Johannes Eriugena's Poetry (Notes)

Reading John J. O'Meara's Eriugena, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Chapter 10 is on the Poetry of Eriugena:

1) historical context
Poetry in Latin was an important element in the Carolingian Renaissance. This poetry was political and inspired by Virgil, especially by his Aeneid. Louis the Pious reacted against this, Charles the Bald revived it.

Prevalent themes are the praise of the holy Cross, hagiography and moral didacticism. The focus of the poetry is Charles the Bald himself. Almost every poem of Eriugena praises and prays for him.

Irishmen had a great influence in promoting theological debates at that time.

Poets in Charles' time had an interest in parody, for example Sedulius Scotus's poem on the ram.

2) Eriugena's poetry

In the Edition of L. Traube in the MGH (Monumenta germaniae historica: poetae latini aevi Carolini, 3) one can find lists of Greek words in Greek script.. There are some pieces composed altogether in Greek written in Greek script. There is one in Greek but transliterated into Latin script. There are poems in Greek (in Greek script) followed by a word-for-word translation in Latin. Many of the poems have Greek words introduced here and there, sometimes few, sometimes many. About half of the poems are written in elegiac couplets and half in dactylic hexameter (p. 178-179).

His poems derive from a collection formed during his lifetime and probably by the author himself. They were written between 850 and 877. The extant poems come mainly form MSS Vat. Reg. 1587 and 1709.


3) Interpretation
One of the more interesting poems is Aulae siderae. Madame Viellard-Troiekouroff thought it describes the Church of St. Mary of Compiègne. Her evidence is verse 87 where the word 'hundred' is mentioned, and took it to be an allusion to the numbers of clerics this church was built for. But P. Dutton and É. Jeauneau thought together with Y. Christe that this number can be biblical (one hundred cubits in the temple of Ezekiel).

For Viellard-Troiekouroff the poem clearly indicates the octagonal character of the church built by Charles the Bald, but it does not clearly indicate that it has a cupola.

Foussard offers a metaphysical interpretation.


4) Content of Aulae siderae
The poem centres in its earlier part around the numbers four and eight. Four itself, as the poems tells us, is the number of the seasons which are headed by Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn which mark the equinoxes and solstices. These constellations mark also the conception of Christ (Aries, 25 March), the birth of John the Baptist (Cancer, 24 June), the conception of the Baptist (Libra, 24 September), and the birth of Christ (Capricorn, 25 December).

Eight is an important number in relation to Christ and the reintegration of all things in the end. Christ was born on the eighth day before the kalends of January, was conceived on the eighth day before the kalends of April, was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth, and rose from the dead on the eighth day of the week. The universe will end in its eighth age.

The main theme is the birth of Christ and the return of man which it makes possible.

The poem ends with a prayer for Charles to Christ and to Mary. For Mary Charles is building a church which is therupon described in some detail Charles is shown as seated on a throne in the church looking out upon all, wearing on his head a diadem and holding sceptres in his hands.

It contains one hundred hexameters which is followed by one line of acclamation.

The Aulae siderae can be considered as an instance of Eriugena's interest in art and as conveying his approach to it - his philosophy of art.

In his poems generally he manifests an interest in objets d'art and speaks of the robes encrusted with jewels that the queen, Ermentrude, weaves for Charles; of the golden vases and broad hangings that furnish a church built by Charles; and of gold and gems burning like flames. He speaks of the purple vestments of the ministers of the altar and shows a lively consciousness of things artistic.

The prosody of this poems is acceptable but the verses have little of the harmonious movement of Virgil's. This is partly due to the total avoidance of elision and synapheia. The result is inevitalbe staccato. But it has still some possibly Virgilian echoes (v. 54) for example

Salve sancta domus, panis ditissima patrum

cf. Virgil's Aeneid 5.80:

Salve, sancte parens, iterum salvete, recpti
nequiquam cineres

or in his Georgics, 2.173:

Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus.

Also cf. Statius' Silvae 3.3.208

Salve supremum, senior mitissime patrum

5) Usage of Greek

M. Lapidge believes that Eriugena derived this practice of incorporating Greek words and verses in his poems not from his forbears in Irland (though there are some phrases in Greek in the Book of Armagh, written in 807), nor from Ausonius, who was not much read in the Carolingian period, but, possibly from Martianus Capella. However it is more probable that the practice originated with Eriugena himself.

6) Influence on his contemporaries

Martin the Irishman collected the Greek words that were in the verses of Johannes Scottus (Laon MS 444). Hincmar of Laon, Heiric and Remi of Auxerre all followed him in this practise of using Greek words. And especially Odon of Fleury.

Yeats & Propertius - The Key

The poem of Yeats posted two days ago is so dark, I don't really understand it. But comparing with the second book of Elegiae by Propertius, I find one poem which could be the inspiration of Yeats:

Liber secundus II

Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto;
at me composita pace fefellit Amor.
cur haec in terris facies humana moratur?
Iuppiter, ignosco pristina furta tua.
fulva coma est longaeque manus, et maxima toto
corpore, et incedit vel Iove digna soror,
aut cum Dulichias Pallas spatiatur ad aras,
Gorgonis anguiferae pectus operta comis;
qualis et Ischomache Lapithae genus heroine,
Centauris medio grata rapina meo;
Mercurio et qualis fertur Boebeidos undis
virgimeum Brimo composuisse latus.
cedite iam, divae, quas pastor viderat olim
Idaeis tunicas ponere verticibus!
hanc utinam faciem nolit mutare senectus,
etsi Cumaeae saecula vatis agat!

Tristia

Puto te amicum me nunquam visuram esse. Hac aestate me iterum reliqueris. Relicta in campo saevo expectavi vana spe te iterum invenire. Titan rotavit quinquadraginta circulos, luna crevit luna descrevit, sed te non vidi.

Campum quis prius arcadia nostra erat nunc habitant homines saevi et rudes. Teresa illum locum reliquit, et non scit an reddet. Spes puellae teresae vana est. Somnium veris tantum, sed nullum somnium aestatis istae miserae puellae dabitur.

Esne salvus? Esne felix? Sed teresa miserissima et tristissima sum, quia spes me perdit, somnium me perdit, laetitia me perdit. Et scio causam miserae meae solum meum stultum corda esse. Mens mea dicit esse vanam spem sed cor istam spem non omittere vult.

Cor desiste sperare! Quia ista spes mors mea est. Parce mihi, quia vivere volo.

Yeats & Propertius

Reading the Oxford's Anthology of W.B. Yeats (The Major Works, including poems, plays, critical prose), found a dark poem which he claims to be inspired by the Second Book of Elegy by Propertius - A Thought from Propertius: (p. 70)

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athena's side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur
Drunk with the unmixed wine.

(Shall compare with Propertius and expand on it later).

Last Summer in Norway

This summer came too late. But now it is here. Warm. The hills around our village are deep green, and the ripening crops slumber in the burning sunshine. No wind. And the evening is peaceful, when the glaring sun retires but the heaven is still bright and hanging over us in a pale blue.

Now I must remember the happy and peaceful days last year in Norway. Never seen such a beautiful country. They said it rained often in summer, but during my visit I had mostly sonny days. The never ending days of the Norwegian Summer! The sun doesn't sink to the bosom of his bride, but suspends just above their marital bed and projects a long red shadow on the surface of the ocean.

Being alone there and with all the colleagues of the institute which hosted me gone home to their wives and kids, I enjoyed extended walks in the city and in the hills surrounding it. Wherever you are, you get a view of the bays, the Fjords as they call them. Loosed from the embrace of the pine trees you soul flows out to the wide sky and the boundless sea, an unspeaking longing, and free! (And I must recall the painting of Caspar David Friedrich, Kreidefelsen auf Rügen).

The light was so pale there that it deemed everything unreal. A landscape for sleep-wanderers. In the city the youth enjoyed the prolonged day and everyone was celebrating. At 4 o'clock teens and students still roamed the streets. And in the parks they brought casts of beer. But I enjoyed more the loneliness of my walk in areas with no bars but a magnificent view over the city and the bays. But away from the city, in a park alongside the bay, I stopped and observed a party of young men and women who enjoyed their sprouting youth. And suddenly I understood Edvard Munch, who painted series of "the Frieze of Life" with the stretched reflection of the suspending sun over the water a returning motive. It was the force of life they displayed: Sexuality and the lust for life. Today, manifested in a more primitive form than at the time of Munch, but the substance is the same. Do these youth know what melancholy is, or they just drink it away as melancholy is for them painful and unendurable?

Melancholy, the tendency to death, the mother of reflection, is never absent from the earlier paintings of Munch. So the life radiating youth together with me make a full picture of reality. And upon turning away from this scene, I was struck by the sight of a Moslem sitting on a bench just meters away, praying with a Koran in his hands.

(My favourite painting of Munch is: Summer Night, Inger on the Shore, from the Rasmus Meyer Collection).

Some Notes on Christologie (in the Patristics)

1. Basic Concepts:

gr. ousia/physis hypostasis/prosopon
lat. essentia/substantia substantia prima/subsistentia/persona
engl. natur person

2. the classic christological dogma:

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one Person of the Divine word, which subsists eternally in the Divine nature of the Logos and temporally in the human nature he took.

The word "Jesus" means not only the empirical reality of the man from Nazaret (i.e. the natural prosopon), but also the invisible Person of the Logos (p. 322 in the Handbook of Dogmatics), which conveys the unity of two natures and individualizes the concrete human existence of Jesu.

Johannes Scotus Eriugena (Poemata-1)

The edition of his poems can be found in MGH Poetae 3,2, p. 516ff.

I
Caesare sub Karolo Francorum gloria pollet,
Litora ceu pelagi piscibus atque salo:
Secta diabolici damnatur dogmatis atque
Pastorum cura plendet amoena fides.

Another very long Poem with Greek words used occasionally will be posted soon.

(a recent edition of his Carmina: Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. Herren, Michael, ed. Carmina. Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, vol. 12. Pp. viii, 179. ISBN: 1-855-00162-4., Book review).

Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagiter in the Latin translation of John Scot Eriugena

His Latin translation is available online (the Patrologia Latina edition).

Yesterday in a lecture I heard something quite interesting: Pseudo-Dionysius mentioned in the 11. Chapter of his De Divinis Nominibus that Peace is a name of God:

I. Some notes

The divine and ecclesiastical (divina et archisynagoga pax) Peace is "omnium adunatrix, et omnium consensus, et connaturalitatis genitrix et operatrix". The Peace is the unifier of everything, the generator and effector of all agreement and likeness (how to translate connaturalitas adequately? ).

Everything desires the Peace because it unifies the multitity into one, and tie the concurrence (or better battle?/ bellum) into an uniform cohabitation.

The first of the with each other combining powers (primores congregatarum virtutum) participate in the divine Peace and unify themselves into one. They keep everything from running into anarchy (c.f. "non sinit separata fundi ad multum et infinitum, inordinata, et incollocata, deserta Deo facta").

Divine Peace or the Repose (silentio), which is called by the holy Justus ajfqegxivan? (the unutterable? This word must have been written in Greek, the transcription here in the electronic edition is strange, must look up in the PL itself. ), never loses its unity.

But the Divine Peace is not permitted for anyone of the existent things to speak out or to be understood, nor is possible to do this (Neque dicere, neque intelligere cuidam existentium est fas, neque possibile).


But we can make the following observations about the Divine Peace:

1) Through the Divine Peace an unloosable unity according to Divine Harmony is established (cf. Per quam una et insolubilis omnium complicatio secundum divinam ejus harmoniam constituitur, et compaginatur consonantia perfecta, et consensus, et congerminatio congregans inconfuse, inseparabiliterque confusa).

2) God: Sed per seipsum esse, et per seipsam vitam, et per seipsam deitatem dicimus principaliter quidem et deiformiter et causaliter unum omnium superprincipale et superessentiale principium et causam. Participaliter autem editas ex Deo non participante providas virtutes, per seipsam deificationem, per seipsam vivificationem, per seipsam deificationem, quas existentia proprie sibimetipsis participant, et existentia, et viventia, et divina, et sunt, et dicuntur, et alia similiter.

But under 2) no further connection is made with the Divine Peace

II. the usage of Greek words in the Latin translation

two Greek words are introduced in this chapter,
1) the "unutterable" (Greek form still to be found in PL)
2) nullum ον, quod quidem est.

A dark text. Doesn't seem philosophically significant to me. What is he trying to say here beside of the already known Platonic doctrines like the One and the Multitude?

Perhaps should read the whole text in full, not just this one chapter.

The order of the demons: Something Father Cumanus told me tonight

Pride - Lucifer
Avarice - Mammon
Lust - Asmodeus
Wrath - Satan
Gluttony - Beelzebub
Envy - Leviathan
Sloth - Belfagor

Shall write more about it later.

Material (Johannes Scottus Eriugena)

1) Neuplatonismus und Ästhetik. Zur Transformationsgeschichte des Schönen, hrsg. von Verena
Olejniczak Lobsien und Claudia Olk. Berlin, New York (Walter de Gruyter) 2007, 256 S. EUR 78,- (Transformationen der Antike, hrsg. von H. Böhme u. a., Bd. 2; ISBN 978-3-11-019225-4).
in this book an article from Walter Haug, an outstanding medievalist, on the Neoplatonic Aesthetics, he covered Jamblich, Proklos, Augustinus, Dionysius, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Isidor
von Sevilla, Macrobius und Alanus von Lille.

2) Glosses of Pschychomachia of Prudentius
John M. Burnam: Glossemata de Prudentio, edited from the Paris and Vatican manuscripts. University Press, Cincinnati (Ohio) 1905 (Ausgabe der Glossen von Johannes Scotus Eriugena)

3) Kurt Ruh: Die Grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jhs., 1990.

4) Max Manitius: Geschichte der Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 1974.

5) Hanns Peter Neuheuser: Zugänge zur Sakralkunst: narratio und instututio. 2001

(to be expanded)