A History of Western Philosophy

(Martin Jones) #1

ing Neoplatonism with Christianity. The date of this work is unknown; it was certainly before 500
and after Plotinus. It was widely known and admired in the East, but in the West it was not
generally known until the Greek Emperor Michael, in 827, sent a copy to Louis the Pious, who
gave it to the above-mentioned Abbot Hilduin. He, believing it to have been written by Saint
Paul's disciple, the reputed founder of his abbey, would have liked to know what its contents
were; but nobody could translate the Greek until John appeared. He accomplished the translation,
which he must have done with pleasure, as his own opinions were in close accord with those of
the pseudo-Dionysius, who, from that time onward, had a great influence on Catholic philosophy
in the West.


John's translation was sent to Pope Nicholas in 860. The Pope was offended because his
permission had not been sought before the work was published, and he ordered Charles to send
John to Rome--an order which was ignored. But as to the substance, and more especially the
scholarship shown in the translation, he had no fault to find. His librarian Anastasius, an excellent
Grecian, to whom he submitted it for an opinion, was astonished that a man from a remote and
barbarous country could have possessed such a profound knowledge of Greek.


John's greatest work was called (in Greek) On the Division of Nature. This book was what, in
scholastic times, would have been termed "realist"; that is to say, it maintained, with Plato, that
universals are anterior to particulars. He includes in "Nature" not only what is, but also what is
not. The whole of Nature is divided into four classes: (1) what creates and is not created, (2) what
creates and is created, (3) what is created but does not create, (4) what neither creates nor is
created. The first, obviously, is God. The second is the (Platonic) ideas, which subsist in God. The
third is things in space and time. The fourth, surprisingly, is again God, not as Creator, but as the
End and Purpose of all things. Everything that emanates from God strives to return to Him; thus
the end of all such things is the same as their beginning. The bridge between the One and the
many is the Logos.


In the realm of not-being he includes various things, for example, physical objects, which do not
belong to the intelligible world, and sin, since it means loss of the divine pattern. That which
creates and

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