Juan Escoto Erigena

John Scotus Eriúgena or Erigena (c. 810-c. 877) was a leading philosopher of the Carolingian Renaissance.

Biography

Little or nothing is known of his origin except that he was Irish, which his name informs. John Scotus Erigena is practically "John the Irishman of Ireland": Scotus was the generic name used in the Middle Ages to refer to Gaels in general (whether Irish or Scottish) and Erígena or Eriúgena comes from Eriu which is what Irish nationalists called themselves in the Middle Ages. certainty about it, it is considered that he was neither a monk nor a priest.

He moved to Laon (France), where there was a large Irish colony and worked as a professor, around the year 850. Charles the Bald chose him to direct the Palatine School, and where he left influence on Eric of Auxerre and his Auxerre monastic school.

He participated in the predestinationist controversy between Godescalco de Orbais on the one hand and the bishops Rabbano Mauro, Hincmaro de Reims and Párdulo de Laón on the other. The latter asked him to gather material that supported his position. From there it arises "De praedestinatione liber" from 851, where he takes from Saint Augustine that absolute non-being does not exist and therefore neither God nor human beings can think or know it. This position did not convince either party.

Admirer of the Greek Church Fathers, he translated the works of Pseudo Dionysus from Greek, although it was a forgery made by a philosopher influenced by Proclus (pagan Neoplatonist). He also translated the Sermo de imagine of Gregory of Nisa, the Ancoratus of Saint Epiphanius and the works of Saint Maximus the Confessor Ambigua sti. Gregorii Theologi and Quaestiones a Talario with which he enriches the Latin theological horizon with the contributions of these oriental authors.The schools of him are Neoplatonism and Augustinism.

In 866, after writing Homily on the Prologue to the Holy Gospel of John, the information available about him is scarce and "not always credible". It is said that he founded the University of Paris, who traveled to the East and who was a missionary and martyr to the Slavic peoples. The most accepted version is that of William of Malmesbury, who in his works speaks of his return to Ireland, how he is welcomed by King Alfred the Great in Wessex and his subsequent removal to Malmesbury Abbey where he is assassinated. for his students.

His theses, interpreted as pantheism based on his use of Neoplatonic gradations, were condemned at the Council of Paris in 1210. Pope Honorius III, in 1225, demanded that all copies of his works be brought to Rome for be burned

Work

His works include:

• About predestination. Motivated by the pre-destinationist controversy. It is influenced by St. Augustine.
• On the division of nature. His most important work. It is influenced by its translations of the so-called Dioniso Pseudo.
• Exhibitions on the celestial hierarchy. Based on The celestial hierarchy of Dionysius.

Philosophy

His philosophy remains in line with what is known as Augustinian Neoplatonism and the apophatic and cataphatic theology of Pseudo Dionysus. However, Erigena wanted to explain reality through a rational and unitary system that contradicted the dualism of religion —God and the world are two different realities— and the dogmas related to creation and the divine will.

For Scotus, reason and faith were valid sources of true knowledge, and therefore they cannot be opposed; but if so, reason must prevail. This affirmation, together with pantheism (all things are an emanation of God and return to Him) and pandeism that supports his explanation On the division of Nature, earned him the ecclesiastical condemnation for heresy, which could circumvent thanks to royal protection.

In his work On the division of nature written around the year 867, Scotus, following Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite and Boethius, affirms the possibility of believing in the existence of God, and of understanding it by through his divine manifestations granted to creatures (theophanies). Now, just as something can be said about God (God is goodness), so also, in reality, when affirming it, one is "limiting it to the understanding", and God is not exhausted in human reason; rather, God is beyond human reason, because from the moment an essence is attributed to him-it is thought of on the plane of being-he determines and limits it. However, for the Erigena, God is above being and human reason.

For Scotus, not even God could understand his own essence as it is not all that could be preached or attributed to him. Likewise, God cannot comprehend his essence because if he did so, he would need to see himself in his creatures (creation), that is, in their manifestations that are on the plane of being. Ergo, & # 34; God creates himself, creating & # 34;, and for this reason if he thought of himself, he would limit himself.

In this work, after making the first and supreme division (what is and what is not) and which was already common in Ancient Egypt and is found in the Corpus Hermeticum; Scotus divides being into four natures: 1) the uncreated and creative nature: God understood as the origin of all things; it is inexpressible and news of it is only known through the being of the things it originates (which in Aristotle would be the efficient cause); 2) the created and creative nature: God understood as the intelligible world of divine ideas (in Aristotle, formal cause); 3) created and non-creative nature: the world perceptible through the senses, manifestation of the world of ideas (material cause); 4) the uncreated and non-creative nature: God, understood as the ultimate end of all things (final cause).