John the Scot

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Chapter VIII John the Scot

John the Scot or Johannes Scotus or Johannes Scotus Erigena was an Irishman, a Neoplatonist, a Greek scholar, a Pelagian and a pantheist. He is out of place in the 9th century and would have fit better in the 5th or 15th century.

"He set reason above faith, and cared nothing for the authority of ecclesiastics; yet his arbitrament was invoked to settle their controversies" (Russell, 400).

The Irish seem to have carried some Latin classics, knowledge of Greek and other knowledge throughout the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries when it was disappearing from the Continent.

Irish learning being monastic and not ecclesiastical shaped the Irish thought. There was less effort in administration and high theology than on the Continent.

Being isolated from the Pope both by distance and by not recognizing the pope's growing power, things lingered on in Ireland that disappeared elsewhere. The continuing presence of Pelagianism is borne out in some of John the Scot's ideas.

John went to France on the invitation by Charles the Bald around 843.

He kicked off a firestorm by placing the authority of philosophy on equal terms (or even higher than) with revelation. "He contended that reason and revelation are both sources of truth, and therefore cannot conflict; but if they ever seem to conflict, reason is to be preferred. True religion, he said, is true philosophy; but, conversely, true philosophy is true religion" (Russell, 403).

John the Scot also translated the PseudoDionysius, a work that reconciled Christianity with Neoplatonism. While Pope Nicholas was not pleased that John had undertaken the work without his permission and blessing, he could not fault the translation from Greek to Latin.

John divides nature into four classes:
1) what creates and is not created
2) what creates and is created
3) what is created but does not create
4) what neither creates nor is created

For John the first was God, the second were the Platonic forms, the third was things in space and time. "The fourth, surprisingly, is again God, not as Creator, but as the End and Purpose of all things. Everything that emanates from God strives to return to Him; thus the end of all such things is the same as their beginning." (Russell, 404).

Sin was for John, the loss of the divine pattern.

The total of the Platonic Ideas is the Logos.

When God created things out of nothing, that nothing is understood by John to be himself. (Pantheism)

Creation is an eternal process in John. Created things are not distinct from God in John. "The creature subsists in God, and God manifests Himself in the creature in an ineffable manner" (Russell, 405).

"Sin has its source in freedom: it arose because man turned towards himself instead of towards
God. Evil does not have its ground in God, for in God there is no idea of evil. Evil is not-being
and has no ground, for if it had a ground it would be necessary. Evil is a privation of good." (Russell, 405).

"His independence of mind is shown by these heresies, and is astonishing in the ninth century. His Neoplatonic outlook may perhaps have been common in Ireland, as it was among the Greek Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It may be that, if we knew more about Irish Christianity from the fifth to the ninth century, we should find him less surprising. On the other hand, it may be that most of what is heretical in him is to be attributed to the influence of the pseudo-Dionysius, who, because of his supposed connection with Saint Paul, was mistakenly believed to be orthodox." (Russell, 406).

Sin was a consequence of a misdirected will, falsely assuming something is good that is not. It is punished, but like Origen, John holds a universal salvation platform.

Sin was problematic for John because of his pantheism. He also had some strange heretical views on women and viewed creation and the Fall as allegory and not literal.

John had a major impact on Medieval thought by translating the Pseudo-Dionysius but his great work, On the Division of Nature was constantly being condemned as heretical. In 1225 Pope Honorius III ordered all copies to be burnt, but many survived.