SOURCE: Hanson, W. G. “John Scotus Erigena.” In The Early Monastic Schools of Ireland: Their Missionaries, Saints, and Scholars, pp. 111-26. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons Limited, 1927.

In the following essay, Hanson provides an overview of Eriugena's work, reputation, and influence.

It is the dictum of Mr. W. B. Yeats that “Ireland has produced but two men of religious genius: Johannes Scotus Erigena, who lived a long time ago, and Bishop Berkeley, who kept his Plato by his Bible; and Ireland has forgotten both.”¹

Charles II (Charles the Bald), King of the West Franks, who was Eriugena's patron from c. 847 to c. 877.

If by “religious genius” Mr. Yeats means speculative genius, I would agree; but religion owes more to St. Columba and St. Columban than to Erigena or Berkeley, and those apostolic men were not inferior in genius to their philosophic compatriots.

Johannes Scotus Erigena, or, more properly...