Eriugena

by John Joseph O'Meara

This book deals with Johannes Scottus Eriugena, an Irish scholar at the Court of Charles the Bald in France in the second half of the ninth century - to be clearly distinguished from John Duns Scotus (1264-1308), after whom `Scotist' philosophy is named. Eriugena's main work, Periphyseon (de divisione naturae), is a remarkable attempt at a real intellectual synthesis between the Bible and Neoplatonist philosophy. It was not looked upon with great favour in the West except by the mystics and, more recently, by German Idealist philosophers of the last century. Now, however, because of the growth of interest in Medieval Studies, there is an increasing curiosity about Eriugena and his work - but there has been no comprehensive book about him since that of M. Cappuyns in 1933. Bringing together the results of the most recent research on Eriugena, this book discusses his background in Ireland and life in France, and of his career as teacher, controversialist, translator, and poet. It gives an extended and careful summary of the Periphyseon, and the first translation into English of the brief Homily on the Prologue to St.John's Gospel.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology

Paperback

First published July 14, 1988

Reviews

[Adam Marischuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This essay is very short and suffers much from what Jacques Maritain's St. Thomas Aquinas suffers from. The author spends a great deal of time arguing the relevance of the subject without actually demonstrating the relevance or explaining (even briefly) Eriugena's thought.

The opening chapters on the life of Eriugena are more historiography than history. O'Meara relies heavily on Maieul Cappuyns' work from 1933, which is nearly impossible to find. He only disagrees wiht Cappuyns when Cappuyns minimizes or undervalues the contributions of Irish education to Eriugena's scholarship. But it is hard to determine how much of this is because of some latent nationalism.

To be fair, the book was published by the Cultural Relations Committee of the Government of Ireland with the express "aim of this series is to give a broad, informed survey of Irish life and culture, past and present" (p. iv) and the Epilogue makes that painfully clear with quotations from Copleston and Gilson about the importance and genius of Eriugena: "Standing like a lofty rock in the midst of a plain." (from Copleston, on page 63) or "an immense metaphysical and theological epic, hardly believable..." (from Gilson, on page 69).

I should remind Professor O'Meara that it is a two-edged sword. Either Eriugena was a genius of the first order, or the product of sophisticated Irish education. It is difficult (but not impossible) to have it both ways

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

O'Meara can explain Plotinus. There is nothing for which he is not qualified.