Above : Picture of St Dionysius

In the ninth and tenth centuries Ireland sent a great number of teachers to the Con­tinental schools, and all the more because great as was the fame of its earlier schools, it had then few flourishing homes of learning of its own. The names of many of these professors have not been preserved, but the reputation which they gained on the Continent is evidenced in many ways. Thus we find that when the Emperor Frederick the Second was about to set up the University of Naples, he sent to Ireland for the learned Peter to be its first Rector, that an Irish­man, Clemens, succeeded Alcuin as the Rector of the Studium at Paris, aud that in the same age the Irish John was sent by Charlemagne to found the School of Pavia.

The chief representative of Ireland and philosojjhy at the Carolovingian Court was John Scotus Erigena. We know little of him until the time that we find him an intimate of the palace of Charles the Bald in 851, and the date of his birth and place of education are matters of surmise. He was at that time well known in France as a distinguished scholar, so that he must have been for some time resident there. Charles, who had few of the great qualities of his famous grand­father, Charlemagne, has at least the distinction of being, like him, a noble patron of letters. Stories are told of the terms of intimacy that existed between Charles and John Scotus which do equal credit to the kindliness of the one and the wit and freedom of the other.

Certain reputed works of Dionysius the Areo-pagite had been sent by Pope Paul I. to Pepin-le-Bref, and a splendid manuscript of the mystical writings of the same author was subsequently presented to Louis the Pious by the Byzantine Emperor Michael. The works were in the Greek language, and the greatest scholars of France were unable to interpret their meaning. Amongst others the task was entrusted to Hilduin, Abbot of St. Denis, and the learned Abbot had to confess his inability to produce a satisfactory version. This was considered all the more regrettable as Dionysius was regarded as the patron saint of France, and the great Abbey of St. Denis had been named after him. The task was finally entrusted to John Scotus, and he produced a satis­factory version, and it thus became the lot of an Irishman to introduce the works of a Greek mystic of the East to the knowledge of a Franco-Roman King. The learned Anastasius, the Papal librarian, on reading the version of John Scotus, wrote to the King expressing his surprise ” that a barbarian who hailed from the extreme confines of the world, and who might have been deemed to be as ignorant of Greek as he was remote from civilisation, could have proved capable of compre­hending such mysteries and translating them into another tongue.” So much did the reputed writ­ings of Dionysius puzzle all others, that the Irish­man’s faithful and literal rendering was regarded as an interpretation which itself required an inter­pretation.

John Scotus took a prominent part in the philo­sophical and theological disputes of his time, and always proved a formidable opponent. When the Latin Fathers fail him in his arguments, he appeals to the Greek writers, and when he cannot have recourse to the Christian writers, he takes refuge amidst the philosophers. He sometimes, pityingly, ascribes the alleged mistakes or differ­ences of his opponents to their ignorance of the Greek language. The varied nature of his studies was not without its effect on him, and he often mingles divinity with platonic philosophy, and fell into grave errors in his speculation. He was not, of course, an ecclesiastic, nor was he a sound theologian. His bold and inquiring mind had come to consider that even the most sacred mysteries were within his comprehension, and he met with inevitable failure when he theorised con­cerning the nature and attributes of the Deity, grace and predestination, the future state of reward and punishment and other subjects. ” He sailed,” says Dr. Healy, ” through unknown seas where there was no chart to guide him. His daring spirit essayed untravelled realms of thought, and in the quest of truth he often followed wandering fires; yet, as he himself tells us, in the light of God’s revelation, and the strength of his grace, the wearied spirit always found its home­ward way again. He was, in reality, the first of the schoolmen, and his very errors, like the wanderings of every explorer in a new country, served to guide those who came after him.”

Few philosophers have obtained so high a reputation for wisdom in their own age as John Scotus Erigena. The strange legends which have grown around his life tend to show the awe in which his learning was held by his contemporaries. He gained fame as a philosopher, a poet, and a theologian, and men looked with wonder at this prodigy, who could write Greek verses, and expound the Scriptures in the Hebrew, who was familiar with Aristotle and Plato, as well as with the Fathers of the Church, who was Rector of the Royal School of Paris, and also professor of dialectics and mathematics. He was known in his own time, and long after as ” The Master,” and was looked upon as “a miracle of knowledge.” ” That single mind that Ireland sent to Gaul sur­passed all others in acuteness,” said his friend Prudentius, expressing the estimation which the great Irishman gained amongst the learned. The resemblance between the Greek mind and the Irish has sometimes been observed, and it has been noted that the scholars of both these nations were characterised by quickness and subtlety, love of speculation, and power of abstraction and general­isation. John Scotus, who was in many respects a typical Celt, had, by close study, imbued himself with the spirit of the Neo-Platonistic philosophy, and had thus, by nature and training, become intensely Greek in his outlook and methods of thought. It was this characteristic of his teaching and language that made them appear so strange to the Latins, and x that induced them to father on him many errors and ideas for which he was not in reality respon­sible. Renan regards him as the most original figure of his century, the greatest mind of the period. In the breadth of his philosophic outlook, his knowledge of philology, and his acquaintance with the Greek langunee. which was such as no member of the Latin raceo outside Italy possed uring the whole of the Middle Ages, he is a unique exception to the men of his time, a strange apparition for which nothing that has gone before prepares us, and which remains isolated in the history of the human intellect. It is true that the position that he held as a philosopher has been weakened, but, as Kenan points out, when one considers his time, he is a still greater wonder as a philologist than as a philosopher. He has, in this regard, antecedents, and his antecedents are to be found in the Irish schools. It was not necessary for him to travel to Athens in order to learn Greek, as his legend supposes, for he found in his own country the best Hellenistic school that the Latin Middle Ages had. He made grave errors in philosophy, and they were justly cen­sured, but they were not advanced in any recal­citrant spirit, and unlike Abelard and others who followed him, John the Irishman did not show any ambition to become the leader of a small body of sectaries. Unlike them, too, he wore his high distinction with modesty, and one who knew him intimately tells us that he was a holy and an humble man filled with the Spirit of God. ” He was loved,” writes Dr. Ilealy, ” and honoured by friends who knew him, and misjudged both during his life and after his death by many who knew neither the man himself nor his writings . . . . For ages he was lost to view, but in our own time he is seen shining again in the literary heavens with even more than his ancient splendour.”

Below : Painting of John Scotus Erigena