ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

DE WULF-MANSION CENTRE

Series 1
IOHANNES SCOTTUS ERIUGENA
XX
THE BIBLE AND HERMENEl:JTICS

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NINTH INTERNATIONAL

COLLOQUIUM OF THE
SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF
ERIUGENIAN STUDIES
HELD AT LEUVE~;i, AND LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE
~ JUNE 7-10, 1995

EDITED BY

GERD VAN RIEL

CARLOS STEEL
JAMES McEVOY

Leu ven
The De Wulf-Mansion Centre deals with research in Ancient and Medieval University Press
Philosophy at the Philosophy Institute of the Catholic University of Louvain
(K.U. Leuven), 2, Kardinaal Mercierplein, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium). 1996
 Primordiales Causae in Eriugena's lnterpretation of
Genesis : Sources and Significance
1

i ~

Robert D. CROUSE

The long and very rich history of Patristic commentary on the creation
narrative of Genesis, Greek and Latin, Eastern and Western, finds a
magnificent culmination in the Periphyseon of John Scottus Eriugena,
where the exegesis ad litteram of that ancient text is for the first time
worked out in the explicit context of a_ total theological system.
Eriugena draws freely and critically upon the tradition of hexaemeral
literature, as represented notably by the works of St Basil and St
Ambrose, but he moves beyond that tradition -even beyond St
Augustine- in the extent to which he finds in Genesis a complete and
perfectly coherent system of theology. And if one may rightly say, with
Alberto Di Giovanni, that St Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram
employs "un'ermeneutica di un genere metafisico" 1 , the same must be
said a fortiori of Eriugena, for whom -much more than for St
Augustine- every detail of interpretation must stand in explicit logical
relation to the theological principies which the text both informs and
exemplifies.
For the interpretation of Genesis, a metaphysical hermeneutic
is, of course, strikingly appropriate, because, historically and
systematically, the problems of hexaemeral interpretation are precise! y
the central and essential problems of metaphysics through a thousand
years of speculation, from the pre-Socratics to Proclus: a tradition
profoundly theological in its concern to understand the relation of finite
multiplicity to the perfect unity of God. Whether one should see, at
sorne points in Platonic, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic tradition a
genuine doctrine of creation (as sorne ancient and medieval theologians
thought), or only what one modern historian calls "semicreazionismo" 2 ,
the basic theological issues are the same as they are for Christian
interpreters of Genesis, and one might well look upon the long and
1 important tradition of commentary on the Timaeus, for instance, as
\ parallel to the tradition of hexaemeral exegesis 3
The theological speculations of successive schools of Platonism,
in Timaeus commentaries and elsewhere, were often of crucial
importance in Jewish and Christian exegesis of Genesis, from Philo on
through the Greek and Latn Fathers; and while Eriugena knewlittle of
that Hellenic tradition directly -perhaps only that part of the Timaeus
translated with commentary by Calcidius 4- he was the more
profoundly influenced inasmuch as that tradition ofHellenic speculation
carne to hi!I in forms already accommodated to biblical interpretation,
and in no way externa! to it5 Thus, while knowing almost nothing
directly of Plato or the later Platonists, he became perhaps more
perfectly a Christian Platonist than any of his predecessors had been,
and employed an hermeneutic in which the biblical and the metaphysical
would stand in no opposition, but in a dialectical, mutually illuminating
relationship. Thus, in the Periphyseon, borrowing the image from
Maximus the Confessor, he claims that the text of the Divine Oracles
and contemplation of the created order are both ways of knowing God,
symbolized by the double, snow-white vesture of the transfigured
Christ6
Central to Eriugena's metaphysic of Genesis is the concept of
primordial causes: a concept which has roots in the Platonic doctrine
of ideas, and the Aristotelian criticism of that doctrine; in the Middle
Platonic and Philonic and Neoplatonic developments and refinements of
the doctrine, and in Greek and Latn Patristic employment and
development of the same doctrine in explicating the theory of creation.
Within that broad context, Eriugena's more proximate and precise
sources are difficult to determine7 I think it is clear that at least the
term, "primordialis causa", comes from St Augustine's De Genes( ad
litteram, both directly and by way of Bede 8 Certain aspects of the
theory derive from Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor,
specifically acknowledged by Eriugena in that regard, although no
relevant Greek term seems to have been a prototype for the Latn
"primordialis causa". But when all the possible sources have been
counted, the fact is evident that the form of the conception, and the
systematic use of it in the Periphyseon, although grounded in a long
history of speculation, owe much to the original genius of Eriugena.
In the history of Platonism, the doctrine of ideas addresses, in
the first place, the evident nropcxt of unity and multiplicity, stability
and change, being and becoming, and seeks to discern a way of
mediation, both epistemological and ontological, according to which
sensible particulars have both existence and intelligibility as
participations of transcendant ideas or forms. Questions in regard to the
status of the forms, their unity and their causal eff\cacy became
particularly acute in view of Aristotelian criticism of the doctrine, and
subsequent Platonism (with the Middle Platonists and Philo) moved to 1
an interpretation of the ideas as unified within the divine thinking, and \
that is the form in which the Church Fathers inherit~d the doctrine.
Much of the later history of Platonism, both pagan and Christian, can
be understood in terms of the problems and dilemmas inherent in that 1
position. 'If the ideas are divine, how can their diversity be related to
the divine simplicity ? lf they are in any way to mediate between the
transcendent and the sensible, must they not somehow be intermediate \.
in their own nature: both divine and created, eternal and derived? Or
does the infinite gap between the absolute unity of the divine One and
the minimal unity of matter require that we postulate not just one leve!
of intermediaries, but an ordered hierarchy of originative causes ?
Increasingly complex Neoplatonic speculation in this regard
culminated in the doctrine of henads as transcendant sources of
plurality: a doctrine substantially worked out already in Iamblichus (as
John Dillon demonstrates) 9 , and perfected by Proclus. Those higher
unities, pertaining to the realm of the One, transcend the intelligible
forms, of which they are the originative causes 10 Such a speculation
evidently manifests at least a superficial affinity towards Eriugena's
doctrine of primordial causes, and there may, indeed, be sorne indirect
links, by way of Pseudo-Dionysius; links perhaps suggested, for
instance, by Eriugena's explicit identification of the divine names as
primordial causes 11 But there are also radical differences between the
conceptions of Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena, on the one hand, and
Iamblichus and Proclus on the other: differences contingent upon
different doctrines of the di vine nature and creation 12 In many ways,
for Christian and pagan Platonists, the problems are the same, but the
solutions are characteristically different.
Comparisons between Proclus and Eriugena may be useful in
illuminating the general theological problematic of Neoplatonic
doctrines of creation; but much more directly relevant in the \
background of Eriugena's position is the Latin Christian Neoplatonic \
13
tradition, as represented by St Ambrose, Marius Victorinus ,
Boethius 14 , and above all, St Augustine 15 A few decades ago, it
seemed possible to think of Eriugena as introducing to Western
Christendom a foreign theology, and distorting or misrepresenting St
 ! Augustine to that end. More recent studies have altered that standpoint
1 very substantially, with a result admirably suggested by douard
Jeauneau, when (speaking especially of the influence of Maximus) he
says that "on the weft of 'mystical Latn' a la maniere of Augustine or
Gregory the Great, Eriugena has embroidered, here with sobriety, there
with exuberance, motifs that one would be tempted to describe as
exotic, and which, evidently, belong t<;> another tradition" 16
As the De divina praedestinatione especially demonstrates,
Eriugena' s initial formation was in the Augustinian theology,
understood it its fully metaphysical character. Certainly, sorne
historians have thought bis doctrine in that work un-Augustinian, or
. even anti-Augustinian 17 , but that judgement can rest only upon a Semi-
l Pelagian misunderstanding of St Augustine. The De divina
praedestinatione grasps rather the true, theological sense of St
Augustine's doctrine. In the Periphyseon, that initial Augustinian
position, although often richly "embroidered" (to borrow Fr Jeauneau's
~ 1 term), remains substantially unchanged 18 .
But with regard to the doctrine of creation in the Periphyseon,
it was suggested by John O'Meara, and again more recently by Dermot
Moran, that Eriugena's chief Augustinian source was the De Genesi ad
litteram, and Goulven Madec's careful analysis of Eriugena's sources
confirms that point beyond question: the De Genesi ad litteram is
1referred to far more frequently than any other work 19 I think that we
should go still further, and recognize that the whole theological matrix
of Eriugena's theory was constituted by St Augustine's exegesis of
Genesis, especially in Confessions XI-XIII, De Genesi ad litteram, and
\ the central books of De civitate Dei, taken in conjunction with the
characteristically Augustinian doctrine of God in the De Trinitate.
Within that matrix, Eriugena developed bis theory, with significant help
from Pseudo-Dionysius, St Maximus, and others at those points at
which St Augustine's position seemed tentative or incomplete.
Por St Augustine, as for other Church Fathers before him, the
text of Genesis 1-3 was of primary theological importance; not only for
cosmology and anthropology, but al so for soteriology, and, indeed, the
whole range of theological speculation; and during the space of more
than a quarter of a century, he returned over and over again to the
problems of its interpretation20 That ongoing labour of exegesis
represented a continuing determination to understand theologically just
'(
how the changing multiplicity of the world could have its origin in the
transcendent unity of God; and in that effort the whole range of
.( biblical, Hellenic and Christian Platonic speculation about mediating
principies -principies at once eterna! and derived- carne into play.
Thus, one finds him considering the intermediary role of angelic
intelligences -created, certainly, but yet eterna! in the~r steadfast
contemplation of God21 ; and the intermediate place of the heaven of
heavens, creatura intellectualis, mens pura -eterna!, yet derived, of
ambiguous metaphysical status, belonging to both eternity and time22
In all of this there are, of course, echoes of earlier Christian .\
speculation (perhaps especially of Origen) 23 , and striking affinities to
the Plotinian doctrine of voi~ as divine and yet derivative. The
temptation would be to see the divine M"{o~ in just such a role: a
possibility forbidden by Post-Nicene Christian orthodoxy. The Emperor 1
Constantine, in bis Edict of 333 had perhaps spoken better than he
knew in recognizing the Arians as Porphyrians24
In St Augustine's fullest and most mature exegesis of Genesis,
in the De Genesi ad litteram, the earlier thoughts about angelic
ministries and the heaven of heavens still find a place, but the primary
argument is concerned with the role of the eterna! reasons, or ideas,
thought of as eternally created, causal, primordial and seminal: reasons
eternally existing in the uncreated Word; eternally created wisdom
within the eternally begotten wisdom of God25 Just what distinctions
might be intended by the adjectives, 'causal', 'primordial', and
'seminal' is not altogether clear. The term 'primordial', which appears
three times in Book VI of De Genesi ad litteram, refers perhaps to the
causal reasons in their hidden origin, while the term 'seminal' refers to
their expression in the species of natures created in time. In any case,
it is evident that the causal reasons have an ambivalent status: they are
eterna!, one and unchanging in the eternal Word of God; they exist
aliter in the elements of the world, where all things were created at
once, timelessly; and they exist also in things which are created through
the process of time. As defining the ideal natures of created things,
they prescribe also the ends towards which all creatures move, as
returning into their primordial causes26
The most crucial point is that the causes, as principies of
diversity, are constituted in the eterna! word, within the trinitarian unity
of God, and not in a derivative or subordinate principie. Creation,
therefore, must be understood as nothing other than the explication of
the tri-personal actuality which is God. At that point, St Augustine
separates himself decisively from the theology of pagan Neoplatonism.
Giovanni Reale, remarking on the differences between pagan
and Christian forms of Platonism, observes that while pagan Platonists
 in the fifth century move towards a "systematic complication", the
Christians move in precisely the opposite direction, towards a semel and simul and semper, the world is created according to God's
"systematic simplification" 27 ; and he goes on to observe that even
Pseudo-Dionysius, "spiritual disciple of Proclus, seeks to save Proclus
by means of a process of simplifying his metaphysics" 28 Thus,
Christian Platonism can have the appearance of a reversion to earlier
(and simpler) stages in the development of Platonic doctrine. But it is
not that: rather (and especially with St Augustine), it takes its special
character froni the fact that Christian Platonists, especially after Nicea,
see in Chriftian doctrine the key to the resolution of precisely those
theological difficulties which urge pagan Neoplatonism in the direction
of an endless complexity.
Prom a strictly theological standpoint, it is the doctrine of God
as Trinity which fundamentally distinguishes Christian Platonism from
other forros of Platonic tradition, for that doctrine involves a
conversion in principie of Platonic thought2 9 , and has crucial
implications for every area of speculation. The doctrine of God
-whether as the One abo ve Intellect and Soul in Plotinian theology, or
as the One beyond the triadic distinctions of Being, Life and Thought
in Procline theology, or as the trinitarian unity of those distinctions in
Nicene theology- provides the key to understanding diverse views
about creation or "semi-creation", and the way of creation's return in
contemplation. The orthodox Christian position in this matter, work~d
out in the long struggle with Arianism, finds a definitive expression for
Latn Christendom in the teaching of St Augustine. lt is that doctrine
of God (inseparabilis distinctio, tamen distinctio, simplicitas, which is
also multiplicitas) 30 , which, as a resolution of the dilemmas of
Neoplatonic theology (and not as a reversion to earlier forros of
Platonism), constitutes the "systematic simplification" of Augustinian
Platonism.
In comparison with St Augustine's argument in De Genesi ad
litteram, the argument of the Periphyseon is much more precise and
systematic, and brilliantly elucidates what is often vague or merely
implicit in St Augustine, but the essential points are the same. Por both
authors, the world is timelessly created in the eternal Word of God, the
divine logos, in causal reasons, which established as a perfect unity in
the divine thinking and willing, create a diversity as they proceed into
their effects 31 Por Eriugena, as for St Augustine, the causes are
eternal, but not co-eterrial with the Word; because their existence,
though eternal, is derived32 : they are created in the sense in which the
thinking mind creates its thoughts; they are the divine ideas, the eterna!
and unchanging volitions and predestinations of God. In those causes,
immutable will. And those terms, which seem so characteristic of
Eriugena, belong first to St Augustine, in the Genesi~. exegesis of l
Confessions, Book XII . " . \
It is sometimes objected that Eriugena's conception of
primordial causes differs radically from St Augustine's doctrine of
causal reasons, because Eriugena, in his second division of nature,
posits an intermediary between God and creation: the primordial causes
both are created and create34 The suggestion seems to be that
Eriugena has in mind sorne late Neoplatonic conception of creative \ ----'
principies outside the One. In reality, nothing could be further from
Eriugena's mind. Por him, as for St Augustine; the causal reasons are
eternally created in the di vine Word, within the divine unity, where
they are perfectly one, as pertaining to the simplicity of God; but, just
as the monad, perfectly one in itself, engenders the diversity and
multiplicity of numbers, so the causes, perfectly one in the Word,
proceeding according to the wisdom and the will of God, create the
diversity and multiplicity of the cosmos35 And just as all numbers
must be referred back to the perfect unity of the monad as their source,
just so must the total dispensation of divine providence be referred back
to the one cause of all 36
Por Eriugena, as for St Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram,
that one cause of all is the trinitarian actuality of God. As Eriugena
puts it:
"theology assigns to the Pather the making of all things; to the
Word it assigns the eterna! coming into being of the primordial
causes, universally, essentially and simply; to the Spirit, it assigns
the distribution of those primordial causes created in the Son, and
the fecundation of them into their effects; that is, into genera and
. numbers. and d"f~
spec1es, 1 1erences ... " 37
Thus, "in the Holy Trinity", he says, "one recognizes a
common activity which does not exclude the propriety of distinct
activitie~ " 38 In relating the doctrine of creation in this way to the
doctrine of the Trinity in the exegesis of Genesis, Eriugena follows not
only St Augustine, but a much more general Patristic tradition, both
Greek and Latn. In doing so, however, he goes far beyond any of bis
predecessors in working out the doctrine of causes in explicit relation
to the tri-personal activity of God, and it is in that matter that the
argument of the Periphyseon is most original and fruitful.
 Basing his position upon the Augustinian doctrine of the Trinity
as the unity of the relational activities of being, knowing and willing,
thought of as the moments constituting the divine life; and reconciling
with that conception the Eastern, and more traditionally Neoplatonic
formulation of the Trinity as being, life and thought, Eriugena sees the
creation and procession of the primordial causes as di vine self-creation;
that is to say, as the explication of those relations of being, knowing
and willing which are the actuality of God39 Thus, the causes,
proceeding to their effects, are as Eriugena learns from bis Greek
sources to tay, theophanies of God: revelations of God as eternal self-
conscious life. While such a view is no doubt somehow implicit in any
doctrine of divine ideas as the principies of creation, Eriugena presents
it for the first time in a systematic and fully explicit way.
In the shaping of bis argument in the systematic pattern of
exitus and reditus, and in bis vision of descending and ascending
hierarchies, Eriugena evidently owes very much to bis Greek sources;
but the basic elements of bis doctrine of causes are already present in
\ the Augustinian exegesis of Genesis, together with the Augustinian
doctrine of the Trinity, and Eriugena finds no fundamental contradiction
between bis Greek and Latin doctors40 The Platonic theology of
Pseudo-Dionysius and St Maximus is readily accommodated to the
Platonic theology of St Augustine; and that is possible because they are
both Platonisms which have been reshaped by Trinitarian theology. St
Augustine is not fundamentally Plotinian or Porphyrian, nor is Pseudo-
Dionysius fundamentally Procline: both have re-thought the doctrine of
God and the doctrine of creation in Christian terms, and Eriugena
understands their common ground. Por the interpretation of Eriugena,
therefore (and perhaps for the understanding of the history of medieval
thought more generally), it is important to move beyond the
conventional paradigm of opposed Plotinian and Procline Platonism,
and consequently opposed Augustinian and Dionysian Platonisms41
Eriugena' s doctrine of primordial causes is certainly Platonic; but it
belongs to a Platonism which in both St Augustine and the Greek
Fathers has moved beyond the theology of both Plotinus and Proclus.
NOTES
1 Sant'Agostino. La Genesi (tr. L. CAROZZI), Vol. 1, Rome (Citta Nuova), 1988,
"lntroduzioni generali", by A. DI GIOVANNI - A. PENNA, xix. ~
2 Cf. G. REALE, Per una nuova interpretazionedi Platone, Milan (Vitae Pensiero),
1987, 610.
3 On the tradition of Timaeus commentary, see M. BALTES, Die.JVeltentstehung des
platonischen Timaios nach den antiken Interpreten, 2 vols., Leiden (EJ. Brill),
1976-78, and, on the exegetical tradition in Platonism more generally, H. D5RRIE
- M. BALTES, Der Platonismus in der Antike, Vol. 3, Stuttgart (Fromman-
Holzboog), 1993.
4 On Eriugena's relation to the Timaeus, see W. BEIERWALTES, Anmerkung zu
Eriugenas Bezug zu Platons Timaios, in his Eriugena. Grundzge seines Denkens,
Frankfurt/M. (Vittorio Klostermann), 1994, 49-51; R. CROUSE, "Hic sensilis
mundus": Calcidius and Eriugena in Honorius Augustodunensis, in H.J. WESTRA
(ed.), From Athens to Chartres, Leiden (E.J. Brill), 1992, 283-288.
5 W. BEIERWALTES, Anmerkung, 65.
6 Eriugena, PP III, 264.8-13 (732D); cf. Maximus, Ambigua VI (PG 91), 1128C-D.
7The fullest exposition of Eriugena's doctrine of primordial causes is by G.
SCHRIMPF, Das Werk des Johannes Scottus Eriugena im Rahmen des
Wissenschajtsverstiindnissesseiner Zeit, Munster (Aschendorft), 1982, 256-295.
8 G. MADEC called attention to the formula primordiales causae in De Genesi ad
litteram, in his Observations sur le dossier augustinien du 'Periphyseon ', first
published in W. BEIERWALTES (ed.), Eriugena. Studien zu seinen Que/len,
Heidelberg (Carl Winter-Universitlitsverlag), 1980,75-84, reprinted in G. MADEC,
lean Scot et ses auteurs, Paris (tudes Augustiniennes), 1988, 63-72; his Le dossier
augustinien du 'Periphyseon ' (ibid.) pro vides the detailed references in De Genesi
ad litteram and in Bede (Pseudo-Augustine), De natura rerum.
9 Cf. J. DILLON (ed.), Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum
fragmenta, Leiden (E.J. Brill), 1973, Fr. 7, 1.6, In Alcibiadem; and Appendix B,
Iamblichus and the Origin ofthe Doctrine of Henads, 412-416 (also in Phronesis,
17, 1972).
1
Cf. E.R. Danos, in his edition of Proclus, The Elements of Theology, Oxford
(Oxford University Press), 19632 , 271,289; H.D. SAFFREY- L.G. WESTERINK,
Proclus. 'fhologie Platonicienne, Paris (Coll. Bud), 1968, 121.
11 Eriugena, PP IT, 206.1-10 (616C); III, 33.31-36.21 (622B-623C).
12 Cf. E. VON IvNKA, Zum Problem des christlichen Neuplatonismus, ll: Inwieweit
ist Pseudo-DionysiusAreopagita Neuplatoniker ?, in Scholastik, 31 (1956), 384-403;
reprinted in his Plato Christianus, Einsiedeln (Johannes Verlag), 1964, 262-285; S.
GERSH, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, Leiden (E.J. Brill), 1978, 153-167; S.
LILLA, Introduzione al/o studio dello Ps-Dionigi !'Areopagita, in Augustinianum,
22, (1982), 533-577, esp. 552.
13
G.A. PIEMONTE, "Vita in omnia pervenit". EL vitalismo eriugeniano y La
influencia de Mario Victorino, (Patrstica et Mediaevalia. Estudios Monographicos,
1), Buenos Aires, 1988, demonstrates that although Victorinus is never actually cited
by Eriugena, there are striking parallels.
14
Cf. G. o'ONOFRIO, Giovanni Scoto e Boezio: tracce degli 'opuscuLa sacra' e
della 'ConsoLatio' nell'opera eriugeniana, in Studi Medievali, 3 Serie, 21 (1980),
707-752; 22 (1981), 591ff.
15
On St Augustine's De Genesi ad Litteram specifically as a source for Eriugena,
see J .J. O'MEARA, "Magnorum Virorum Quendam Consensum Velimus Machinari"
(804D). Eri~ena 's Use oJAugustine 's 'De Genesi ad Litteram' in the 'Periphyseon ',
in W. BEIERWALTES (ed.), Eriugena. Studien zu seinen Quellen, 105-116.
16
. JEAUNEAU, lean l'rigene et Les 'Ambigua ad Johannem ', in his tudes
rigniennes, Paris (tudes Augustiniennes), 1987, 73-74. For comments on
significant differences between Maximus and Eriugena, see E.D. PERL, Metaphysics
and ChristoLogy in Maximus Confessorand Eriugena, in B. McGINN- W. TTEN
(eds.), Eriugena: East and West, Notre Dame-London (Univ. of Notre Dame
Press), 1994, 253-270.
17
For the argument that would place Eriugena in opposition to St Augustine on this
matter, see, e.g., K. FLASCH, Das philosophische Denken im Mittelalter, Stuttgart
(Reclams Universal-Bibliothek), 1986, 159-176; idem, Augustin. Ein.fUhrung in sein
Denken, Stuttgart (Reclams Universa1-Bib1iothek), 1980, 187-191. For a detailed
criticism of Flasch's account of St Augustine's doctrine of grace, see T.G. RING,
Bruch oder Entwicklung im Gnadenbegriff Augustins ? Kritische Anmerkungen zu
K. Flasch, .Logik des Schreckens A.ugustinus von Hippo, Die Gnadenlehre von 397,
inAugustiniana, 44 (1994), 31-113.
18 Cf. the remarks to that effect by G. o'ONOFRIO, La nuova edizione del 'De divina
praedestinatione Liber' di Giovanni Scoto, Studi e materiali di storia delta religioni,
5 (1981), 267-288: "Innanzi tutto ii trattato di Giovanni Scoto sulla predestinazione
non costituisce affatto per Iui un'esperienza episodica nel campo deiia dogmatica ...
ma epervaso dello stesso spirito di conciliazione tra fede e pensiero e dalle. stresse
intuizione speculative fondamentali deile altre grandi opere filosofiche posteriori ... "
(270).
19
Cf. J.J. O'MEARA, "Magnorum Virorum ... "; D. MoRAN, The Philosophy oJ
John Scottus Eriugena. A Study oJ Idealism in the Middle Ages, Cambridge
(University Press), 1989, 264; G. MADEC, lean Scot et ses auteurs, tabulates the
references.
20
On St Augustine's successive commentaries on Genesis, see esp. G. PELLAND,
Cinq tudes d'Augustin sur le dbut de la Genese, Montreal-Tournai
(Bellarmin-Descle De Brouwer), 1972; A. SOLJGNAC,Exgese et Mtaphysique.
Genese I, 1-3 chez saint Augustin, in In Principio. Interprtations des premiers
versetsde la Genese, Pars (CNRS), 1973, 153-175; and the general introductions
to the Ciua Nuova edition of the Genesis commentaries (supra, n. 1).
21
Cf. G. PELLAND, Cinq tudes, 31, 120.
"1
22 Cf. J. PPIN, Recherches sur le sens et les origines de l'expression "caelum caeli"
dans le Livre XII des conJessions des. Augustin, in Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi
(Bulletin du Cange), 23 (1953), 185-274; also in J. PPIN, "Ex Platonicorum
persona". tudes sur les lectures philosophiques de saint Augustin, Amsterdam
(A.M. Hakkert), 1977, 185-274, esp. 269, on "Le statut mtaphysique ambigua".
23 Cf. PPIN, Recherches ... , 251-268.
24 For the text of Constantine's edict, see H.G. OPITZ, Athanasius Werke, ID,
Berlin-Leipzig (W. de Gruyter), 1941, Urkunde 33, p.67.4-5, for comment, U.R. ,.
PREZ-PAOLI, Der plotinische Begriff von 'hypostasis' und die augustinische
Bestimmung Gottes als Subiectum, Wrzburg, 1990, with the review by C. STEAD,
in Jahrbuch.fUr Antike und Christentum, 34 (1991), 203-204.
25 On the novelty of the doctrine of causal reasons in De Genesi ad litteram, see A.
DI GIOVANNI, La Genesi, xxxi.
26 St Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram VI, 10, 17 (CSEL, 28/1, 182): Sed haec
aliter in uerbo Dei, ubi isti non Jacta sed aeterna sunt, aliter in elementis mundi,
ubi omnia simul Jacta futura sunt, aliter in rebus, quae secundum causas simul
creatas non iam simuL, sed sua quaequae tempore creantur: in quibus Adam iam
Jormatus ex limo et Deiflatu animatus, sicutJenum exortum, aliter in seminibus, in
quibus rurus quasi primordiales causae repentuntur de rebus ductae, quae secundum
causas, quas primum condidit, exstiterunt, velut herba ex terra, semen ex herba ...
27 G. REALE, in his introduction to C. FARRAGGIANA DI SARZANA, tr. Proclo. I
Manuali, Milan (Vita e Pensiero), 1988, ccxx; also in his Per una nuova
interpretazione di Platone, 66.
28 G. REALE, in Proclo. I Manuali, ccxxii.
29 Cf. R. CROUSE, "In aenigmate trinitas" ('ConJessiones' XIII, 55, 6): The
Conversion oJ Philosophy in St Augustine 's 'ConJessions ', in Dionysius, 11 (1987),
53-62.
30 Cf. St Augustine, ConJessions, XID, 11, 12 (CSEL, 40.353); M.A. VANNIER, .,
Saint Augustin et la cration, in Augustiniana, 40 (Mlanges van Bavel, 1990), 1,
349-371.
31 Cf. J. MOREAU, Le Verbe et la cration selon s. Augustin et J. Scot rigene, in
R. ROQUES (ed.), lean Scot rigene et l'histoire de la philosophie, Paris (CNRS),
1977, 201-209: "Ce sont ces vues augustiniennes que dveloppe Jean Scot et qui le
conduiserit a poser que les choses cres subsistent ternellement dans le verbe
divin ... " (204, with reference to PP III, 639C).
32 Eriugena, pp III, 64.9-10 (635C): In primordialibus itaque suis causis omnia in
sapientia E'atris aeterna sunt, non tamen ei coaeterna. Elsewhere, he speaks ofthe
causes as coeternal with God: quia semper in Deo sine ullo temporali principio
subsistunt, non omnino tamen Deo esse coaeternas, quia non a se ipsis, sed a suo
creatore incipiunt esse ... , PP IT, 82.13-15 (561D-562A).
33 ConJessions, XIT, 15, 18; cf. J. PPIN, Le livre XII des 'ConJessions' ou exgese
et conJession, in Le ConJessioni di Agostino d'Ippona, Libri X-XIII, Palermo
(Edizioni Augustinus), 1987, 89.
 34 E.g., in the Bibliotheque augustinienne edition of the De Genesi ad litteram (ed.
P. AGAEsSE- A. SOLIGNAC, Pars, 1972, in the note on La vie des cratures dans
le Verbe, it is suggested that Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena differ from St
Augustine in placing participations between God and creatures (Vol. 1, 674).
35 Eriugena, PP m, 42.10-31 (626A-B); m, 102.25-108.32 (652B-655A).

36 PP 11, 128.29-30 (583A): tota tamen diuinae prouidentiae dispensario in eam

refunditur qua causa omnium est.

37
PP 11, 40.30-36 (566A); 11, 188.27-34 (609B); m, 148.9-19 (672C-D); cf. R.
HOEPS, Theophanie und SchOpfungsgrund. Der Beitrag des Johannes Scotus
Eriugena zum V.vstiindnisder "creatio ex nihilo", in Theologie und Philosophie, 67
(1992), 161-191, esp. 175-176.
38PP 11, 92.19-21 (566C): In sancta siquidem trinitate et communis operationis
cognoscitur unitas, et discretarum operationum non excluditur proprietas.
39 On Eriugena 's "powerful synthesis between Augustine' s concept of the Trinity ...
and the eastern Dionysian tradition", see. W. BEIERWALTES, Unity and Trinity in
East and West, in B. McGINN- W. OTIEN (eds.), Eriugena: East and West, 209-
231; and, more fully, in W. BEIERWALTES, Eriugena. Grundzge seinenDenkens,
204-261.
40 On Eriugena's methods for reconciling discordant authorities, see G. n'ONOFRIO,

The Concordia of Augustine and Dionysius: Toward a Hermeneutic of the

Disagreement of Patristic Sources in John the Scot's 'Periphyseon ', in B. McGINN
- W. OTIEN (eds.), Eriugena: East and West, 115-140.
41On the character and extent ofPseudo-Dionysius' influence in the medieval West,
see P. ROREM, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts andan Introduction
\
to their lnfluence, New York and Oxford (O.U.P.), 1993; and W. HANKEY's
review, in Augustinianum, 34 (1994), 514-518.