Erigena

“ Erigena's philosophy rests upon the observed and admitted fact that every living thing comes from something that had previously lived. The visible world, being a world of life, has therefore emanated necessarily from some primordial existence, and that existence is God, who is thus the originator and conservator of all. Whatever we see maintains itself as a visible thing through force derived from him, and, were that force withdrawn, it must necessarily disappear. ”

“ Erigena thus conceives of the Deity as an unceasing participator in Nature, being its preserver, maintainer, upholder, and in that respect answering to the soul of the world of the Greeks. The particular life of individuals is therefore a part of general existence, that is, of the mundane soul.
If ever there were a withdrawal of the maintaining power, all things must return to the source from which they issued—that is, they must return to God, and be absorbed in him. All visible Nature must thus pass back into “the Intellect” at last. ”

“ All existence is a theophany, and as God is the beginning of all things, so also is He the end. Erigena teaches the restitution of all things under the form of the Dionysian adunatio or deificatio. These are the permanent outlines of what may be called the philosophy of mysticism in Christian times, and it is remarkable with how little variation they are repeated from age to age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ That the many-in-one should appear as the one-in-many, is the effect of the forms of time and space in which it appears; the statement that "the things which are not are far better than those which are," is only true in the sense that the world of appearance is permeated by evil as yet unsubdued, which in the Godhead exists only as something overcome or transmuted.
Erigena says that God is above all the categories, including that of relation. It follows that the Persons of the Trinity, which are only "relative names," are fused in the Absolute. ”

“ In Erigena mysticism has not yet separated itself in any way from the dogma of the Church. There is no revulsion, as later, from dogma as such, nor is more stress laid upon one dogma than upon another; all are treated upon the same footing, and the whole dogmatic system is held, as it were, in solution by the philosophic medium in which it is presented. No distinction is drawn, indeed, between what is reached by reason and what is given by authority ”

“ But what was matter of immanent assumption with Erigena is in them an equating of two things which have been dealt with on the hypothesis that they are separate, and which, therefore, still retain that external relation to one another. This externality of religious truth to the mind is fundamental in scholasticism, while the opposite view is equally fundamental in mysticism. Mysticism is not the voluntary emission of reason and its subjection to an external authority. In that case, all who accept a revelation without professing to understand its content would require to be ranked as mystics ”

“ In the Son as the creative Word of God are all original causes of things, undistinguished, unordered; by the Spirit are they differentiated into the various phenomena and effects in the kingdom of nature as well as of grace. On his doctrine of evil, comp. § 91, 5. As Origen has in himself the germs of all orthodoxy and heterodoxy of the ancient church undeveloped and uncontrasted, so also in Erigena are there the germs of the contradictions of later scholasticism and mysticism. ”

“ This change was brought about by the belief that not Aristotle but Erigena was the author of all the pantheistic heresies of the age (§§ 90, 7; 108, 4) , and also by the need felt by the Franciscans and Dominicans for using Aristotelian methods of proof in defence of the doctrine of the church. Philosophy, however, was now regarded by all theologians as only the handmaid of theology. Even in the 11th century Petrus [Peter] Damiani had indicated the mutual relation of the sciences thus: Debet velut ancilla dominæ quodam famulatus obsequio subservire, ne si præcedit, oberret.304 ”

“ Their companions, thinking they had been poisoned, killed Icarius and buried him under a tree on Mount Hymettus (or threw his body into a well) . Erigone, guided by her faithful dog Maera, found his grave, and hanged herself on the tree. Dionysus sent a plague on the land, and all the maidens of Athens, in a fit of madness, hanged themselves like Erigone. Icarius, Erigone and Maera were set among the stars as Boötes (or Arcturus) , Virgo and Procyon. The festival called Aeora (the “swing”) was subsequently instituted to propitiate Icarius and Erigone. ”

“ Each believes what she is saying, and neither understands the whole truth. It is clear that Clytemnestra, being left for ten years utterly alone, and having perhaps something of Helen's temperament about her, naturally fell in love with the Lord of a neighbouring castle; and having once committed herself, had no way of saving her life except by killing her husband, and afterwards either killing or keeping strict watch upon Orestes and Electra. Aegisthus, of course, was deliberately plotting to carry out his blood-feud and to win a great kingdom. ”

“ Eryx is a mountain on the sea on that side of Sicily which looks towards Italy. It is situated between Drepana and Panormus, or rather it is adjacent to Drepana, on the borders, and is much the biggest mountain in Sicily after Etna. [6] On its summit, which is flat, stands the temple of Venus Erycina, which is indisputably the first in wealth and general magnificence of all the Sicilian holy places. The city extends along the hill under the actual summit, the ascent to it being very long and steep on all sides. ”

“ The poor stifled soul of Ernesta was a soul of pain and passion. Born with a mighty longing for life, she thirsted for the sun—for a free, happy, active existence in the full daylight. She was noted for her large limpid eyes and the charming oval of her gentle face. Extremely ignorant, like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the little she knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in the black Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by those daily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied her mother. ”

“ Lightly of human prophecies I deem. {438}
[Orestes and his attendants enter the house.]
Electra is in a quandary at the idea of people of such rank being invited into her humble cottage.
Peas. Why not? If they are noble, as their port Denotes them, will they not alike enjoy Contentment, be their viands mean or rich?
The only device Electra can think of is to send to an old servant of her father's house—the same who, as Tutor, preserved the child Orestes on the fatal night—now an aged herdsman forced to hide himself in obscurity, and ask him to help them in this emergency. ”

“ Hide-sandaled and heavily caped and hooded peasants, shepherds who seem to have stepped right out of Odyssey or Æneid, carrying classic water or wine flasks, greet us cheerily along the way. As we near the top the reason for these heavy garments becomes apparent in the lower temperature, for Eryx is a peak and a city of fog, often a little world by itself far above the earth, unseen by and unseeing city and plain below, looking down only on the tufted white of rolling mists. ”

“ But the marchesa was not to be stopped.
"I hate Count Nobili!" she burst out. "I have had my eye upon him ever since he came to Lucca. I know him—you do not. It is possible he may change, but if he does not—"
For the second time the marchesa did not finish the sentence.
"And do you think he loves you?"
As she asked this question she seated herself, and contemplated Enrica with a cynical smile.
"Yes, he loves me. It is you who do not know him!" exclaimed Enrica. "He is so good, so generous, so true; there is no one in the world like him." ”

“ Orestes.
⁠Thy mother stays
Unmoved 'mid all thy wrong?
Electra.
⁠A lover weighs
More than a child in any woman's heart.
Orestes.
But what end seeks Aegisthus, by such art
Of shame?
Electra.
⁠To make mine unborn children low
And weak, even as my husband.
Orestes.
⁠Lest there grow
From thee the avenger?
Electra.
⁠Such his purpose is:
For which may I requite him!
Orestes.
⁠And of this
Thy virgin life—Aegisthus knows it?
Electra.
⁠Nay,
We speak it not. It cometh not his way.
Orestes.
These women hear us. Are they friends to thee?
Electra. ”

“ And the answer which comes to him—"
"There is only one," cried the matron; "the omnipotent gods. Do you shrug your shoulders at that, son of the pious Erigone? Why, of course! The child who still feels the blows probably rebels against his earthly father. But if I see aright, the resentment will not last when you, like the man, go out of the cave and your darkness also passes away. Then the power from which you turned defiantly will force itself upon you, and you will raise your hands in grateful prayer to the rescuing divinity. ”

“ Of the friends of Argos whom
Durst I have sought, to aid me to the doom
I craved?—Speak if thou wouldst, and fear not me,
If yet thou deemst him slain unrighteously.
Leader.
Thy words be just, yet shame their justice brings;
A woman true of heart should bear all things
From him she loves. And she who feels it not,
I cannot reason of her, nor speak aught.
Electra.
Remember, mother, thy last word of grace,
Bidding me speak, and fear not, to thy face.
Clytemnestra. ”

“ The marchesa's white face darkened as she looked at Enrica. How dared Enrica be so happy? But she repressed the reproaches that rose to her lips, though her heart swelled to bursting, and the veins in her forehead distended with rage.
"Can Enrica be of my flesh and blood?" exclaimed the marchesa in a low voice to the cavaliere who now stood at her side. "Fool! she believes in her lover! It is a horrible sacrifice! Mark my words—a horrible sacrifice!"
Nobili and Enrica had taken their places behind the notary. ”

“ On the inner side of the upper wings there is the appearance of another oblique red band, but it is obsolete except at the hinder margin. The under side forms a striking contrast with the surface, the ground colour being black, with two brilliant blue bands, the outer one very broad, the interior somewhat macular, and terminating behind in a red point. Body brown above and black beneath.
Like most of the species constituting the genus Erycina, it is a native of the new world, occurring in greatest plenty in Surinam and Brazil. ”

“ When she took her rare walks down the long halls or through the garden paths, her gentle smile was unfailingly given to every pupil she met, but few of the girls could boast of the honor of a word from her. Universally loved and venerated though she was, Saint Ernesta's aloofness from the community was almost as marked as that of the Imp, though from so different a cause. So, when she one day stopped and spoke to the latter in the garden, even the Imp was conscious of the greatness of the moment and of a swelling of the chest. ”

“ There was the banishment of her brother Orestes; the coming of the strange man Egisthus whom, for some reason that she could not then comprehend, she had always loathed; the return and death of her father; her own subsequent misery and degradation. With the hardness of youth, she can conceive of nothing which could explain her mother’s action, much less palliate it. Her sister Iphigenia she could not clearly remember; and if the story of her sacrifice was known to Electra, her absolute devotion to her father accepted it unquestioningly. ”

“ Far off; there might be pity for thy son?
Clytemnestra.
I dare not! . . . Yes, I fear him. 'Tis mine own
Life, and not his, comes first. And rumour saith
His heart yet burneth for his father's death.
Electra.
Why dost thou keep thine husband ever hot
Against me?
Clytemnestra.
⁠'Tis his mood. And thou art not
So gentle, child!
Electra.
⁠My spirit is too sore!
Howbeit, from this day I will no more
Hate him.
Clytemnestra (with a flash of hope) .
⁠O daughter!—Then, indeed, shall he,
I promise, never more be harsh to thee!
Electra. ”

“ Art thou not wife to him that was thy fellow in this deed? Callest thou this taking vengeance for thy daughter that was slain? And thy children—art thou a mother to them? What ill do not I suffer at thy hand and the hand of thy partner? And Orestes, whom I barely saved from thy hand, liveth he not in exile? Surely, whatsoever it be that thou chargest against him, thou hast no cause to be ashamed of me."
Then the two spake many bitter words to each other; and at the last, when Electra held her peace, the Queen prayed to the Gods, and made her offerings to the tomb. ”