Harvard Divinity School

Observations on the Use of Augustine by Johannes Scottus Eriugena

Author(s): Brian Stock
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 213-220
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW 6o (1967), 213-20

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF AUGUSTINE BY

JOHANNES SCOTTUS ERIUGENA

I.

THE ninth-century metaphysician, John the Scot, who came very

probably from Ireland to write both polemics and philosophy at th
court of Charles the Bald, is known to have read a number of Augu
tine's writings, and to have cited them in his major work, De Divisione
Naturae or Periphyseon,i at times without showing much regard
for the context of his quotations. He composed Periphyseon around
860 A.D.,2 in a period which was noted for the dissemination o
traditional theological ideas to a large, poorly educated public, rathe
than for its innovations.3 The influence of Greek ideas on John's mind
unusual in his day, but not quite so unusual as we used to believe,
gradually gave rise to the position, now commonly held by hi
torians, that his thought was more or less dominated by Greek ideas to
the exclusion of the Latins. This position has had to be modified, how-
ever, in the light of closer examination of his use of figures like th
Pseudo-Dionysius. Professor Roques, for example, has recently shown 5
that John's conception and employment of the celestial hierarchy
was vastly different from what its originator intended. Similar conclu-
sions will doubtless be reached when individual specialists analyse
John's use of other Greeks, like Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus th
Confessor, whom he is so fond of citing at length. Nonetheless, th
current impression of John's use of his sources was aptly summed up b

1A list of citations from Augustine in Periphyseon and other works is compiled

by Dom M. CAPPUYNS, Jean Scot Erigdne: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensle (Brusse
1964 [reprint]), 388f.
*I. P. SHELDON-WILLIAMS, A Bibliography of Johannes Scottus Eriugena,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History X2 (I959), I98f.
8B. SMALLEY, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952), 37f
' On the use of Greek in the theological literature of the period, see A. SIEGE-
MUND, Die tberlieferung der griechischen christlichen Literatur in der lateinische
Kirche bis zum XII. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1949), and the occasional remarks
B. BISCHOFF in Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Friih
mittelalter, Sacris Erudiri VI (1954), 189-28I; on Eriugena's study of Greek
CAPPUYNS, Op. Cit., 128-46.
SIn a seminar delivered at the Istituto di Filosofia, Universith degli Stud
Roma, so far unpublished.

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 214 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

Gilson, who suggested that he wrote in Latin but oft

Greek.6
The observations which I venture in this article are not
modify this position significantly, but merely to enlarge
one text. What I propose, moreover, is a group of "obser
strictest sense of the term. I do not think that Eriugena
tine, or any other author, will admit of general stateme
sage from its respective authority must be examined in
which it is used, especially since Eriugena's was a subt
of shifting position arbitrarily without regard to a pr
need for such a reconsideration of Eriugena's use of his c
pointed out as early as 1913 by W. Schulz. He showe
century authors often cited Augustine in small quotat
without any real understanding of their context, and wi
to commit themselves to all of the implications.7 A hand
have taken up the matter of Eriugena's use of August
time, but none of them has amplified the previous co
the matter is of considerable importance, not only from
point of view, on which I shall have nothing to say, but
of view of the history of ideas in the ninth century.
physeon is perhaps the most significant, long, philosoph
on the nature of man in Latin after Augustine, and certa
powerful exegesis of Genesis after De Genesi ad Litter
Eriugena, therefore, was not indebted to Augustine in so
be a historical misrepresentation. Yet the exact natur
has remained elusive. In what follows, I should like to pr
debt is greater than we have perhaps allowed, and tha
unusual way.

2.

One of the most elaborate discussions in Periphyseon occurs in Book

IV, when the master and the disciple turn to the problems of the first
chapters of Genesis.9 Of all the tangled arguments in the work, this

S History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), 121.
'Der Einfluss Augustins in der Theologie und Christologie des VIII. und IX.
Jahrhunderts (Halle), I913.
8 In particular, M. SCHMALL, Das Fortwirken der augustinischen Trinitits-
psychologie bis zur karolingischen Zeit, Vitae et Veritati: Festgabe fiir Karl Adam
(Diisseldorf, 1956), 54f.; H. LIEBESCHitTZ, Texterkldirung und Weltdeutung bei
Johannes Eriugena, Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte 40 (1958), 88f.
"For a fuller discussion, see my study, The Philosophical Anthropology of
Johannes Scottus Eriugena, Studi medievali (1967).

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 NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS 215

is perhaps the one which employs the most

authorities. Eriugena begins the discussion of o
chapters, the problem of paradise, with a fa
eighth book of De Genesi ad Litteram,o0 bu
ments of his argument take him further an
Augustinian position, which held that parad
earth, and closer to a milange of Greek positio
indebted to Gregory of Nyssa. I should like
most significant quotations from Augustine, th
his own position; then, to make some observati
Augustine is taken from the well-known ch
Civitate Dei. I shall cite it from Eriugena's text
edition: 11

Vivebat itaque homo in paradiso, sicut volebat, q

Deus jusserat; vivebat fruens Deo, ex quo bono era
egestate, ita semper vivere habens in potestate.
potus, ne sitiret; lignum vitae, ne illum senecta
tionis in corpore, vel ex corpore ullas molestias u
Nullus intrinsecus morbus, nullus ictus metuebatur
sanitas, in animo tota tranquillitas. Sicut in parad
ita in ejus habitatore nulla ex cupiditate vel ex timor
offensio. Nihil omnino triste, nihil erat inaniter l
petuabatur ex Deo, in quem flagrabat caritas de cord
et fide non ficta. Atque inter se conjugum fida et
concors mentis corporisque vigilia, et mandati sine l
fatigabat otiosum, non somnus premebat invitum.
felicitate hominum absit, ut suspicemur, non potuis
morbo, sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur memb
ardoris illecebroso stimulo, cum tranquillitate animi
integritatis, infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris.12

1 Cited in Periphyseon IV, 16; P.L., 122, 814.

UPeriphyseon IV, 14; P.L., 122, 8o6B-C. Eriugena
chapter, but one of the annotations of Migne correctl
sixth. Aside from changes in punctuation, and the
Scripture, i Tim. 1:5, is not differentiated in the tex
of "sommus" for "somnus" (line 16) does the text dif
449.
"1Translation: In paradise, then, man lived as he wished, so long as he wished
what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment of God, and he was good
through God's goodness. He lived without any want, and he had it in his power
to live eternally in this way. He had food that he might not hunger, drink that
he might not thirst, and the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There
was no corruption in his body; nor was corruption inflicting any disturbances
outside his body through any of the senses. He feared neither disease within,
nor accident without. His flesh was in the finest health, and his spirits com-
pletely peaceful. Just as in paradise there was no summer or winter, in its
occupant there was no disruption of good will through lust or fear. There was
no sadness of any kind, nor any foolish joy. True gladness flowed from the
presence of God, who was loved "out of a pure heart, and a good conscience,

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 216 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

A lengthy quotation like this conveys completely Aug

and betes noires, in addition to presenting us with a po
of his rhetorical and linguistic skill. We see at once
human interpretation of Genesis; the manner in which
material to support his historical assumptions; his
sensus literalis; and his firm allegiance to the Pauline d
and soul, to which he adds his own particular distaste f
flesh.
He tells us that Adam was completely perfect in paradise. He was
endowed with immortal youth, and exempted from sickness and old age.
If he had not sinned, he would never have suffered death; instead his
mortal body would have been "clothed upon" with immortality. In
the garden of Eden he was sustained by the fruits which he found grow-
ing freely. Marriage existed in paradise, and childbirth might have
taken place without lust. As the perfection of man, Adam was endowed
with superhuman intelligence. He was in a position in which he had
completely free will: he was capable of dying, and capable of not dying,
depending on whether or not he chose to sin. The quality of time in the
garden was one in which there was process, but no decay. Later scho-
lastic thought came to call this aevum.13 The first sin was caused
by a depraved will, and previous to its having entered the world through
Adam, the existence of evil, as a state, could not be said to have any
reality. But after the first sin, evil spread through the lower orders
completely. All that Adam was capable of attaining was permanently
denied him. So long as Adam was living in the garden, he was happy,
simply because it was within his grasp to achieve immortality. The
state of beatitude which he enjoyed in the garden was not the sort
which is granted to the elect after death; it was merely one of the
undeserved charities of the garden. What is most important to remem-
ber about Augustine's exegesis, however, is that the first couple were
thought to be actual people, in no way symbolic or allegorical person-

and a faith unfeigned." A faithful unity bred of honest love served as a bond
between them, a wakeful harmony of body and soul; and the commandment was
kept without labour. No languor made his leisure wearisome; nor did sleep oppress
him against his will. God forbid we suspect that, with such facility of things and
felicity in the mortals, man would not have been able to be reproduced without
the disease of lust Those (reproductive) members were moved by him, as all the
rest, through an act of volition. Without the seductive stimulus of heat, with
tranquillity of mind and of body, with no corruption of (her) virginity, the hus-
band would have impregnated the lap of the wife.
X On this subject, see G. B. LADNER, The Idea of Reform (Cambridge, Mass.,
1959), 443-48, and the interesting reflections in H. KANTOROWIcz, The King's
Two Bodies (Princeton, 1957), 175-284.

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 NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS 217

ages, and that their sin was the disobedience whic

and then. Time and history remain foremost in A
Before comparing this passage briefly with t
Eriugena's position in Book IV of Periphyseon, it
some general distinctions between the two theolo
primary reality of things, deriving from Greek
of the relation between a nonperceivable form and
manifestation of that form. Although Eriugena i
history, as I shall show, the question of the real,
to the empirically definable world, is entirely in
For Augustine, on the other hand, the platon
and the unreal is overshadowed by the pervasiv
If the most important dualism for Eriugena is th
the nonexistent, the corresponding emphasis in A
placed on the dualism of things before and af
between the present state of man and the promis
Accordingly, for Eriugena, humana natura is
commodity, which existed before its particula
figure of homo, or Adam, and to which sin was s
after the fall in Eden; whereas, for Augustine
in Eden represented the permanent corruption
the last judgment. Following this, it is clear that
ent" still possesses value because, in spite of sin,
of God; while for Augustine, the "present" is
man, and the same value is assigned to the past o
of the second coming. Both Eriugena and Aug
spiritual meaning is like a figure of speech: bu
the figure is merely the symptom of our cogn
primary reality is historical and actual; while E
Greeks, says that the spiritual meaning is the
God's intention, revealed to us in a series of ev
"history," so that we, as limited creatures, can
For Augustine time and eternity are opposed a
more by the wilful sin of man in Eden. Eriuge
the opposites of ea quae sunt and ea quae non
sentially to do with the fall story. Time and eter
but related, because the changeless divine ete

1 See E. HOFFMANN, Platonism in Augustine's Philos

phy and History: Essays presented to Ernst Cassire
Klibansky (Oxford, 1936), 173-77.

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218 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

by theophany 15 in human time. Augustine's ma

interpretation of Genesis lay in accommodating his
to the literal facts of the fall of man; Eriugena's,
accommodating the revealed word to his hypothe
of reality.
If there had been no historical questions to deal with, therefore,
and only abstract principles, Eriugena would have had no trouble in
constructing his Christian cosmology. His greatest difficulties arose
when he was confronted with historical realities which would not fit into
his system. The two major historical realities which he had to resolve
in Periphyseon were the coming of Christ and the terrestrial paradise.
It is in this light that we should view his own reflections on the
latter subject, which I shall summarize below, in contrast to the posi-
tion of Augustine.16
Eriugena views the paradise of Eden, that is, the garden of God,
or the state of the delights of eternal felicity, as human nature, created
originally in the likeness of God. This was a state of immense fertility,
in which the nature of man still possessed the capacity for immortality.
Although the natural body of man lay in peril of death through sin,
had no sin occurred, the soul would have had immortality added onto
it. Human nature had the capacity to die and not to die, if it had
not been corrupted by the sin but had flourished in the beauty of those
spiritual flowers in Eden. The air of paradise was reason, borne aloft
by the inspiration of divine illumination. The human soul circled
around the divine image of human nature eternally and without error.
In this paradise the fountain of life sprang forth, irrigating human na-
ture, allowing the wisdom of God to flow through human nature in the
form of the four cardinal virtues, and flowing from there back to
God, from whom all wisdom is said to derive and to whom all wisdom
returns. Just as the fountain of life was the physical source of the four
rivers which irrigated the physical paradise of Eden, so God's wisdom
is the source of the four cardinal virtues which irrigate the human soul.
In this paradise there was a tree of mixed knowledge, both good and
evil, hiding under the cloak of good, but appealing to carnal and con-
fused appetites in man. In this sense, man might be called the spirit,
protecting human nature, and woman, the sense, leading human nature
astray. The serpent was accordingly illicit desire which chose to as-
15By theophany Eriugena intends "visibilium et invisibilium species, quarum
ordine et pulchritudine cognoscitur Deus esse . . . ." (P.L., 122, 919C).
"eThis summary is based upon Eriugena's final position, the commentary on
GREGORY'S De Hominis Opificio, Periphyseon IV, 16; P.L., 122, 819D-82ID, and
on Eriugena's own recapitulation in Book IV, I7; ibid., 829f.

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 NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS 219

sault the carnal sense. Just as there was a d

paradise of human nature, so there were two d
Eden, the one signifying all good and unity, th
unity and sin, placed in paradise in accordan
ledge of sin. Humana natura is an interior para
exterior nature on account of sin.

3.

Such a summary of Eriugena's ideas on paradise, as brief as it is,

seems to vindicate the proposition that we are dealing with an author
who thinks in Greek but writes in Latin. However, the matter does
not end so simply. Before passing judgment on this allegorization of
paradise, it might be wise to see how Eriugena himself arrives at it.
The entire question begins in Book IV, chapter 14, of Periphyseon.
There the disciple asks the master what answer he proposes to make to
Augustine, who obviously considered Adam in a literal context.l7
In the ensuing argument, as I have said, Eriugena arrives finally at
the famous statement on paradise from De Genesi ad Litteram, 8:1,
in which Augustine says that allegorical interpretations of paradise are
to be accepted along with its physical meaning, but that neither the one
nor the other should predominate. In what follows, however, Eriu-
gena misinterprets this argument, seeking to widen the allegorical or
spiritual context of paradise until it suits his own thinking on the na-
ture of reality. In doing so, it is clear that he thinks he is widening
the statement of Augustine, not refuting it altogether. This becomes
clearer as his argument progresses. (One must remember that Peri-
physeon is not so carefully organized that it is not possible to follow
the formation of Eriugena's own thoughts, the dialogue acting like a
dialectic for his own mind.) The argument itself may be divided into
two stages. In the first stage is Eriugena, collecting the thoughts of
the Greek fathers on the question, finds himself in a position of com-
plete allegorization of paradise. Then the disciple protests that he has
gone too far. Whether he does so from a doctrinal or a logical point
of view we are not certain. In any case, Eriugena uses the next stage
of the argument 19 to reform his thoughts on paradise, and finishes
in the apparently contradictory position that, while paradise does not
lose all of its historical reality, its primary meaning is spiritual. The

71 I have analysed the argument in some detail in my article, Part II, section 3.
"SEnding roughly at Periphyseon IV, i6; P.L., 122, 816D.
"9Ending at 8i8A.

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220 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

summary of his thoughts on paradise, which he him

what later, after developing the allegorical noti
chiefly indebted to Gregory of Nyssa. His position i
a loose synthesis of ideas derived from both the Lat
mainly from Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory of Ny
extent, from Maximus the Confessor, in which it is
matter to distinguish his debt to each.
Rather than consider Eriugena simply as a revo
gustinian position, therefore, it might be better to v
who attempted to broaden the frame of reference f
sions in general. In this attempt he was naturally
reading of Greek authors, but he retained a respect
in the Augustinian tradition, which formed the s
background for all such thinking in his time. To
author who tried to think in Greek is to suppose th
had a wider currency in the ninth century than
questions like free will and the unilinear developm
example, Eriugena remains staunchly traditional. Wh
assumed to be his Greek ideas may, in fact, be a tend
was, in his period at least, original with him. It is th
separates Eriugena not only from Augustine himself
tinianism of his own age.
In general, in Augustine, man's relation to the
might have been and what he will be, not what he is
potential for eternity, man fell into the corrupti
his wilful sin, there to remain until eternity ends h
human time. Eriugena, on the other hand, begins
man; this is clear from his emphasis on the the
then reasons to the ideal man, whose relation with t
from God's eternity in emanation, from theophany.
is infused with the eternal in the "now," and the pr
than the distant past or the apocalyptic future, is th
of the eternal. Such a preoccupation with the presen
a justification of terrestrial reality not granted by A
Gilson's tentative statement about Eriugena might h
to something like the following: he was an author
Greeks and the Latins and thought for himself.
BRIAN STOCK
PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
TORONTO, CANADA

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