Testimonies concerning John Scotus Eriugena.

John Eriugena translated the Ambiguities original: "Ambigua"; a complex theological work by Maximus the Confessor into Latin. I do not know if he translated the whole work of Maximus, as I have not yet obtained the complete Greek texts of Saint Maximus. Regarding what you read here at the end, attribute it partly to the kindness of the distinguished Emericus Bigotius Emeric Bigot (1626–1689), a famous French humanist and book collector, who examined and transcribed them for my use from the Library of the King of the French, and partly to my own manuscript, which contains many of the same Maximus’s labors. Furthermore, to return to Scotus, the translation of his which I publish here was shared with me through the kindness and celebrated learning of the venerable John Mabillon Jean Mabillon (1632–1707), a Benedictine monk and founder of the study of paleography, whom I mentioned above. This version—aside from those things easily observed in the books On the Division of Nature—shows clearly enough that Eriugena was a mere beginner original: "alphabetarium"; literally one still learning the alphabet in Greek.

5. The same distinguished John Mabillon discovered a book On the Vision of God in a manuscript at Saint-Bertin original: "Claromariscensi"; the Abbey of Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer near Saint-Omer, with this title and beginning: A TREATISE of John Scotus ON THE VISION OF GOD. All bodily senses are born from the union of soul and body. I have made an effort to have this book of Scotus brought to me, but so far success has not answered the attempt.

6. I am now the first to publish the five books On the Division of Nature. These were supplied to me by my own library collection (otherwise meager). Our manuscript seems to have been written six hundred years ago. However, because I did not think it safe enough to trust a single copy, especially in a writing subject to controversies, I first diligently inspected the passages which Scotus cited from the ancient Fathers; from this, our manuscript gained several emendations. Then, when I learned that another copy of this work was kept in Paris at the Monastery of Saint-Germain (and perhaps the only one besides mine, for the de Thou original: "Thuani"; referring to the library of Jacques Auguste de Thou manuscript was greatly mutilated), through the grace of friends (among whom the first was Master Peter Allix Pierre Allix (1641–1717), a prominent French Protestant pastor and scholar), I obtained the variant readings from that Parisian manuscript. These have corrected in many places either the haste of our scribe or the defects of the manuscript itself. If anyone hereafter observes any discrepancies in this edition from the manuscript copy, let him know they happened not by design, but by chance; not by intent or evil fraud, but through human frailty, which does not see everything. The Abbot Trithemius Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516), a German abbot and polymath ascribes these five books to John Scotus, whom they call "of Melrose." Bale John Bale (1495–1563), an English historian follows him, and errs with the erring. For, to say nothing of the historians (who all unanimously ascribe this work to Scotus Eriugena), it is sufficiently clear from the translation of the Ambiguities that one and the same man is the father of both works. Without doubt, these books circulated for a long time without the author's name; our copy lacked it, and the Parisian manuscript lacks it as well. Indeed, the author's name was so unknown that the work was condemned in Paris before it was certain whose offspring it was. Martinus Polonus Martin of Opava (d. 1278), a 13th-century chronicler writes thus about it (as I read in two manuscripts belonging to the Most Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury): This book [On Nature] original: "περὶ φύσεως" (peri physeos) is placed among other books condemned at Paris, and is called the book of Amalric. Amalric of Bène, whose followers were condemned for heresy in 1210 These last words do not appear in the published books of Martinus Polonus. William of Malmesbury was the first to reclaim it for its true author; Eriugena, as is reasonable to think, had confessed here among his own people what he had concealed among foreigners.

7. No letters of Scotus have been seen by anyone, so far as I know, except those he prefixed to his books; yet it cannot be doubted that he wrote others. I have added at the end of this volume an unpublished Letter which Eriugena wrote to Charles the Bald King of West Francia (823–877) and patron of Eriugena concerning the translation of Saint Maximus.

8. I would have gladly omitted the verses, had Bale not judged them worthy, which com-