SOURCE: Contreni, John J. and Pádraig P. Ó Néill. Introduction to Glossae Divinae Historiae: The Biblical Glosses of John Scottus Eriugena, by John Scottus Eriugena, edited by John J. Contreni and Pádraig P. Ó Néill, pp. 1-85. Firenze, Italy: SISMEL, 1997.

[In the following excerpt, Contreni and Ó Néill examine the early writings of Eriugena.]

That so much has been written about John Scottus, arguably the most studied of all early medieval intellectual figures during the last twenty-five years or so, testifies to a deeper and more precise appreciation both of his principal historical context, the Carolingian renewal program, and of his unique position within that intellectual and cultural framework.¹ The Carolingian effort to reform society was led by kings, bishops, and abbots, and can be traced in a series of programmatic documents, statutes, synodal decrees, and even poems. The ideals of the reform program were embedded in texts, the Bible above all, but also in the works of authoritative Christian authors. Proper understanding of those texts and of God's creation required grounding in other books, books which introduced students and readers to the human, or liberal, arts. Carolingian masters mediated between these texts and the generations of students whom they armed religiously and intellectually to implement the reform of Christian society in the Carolingian realms.²

Most masters taught small groups of students year in and year out in the cathedral and monastic schools of Carolingian Europe; other masters, an elite band of scholar-teachers, taught generations of students indirectly by writing new texts that adapted Christian and secular wisdom to the needs of Carolingian learning and society. John Scottus was both a teacher of his own students and one of the sixty or so known Carolingian writers who created new knowledge through their own intellectual activity and who through the written word broadcast their learning to other masters and students. It is almost exclusively through the evidence of his own works and the responses of his contemporaries to them that anything at all is known about the “life and work” of John Scottus.³

Careful sifting of that evidence during the last few decades has provided a sharper portrait of the great ninth-century scholar, but one still obscured by uncertainty and by that great curse of scholars who work in the early medieval period, lack of evidence. Recent studies of John Scottus's poetry, for example, have revealed how intimately connected he was to the life and concerns of the court of Charles the Bald and Ermentrude, his queen. The royal poet, as John has aptly been called, composed poems that both celebrated royal victories and holydays and lamented the twin tribulations of contemporary Carolingian history—internal dissension and external attack.⁴ Careful study of his philosophical texts and also of his knowledge of Greek has revealed growth and development in his thought and his skills as a translator during the two or three decades when his career can be followed in Carolingian Europe.⁵ Modern research has also convincingly shown that John Scottus was no ivory-tower intellectual looming above his contemporaries. He was known personally by Prudentius of Troyes, Hincmar of Reims, Wulfad of Bourges, Pardulus of Laon, and probably a host of others such as Lupus of Ferrières, Martin Hiberniensis of Laon, Godescalc of Orbais, Heiric of Auxerre, Sedulius Scottus, and a team of anonymous Irish and continental students and colleagues who collaborated with him as he worked. Others in the ninth century knew him by reputation and by his teaching, and referred almost casually to him in manuscripts simply as “Iohannes”.⁶

If John Scottus had written only the Periphyseon, “the most ambitious book to have been written in the western world since Augustine's De Ciuitate Dei”,⁷ his reputation on that achievement alone would be solidly established. But his great masterpiece was preceded by decades of reading, studying, translating and writing that not only prepared him to compose the Periphyseon, but also both reflected and enriched Carolingian cultural life. The following, generally chronological, list of works so far attributed to John Scottus suggests how varied and rich was his own intellectual culture:⁸

1. De diuinae praedestinatione liber (ca. 850-851)
2. Glosa Prisciani⁹
3. Annotationes in Marcianum (859-860)¹⁰
4. Versio operum sancti Dionysii Areopagitae (translation of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite) (860-864)
5. Ambigua ad Iohannem (translation of Maximus the Confessor's Ambigua to John) (862-864)
6. De imagine (translation of Gregory of Nyssa's On the Image of Man) (862-864)
7. Quaestiones ad Thalassium (translation of Maximus the Confessor's Questions to Thalassius) (864-866)
8. [translation of the Ancoratus of Epiphanius of Salamis]¹¹
9. Periphyseon (Concerning Nature) (864-866)
10. Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem (Exposition on the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite) (865-870)
11. Revision of the Versio operum sancti Dionysii Areopagitae (no. 3 above) (865-870)
12. Vox spiritualis aquilae (homily on the Prologue to St. John's gospel) (870-872)
13. Commentarius in evangelium Iohannis (Commentary on St. John's gospel) (875-877)
14. Defloratio de libro Ambrosii Macrobii Theodosii¹²
15. Carmina (poems) (850-877)
16. [Tractatus de uisione Dei]¹³

This impressive roster prompts several observations. First of all, excepting the letter-prefaces of some of his works and a short note to a certain “Dominus Winibertus” attributed to John, the absence of personal correspondence is striking. Carolingian scholars were prodigious letter-writers and it is difficult to believe that John Scottus did not write to or receive letters from colleagues, friends, and patrons as well. The loss of his correspondence can probably be chalked up to the vagaries of manuscript survival.

Second, it is tempting when looking over the roster of his writings to divide John's literary activity into three stages. The 850s, when he commented on Martianus Capella and contributed to the debate on predestination, might represent an early stage. The first half of the 860s would represent a middle stage when he was primarily occupied with several major translation projects. The third stage, from the mid-860s to his death, marks a return to original compositions—the Periphyseon, the Expositiones in Ierarchiam coelestem, the homily on the Prologue of John, and the unfinished commentary on John's gospel.¹⁴

No matter how one regards the evolution of the traditional canon of John's works, one cannot help but be struck by the chronological compression which it imposes on his literary activity—especially in the 860s. But as more works such as the Glossae diuinae historiae come to be attributed to that canon, a narrow dating of John's scholarly career to the 850s and 860s becomes increasingly unsatisfactory.¹⁵ Moreover, it must be remembered that the dates suggested for many of John's works are approximate and often circumstantial. It is assumed, for example, that the Periphyseon (at least the first version) was completed in 866, the year when Abbot Wulfad of Saint-Medard in Soissons, whom John named in Book V as his “in studiis sapientiae cooperator”, became archbishop of Bourges (866-878) and presumedly lost contact with the Irishman.¹⁶ But that need not necessarily have been the case. Wulfad as a close political ally of Charles the Bald would have occasion to visit court and could well have met John there regularly, or at the synods Wulfad attended, or anywhere else in Charles's kingdom. Even if the two friends and colleagues rarely met after 866, they may still have continued to work together. The evidence of the Winibertus letter attributed to John Scottus is important here. The author of the letter longed to get together with “Dominus Winibertus” even for a little while. Despite their separation he offered to correct Winibertus's Martianus Capella manuscript if it were sent to him.¹⁷ Wulfad may have worked with John on the Periphyseon under similar circumstances. If it cannot be proven absolutely that Wulfad and John continued to collaborate on the Periphyseon after 866, by the same token it cannot be proven that they did not. Consequently, 866 must be regarded as a “soft” date for the completion of the Periphyseon. There is no reason not to imagine John continuing to work on this long, complex, and structurally complicated work into the late 860s and even the 870s.

Just how long John remained active is uncertain. His last dated work has long been thought to be the poem “Aulae sidereae” which on the basis of internal evidence was considered to have been composed for the dedication of Charles the Bald's new church at Compiègne on May 1, 877. However, a new study of the poem has pushed its date back to 870.¹⁸ Even so, other undated works, including the unfinished commentary on John, could have been written well into the 870s.

If the terminal limits of John Scottus's career are uncertain and perhaps not as narrow as previously thought, it is no less unclear when and where he began to write and teach. This question is especially relevant to the Glossae diuinae historiae since its nature and content mark it as a work that stemmed from the early stage of John's career.

The first secure date in John's career is 850-851. It was then that he responded to the invitation of Archbishop Hincmar of Reims and Bishop Pardulus of Laon to write a treatise against Godescalc of Orbais's troublesome views on predestination. The result was John's De diuinae praedestinatione liber. If the invitation from two of the leading ecclesiastical figures in Charles the Bald's realm to join in one of the most vexing intellectual and theological controversies of the day were not testimony enough to John's high reputation at that time, the power, authority, and originality with which John invested his work prove beyond doubt that he was no intellectual neophyte at mid-century. In fact, he was residing at court when Pardulus and Hincmar enlisted his aid against Godescalc.¹⁹ Bishop Prudentius of Troyes in his bitter denunciation of John's views on predestination admitted that John's blasphemies and impudence were all the more disturbing to him because he himself had once cherished and loved John.²⁰

Prudentius, like John, was also a foreigner (a Spaniard originally named Galindo) who had served in the court of Louis the Pious since the 820s and then in the court of Charles the Bald, probably beginning in late 841. Prudentius is traditionally thought to have been elevated to the see at Troyes in 845-846 and thus to have been on familiar terms with John Scottus some time before this date. But there is good reason to believe that Prudentius left the royal palace for the bishopric of Troyes late in 843 or 844.²¹ Thus, he and John would have known each other even earlier in the 840s, a conclusion which suggests that by the time of the De diuinae praedestinatione liber John Scottus would have been a member of Charles the Bald's court circle for close to a decade, if not more. John's ability to weather the controversy aroused by his contribution to the predestination debate and to continue to enjoy patronage at the highest levels for the rest of his life attest to the strength of his position even at this early date.²²

The circumstances in which John came to Charles's court and what he did there can at present only be matters for speculation. But speculation is warranted when it suggests new avenues of research and new hypotheses to be tested.

Ludwig Traube, the great palaeographer, more than eighty years ago drew attention to several distinctive specimens of Irish script occurring in manuscripts of John Scottus's works. Since Traube's time many more instances of the script have been discovered in a variety of ninth-century manuscripts. Detailed scrutiny of the script over the years has proven that it is actually the handwriting of two different masters who have been designated as i¹ and i². These two Irishmen certainly were not mere scribes. Their corrections, comments, notes, and glosses are authorial and reveal intimate knowledge of John Scottus's thought and deep interest in the subjects that interested him. Were they disciples or collaborators, or was one of them even John Scottus himself? The weight of the evidence, in fact, suggests strongly that the script of i¹ is indeed that of John Scottus.²³

Interest in discovering the actual handwriting of John Scottus is no mere antiquarianism. Now that his script has been identified, scholars interested in the development of his thought will be able to follow him as he commented on and expanded passages in his own work and glossed theological and grammatical texts of other authors. Historians interested in situating John Scottus in his historical milieu will have the hard evidence of his handwriting in surviving manuscripts with which to establish firmer chronological and personal relationships in the Carolingian world for the great Irish scholar.

John's script, a mature and skillful example of Irish minuscule, provides graphic proof that he learned to write in Ireland and that he was introduced to Latin literary culture there. The evidence of the Old-Irish glosses in the Glossae diuinae historiae independently attest to John's familiarity with the learned traditions of his homeland.²⁴ Not only does it appear that John Scottus was no neophyte in the early 850s when he wrote the De diuinae praedestinatione liber, it is highly likely that he already was an accomplished scholar even before the early 840s when Prudentius of Troyes knew him at court.

Thus, although it may be tempting on the circumstantial evidence of the surviving works to view John Scottus's career in three stages beginning in 850-851, it may be historically more accurate to think of 850-851 as the mid-point of a teaching and literary career that stretched over forty years. Unfortunately, the twenty or so years of John's life and work before the mid-century are enveloped in the deepest obscurity. He must have participated in a world of learning and teaching before the 850s of which we know only very little.

One clue may be found in the late-ninth-century portions of the Deeds of the Bishops of Auxerre which reports that as a youth Bishop Wicbald (879-887) studied under John Scottus.²⁵ According to that source, Wicbald was under John's tutelage from the beginning, “Hic uir a primo etatis tyrocinio spiritualibus inbuitur disciplinis … Iohannis Scotti”. But what precisely is meant by the term tyrocinium? It is used in the same context of ecclesiastical education by the Anglo-Latin scholar Aldhelm. In his Letter to Heahfrith, Aldhelm congratulated the latter on his return after six years from Ireland where “nourished for a long time in the first cradles of learning, you grew up to the age of young manhood” (“dudum incunabulis tirocinii editus rudibus adulto tenus pubertatis aevo adoleveras”).²⁶ For Aldhelm, tyrocinium denoted the first stage of Heahfrith's professional training in Ireland which probably took place in early adolescence—the years between fourteen and twenty-eight, according to Isidore of Seville.²⁷ Applied to Wicbald's situation, the term would indicate that he began his education under John some time in his teens.

On completing his studies with John after a considerable period (longe tempore), Wicbald left him (Dehinc) for the royal court. According to the Auxerre episcopal history, he was by now a well-established iuuenis (iuuentutis solidum robur), a stage of life traditionally reckoned from the years twenty-eight to fifty.²⁸ Assuming that the authors of the Auxerre history shared Isidore's chronological definition of iuuenis, Wicbald was in his late twenties or even older when he arrived at court. The date of his arrival would have been sometime before the early 840s, since by that date John himself had come to court.²⁹ Consequently, Wicbald would have received his education under John sometime before the early 840s. And if the source's references to an education lasting a good number of years (longo tempore) and extending to full manhood be taken at face value, then we should reckon with a period, say, of at least six to ten years, which would give 830-840 as the latest range of dates for Wicbald's education under John. In that case, John would have been a well-established teacher in Francia already by the early 830s.

Furthermore, a record of John's early teaching in the liberal arts has survived in the Annotationes in Marcianum. The Oxford (Bodleian Library, Auct. T. 2. 19) manuscript of this text, it has been suggested, contains a version of the commentary on the De nuptiis that reflects John's teaching in the early 840s, perhaps the very time when Wicbald was his student.³⁰ Almost certainly the Glossae diuinae historiae belongs to this same twenty-year period (830-850), as suggested by the following evidence. First, John Scottus reveals more of his Irish background in the Glossae than he does in all his other works combined. Such evidence suggests a time of composition for this work closer intellectually and chronologically to his Irish period.³¹ Second, in the Glossae he conveys the impression of a scholar still perfecting his knowledge of Greek; there are mistakes such as one might not expect to find in his later translations of Greek works, those of the 860s.³² Third, in content and format, the Glossae has much in common with the Annotationes, a work which may have been first composed in the early 840s.³³

Unfortunately, the circumstances of John's departure from Ireland for the Continent are entirely unknown. He may, like contemporary Irishmen such as Sedulius, have first crossed to Wales, where Irish scholars would have been assured of hospitality from King Merfyn Vrych (died 844) of Gwynedd in North Wales and his son, Rhodri Mawr, before continuing through Britain and on to Francia.³⁴ If, as already argued, he taught an adolescent Wicbald in the 830s, he would have been at the time somewhat older than his student—at least in his twenties. This approximate chronology would make John Scottus a contemporary of Murethach Scottus, the Auxerre master, and of Sedulius Scottus whose continental ties were with Liège. His ownership of Dubthach's copy of Priscian suggests that John knew this Irish master on the Continent sometime between 838 (or earlier) and 869. He may also have personally known Magister Fergus, another Irishman whose path crossed that of Dubthach, Sedulius Scottus, and Martin Hiberniensis of Laon.³⁵ Martin copied extracts from John's work into his Greek-Latin glossary and grammar, MS Laon, BM 444, and undoubtedly knew him personally.³⁶ Indeed, Martin's dependence on John suggests that the latter was both his teacher and his senior. Since Martin was born in 819, we might assign a somewhat earlier date of birth to John. A notional date of the first decade of the ninth century would harmonize with both Martin's date of birth and the tentative conclusions drawn from the chronology of Wicbald of Auxerre's early career. An earlier date of birth in the late eighth century seems very unlikely given that John died sometime after 870.

As to when John Scottus would have left Ireland, we may reasonably surmise that it can hardly have been before his late teens. The contents of the Glossae diuinae historiae suggest that its author had received a well-developed education in Ireland before he left, one that presumably occupied him for at least the first two decades of his life. We might then propose for John Scottus the following chronological framework for the period before 850: born in Ireland in the first decade of the ninth century; departed for the Continent about 820 at the earliest; established as magister in Francia by 830; composed Annotationes in Marcianum and Glossae diuinae historiae, 830-850.

Another vexed question about John Scottus's early career is whether he acquired his knowledge of Greek in Ireland or on the Continent. Previous uncritical encomia of early Ireland's intellectual achievements have given way to more realistic assessments. Many scholars now admit that knowledge of Greek in early Ireland mainly derived from Late Latin grammarians and the Latin Fathers, notably Jerome.³⁷ Ireland apparently never enjoyed the benefit of Greek-speaking teachers such as Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury. What limited knowledge of Greek the Irish possessed was used for etymologizing important biblical and Christian words and to satisfy Irish curiosity about the three sacred languages, one of which was Greek.³⁸ Probably representative of the kind of Greek current in the Irish schools in the early ninth century when John Scottus would have been educated there is a commentary on the Psalms in Irish known as The Old-Irish Treatise on the Psalter.³⁹ The treatise begins by supplying the equivalent names for “The Book of Psalms” in the “three sacred languages”, that for Greek being given as psalterium (presumably a Latinization of psalterion). The latter is then analyzed by reference to four Greek “cognates”, psalmus, psalmista, psalmodium, and psallo, with the insistence that these be spelled with initial ψ. Virtually all of this information comes from Isidore of Seville. Further on, The Old-Irish Treatise discusses the terms diapsalma and synpsalma, analyzing them as Greek lexical equivalents of Latin dis-iunctio and con-iunctio. The misguided equating of the element -psalma with iunctio was prompted by Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms, though obviously he did not equate the two; the explanation of the Greek-derived elements dia- and syn- probably came from Donatus.⁴⁰

Given the unimpressive knowledge of Greek implied in this and other contemporary Irish biblical commentaries such as das Bibelwerk, the burden of proof surely rests on those who would claim that Irish schools in the early ninth century could provide an education in Greek. Yet even if John did not actually learn in Ireland the Greek that he displays in the Glossae diuinae historiae,⁴¹ he would have acquired there in his youth an awareness of its potential for grammatical and exegetical studies. Moreover, he would have undergone in Ireland a rigorous grammatical training in Latin grammar which, coupled with his mastery of the syntactical and morphological complexities of written Old Irish, would have predisposed him to learn Greek readily. It is surely more than a coincidence that the foremost Greek scholars of the Carolingian period were almost all products of the same Irish education.

These Irish masters and other Irishmen formed the largest corps of foreign scholars in the Frankish realms. They are visible in the sources either because they retained their Irish names—Taircheltach, Murethach, Fergus, Dubthach, Comgall, Suadbar—or took more familiar Latin names qualified by the epithet “Scottus” or “Scottigena”: Josephus Scottus, Clemens Scottus, Murethach Scottus, Sedulius Scottus, Iohannes Scottus, Donatus Scottus, Electus Scottigena. Alternatively, Martin of Laon in a personal entry in the Laon Annales used the soubriquet “Hiberniensis”.⁴² And uniquely among these Irish scholars, John Scottus, perhaps following Virgil's “Graiugena”,⁴³ called himself “Eriugena”, “(of) Ireland by birth”, in the title to his translation of Pseudo-Dionysius. But what of his first name, John? Pardulus of Laon and Hincmar of Reims knew him by this name—“Scottum illum qui est in palatio regis, Iohannem nomine”—when they enlisted his help in 850/851 against Godescalc. So did Prudentius (“Iohannes uidelicet Scottus”), his erstwhile palatine friend, who knew him a decade earlier.⁴⁴

Did he have this name from his earliest days in Ireland? Contemporary Irish sources, especially the Annals, indicate that by the ninth century certain biblical names were current among Irish ecclesiastics, some of them adapted to vernacular pronunciation, e. g. Daniél, Ioseph, Martan. But the name John does not figure among them, either in its Latin form Iohannes or as the native borrowings Iohain or Éoin (attested in later Irish sources).⁴⁵ Perhaps he adopted Iohannes as soon as he came to the Continent. Alternatively, he may have had a native Irish name, which he continued to use until his circle of non-Irish friends, colleagues, patrons, and students grew to the point that a less “exotic” name became both more convenient and more expedient.⁴⁶

The opportunity to change one's name presents some interesting choices. In speculating about reasons for his choice of John, it is worth entertaining a possible “Irish” explanation. Early Irish ecclesiastics, besides using biblical names borrowed directly from Latin, sometimes latinized genuine native names that approximated to Latin names in form or pronunciation. The native Irish name of immediate relevance here is Eógan, which was sometimes latinized as Eugenius, but conceivably might also have appeared as Iohannes. It is possible, though not provable, that John Scottus originally had a native name such as Eógan, one of the most popular secular names in early Ireland,⁴⁷ which he subsequently latinized to Iohannes when he arrived on the Continent.

Other explanations also suggest themselves. John was a common name among Italian bishops in the ninth century, but it occurs only rarely in the Carolingian realms north of the Alps.⁴⁸ Arguably, just as Martin Hiberniensis elected the name of a monastic founder revered in Ireland, just as Sedulius, Donatus, and the Visigoth Prudentius took the names of poets and grammarians, so John may have adopted the name of the evangelist John, whose symbol was the eagle, the high-flying bird whose wings carry it not only above the world, but high above all theology, theoria, and all that is and is not. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, represented faith and action, but John stood for wisdom and contemplation. It was John who came first to the tomb of Christ because purified contemplation penetrates the divine secrets more quickly and acutely than does action. The apostle John was more than a man—his ineffable wisdom and his sharp mind enabled him to understand what surpasses all.⁴⁹ These sentiments and others like them from the homily on the Prologue to John form a veritable panegyric to the evangelist in terms that bring to mind John Scottus's own work. The homily is a late work, but it could well be that even as a young man John Scottus's profound understanding of biblical exegesis, his spirituality, and perhaps his sense of his own place in early medieval Christian culture made his choice of a new name inevitable. “O blessed John, not unworthily are you called John. John is a Hebrew name the Greek rendering of which, Wiexapicato, in Latin means ‘the one to whom a gift has been given’”.⁵⁰

John Scottus's “early” works—the Martianus Capella commentary, the Glossae diuinae historiae, and the De diuinae praedestinatione liber—demonstrate that even in the early period of his teaching and reading he already possessed unusual gifts. His familiarity with Greek vocabulary and thought, for example, is evident in these works.⁵¹ His ability to expound the complexities of the De nuptiis and to explain difficult biblical terminology testify to wide reading and sharp technical skill in the liberal arts and in the Scriptures. Undoubtedly, more remains to be learned about John Scottus's formation and scholarship in the years leading up to the De praedestinatione. The Glossae diuinae historiae promises to shed light not only on early medieval biblical studies, but especially on John's learning and teaching.

Notes

1. See Mary Brennan, A Guide to Eriugenian Studies: A Survey of Publications 1930-87, Vestigia 5 (Fribourg, 1989) with its 523 citations.

2. See John J. Contreni, “The Carolingian Renaissance: Education and Literary Culture”, in Rosamond McKitterick ed., New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1995), 709-57.

3. See especially Paul Edward Dutton, “John Scottus Eriugena”, in Jeremiah Hackett ed., Medieval Philosophers, Dictionary of Literary Biography 115 (Detroit and London, 1992), 168-84; Dermot Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena: A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989); John J. O'Meara, Eriugena (Oxford, 1988) for good, recent attempts to reconstruct the elements of John's biography. Moran, ibid., 35, notes that John is not mentioned at all in the Annals of St-Bertin, a well-informed document for West Frankish affairs. But the fact that Prudentius of Troyes and Hincmar of Reims, neither of whom appreciated John's work and position at court, wrote these annals accounts for this silence. The absence of John's name, especially a notice of his death, from the Laon Annales (see below, note 304) is even more puzzling. Martin Hiberniensis, who kept the annals and used them to list his own birthdate and the births and deaths of other Laon figures, died in 875 and may have predeceased John Scottus.

4. See Paul Edward Dutton, “Eriugena, the Royal Poet”, in Allard ed., Jean Scot écrivain, 51-80; Michael Herren, “Johannes Scottus Poeta”, in F. X. Martin and J. A. Richmond eds., From Augustine to Eriugena: Essays on Neoplatonism and Christianity in Honor of John O'Meara (Washington, D.C. 1991), 92-106.

5. Édouard Jeauneau, “Jean Scot Érigène et le grec”, 5-50.

6. Iohannes, Io, or Ioh were commonly used in ninth-century manuscripts to refer to the works and thought of John Scottus. To the list of examples compiled by Cappuyns, JSE, 3-5, add Claudio Leonardi, “Nuove voci poetiche tra secolo IX e XI”, 147-8; Paul Meyvaert, “The Exegetical Treatises of Peter the Deacon”, Sacris Erudiri 14 (1963), 143; idem, “Eriugena's Translation of the Ad Thalassium of Maximus: Preliminaries to an Edition of this Work”, ME, 80; Jeauneau, “Quisquiliae”, 103-4, 117, note 109; Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Deux lectures et un commentaire de Jean Scot: Censorinus, Aulu-Gelle (livres I et III) et Bède le Vénérable”, Revue d'histoire des textes 21 (1991), 131; Colette Jeudy, “L'Attitude de Rémi d'Auxerre face aux innovations linquistiques de Jean Scot”, in Allard ed., Jean Scot écrivain, 302-6; A. C. Dionisotti, “Greek Grammars and Dictionaries in Carolingian Europe”, 20, 38, note 50; Lendinara, “On John Scottus's Authorship of the Biblical Glosses”. For the numerous references to John in Bern, Burgerbibliothek 363, see John J. Contreni, “The Irish in the Western Carolingian Empire”, in Heinz Löwe ed., Die Beudeutung der Iren für Mission und Kultur in frühmittelalterlichen Europa bis ins 11. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1982), 2: 758-98. A ninth-century uita Vergilii, the Vita Noricensis I, bears a marginal reference to “Io[hannes]” apropos of the phrase, “Maro eloquens intellegitur”; see Bischoff, “Irische Schreiber im Karolingerreich”, 49, and, for the uita. Karl Bayer ed., Vergil-Viten (Munich, 1977), 340-4 (340, line 16, for the site of the “Io” reference).

7. Dutton, “John Scottus Eriugena”, 178.

8. See Jeauneau in John Scottus, Homél., 48-9, and Dutton, “John Scottus Eriugena”, 168, for the proposed dates.

9. See Dutton and Luhtala, “Eriugena In Priscianum”. The authors tentatively assign this commentary to the 850s.

10. This date is based on an extrapolation of two comments on Martianus Capella's eighth book, De astronomia, which would seem to refer to the actual year in which the commentator was working; see Cornelius C. Coulter's review of Cora Lutz's edition of Iohannis Scotti Annotationes in Marcianum in The American Historical Review 46 (1940-41), 109-11. However, given the problematical state of the text of the Annotationes for the eighth book, it cannot absolutely be assumed that the comments in question derived from John Scottus's teaching. See below, note 292, for an earlier, more plausible dating of the Annotationes.

11. This work apparently has not survived, but Jeauneau (in John Scottus, Homél., 49, note 1) seconded Cappuyns's attribution of it to John Scottus.

12. For the most recent attribution of this work to John Scottus, see Dionisotti, “Greek Grammars and Dictionaries in Carolingian Europe”, 39, note 50.

13. This work also has not survived. Jeauneau followed Cappuyns in crediting it to John Scottus (John Scotttus, Homél., 49).

14. Cappuyns, JSE, structured his classic study of John Scottus's “life, work, and thought” chronologically. Chapters 2 through 5 bear the titles, “Le ‘Grammairien’”, “Le Controversiste”, “Le Traducteur”, “Le Penseur”, respectively.

15. Michael W. Herren has suggested that Eriugena produced a glossed and annotated interlinear translation of the Greek Gospels during the early 850s; see “St. Gall 48: A Copy of Eriugena's Glossed Greek Gospels”. Patrick Gautier Dalché has attributed a commentary on Bede's De temporum ratione to Eriugena; see “Deux lectures et un commentaire de Jean Scot”, 115-33.

16. MPL 122: 1022a; Cappuyns, JSE, 189. For Wulfad, see John Marenbon, “Wulfad, Charles the Bald and John Scottus Eriugena”, in Margaret Gibson and Janet Nelson eds., Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, British Archaeological Reports International Series 101 (Oxford, 1981), 370.

17. For this letter and its accompanying distich in Laon, BM, MS 24, see Contreni, “A propos de quelques manuscrits de l'école de Laon au IXe siècle”, 9-13; and, Dutton, “Evidence that Dubthach's Priscian Codex Once Belonged to Eriugena”, 44. A “UUINIBERTUS SACERDOS” and a “IOHANNES SACERDOS” were conspicuously paired in the Liber memorialis of Remiremont (MS Rome, Bibl. Angelica 10, f. 42v) by a scribe active during the third quarter of the ninth century; see MGH, Libri memoriales I, Liber memorialis Romaricensis 1: 92, 158-9.

18. Michael Herren, “Eriugena's ‘Aulae Sidereæ’, the ‘Codex Aureus’, and the Palatine Church of St. Mary at Compiègne”, SM 28 (1987), 593-608.

19. Remigius of Lyon (citing a lost letter from Pardulus), De tribus epistolis liber, MPL 121: 1052A: “Sed quia haec inter se ualde dissentiebant, Scotum illum qui est in palatio regis, Joannem nomine scribere coegimus”. For John's involvement in the predestination controversy, see David Ganz, “The Debate on Predestination”, in Margaret T. Gibson and Janet L. Nelson eds., Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, 2nd rev. ed. (Aldershot, 1990), 283-302; and John Marenbon, “John Scottus and Carolingian Theology: From the De Praedestinatione, Its Background and Its Critics, to the Periphyseon”, ibid., 303-25.

20. De praedestinatione contra Iohannem Scottum, MPL 115: 1012d: “Blasphemias tuas, Iohannes, atque impudentias … eo molestius accepi, quo te familiarius amplectebar, peculiarius diligebam”.

21. This chronology of Prudentius's career, so important for establishing the chronology of John Scottus's career, depends on Janet Nelson, “The ‘Annals of St. Bertin’”, in Margaret T. Gibson and Janet L. Nelson eds., Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, 2nd rev. ed. (Aldershot, 1990), 26-8; eadem, trans., The Annals of St-Bertin, Manchester Medieval Sources Series, Ninth-Century Histories 1 (Manchester and New York, 1991), 7-8.

22. Charles the Bald seems to have cultivated close ties with “outsiders”. Hincmar of Reims attributed Charles's death to poisoning by the king's Jewish physician, Zedechias, “whom he loved and trusted all too much”. See The Annals of St-Bertin (trans. Nelson), 202 (a. 877).

23. For an overview of the question, see Jeauneau and Dutton, The Autograph of Eriugena.

24. See above, pp. 50-55.

25. Gesta episcoporum Autissiodorensium, MGH, Scr. 13: 399, 15-8: “Hic uir a primo etatis tyrocinio spiritualibus inbuitur disciplinis, liberalium artium studiis adprime instructus, Iohannis Scotti, qui ea tempestate per Gallias sapientiae diffundebat radios, factus pedissequus, cuius discipulatui longo inherens tempore, diuina simul et humana prospicere, prospera eque et sinistra equali lance didicit ponderare. Dehinc iuuentutis solidum robur adeptus ad aulam introductus est regiam”.

26. See Aldhelm, Opera omnia, MGH, AA 15: 490, lines 1-2 (trans. Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren, Aldhelm: The Prose Works [Ipswich, 1979], 161). Cf. also Aldhelm's De Virginitate, “a primaevo pubertatis tirocinio” (MGH, AA 15: 265, line 7), where the source, Jerome's Vita Pauli, indicates the age of sixteen.

27. Etym. XI, 2, 4.

28. See Isid., Etym. XI, 2, 5, and Differentiae II, 19 (MPL 83: 81). See further, A. Hofmeister, “Puer, Iuvenis, Senex: Zum verständnis der mittelalterlichen Altersbezeichnungen”, in Albert Brackmann ed., Papsttum und Kaisertum (Munich, 1926; repr. 1973), 287-316; and A. J. Barrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford, 1986), especially 84-5.

29. See above, p. 77.

30. See Hans Liebeschütz, “Zur Geschichte der Erklärung des Martianus Capella bei Eriugena”, Philologus 104 (1960), 29-31; idem, “The Place of the Martianus Glossae in the Development of Eriugena's Thought”, ME, 49-58.

31. The possibility that Eriugena might have composed the Glossae while still in Ireland seems remote, given his use of Theodulf's recension of the Bible which apparently never reached Ireland; see above, “Biblical Text”, pp. 36-40.

32. See above, “The Use of Greek in the Glosses”, pp. 55-7.

33. See above, notes 272 and 292, for an earlier dating of the Annotationes. The Glossae and the Annotationes are compared above, pp. 64-5. The suggestion that John Scottus came into possession of Dubthach's copy of Priscian sometime between 838 (when the manuscript was copied) and 869 (when Dubthach died) might shed light on the first period of John's continental career; see Dutton, “Evidence that Dubthach's Priscian Codex Once Belonged to Eriugena”; for Dubthach, see Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature, 400-1200 (Dublin, 1985), 181.

34. On the role of the court of Gwynedd as a hostel for Irish scholars en route to and from the Continent, see Nora K. Chadwick, “Early Culture and Learning in North Wales”, in Nora K. Chadwick et al. eds., Studies in the Early British Church (Cambridge, 1958), 93-110.

35. See Lapidge and Sharpe, Bibliography, 192-3.

36. For Martin's manuscript, see Dionisotti, “Greek Grammars and Dictionaries in Carolingian Europe”, 1-56; also, Lapidge and Sharpe, Bibliography, 181-2.

37. For a more optimistic assessment of the knowledge of Greek in early Ireland, see W. B. Stanford, “Towards a History of Classical Influences in Ireland”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 70, sect. C (1970), 22-7.

38. See above, p. 52.

39. Hibernica minora … An Old-Irish Treatise on the Psalter …, Kuno Meyer ed., Anecdota Oxoniensa, Mediaeval and Modern Series, part VIII (Oxford, 1894).

40. See Pádraig Ó Néill, “The Old-Irish Treatise on the Psalter and its Hiberno-Latin Background”, Ériu 30 (1979), 151-2, 156-7.

41. Which is the persuasive case made by Édouard Jeauneau; see above note 267.

42. Annales Laudunensis et sancti Vincentii Mettensis breves, MGH, Scr. 15: 1293-5; Contreni, The Cathedral School of Laon from 850 to 930, 99-101; Lapidge and Sharpe, Bibliography, 181-2.

43. Virgil, Aeneid, 3.550. John applied the epithet to Maximus the Confessor: “te legat assidue, Maxime Graiugena”; see Maximus Confessoris Ambigua ad Iohannem iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam interpretationem, ed. Édouard Jeauneau, CCSG 18: 14, 38. For “Eriugena”, see MPL 122: 1035-6. Hincmar of Reims, who was not fond of the influence of “scottica et alia barbara” (Opusculum LV capitulorum, MPL 126: 448) in contemporary Latin usage, in a rare reference to John Scottus preferred to call him “Iohannes Scottigena”—perhaps to avoid “Eriu—” (MPL 125: 296a-b). In the Glossae, cf. gl. 10, “domigena”.

44. De tribus epistolis, 39 (MPL 121: 1052a); Prudentius, De praedestinatione, MPL 115: 1011b.

45. Cf. GOI § 70(c), and E. Knott, “An Index to the Proper Names in Saltair na Rann”, Ériu 16 (1952), 110, 113.

46. See Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, “The Irish as Mediators of Antique Culture on the Continent”, in Butzer and Lohrmann eds., Science in Western and Eastern Civilization in Carolingian Times, 49-50, for the suggestion that Suadbar was Sedulius Scottus's original Irish name.

47. See Donnchadh Ó Corráin and Fidelma Maguire, Gaelic Personal Names (Dublin, 1987), 87, s.v. Eógan.

48. See Brennan, “Materials for the Biography of Johannes Scottus Eriugena”, 416-21 (these three references to “John” may indeed be to John Scottus); Janet L. Nelson, “Dispute Settlement in Carolingian West Francia”, in Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre eds., The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986), 49 (John, “count of the palace” of Pippin I of Aquitaine in 828), 53 (John, landholder in the archbishopric of Bourges during the time of Archbishop Wulfad); for “Iohannes sacerdos”, see above note 279. For the Italian Johns, see The Annals of St-Bertin (trans. Nelson), 258.

49. Homél. I-V (ed. Jeauneau, 200-26): “Vox altiuoli uolatilis, non aera corporeum uel aethera uel totius sensibilis mundi ambitum superuolitantis, sed omnem theoriam, ultra omnia quae sunt et quae non sunt” (200-2); “Ea scilicet ratione qua Petrus in forma actionis ac fidei ponitur, Iohannes autem contemplationis atque scientiae typum imitatur” (210); “Sed Iohannes praecurrit citius Petro. Acutius namque atque uelocius intima diuinorum apicum penetrat secreta uirtus contemplationis penitus purificatae quam actionis adhuc purificandae” (212-4); “Non ergo Iohannes erat homo, sed plusquam homo, quando et seipsum et omnia quae sunt superauit, et ineffabili sapientiae uirtute purissimoque mentis acumine subuectus, in ea quae super omnia sunt” (220-2). See also the discussion of gl. 230 above, pp. 26-8.

50. Ibid., II (208): “O beate Iohannes, non inmerito uocitaris Iohannes. Hebraeum nomen est Iohannes, cuius interpretatio graece Wiexapicato, latine uero ‘cui donatum est’”. His choice of name may have also have been influenced by the example of John Chrysostom; some ninth-century contemporaries, at least, apparently called the Irishman “Chrysostom”. See Gustavo A. Piemonte, “Ioannes Scotus vel Chrysostomus: Acerca de la atribución de obras eriugenianas a Juan Crisostomo”, Stylos 1 (1992), 37-58.

51. For the Annotationes and the Glossae diuinae historiae, see below, pp. 21-4, 64-5; for the De praedestinatione, see Giulio d'Onofrio, “La nuova edizione del De divina praedestinatione liber di Giovanni Scoto”, 271-3; and, Dominic J. O'Meara, “The Problem of Speaking about God in John Scottus Eriugena”, in Uta-Renate Blumenthal ed., Carolingian Essays: Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in Early Christian Studies (Washington, D.C., 1983), 160, note 29; 161, note 31.

Abbreviations and Short Titles

See the Bibliography for complete references. The abbreviations used for individual books of the Bible are those given in Bib. sac. V., 1: xxxi.

AM = John Scottus. Annotationes in Marcianum (ed. Lutz)

ASE = Anglo-Saxon England

Bib. sac. = Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem

Bib. sac. V. = Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem

BM = Bibliothèque Municipale

BNF = Bibliothèque Nationale de France

CCCM = Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. Turnhout, 1968-

CCSG = Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca. Turnhout, 1977-

CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Turnhout, 1953-

CGL = Corpus glossariorum latinorum

Comm. = John Scottus. Commentarius in euangelium Iohannis

CSEL = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna, 1866-

De mens. et pond. = Epiphanius. Vetus uersio tractatus Epiphaniani de mensuris et ponderibus

DIL = (Contributions to a) Dictionary of the Irish Language. Dublin, 1913-76

Etym. = Isidore of Seville. Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum siue Originum

Glossaire = “Glossaire grec-latin de la bibliothèque de Laon”

Glossaria latina = Glossaria latina. W. M. Lindsay et al. eds.

GM = John Scottus. Glosae Martiani (ed. Jeauneau)

GOI = Rudolf Thurneysen. A Grammar of Old Irish

HN = Pliny. C. Plini Secundi Naturalis historiae libri

Homél. = John Scottus. Homélie sur le prologue de Jean

IF = Indogermanischen Forschungen: Zeitschrift für indogermanische Sprach- und Altertumskunde

Inst. = Eucherius. Instructionum libri duo

JSE = Maieul Cappuyns. Jean Scot Érigène

Lexique = Joseph Vendryes et al. eds. Lexique étymologique de l'Irlandais ancien (de J. Vendryes)

Lewis and Short, Dictionary = Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. A New Latin Dictionary

Lib. int. hebr. nom. = Jerome. Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum

Lib. de situ et nom. = Jerome. Liber de situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum

LXX = Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes

ME = John J. O'Meara and Ludwig Bieler eds. The Mind of Eriugena

MGH = Monumenta Germaniae historica. Hannover and Leipzig, 1826-

AA = Auctores antiquissimi

Ep. = Epistolae

P. L. = Poetae latini

Scr. = Scriptores

SRM = Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum

Ml. = “The Milan Glosses on the Psalms, Bibl. Ambr. C. 301”. In Thes. Pal. 1: 7-483

MPL = J.-P. Migne. Patrologiae cursus completus, Series latina. 221 vols. Paris, 1844-64

MPG = J.-P. Migne. Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca. 161 vols. Paris, 1857-86

MS = manuscript

MSt = Bernhard Bischoff. Mittelalterliche Studien

Periph. = John Scottus. Periphyseon

QT = Édouard Jeauneau. Quatre thèmes érigéniens

RB = Revue Bénédictine

Rz = Das Glossar Rz

Sg. = “Glosses on Priscian, Codex Sangallensis. No. 904”. In Thes. Pal. 2: 49-224

SM = Studi Medievali, ser. 3

SR = Saltair na rann

Theodore = Theodore of Canterbury. Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian

Thes. Pal. = Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus

ThLL = Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Leipzig, 1900-

VG = Holger Pedersen. Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen

VL = Vetus Latina

Wb. = “Codex Paulinus Wirziburgensis”. In Thes. Pal. 1: 499-714

ZcP = Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie

ZvS = Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung