John the Irish-born

Alcuin of York is celebrated as a learned man and the head of the palace school of Aachen under Charlemagne, but one of his successors at Aachen is considered one of the most consequential philosophers of the entire Carolingian era. His name was John Scotus Eriugena, who was invited there by Charles the Bald, Charlemagne's grandson. Where did he come from? The answer is in the name.

He describes himself as "Eriugena" in his manuscripts, which means "Ireland-born." The "Scotus" part of his name is also how Irish or Gaels were called, so his name in full translates as "John the Irish-born Gael." (Ireland was called "Scotia Major" while Scotland was called "Scotia Minor.")

Educated in Ireland, he was invited to Aachen by Charles in 845, by which time his reputation for learning was already established. The school at Aachen flourished under him even more than under Alcuin, as it became a source not only of learning but of philosophy, which was John's strength. He was a Neoplatonist (following the ideas of some 3rd-century Greek philosophers who differed in some ways from Plato), and brought some of their ideas to Western Europe through Aachen.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states:

Eriugena’s thought is best understood as a sustained attempt to create a consistent, systematic, Christian Neoplatonism from diverse but primarily Christian sources. Eriugena had a unique gift for identifying the underlying intellectual framework, broadly Neoplatonic but also deeply Christian, assumed by the writers of the Christian East. [link]

Among his writings is De Divina Praedestinatione, "Concerning Divine Predestination." This was a request from Charles the Bald and Archbishop Hincmar of Reims to counter the predestinarianism of Gottschalk of Orbais, who preached that predestination was absolute in the sense that the damned were already damned since birth and free will did not apply. John wrote that God cannot predestine human freedom, people are saved or damned due to their own free will. Sin and evil are not caused by God; they are a rejection or negation of the good that comes from God, and it is the person's free will that leads them to choose not the good but its opposite.

He was thought to be the author of De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, "On the Body and Blood of the Lord," arguing that the bread and wine of the Mass were simply symbolic representations of Jesus' flesh and blood. (It was really written by Ratramnus.) Berengar of Tours later got into a lot of trouble over this idea, refuting transubstantiation.

Eriugena's De Divisione Naturae ("On the Division of Nature"), is considered his most important work, a summary and synthesis of 15 centuries of philosophy. We will tackle a basic understanding of its contents tomorrow.

Ratramnus

When Charles the Bald visited the abbey of New Corvey in 843, he said he would like to have the Eucharist explained to him. In response, the monk Ratramnus (died c.868) wrote a treatise, De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, "On the Body and Blood of the Lord," in which he explained that the bread and wine represented the body and blood of Jesus figuratively.

The abbot of Corvey at the time was Paschasius Radbertus, who also wrote De Corpore et Sanguine Domini, in which he explained that the bread and wine were changed to be equal to the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. He presented a version of his work to Charles. These opposing views did not seem to create any controversy or conflict at the time. That all happened later when others took sides on the question.

Ratramnus also wrote works such as De Praedestinatione Dei, "On the Predestination of God." In this work he denied the ideas of Gottschalk of Orbais, an itinerant Saxon theologian who visited Corvey. Gottschalk believed that predestination worked on both the saved and the damned. Ratramnus defended this idea.

One of his other works was a letter about the Cynocephali, the dog-headed men. The archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, Saint Rimbert (c.830 - 888), while on a mission in Scandinavia, heard that there were communities of men with the heads of dogs living nearby. Rimbert's question was simple: if they were living in organized communities as he was told, were they then capable of reason and therefore of the race of Adam and suitable subjects for Christian conversion?

There was a long history of cynocephali going back to classical times, and they were usually referred to as animals. Ratramnus wrote that they were indeed human in essence though not in appearance and should be converted. (There are no stories of missionaries actually finding and communicating with any communities of dog-headed men.)

Ratramnus' most significant work on the body and blood was, at a later date, wrongly ascribed to someone else. When Berengar of Tours (died 1088) in a later century took up the topic, he used Ratramnus' work for his arguments, thinking it was the work of John Scotus Eriugena. John Scotus Eriugena was not an obscure person, but quite prominent, and we'll see why tomorrow.

Gottschalk of Orbais

I believe and confess that omnipotent and unchangeable God foreknew and predestined saint angels and elect men to eternal life gratis and that He equally predestined devil, head of all demons, with all of his apostates, and also reprobate men, namely his members, on account of their own most certainly foreknown evil merits, through the most right judgment to deserved eternal death; for thus says the Lord himself in His Gospel: “The prince of this world is already judged”

So wrote Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808 - 30 October 868 CE). He studied at Fulda Monastery in Germany where he became friends with Strabo and studied under Hrabanus Maurus. His first act of "rebellion" was being ordained in France (where he joined the Abbey at Corbie) not by his bishop, but by the local choriepiscopus of Rheims, a lesser functionary in the bishop's. By 840 he had left France for Italy where he preached his views on predestination, before being driven out by Hrabanus Maurus who at that time had become Archbishop of Mainz.

He preached and gained followers in Germany until the Synod of Mainz in 848. It was presided over by Hrabanus Maurus with King Louis the German present. Gottschalk was declared heretical, beaten, and for hidden to return to the Kingdom of Francia under Louis the German. He was sent to Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims to be kept under confinement, but he continued to preach his double predestination.

Six months after the Synod of Mainz was the Council of Quierzy—with Archbishop Hincmar and King Charles the Bald—at which Gottschalk's preachings were questioned again; this time, however, there was no calm theological debate. When Gottschalk refused to accept that is interpretation of Augustine was wrong, he turned to verbal abuse of his opponents. He was defrocked (both in the sacerdotal and sartorial sense), beaten, and imprisoned in a monastery at Hautvillers for the next 20 years, until his death.

Hautvillers; now there's a place worth talking about. Next time.

Predestination

Ephesians 1:11 says "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." The Old and New Testaments as well have other passages that declare God's will as the driving force behind all actions and events.

Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 CE) was fine with this. He maintained that God had foreknowledge of whether individuals would deserve heaven or hell. If God is omniscient, and omniscience includes knowledge of what is to come, then God knows what people will do. He also explained the sin of Pride as thinking that we are the ones who choose God rather than God's grace that empowers the initial act of faith. Some scholars claim that Augustine believed in "double predestination," the term that is used to explain that God chooses those who will be saved and those who will be damned.

(This seems to argue against the doctrine of Free Will, that human beings choose to do good or do bad, and hence are responsible for the ultimate fate of their souls. In my (Roman Catholic) youth, we were taught that God's knowledge does not "lock us in" to a certain path. It was explained as foreordination: God simply knows ahead of time the choices we will make.)

Of the three main Jewish sects in the 1st century CE, the Romano-Jewish historian Josephus (c.37 - c.100) wrote that the Sadducees did not have any thoughts on predestination, but the Essenes and Pharisees felt God's providence ordered all human events. The Pharisees still believed that man could choose between right and wrong. We don't know how scholarly an interpretation this was by Josephus.

Pope Clement I (d.99 CE) wrote a letter to the Corinthians in which he appeared to express a predestinarian view of salvation.

Valentinus (c.100 - c.180 CE) believed it depended on what kind of nature you were born with, either good or bad or a mix of the two. A person born with good nature will be saved, with a bad nature will never be saved, with a mixture can go either way.

St. Irenaeus believed Valentinus' view was unfair, and that humans were free to choose salvation or not.

After Augustine, most arguments for or against predestination were based on agreeing with or refuting his explanations.

When the Middle Ages got well and truly underway, people like Gottschalk of Orbais (c.808 - 868) believed in the above mentioned double predestination. (I will say more about him tomorrow.)

Thomas Aquinas believed in free will, but also taught that God predestines certain people to a special closeness to God (called the beatific vision) based solely on God's own goodness.

William of Ockham (c.1287 - 1347) taught free will, but God predestines based on people's good works that He foresees.

The Cathars denied free will.

This is a subject on which there is likely never to be universal agreement.

That Gottschalk of Orbais really stirred things up when he weighed in. Stay tuned.