press that reversal of the Christian position. But his De divisione naturae was a reasoned construction, although of course the materials were not his own. It was no loosely compiled encyclopaedia, such as Isidore or Bede or Rabanus would have presented under such a title. It did not describe every object in nature known to the writer; but it discussed Nature metaphysically, and presented its lengthy exposition as a long argument in linked syllogistic form. Yet it respected its borrowed materials, and preserved their characteristics—with the exception of Scripture, which Eriugena recognized as supreme authority! That he interpreted figuratively of course; so had every one else done. But he differed from other commentators and from the Church Fathers, in degree if not in kind. For his interpretation was a systematic moulding of Scriptural phrase to suit his system. He transformed the meaning with as clear a purpose as once Philo of Alexandria had done. The pre-Christian Jew changed the Pentateuch—holding fast, of course, to its authority!—into a Platonic philosophy; and so, likewise by figurative interpretations, Eriugena turned Scripture into a semi-Christianized Neo-Platonic scheme.[1] The logical nature of the man was strong within him, so strong, indeed, that in its working it could not but present all topics as component parts of a syllogistic and systematized philosophy.[2] If he borrowed his materials, he also made them his own with power. He appears as the one man of his time that really could build with the material received from the past.
Even beyond the range of such acute theological polemics as we have been considering, the pressing exigencies of political or ecclesiastical controversy might cause a capable man to think for himself even in the ninth century. Such a man was Claudius, Bishop of Turin, the foe of image and relic-worship, and of other superstitions too crass for
- ↑ One may say that the work of Eriugena in presenting Christianity transformed in substance as well as form, stood to the work of such a one as Thomas Aquinas as the work of the Gnostics in the second century had stood toward the dogmatic formulation of Christianity by the Fathers of the Church. With the Church Fathers as with Thomas, there was earnest endeavour to preserve the substance of Christianity, though presenting it in a changed form. This cannot be said of either the Gnostics or Eriugena.
- ↑ See Prantl, Ges. der Logik, ii. 20-36.
