qui nono saeculo de praedestinatione et gratia scripserunt opera et fragmenta (Paris, 1650). The commentary (“Expositiones”) on Dionysius’ Hierarchiae caelestes appeared in the Appendix ad opera edita ab A. Maio (ed. J. Cozza, Rome, 1871). Of the De divisione naturae, editions have been published by Thomas Gale (Oxford, 1681); C. B. Schlüter (Münster, 1838); and in Floss’s Opera omnia; there is a German translation by Ludwig Noack, Johannes Scotus Erigena über die Eintheilung der Natur (3 vols., 1874–1876). Erigena was also the author of some poems edited by L. Traube in Monumenta Germaniae historica. Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini, iii. (1896). A commentary on the Opuscula sacra of Boëtius is attributed to him and edited by E. K. Rand (1906). Monographs on Erigena’s life and works are numerous; see St René Taillandier, Scot Érigène et la philosophie scholastique (1843); T. Christlieb, Leben u. Lehre des Johannes Scotus Erigena (Gotha, 1860); J. N. Huber, Johannes Scotus Erigena (Munich, 1861); W. Kaulich, Das speculative System des Johannes Scotus Erigena (Prague, 1860); A. Stöckl, De Joh. Scoto Erigena (1867); L. Noack, Über Leben und Schriften des Joh. Scotus Erigena: die Wissenschaft und Bildung seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1876); R. L. Poole, Medieval Thought (1884), and article in Dictionary of National Biography; T. Wotschke, Fichte und Erigena (Halle, 1896); M. Baumgartner in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexikon, x. (1897); Alice Gardner’s Studies in John the Scot (1900); J. Dräseke, Joh. Scotus Erigena und seine Gewährsmänner (Leipzig, 1902); S. M. Deutsch in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, xviii. (1906); J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship (1906), pp. 491–495. See also the general works on scholastic philosophy, especially Hauréau, Stöckl and Kaulich. An admirable résumé is given by F. D. Maurice, Medieval Phil. pp. 45-79. (R. Ad.; J. M. M.)
ERIGONE, in Greek mythology, daughter of Icarius, the hero
of the Attic deme Icaria. Her father, who had been taught by
Dionysus to make wine, gave some to some shepherds, who
became intoxicated. Their companions, thinking they had been
poisoned, killed Icarius and buried him under a tree on Mount
Hymettus (or threw his body into a well). Erigone, guided by
her faithful dog Maera, found his grave, and hanged herself on
the tree. Dionysus sent a plague on the land, and all the maidens
of Athens, in a fit of madness, hanged themselves like Erigone.
Icarius, Erigone and Maera were set among the stars as Boötes
(or Arcturus), Virgo and Procyon. The festival called Aeora
(the “swing”) was subsequently instituted to propitiate Icarius
and Erigone. Various small images (in Lat. oscilla) were suspended
on trees and swung backwards and forwards, and offerings
of fruit were made (Hyginus, Fab. 130, Poët. astron. ii. 4;
Apollodorus iii. 14). The story was probably intended to explain
the origin of these oscilla, by which Dionysus, as god of trees
(Dendrites), was propitiated, and the baneful influence of the
dog-star averted (see also Oscilla).
ERIN, an ancient name for Ireland. The oldest form of the
word is Ériu, of which Érinn is the dative case. Ériu was itself
almost certainly a contraction from a still more primitive form
Iberiu or Iveriu; for when the name of the island was written in
ancient Greek it appeared as Ἰουερνιά (Ivernia), and in Latin as
Iberio, Hiberio or Hibernia, the first syllable of the word Ériu
being thus represented in the classical languages by two distinct
vowel sounds separated by b or v. Of the Latin variants, Iberio
is the form found in the most ancient Irish MSS., such as the
Confession of St Patrick, and the same saint’s Epistle to Coroticus.
Further evidence to the same effect is found in the fact that the
ancient Breton and Welsh names for Ireland were Ywerddon or
Iverdon. In later Gaelic literature the primitive form Ériu
became the dissyllable Éire; hence the Norsemen called the
island the land of Éire, i.e. Ireland, the latter word being originally
pronounced in three syllables. (See Ireland: Notices of
Ireland in Greek and Roman writers.) Nothing is known as to the
meaning of the word in any of its forms, and Whitley Stokes’s
suggestion that it may have been connected with the Sanskrit
avara, meaning “western,” is admittedly no more than conjecture.
There was, indeed, a native Irish legend, worthless
from the standpoint of etymology, to account for the origin of the
name. According to this myth there were three kings of the
Dedannans reigning in Ireland at the coming of the Milesians,
named MacColl, MacKecht and MacGrena. The wife of the
first was Eire, and from her the name of the country was derived.
Curiously, Ireland in ancient Erse poetry was often called
“Fodla” or “Bauba,” and these were the wives of the other
two kings in the legend.
ERINNA, Greek poet, contemporary and friend of Sappho,
a native of Rhodes or the adjacent island of Telos, flourished
about 600 (according to Eusebius, 350 B.C.). Although she died
at the early age of nineteen, her poems were among the most
