SOURCE: Duclow, Donald F. “Nature as Speech and Book in John Scotus Eriugena.” Mediaevalia: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies 3 (1977): 131-40.

In the following essay, Duclow examines Eriugena's use of the book as metaphor in his attempt to describe nature and divine creativity.

In “The Book as Symbol,”¹ E. R. Curtius outlines the history of book symbolism with emphasis on the Latin Middle Ages. His remarks on “the book of nature”² are especially suggestive, because this metaphor witnesses to the astonishing depth and scope of book symbolism: the world itself comes to be seen as a book. This essay will explore this metaphor in the work of John Scotus Eriugena, the Irish philosopher and theologian of the mid-ninth century. This focus on John the Scot will supplement Curtius' essay in two ways. First, Curtius' survey of medieval book symbolism omits John the Scot. Secondly and more significantly, whereas Curtius...