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Born in Ireland, the ninth century theologian and philosopher, John the Scot, Eriugena (810-877), left behind several commentaries, translations, books, and poems (Patrologia Latina, vol. 122). Eriugena was initially a translator and commentator of Dionysius via the footsteps of Maximus.
Eriugena illustrates an unrivalled breadth of theological ingenuity in early medieval Christianity. First, he received, digested, and appropriated the theme of procession and return, which had developed from the Neo-Platonists, including Proclus, and the legendary theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius. Second, the Periphyseon was one of the earliest theological masterpieces in medieval Christianity, anticipating the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Lastly, as a faithful student of the early Fathers, Eriugena was a genuine scholar who both synthesized Eastern and Western Christian thought in philosophy and theology and also creatively reconstructed the theological discourses and themes of his predecessors, especially those pertaining to the concept of procession and return.
In this article, I explored how Eriugena articulated the theological pattern of procession and return in his major works including Periphyseon and Expositiones in ierarchiam coelestem. My analysis consists of three parts: Creation and Procession from God-Creatio ex nihilo and Creatio de se ipsa; Vermicular Christology-from Worm to Phoenix; Lamp and Tallow-Double Returns in the Ten Virgins. Creation and Procession show how God multiplies everything in the world from nihilo and also God-self, 영문 Eriugena, Procession, Return, Nature, Periphyseon, Expositiones which is best summarized in God’s works of procession. Vermicular Christology symbolically illustrates the crucial turning point from procession to return in Eriugena’s skillful use of theological principles.
Lamp and Tallow portrays how everything is consummated in the final stage of return. These three examples provide us with a broad pattern of procession and return which constitutes the Eriugenian theology.