John attempts to reconcile contradictions. The ideas are the primordial causes of things, the effects of which are manifested in time and place in a series of ‘theophanies;’ but the effects cannot be separated from the causes, and, in them, are eternal, though not eternal in the sense in which God is eternal, because the causes are derived from him: they are, however, cöeternal with the Word, though here again not absolutely cöeternal. Matter has no existence except as dependent on thought, and our thought (here the Scot anticipates, more plainly than St. Augustine, the famous argument of Descartes) is itself the proof of our being. The ideal world is wholly good, but as the creature passes from it into the world of matter, that which was one becomes manifold, and evil arises. But evil, being thus a mere accident of the material existence, will cease when man, losing again the distinction of sex, returns to the primal unity. Not less remarkable is John's statement of the relation of reason to authority. Reason is a theophany, the revelation of God to man; authority is one species of this revelation; it stands below reason, and needs it as its interpreter, for the Bible has many senses. If Scotus may here seem to anticipate the later dispute which accompanied the beginnings of the scholastic movement, still more evidently does this appear in his treatment of the scope and functions of logic. The universals, he maintained, were words; and although, in his view, there was a necessary correlation between words and thoughts, and therefore between words and things, still it was open to his successors to neglect this association, and to lay a stress on the primary connection between logic and grammar (see Prantl, ii. 24–37). Besides, the strict syllogistic method which John employed, and against which his opponents murmured, may well have had its influence upon later method. Yet it is hazardous to see in John Scotus the John who is mentioned in a chronicle known only from Bulæus's citation (Hist. Univ. Paris. ii. 443) as the founder of nominalism (cf. S. M. Deutsch, Peter Abälard, p. 100, n. 3, Leipzig, 1883). In some respects he may be accounted the herald of the movement of the eleventh century, but in more he is the last prophet of a philosophy belonging to earlier ages. When, in the first years of the thirteenth century, his books ‘de Divisione Naturæ’ won a passing popularity through the teaching of Amalric of Bène, their pantheistic tendency was at once detected, and the work suppressed by Honorius III in 1225 (see his mandate printed by Denifle, Chartul. Univ. Paris. i. 106 seq., Paris, 1889). It was not John's original writings, but his translations which exercised a notable influence on mediæval theology.
Besides the works already enumerated, John wrote a series of commentaries on Dionysius: ‘Expositiones super ierarchiam cælestem,’ ‘Expositiones super ierarchiam ecclesiasticam’ (a fragment), and ‘Expositiones seu Glossæ in mysticam Theologiam;’ ‘Homilia in prologum S. Evangelii secundum Ioannem’ and a commentary on the Gospel itself, of which only four fragments are preserved; ‘Liber de egressu et regressu animæ ad Deum,’ of which only a dozen sentences remain; and a number of poems, some only fragmentary, which are remarkable for their macaronic combination of Greek and Latin. These have been edited by L. Traube in the ‘Poetæ Latini Ævi Carolini’ (Monum. Germ. hist.) iii. 518–556 (1896) with a valuable introduction. John also translated the ‘Ambigua’ of St Maximus, with a dedication to Charles the Bald. This was edited, together with the ‘De Divisione Naturæ,’ by T. Gale, Oxford, 1681. All John's known works and translations were collected by H. J. Floss in Migne's ‘Patrologia Latina,’ cxxii. (1853), whose edition represents the only attempt hitherto made (except for the poems) to construct a critical text. The editor's notes, however, on the ‘Liber de Prædestinatione’ serve rather for the edification of the Roman catholic reader than for the scientific elucidation of John's opinions (cf. Noorden, Hinkmar, p. 103, n. 2). Since Floss's book was published two more works claiming John's authorship have come to light. One is the brief life of Boethius, printed as ‘Vita III’ in R. Peiper's edition (Boetii Philos. Consol., Leipzig, 1871), which is contained in a Laurentian manuscript, written in an Irish hand, of c. 1100 (described, with a facsimile, by G. Vitelli and C. Paoli, Collezione Fiorentina di Facsimili paleografici, plate 4, Florence, 1884), and is there expressly described as ‘Verba Iohannis Scoti.’ The other is a set of glosses on Martianus Capella, discovered by the late M. Hauréau (Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, xx. pt. ii. 5–20, Paris, 1862).
[Bale's Script. Brit. Cat. ii. 24, p. 124; Ussher's Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge (Dublin, 1632); Oudin's Comment. de Script. Eccl. Antiq. ii. 234–47 (Leipzig, 1722); Hist. Lit. de la France, v. 416–29 (Paris, 1740); Cave's Script. Eccles. Hist. Lit. ii. 45 seq. (1743); Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 263 seq. (1748); biographies of John Scotus by F. A. Staudenmaier (Frankfurt, 1834), T. Christlieb (Gotha, 1860), and J. Huber (Munich, 1861); and an anonymous ‘Comment. de Vita et Præceptis
