[In the following essay, O'Meara explains Eriugena's use of the word natura and considers his purpose in describing a fourfold division of it.]

The first book of John Scottus Eriugena's great philosophical dialogue, the De Divisione Naturae, begins as follows:

MASTER.
As I frequently ponder and … carefully investigate the fact that the first and fundamental division of all things which either can be grasped by the mind or lie beyond its grasp is into those that are and those that are not, there comes to mind as a general term for them all what in Greek is called φύσιs and in Latin Natura. Or do you think otherwise?
PUPIL.
No, I agree. For I too, when I enter upon the path of reasoning, find that this is so.
M.
Nature, then, is the general name, as we said, for all things, for those that are and those that are not.
P.
It is. For nothing at all can come into our thought that would not fall under this term.(1)

The concept of natura introduced here will strike the reader as unusual and the emphatic presentation given it at the very beginning of the De divisione naturae would suggest that it is fundamental to the inquiry conducted by the Master and the Pupil in the remainder of the work. However, the meaning of this concept of natura has not yet been adequately determined, nor has its bearing on the work as a whole been made clear. In his excellent study of Eriugena, Cappuyns indeed claims that the “conception tant vantée de la φύsσιs” is almost completely forgotten after the first lines of the work.²

In this article I shall attempt (I) to isolate as far as possible what Eriugena means by his concept of natura, by reviewing both the sources he was inspired by and his use of these sources in the elaboration of this concept.³ I shall then seek (II) to determine the bearing of this concept on the general inquiry conducted in the De divisione naturae by examining its relationship to conceptions presented immediately after it, i.e. the well-known fourfold division of nature and the fivefold classification of modes of being and non-being. Finally (III), the philosophical implications of Eriugena's conception of a study of natura (physiologia) will be discussed briefly insofar as this study is suggestive of an unusual metaphysical project.

I

Although natura is a multiplex nomen, a word used in many different ways and which can take on many different meanings,⁴ the Master's use of natura to cover all things grasped by the mind or transcending its grasp nevertheless seems to go beyond the wide range of meanings it normally has. In Latin usage natura usually designates either the physical or psychic properties, powers, proper characteristics of things; or the power which animates and organizes the world (the Stoic natura artifex, for example, which constructs the world and which Eriugena could find in Pliny's Natural History); or indeed the world itself as a totality.⁵

Natura is used however in a way coming close to the Master's unusual usage in Boethius' Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, Chapter 1, and indeed this text has been identified by Cappuyns⁶ as Eriugena's source. In this text, in controversy with the Eutychians concerning the interpretation of Christ's dual nature,⁷ Boethius presents as a step towards resolving the issue three possible modes of predication of natura. (i) Natura can be said of bodies; (ii) it can be said of substances (both corporeal and incorporeal); or (iii) it can be said of all things which can be said to be in one way or another (“de omnibus rebus quae quocumque modo esse dicuntur”). Boethius then explains that if natura is taken in the third sense, it can be defined as follows: “natura est earum quae, cum sint, quoquo modo intellectu capi possunt.” Quoquo modo is added to the definition in order to include God and matter, which can be grasped “in a measure through the removal of accidents” (ceterarum rerum privatione capiuntur); quae cum sint is added, because all natura is (est) and does not include what is not, which is what is signified by nihil.⁸

Boethius' definition of natura in the third sense certainly constitutes a close precedent to the Master's unusual use of the term and the Boethian passage must indeed have inspired the beginning of the De divisione naturae. However, comparison of the two texts suggests not only similarities but also some differences which require further investigation. Boethius' use of natura as a comprehensive term covering all that is anticipates Eriugena's comprehensive use of the term. In Eriugena, however, the term covers all that is and all that is not, the highest division of a totality defined in its scope in relation to what the mind grasps and what transcends its grasp.⁹ This concept of totality is clearly not something Eriugena finds in the Boethian text, but is brought by him to his reading of Boethius and controls his use of Boethius. It seems from this then that Eriugena modified Boethius' use of natura as a term for a totality of all that is, making it function now as a comprehensive term for another totality constituted of all that the mind grasps and that transcends its grasp.

But is Eriugena doing no more than taking a term and giving it a new function? Has he no more reason for selecting in particular Boethius' term natura than that Boethius' comprehensive use of the term suggests its use in an even more comprehensive way? That this explanation is inadequate can be seen from the fact that Eriugena knew of other terms which could perform the same comprehensive function even better or at least equally well. Universitas is a term Eriugena could and does use later for the function which he initially gives to natura¹⁰ and which he also uses in adjectival form obviously to support his strained and unusual use of natura.¹¹ But why then use natura at all? Another term could be found by Eriugena in the Pseudo-Augustine Categories, chap. 1: “… tamen ingenti quodam et capaci ad infinitum nomine omne quidquid est comprehendens dixit οὐsίαν extra quam nec inveniri aliquid nec cogitari potest.”¹² Not only would the emphasis given to the comprehensive function of οὐsία (greater than that given to natura in Boethius) have recommended this term to Eriugena—who would in any case have been attracted by the Greek word—but this chapter in the Pseudo-Augustine seems indeed to have motivated Eriugena's attempt at the beginning of the De divisione naturae to find a term for his concept of totality, since it stresses the mind's need for general terms (vocabulum, nomen) for classes of things, οὐσία being the term for the most comprehensive class, outside which (as in the case of Eriugena's natura) nothing can be thought.

It is clear however, that οὐσία would be inappropriate in relation to Eriugena's purposes, for it would fail to signify—and indeed it would exclude—a major part of that totality which it would be supposed to cover, namely that which is not. In Boethius natura is also presented as covering a totality only of what is, but natura is less bound semantically to this range than is οὐσία. If it is fairly obvious why Eriugena could not use the term οὐσία, it is less easy to determine why he initially preferred natura to universitas to signify the totality of what the mind grasps and what transcends its grasp, particularly since it has been seen that he later indeed uses universitas as an equivalent and as a clarification (in adjectival form) of natura.

It can be suggested however that although both terms in themselves could serve equally well (indeed universitas could serve perhaps slightly better), natura was found by Eriugena in a context which was in a philosophical sense more important than any context that universitas might have had, namely in the context of a metaphysical position. In Boethius, natura designates a totality of “what is” and which, since it is, as a consequence of its existing, is grasped by the mind (“quae cum sint quoquo modo intellectu capi possunt”). For reasons which will be examined below, this metaphysical position, from Eriugena's perspective, is inadequate. For “what is” is determined primarily in terms of what the mind grasps. This in fact leaves a major part of what Boethius attempts to include in his totality of what is, namely God and matter, outside the realm of what is.¹³ Boethius' totality of what is must then be corrected and expressed more adequately as a totality of what the mind grasps and what transcends its grasp, a totality including both what is and what is not. Eriugena's retention of Boethius' term natura can thus be understood as an appropriation which constitutes an implicit critical modification of Boethius' metaphysical position in the light of ideas which will now be examined.

Another major source of inspiration for the beginning of the De divisione naturae is the Pseudo-Dionysius. In having natura refer to a totality which includes “those that are and those that are not”, the Master is using a phrase which is found in several places in the Pseudo-Dionysius.¹⁴ It is not clear from the immediate context what the Pseudo-Dionysius means when he refers to “those that are and those that are not”. However the phrase is used in such a way as to suggest the totality of creation which depends on God who transcends it.¹⁵ If God is not included in the group constituted of “those that are and those that are not”, He nevertheless elsewhere can be said not to be.¹⁶ No indication however is given that God could be included with “those that are not”.

Eriugena enthusiastically adopted the phrase “those that are and those that are not” and uses it very frequently, often in a Dionysian way as signifying the totality of creation which depends on God who transcends it.¹⁷ However he also seems to have assumed a specific interpretation of the phrase. “What is not” he understood in two ways, either as indicating what is not per defectum et privationem or what is not per excellentiam. The latter sense applies in the case of “those that are not”: “et appropinquare Deo ea, quae non sunt … non tamen privatione substantiae, sed superexcellentia naturae”.¹⁸ The reason why that which, through its excellence of nature, can be said not to be is that it possesses such a nature as to transcend our grasp and hence, in relation to our ability to comprehend, “is not”. Thus we reach Eriugena's explanation of the Dionysian phrase: “quae sunt et quae non sunt, hoc est, quae sensu aut intellectu comprehendi possunt [compare animo percipi in the opening lines of the De divisione naturae] et quae sensum vel intellectum superant [compare vel intentionem eius superant] quarum esse est omni comprehensibili essentia carere”.¹⁹ This explanation of the Dionysian phrase provides us precisely with the concept of totality of the beginning of the De divisione naturae if one further step is taken. The Dionysian phrase refers, it appears, to created reality. However in Eriugena's interpretation of the phrase, since ea quae non sunt is understood to refer to what, through its excellence of being, transcends our grasp, it follows that ea quae non sunt taken in this sense must, above all, include God. Hence the Dionysian phrase, in Eriugena's interpretation, is implicitly extended to include God in the totality it represents and which is named natura at the beginning of the De divisione naturae.

In conclusion, it appears from this review of Eriugena's sources at the beginning of the De divisione naturae that these sources were subjected by him to an implicit critical and synthetic interpretation the major elements of which may be briefly indicated as follows: (i) the Dionysian conception of a created totality of those that are and those that are not, in Eriugena's interpretation, becomes a totality of what the mind grasps and what transcends its grasp, which totality can no longer be merely creation but must include creator; (ii) the Pseudo-Augustinian Categories indicates the need for terms for general classes of things, including the most comprehensive of classes; (iii) Eriugena finds a term in Boethius, natura (for which characteristically he provides and names first the Greek equivalent, φύsιs), which is used to cover a totality appearing to coincide with Eriugena's—it includes God and matter—, a totality which is improperly formulated in Boethius and which achieves correct formulation in Eriugena in the appropriation of natura as a term for the totality of what the mind grasps and what transcends its grasp.

II

If the above analysis of Eriugena's critical appropriation of his sources has shed some light on the concept of natura presented at the beginning of the De divisione naturae, it has not clarified the meaning of certain features of this concept nor has it brought out the bearing of the concept on the rest of the work. The totality of what can be grasped and what transcends our grasp is represented as having as its “first and highest (summamque) division” those that are and those that are not. What is intended by Eriugena in this introduction of a first division in his totality? This question can be approached in the context of discussing certain issues having to do with the problematical relationship between the concept of natura, the fourfold division of natura and the fivefold classification of modes of being and non-being, which are presented immediately after the concept of natura in the opening pages of the De divisione naturae. The investigation of these issues will also lead to indications of the bearing of the concept of natura on the De divisione naturae as a whole.

The issues may be formulated as follows. (i) The “first and highest division” of natura, we are told, is into those that are and those that are not. Immediately after this however we are introduced (441B) to a fourfold division of natura, a division into that which creates and is not created; that which is created and creates; that which is created and does not create; that which neither creates nor is created. What is the relation of the twofold to the fourfold division of natura? Does the latter simply represent subdivisions of the former? Are these two divisions quite different and unreconcilable, to be explained merely in terms of the “psychology” of a Medieval grammarian's delight in the play of words and distinctions?²⁰ Are there perhaps different kinds of “division” involved and, if so, what relation do they have to each other? (ii) Having presented the fourfold division of natura, the Master expounds (443A-446A) a fivefold classification of modes of being and non-being. What relation does this classification have to the concept of natura (whose “first and highest division” is into those that are and those that are not)? Is one of the modes to be preferred to the others? If so, on what basis? What purpose does Eriugena have in making these distinctions between modes of being and non-being? In order to resolve these complicated issues we might start from where the text suggests the elements of a solution to the second set of issues, those having to do with the fivefold classification of modes of being and non-being.

It is clear first of all that some relation is intended by Eriugena between the concept of natura and the fivefold classification, since the latter is presented with the suggestion that it explains and clarifies the former.

MASTER.
… But first I think a few words should be said about the first and highest division—as we called it—of all things into the things that are and the things that are not.
PUPIL.
It would be correct and wise to do so. For I see no other beginning from which reasoning ought to start, and this not only because this difference is the first of all, but because … it is more obscure than the others.
M.
This basic difference, then, which separates all things requires for itself five modes of interpretation …

(443A)

In what way then does the exposition of the five modes clarify Eriugena's primary division of natura into those that are and those that are not?

We might first note that the five modes are not presented as unrelated and possibly alternative modes of interpretation of the “first and highest” division of natura, but that the first mode is described as the “first and highest (summus)” of the modes (443C) and that the other modes must therefore be in some way subordinate to it. The Master does not indicate specifically how each particular mode is subordinate to the first and we are forced to infer this subordination from the text. Leaving aside for brevity's sake the particular characteristics of each of the modes,²¹ we might work out the subordination of the four other modes to the first mode along the following tentative lines.

The first mode is described by the Master as “that by means of which reason convinces us that all things which fall within the perception of bodily sense or … intelligence (corporeo sensui vel intelligentiae perceptioni) are truly and reasonably said to be, but that those which because of the excellence of their nature elude not only all sense but also all intellect and reason rightly seem not to be” (443A). The first mode, then, is the interpretation we found (supra section I) Eriugena to give of the Dionysian “those that are and those that are not.” The second mode can be inferred to be subordinate to this mode in that it relates what is and is not to what is affirmed and what is denied, affirmation and denial relating in turn to what is and is not grasped: “it is insofar as it is known by the orders above it and by itself; but it is not insofar as it does not permit itself to be comprehended by the orders that are below it.”²² The second mode also seems to be less extensive than the first: its range terminates at one end with the highest created intellectual nature and at the other end with the lowest psychic power (443A). The third mode distinguishes between what is and what is not in terms of what is hidden, the causes “in the most secret folds of nature” and what is manifest, “whatsoever of these causes through generation is known as to matter and form, as to times and places”.²³ Again, as in the case of the second mode, it appears that this mode is subordinate to the first in that the contrast hidden/manifest relates to what is or is not known and also that the range of things involved is but part of the totality encompassed in the first mode. This latter point is made by an enlargement in manuscript P: “Between the first and third [mode] there is this difference: the first [is found] generically in all things which at the same time and once for all have been made in [their] causes and effects; the third specifically in those which partly are still hidden in their causes, partly are manifest in [their] effects, of which in particular the fabric of this world is woven.”²⁴ The basis on which the fourth and fifth modes are subordinate to the first is perhaps less clear, but the following suggestions might be offered. The fourth mode, which determines what is exclusively in terms of what is grasped by the intellect (445B: “quae solo comprehenduntur intellectu dicit vere esse”),²⁵ is but a partial determination of what is, as determined more broadly by what is perceived by the mind through the senses and intellection in the first mode. The fifth mode is partial too, but in the way the second and third modes are partial, since it refers restrictively to human nature (445C: sola humana natura) which is said to be (or not to be) depending on whether or not it is saved. The Master indicates (445D-446A) that “reason” can find other modes besides these, and we can assume that they too would be subordinate in the ways indicated to the first mode, i.e. that the various ways of interpreting the division between what is and what is not depend on the first mode (what is/is not as what can or cannot be grasped) as expressions of it (affirmation/denial, hidden/manifest) or as partial aspects of it, either as referring to part of what grasps (intellection) or part of the totality of what is or is not grasped (created intellects and souls, the sense-world, human nature).²⁶

If these inferences concerning the ways in which the other modes are subordinate to the first mode are faithful to Eriugena's clear assumption of a subordination of the modes and are consistent with his ideas concerning the modes—whether or not this system of subordination is consistent in itself is another question—it still remains to be seen how the enumeration of a primary and of secondary modes clarifies the first and “more obscure” division of natura into those that are and those that are not. It can do so, I believe, only if this division is in fact a distinction we make in natura and if whatever other ways in which we distinguish “what is” from “what is not” reduce to a distinction between what we can and cannot grasp. This interpretation of the first division of natura as a distinction we make in natura is supported by Eriugena's language in his description of the first mode as “the first and highest mode of division of those things of which it is said that they are and those (of which it is said) that they are not (iste igitur modus primus ac summus est divisionis eorum quae dicuntur esse et non esse)” (443C). The first mode is a mode of division, and there are different “modes of interpretation” of the division “those that are and those that are not” in the sense that the division is made in different ways by us which are subordinate to one.²⁷ The distinction (in its primary mode) in natura between “what is” and “what is not” is not however some distinction we make on an arbitrary or conventional basis, but it is a distinction reflecting a difference between realities which are such as to be comprehended by us and realities whose being transcends our capacity to comprehend (cf. supra p. 132). The “objective” basis of our “subjective” division between what is and is not (what we can and cannot grasp) might be emphasized if natura is considered as a totality presenting itself to us as the things we can grasp and the things that transcend our grasp (cf. 446C-447A).

What makes this however the first and highest division we make in natura?²⁸ In what consists its primacy in relation to other divisions we might make in natura? On this point, which is fundamental to the resolution of the outstanding issues, the text provides little assistance to our analysis of the relation between Eriugena's ideas. It has been suggested that the twofold division “those that are and those that are not” is prior to other divisions in that it has to do with being, which is prior in Aristotle's Categories to the other categories, and thus that it is prior to the fourfold division of natura, which has to do with action and “passion”, categories posterior to being.²⁹ Against this ingenious solution it can be objected that the fourfold division, as will be shown below, cannot be regarded as posterior to the twofold division, nor indeed does Eriugena provide us with an example of a division which is subordinate to the twofold division from which the basis of the primacy of the twofold division could be inferred.

Something perhaps can be gleaned from the way in which the Master presents the concept of natura at the beginning of the De divisione naturae:

As I frequently ponder … the fact that the first and highest division of all things which either can be grasped by the mind or lie beyond its grasp is into those that are and those that are not …

It will be seen from this that the first mode of the division “those that are and those that are not”, i.e. what can be grasped or transcends our grasp, is in fact the means whereby the scope of natura is indicated in the first place. Thus the twofold division of natura in establishing the totality of natura precedes any divisions we might subsequently make in natura. From this it would appear that the twofold division is “first” as the division constitutive of the concept of totality (natura) which forms the subject of investigation in the De divisione naturae. However, the totality of natura can also be conceived, as will be seen below, in terms of another distinction.³⁰ If then the twofold division is not the only distinction constitutive of the concept of the totality of natura, its primacy must be specified further, in order to distinguish it from the primacy of other possible constitutive distinctions. This can best be done perhaps on the basis of what Eriugena himself understands by his twofold division: the division between what is and what is not is primarily a distinction between what can and cannot be grasped. The totality of natura is conceived thus on the basis of a distinction between things in relation to our ability to comprehend. This distinction is primary then as the fundamental difference in the totality of natura as object of thought and inquiry. The primacy of the twofold division is not ontological—although it is grounded in a distinction between things—but epistemological (to use anachronistic and clumsy labels): it points to what must count for us as the basic difference, in terms of our ability to comprehend, in the totality (natura) which is the subject of our investigations.

If this suggestion is correct, it supplies a means of interpreting Eriugena's intention in introducing a first division in the totality of natura: the division is introduced to indicate the difference between things, as subjects of thought and inquiry, in a totality (natura) whose range is also indicated by that difference. This also provides a position from which the question of the relation between the twofold and fourfold divisions of natura can be approached. The fourfold division is also, as Eriugena explains in Book II (525B), one made by us in natura.³¹ It represents all possible combinations of “that which creates”, “that which is created” and the negative form of either or both of these. The distinction between creator and creation is thus fundamental to the fourhold division and the latter indeed can be regarded as an elaboration on the former.³² What then is the relation between the fourfold division and the twofold division (those that are and those that are not) of natura?

The fourfold division can hardly be construed as a subordinate subdivision of the twofold division.³³ Three of the four “species” of the fourfold division correspond to “what is not” and only one (the third) corresponds to “what is” in the twofold division. This hardly represents a subdivision of the twofold division, which is what one might expect in any case since the distinction on which the fourfold division is based (creator/creation) is not a further specification of the distinction constituting the twofold division (what can/cannot be grasped). If then the twofold and fourfold divisions do not stand in a relation of subordination, if they appear both to be in some sense “primary”,³⁴ and to vie with each other, then, since the fourfold division constitutes the matter with which the De divisione naturae is concerned,³⁵ the twofold division, once presented, seems after all to be forgotten afterwards for all practical purposes, as Cappuyns had thought.

The twofold and fourfold divisions of natura cannot however be regarded as vieing with each other for primacy, for the primacy they can each claim is of a different order. What is a primary division from the point of view of causation, i.e. the distinction between creator and creation, is not primary from the point of view of natura as object of comprehension in which the distinction “what can and cannot be grasped” must stand as primary.³⁶ Thus creator and creation, when expressed in the twofold division, are brought together as one in the realm of “what is not” (which includes the primordial causes as well as God) and contrasted with another part of creation which is “what is”. The distinction creator/creation is thus not material to the distinction what can or cannot be grasped, as the latter is not material to the former. Primacy then can be maintained for both divisions of natura, as long as the different perspectives to which they relate are clearly distinguished.

The bearing of the twofold division of natura on the rest of Eriugena's great work can easily be inferred from these considerations. The De divisione naturae is intended by Eriugena to deal with natura, taking as its subject-matter the articulation of natura in the fourfold division. Thus the work progresses from God as creator through the primordial causes (“that which creates and is created”), the created world and ending in the last book with God as end (“that which neither creates nor is created”).³⁷ However, this subject-matter entails different approaches, depending on whether it can or cannot be grasped, i.e. on whether “it is” or “is not”. Thus the treatment of God as creator and of the primordial causes will call for the use of Pseudo-Dionysian techniques of thinking and speaking about what transcends our grasp (including discussion of these techniques), which are not required in discourse about the created world.³⁸ The concept of natura, or, more precisely, the “first and highest” division of the totality of natura (whose scope is also expressed by this division), as presented at the beginning of the De divisione naturae, is therefore essential to the whole work insofar as it establishes a fundamental difference in approaches in the work to natura which, however, as subject-matter, is articulated according to the fourfold division.

The subject of the De divisione naturae, we can conclude, is a totality, natura, whose scope is indicated by the primary division or distinction it presents for us as an object of thought and inquiry, namely as what can be grasped and what transcends our grasp. This totality, as the matter to be investigated, can be divided on the basis of a distinction between creator and creation, a distinction which also serves to indicate the totality of natura (cf. 523D, 525BC). Thus both divisions establish the totality of natura and express a primary distinction in that totality, each from a different standpoint.

III

The preceding examination of Eriugena's use of his sources and of the relation between his ideas is indicative of the critical and systematic thought implicit in the way Eriugena conceives the subject of his great work, as indeed is the fact that he introduces a new study or science, physiologia, which is directed to the subject of inquiry, natura (φύσιs), as formulated by him.³⁹ This suggests the idea of a universal study or science which represents an investigation of the totality of what can be grasped and transcends our grasp and which encompasses all other sciences, not as subordinates of it but as portions of one comprehensive inquiry. It will include physics, for example, (what one might have expected physiologia to be) which becomes a science of the natures grasped by the senses and intellect (“naturarum sensibus intellectibusque succumbentium naturalis scientia” 629B), i.e. a science of “that which is”, part of the totality encompassed by physiologia. Eriugena does not discuss formally the character and methods of physiologia, but the De divisione naturae, as a “physiology”, proceeds along a clearly conceived path of inquiry, whose principles are those of “dialectic” as understood by Eriugena.⁴⁰

These ideas, despite their relatively small impact on later philosophy⁴¹ and despite (or because of) the fact that they are clearly present in Eriugena and yet scarcely expressed as fully and as systematically as we might wish, might tempt us to make ambitious claims for Eriugena's philosophy of the sort rightly criticized by Cappuyns.⁴² One such claim, which can be discussed in relation to Eriugena's notion of a universal science of natura, is that which describes the De divisione naturae as a “metaphysical” system.⁴³ Eriugena's achievement then, this implies, is such as to be quite unprecedented and unparalleled in the Latin West prior to the thirteenth century. This claim has at least the merit of indicating that the De divisione naturae is not a conglomeration of different materials, but is inspired by a unity of conception of a very comprehensive sort. The claim, however, is hardly true if by “metaphysics” we mean Aristotelian “first philosophy” as represented, for example, in Boethius' description of theologia, the science of divine substance, or if we mean “first philosophy” understood as the science of being qua being.⁴⁴Physiologia in Eriugena clearly corresponds to neither of these characterizations of metaphysics.

However, Eriugenian physiologia does have metaphysical implications which can allow us to regard it as assuming—in a philosophical, not historical context—a critical position in relation to metaphysics as characterized above, a position which also entails its assumption of the task of metaphysics. Two brief illustrations of this point might be given here.

(i) For Eriugena, Boethius' most comprehensive class of omne quod est, which includes God and matter, must become a totality of what is such as to be grasped by us and such as to transcend our grasp, a totality of “what is” and “what is not”. This expansion of Boethius' class is also a restriction and assimilation of “what is” to what is manifest to us: the “being” of things is the “appearing” of things.⁴⁵ In this perspective, the study of the “being” common to things and in abstraction of their specific attributes must be a study of the “being” of things as “appearing”, the appearing of “what is not”. Physiologia is metaphysics, then, in its attention to the being fundamental and common to all things, but this being is understood as an appearing pointing “inwards” to that of which it is an appearing but which is not the appearing, i.e. what “is not”, what is “beyond being”.

(ii) Eriugenian physiologia can also become metaphysics if we confront it with Boethian metaphysics (theologia) to the degree that it too is a theologia, a science of divine substance,⁴⁶ but a theologia which is not set off from other sciences as a special science with a special subject-matter. Physiologia, as theologia, must be a science embracing other sciences and directed towards all things, for the science of divine substance must study it as appearing in all that can be grasped. All things will then be studied in several sciences, but within the unity of a perspective in which all things are thought of as the manifestation of the divine, as theophany.⁴⁷

Physiologia can thus assume the role of a metaphysical inquiry, if important changes are made in the way the subject and science of metaphysics are conceived: if “being” is seen as an “appearing” pointing to “what is not”; if metaphysics is broadened to become a universal inquiry expressing itself in several sciences and directed to all things as appearances of, but not identical to, the divine; if, in short, we renew—with important modifications—the dialectic of Plato.⁴⁸

Notes

1. De divisione naturae I, 1, Migne, Patrologia latina CXXII, 441A; translation by I. P. Sheldon-Williams Johannis Scotti Eriugenae Periphyseon (De Divisione Naturae) I, Dublin 1968, p. 36. The De divisione naturae, henceforth DDN (Periphyseon is the correct title of the work, but I follow the common usage here in referring to the DDN), will be cited by reference to column numbers in Migne, PL. The Latin text as edited by Sheldon-Williams reads as follows:

   NVTRITOR.

   Saepe mihi cogitanti diligentiusque quantum uires suppetunt inquirenti rerum omnium quae uel animo percipi possunt uel intentionem eius superant primam summamque diuisionem esse in ea quae sunt et in ea quae non sunt horum omnium generale uocabulum occurrit quod graece ΦUCΙC, latine uero natura uocitatur. An tibi aliter uidetur?

   ALVMNVS.

   Immo consentio. Nam et ego dum ratiocinandi uiam ingredior haec ita fieri reperio.

   N.

   Est igitur natura generale nomen, ut diximus, omnium quae sunt et quae non sunt?

   A.

   Est quidem. Nihil enim in uniuerso cogitationibus nostris potest occurrere quod tali uocabulo ualeat carere.

   It might have been better to translate animo percipi by “perceived by the mind” (taking “perception” in the broad sense to include both sense-perception and intellection; cf. infra, pp. 132; 135) but Sheldon-Williams' “grasped by the mind” will be retained in the following. All translations from DDN I in this article are those of Sheldon-Williams (with slight modifications).

2. M. Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigène, Louvain-Paris 1933, repr. Bruxelles 1969, p. 311; R. Roques, Remarques sur la signification de Jean Scot Erigène, in: Divinitas, XI (1967) = Miscellanea André Combes, p. 253 finds that the distinction between being and non-being (which will be seen to be fundamental to Eriugena's concept of natura) constituted a “problématique … disparate” in relation to which Eriugena did not develop his system, preferring to it the four-fold division of nature. Problems involving not only the initial concept of natura but also other parts of Book I of the DDN and their unclear bearing on the rest of the work appear to have driven Sheldon-Williams to supposing that the DDN was, in its first stage of composition, “an essay in dialectic, perhaps abandoned before completion … evidence of [this primitive version] may be seen in Book I of the final version” (op. cit., p. 5). Such a hypothesis need not however be adopted if Eriugena's ideas in Book I and in the rest of the DDN can be shown to be related and to constitute an integral project.

3. Cf. Roques, art. cit., p. 247 n. 8: “L'inventaire de toutes ces sources [of Eriugena's doctrine], l'évaluation de leurs dosages, de leurs amalgames et de leurs utilisations devraient éclairer beaucoup la signification de l'entreprise érigénienne.”

4. To paraphrase Gilbert of Poitiers, who quotes Cicero De inventione I, 24, 34 on the difficulty of defining natura (Commentary on Boethius' Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, ed. N. Häring, The Commentaries on Boethius by Gilbert of Poitiers, Toronto 1966, pp. 242-3).

5. Cf. A. Pellicer, Natura: Etude sémantique et historique du mot latin, Paris 1966. In the majority of texts cited by Pellicer in which natura designates the world or universe (cf. ch. IV, pp. 227ff.), it designates the physical world or universe. In some texts in Cicero and Seneca, however, natura can signify “world” understood in a broader sense, i.e. “reality” (cf. p. 253; Pellicer suggests that it might even mean “being” [οὐsία], a suggestion hardly confirmed by the single text [quoted infra n. 9] he cites in support of this).

6. Op. cit., p. 312; for other evidence of Eriugena's use of the Contra Eutychen, cf. Jean Scot Commentaire sur l'Evangile de Jean, ed. E. Jeauneau, Paris 1972, 152-3, 267.

7. Cf. Cappuyns, in Dict. d'Hist. et de Géogr. ecclés. vol. 9, 373-4.

8. Boethius Contra Eutychen, ch. 1, in Boethius: The Theological Tractates, ed. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand, Cambridge, Mass. London 1953, pp. 76-8. (Boethius adds a fourth definition of natura at the end of the chapter which need not concern us here.) This text became a source for standard definitions of natura in the twelfth century; cf. Alan of Lille, Distinctiones, PL CCX, 871. Boethius seems to have been inspired by the broad meaning natura can have in Cicero and Seneca (supra n. 5).

9. On this contrast between Eriugena and Boethius cf. M. Cristiani, Nature-essence et nature-language. Notes sur l'emploi du terme natura dans le Periphyseon de Jean Erigene, in: Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter, ed. W. Kluxen (forthcoming). I have found only one other close precedent to Eriugena's use of the term natura, i.e. in Seneca Ep. 58, which reports certain Stoics as holding that “in rerum … natura quaedam sunt, quaedam non sunt. et haec autem, quae non sunt, rerum natura conplectitur, quae animo succurant tamquam Centauri … et quicquid aliud falsa cogitatione formatum …” (Ep. 58, 15, ed. O. Hense, Leipzig 1914, p. 181, 1-7). Although manuscripts of Seneca's letters could be found in the North of France in Eriugena's time (cf. L. D. Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters, Oxford 1965, pp. 152ff.), Eriugena's concept of natura can be adequately explained, as I shall try to show, in terms of a critical use of both Boethius and the Pseudo-Dionysius, which would make recourse to the hypothesis that Eriugena read Seneca (for which no evidence as yet has emerged) unnecessary.

10. Cf. DDN 527A, 621A; for other references cf. Roques, art. cit., 248-9. Eriugena's unusual use of universitas (which includes both God and the created world) is confused by M. D. Chenu, La théologie au douzième siècle, Paris 1957, pp. 22-3, with the usage which became popular in the twelfth century and which refers only to creation and more especially to the world (for which cf. DDN 468D-469B, 589A, 620BC).

11. Universalis natura, natura universalis: DDN 523D, 525B, 528B, 529A, 545B, 619AD, 621A, 1018D-1019A, 1020A.

12. PL XXXII, 1420; Aristoteles Latinus I, 1-5 Categoriae vel Praedicamenta, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Bruges-Paris 1961, p. 134, 17-19; Eriugena uses this work a little later in the DDN (cf. Sheldon-Williams, op. cit., pp. 233, 238-9) and paraphrases the present passage in his Annotationes in Marcianum, ed. C. Lutz, Cambridge, Mass. 1939, p. 93, 13-14.

13. In DDN 443A the Master says: “ea vero quae per excellentiam suae naturae non solum omnem sensum sed etiam omnem intellectum rationemque fugiunt iure videri non esse-quae non nisi in solo deo materiaque et in omnium rerum rationibus atque essentiis recte intelliguntur”. (Materiaque is an addition in manuscript P; Sheldon-Williams' dismissal of the addition in his note ad loc. is somewhat undermined by the text he cites, DDN 499C.) Cf. infra n. 24.

14. Div. nom. IV 10, Migne, Patrologia Graeca III, 708A; IV 19, 716D; IV 35, 736B; V 1, 816B; Myst. theol. I, 997B; cf. V, 1048A.

15. This is the way in which the phrase is used in Pseudo-Dionysius' source Proclus (In Parm., ed. V. Cousin, Procli philosophi Platonici opera inedita, Paris 1864, 1043, 9-10) and in Porphyry (Sententiae 31; cf. P. Hadot's note in Marius Victorinus: Traités théologiques sur la Trinité, ed. P. Henry, trad. P. Hadot, Paris 1960, pp. 700ff.).

16. Div. nom. I 1, 588B; cf. I 6, 596; J. Vanneste, Le mystère de Dieu, Bruxelles 1959, pp. 96-100.

17. A long list of references is given in Jean Scot, Homélie sur le Prologue de Jean, ed. E. Jeauneau, Paris 1969, p. 204 n. 1. Eriugena uses the phrase for example in his Expositiones in hierarchiam coelestem VII, 413-4, ed. J. Barbet, Turnhout 1975, p. 102, although the phrase is not found in the Hier. coel.

18. Versio Dionysii, Praefatio, PL CXXII, 1035A (Sheldon-Williams, in The Mind of Eriugena, ed. J. J. O'Meara and L. Bieler, Dublin 1973, p. 9, thinks Eriugena is here interpreting Div. nom. V 3, 817B12-C1; this is unlikely, since Eriugena's preface summarizes the chapters of the Div. nom. in order and therefore must be referring to ch. IV, probably 1130A in Eriugena's translation). Cf. DDN 443D, 500B, 502A, 628B, 634B, 667A, 966B. The second sense of “what is not” is suggested by the Pseudo-Dionysius, Div. nom. IV 19, 716D: “nullum enim erit universaliter non ὄν nisi in optimo secundum superessentiale dicitur hoc” (Eriugena's translation, 1138B).

19. DDN 644A; cf. 447A, 588D, 628B, 667A, 871C, 895B, 907B; Eriugena's interpretation of “those that are not” as referring to transcendent realities is consonant with ideas in Proclus (cf. Elem. theol. 115, 123).

20. Cf. Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigène, p. 312; supra n. 2.

21. Cf. Roques, art. cit., pp. 250-3, for a good summary.

22. 444C; cf. Eriugena's Praefatio to his Versio Dionysii (1035A-1036A): “Quartus [liber] de mystica theologia, qui, quantum ceteris est coartior in sermonibus, tantum largior in sensibus. Unde et in duas maximas logicae disciplinae dividitur partes, cataphaticam plane et apophaticam, id est, in esse et non esse …”; 1196AB (preface to the Versio Maximi): “Et non solum has duas maximas theologiae partes [χαταφατιχή and ἀποφατιχή] in Deo, sed etiam in omni creatura esse manifestissimis declarat [Maximus] exemplis, per eas namque ordines coelestium essentiarum et discernuntur et ordinantur” (note in the latter text the relation between hierarchical ordering and cataphatic and apophatic theology).

23. 444D; cf. E. Jeauneau, Quatre thèmes Erigéniens, Montréal-Paris 1978, ch. 1.

24. 445A-445B; cf. Roques, art. cit., p. 252. The enlargements in MS P (Paris BN Lat. 12964) are of the ninth century. Sheldon-Williams' arguments in his edition (in his note to the present passage, for example; cf. also supra n. 13) against the Eriugenian “authenticity” of the enlargements specific to P do not appear to me to outweigh the likelihood that additions in a MS contemporary with Eriugena (or very nearly so) were inspired in some way by Eriugena. The question deserves further study.

25. The fourth mode is clearly Platonic and is inspired perhaps by the Timaeus in Cicero's translation (2, 3): “[quod est] intelligentia et ratione conprehenditur … alterum … quod opinabile est, id gignitur et interit nec umquam esse vere potest” (ed. C. F. W. Mueller, Leipzig 1898, p. 214, 23ff.).

26. Both the relation between the other modes and the first mode and the non-exhaustive quality of the classification of modes are suggested in 633AB: “Omne namque, quod intelligitur et sentitur [first mode], nihil aliud est, nisi non apparentis apparitio, occulti manifestatio [third mode], negati affirmatio [second mode], incomprehensibilis comprehensio … et cetera, quae puro intellectu et cogitantur, et perspiciuntur, et quae memoriae finibus capi nesciunt, et mentis aciem fugiunt”; the first mode is adopted in the Homily on the Prologue of St. John (ed. Jeauneau, p. 204, with note ad loc.). Classification of modes of being and non-being is quite common in Hellenistic and later Greek philosophy (cf. P. Hadot, op. cit., pp. 700-4; one such classification appears in the Senecan letter cited supra n. 9). Eriugena's classification seems to be primarily based on, or rather to evolve out of, interpretation of the Pseudo-Dionysius, although of course other sources are made use of also. The idea of developing such a classification may have been inspired by his reading of Marius Victorinus, who provides a list of modes of non esse (Ad Candidum 4, 1ff.; cf. 13, 6; for evidence of Eriugena's reading of Victorinus, cf. Sheldon-Williams, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge 1967, p. 523).

27. This may account for the plural Eriugena uses when he rejects the admission of “quod penitus non est [Boethius' nihil] … in rerum divisionibus” (443C; Sheldon-Williams' translation does not retain the plural: “in the division of things”).

28. It need not be the first and highest division in natura itself, which would be rather that between creator and creation; cf. infra n. 34.

29. Cf. G. Allard, Quelques remarques sur la ‘dispositionis series’ du ‘De divisione naturae’, in: Jean Scot Erigène et l'histoire de la philosophie, ed. R. Roques, Paris 1977, p. 214 (I have simplified somewhat Allard's suggestion); G. Schrimpf, in the same volume (Die Sinnmitte von ‘Periphyseon’, pp. 296-7), presents another solution, according to which the fourfold and twofold divisions are logical distinctions respectively in the subject and copula of the most general proposition about reality as a whole, namely “Reality is either creating or created or both”; one might doubt however if such a proposition is in fact the context in which Eriugena conceived of his divisions and their relation to each other.

30. That between creator and creation; cf. infra p. 142.

31. Cf. also 527B-528A; Roques, art. cit., p. 257.

32. Cf. Schrimpf, art. cit., p. 296, and Jeauneau, in the same volume, p. 114. In 523D-525C, the Master discusses the fourfold division in relation to natura as constituted of God and creation; cf. 527C, 621A, 688D-690A, 1019A and especially 1020A: “quadrifariam universalis naturae theoriam in praedictis quattuor speciebus, quarum duas quidem in divina natura …, duas in natura condita …”; cf. Roques, art. cit., p. 249. For Eriugena's sources, cf. Sheldon-Williams, Johannis Scotti Eriugenae Periphyseon, I, pp. 222-3; DDN 530AB (quoting Maximus the Confessor). B. Stock, in a recent paper In Search of Eriugena's Augustine (to appear in the Papers of the 1979 Freiburg Eriugena Colloquium, ed. W. Beierwaltes), suggests that the four-fold division derives in its form of analysis from four logical modes found in the Pseudo-Augustine Categories (ed. Minio-Paluello, p. 147, 5-7). Such a form of analysis can be found, however, in a more relevant application, in Calcidius In Tim. 36, ed. J. H. Waszink, p. 85, 3-17, where it is said of the first ten numbers, with the exception of the number seven, “partim ipsi alios pariant, partim ab aliis pariantur, partim et pariant alios et pariantur ab aliis,” whereas of the number seven it is said that “neque … nascitur nec … parit”.

33. The division which the Master proposes in 441B, and which results in the fourfold division, is a division of the genus natura and not of the twofold division of natura (the text is misunderstood in this way by Honorius of Autun in his summary of the DDN, Clavis Physicae ed. P. Lucentini, Rome 1974, 4, 4ff.; M. Cristiani, art. cit., also discusses Honorius's alteration of Eriugena's ideas).

34. The fourfold division might be taken to be primary in that it is described as a universalis divisio of natura (523D); the division of natura into creator and creation is described as primary in 621ACD.

35. Cf. 1018D-1019A: “A. Nihil video, nisi ut totius operis materiae, hoc est, universalis naturae divisionis aliquantulam ἀναχεφαλαίωσιν subjicias. N. Quadriformem universalis naturae, quae in Deo et creatura intelligitur, fecimus divisionem …” Cf. 528C, 529D, 690B, 741C-743D.

36. This distinction is suggested, in terms which are perhaps not quite appropriate, by J. Huber, Johannes Scotus Erigena (1861), repr. Hildesheim 1960, pp. 160, 163, who describes the twofold division as made from the standpoint of “das Erkennen” and the fourfold division as “in der Wirklichkeit objectiv vorhandene”. He believes however that the twofold division bears only a loose relation to Eriugena's system as a whole and that, once announced, it is not considered again.

37. Such at least is Eriugena's intention as expressed in the texts cited supra n. 35. There are however difficulties in matching precisely the progression of the discussion in the DDN with the order of the species of the fourfold division; cf. Cappuyns, op. cit., pp. 316-7; Allard in The Mind of Eriugena, p. 147.

38. Thus the first book of the DDN is largely an exercise in negative theology; cf. Roques, art. cit., p. 269 n. 76. On the primordial causes which, like God, cannot be grasped and can only be discussed in relation to lower manifestations of them (their effects), cf. 550C-552A, 624AD, 626C, 692B. The approach to the discussion of the created world (what can be grasped, i.e. “what is”) is the obverse of this in that it emphasizes the “theophanic” or manifestatory character of “what is”. “What is” is thus approached as what appears, the appearing or “presenting” of itself of “what is not”; cf. Roques, pp. 293-6 (quoting DDN 665C-666A).

39. DDN 741C: “N. prima nostrae physiologiae intentio praecipuaque materia erat, quod ὑπερουσιότηs, hoc est superessentialis natura, sit causa creatrix existentium et non existentium omnium …”; cf. 750A; this seems to have inspired the title given to Eriugena's work in one MS (Liber phisiologiae: cf. Sheldon-Williams' edition of Book I, p. 17). Eriugena's use of physiologia is a departure from the way in which the word is used in Boethius (In Isagogen Porph. ed. S. Brandt, Vienna 1906, p. 9, 8: natural philosophy; cf. also φυσιολογία in the heading of ch. 1 of Eriugena's translation of Gregory of Nyssa, quoted by Cappuyns, op. cit., p. 174) and is not identical to the special sense of φυσιολογία in Proclus (cf. Roques, art. cit., p. 261 n. 47; W. Beierwaltes, in: Gnomon 41 (1969), p. 131). Eriugena's adaptation of physiologia in relation to his concept of natura might be compared to the role physiologia assumes in relation to another new concept of natura in Kant (Critique of Pure Reason II, 3, A 845 = B 873, Kemp Smith trans., London 1968, p. 662; of course the particular concepts of physiology and nature in Kant are quite different).

40. Cf. Cappuyns, op. cit., pp. 305ff.; Roques, art. cit., pp. 259-61; my L'investigation et les investigateurs dans le De divisione naturae de Jean Scot Erigène, in: Jean Scot et l'histoire de la philosophie, pp. 225-233.

41. Eriugena's concept of natura is summarized by Heiric of Auxerre (cf. Sheldon-Williams, op. cit., p. 222 n. 5; E. Jeauneau, in The Mind of Eriugena, pp. 114-123) and especially by Honorius of Autun's Clavis physicae (supra n. 33), the title of which, P. Lucentini points out, refers to Eriugena's concept of φύσιs or natura (La Clavis physicae di Honorius Augustodunensis e la tradizione eriugeniana nel secolo XII, in: Jean Scot Erigène et l'histoire de la philosophie, p. 412). Honorius does not however reproduce faithfully Eriugena's concept of natura; cf. supra n. 33.

42. Op. cit., pp. 261ff.

43. Gilson sees Eriugena's system as an “immense épopée métaphysique” (La philosophie au Moyen Age, Paris 1947, p. 222); M. Grabmann describes Eriugena as a “genialer Metaphysiker” (Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, vol. I. Freiburg im. B. 1909, p. 205). Eriugena has also been seen as responsible for the absence of metaphysics (!) in the early Middle Ages (cf. A. Mignon as quoted by Cappuyns, op. cit., p. 263 n. 7).

44. Cf. De trinitate ch. II, where Boethius seems to think of the science of divine substance as the science of being: “inspicere formam quae vere forma … et quae esse ipsum est et ex qua esse est” (Theological Tractates, ed. Stewart-Rand, p. 8, 19-21). I am not of course taking a position here on the question of what “first philosophy” or “metaphysics” is in Aristotle.

45. Reference is made here to “manifesting” or “appearing”, not in order to give priority to the third mode of being and non-being in Eriugena's enumeration of five modes, but in order to emphasize the “objective” basis of the distinction in natura between what can and cannot be grasped.

46. Cf. G. Allard's useful discussion in The Mind of Eriugena, pp. 148-9.

47. Cf. T. Gregory, Note sulla dottrina delle ‘teofanie’ in Giovanni Scoto Eriugena, in: Studi Medievali, IV (1963), pp. 75-91.

48. These final remarks are not intended to be exhaustive or conclusive. A study of an important metaphysical theme in Eriugena has recently been made by G. Allard, The Primacy of Existence in the Thought of Eriugena, in: Neoplatonism and Christian Thought ed. D. J. O'Meara, Albany N.Y. 1981. The problem of the relation between the concept of natura in DDN I and the concept of natura (distinguished from οὐσία) in DDN V (cf. 867AB) is discussed by M. Cristiani, art. cit. In preparing this article I did not find B. Bošnjak, Dialektik der Theophanie. Über den Begriff der Natur bei J. S. Eriugena, in: La Filosofia della Natura nel Medioevo (Third International Congress of Medieval Philosophy), Milan 1966, pp. 264-271 helpful. I am grateful to J. J. O'Meara and J. F. Wippel for their valuable comments.