CHAP, V. Influence exercised by the Timaeus and the PseudoDionysius. in opposition to mere authority; while in maintaining the value of dialectic as the special instrument for the investigation of all truth, he took up a position distinctly opposed to the traditions of the Latin Church. To these more general grounds of variance must be added on his mind another element of difference, and one to which perhaps none of his numerous critics have assigned quite its full weight--we allude to the marked influence exercised on his mind by two very different treaties--the Timaeus of Plato and the Hierarchies of Dionysius. In days when real independence of thought was still undreamt of, and the utmost ambition of the boldest thinker was to prove the superiority of one school of ancient doctrine over another, it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the importance of the direction of a scholar's reading. It may, we think, be clearly shewn that by far the greater part of what was most noteworthy and novel in John's philosophy and theology was derived from the above-named sources. The latter treatise described. Of the latter treatise it will be better to speak first. It is well known that the patron saint of France, honoured under the name of St. Denys, was alleged to be that same Dionysius the Areopagite who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as among the converts gained by St. Paul after his memorable discourse on Mar's Hill, and who, according to tradition, was the first bishop of Athens. To this Dionysius was also assigned the authorship of a discourse concerning the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, a work which more modern criticism, however, inclines to attribute to the Christian school at Edessa in the latter part of the fifth century. Of this treatise a copy had been sent by pope Paul to Pepin-le-Bref in 757, and a yet more splendid manuscript by the eastern emperor, Michael Balbus, to Lewis the 1 XVII 34. 2 The evidence for this conclusion will be found summed up in Mr. Lupton's introduction to his edition of Colet's Two Treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius, pp. xxxii-xxxviii. See also Canon Westcott's admirable 6 article in Cont. Rev. (May, 1867), Dionysius the Areopagite. Gieseler (1 ii 351, ed. 1845) says that the Dionysian writings ohne Zweifel in Aegypten abgefasst waren.' V. Bald to undertake Pious. Such a present could not fail to appeal very forcibly CHAP. to the superstitious reverence of Frankland, and Hilduin, the abbat of St. Denys, was induced to attempt its transla- John invited by tion; but his efforts, which probably much resembled those Charles the of the earlier Humanists in the fifteenth century in relation to Homer, were not crowned with success, and the manu- its translascript still reposed in the library of St. Denys, an object tion. of deep though somewhat vague admiration, when John Scotus arrived in Frankland. We can perhaps ask for no better evidence of the superiority of his Greek learning to that of his contemporaries, than the fact that he was forthwith solicited to undertake the task of rendering this work into Latin. The style of the original, which often veils the meaning in language of mystic obscurity, rendered his undertaking one of considerable difficulty. Notwithstanding his speculative and enquiring cast of mind, he possessed nothing of the critical spirit, and the gross anachronisms involved in the assumption of the Dionysian authorship do not appear to have arrested his attention. His main anxiety was to guard against rendering himself liable to the charge of having tampered with the sense, and he accordingly produced a version of almost painful literalness. To use the expres- Testimony sion of Anastasius, the papal librarian, his interpretation of Anastill needed an interpreter.3 In other respects, however, the Italian critic is loud in his praise. It is astonishing,' he says, 'how this barbarian (vir ille barbarus) living on the confines of the world, who might reasonably have been presumed to be as ignorant of Greek as he was remote from intercourse with civilised men, could have been able intellectually to grasp such mysteries and to render them into another language.'4 1 Huber, p. 50; Christlieb, p. 26. 2 Staudenmaier, p. 163. 6 s. . . et quem interpretaturum susceperat, adhuc redderet interpretandum' (quoted by Christlieb, p. 63). 4 Mirandum est quomodo vir ille barbarus, qui, in finibus mundi positus, quanto ab hominibus conversatione tanto credi potuit alterius linguae dictione longinquus . . . talia intellectu capere in aliamque linguam transferre valuerit' (quoted by Hauréau, p. 153). N stasius to his success. CHAP. V. Influence sophy. The Timaeus. The Platonic theory not reconcile The contents and character of the Hierarchies of Dionysius have so often been epitomised and described, as fairly to exonerate us from here attempting an outline of the work. Briefly it may be said that they harmonised in a twofold manner with the spirit of western mediaevalism. They exhibited the different orders of the hierarchy as symbolical of a like order in heaven-a theory especially acceptable to the aspiring spirit of the Latin Church; and they offered to the devotion of the monastic recluse an object of unwearying contemplation, in the doctrine they unfolded of a future union with the Supreme Being, and a final reabsorption into the Divine Nature. In the closing book of John Scotus' De Divisione Naturae this latter theory, of an Absolute Existence in which the pure and perfected soul is finally merged and lost, is set forth at considerable length; the late professor Maurice has clearly proved that the writer's inspiration was derived, not from any Neo-Platonic writings, as Guizot supposes, but from the pages of the PseudoDionysius.1 The second treatise, the Timaeus of Plato, exercised over the mind of John Scotus a less general but perhaps not less potent influence. It is well known to every scholar that Plato's cosmogony, as unfolded in this dialogue, presents us with a very peculiar view of the guiding power of the universe. Aváykn, Necessity, the 'erratic, irregular, random, Causality,' is here not simply distinguished from, but opposed to, the Demiurgus, the intelligent formative power. Fate and design, much like the Moîpai and the gods of the Greek mythology, are described as antagonistic forces. It is only within certain limits that divine skill, divine design, and divine order, can find effect; beyond those limits lie the operations of a superior force, but a force planless, undetermined, and irregular in its working, vis consili expers. According to this conception, as an eminent critic has clearly pointed out,' Necessity, in the Platonic sense, nearly corresponded to the modern theological conception of free will, and was consequently altogether opposed to what Augustine denoted 1 Mediaeval Philosophy, pp. 50-55. 2 Grote, Plato, iii 248-51. СНАР. V. by the term predestination; while as thus understood and accepted by John Scotus, it appeared to him to offer the most philosophical solution of the great problem with re- able with spect to which the utterance of Scripture is ambiguous and predestin that of the Fathers at variance. arianism. invites John to Gotte schalk. To his application and able assertion of this Platonic Hinemar theory we may probably attribute the fact that John was selected by Hincmar to undertake the refutation of Gotte- reply to schalk. He arrived in Frankland at a very favourable juncture for securing that prelate's favour and support; the able and ambitious churchman, far more politician than divine, was sorely in need of an able pen to aid him in the contest in which he was now involved with the other members of the episcopate and a majority of the inferior clergy. It had been looked upon as a grievous discredit to Fulda, Gotteand had been no slight trial to Rabanus, when, in the year schalk's previous 829, one of their number, a young Saxon of noble family of career. the name of Gotteschalk, had announced his weariness of the monastic life, and obtained from the Synod at Maintz a formal dispensation from his vows. He pleaded that it was only under compulsion that he had ever become a Benedictine, and his plea had been held valid by the Synod on the ground that a Saxon could thus forfeit his freedom only when the ceremony had been attested by a witness of the same nationality. Rabanus, however, subsequently drew up a treatise. to prove that pious parents have a right to impose such a sacrifice on their offspring; and urged, with greater force, that all that could be reasonably required in an attesting witness was integrity and credibility without respect to rank or race. His argument was recognised as valid by Lewis the Pious, and the decision of the Synod of Maintz was reversed. Gotteschalk was only permitted to transfer himself from the monastery at Fulda to that of Orbais in the diocese of Soissons. At Orbais he gave himself up to the study of Augustine, and of Augustine's follower, Fulgentius.2 1 Dümmler, i 311-12. To this able writer's clear and careful narrative I am mainly indebted for the order of events in Gotteschalk's career. 2 Ibid. СНАР. V. Ilis theory of predes tination. Of the latter writer he became so completely the avowed and uncompromising disciple that among his opponents he was commonly known by the same name. He re-asserted, in its harshest and most repellant form, the doctrine of predestination, and was indefatigable in his efforts to bring over to his views the foremost theologians of his day. Among those with whom he corresponded on the subject, were Ratramnus, a monk of Corbey; Jonas, bishop of Orleans; Marcward, abbat of Prum; and, as we have already noticed, the scholarly albat of Ferrières. The prudent advice given by Lupus Servatus was, however, little to Gotteschalk's mind, conscious as he was of powers which could only find full scope in the field of argument and controversy. At once an eloquent orator and a dexterous debater, with a retentive memory which enabled him to impress an audience with the belief that his knowledge of the Scriptures and the Fathers was unparalleled, he longed for the battle. At length the admission to priestly orders, conferred by Rigbold, the chorepiscopus of Rheims, gave him the opportunity he sought; the admission carried with it the license to preach, and Gotteschalk's oratorical ability soon drew around him numerous followers. His chief, almost his only theme, was the Augustinian doctrine of predestination, upon which he untiringly insisted as the great central truth of Christianity, though obscured by the extent to which it had been suffered to fall into the background in the theological teaching of the age. His opponents, who, while not denying the high authority of Augustine, could accept but a modified form of predestinarianism, were denounced as sectarians who had lapsed from the true faith. In allusion to his former teacher, now his most determined antagonist, he styled them the Rhabanici.' Gotteschalk's fundamental conception of the Supreme Being was that of immutability, the Unchangeable in nature, 1 Dümmler, i 314; 'omnes qui insaniae sensuum tuorum zelo fidei resistunt haereticos appellare non metuis, eosque a bono et erudito viro atque catholico episcopo Rhabanicos nuncupare praesumis.' Amolo Gothescalco, Sirmond, Opp. Var. ii 902. |