ERIC (HEIRICUS) OF AUXERRE
Life. St. Eric (841-881?), a monk of St. Germain of Auxerre,
studied at Fulda, where he had for teacher Haimo, the successor of
Rhabanus, and afterwards at Ferrières, where Servatus Lupus, who
was also a disciple of Rhabanus, was at that time master. After
returning to Auxerre, Eric became master in the monastic school ot that
place, and under his guidance the school became one of the most
renowned in all France.
Sources. Hauréau [1] has shown that the marginal glosses
found in manuscript, No. 108, of the National Library of Paris are the
work of Eric. The manuscript contains the Categoriae Decem
(falsely attributed to St. Augustine), the Perihermenias of
Aristotle, the Isagoge of Porphyry, and several works of
Boethius. Naturally, therefore, the glosses added by Eric deal
almost exclusively with logical or dialectical problems. In addition
to this document, Hauréau mentions a poem by Eric on the life of
St. Germain, to which the author attached, as a marginal note, an
extract from Erigena's treatise De Divisione Naturae. The poem
is published by Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. CXXIX.
[1] Op. cit., I, 785.
DOCTRINES
Eric affirms with Aristotle and Boethius that the concept is the image
of the object, while the word is the expression of the concept. "Rem
concipit intellectus, intellectum voces designant, voces autem litterae
significant." With regard to the universal (generic and specific)
concept, he expresses himself as follows:
Genus non praedicari (de animali) secundum rem (id est substantiam) sed
designativum esse nomen animalis quo designatur animal de pluribus
specie differentibus dici. Namque neque rationem animalis potest habere
genus, cum dicitur animal est substantia animata et sensibilis.
Similiter, neque species dicitur de homine secundum id quod significat,
sed juxta illud quod de numero differentibus praedicatur. [2]
[2] Quoted from the manuscript by Hauréau, op. cit., I,
192.
This passage indicates a departure from the realistic view and a
leaning towards the nominalism which appeared in more definite form in
the eleventh century. In a similar spirit Eric accounts for the
collocation of individual things in genera and species, and even in the
highest genus, ousia. [3] In Eric's glosses there are several
indications of an acquaintance with the writings of Erigena. His
doctrines may be described in general as a protest against the extreme
realism of his predecessor.
[3] Ibid., 194.
REMI OF AUXERRE
Life. St. Remi (Remigius) of Auxerre was a monk of the abbey of
St. Germain of Auxerre. He had for teacher Eric of Auxerre and Servatus
Lupus. After the death of Eric be taught at Auxerre, Rheims, and Paris.
At the last-mentioned school he had for disciple Otho of Cluny. He died
in 904
Sources. Besides a theological treatise entitled Enarrationes
in Psalmos, we possess Remi's Glosses on the grammatical
works of Priscian and Donatus and a dialectical commentary, entitled
Commentum Magistri Remigii super Librum Martiani Capellae de Nuptiis
Mercurii et Philologiae et super Septem Artes Liberales. As a
secondary source we have the biography of Otho of Cluny by the monk
John. [4]
[4] Cf. Hauréau, op. cit., I, 202.
DOCTRINES
From the commentary on Martianus Capella it appears that Remi attempted
to reconcile the extreme realism of Erigena with the anti-realism of
Eric. Martianus Capella had defined genus as "multarum formarum per
unum nomen complexio." Erigena, on the contrary, had defined it as
"multarum formarum substantialis unitas." The definition given by Remi
is evidently a compromise. "Genus est complexio, id est adlectio et
comprehensio, multarum formarum." [5]
[5] Ibid., 203.
Remi seems to have occupied himself with the problem of the world of
Ideas. The Ideas, he maintained, exist in an invisible sphere, hidden
in the mind of God.
Per sphaeram (Martianus) vult intelligi mundum invisibilem qui in mente
Dei latebat antequam iste visibilis per varias produceretur causas;
quem mundum, id est invisibilem, philosophi vocant ideas, id est
formas. [6]
[6] Ibid., 205.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Associated with the school of Auxerre is the unknown author of another
Commentary on Madianus Capella. This commentary, on account of the
frequent occurrence of Greek words, is judged by some to be the work of
an Irish monk.
Mention must also be made of a work entitled Glosses on the Isagoge
of Porphyry, discovered by Cousin and by him assigned to the ninth
century. Both Cousin and Hauréau attribute the work to Rhabanus
Maurus; Prantl, Kaulich, and Stöckl are of opinion that it should
be assigned to a pupil of Rhabanus who
is called Iepa. [7] On the question of universals the author of
the Glosses propounds certain realistic principles which
approach more closely to what afterwards became known as Thomistic
realism than do any of the tenets of the other dialecticians of the
ninth or tenth centuries.
[7] Poole (Illustrations of History of Medieval Thought, p. 337)
shows that in the line Iepa hunc scripsi glossans utcunque
libellum, the word Iepa is an interpolation.
Genus et species subsistunt alio modo, intelliguntur alio. Et sunt
incorporalia; sed sensibilibus juncta subsistunt in sensibilibus, et
tunc est singulare; intelliguntur ut ipsa substantia, ut non in aliis
esse suum habentia, et tunc est universale. [8]
[8] Cousins Ouvrages
inédits d'Abélard, LXXXII.
Retrospect. During the ninth and tenth centuries the philosophy
which formed part of the general intellectual movement inaugurated by
the foundation of the schools was still in its beginnings. Here and
there different springs gave rise to different streams of thought, but
it was not until the following century that these streams began to flow
in a common channel, and the philosophy of the schools, uniting all its
tributaries, took a definite course, the direction of which may be
easily traced. Rhabanus, Erigena, Gerbert, and the monks of Auxerre are
practically independent of one another; yet each in his own way
exhibits the essential traits of the Scholastic, vague and ill-defined
as these traits are, when compared with the characteristics of the
Scholasticism of the thirteenth century: All these philosophers agree
in maintaining that there is no contradiction between philosophy and
theology; they hold that dialectic should be applied to the great
problems of human thought and they all attempt, on a more or less
restricted scale, to make faith reasonable. Scholasticism in the ninth
century draws the first rough sketch of what Scholasticism in the
thirteenth century will be.
This period is generally described as "an age of blind realism"; but it
is far from being so. True it is that Erigena's
philosophy, the most ambitious constructive attempt of the ninth
century, is based on the realistic concept of the universe; but it must
be remembered that Erigena's realism did not go uncontradicted, and
while Eric, Remi, and the author of the Glosses did not succeed
in finding the formula best fitted to express the doctrine of moderate
realism, they refused with unmistakable emphasis to accept the
ultra-realistic concept. It was through the storm and stress of the
age of Roscelin and Abelard that moderate realism struggled to an
adequate expression. In that age, too, there first appeared
rationalism, which, in a sense to be subsequently explained, is
regarded by Cardinal González as an essential phase of the
Scholastic movement. The occasion of the extraordinary intellectual
activity of the second period of Scholasticism was the problem of
universals.
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