The Voice of the Eagle/the Heart of Celtic Christianity: Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John

by Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Christopher Bamford (Translator)

John Scotus Eriugena was born and raised in Ireland during the early ninth century. Neither monk nor priest but a "holy sage," he carried to France the flower of Celtic Christianity. His homily, The Voice of the Eagle, is a jewel of lyrical mysticism, theology, and cosmology, containing the essence of Celtic Christian wisdom. He meditates on the meaning and purpose of creation as revealed by the Word made flesh, distilling into twenty-three short chapters a uniquely Celtic, non-dualistic fusion of Christianity, Platonism, and ancient Irish wisdom. The translator's "Reflections" make up the second half of this book and attempt to unfold some of the life-giving meaning implicit in Eriugena's luminous sentences. Inspired both by a personal search for a living Christianity and by a sense of the continuity of Western culture, these "Reflections" offer a contemporary, meditative encounter with the Word, or Logos, as mediated by both St. John's Prologue and Eriugena's Celtic homily. This favorite of Celtic Christianity, unavailable for several years, has been revised and includes a new introduction by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Soul of Sex.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality, Christianity, Religion, History

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

John Scotus Eriugena, or Johannes Scotus Erigena (/dʒoʊˈhæniːz, -ˈhænɪs/ /ˈskoʊtəsˌ ˈskɒtəs/ /ɪˈrɪdʒənə/; c. 815 – c. 877) was an Irish theologian, neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He wrote a number of works, but is best known today for having written The Division of Nature, which has been called the final achievement of ancient philosophy, a work which "synthesizes the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries."

Erigena argued on behalf of something like a pantheistic definition of nature. He translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, and was one of the few European philosophers of his day that knew Greek, having studied in Athens. Famously, he is said to have been stabbed to death by his students at Malmesbury with their pens.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy of John Scottus Eriugena's homily on the prologue to the Gospel of John did not contain Christopher Bamford's commentary, so I can't speak to that aspect of the work (though the Goodreads summary claim that this text is full of ancient Irish wisdom confuses me a bit, as I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean).

This is, however, a genuinely beautiful piece of writing from Eriugena. Even if you aren't spiritual the joy and awe that he has in writing this really just spills of the page to the point that I think anyone could enjoy it.

It is a bit complicated, though - John Scottus Eriugena is a fascinating guy, even though we know almost nothing about him. Just this: he was born in Ireland, and somewhere around 50 years later he was floating around the Carolingian court of Charles the Bald, participating in theological debates and translating a number of Greek texts. It's the last part that's really key - Eriugena's translation work, particularly his translation of all the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite not only made available key theological texts to the western world, but really permeated his own philosophy as well. Pseduo-Dionysius's conception of the universe was deeply Neoplatonic - he saw the universe as essentially emanating out into existence, divine light cascading down a universal hierarchy all the way to the created universe. It's a lovely worldview, and one that frequently has a deep appreciation for nature: after all, for these writers, it was filled with little glimpses of God. Eriugena picks this up and runs with it, and develops a theory of cosmic harmony and unification that I thought was really imaginative, sensitive, and expansive. And then, in his homily, he finds an articulation of this cosmology in the first 14 verses of the Gospel of John, one of the most interesting parts of the Bible.


I'm having a lot of fun reading all these theological texts for my class this semester. It's been an interesting experience, particularly approaching them with a group of people who are quite a bit more religious than I am myself. It's making me think that everyone could benefit from a theology class, regardless of level of belief.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who Should Read This Book (These Books) - Readers interested in the history of Christian theology and spirituality who desire not just intellectual understanding but also to sit at the feet of a spiritual master.

What’s the Big Takeway - My takeaway as I read these ancient saints is consistently the same: they have an understanding of the divine and a spirituality centered on Jesus that Christianity would do well to recover today.

And a quote: “For the generation of the word from the Father is the very creation itself of al causes, together with the operation and effect of all that proceeds from them in kinds and species. Truly, all things were made from the generation of God-the-Word from God-the-beginning. . . The beginning, the principle, from whom all things are is the Father; the beginning, the principle, through whom all things exist is the Son. The father speaks the Word - the Father brings forth his Wisdom - and all things are made” (ch. VII)

“For, just as in the case of one who speaks, when he stops speaking, his voice ceases and disappears, so also with the Heavenly Father, should he stop speaking his Word, the effect of his Word - the created universe - would cease to subsist. For the continuous maintenance by substitution - the very continuance - of the created universes it he’s speech of God the Father, the eternal and unchangeable generation of the Word” (ch. XVI)

Way back when I was in seminary, our church history professor assigned us to read a spiritual master and journal on what we learned. I chose Irenaeus in my early church history class and Anselm in medieval church history. As I write this, I can’t recall who I read in the Reformation and Modern classes. Menno Simmons and Karl Barth? It doesn’t matter. The point is - this assignment changed my life.

We were in an academic setting and many of us wanted to dive deep into either the historical story or the brilliant works of theology. Our professor led us into both of things areas, but he also wanted to feed our souls. The whole idea that you can separate that academic/rational from the soul/spiritual is a symptom of the modern world. All the great brilliant theologians of the premodern era - Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm - were deeply in tune with the spiritual life. There was no separation between their study of Jesus/gospel/God/theology and their prayer lives.

I say this assignment changed my life, because I have continued to assign it to myself. Of course, I feel totally inadequate and practically still a beginner in the spiritual life. Though, maybe that’s the point in reading these saints: to be humbled about how far we have to go.

The latest spiritual master I’ve discovered is John Scottus Eriugena, a 9th century Irish theologian. A few months ago I read his Treatise on Divine Predestination in which he argues against double predestination. Double predestination taught that some are chosen (predestined) for heaven while others are chosen for hell. This teaching was supported by some of Augustine’s treatises, though Eriugena quotes other works of Augustine to refute it. Over the years this teaching has stuck around in some forms of Calvinism.

Eriugena paints a picture of God as wholly Good and thus the cause only of the Good:

“God cannot be both the highest essence and not be the cause of those things only that derive from him. But God is the highest essence. He is therefore the cause of those things only which derive from him. Sin, death, unhappiness are not from God. Therefore God is not the cause of them. The same syllogism can be put this way: God cannot be both the cause of those things tat are and the cause of those things that are nothing. But God is the cause of those things that are. Therefore, he is not the cause of those things that are not. Sin and its effect, death, to which unhappiness is conjoined, are not” (ch. 3.3)

“Every good thing either is God or is made from God; all that is made from God effects no corruption of the good, and conversely: therefore no corruption of the good is from the good. All sin, because it is evil, is a defect of the good; no corruption of the good is from the good; therefore no sin, because it is evil, can be from the good. Every creature sharing in reason is a great good; from no good is evil; therefore sin is from no creature sharing in reason” (16.4)

The analytical mind may not be satisfied with this answer. How can evil be nothing? If God only predestines those who are known by God, doesn’t the lack of choosing constitute a choosing in itself? These questions are valid but is also worth recognizing that Eriugena is far from the only theologian in the Christian tradition who argues this. It is actually the majority opinion (at least, in my understanding) as echoed by Gregory of Nysa, Maximus, Julian of Norwich and many others.

That’s sort of a tangent. I haven’t even gotten to the book I am actually reviewing. The Voice of the Eagle is Eriugena’s homily on the beginning of the Gospel of John. Its truly beautiful, and quite short, less than 100 pages. We see the same beautiful picture of God here; God is Love who holds the entire cosmos together in love.

Following the short homily are about 200 pages of reflections from the translator, Christopher Bamford. These reflections are good in their own right and are filled with quotes from the tradition. But I think it would have been better to synthesize the reflections into the text of the homily. In other words, after a section of the homily include the reflections as a sort of commentary. The way it is set up, I felt like I was reading a different book. To be clear, Bamford’s reflections are good and thus its a book I’d like to read. It just seemed too disconnected.

3 stars rather than 4 is mostly because I didn’t like the way the reflections were organized after the main text.

Overall though, if you’re looking for a spiritual master to make you think and feed your soul, Eriugena may be a good one to add to your list.

[David Gregg]

Note for future reading: Want to read for the translation of Eriugena's commentary on John's Prologue. Will probably not read the substantial secondary commentary by Bamford comprising the largest portion of this book.

[Elsbeth Kwant]

Surprising! I very much liked this 9th century homily on John. Meant for Christmas, very readable at Easter, I read it at Pentecost. 'Reading this commentary is like listening to the tender and juicy words of a poet, like Rilke or Emily Dickinson, who sees the subtleties of human life with a refined eye', says the introduction, and so it proved. Having read so much R.S. Thomas these years, this resonated: 'The old idea of deus absconditus, the hidden God, allows us to live, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, not as though God were given but in the very presence of God.' 'Depression is not really a psychological malady; it is rather an extreme abundance of an otherwise natural withdrawal from life.'

Eriugena is, in W.B. Yeats's phrase, a “singing-master of the soul,” one “standing in God's holy fire,”. He is Celtic, like R.S. Thomas: 'Wind and water, sunlight and cloud, dream and vision, bird and animal, thought and silence ebb and flow like so many veils before the Face of God'. the Celtic tradition was very old, having retreated to Ireland before the Romans, it therefore 'experienced a continuity of cosmic process, a solidarity with all creation'. "After the flood, The Book of Invasions (the Lebor Gabala) tells us of five waves of peoples washing across Ireland: the people of Portholon (agriculturalists); the race of the Nemed (perhaps Scythians); the Tuatha de Danaan (who were civilizers); the Fir Bolg; and, finally, the Miles or Gaels. It was as a result of this last migration of Indo-European people and wisdom from the Black Sea region, people bearing with them the culture of the Vedas from the East, that the bardic, tribal, aristocratic people we know as the Celts arose.'
'Theirs was a country and a people of individual, autonomous units. Placing great emphasis on freedom, they constituted no state or nation but, as it were, a free federation of tribes. There were the tribal chiefs and, serving them, warriors, and of equal status with these, the aes dana, “the men of special gifts”—Druids, bards, prophets and visionaries, healers and historians, often in one. Believing in reincarnation, without fear of death, these Celtic people lived a life, as one modern authority puts it, of spiritual freedom verging on anarchy. Jean Markale writes: “The essence of Celtic philosophy would appear to be a search for individual freedom, not based in any egoism, but founded in the belief that each person is special and therefore different from others, that behavior cannot be modelled on a pattern created by others.”
The Lesser Druidic Mysteries were "above all the mysteries of nature, of sunlight and shadow, of water, wind, and rock, of mist and cloud and birdsong, of the elements—water, earth, air, and fire—and of the manifold life of mineral, plant, and animal, integrated into the cosmos, and interacting with and interpenetrating the realm of the Sun and the fixed stars, and the zodiac.' át the “heart” of Celtic Christianity, exemplified by Eriugena and his Homily, falls into a sevenfold gift:First, there is everywhere and always a deep sense of the wholeness of the human being—male and female, male or female—and of the human being as a child of God'
Second, there is a deep love of and identity with the earth, understood in the largest sense as co-extensive with the cosmos. We may think here of the modern Celt, Teilhard de Chardin, whose love of geology and the rockstuff of the earth led him to a profoundly “enChristed” understanding of evolution.
Third, there is a whole complex of myths and legends that call human beings to become ever more fully, freely and individually, themselves—to become children of heaven and coworkers with God in the transformation of the earth. We might call these “Grail” legends.
Fourth, there is a sophisticated understanding of the soul or imaginal realm as the interworld, the world of the dead, the place of living images, spiritual events, sacred histories, and encounters with spiritual beings—saints, risen human beings, gods, and divine beings, including Jesus and Mary.
Fifth, there is a profound and ecumenical cosmopolitanism: to be “a Celt” is to be at home everywhere; it is to have the gift of languages, the ability to empathize and be at one with everyone and everything; it is to be dialog incarnate, conversation, to know the Word in the word.49Sixth, there is deep love of learning and study, study as a curriculum of the soul. Too often, learning and study are discounted, if not abused and reviled, as synonymous with intellectualism, abstraction, and a kind of literalism or conceptual bigotry. But when study and learning are for the sake of the experience and transformation of the student, and not for the mere accumulation of knowledge or information, what is learned becomes who one is.
Finally, there is an implacable, impeccable ability to tolerate not only contradiction and paradox, but also sheer chaos and confusion: therefore none of the above may be separated and none should be thought without a smile!"

Then the homily itself. It centres on John. Then describes how both apostles run to the tomb: John runs ahead and arrives earlier. He, symbolizes contemplation, which is more speedy than Peter, who symbolizes action. But Peter enters earliers. Then it describes how the Word went forth from the HEart of the Father. It is al beautifully put, and remarkably like something you could hear in church today. Except for the analogy of John with an eagle:
“THERE WAS A MAN sent from God, whose name was John.”Behold the eagle, relaxing his wings of sublimest contemplation, descend in gentle flight from the highest peaks of the mountain of theology into the deepest valley of history, from the heaven of the spiritual world to the earth.

"And if those are meant who come into this world from the hidden folds of nature through generation in times and places, then what sort of illumination is possible for them in this life where we are born but to die, grow but to decay, coagulate but to be dissolved again, falling from the restfulness of silent nature into the restlessness of bustling misery?"

Wonderful to relate to a man living over a millenium before!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Voice of the Eagle: Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John by Johannes Scotus Eriugena, translated with an introduction and reflections by Christopher Bamford, expounds non-dualistic Christianity and Platonism: "As the center of and creator between heaven and earth, visible and invisible, the human being for Eriugena is the place where--by means or organ by which--the entire universe may be united and transfigured by God (is) known in his own self-knowing (p. 11).

[Carol Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting interpretation of the Prologue to Gospel according to John.

[mama housemouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book. Keeping to reread in the middle of winter... it's not an energetic summer book, it's for the quiet introspective days of January. Would love to find the original text as well.