Johannes Scotus Erigena.

Johannes Scotus Erigena, or an Essay on the Origin of Christian Philosophy, and its sacred character, by PEDER HJORT, Copenh. 1823, 8vo.

STAUDENMAIER, Johannes Scotus Erigena, 1 Theil, 1834.

246. John Scotus, an Irishman (hence his surname of Erigena), belonged to a much higher order: a man of great learning, and of a philosophical and original mind; whose means of attaining to such a superiority we are ignorant of. He was invited from England to France by Charles the Bald, but subsequently obliged to quit the latter country; being persecuted as a heretic. At the invitation of Alfred the Great he retired to Oxford, where he died about 886.

His acquaintance with Latin and Greek (to which some assert he added the Arabic); his love for the philosophy of Aristotle and of Plato; his translation (exceedingly esteemed throughout the West), of Dionysius the Areopagite (§ 236); his liberal and enlightened views (which the disputes of the day called upon him to express) respecting predestination' and the eucharist;-all these entitle him to be considered a phenomenon for the times in which he lived. Add to this, that he regarded philosophy as the science of the principles of all things, and as inseparable from true religion; that he adopted a philosophical system2 (a revived Neoplatonism) of which the foundation was the maxim: That God is the essence of all things; that from the plenitude of His nature First Causes (idea), from which Nature is begotten, are all derived, and to Him ultimately return (Primordiales causæ -natura naturata). His labours, enlightened by so much learning and suggested by so much talent, might have accomplished more if they had not been blighted by the imputation of heresy.

See on this subject his treatise, De Divinâ Prædestinatione et Gratiâ, in GILB. MANGUINI Vett. Auctorum qui IX Sæc. de Prædestinatione et Gratia scripserunt, Opera et Fragmenta, Paris. 1650, tom. I, p. 103, sqq.

2 De Divisione Naturæ libri V, ed. TH. GALE, Oxon. 1681, fol. Extracts from Erigena are to be found in HEUMANNI Acta Philos. tom. III, p. 858; and in DUPIN, Auct. Eccles. tom. VII., p. 79.

Berenger and Lanfranc.

OUDINI Diss. de Vitâ, Scriptis, et Doctrinâ Berengarii, in Comment. t. II. p. 622.

G. E. LESSING, Berengarius Turonensis, Bruns. 1770, 4to. + See Historical and Literary Miscell., extracted from the library of Wolfenb., V vol. (Complete Works of LESSING, t. XX.)

BERENGARIUS TURONENSIS, Dissert. by C. F. STÆUDLIN, in his Archives of Ancient and Modern Eeclesiastical Hist. (publ. with TZCHIRNER), vol. II, fasc. 2, Leips. 1814. The same: Progr. Annuntiatur editio libri Berengarii Turonensis adversus Lanfrancum; simul omnino de ejus scriptis agitur, Gott. 1814, 4to.

MILONIS CRISPINI Vita Lanfranci, apud Mabillon Acta Sanctor. Ordin. Bened. Sæc. VI, p. 630; and his Opp. ed. Luc. DACHERIUS (D'ACHERY), Paris, 1648, fol.

247. Next in order comes Gerbert, a monk of Aurillac, who afterwards became pope Sylvester II.,' and acquired, at Seville and Cordova, extraordinary information, for that time, in the mathematics and Aristotelian philosophy of the Arabs, which he disseminated in the schools or monasteries of Bobbio, Rheims, Aurillac, Tours, and Sens. After him appeared Berenger of Tours, who was distinguished for his talents, his learning, and his freedom of opinion, by which he drew upon himself some severe persecutions, in consequence of discussions on the subject of transubstantiation." His opponent Lanfranc, as well as the cardinal Peter Damianus, or Damien, brought to perfection the art of Dialectics as applied to Theology; and his skill therein gave to the former (in the opinion of his contemporaries), the advantage over Berenger. This discussion, which was subsequently revived, had the effect of tightening still more the bonds of authority.

Born in Auvergne; pope A.D. 999; died 1003.

2 His Dialectic treatise, De Rationali et Ratione Uti, is to be found in the Thesaur. Anecdot. PEZII, t. I, part 2, p. 146: and his Letters in DUCHESNE, Hist. Franc. Script., t. II, p. 789, sqq.

Hock, Gerbert, oder Sylvester II, und sein Jahrhundert, 1837.

3 Con. Berengarius, born about the commencement of the eleventh century, died 1088.

4 Liber Berengarii Turonensis adversus Lanfrancum ex Cod. Mscpt. Guelpherbit. edit. a STAUDLINO, Gott. 1823, 4to. (Progr. III.)

5 Born at Pavia 1005; died archbishop of Canterbury, 1069. 6 Of Ravenna; born 1001, died 1072.

St. Anselm of Canterbury.

ANSELMI Cantuariensis Opp. lab. et stud. D. G. GERBEBON, Paris. 1675; second edition, 1721; Venet. 1744, 2 vols. fol.

EADMERI Vita S. Anselmi, in the Acta Sanctorum, Antw., April, t. II, p. 685, sqq., and in the edit. of the Works of Anselm above.

+ A. RAINERI, Panegyrical Hist. of St. Anselm, Modena, 16931706, 4 vols. 4to.: and Jo. SARISBURIENSIS, De Vitâ Anselmi, WHARTON'S Anglia Sacra, part II, p. 149.

FRANCK, Anselm of Canterbury, 1842.

HASSE, Amselm of Canterbury, 1 Th. 1843.

248. St. Anselm, the pupil and successor of Lanfranc (whom we must not confound with the schoolman his contemporary, Anselm of Laon),' was born at Aosta in 1034, (or, according to Carrière, in 1033); became prior and abbot of the monastery of Bec, and died, archbishop of Canterbury, 1109. He was a second Augustin; superior to those of his age in the acuteness of his understanding and powers of logic; and equal to the most illustrious men of his day for virtue and piety. He felt a lively want of a system of religious philosophy, to be effected by combining the results of controversies on such subjects, in accordance, for the most part, with the views of St. Augustin. For this purpose, he composed his Monologium sive Exemplum Meditandi de ratione Fidei; in which he endeavoured to develope systematically the great truths of religion on principles of Reason, but at the same time presupposing Faith. To this he added his Proslogium, otherwise called, Fides quærens Intellectum; where he seeks to prove the existence of God from the notion of the Greatest Thing that can be thought (the most perfect Being). A monk of Marmoutier, named Gaunilon, ably attacked this sort of ontological argument, which received from its author the name of the Anselmian proof, though it exchanged it at a later period for that of the Cartesian, and which Kant, in his Critique of pure Reason, shows to be nothing more than an assumption of the

1 Died A.D. 1117.

2 GAUNILONIS Liber pro Insipiente adversus Anselmi in Proslogio ratiocinantem; together with ANSELMI Apologeticus contra Insipientem. (In the works cited above).

thing to be proved. Anselm may be looked upon as the inventor of Scholastic Metaphysics, inasmuch as he afforded the first example of it; though other systems subsequently superseded his own, and some of his ideas were never followed up.

Hildebert of Tours.

Hildeberti Turonensis Opera, ed. ANT. BEAUGENDRE, Paris. 1708, fol.; and in the Biblioth. Patrum of GALLAND, t. XIV, p. 337, sqq.

+ W. C. L. ZIEGLER, Memoirs towards a Hist. of the Theological Belief in the Existence of a God, with an Extract from the first Dogmatical System [in the West] of Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, Gött. 1792, 8vo.

249. Hildebert of Lavardin, archbishop of Tours,' and as is probable, the disciple of Berenger, was equal to Anselm in sagacity and ability as a logician; and surpassed him in clearness and in the harmonious culture of his mind. To an acquaintance with the Classics and other accomplishments, rare in his age, he added independence of mind, practical sense, and a degree of taste which preserved him from falling into the vain and puerile discussions of his contemporaries. His Tractatus Philosophicus and his Moralis Philosophia, are the first essays towards a popular system of Theology. Othlo and Honorius, two monks of the same period, opposed themselves to the Logicians, and were devoted to a practical Mysticism.3

SECOND PERIOD OF THE SCHOLASTIC

PHILOSOPHY.

II. Disputes between the Nominalists and Realists, from Roscellin (end of the Eleventh Century) to Alexander of

Hales.

JAC. THOMASII Oratio de Sectâ Nominalium; Orationes, Lips. 1682-86, 8vo.

1 Born between 1053 and 1057; died about 1134.

2 Part of this treatise is comprised in the works of HUGO DE ST. VICTOR.

3 The latter (from Augt, near Bâle; died 1130) adopted the new Platonic-Augustinian Theology.

CHPH. MEINERS, De Nominalium ac Realium initiis; Commentatt. Soc. Gott., t. XII, p. 12.

LUD FRID. OTTO BAUMGARTEN-CRUSIUS, Progr. de vero Scholasticorum Realium et Nominalium discrimine et sententia Theologica, Jen. 1821, 4to.

JOH. MART. CHLADENII Diss. (res. Jo. THEOD. KUNNETH) de vita et hæresi Roscellini, Erlang. 1756, 4to. See also Thesaurus Biog. et Bibliographicus of GEO. ERN. WALDAU, Chemnit. 1792, 8vo.

Roscellin.

250. The practice of Dialectics, and the questions arising out of a disputed passage in Porphyry's Introduction to the Organum of Aristotle (eρì TÉVтe pwvwv), respecting the different metaphysical opinions entertained by the Platonists and Peripatetics of the nature of Class Conceptions-such were the causes which led to the division between the Nominalists and Realists, in part adhering to Plato, and in part to Aristotle: disputes which stirred up frequent and angry debates in the schools, without any other result than that of sharpening their powers of argumentation.1 This long discussion was begun by John Roscellin (or Roussellin), a canon of Compiègne, who, (on the testimony of his adversaries), maintained that the notions of Genus and Species were nothing but mere words and terms (flatus vocis), which we use to designate qualities common to different individual objects. He was led on by this doctrine to some heterodox opinions respecting the Trinity, which he was ultimately compelled to retract at Soissons, A.D. 1092. It is certain that Roscellin is the first author who obtained the appellation of a Nominalist, and from his time the school previously established, which held the creed that Genus and Species-notions were real essences, or types and moulds of things (Universalia ante Rem according to the phrase of the Schoolmen), was throughout the present period perpetually opposed to Nominalism, whose partisans maintained that the Universalia subsisted only in re, or post rem: nor was the difficulty ever definitively settled.

1 JOH. SARISBURIENSIS Metalog., c. II, 16, 17.

2 About 1089.

3 See the treatise of Anselm, De FideTrinitatis, seu De Incarnatione Verbi, c. 2 and John of Salisbury.