Valuing Water with Gratitude and Restraint: A Catholic Theological Imperative

An overview of some patristic and medieval theological teachings on water and other goods of creation provides key perspectives on our valuing and our use of them

The Harmony of All Things : Music, Soul, and Cosmos in the Writings of John Scottus Eriugena

In his prodigious philosophical work Periphyseon, the foremost intellectual of the ninth century, John Scottus Eriugena (ca. 800–877 CE), defined musica broadly and in a way that solicits interdisciplinary applications: “Music is the discipline discerning by the light of reason the harmony of all things in natural proportions which are either in motion or at rest.” In this dissertation, I trace resonances of the ars musica in Eriugena’s writings using selections from his three greatest works: Periphyseon, his glosses on Martianus Capella’s textbook De Nuptiis, and his commentary over Pseudo-Dionysius’s treatise on the Celestial Hierarchy of Angels. Beginning with his comments on Capella, I present ways in which Eriugena’s reflections on music as a liberal art intersect with his discussions of the cosmos and the human soul. For Eriugena and earlier Neoplatonists, the consideration of quantity related to quantity in ratio was the proper province of musica, and this natural ordering corresponded to the overall coherence observed throughout the cosmos. That is, the “natural proportions” in Eriugena’s definition of music included all things that can be studied, visible or invisible. Although some previous musicological considerations of Eriugena’s writings have sought insights on performance practices of the ninth century (e.g., the organicum melos question), most have dealt almost exclusively with his description of the harmony of the spheres; this project extends these discussions and explores a fundamental element in Platonic thought neglected in previous studies, i.e., music related to the spheres and the human soul. Eriugena’s writings provide a perfect opportunity for such a study. Using my own translation of Eriugena’s glosses on Martianus Capella’s De Nuptiis, I demonstrate how Eriugena’s short treatise on the harmony of the spheres incorporates a discussion on the motions of human souls superimposed upon the planetary system. Furthermore, ix the ordering of the celestial hierarchy of angels emanating from God is itself proportionally organized, in terms of the nature of each angelic hierarchy and how they interact while relaying the divine oracles. In the end, I demonstrate that a unifying theme in Eriugena’s philosophical writings is the need for central, proportionally defined mediators, whether the sun, which modulates the celestial spheres, the mese in the Immutable System of tetrachords, or even specific ranks within the hierarchy of angels

Metaphor and Apophatic Discourse: Putting Sells in Dialogue with Lakoff and Johnson

In the book, Mystical Languages of Unsaying, Michael A. Sells presents a performative theory of apophatic discourse. His idea is that apophatic discourse functions as a semantic analogue to mystical experience through \"meaning events.\" Although he acknowledges that an appreciation of the subtleties of metaphor is crucial to an understanding of mystical language, Sells does not discuss the extensive literature on metaphor theory from the last few decades. In this essay, the author explores how George Lakoff and Mark Johnson\'s theory of metaphor may enrich Sells\' theory. Further, he addresses what Lakoff and Johnson may learn from Sells\' treatment. While there are no conflicts, strictly speaking, between the metaphysical pictures suggested by the two theories. Sells\' picture of the world allows for fissures of meaning at which Lakoff and Johnson\'s theory at best hints. Ultimately, Lakoff and Johnson\'s conception of metaphor requires that Sells\' theory of apophatic discourse be reexamined

El concepto de la Primera Causa en el Segundo Libro del Periphyseon de Juan Escoto Eriúgena

The aim of this paper is to present the Eriugenian concept of the First Cause as developed in Book Two of his Periphyseon. The paper begins with Eriugena’s fourfold division of nature, and focuses upon his concept of the second form of nature, which consists of primordial causes. Eriugena’s view that God the Father has established in the Beginning, i.e. in His Son, the primordial causes of everything that are at once eternal and created, has led to many misconceptions and accusations of pantheism and subordinationism. These problems can be resolved against the background of Eriugena’s interpretations of Divine creative activity as well as his Trinitarian considerations

“Made in Each Other:” John Scottus Eriugena’s Conception of the Human Person as a Unifying Vocabulary for Trinitarian Metanarrative and Anticartesian Phenomenology

Vinzant, Carey B. “Made in each Other: John Scottus Eriugena’s Conception of the Human Person as a Unifying Vocabulary for Trinitarian Metanarrative and Anti-Cartesian Phenomenology.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 260 pp. This study sets forth an account of the human person, drawn primarily from the thought of John Scottus Eriugena, which integrates the metaphysical account of personhood set forth by Trinitarian theology (especially John Zizioulas) with the phenomenological one set forth by certain Anti-Cartesian philosophers (especially John Macmurray, Martin Buber, and Gabriel Marcel). These two schools of thought have in common the conviction that uniqueness and relation to other persons are constitutive of the human person, but this study seeks to provide further common ground for more effective dialogue between them. Part 1 addresses Eriugena’s use of his patristic sources, especially Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and the pseudo-Dionysius. Chapter One addresses the themes of Trinity, Christology, Eschatology, and Apophaticism as ways to clarify Eriugena’s relation to Christian orthodoxy. Chapter Two addresses the concept of humanity as created in the Image of the Trinity, an idea Eriugena appropriated from Augustine, and suggests ways in which this concept is useful for developing an account of the human person. Part 2 considers Eriugena’s discussions of what can be known about a human person as raising the question of personal identity. Chapter 3 examines Eriugena’s conception of the human person as an integrated simultaneity of the animal nature (biological embodiedness) and the divine image (personhood), emphasizing the dynamic nature of this integration, the ambiguities introduced by this dynamism, and the significance of these two aspects of the human person. Chapter 4 sets forth Eriugena’s conception of self-awareness and the limits thereof with special emphasis upon his debt to Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus Confessor. Chapter 5 examines Eriugena’s general epistemology, recognizing that it also emerges in his views of language and theological method. Eriugena’s debt to Augustine, Maximus, Gregory of Nyssa, and the pseudo-Denis in these areas is also considered. Chapter 6 examines the fundamentally interpretive character of Eriugena’s eschatology as an indication of his broader epistemology and the centrality of epistemic responsibility in his thought. Part 3 develops the ideas of interpersonal encounter, perichoresis, and intersubjectivity as ways in which Eriugena addresses the questions about human identity that have emerged in Part 2. Chapter 7 develops the idea of interpersonal encounter in the contexts of the relation between the moral and the interpersonal, and of the relation of the human person to God in light of the thought of Buber, Macmurray, and Paul Tournier. Chapter 8 examines Eriugena’s eschatology with special emphasis upon the point that it is perichoretic rather than monistic in character. Chapter 9 examines Eriugena’s conception of theosis as divergent from much of the Christian mystical tradition and more consonant with the modern notion of intersubjectivity, especially as it emerges in the thought of Gabriel Marcel and Mikhail Bakhtin

The 50-year jubileum of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies in the John Scottus Eriugena (815–877) research, 1970–2020

This article charters the history and work of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies (SPES), which celebrated its 50-year jubileum in 2020. After a brief introduction to the thought of John Scottus Eriugena (815–877), with emphasis on his primary text (in five volumes), Periphyseon, written between 864 and 866 and condemned as heretical in 1050, 1059, 1210 and finally in 1225, the development of SPES over the past five decades is surveyed in detail and connected to an outstanding work published in the Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition series in Leiden (2020), under the editorship of Adrian Guiu (A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena). The article is descriptive and analytical in its presentation of the relevant history of ideas and synthetical in its attempt to coherently integrate the most recent secondary texts on the relevant philosophical themes in Eriugena research. Contribution: The article contributes to the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies’ 50-year jubileum by summarising its conference outputs over the past five decades in an extensive overview as well as connecting its work to A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena (Brill, Leiden, 2020), thereby furthering the society’s efforts and specialist research outputs to a broader, non-specialised readership

Eternity and Print How Medieval Ideas of Time Influenced the Development of Mechanical Reproduction of Texts and Images

The methods of intellectual history have not yet been applied to studying the invention of technology for printing texts and images ca. 1375–ca. 1450. One of the several conceptual developments in this period refl ecting the possibility of mechanical replication is a view of the relationship of eternity to durational time based on Gregory of Nyssa’s philosophy of time and William of Ockham’s. Th e article considers how changes in these ideas helped enable the conceptual possibilities of the dissemination of ideas. It describes a direct connection of human perceptual knowledge to divine knowledge that enhanced the authority of printed production to transfer and reproduce the true and the good

La manifestación del "lógos" en la visión divina: Nicolás de Cusa y Eriúgena

El artículo trata de cómo el "videre" del Dios invisible se manifiesta en la finitud: lo que es creado o visto, en el sentido de la teofanía clásica, es la visibilidad de Dios. Muestra una visión activa de la visio divina en lo que se refiere al ser y al devenir de lo finito. En esta concepción se advierte la explicación que Juan Escoto Eriúgena había dado de la creación: Dios crea en sí mismo viéndolo todo en sí mismo.This article deals with the "videre" of the invisible God and how it manifests itself in finitude: what is created or seen, in the meaning of a classical theophany, is the visibility of God. Also shown in this article is an active vision of the divine visio in what refers to the being and the becoming of the finite. In this conception we observe the explanation that John Scotus Eriugena gave to creation: God creates in himself, seeing everything in himself.peerReviewe