CHAPTER I. — Inteoductory.

John Scotus Erigena — His youth in semi-barbarous country — Ireland, Athens, patron, Charles the Bald — 824 — Emperor Michael sends to the West Works of Dionysius — Birth of School of the Mystics — Erigena’s Works — Division of Nature — Universe the extension of God — His Manifestation — Return of all Souls to God — The Logos — Neoplatonism — Home of Christian Philosophy in Alexandria — Works of Dionysius — The Divine Gloom — Description — The Silence — Similar Thought in India — Progress to Universal Light and Eternal Rest.
^HE study of Mystic Theology is said to have been introduced into the western and northern parts of Europe by John Scotus Erigena. This extraordinary man is believed to have been of Scoto-Irish extraction. One writer pictures him, his lot cast in a land of confusion and ignorance, wandering, wrapt in melancholy thought, and burdened with unrest, amid the mountains and storms of the rugged district of the north of Scotland, the isles of the west, and the mists of the land of Ossianic heroes.
His lot was cast in a time when Christianity had made little, if any, progress in the north-west of his country, and we can well imagine the fervid youth, in all the romance of Celtic dreaminess, wondering what should be. The ancient religions were now discredited, and, to one of earnest dis- position, the very idea of the eternal loss of those beloved, gone to sleep eternal in ignorance and error, must have been sad indeed.
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At anyrate, Erigena- is traced to Ireland, where, in the early part of the nintli century, ancient Christianity still flourished and sent out jiiissionaries over the Continent of Europe. It is said that the restless and eager student went forth also to strange lands, and although he may have attained the knowledge of the elements of the Greek language in Ii^eland, went to Athens, where he spent years in the study of Oriental languages, and became familiar with Oriental modes of thought. Erigena returned to the west, and found a liberal patron in Charles the Bald, by whom he was made Director of the University of Paris. “ His rare acquaintance with the Greek language, his familiarity with the doctrines of Plato and his Alexandrian disciples, seem to have constituted his chief claim to regal patronage and papal censure.” ^
In the year 824, Michael Balbus, the Greek Emperor, sent to the Emperor Lewis a copy of the works of Dionysius, the Areopagite, in Greek. These works were, at the request of his patron, Charles, translated into Latin by Erigena. The Celtic temperament of Erigena was eminentl}^ fitted to be influenced by such writings, and their publication in Latin gave birth to the famed school of the mystics, which was to have such influence in the future history of the west. Erigena’s great work was entitled On the Division of Nature.” Neander has well remarked that Erigena “ was founding a system of truth, which should repose entirely on rational insight, and prove itself as true by an inner necessity of reason.” “ The final and complete restitution of man is the inevitable result of the incarnation of the Logos. The universe has proceeded from God. It is but the extension of His being, the manifestation of Himself ; therefore must it return to Himself, not in part, but as a whole. The predestination of anything to destruction is but a figure of speech. All men shall be saved. Their
^ Hunt, Pantheism, 1893, p. 136. See also Miss Gardner’s “John the Seot.” This writer concludes that Erigena was born and educated in Ireland*
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return to God is necessary, yea, it is not a thing of time, not an event of which we can speak as past or future. It is something actual. In the contemplation of God it is eternally realised, but to man the Logos became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, who, by his death, resurrection, and ascension, completed the salvation of men and angels.”^
It has been remarked by Barthelemy St. Hilaire “ that Dionysius and Scotus Erigena” almost entirely implanted in the middle ages the doctrine of Neoplatonism.^
The home of Christian philosophy was Alexandria. But the original home of that philosophy was Athens, of which it was said Dionysius was Bishop. There Erigena had studied, and doubtless his translation of the four books on the ‘'Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,” the “Celestial Hierarchy,” the “ Divine Names,” and on “ Mystic Theology ” would be a labour of love. Of these the latter is the shortest, and consists of five chapters. The first is entitled, “ What is the Divine Gloom ?” It commences — “ Triad supernal, both super-God and super-Good, Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple, and absolute, and changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous Gloom of the Silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the eyeless minds with glories of surpassing beauty.”^ The expressions which follow remind one most strongly of similar thought in the conclusions drawn by the philoso- phers of ancient India.
“ By the resistless and absolute ecstasy in all purity, from thyself and all, thou will be carried on high to the superessential ray of the Divine Darkness, when thou hast cast away all and become free from all.”^ So does the
^ Hunt, 146 ; Jervise, Ch. of France, i. 98, 99.
2 Parker, Dionysius, ii., xvii. ^ Parker, Dionysius, i. 131.
^ Parker, Dionysius, i. 131.
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Indian thinker regard nature, working itself free of matter, “ upwards and onwards towards the universal light, the formless, emotionless, sense and life exhausted, supernatural and eternal rest.” ^
“ All life is lived for hiin, all deaths are dead.
Karma will no more make new houses.
Seeking nothing, he gains all.
Foregoing self, the Universe grows ‘ I ’ '
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“ All will reach the sunlight.” ^
^ Jennings’ Indian Religions, p. 31.
^ Light of Asia, Bk. 8.