John Scottus Eriugena; Floss (ed.), Opera omnia / PL 122 (1853) — Latin text. Rendered into modern English.

From MS 81 of the library of Laon, on parchment, 9th century, 4to; first published by M. Félix Ravaisson in the Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des départements, vol. I (Paris, 1849), p. 505 ff.; collated against codex St-Germain 1314 (formerly C3), parchment, 10th century, 4to, of the Royal Library of Paris.

Fragment One — on John 1:11–29 #

¹ “He came to His own” — that is, He was incarnate in human nature. “And His own received Him not.” This is said of the faithless Jews and all the impious who would not receive the Word of God — that is, would neither believe in Him nor understand Him. And lest anyone should think that all men failed to receive Him — for from the beginning of the world there was no time in which there were no receivers of the divine Word — he therefore added:

² “But as many as received Him” — that is, whoever believed in Him — “He gave them power to become the sons of God.” He did not say, “He gave them power to be saved,” or “to return to the former state and dignity of human nature,” but — a thing ineffable and impossible to every nature by itself — He gave them, through the sublimity of His grace, to become sons of God. “To them that believe in His name” — that is, to those who believe that they shall receive the knowledge and understanding of Him through faith in this life, and through sight in the other.

³ “Who were born not of blood” — that is, not of seeds; “nor of the will of the flesh” — that is, not of the female sex, for “flesh” often signifies the female sex; “nor of the will of man” — that is, not of the male seed. It may also be understood thus: “nor of the will of the flesh” is explained by what follows — “nor of the will of man.” For there are those who attribute the irrational impulse by which men are conceived in the flesh to the flesh alone, as if the soul had no part in such things, though the flesh without the soul can do nothing in them. And so it follows: “nor of the will of man” — that is, nor of the will of the whole man; for wise men are accustomed to call the whole man by the word “man.” “But of God” — namely, through the grace of baptism, in which believers in Christ begin to be born of God.

⁴ But lest anyone should think it impossible for mortal, carnal, frail, corruptible man to be raised to so great a glory as to become a son of God, the evangelist, as it were taking breath and answering the hidden thoughts of unbelievers, sets down a most powerful argument:

⁵ “And the Word was made flesh.” As if he had said: Wonder not that flesh — that is, mortal man — can pass into sonship of God through grace, since a greater miracle is that the Word was made flesh. For if that which is above descended to that which is below, what wonder if that which is below ascends into that which is above, the grace of the Higher working — especially since for this very purpose the Word was made flesh: that man might become a son of God? For the Word descended into man, that through Him man might ascend into God. For as we say, “the Word was made flesh,” so we may also say, “and the flesh was made Word.” This evangelical saying, “the Word was made flesh,” recurs in the manner of a prologue.

⁶ “And lived among us” — that is, He conversed among us men; or again: the Word “lived among us” — that is, He took possession of our nature. “And we saw His glory” — we, namely, whom He chose out of the world, saw His glory in His most manifest miracles, in the Transfiguration on the spiritual mountain, in the brightness of the Resurrection; and not any other glory, but “the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” “Full of grace” — supply: we saw Him full of grace according to His humanity, “and of truth” according to His divinity.

“John bears witness of Him” — namely, of the Word — “and cries,” or, as the Greek has it, “and he cried, saying: This was He of whom I said,” or, as the Greek reads, “of whom I was saying” — which is far more significant. For if he had used the perfect tense, “I said,” he would signify a work of preaching Christ already finished; but the imperfect, “I was saying,” signifies both the beginning of John’s preaching of Christ and his continuance in that preaching. “This was He” — “this” is a demonstrative pronoun of a person present; and by this it is given to be understood that Christ was present in that place where John openly declared this testimony of Him. Nor is this strange; for the Lord Himself, while still almost unknown to all before His baptism and the beginning of His preaching, used to come to John. And so John says: “This was He of whom I spoke.” Here, as often elsewhere, the word “was” does not mark time but substance — so that we should understand “this is, this subsists, of whom I was telling you.” To whom was he speaking? To his own disciples, to whom he both preached Christ absent and pointed Him out present — as is made plain in what follows, where he says to his disciples: “See the Lamb of God.”

⁷ “He that comes after me” — or, as other copies write, “who comes after me.” For what is written in Greek, erchomenos, is a participle both of the past and of the future tense. “Was made before me.” As if he plainly said: He who comes after me in the order of times, in conception and nativity, into the world, was made before me, preferred to me in the order of dignity. For I am a pure and simple man; He is more than man, compounded of humanity and divinity; He is the Lord, I the servant; He the King, I the forerunner. And so it follows: “For He was before me” — not only by the eternity of His divinity, but also by the dignity of His humanity. But if anyone should look attentively at the Greek text, he will understand otherwise what it says: “who comes after me” — that is, who was to come after me, or who comes after me into the world — “was made before me,” that is, appeared before my face; and as I prophesied of Him and knew Him with spiritual eyes while still in the womb, so now I see Him with the bodily eyes standing before me — that is, coming. For what is written in Greek, emprosthen mou, is properly rendered “before me” — that is, before my eyes. And what do I perceive in Him, whether with spiritual or with bodily eyes? Nothing else but that “He was before me,” or, more significantly in Greek, “He was first of me.” For this cause then He was made in my presence: that I might know Him to be first — that is, in all things preceding me. For He precedes me in the fulness of grace. Whatever grace I possess, I receive from no other source than the fulness of His grace. Therefore he fitly added:

⁸ “And of His fulness have all we received.” What fulness does he mean? None other than that of which he spoke above: “we saw His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” For the fulness of grace according to humanity, and the fulness of truth according to divinity, dwell in Christ — from which the Apostle says: “in whom dwels the fulness of the Godhead bodily” — that is, truly. But how does the fulness of grace dwell in Christ according to humanity? In no other way than that He is Himself the first and greatest example of divine grace, in that the man Christ, with no preceding merits, was assumed into the unity of substance — or, to speak more usually, of the Person. And the fulness of truth is in Him naturally, because He is Himself the Truth, as He testifies: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Of His fulness, then, according to humanity and divinity, have we all received. “We all,” he says — we who of the people of Israel received Him, and they who of the other nations of the whole world believed in Him: we received grace whereby we believe in Him, and truth whereby we understand Him. And this is what follows: “grace for grace” — supply: of His fulness we have received grace for grace — namely, the grace of the contemplation of truth in exchange for the grace of faith; the grace of deification in the future for the grace of action and knowledge in the present.

⁹ And lest any of those who glory in the Law should think that he had received grace and truth from the Law, he at once added: “For the Law was given by Moses.” As if he had said: I say that we have all received grace and truth from the fulness of Christ, and not from the Law, because the Law was only given through Moses — a Law which bestows no grace upon those who receive it according to the letter, since it is nothing but a kind of shadow and symbol of the New Testament. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” It may also be understood thus: the Law, considered in Moses — that is, in the bare letter — is only law; but considered in Christ, it is grace and truth. For the spirit of the Law is grace and truth in Christ Jesus. The Law, therefore, considered in Moses, is not grace and truth; but in Christ it is grace and truth. Blessed Augustine thus distinguishes the Old Testament from the New; he says: “The Law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the Law might be fulfilled.” He therefore sets before us three things — law, grace, truth — suggesting three hierarchies: one in the Old Testament, delivered under most obscure figures; a second, which we also call the middle, in the New Testament, wherein is the abundance of grace and the plainest unfolding of the things mystically said and done in the Law; a third — the heavenly, I mean — already beginning in this life and to be perfected in the life to come, wherein the contemplation of pure truth will be granted to those who are deified, without any darkness. The first hierarchy is indicated by the name of Law, the second by that of grace, the third by that of truth. Whoever desires to know more fully of these three hierarchies, let him read St Denis the Areopagite.

“No man has seen God at any time.” To crown the praise of Christ’s fulness it is added that no man has seen God at any time — and as if on this occasion of the divine invisibility human nature should be deprived of all beatitude (for the contemplation of God is true blessedness), the divine goodness came to its aid through the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, who in the flesh — that is, in the whole man whom He took — manifested God the Father made man to men, as He Himself says: “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gav Me”; and again, to Philip asking and saying, “Show us the Father, and it suffices us,” He answers, “Philip, he that sees Me sees also My Father”; and again, “No man knows the Son but the Father, neither knows any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him.” Nor is this to be understood of men only, but also of the angels. For even the angels could not know their God, who surpasses every intellect, in His own nature, because He is invisible and unknown; but when the Word was incarnate they understood their Lord — namely, the Son of God — and in Him and through Him the whole Trinity, remote from all. Universally, then, the Incarnation of the Word of God profited both rational and intellectual creation: the rational, for the freeing of its nature from death and diabolical servitude and from ignorance of the truth; the intellectual, for the knowledge of its own Cause, which before it knew not. Hence the Apostle: “in whom all things are restored, which are in heaven and on earth.”

¹⁰ But not unreasonably it is asked why in the Old Testament and in the New it is frequently read that God appeared to men, whether visibly to the bodily eyes or invisibly in prophetic visions, when the Gospel says: “No man has seen God at any time.” Now, if this were said of the Father alone, the question would be most easily solved — the Persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit being understood to have often appeared visibly, while the Father alone remained remote from every vision. But since this is understood to be said not of one Person but of the whole Trinity, which is one God — “no man has seen God at any time” — that is, of the essence and substance of the one Trinity, which surpasses every intellect of rational and intellectual creature, it must properly be asked what it was that appeared when God is said to have appeared, whether visibly or invisibly. Blessed Augustine without hesitation makes it plain that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament — yet not in that substance whereby He is equal to the Father, but in some subject creature, whether visible or invisible. In like manner, when the Spirit is read to have appeared — for instance, in the form of a dove — it is to be supposed that He appeared not in that substance whereby He is coessential with the Father and the Son, but in a subject creature. The same is to be understood of the Father. The visions of the prophets, too, in which they are said to have seen God, were made by means of some subject spiritual creature; but that the divine substance appeared to them of itself Dionysius unhesitatingly denies, lest the invisible and incomprehensible should be thought in any way capable of being seen or comprehended.

¹¹ It is asked also whether this is said only of men still living in this life, and not of the heavenly virtues which ever subsist in divine contemplation. To this it must be said that no participant of human or angelic nature can contemplate God Himself in His own proper nature. For what is written in the Latin codex, “no man has seen God,” is in Greek “no one has seen God” — for oudeis means both “no man” and “no one.” What then do the holy souls of men and the holy intellects of the angels see when they see God, if they do not see God Himself, whom they are said to see? To give a few examples out of many: Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon a high throne; the Lord says in the Gospel: “Their angels do always see the face of My Father which is in heaven”; again: “He that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him”; and in his epistle John says: “We are sons of God, but it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when He shall appear, we shall see Him as He is”; and Paul likewise: “We see now through a glass darkly, but then face to face,” and other passages of that kind. What, I say, do men and angels see, or what shall they see, when both St Ambrose and Dionysius the Areopagite most openly and without any hesitation insist that God — the supreme Trinity, I mean — never appeared, never appears, never will appear of Himself? He appeared, therefore, in His theophanies — that is, in divine appearances, in which, according to the height of purity and virtue of each, God shall appear. Now theophanies are all creatures visible and invisible, through which God has often appeared, and appears, and will appear. Likewise the virtues of the most purified souls and intellects are theophanies, and in them God manifests Himself to those who seek and love Him — in which, as in certain clouds, the saints are caught up to meet Christ, as the Apostle says: “We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ,” calling the most luminous heights of the divine contemplation “clouds,” in which they shall ever be with Christ. Hence it is that Dionysius says: “If anyone should say that he has seen Him — God, namely — he has not seen Him, but something made by Him. For He is wholly invisible, who is better known by not knowing, and whose ignorance is true wisdom.”

“The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” — or, as the Greek writes, “who is in the bosom (singular) of the Father,” or “in the bosoms (plural) of the Father,” for in some of the Greek codices the bosom of the Father is spoken of in the singular, in others in the plural, as if the Father had many bosoms. “He has declared Him.” The only-begotten Son, then, declared God — that is, manifested Him in Himself; not in so far as His divinity, which is wholly invisible, but in so far as His humanity, which He took in order to manifest Himself and His Father, and also His Holy Spirit, to men and angels. For the human soul, though invisible in itself, manifests by its bodily motions not what it is, but that it is. And what does this mean: “who is in the bosom of the Father,” or “in the bosoms of the Father”? Is the bosom of the Father one thing, and the only-begotten Son of the Father another? Not another: the only-begotten Son Himself is the bosom of the Father — called the bosom of the Father because He made the Father known to the world. And the only-begotten Son is the bosom of the Father because He is ever in the secrets of the paternal nature, as He Himself says: “I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” For as the only-begotten Son is the house of the Father, as He Himself says: “In My Father’s house are many mansions” — as if He said: In Me, in whom the Father dwells as in His own proper house, there are many mansions; for in it each one shall possess his own reception according to his merits and His grace — so also the Son is the bosom of the Father; for in Him the Father receives and gathers whom He wills to receive and gather. “He has declared” — that is, by the teaching and manifestation of His Incarnation He showed, and shows, and shall show forth the invisible God; as He says in that saying which we quoted a little above: “He that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.”

¹² “And this is the testimony of John.” As if he said: all this which we have said, from the passage “John bore witness of Him” down to “He has declared Him,” is the testimony of the Forerunner concerning Him whose forerunner he is. Then, as it were from another starting-point of the narrative, he begins, saying: “When the Jews sent from Jerusalem” — and the order of the words is: “And he confessed and denied not, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem,” and so forth.

¹³ But what did he not deny, and what did he confess? — “that I am not the Christ.” For the Jews thought John the Baptist was the Christ, because it had been foretold in the prophets that He was to come into the world. They also thought he was Elijah the Tishbite, on account of his extreme abstinence and chastity and solitary life, his most severe rebuking of sins, and his most stern terror of the judgement to come. And besides this they thought that he — John, I mean — was one of the prophets risen again, seeing the greatest grace of prophecy fulfilled in him. “I am not,” he says, “the Christ, because I am the forerunner of Christ and the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

¹⁴ “are you Elijah?” And he said: “I am not.” This denial is understood in two ways. “I am not Elijah,” he said, “but I come in the spirit and power of Elijah.” Or again: “I am not Elijah — he was only a prophet, but I am not only a prophet but also a forerunner.” Not that all the prophets were not forerunners of Christ, but that no prophet was born in the same year as Christ, so as to be His forerunner with but a small interval between them. “are you a prophet?” He answered: “No.” Again this is understood in two ways: either because he is more than a prophet, as Christ declares of him, and therefore denies that he is a prophet; or because he answers to their opinion — for they thought John was one of the dead prophets of past time. So he says: I am not one of those prophets from whose number you suppose me to have risen and to preach by a living voice.

¹⁵ “Then said they to him: Who are you?” — if you are neither Christ, nor Elijah, nor any of the prophets, tell us who you are, lest we return without an answer and without any knowledge of you to those who sent us, able to return them no answer. “What say you of yourself?” For we have heard that you have preached of Christ, but of yourself you affird nothing manifest. What then do you say of yourself?

¹⁶ “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” If you ask what I profess of myself, know that I am a voice. He did not say, “I am a man,” nor “I am John the son of Zacharias,” but he said: “I am a voice.” For he did not regard in himself the human substance nor the human generation, since beyond all these things the forerunner of the Word was exalted. He renounced all that is contained within the world; he ascended on high; he became the voice of the Word — so that he confessed in himself no substance save that which he had received by the abundance of grace beyond every creature: namely, to be the voice of the Word. And this name was not given him by himself, but long before by the prophet Isaiah — no, by the Holy Spirit through Isaiah. “I, then,” he says, “am a voice — not my voice, but the voice of One crying” — for “voice” is spoken relatively. Therefore John is the voice of the crying Word — that is, of the Word preaching through the flesh. And where does the Word cry, whose voice John is? In the wilderness. Many understand this wilderness of Judaea and of all Israel. For Judaea was reduced to a wilderness, emptied of all divine worship, polluted with the filth of idolatry, following the letter of the Law alone, emptied of all spiritual sense, defiled by various superstitions; and she who formerly was called “confession” — for Judah means “confession” — was turned wholly into a denial of the truth. In this solitude, then, both the voice of the Word and the Word Himself first preached.

¹⁷ But why the forerunner of the Word is signified by the name of “voice” may rightly be asked. The voice, then, is the interpreter of the mind. For all that the mind first thinks and orders invisibly within itself, it brings forth sensibly through the voice into the senses of the hearers. The Mind, therefore — that is, the Intellect of all things — is the Son of God; no, as St Augustine says, He is Himself the Intellect of all things — no, all things. His forerunner is beautifully called by the name of “voice,” because through him He was first shown to the world, saying, “See the Lamb of God,” and the rest. But in a higher contemplation the wilderness is understood as the ineffable height of the divine nature, remote from all things. For it is deserted by every creature, because it surpasses every intellect — while it deserts no intellect. And this is signified more clearly than light by the Greek name eremos; for eremia means “remoteness” and “loftiness,” which belongs wholly to the divine nature. In that wilderness, then, of the divine loftiness the Word cries, through whom all things were made. Hear Moses in Genesis saying: “God said: Let there be light”; God said, “Let there be a firmament”; and so in all the works of the six days, “God said” comes first — where by the name of God we understand the Father, and “said” signifies the Word of God. The Word of God, then, cries in the most remote solitude of the divine goodness. His cry is the making of all natures. For He calls the things that are as though they were not, because through Him God the Father cried — that is, created — all things that He willed to be. He cried invisibly, before the world was made, that the world should be made; He cried, coming into the world, that the world should be saved. Before, He cried eternally through His divinity alone, before the Incarnation; afterwards He cried through His flesh. And what does that voice of His — that is, His forerunner — proclaim? Hear: “Prepare you the way of the Lord.” What is “Prepare you the way of the Lord”? Is it not what follows — “make His paths straight”? Prepare you, therefore, the way of the Lord — that is, preach rightly and believe rightly in the Lord, who is the Way, as He Himself says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It may also be understood thus: “Prepare you the way of the Lord” — that is, believe rightly in the Lord; for the Lord enters the hearts of men by no other way than by faith, which is the way of the Lord. “As said the prophet Isaiah.” The evangelist, seeing the sentence of Isaiah about the forerunner of the Lord written most fully in the Gospel according to Luke, chose to omit it, lest he should seem superfluously to recapitulate the same sentence.

¹⁸ At this place it is not unsuitable, I think, to insert a few words on the mystic names of the Forerunner. He is called “voice” because, as the voice precedes the conception of the mind, so John preceded the Word of God. He is called prodromos — that is, “forerunner” — because John preceded the Lord not only in conception and birth but also in the mystery of baptism and the preaching of repentance. He is called phosphoros — that is, “light-bearer” — because he first brought the Light of the world to the knowledge of the world and bore it in himself. He is called the morning star, which the Greeks call aster prōinos, because as that star which astronomers call Lucifer precedes the rising of the sun, so the forerunner of the Lord first appeared, whom the Sun of Righteousness followed. In like manner the Greeks call him agriomeliphagos on account of his abstinence from the common foods of men — for agria means “locusts,” meli “honey,” and trophē “food”; therefore agriomelitrophagos means “eating locusts and wild honey.”

¹⁹ “And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.” It is asked why the Pharisees were sent to John. To this it must be said: the Pharisees in particular, hearing that John’s preaching urged upon the people the general resurrection of all from the dead — especially in that place where he says, “O generation of vipers, who shall deliver you from the wrath to come” — in the judgement, namely, after the resurrection — desired to hear John; for they themselves most firmly believed and preached the resurrection of the dead, and in this they are said in many things to have agreed with Christ, and to have often helped the apostle Paul.

²⁰ “Why then do you baptize, if you be not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor a prophet?” It is asked why the Pharisees attributed the authority of baptizing to Elijah or to any of the prophets; for they had heard in the prophets that Christ would come into the world and would baptize. Knowing, therefore, that the Jordan bore the figure of baptism, and that Elijah and Elisha had crossed it with dry feet, they did not doubt that the figure of baptism had gone before in Elijah and Elisha — nor did they ask “are you one of the prophets?” but only “are you the prophet?” — namely, he who prefigured baptism. He answered them:

²¹ “I baptize with water” — as if he said: I dip in water only for the cleansing of bodies, prefiguring in him who truly baptizes the sanctification of body and soul. “But there stands One among you” — that is, He appears present before you — “whom you know not,” because you believe not in Him, nor do know who He is. “He it is who comes after me.” He it is who was appointed in the divine decree and foreknowledge, before the world was made, to come into the world after me, that He might follow me His forerunner. “Who is made before me” — that is, who is made present before the eyes of my mind and of my body. Him indeed I see and know in the middle of you, but you know Him not.

²² There is also another sense in these words, as it pleases Maximus. John bears the figure of repentance, because he preached repentance; Christ the figure of justice — not only because He judges the world, but also because He is Himself eternal justice. Repentance can only exist after the transgression of justice; therefore human nature, which transgressed the divine laws in paradise, under the person of John preaches and performs repentance, and openly declares that the substantial justice of the Word of God both preceded it in divinity and was to come after it in the dispensation of the flesh — so as to recall human nature, conversant in pride, which had spurned the divine laws, to its former state of eternal justice, that death might not hold it captive whom He found criminal.

²³ “Whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” The shoe of the Word is His flesh which He took from the Virgin, signified under the figure of a shoe. For as a shoe is made of the skins of dead animals, so the flesh of Christ was made mortal for our sake, that by His death our death might be wholly destroyed. For the flesh of Christ was not made mortal by the desert of its own sin, as our flesh is, but was passible by condescension to our nature after the sin. He did not refuse to undergo death for us, but the cause of death — sin, I mean — He did not receive. Therefore death could not hold Him, because He was not a debtor to death. From the first man before sin He received the power to be without sin; from the same after sin He received the power to die; by which two things He restored our whole nature in Himself. For He utterly destroyed our death in Himself and restored eternal life; and by being without sin He manifested in Himself our nature as it was before it sinned. If, then, the shoe of the Word is the flesh of the Word, by the latchet of His shoe understand, not incongruously, the subtlety and unsearchable complexity of the mysteries of the Incarnation, the height of which mystery the Forerunner judges himself unworthy to loose.

²⁴ Yet it is to be noted that he did not say, “whose latchet of His shoe I will not loose,” but “I am not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe.” For he did loose the mysteries of Christ’s Incarnation when he most openly manifested Him to the world and opened many things of His divinity and humanity; yet he counts himself unworthy of this work. By the shoe of Christ may also be signified the visible creation and the holy Scripture; for in these He sets His footprints, as it were His feet. For the clothing of the Word is the visible creation, which openly proclaims Him, manifesting to us His beauty. His clothing also is Scripture, which contains His mysteries — of all which, the latchet of the creature and of the letter — that is, the subtlety — the forerunner deems himself unworthy to loose. The two feet of the Word are these: one is the natural reason of visible creation, the other the spiritual understanding of divine Scripture. The one is covered by the sensible forms of the sensible world, the other by the surface of the divine letters — that is, of the Scriptures. For in two modes do the expositors of the divine Law set forth the Incarnation of the Word of God: one is he who teaches His incarnation from the Virgin, whereby He united human nature to Himself in unity of substance; the other is he who asserts the same Word as it were “incarnate” — that is, made flesh — in the letters and in the forms and orders of visible things. And the latchet of this twofold shoe is the diligent inquiry into the truth of all these things, and the intricate tracing of ambiguities, which the Forerunner judges himself unworthy to resolve.

²⁵ “These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.” These things, he says, which were said by the Forerunner of the divinity of the Word of God and of His humanity, and of the Forerunner’s preaching, and in answer to the Pharisees, were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan. “Bethany” means “house of obedience” — there are two Bethanys, one beyond Jordan where John was baptizing, the other this side of Jordan not far from Jerusalem, where the Lord raised Lazarus. But these are full of mysteries. Bethany beyond Jordan mystically prefigures human nature, which before it sinned was made the “house of obedience”: for it was created to this end, that it should obey the divine commands delivered to it within the bounds of paradise — that is, within its own natural goods — nor depart from the contemplation and love of its Creator, in whose image it was made, but ever cleave to Him. Bethany beyond Jordan is human nature beyond the streams of divine grace — the grace which was poured into it after the Incarnation of the Word — dwelling as it were in the poverty of divine goods and in the drought of the infusion of wisdom. But Bethany in Judaea this side of Jordan, near Jerusalem, is that same nature delivered by the Incarnation of the Word of God, and by the streams of divine grace, which first through the mystery of baptism are distributed over it, being brought back into true confession of faith and action and knowledge, and into the house of obedience — that is, into the unity of the Church obeying the divine laws — set near Jerusalem. For Jerusalem means “vision of peace,” and signifies the heavenly city to which human nature has not yet wholly come — which we believe will be after the general resurrection of all, when human nature shall be led into the full and most complete contemplation of the divine. Yet it is not far from the heavenly fatherland, while it still dwells in the flesh, being in the house of obedience. For in part it knows the truth, illumined by the grace of its Redeemer; in part it prophesies, signifying things it does not yet clearly perceive by invisible symbols and mystic doctrines. And by this, in this one sentence of the evangelist, three hierarchies — that is, three priesthoods — are mystically indicated. The first priesthood, which was under the Law, is set, as it were in Bethany, beyond the outpourings of grace and truth through Christ in the New Testament; and that priesthood was far from Jerusalem — that is, from the vision of peace — on account of its obscure mysteries, hard to be understood, and the densest darknesses of its commandments, far removed from the light of truth. The second priesthood is in the New Testament; it begins with the preaching of the Forerunner, and shall end at the world’s end, as Scripture says: “The Law and the prophets were until John, and from that time the kingdom of heaven.” This priesthood is partly lit by the clearest knowledge of the truth, partly obscured in symbols. Now the principal symbols of the New Testament are three thysiai — that is, three mystic victims: one is of baptism; another synaxeōs — that is, of the communion of the Lord’s body and blood; the third in the mystery of the chrism. The third priesthood shall be celebrated in the life to come, wherein no symbols, no obscurity of figures, but the whole most clear truth shall appear. And so the priesthood of the New Testament holds a middle place between the past Law and the future blessed life: in some things it considers the truth as future; in some things it celebrates it in ministries as past. Bethany beyond Jordan, then, prefigures the priesthood of the Law; Bethany this side Jordan, not far from Jerusalem, the priesthood of grace; Jerusalem, the future life of the blessed. In the priesthood of the Law, therefore, as it were beyond Jordan, under the law of nature and under the written law, that same human nature was instructed and corrected — human nature, which after the transgression darkened the image of God in itself through ignorance of the truth and defiled it through lust of temporal things. In the priesthood of the New Testament under Christ, the same nature, illumined and brought up under the law of grace, and made as it were near and perfect to the future priesthood — illumined indeed through faith, brought up through hope, and made near to the divine vision through charity, so far as it is suffered, still set in the flesh, to penetrate the heights of the divine things to be understood. But if you seek the difference between these three laws — the natural, the written, and the law of grace — know it briefly. The law of nature is that which commands all men to love one another equally, that as all are one and the same nature, so a common love of all by all should be. The written law is that which forbids the law of nature to be violated, and discerns between virtues and vices, and bears the figure of the law of grace. And this same written law, I say, is the aid of the law of nature — so that, since the law of nature could not by itself alone correct human nature, the compulsion of the written law should restrain what must be forbidden and teach what must be fulfilled. For the law of nature was so nearly abolished in men that it could neither know its own Maker nor keep any difference between virtues and vices. The law of grace is that which teaches not only that men should love one another and discerns between virtues and vices, but also — what is possible to divine grace alone — to die, if need be, not only for good men but even for evil men. Which law Christ fulfilled in Himself when He suffered not only for all men but even for all the impious.

²⁶ “Where John was baptizing.” John was baptizing beyond Jordan, rightly — because he did not yet have the true baptism which frees the whole human nature not only from original sin but also from its own transgressions in those who undergo it, but only baptized in water alone, as it were under a figure of the perfect baptism which followed in Christ. Therefore he baptized beyond Jordan — that is, beyond the streams of the divine gifts which had not yet begun in Christ to descend into human nature. John was beyond Jordan because John bore the figure of the law of nature and also of the written law. For the law of nature was prefigured in John: those who live under the law of nature piously and chastely, far from every contagion of carnal life, ought to live as it were in a certain solitude of divine virtues, as John did. John also signifies the written law, because he was its end: “for the Law and the prophets were until John.” But because he was made not only a prophet but also the manifester of Christ, he signifies not only the Law but also the Gospel and grace. Therefore it follows: “and from that time the kingdom of heaven” — as if he had said: in John, as in a certain boundary, both the Law ends and the manifestation of grace, which he calls the kingdom of heaven, begins.

²⁷ “The next day” — or, as the Greek more significantly writes, “on the other day” — “John sees Jesus coming to him.” On the other day — that is, in another knowledge. For the first knowledge was when he knew Him while they were pressing upon him there — for the first cognition was when, to the peoples gathered there, he manifested Him, saying, “This was He of whom I was telling you.” Now, as it were a second cognition — on another day, John sees Jesus coming to him. By a twofold looking — of mind, namely, and of body — John the forerunner knows his Lord, whom he preceded, coming to him, not only by the steps of the body but by the accessions of his own interior contemplation. Jesus comes to John. Jesus came to John — that is, He deigned to be known by John according to His divinity and His humanity. And he says: “See the Lamb of God, see Him that takes away the sin of the world.” He openly proclaims Him to the peoples when he says, “See the Lamb of God.” The Word of God is named “Lamb” by John; for it was He whom the mystic lamb prefigured in the Law. Nor is it strange if a shadow should be preached of the truth. The legal lamb was a shadow; the truth, and as it were the body of the shadow, was Jesus Christ. And He is named “Lamb” not irrationally. For the lamb ministers three things to its possessors: milk, wool, and the eating of its own flesh. Our Lord likewise furnishes to them that believe in Him the garment of the virtues, nourishes them with milk — that is, with the simple doctrine of the truth — and brings them to the perfect food of His own divine contemplation. Christ is called the Lamb of God because He was sacrificed for the whole world; and so it follows: “See Him that takes away the sin of the world.” “Takes away,” he says — not from place to place or from time to time, but takes away wholly, so that it may not be at all, and by the destruction of His most holy flesh destroys wholly all the sin of the world. By “the sin of the world” is meant original sin, which is common to the whole world — that is, to human nature; the guilt of which is now remitted by the grace of baptism, but the sin itself shall be utterly destroyed at the end of the world, in the resurrection of all.

²⁸ Original sin, then, is that whereby the whole human nature — created all at once and once for all in the image of God, in which all men from the beginning of the world to the end both are one and were created together in body and soul — transgressed the divine laws through disobedience in paradise, refusing to keep the command of God. For not only did that first Adam sin, who before the rest came forth from the generality of human nature into this visible world, but all sinned before they came into the world. For what the Apostle says — “as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” — we understand not of that one first man alone, but by the name Adam we take all human nature in general to be signified. For that individual Adam would not have been born into this corruptible world by generation, had not the transgression of human nature gone before. For the division of nature into the double sex — male, I mean, and female — and the generation through corruption that proceeds from them for the multiplying of human procession and number, is the general penalty of sin, since the whole race of man transgressed God’s command in paradise at once. This therefore is called the general sin, “original”; and rightly so, since it is the sin of the common origin of all, for the desert of which death and corruption we are all debtors, the Redeemer excepted; for alone in that mass of the whole human race our Redeemer was left without sin for the medicine of the wound — that through Him alone the ever-whole wound of the whole nature might be cured, and thereby all that was wounded be restored to its former state of salvation. This original sin, therefore, and each one’s own transgressions after generation into this world, are loosed by the abundance of baptismal grace through our Saviour, so that they are wholly not. And this is what the evangelist says: “See the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He is the only and singular mystic Lamb, in whose figure the Israelite people sacrificed single lambs in single houses at the Paschal season. For we also, who after His accomplished Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection believe in Him and understand His mysteries so far as is granted us, both spiritually immolate Him and intellectually eat Him with the mind, not with the tooth. So each of those who believe in Christ, according to his own virtue and the habit and quality of virtue subject to him, both is crucified and crucifies Christ for himself — being co-crucified with Christ. One is crucified to sin alone, when, quieted from all its workings in the flesh and through his flesh, he becomes as it were dead by a kind of death, and mortifies sin, fixed by the nails of the fear of the Lord — and each such man crucifies Christ with himself. For each of the faithful, according to the disposition he has in his soul through the increases of the virtues, such a faith of Christ will he have through the increases of the understandings; and as often as he dies to the modes of the former and lower life and is carried up into higher grades, the opinions about Christ which he lays aside, however simple, yet die in him and with him, and he advances into loftier theophanies of Him by faith and understanding. So in His faithful Christ dies daily and is crucified by them, while they slay their carnal — or even spiritual, but still imperfect — thoughts of Him, ever ascending on high until they come to the true knowledge of Him; for the infinite is infinitely formed even in the most purified minds.

²⁹ Another is crucified to all the impulses of the flesh, so that he retains in himself no natural act at all. Another is crucified to the passions — that is, the infirm actions of the soul by which it is first corrupted in itself before it works through the body (for action belongs to the soul, operation to the body) — when he is healed by the powers of the restored soul. Another is crucified to the phantasies of the passions — that is, to the images of sensible things which are formed in the bodily senses, which the wise call passions — when his senses are shut to those phantasies, lest he be basely drawn through them into lust for any temporal things. Another is crucified to the thoughts and conceptions of the mind which he had drawn through the bodily senses from sensible things, lest he should linger longer in them, drawn back from divine contemplations. Another dies not only to the phantasies of the senses but to all the senses themselves wholly, lest through them he be seduced by any error. Another is crucified to all the natural familiarity and habit which he had acquired toward sensibles through the bodily senses, and extinguishes all motion in himself as upon a kind of cross, so that he has no natural act at all in himself. Another rests perfectly from intellectual operation itself, as being perfectly dead; for he transcends not only the natural acts of the soul but also its intellectual operations. Another is crucified to the active philosophy — and the active philosophy is that which is busied about the affections and discretions of the natural virtues; the active philosophy also considers, so far as it may, the reasons of the incarnate Word — all which, that is, the whole moral philosophy concerning the virtues of the soul and the flesh of Christ, the spiritual man, transcending, mounts to that very contemplation of nature in the Spirit, passing over as it were from a certain flesh of the Word to His soul. For the natural theoria is the speculative virtue of the rational soul which Christ took; the spiritual man dies to it when he now not only denies that Christ is flesh, which he now understands to have been turned into spirit, but even rejects that He is a rational soul. For as His flesh was exalted and changed into a rational soul, so His rational soul was taken up and changed into Intellect; and thereby he who ascends to Him perfectly must needs be carried across, as from a certain soul of Christ, to His Intellect — to the uniform and simple induction of theoretic knowledge into the mysteries. Another, from that same simple theological science which revolves chiefly about the Intellect of Christ, mounts mystically into that very perfect and secret divine infinity by negation — dying to all things that are after God, as it were ascending from a certain intellect of Christ to His very divinity. Thus the Lamb of God is slain in the hearts of the faithful, and is made alive by being slain; thus the sin of the world is taken away from all human nature.

³⁰ Here a question not to be despised arises. For it is rightly asked how the Lamb of God — that is, the Saviour of the world — takes away the original sin of the whole human nature: whether it has been taken away already in fact and purged from the whole nature, or whether it is still taken away only in hope, while in fact it shall be removed after the common resurrection of human nature. For if human nature has already been freed from original sin in fact, why do those who are baptized daily in Christ receive remission of original sin and of their own transgressions, which flow from original sin as from a kind of well-spring, through the abundance of grace? And why can they not be born in the flesh without carnal concupiscence, which is nothing else but the penalty of original sin? For if the cause — original sin, I mean — is utterly rooted out, why does its effect, or rather its penalty, still remain? Of which penalty they who are born of that carnal concupiscence are purged by the grace of baptism, beginning to be born again in Christ through the Spirit — so that not only they who are procreated in the flesh through the concupiscence of the flesh need the indulgence of baptism for the transgression of their parents whereby they are conceived, but also for the common crime — namely, original sin — in which all men universally transgressed in the first man.

³¹ To this it must be said: human nature has not yet been freed from original sin either in all men commonly or in individuals particularly, by the fact of the abolition and perfect destruction. This is reserved for the last victory at the end of the world, when, as the Apostle says, the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed. For when death shall be universally destroyed — which is called “the last enemy” in the masculine gender, because in Greek thanatos, that is death, is masculine — its cause, original sin, will necessarily be altogether blotted out from human nature. For the abolition of the cause shall precede the abolition of the effect — that is, the destruction of original sin in all and in each shall precede the destruction of death; in like manner in the whole and in the part — when also that shall be fulfilled which was said through the prophet: “I will be your death, O death, and your bite, O hell.” Still, therefore, is nature freed in hope; but in the future it shall be freed in fact. What then is given through the grace of divine regeneration — through baptism, I mean — if original sin is not utterly rooted out? To this it must be said: only the guilt of original sin is released by baptism, original sin itself still remaining. For it is one thing to draw the arrow out of the wound, another afterwards to heal the wound. This then is all that the grace of baptism confers upon us. For it frees us from the guilt of sin and lifts us into the grace of divine sonship, that the wounds of our transgressions, the guilt being dismissed, may begin to be healed. For so long as the guilt remains in the wound like a kind of iron barb, no wound can be healed; but when it is withdrawn, place is given to spiritual medicine.

Fragment Two — on John 3:1–4:28 #

¹ “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” “Pharisee” means “divided”; the Pharisees are “the divided.” For their sect was divided from the other Jews — that is, from the Scribes and Sadducees. For only the Pharisees believed the resurrection of the dead, the rest contending against it. “Nicodemus” means “victory of the people” or “conqueror of the peoples” — bearing the figure of all who of the Jewish people believed in Christ. Now everyone who believes in Christ conquers the world. “A ruler of the Jews” — that is, one of the rulers of the Jews, taught in the legal letter, a master of Israel.

“This man came to Jesus by night.” According to Augustine, Nicodemus is set in the figure of the catechumens. For the catechumens — that is, those instructed in the faith but not yet baptized nor imbued with the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord — come to Christ having only faith; ignorant yet of the power of baptism which they have not yet received, they approach as it were in a certain night of ignorance of the sacraments. But according to Gregory the Theologian, Nicodemus is taken as a kind of nocturnal disciple, representing those who believe most perfectly in Christ, so that nothing of the integrity of the catholic faith is hidden from them, yet lack the light of perfect works, fearing the assault and envy of the carnal — as it were of the unbelieving Jews — in their own carnal thoughts and deeds; they enjoy the converse of Christ by faith alone, having no confidence of good works. Therefore the evangelist says: “He came to Him by night.”

² “And said to Him: Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no man can do these signs that you do, except God be with him.” From these words by which Nicodemus is seen to address Christ, it is given to be understood that he — Nicodemus, I mean — was one of those who a little before had believed in the day of the Passover, of whom it is said: “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in His name, seeing the signs which He did.” For to this belongs what he says: “No man can do these signs that you do, except God be with him.”

³ “Jesus answered and said to him: Amen, amen, I say to you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” It is asked why Jesus answered Nicodemus concerning the second birth which is according to the spirit, when Nicodemus himself is seen to have asked nothing about it. But it must be answered: because the Lord saw that he had believed, as the others also believed who saw His signs, and had supposed that faith alone sufficed for them without the power of spiritual regeneration and the sacraments — He at once began to teach him of the birth which is according to the spirit. As if He openly said to him: It is not enough for you only to have believed in Me, unless you receive the sacraments of baptism and understand the power of spiritual generation. It is to be noted that in the Greek codices anōthen is read, where in the Latin codices denuo (“again”) is found — so that the sense is: “unless a man be born anōthen” — that is, “from above,” as we say, rather than “again”; which also the Latin itself signifies.

⁴ “The kingdom of God” is the Son of God, who “reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly.” The kingdom of God is the vision of the truth. What He says therefore — “he cannot see the kingdom of God” — is not incongruously understood as: “he cannot know Me, who am the kingdom of the Father.” For I am not only the King of all, but also that kingdom and all things. Rightly, then, the vision of the truth is both called and understood as the kingdom of God.

⁵ “Nicodemus says to Him: How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” He understood carnally, who was yet born only according to the flesh, and therefore answered carnally, because he had not been born of the sacrament of baptism and of the Spirit. Nevertheless he spoke truly, that no man can be born twice according to the flesh, as no man can be born twice according to the spirit. For as a man is born once in the flesh, so once in the spirit.

⁶ “Jesus answered: Amen, amen, I say to you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Here He openly teaches the sacrament of baptism, in which man is born again of water and the Spirit; for by the water the flesh is washed, by the Spirit the soul is regenerated. Water is the visible element; the Spirit is the invisible regenerator. And lest any should think the visible washing suffices without the invisible operation, He adds the word “Spirit” — for neither does water without the Spirit profit, nor does the Spirit refuse the ministry of the water. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” — that is, natural generation produces only carnal man; “and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” — that is, spiritual regeneration produces spiritual man. “Wonder not that I said to you: You must be born again” — literally, “born from above.” The second birth is from above; the first is from below. “The wind blows where it lists, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from which it comes and where it gos; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” As the voice of the wind is heard but its path not traced, so he that is born of the Spirit hears His voice — that is, understands Him — and for what cause He breathes in those in whom He wills, and to what end He leads them. Yet to me it seems easier to be understood if that which the Lord says — “so is every one that is born of the Spirit” — be put interrogatively [as a question to Nicodemus].

⁷ “We speak that we do know” — for He is Himself knowledge and speech; “and testify that we have seen” — for He is Himself the vision and the true testimony. That He spoke in the plural number suggests the mystery of the Holy Trinity. “And you receive not our testimony” — because you do not believe in us, nor can you understand the things we teach; for you are not yet born of the Spirit. “If I have told you earthly things” — or, as the Greek has it, “I was telling you” — “and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Nicodemus had asked how these things could be, supposing the birth from the Spirit impossible; but he hears from the Lord, “If I was telling you earthly things.” It is asked why He said “If I was telling you earthly things,” when nothing earthly seems to have been spoken in the foregoing words — for He spoke wholly spiritual things, teaching the spiritual birth from the Spirit. To this it must be said that the answer looks not to the foregoing but to what He had said above in the day of the Passover to the Jews asking a sign: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He says therefore: If a little above I spoke to you concerning my earthly body to be destroyed — that is, of the temple of my flesh — and you did not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

[The commentary continues through John 3:13–21, on the Son of man which is in heaven, the serpent lifted up in the wilderness as the type of the Crucifixion, “God so loved the world,” and the light come into the world — the text running through the same two-column matter: “And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” — showing that Christ was at once on earth in the flesh and in heaven in His divinity; “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” — the brazen serpent signifying Christ’s flesh: as that healed them that looked upon it, though it bore the likeness of the deadly serpent, so the likeness of sinful flesh, seen by faith, heals from the bite of sin; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” — the world here signifying human nature, which He loved not as sinful but as capable of restoration; “that whoever believes in Him should not perish” — belief itself being the beginning of salvation; “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world” — for He came not to judge but to heal, though judgement follows upon unbelief; “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” — the evil conscience fleeing the light of truth; “but he that does truth comes to the light” — for the doing of truth precedes and draws a man to the knowledge of it.]

⁸ [The text then passes to John 4: “He left Judaea and departed again into Galilee; and He must needs go through Samaria” — Samaria signifying the Gentile peoples kept and guarded; “then comes He to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph” — Sychar meaning “drunkenness” or “the hire”; it figures the gathering of the faithful people receiving the faith of Christ, the field of Jacob signifying the sensible world given to Joseph, that is, to the increase of Christ. “Now Jacob’s well was there” — Jacob’s well is beautifully called the reason of human nature, the depths of the natural senses; for Jacob gave his son this universal lowest part, that is, the sensible nature. The well is either the sensible nature of Jacob — that is, the natural sense — or it is Scripture: “the well” being the letter from which men draw water. Jesus therefore, wearied with His journey, “sat thus on the well” — the journey signifying His progress through human hearts; He sits on the well because He rules over the letter of Scripture and the senses of nature; “it was about the sixth hour” — the sixth hour, the number of perfection and of the world’s making, at which man was made and at which man was restored.

⁹ “There comes a woman of Samaria to draw water.” The Samaritan woman bears the figure of the general Church of the Gentiles, which comes to draw the water of wisdom from the well of the law. “Jesus says to her, Give Me to drink” — Christ thirsts for the faith of believers; the water He seeks is the conversion of the nations. “For His disciples were gone away to the city to buy food” — the teachers go to the city to gather those who should believe, that is, to purchase the nourishment of souls. “Then says the woman of Samaria to Him, How is it that You, being a Jew, ask drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” — the Samaritans, though living under the law of Moses in all things, were estranged from the Jews because they held the temple to be on mount Gerizim, where Jacob lived, and not at Jerusalem. If the Jewish law separated Jews from Samaritans, it also weighed down the Samaritan woman and all Samaritans.

“Jesus answered: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink; you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.” The gift of God is the grace of faith; the living water is the Holy Spirit or the doctrine of the truth. “The woman says: Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep” — the well is deep because the sense of Scripture is hidden; the vessel of drawing is the mind’s capacity; she, still carnal, sees only the letter. “are you greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself?” — Christ is greater than Jacob, because Jacob is His servant; but the woman knows only the letter. The natural order of the human creature is: the body, which is the bed; the senses, which are the servants; the intellect, whose head is Christ — and thus the whole man, male and female, is made whole through Christ, who in the outer body alone suffered. “Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” — the water of this world leaves desire unquenched; the water of the Spirit is “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

“The woman says to Him: Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come here to draw” — she still understands carnally. “Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband.” — for the mind must bring the understanding to meet the truth. “I have no husband.” “you have well said… for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband” — the five husbands are the five senses, by which the soul formerly was wedded to the flesh; the sixth, not a husband, is the carnal wisdom or the mind of the flesh, which is not a true husband but an adulterer. The woman, perceiving prophecy, confesses: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”

¹⁰ “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain” — on mount Gerizim in Samaria, where Jacob had lived, they thought God was to be worshipped — “and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” “Jesus says: Woman, believe Me, the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father.” — for the corporeal places of worship shall pass away; “you worship you know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” — salvation is of the Jews because the Saviour came of their race; “but the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeks such to worship Him” — that is, in the mountain of theology in the spirit they shall worship, who shall be illumined by the Holy Spirit; the Father seeks such as worship Him in their spirit and in the truth of His knowledge. And what He had foretold He concluded by reason, saying:

¹¹ “God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” As if He said: if God were corporeal or a body, perhaps He would seek corporeal places for His worship. Since He is now Spirit, He seeks those who worship Him in their spirit and in the intellect through true knowledge.

¹² “The woman says to Him: I know that Messias comes, which is called Christ” — because the Lord had foretold “the hour comes and now is,” the woman thought He spoke of the Messiah — that is, of Christ to come — whom she did not yet know to be present, as if He had spoken of another. For she had heard from the prophets that Christ would come. Therefore she says: “I know that Messias comes.” She said “comes,” not “shall come” — comparing her words with those of the prophet with whom she was speaking; or, being in a manner illumined by the spirit, she perceived Christ coming presentially; or because it is a manner of speech that one who is on the way is said to “come” though he has not yet come. “Messias” is a Hebrew name which in Greek is rendered “Christos” — that is, “Anointed.” “When He is come, He will tell us all things” — she did not yet perfectly understand Christ present; yet she believed, being taught by the prophets, that Christ’s advent and His doctrine were to be. “He will tell us all things” — namely, all that pertains to His worship and His Father’s.

¹³ “Jesus says to her: I that speak to you am He.” First the Lord opened the understanding of the woman that she might believe; then He manifested Himself to her. For she had believed the prophets who foretold the advent of Christ; and therefore she merited that He should speak with her whom she believed to be coming — though she knew Him not yet present. By the merit of whose faith it happened that she knew the Christ speaking of Himself and saying: I am the very Christ; whom you know as future, know now as present.

¹⁴ “And upon this came His disciples, and wondered that He talked with the woman.” Why did they wonder, when Christ most often spoke with women? They wondered not that their Lord spoke with a woman, but only this — that He spoke with a Samaritan, that is, a foreign woman — not knowing the mystery of the Church to be gathered from the Gentiles. “Yet no man said: What seek You, or why talk You with her?” — for the disciples dared not question their Lord, fearing to be rebuked by Him if they rashly questioned Him, not yet able to know the mystery of the coming Church.

¹⁵ “The woman then left her waterpot.” After the Church, or human nature, knew the presence of the divine substance in the flesh, she left her waterpot — she left her carnal custom, she left the water and the study of carnal knowledge — “and went her way into the city, and says to the men: Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” — the woman preaching to the city is the primitive Church preaching Christ to the nations.

Fragment Three — on John 6:1–14 #

¹ “Jesus went over the sea of Galilee” — the sea of Galilee signifying the stormy course of this present world, which Christ crossed when He ascended above the world’s cares in the flesh He had taken. “And a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased” — the multitude following the Lord for signs, not yet for the word, is the figure of the imperfect in faith. “And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples” — the mountain is the height of contemplation; there the Lord sits with His disciples, who alone ascend with Him, while the multitude remains below in the plain.

² “When Jesus then lifted up His eyes and saw a great company come to Him” — the Lord could not see the multitude coming to Him unless He lifted up His eyes — He who, before the world was made, had seen all things, and never needed the instruments of bodily eyes to see. He lifts up His eyes, therefore, teaching us to lift up the eyes of our heart, and that the whole world runs together from every side to the faith of Christ. By the example of Christ lifting up His eyes we are admonished to lift up the eyes of our heart, so that if perchance, He teaching us and inwardly illumining, we are suffered to ascend the height of action and knowledge, and also of theology, the multitude of carnal thoughts following us may not trouble us nor cast us down from the height of contemplation, but we may take care to feed them with spiritual food so far as they can receive it.

³ “He says to Philip” — Philip, which is interpreted “mouth of a lamp,” bears the figure of those who preach the faith, to whom the Lord speaks daily, being set with Christ in the height of contemplation, concerning the feeding of the multitude of carnal thoughts: “From where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” “And this He said to prove him” — that is, consulting his faith about the coming miracle. God is the tempter of evil men, but He tempts the elect for the sake of proving, not of supplanting. For there are two kinds of temptation: one proves the faith of the just, the other reproves the perfidy of the impious.

⁴ “For He Himself knew what He would do.” He tempted Philip, I say, for the sake of proving him, not of learning what should be done. For He Himself knew — not before any time, but before all times — all the miracles which He was about to do in the world. For what it says, “He Himself knew,” is not “He came to know at some time,” but He had known before all times what He was to do.

⁵ “Philip answered Him: Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.” Philip, still drinking the milk of doctrine, unable to take the solid food of the true faith and knowledge, answered according to the power of his then virtue, supposing it impossible for so great a multitude to be refreshed by a few loaves. For the sake of teaching him, therefore, the Lord plays with Philip, tempting the simplicity of his faith, that he might thereby learn to ascend higher and believe no difficulty possible to God. To the tempting Lord — that is, to Him proving their faith — the order of the evangelizers, which, as we have said, is typically signified through Philip, answered, praising Him: “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient.” The number two hundred is perfect; ten makes a hundred(?); which number, if doubled, makes two hundred — beautifully bearing the type of the perfection of good action and of rational knowledge, which do not suffice for those to be fed — that is, to be hearers in the faith — unless the height of theology be added to them. For the action of the virtues only purges the souls of the faithful; the knowledge of created things illumines them; but that purgation and illumination do not suffice for them unless the habit of perfect contemplation be added, which alone brings souls to the consummated fulness of spiritual refreshment.

⁶ “One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, says to Him: There is a lad here which has five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?” With the same simplicity as Philip, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, answered; yet in that simplicity manifold contemplation is contained. This lad — whether he be understood, according to the faith of the narrative, as one of the disciples or as a certain boy of the multitude that followed them — mystically signifies the lawgiver, namely Moses, who is not incongruously called a lad, because the very Law given through him brought none to the perfect age of justice. The lawgiver is called one lad because he prefigured the future unity of the Church in deeds and prophesied in words. “Here,” he said — that is, in the Old Testament, which, now that the New grows bright, has begun to fade, yet has not wholly departed.

⁷ “Which has five barley loaves” — the five barley loaves are the five books of the Mosaic law, which are rightly called barley loaves, because carnal men were fed on them. For barley is properly the food of beasts of burden, not of men. The carnal people, still living under the letter and not forsaking the oldness of the first man — of whom it is written, “Man being in honour had no understanding, but is compared to the senseless beasts and is made like to them” — was reckoned in the number of brute beasts, and therefore fed on the letter alone, as on a kind of barley bread mixed with chaff, and not on the spiritual marrow of that letter. For to the grains of barley the innermost husks of chaff so naturally adhere that they can scarce be separated from their marrow — signifying the difficulty of understanding the legal sacraments and commandments. The number five of the barley loaves is also not incongruously understood to suggest the five senses of the body. For the more any of the faithful takes pleasure in the things perceived through the five senses of the body, the more he shall be reckoned among the brute beasts that feed on barley; but when, forsaking them — the senses, I mean — through the increase of action and knowledge, he is fed with spiritual food, he is reckoned no longer among the brutes but among rational animals. Since, therefore, no one is suffered to ascend to the height of the virtues and of contemplations unless he be first nourished by the signification of sensible things, the Lord beautifully distributes the barley loaves to the multitude of the faithful that follows Him — that, having first been sated thereby, if they keep the faith which they received, He may lead them to spiritual and loftier aliments of the rational creature, on which they cannot be nourished until they transcend the bodily senses and all that is received through them.

⁸ What he says therefore — “but what are they among so many?” — is as if he said: the letter of the Law, or the bodily senses and bodily things — what are they? what do they profit for so great a multitude of the faithful who shall believe in You and seek spiritual food, which surpasses every letter and every bodily sense? “For eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for them that love Him.”

⁹ “And Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place.” The much grass signifies the letter of the Law, which was manifold in symbols; it also not incongruously signifies the many carnal thoughts which are fed into souls through the bodily senses and most swiftly slip away from them. Beautifully also the disciples are commanded to make the men sit down, because the teachers of the truth cannot raise to the height of contemplation those they have undertaken to instruct unless they first, as it were in the lowest places — in the simplicity of the letter and of the visible creation — begin to teach them. For the first step toward ascending the height of the virtues is the letter of holy Scripture and the forms of visible things — that, the letter first read or the creature inspected, they may ascend by the steps of right reason to the spirit of the letter and to the reason of the creature. “So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.” By the same rule of contemplation: as by the five loaves the five books of Moses are signified, so far as the letter is concerned — or the five senses of the body — so by the five thousand the multitude is rightly indicated of those who lived under the law of the letter, or of those still subject to the carnal senses. For the number a thousand is a perfect and cubic number: ten times ten times ten makes up the sum of the thousand. Which, when it is multiplied by five, suggests the fulness of those who live carnally — who, as soon as they have been instructed by holy history and the visible surface of things, are to pass over to the height of spiritual things.

¹⁰ “And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.” The Lord took the loaves because He Himself gave the Law through Moses — so that the Law is rightly called His who gave it, not his through whom it was given as by a minister. “And when He had given thanks, He distributed to them that were set down” — to whom gave He thanks but to the Father, who so loved the world that He gave His Son, through whom to feed the world with visible sacraments and sensible creatures, that through them He might lead men to know Him and nourish them? The two fishes signify the two Testaments, so far as concerns sensible symbols — for fishes live in water, yet upon the surface of the water: so the sensible symbols in both Testaments begin to live indeed, yet upon the surface. Which symbols, when they begin to be understood in a higher manner, are distributed to all who rightly desire them, as much as they will. For to distribute is to distinguish the visible symbols from their invisible understandings and to apportion them according to each man’s capacity. Some will have it that by the two fishes the two persons in the Law — namely, the king and the priest — are signified; others, the prophets and the psalms.

¹¹ “When they were filled, He said to His disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” The simple multitude of the faithful is filled and content with the letter alone, with the visible creation, and with the visible symbols; but the spiritual understandings of the letter and of the creature and of the symbols, as it were certain remaining fragments, the teachers of the Church are commanded to gather — which understandings the still-carnal cannot receive — lest anything of those understandings perish uncomprehended, but that from them the rational desire of spiritual souls may be sated in the divine contemplations. The fragments, therefore, of the barley loaves are the subtle and difficult understandings of the holy Scripture and of the sensible sacraments, which the doctors of the Church gather into one, lest anything of them be lost — that is, lest anything of them remain which is not distributed to those able to receive intelligible senses. “Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained over and above to them that had eaten.” The number twelve of the baskets typically figures the capacity of the wise who gather the spiritual understandings. For the number twelve is most perfect and, considered in many ways, signifies the intellects of divine men endowed with the action of the virtues, and with the knowledge of things, and with theology, which is concerned with divine things only. The perfection of the number twelve consists first in that it is the double of the number six. Now the number six denotes the perfection of good works in this life, which, if doubled, grows as it were into the quantity of the number twelve — into the eternal contemplation which is the fruit of all good operation. Again, the number twelve contains within itself all the harmonies of music. For it has the diatessaron in the four related to the three; it has the diapente in the three and the two; it has the diapason between itself and the six(?); within the eight also the whole diapason; it has the tone between the nine and the eight. All these numbers are contained within the bounds of twelve — and thereby the connected harmony of all things visible and invisible is figured by such a number, a harmony known and comprehensible only to those who understand divine things, so far as is given to men. The number twelve also is divided into ten and two; therefore it signifies the law of the letter, which is tenfold, and the commandment of charity, which is twofold and on which hang the Law and the prophets. Therefore those who fulfil the Law by the commandment of charity — they are the baskets in which the spiritual fragments of the divine understandings and knowledges are perfected by deification. For the number twelve is divided into seven and five — the numbers attributed to the music of the human voice — and it denotes the wonderful concord of all things returning to one end. For the five multiplied in itself makes twenty-five; and the seven is divided into two members, the greater of which is four, the lesser three. If, then, you multiply the number seven by its lesser member you will make twenty-one; to which number if you add the greater member, it will likewise be twenty-five — and thereby the five and the seven multiplied are said to come to one end. Spiritual, then, are the baskets, who by the virtue of action and knowledge arrive at the one end of eternal contemplation.

¹² “Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said: This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” Again the imperfect multitude is rebuked, in that on account of the visible sign, not on account of the intelligible power of the sign, they said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” In this miracle the meaning of the quantity of the five barley loaves is not without cause sought — why the fragments of the five loaves only, and not also of the two fishes, were gathered to fill the twelve baskets, when the Gospel relates that five thousand men were sated of the five loaves and the two fishes. The depth of this mystery seems to me obscure, so that it can scarce be searched out. For Augustine in his exposition of John treats nothing of it, but wholly passes it over. Although it may seem to many sufficient what is read in Mark — “they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes” — so that it is understood: “and of the fishes they took up fragments — either other fragments or the same.” But if other, there were not twelve but twenty-four baskets; if the same, it had sufficed to say, “they took up twelve baskets of fragments.” It seems not void of mystery that, as it were after the gathering of the fragments of bread, he adds “and of the fishes” absolutely, adding nothing. For Matthew and Luke mention the fragments without distinction, leaving it ambiguous whether of loaves only, as John says, or of loaves and fishes together. Let us attempt therefore, so far as the Light of minds shall grant, to inquire — not prejudging the senses of others. For we said above that the five senses of the body, or the five Mosaic books, are indicated by the number five of the loaves; and by the two fishes the symbols of each Testament. Where first it must be asked what difference there is between the mysteries of each law — of the letter, namely, and of grace — and the symbols. Now properly “mysteries” are those things which are delivered according to the allegory both of the deed and of the word — that is, which both were actually done and are narrated in the letter of holy Scripture. For example, the Mosaic tabernacle was both actually constructed and was spoken and narrated in the letter of holy Scripture. Likewise the sacraments of the legal victims were both actually made and were narrated; circumcision likewise both was done in the flesh and was narrated in the letter. In the New Testament also the mysteries of baptism, of the Lord’s body and blood, and of the holy chrism, are both performed according to the deed and delivered in the letter. And this form of the sacraments is reasonably called by the holy Fathers the allegory of deed and word. The other form is that which has properly received the name of “symbol,” and is called the allegory of the word only, not of the deed — because it is constituted only in the words of spiritual doctrine, not in sensible deeds. Mysteries, therefore, are those things which in either Testament both were done according to history and were narrated in the letter; but symbols are those which were not done but only spoken as if done by doctrine alone. For example, in the Old Law it is written: “you shall not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk” — which indeed is never read to have been done historically, as Augustine testifies; yet it was spoken and written and handed down as if done, though the truth of the divine history is not found to relate that it was done. Likewise in the Psalms: “The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like lambs of the sheep.” In these places of the divine Scripture, and in many like them, only the allegory of the word, not of deed and word, is understood. In the New Testament also many things are narrated which were not done according to the faith of history, but only spoken and as it were done — examples of which are found chiefly in the allegory of the Lord’s parables, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the poor man in Abraham’s bosom, and of the gulf fixed between them, of the flame, of the tongue, of the finger — all of which no authority relates to have been done historically, but all are spoken figuratively. Which form is recognised in nearly all the parables, and is properly named symbolical; though it is the usage of divine Scripture to put symbols for mysteries and mysteries for symbols, by a kind of neighbourhood and similitude.

¹³ Let us then set up a similitude whereby we may persuade what we wish to assert. The multitude of carnal faithful went before both in the Old Law and in the New. Already there is one who thinks nothing exists beyond the letter and the bodily senses, because he cannot ascend higher beyond the letter of Scripture and the things received through the senses. Likewise in the Old Law the perfect and wise in action and in the knowledge of spiritual understandings — and in the New Testament — are narrated to have been those who, like disciples, ascend with Christ into the height of contemplation as into a kind of mountain, leaving the carnal, who recline under the letter and the sense in the grass of temporal things — “for all flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass.” Let us imagine, then, in our mind a kind of multitude of the simple faithful residing on the sides of the mountain or in the plain — that is, within the height of the divine understandings. For from the text of the Gospel it is given to be understood that it was not on the summit of the mountain but in a certain plain, where there was much grass, that the Lord fed the multitude. To this multitude hungering for the faith of Christ are set five loaves and two fishes — that is, the sacraments which were both done and written, and the symbols which were only spoken and not done. Christ, taking the five loaves and the two fishes and giving thanks — to the Father, namely, who willed that His faithful should be fed by symbols and sacraments — delivers them to His disciples, His teachers, His ministers; and they divide them to the multitude. The barley loaves are broken by the disciples when the mysteries of each law are divided by them into their historical deeds and their spiritual understandings. The carnal are fed by the simple history; the spiritual gather the divine understandings of that history as it were certain fragments. The fragments which the carnal eat and are filled with are the deeds done; the fragments which the spiritual eat are the divine understandings of the deeds done. For example: let the book of Genesis be read at the place where the passage of carnal Israel through the Red Sea is narrated. The simple Christian, still reclining as it were in the grass of temporal and carnal things, is fed by the history alone. For whatever was done there was known by the five bodily senses: for the Israelites were seen to cross the sea with dry feet, and the Egyptians to have been drowned; and this was also heard by other nations — the wave of the sea was tasted, smelled, and touched(?). All which the still-simple faithful soul considers and thinks within itself, and is sated by them as by certain fragments of the divine history. But he cannot take the understanding of that letter itself; therefore it is gathered by those who savour spiritual things, lest it perish — that it may profit those able to understand. See the five barley loaves — namely, the mysteries of deeds done, divided into letter and spirit, and, so far as the letter goes, fitting the quinary bodily senses.

¹⁴ But — he says — “these are the two Testaments.” Let the two fishes be set before the same multitude — that is, the spiritual doctrine spoken allegorically only, not done according to history. Which is contained as it were in the binary number, because it is perceived by two senses only — namely, sight and hearing — but cannot be perceived by the other senses. For it is read with the eyes, heard with the ears, but removed from smell and taste and touch. For example — to use the same examples — let that be read which is written in Exodus: “you shall not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.” This symbol is both read through the eyes and heard through the ears; but it cannot be broken(?), because it is not received according to the faith of deeds done, but is only spoken allegorically. And because it is not divided, it is all committed to the memory of the carnal faithful, that they may believe a spiritual sense to be contained in these words, though they do not understand it. It is all gathered by those who spiritually discern spiritual things. In the symbols, therefore — that is, in the dicta of spiritual doctrine which the allegory of the word alone, not of the deed, hands down — no fragments are gathered, because it is not divided into history and understanding: for only the understanding is thought in it, and no deed. Again in the New Testament — that we may take an example from there also — the mystery of the body and blood of our Lord is both sensibly performed according to the deed and investigated according to spiritual understanding. What is felt and perceived outwardly by carnal men, subject to the quinary bodily sense, is barley bread, because they cannot ascend the height of the spiritual understanding — and it is as it were a fragment wherewith their carnal thought is sated; but the spiritual fragment is for those who can discern the height of the divine understandings of that mystery, and therefore it is gathered by them lest it perish. For the mystery, being made of letter and spirit, partly perishes, partly remains eternally: it perishes as to what is seen, because that is sensible and temporal; it remains as to what is not seen, because that is spiritual and eternal.

¹⁵ Let the example of a symbol be: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is spoken only; no deed is discerned in it; and therefore it is both wholly and simply received by the carnal and wholly and uniformly by the spiritual. Nor can any fragments be made there, because there is nothing there which is understood according to history, but all is referred to theology, which surpasses every sense and intellect. It is read with the eyes of the readers, felt by the ears of the hearers — and thereby, like two fishes, one and the same theology of the evangelist is received, fitting two senses.

The rest is wanting.

Notice to the Reader #

John Scottus could scarce have undertaken a more perilous province than to essay the arduous and most obscure theological question “On Predestination” by his dialectical and philosophical arguments. Since he could accomplish little in it, what wonder that he drew upon himself nearly all the darts of his adversaries? Of these, Prudentius of Troyes and, in the name of the Church of Lyons, the deacon Florus most vehemently attacked Scottus’s book as soon as it came to light, and refuted it with the highest learning. The reader may consult their writings, printed in this Patrology, vols. CXV and CXIX.

Scottus is occupied chiefly in showing that neither a twofold predestination nor a double one at all accords with reason, but that there is only one predestination of the most simple divine unity; and he strives to prove this by various arguments drawn from reason, holy Scripture, Augustine, and elsewhere. Yet the arguments which he adduces and his doctrine do not so fully accord with the truth, but that they very often openly conflict with sound reason and the doctrine of the Church. For he teaches that “foreknowledge and predestination are one and the same; that predestination cannot occur in God relatively; that nature is not punished by nature; that nature, because it is from God, neither sins nor is punished; nor did the generality of nature sin in the first man — which nature, if it had sinned, since it is one, would wholly have perished; that only the individual will of each one sins, and only the voluntary lustful motion is punished; that the whole will is the nature of the soul; that all evil is sin and its punishment, and that these are nothing; that every defect or privation or sin of the perverse will, and its end — death and the misery of eternal punishments — are altogether nothing, and therefore are neither foreknown nor predestined; that sins and their punishments are nothing; and that that eternal fire is not a punishment, nor prepared or predestined for it; that in it doubtless dwell both the blessed and the wretched — that this eternal fire is the fourth element of the world, wherein the bodies of the saints shall be changed into ethereal quality, while the bodies of the wicked shall pass into aerial quality; and that therein is wrought the wonderful joy of natures within themselves, but the ineffable torment of evil wills; and that the bodies of all the impious, angels and men, shall suffer the punishments of the eternal fire in such wise that their substance, never to perish in integrity, their beauty never to be taken from them, remaining in the natural soundness, with all the goods of nature restored in wonderful order for the ornament of the universe — except beatitude, of which they are deprived — they suffer eternal pangs. That God is not the author and maker of punishments; that punishments are evil, and therefore are not from God, from whom is no evil; that God does not punish what He made, nor take away natural goods from the things He made; that God ever dwells in that nature which He created; that the eternal fire was made for the burning of the devil and his angels, not for the tormenting of men; that to the devil, after he was cast down from the aether, where in an ethereal body he could not feel pains, an aerial body was given in which he might feel the fire.”

When John Scottus had openly put forth these and like things from the decrees of his philosophy against the doctrine of holy Church and of the holy Scriptures, what wonder that he harmed rather than profited those who had impelled him to compose this book? Nor is it sufficiently understood why Archbishop Hincmar, easily the most prudent of his peers, summoned John Scottus to defend his position by such a writing. Prudentius attacked Scottus with arms against which he could scarce resist — the authorities of the holy Fathers, of which he heaped up innumerable passages and most bitterly censured his adversary. We have not omitted to add in the proper places, from Prudentius’s “Recapitulation” which he appended at the end of his work, certain notes in which he remedies each of Scottus’s errors. But that you may know the weapons which our author drew upon himself in this writing, it pleases us to transcribe certain entire passages from the books of Prudentius and Florus, and also the judgements of two synods.

For Prudentius, in the preface of his book addressed to Wenilo, archbishop of Sens, thus begins:

“Kindled, as is fitting and behoves, with zeal for the catholic faith and the affection of true charity, most blessed father, you have sent me a certain sheet containing nineteen chapters selected from the book of a certain Scot, departing, as you say, from our intellect in a certain way — asking and admonishing me that, whatever in them I should find straying from the truth, I should bring forth abundantly fitting answers for each chapter deviating from the books of the Gospel and the authorities of the catholic doctors. Having run through and carefully examined them, I found in them the poisons of Pelagian perfidy, and in some places the madness of Origen and the fury of the Collyridian heretics — who were deservedly refuted by the worshippers and most mighty defenders of the catholic faith, and long before our times damned by the censure of most just severity. I trembled, I confess, and shuddered that so many errors, long ago lulled to sleep with their authors, should sprout again in our times, and that smokes once dying should burst forth again in a new conflagration and darken the eyes of many by their harmfulness. When I prepared my mind to apply itself, as you had commanded, to refuting them, terrified by the difficulty of the task I deliberated to omit it altogether. But weighing the authority of him who admonished, I deemed it better, with the fruit of obedience — though less than full — to fail somewhat than, by dull timidity, to contradict paternal reverence. Strengthened therefore by the merits of him who asked and the most earnest purity of him who commanded, it seemed good to me to seek with diligent curiosity the book itself, if perchance it could be found, that from its sequence I might the more easily survey the tortuous roughnesses of such great errors. Having obtained it by the grace of God — without which I am nothing and can do nothing — as I had wished, I perceived, so far as divinely inspired I could, that John — namely, the Scot — follows Pelagius, Caelestius, and their most bitter follower and defender Julian through all things, barking with such impudence at the orthodox faith and the catholic Fathers as if one spirit had taught Julian and John, one and the same spirit had been in them, and no different spirit had belched through their tongues so many and so great nauseas of blasphemies. For they equally impugn the gratuitous grace of God, and in like manner deny the justice of God, and with indistinguishable garrulity dissuade from original sin, which we draw from our birth and from which we are loosed only by heavenly grace through the mystery of baptism, and they play the fool by dialectical subtleties with like vanity. They also pervert the most right understanding of the holy Scriptures and the most sound sense of the catholic Fathers with such polished varicosity as if nothing had ever been done against their errors. To which, since most fitting and most abundant answer has been made by the Fathers, especially by the most blessed Augustine, I have in no wise believed myself to be judged guilty of presumption by pious readers if, willingly obeying your admonitions with the piety which dictates, I offer for my portion in the gifts of the tabernacle of my Lord what I can — leaving to the better and more learned what better things they may have wished and been able to offer. Nor, as St Jerome says, can the wealth of one be made common property with the poverty of another. Trusting therefore in His grace whereby we are anticipated that we may will well, and aided that we may not will in vain — having unrolled the consonant pages of the Fathers throughout, I have taken care faithfully to cull what antidote each of them compounded against these same poisons, prefixing the name of each doctor and likewise intimating the book. I have also inserted the words of the same John, as they are digested by him, in many places, prefixing also his name with that foregoing mark which in Greek is called thēlus, which the ancients used to set before the capitular sentences of those to be condemned. For if I have not interwoven his words in many places, which by excessive loquacity breed weariness in the readers, I have truly met their senses according to the measure of my littleness.”

Then in the first chapter he inveighs against John Scottus in these words:

“Your blasphemies, John, and impudences, wherewith you have wantonly inveighed against the gratuitous grace and inflexible justice of God — having run through the book of your perversity, which you have poured out under the name of a certain Gottschalk against all catholics — I have received with the more grief the more familiarly I embraced you and the more peculiarly loved you; seeing that you have broken out into such madness as to wrench the most grave authority of the holy Scriptures by your depraved interpretations, and to teach that the senses of the catholic Fathers are to be perverted by perverse senses — doubtless affixing for us a certain quadrivium for understanding the Scriptures, which our fathers — namely, all the catholic expositors, resplendent with divine and human wisdom, most learnedly and lucidly imbued from heaven in expounding them, and opening the rules and manifold modes of locutions — left behind, in which they are proved to have made no mention of your quadrivium and utterly despised it, proposing to us ways far better, holier, and more learned; supported by whose help we can both avoid the dregs of your sophistries, and draw and serve the purity of the most simple faith from the clearest and sweetest fountains, in the name and aid of the helping — no, anticipating — grace of God.”

Nor does he gently rebuke him a little after in the same chapter:

“Although we are not ignorant that, by the command of the Lord, the golden and silver vessels and the varied beauty of clothing and gems were borrowed from the Egyptians and offered to His tabernacle, and are to be offered the more devoutly; yet that, as often as the highest necessity compelled to act against those who, puffed up with such things, gloried in their vanities and counted the simplicity of our faith foolishness, it was not forbidden to carry it out as occasion required, but was faithfully and prudently practised by the Fathers. But you, contrariwise, writing most impudently against the faithful concerning the faith — they relying on no sophisms — why have you turned to sophistic deliriums? It is manifest, doubtless, that studious of boasting, and now desiring to be seen not a philosopher but a philocompus, you have chosen to foist upon us things which you did believe none of us could either understand or detect or certainly confute; and while you studi to please men, to whom you knew it was a matter of the heart — if indeed there are any such, which may the eternal truth avert — you have in no wise either avoided or feared to displease Him of whom the prophet, threatening concerning such, foretells: ‘For God has scattered the bones of them that please men; they are confounded, because God has despised them.’ Nor have you feared with Achan to bring into the camp of the Lord the golden rule from the Jericho anathema against the prohibition, and already, unless you repent sooner by humbly repenting, you shall deservedly undergo with him the sentence of the divine visitation. For whoever have diligently examined the prophetic or apostolic letters for us, have acutely understood, and faithfully unfolded them — opening the obscure, adorning the plain, disentangling the most knotty, unveiling the allegorical — have laboured at this above all: that they should use that manner of speech by which even the simpler, who either heard or read, might be apprehended without grave difficulty. And as this has been providently observed by all, it shines forth especially in the little works of the most blessed and learned father Augustine, bishop of venerable memory, which he composed On Christian Doctrine, in which with most learned humility and most humble learning he both sanctioned and taught that the figments of such portents as your and your like are to be avoided and fled; and likewise in those which, elucidated with wonderful lucidness, he willed to be marked with the name of Questions or Locutions of the Heptateuch. The most blessed Jerome also, incomparably learned in the letters of so many tongues and books, in all his explanations, both prophetic and apostolic, insists — repeating it more often — that this had been his chief study: to prefer that the sayings of the holy Scriptures be understood through themselves rather than to serve the controversies of the rhetoricians — taught, doubtless, by the scourge of the tremendous Judge, by which he was brought for too much reading of Cicero, and being sharply beaten was at length freed by the prayers of the bystanders, and swore that he would never thereafter meditate the books of Cicero, never read them — which contempt of this disputation he thus drew forth in the epistle to the Galatians, saying, etc.”

In the third chapter these words stand, from which it is gathered that John Scottus was not distinguished by the grades of ecclesiastical dignity: “Who are you, a barbarian, marked by no grades of ecclesiastical dignity, nor ever to be marked by catholics, that you should dare to bark against Gregory, the prelate of the Roman city and apostolic see…?”

In the fourteenth chapter Prudentius, with most bitter irony: “You alone,” he says, “sharpest of all, has Hibernia sent over to Gaul, that she might obtain by your eruditions what she could not know without you. But far be it that Celtic eloquence should admit your vapourings with so many and so great overflowings of rivers — though the eminence of Christian humility least forbids mutual services of charity to be supplied in turn; no, from whatever source it has judged it expedient, it counts that the things which are right should be alternately exhibited.”

Finally, Prudentius’s book ends with these words:

“This is our faith, because this is the true, prophetic, apostolic, orthodox, and catholic faith. I could indeed also pronounce anathema against you, did I not expect, and prefer, and desire your correction rather than your perdition. Therefore I do not yet hurl upon you the severity of anathema, because I exhort, I admonish, and with all the affections of my heart I beseech you that, looking to the grace from above, you come to your senses and at length awaken from so lethal a lethargy; and what Christian purity holds, do you benevolently seek out, humbly apprehend, gently acquiesce in, meekly retain, devoutly hold, and faithfully in all things carry out. And put away the quadrivium of vanity, whereby following it you have been made a stranger to the way of truth. How much better and more wholesomely would you do, if, leaning on the one true and eternal way, you were carried humbly by its chariot, than to be hurried by the pride of your quadrivium into various mire. The chariot of this way is the four Gospels, flowing from the one fountain of paradise, by which the saving way is opened to us. The chariot of this way is the four virtues — prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice — by which all probity of manners is adorned. The chariot of this way is the four species of the divine utterances — historical, ethical, allegorical, anagogical — by which we are led to the whole understanding of the sacred letters, His grace illuminating. Which, if you had studied humbly and faithfully to follow, you would never have fallen into such precipices of errors and abominations, no, of blasphemies. But while you have clung with such pertinacity to the varicose quadrivium, you have in no wise willed to escape that saying of the book of Ecclesiasticus, where it is said: “He that speaks sophistically is hateful; in every thing he shall be defrauded.” For grace has not been given him by the Lord — “he is defrauded of all wisdom”; and this: “In much talking you shall not escape sin.” If you desire to be freed from these things, prostrate yourself a suppliant before the humility of the most high Crucified, that you may be able to say with the Apostle: “I judged myself to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”; and likewise: “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” To these things, written in the name and aid of God, more devoutly than learnedly according to the measure and powers of my littleness, and for the sake also of your correction, brother John, it pleases me to note down briefly and succinctly, chapter by chapter, each point, that the intention of the reader or hearer may commend the things read or heard more tenaciously to memory.”

And so much from the book of Prudentius. Florus of Lyons, who composed his book in the name of the Church of Lyons, attacks John Scottus with most like weapons. For he thus begins: “There came to us — that is, to the Church of Lyons — the writings of a certain vain-speaking and garrulous man, who, disputing as it were on the divine foreknowledge and predestination by human and, as he himself glories, philosophical argumentations — rendering no reason, alleging no authority of the Scriptures or of the holy Fathers — has dared to define by his own presumption alone things which are to be held and followed; which, because they are most vain and contrary to the faith and truth of God, full of falsehood and error, are, God helping, most easily judged and rejected by faithful readers exercised in sacred doctrine — no, are even held in contempt and ridicule. But because by many, as we have heard, the same man, as if…”

[The notice then quotes the synodal decrees. The canons of the synod of Valence (855), canon 1: “The four chapters, which have been accepted without due examination by the council of our brethren, for their uselessness, or rather their harmfulness and error contrary to the truth — and also the other nineteen, most ineptly concluded in syllogisms and, though they boast, shining with no secular learning, in which is detected rather a fiction of the devil than any argument of the faith — we utterly reject from the pious hearing of the faithful, and by the authority of the Holy Spirit wholly forbid that such and the like be avoided(?), and they decree that introducers of novelties are to be punished, lest they be more severely smitten.” And canon 6: “But the inept little questions and nearly old wives’ tales of the Scots’ porridge(?), bringing nausea to the purity of the faith, which in most perilous and most grievous times have miserably and tearfully grown up to the cumulation of our labours, even to the rending of charity — lest Christian minds be thereby corrupted and fall away from the simplicity and chastity of the faith which is in Christ Jesus — we utterly reject, and by the love of the Lord Christ we admonish that brotherly charity guard its hearing from such things. Let the brotherhood remember that it is weighed down by the gravest weights of the world, that it is most hardly choked by the excessive harvest of the wicked and the chaff of light men. Let it be zealous to overcome these things, let it labour to correct them, and not burden the company of the piously grieving and groaning with superfluities, but rather embrace with certain and true faith what has been sufficiently set forth concerning these and the like by the holy Fathers.” The synod of Langres (859), canon 4, uses these words: “Furthermore, the nineteen chapters, most ineptly and most falsely concluded in syllogisms by a certain Scot — wherein appears not an argument of the faith but rather a fiction of perfidy, constructed by no art of philosophy, as is arrogantly boasted by some, but confused most unskilfully by an empty fallacy and deceit — we utterly reject from the pious hearing of the faithful,” etc., as in the synod of Valence, canon 4.]

These things being so, what wonder that that work of John Scottus vanished from all libraries of manuscript books, if we except the one Paris codex? For the writers of the book entitled Histoire littéraire de la France, the Benedictines, vol. V, p. 420, passed this judgement on John Scottus’s book: “Reasoning is the method he sets himself. But besides that reason does not suffice to decide points of faith, it appears from the sequel of his reasonings that he did not even know how to reason rightly. We need no other proofs than the absurdities and frequent contradictions into which he fell.” See also what is said of this book of J. Scotus in the dissertation printed above.