Testimonies concerning John Scottus Eriugena.

Section 2

John Pyke in his book on the Anglo-Saxon Kings.

[King Alfred] summoned Saint Grimbald and others with him through legates; attracting many from Mercia and the furthest ends of the earth whom he knew to excel in knowledge, he enriched them with honors.

John Ross in his book on the Kings.

King Alfred united to himself Saint Grimbald, a Flemish monk from the monastery of Saint Bertin, with his associates John and Asser; and John the Welshman from the monastery of Saint David.

Johannes Trithemius in his book on Ecclesiastical Writers.

John, called Eriugena, a monk learned in the divine scriptures and most highly educated in the discipline of secular letters, fully instructed in Greek and Latin eloquence, subtle in intellect, composed in speech, etc.

John Leland in Book 2 of British Writers.

Alfred held in high esteem and intimacy Plegmund, Werefrith, Asser of St Davids, Grimbald, John the monk (originating from Old Saxony across the sea), and John the Scot, who translated the Hierarchy of Dionysius The "Celestial Hierarchy," a highly influential mystical text attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite.

And these are the testimonies which seem to me to designate this John the Scot most certainly. However, what Bale John Bale (1495–1563), a controversial English historian and bishop wrote concerning his father Patrick, his travels in which he sought out Athens, and his wonderful skill in the Oriental languages, finds no credit with me. Furthermore, because that surname, Eriugena, which is attributed to our John, is not yet sufficiently understood (as it seems to me), I shall set forth my own conjectures regarding it.

Therefore, as to what William of Malmesbury says in the letter cited above—that the Scot called himself Heruligena meaning "born of the Heruli," a Germanic tribe in the title of the Hierarchy—I would not easily admit this as true; for all the manuscript codices, as if with one voice, contradict him, and perpetually display either Erigena or Eriugena. William had read in Asser and Ingulf that there was a certain "Old Saxon" original: "Ealdfaxonem" with Alfred; and thus, because the Heruli were a people ...m? in ancient Saxony, he thought this John originated from the Heruli.

If anyone, however, believes that these things did not fall from Malmesbury’s pen without reason, let him argue in his favor that ancient writers report the Heruli once settled among the Irish. On this matter, one may consult Lazius on the migrations of peoples, and Beatus Rhenanus, whom he calls to his side.

Nor am I more convinced by the opinion of those who, from this word Erigena, make John an Irishman. For in ancient books he is more often called Eriugena than Erigena; certainly in a codex of the greatest antiquity (which is now kept in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge) which James Ussher of Armagh used, and I also, it is written Eriugena, not Erigena. So also Suffridus Petri, so Dionysius Petavius found in his copies, and so Philippe Labbe. And the word Erin, meaning Irish, produces not Erigena, but Erinigena; in which manner indeed Pierre de Marca correctly wrote that word in a letter concerning this John written to Luc d'Achery. Nor should it move anyone that this John is so often called an Irishman; that happened because, for the sake of his studies, he had spent a long time among that people, who then...