Robert Adamson and John Malcolm Mitchell

“ In this highest effort of reason, which is indeed God thinking in man, thought and being are at one, the opposition of being and thought is overcome. When Erigena starts with such propositions, it is clearly impossible to understand his position and work if we insist on regarding him as a scholastic, accepting the dogmas of the church as ultimate data, and endeavouring only to present them in due order and defend them by argument. ”

“ In no sense whatever can it be affirmed that with Erigena philosophy is in the service of theology. The above-quoted assertion as to the substantial identity between philosophy and religion is indeed repeated almost totidem verbis by many of the later scholastic writers, but its significance altogether depends upon the selection of one or other term of the identity as fundamental or primary. Now there is no possibility of mistaking Erigena’s position: to him philosophy or reason is first, is primitive; authority or religion is secondary, derived. ”

“ He does not start with the datum of theology as the completed body of truth, requiring only elucidation and interpretation; his fundamental thought is that of the universe, nature, tò pân, or God, as the ultimate unity which works itself out into the rational system of the world. Man and all that concerns man are but parts of this system, and are to be explained by reference to it; for explanation or understanding of a thing is determination of its place in the universal or all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The first is God as the ground or origin of all things, the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that into which the world of created things ultimately returns. The second and third together compose the created universe, which is the manifestation of God, God in processu, Theophania. ”

“ Religion or revelation is one element or factor in the divine process, a stage or phase of the ultimate rational life. The highest faculty of man, reason, intellectus, intellectualis visio, is that which is not content with the individual or partial, but grasps the whole and thereby comprehends the parts. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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) ”