Eriugena [Hardcover]

The 9th-century Irish scholar Johannes Scottus Eriugena's main work,Periphyseon (de devisione naturae)is a remarkable attempt at an intellectual synthesis between the Bible and neoplatonist philosophy. O'Meara has brought together the results of the most recent research in this study of Eriugena's Irish background, life in France, and career as a teacher, controversialist, translator, and poet. The book also contains an extended and careful summary of thePeriphyseonand the first translation into English of theHomily on the Prologue to St. John's Gospel

The book is valuable for its surveys of the fertile terrain surrounding Eriugena's work and for the objective and dispassionate summaries of the best recent scholarship. --Speculum

A rounded account of the present state of knowledge of one of the last familiar medieval thinkers. It will be particularly appreciated for the r?sum?s of the doctrines of Eriugena's main influences, principally Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, and of his own writings....His book will also be valued...for its mastery not only of Eriugena's thought but also for his intellectual milieu, both in Ireland from which he came and the schools of north-eastern France where he passed his main career. It is written with authority and economy. --Times LiterarySupplement

O'Meara's study is highly informative, well written and rigorously researched. It is also a timely contribution to the Irish cultural debate. --The Irish Times