difficult to resist a tradition which held currency through out the middle ages that he sought retreat here when his old protector was taken away from him, and that his fervour of teaching was only closed when his scholars fell upon him and slew him. The monument that commemorated the holy sophist was soon destroyed, but repeated orders from pope or council have not succeeded in obliterating his truest memorial which remains to us in his writings, above all in the great work On the Division of Nature.[1] From this last we may, without attempting even in outline to portray his whole system, collect enough of its features to shew what a revelation he made of the dignity of the order of the universe; however much mixed with crude or fantastic ideas, however often clouded in obscurity, yet full of suggestion, full of interest everywhere.[2]
His reflexions upon the subject of predestination led John Scotus, as we have already seen, to trace his theory of the nature of sin. Augustin[3] and even Athanasius had been led to a similar explanation of the appearance of evil in the world, but how differently had they ap-
- ↑ Its proper title is Greek, Περί φύσεων μερισμού The eclitio princeps, which is far better reputed than Schriiter s reprint of 1838, was published by Thomas Gale (as appears from the appendix, p. 46), Oxford 1681 folio, whose pages I have added to my references to the work. In writing the present chapter I had not access to the edition by H. J. Floss, which forms the hundred and twenty-second volume of Migne s Cursus, and includes the rest of the Scot s works, namely (1) the translations of Dionysius and Maximus and the expositions on the former, (2) the tract on predestination, (3) a commentary and homilies on the gospel of saint John, (4) verses, and (5) a fragment on the procession and recession of the soul to God. The catalogue of lost works printed in the Testimonia prefixed to Gale’s edition is not very critically compiled; it is corrected with various success by the biographers.
- ↑ The most profound exposition of the Scot's system with which I am acquainted is given by Baur, Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit 2. 263-344. Baur is especially complete in his analysis of John’s relation to his Greek predecessors, I am also under obligations to the general works of Ritter 3. 209 296 and Girörer 3. 922-937. Of the biographers Huber is the most philosophical, while Christlieb loses himself in far-fetched speculations as to John’s affinities to modern philosophy.
- ↑ Peccatum quidem non per ipsum factum est: et manifestum est, quia peccatum nihil est et nihil fiunt homines cum peccant: Tract, i in loh. evang., Opp. 3 (2) 294 c, cd. Bened., Paris 1689 folio.
