John Scottus was born some time in the first quarter of the ninth century and died in or after 870. Neither birth nor death date is known. That he was born in Ireland is proved by the epithet he gave himself: "Eriugena" (born in Ireland). His documented activity embraces the period approximately 848 to 870, beginning with his role in the predestination controversy and ending with his last datable poem, addressed to King Charles the Bald. It is not known when he came to the continent, but what we know of his career took place in the western kingdom of the Carolingian Empire, mostly in what is now northeastern France. Centers such as Compiegne, Saint-Denis, Soissons, Laon, and Reims figure in his itinerary, but it is very difficult to know where he was at any particular time. Legend holds that John left Charles’s kingdom and became a teacher in the court of King Alfred in Wessex, but this is widely discounted.
Other certain facts of his life are likewise few. Despite his being arguably the most outstanding theologian of his time, he held no position of ecclesiastical authority. According to contemporary evidence (Prudentius of Troyes, De praedestinatione, PL cxv, 1043A), he was "nullis ecclesiasticis gradibus insignitus." For a brief period he was a teacher in Charles’s court. However, he may have lost his position at the court when he came under attack for his views on predestination, which were condemned at two councils (Valence in January 855 and Langres in May 859). It is not known if he suffered any penalty for his views, although this possibility is suggested by the relatively long silence between 851, when he published his own De praedestinatione, and 858, when his first securely dated poem was written. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that John not only wrote and taught but also practiced medicine.
More, perhaps, is known of John’s literary contacts, including some distinguished pupils. Contemporaries in John’s circle include the Irish scholar Martin of Laon (Martin Hiberniensis) and Wulfad, abbot of Saint-Medard and later bishop of Bourges, to whom John dedicated his magnum opus, the Periphyseon. He was also on friendly terms with Hincmar, bishop of Laon. Among his students are counted Heiric of Auxerre; Wicbald, bishop of Auxerre; and, possibly, Hucbald of Saint-Amand. John’s students may also have included some of his countrymen, as the numerous Irish glosses in his biblical scholia suggest. Unfortunately, it is not known to what extent (if at all) John was in contact with his famous fellow Irishman Sedulius or members of his circle.
John’s education can be reconstructed only from a study of his sources. It is difficult to tell what learning he brought with him from Ireland and what he acquired on the Continent, although certain stylistic mannerisms betray his Irish early education. An aspect of his education that affected practically all of his writings was his study of Greek. How and where he acquired a working knowledge of the Greek language, which had all but disappeared from Western Europe after the sixth century c.e., is a mystery. However, John employed Greek, with increasing skill, over the course of his career and in different contexts. These include translations of Greek patristic works, citations of Greek authors in his own writings, the use of Greek for constructing etymologies, and—most impressively— the graeca found in his poems. These exhibit Greek elements ranging from a word or a phrase to whole lines. Several poems are written entirely in Greek, although there are some imperfections.
Even for a time noted for the collection of manuscripts and the expansion of libraries John’s reading in both secular and religious literature would be considered impressive. Of the Roman classics, John had a deep knowledge not only of Vergil but he also had an acquaintance with Lucretius, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, and possibly even Petronius. Like most of his contemporaries he accessed the Roman (and some Greek) classics through intermediaries, principally Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Calcidius, Priscian, and Isidore. His knowledge of Christian Latin writers is noteworthy. He cited the poets Paulinus of Nola and Avitus in his own poems, which also contain echoes of Iuvencus, Corripus, and Venantius Fortunatus. A thorough grounding in the Latin fathers would have been expected in John’s day, and John was no exception. He read Augustine widely and deeply, knew Ambrose well, and cited other well-known Latin patristic authorities such as Jerome. However, the most impressive aspect of John’s reading is the Greek fathers. In addition to those fathers who could be known from ubiquitous Latin translations—Origen and Basil—John knew and used several Greek fathers in the original Greek. He published translations of the corpus of works of Pseudo-Dionysius, the Ambigua and the Quaestiones ad Thalassium of Maximus the Confessor, the De opificio hominis of Gregory of Nyssa, and the Solutiones ad Chosroem by Prisicianus Lydus, which was doubtless the source of John’s citations of Aristotle. He apparently also made his own translations of the passages cited from Epiphanius’s Ancoratus.
Although John Scottus is admired today principally for his two works, the De praedestinatione and the Periphyseon, his activity as a scholar was highly diverse, comprising learning aids, commentaries and scholia collections, translations, and original compositions. John moved easily between secular and religious material. Grammar (in the broadest sense of the word) appears to have been his foundational discipline. Among the learning aids that can be linked to John is an edition of Macrobius’s treatise De dif-ferentiis et societatibus graeci latinique uerbi. It is also likely that John contributed to the paradigms of Greek words found in the famous codex Laon 444, edited by his colleague Martin. Another manuscript, British Library, MS Harley 2688, also contains Greek paradigms and a word list transmitted under the name "IWANHC."
To list John’s activity as a scholiast and commentator is not easy, since some scholia appear in manuscripts mixed with scholia by other writers and because some attributions are disputed. Four fully fledged commentaries—one scriptural, one patristic, and two secular—can be attributed to John with certainty. The first is his commentary on the Gospel of John, on whose prologue Eriugena also wrote a homily. While the commentary survives in a single manuscript with corrections and additions in his own hand, the homily appears in fifty-four manuscripts; clearly the latter work was the most influential of all John’s compositions during the Middle Ages. His commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius was based on his own translation of the work but shows a deeper grasp of Greek. The third commentary, the Annota-tiones in Marcianum (Capellam), surviving in two chief recensions, is usually thought to be an early work. It was surely intended to be a complete commentary on one of the most-studied authors of the early Middle Ages, but large parts of it consist of only brief scholia. It is remarkable in its day for its classical erudition and offers insights into Eriugena’s exegetical methods that have not been fully explored. The fourth commentary is on Priscian’s Institutiones and is not yet edited. Other commentaries have been assigned to John, namely one on Boethius’s opuscula sacra and another on the poet Prudentius.
Various scholia collections must also be considered. The recent demonstration that the so-called Glossae divinae historiae were indeed written by John contributes to the appreciation of our author as a pedagogue. The scholia, consisting primarily of "hard words" drawn from both the Old and New Testaments, are explained (usually but not always correctly) by "easier" Latin, by Irish, or, less helpfully, by Greek! The collection can be studied with profit for clues to John’s Irish education. Other scholia sets also represent recent discoveries. It is now recognized that the copy of Pris-cian, Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS B.P.L. 67, written by the Irishman Dubthach in 838, contains numerous glosses and scholia in the hand of Eriugena (now firmly identified as i-1). Of special interest regarding John’s classical enthusiasms is the fact that he recopied Priscian’s citations of Homer and other ancient Greek authors in the margins of several folios of this manuscript and attempted to translate them into Latin. John also left some scholia to the "philosophical" sections of Book 6 of Vergil’s Aeneid. These appear in an Irish miscellany of scholia to classical Latin poets: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS 363. John is also credited (not wholly implausibly) with a life of Vergil.
John’s translations of Greek patristic works and of Priscianus Lydus have been mentioned above. To these might be added a translation of the gospels in St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 48, which some scholars assign to the circle of Sedulius. In any case, the interlinear Latin translation of the Greek text (both were written in an Irish hand) bears witness to Irish biblical scholarship in the mid-ninth century. The translation, which cannot be classified by a siglum, was specially composed to serve as a crib to the Greek text to enable the most industrious scholars of the day to appreciate the original.
Of John’s free-standing compositions—the carmina (poems), De praedestinatione, and Periphyseon—the carmina are exceptionally valuable for what they tell us about John’s enthusiasm, friendships, and attitudes, his passion for Greek, his affection and respect for his king, even his undisguised anti-Jewish attitudes. They also record events of the day: the civil war of 858, Charles the Bald’s donation to the abbey of St. Denis (867), and the king’s plan to construct a major church dedicated to St. Mary at Compiegne (870).
The De praedestinatione was commissioned by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, to combat the imputed heresy of Godescalc (Gottschalk of Orbais), who argued that God predestined not only the elect but also the damned and denied any notion of free will, even the efficacy of the sacraments, since they could offer no help to those already condemned. Eriugena’s refutation of Godescalc apparently went too far in the direction of asserting free will, for it inspired attacks by Prudentius of Troyes and Florus of Lyon and led to the official condemnations mentioned above. Interestingly, Eriugena’s work reveals his deep knowledge of Augustine, for John used passages from Augustine to refute Godescalc’s claims for double predestination!
For modern readers the Periphyseon, or De divi-sione naturae (On the Division of Nature) is by far Eriugena’s most important work, one that indisputably established John’s reputation as one of the most outstanding thinkers of the Middle Ages. This long work, arranged as a dialogue between master and pupil, was the product of several revisions; indeed, John’s rethinking of his composition can be seen in the pages of Reims, Bibliotheque municipale 875, which contain numerous corrections and additions in his own hand. The work shows the influence of John’s dialectical training and a Neoplatonic cast of thought mediated by Augustine, Plato’s Timaeus, and especially the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. John divides "nature" into four categories: nature that creates and is not created, nature that is created and creates, nature that is created and does not create, and nature that does not create and is not created. Categories 1 and 4 refer to God as the origin of all things and their end, respectively. Category 2 embraces the forms, or divine ideas, that are coeternal with God, yet dependent upon him. These, in turn, create the intelligible world (Category 3). In the end, all nature will return to God. This "return" will not be an annihilation of individuality but a reunion in a spiritual state in the ultimate source of all things. As matter will no longer exist, the elect and the damned will not be dispatched to a physical heaven or hell but will subsist in God, with each group saved or damned according to their respective consciences. While such radical notions, rooted as they were in the theology of the Christian Orient, must have been abhorrent to John’s contemporaries (indeed, his writings were often labeled heretical), they do not cease to command the admiration of modern readers for their intelligence and originality.
