History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [230]
John's next work was a translation from the Greek of the pseudo-Dionysius. This was a work which had great fame in the early Middle Ages. When St Paul preached in Athens, 'certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite' (Acts xvii. 34). Nothing the schoolmen more is now known about this man, but in the Middle Ages a great deal more was known. He had travelled to France, and founded the abbey of St Denis; so at least it was said by Hilduin, who was abbot just before John's arrival in France. Moreover, he was the reputed author of an important work reconciling Neoplatonism with Christianity. The date of this work is unknown; it was certainly before 500 and after Plotinus. It was widely known and admired in the East, but in the West it was not generally known until the Greek Emperor Michael, in 827, sent a copy to Louis the Pious, who gave it to the above-mentioned Abbot Hilduin. He, believing it to have been written by St Paul's disciple, the reputed founder of his abbey, would have liked to know what its contents were; but nobody could translate the Greek until John appeared. He accomplished the translation, which he must have done with pleasure, as his own opinions were in close accord with those of the pseudo-Dionysius, who, from that time onward, had a great influence on Catholic philosophy in the West.
John's translation was sent to Pope Nicholas in 860. The Pope was offended because his permission had not been sought before the work was published, and he ordered Charles to send John to Rome—an order which was ignored. But as to the substance, and more especially the scholarship shown in the translation, he had no fault to find. His librarian Anastasius, an excellent Grecian, to whom he submitted it for an opinion, was astonished that a man from a remote and barbarous country could have possessed such a profound knowledge of Greek.
John's greatest work was called (in Greek) On the Division of Nature. This book was what, in scholastic times, would have been termed 'realist'; that is to say, it maintained, with Plato, that universals are anterior to particulars. He includes in 'Nature' not only what is, but also what is not. The whole of Nature is divided into four classes: (1) what creates and is not created, (2) what creates and is created, (3) what is created but does not create, (4) what neither creates nor is created. The first, obviously, is God. The second is the (Platonic) ideas, which subsist in God. The third is things in space and time. The fourth, surprisingly, is again God, not as Creator, but as the End and Purpose of all things. Everything that emanates from God strives to return to Him; thus the end of all such things is the same as their beginning. The bridge between the One and the many is the Logos.
In the realm of not-being he includes various things, for example, physical objects, which do not belong to the intelligible world, and sin, since it means loss of the divine pattern. That which creates and is not created alone has essential subsistence; it is the essence of all things. God is the beginning, middle, and end of things. God's essence is unknowable to men, and even to angels. Even to Himself He is, in a sense, unknowable: 'God does not know himself, what He is, because He is not a what; in a certain respect He is incomprehensible to Himself and to every intellect.'6 In the being of things God's being can be seen; in their order, His wisdom; in their movement, His life. His being