Agnieszka Kijewska: ERIUGENA READS ST. AUGUSTINE

Eriugenian scholarship often puts emphasis on the fact that his intellectual formation was strongly influenced by Greeks. Meanwhile, in his early De praedestinatione, Eriugena often refers to Augustine. This is obvious as the whole debate over predestination was triggered by Gottschalc of Orbais and arose from his interpretation of Augustinian teaching. In my presentation I try to analyze the way Eriugena uses Augustine’ s doctrine in his De praedestinatione. Eriugenian approach could be characterized as follows:1. Eriugena reads Augustine’s teaching in the context of Boethius’ methodology (division of knowledge, approach to science). The primary characteristic of Boethian method is starting with analysis of basic concepts, then introducing distinctions (predestination vs. foreknowledge) and then proceeding on the way of suitable reasoning and linguistic analyses. 2. Eriugena moves himself within the limits of Augustinan concept of the relationship between faith and reason. 3. He tries to determine the very genesis of the problem of predestination and finds its roots in the formula of Isidore of Sevilla about the double predestination which refers to Augustine through his disciples (Fulgentius).4. Eriugena profusely refers to Augustine’s dialogues, mainly to his De libero arbitrio. There Augustine puts an emphasis on the freedom of human will, against the background of antimanicheian polemics. Augustinian works written in the vain of antipelagian polemics (the right field of predestination debate) are sparsely present in De praedestinatione. 5. For the sake of proper understanding of the text under interpretation, Eriugena advocates referring to rhetorical and dialectical means (entymemat).