ERIUGENA'S FIVE MODES ( PERIPHYSEON 443A–446A)

Eriugena’s five modes of interpreting the first and fundamental division of all things have traditionally been under interpreted. The ‘few words’ (Sheldon-Williams’ translation of breviter dicendum at 443A) meant to clarify the more obscure primary differentia are passed over quickly in most accounts of the argument of the Periphyseon, while interpreters linger long on the preceding division of natura into those things that are and those that are not, and the division of natura into four species which follows. The question arises why, if as most interpreters agree, Eriugena sets out a clear plan for the entire work in these initial divisions, does he devote a hundred lines at the end of this schematic presentation to establishing the idea that, ‘sometimes being comes out as greater than nonbeing, and sometimes it is the other way round.’ This endlessly perspectival reading of the five modes is representative of the common view that there is nothing which connects the five interpretations except a kind of ‘family resemblance.’ The five modes are usually regarded as dropping out of the main line of argument, to appear only sporadically in the roughly quarter million remaining words of the work. While Eriugena is clear that the interpretations presented do not constitute an exhaustive list, he is also clear that there is in them an order. He emphasizes the ‘first mode, the second, the third, etc.’ While Moran recognizes the priority of the first mode on just this basis, he does not acknowledge a similar rank order to the rest, and his reading would suggest that after the first mode Eriugena could just as well mean ‘another mode, and another, yet another, etc.’ In addition, the five modes are all interpretations of the original division at 441A, which is not simply perspectival. As Michael Harrington notes, ‘the first and highest division of all things is not only perceived by the human soul, but created by it.’ Harrington acknowledges the apparent tension between this position and the contrary assertion in the Periphyseon, that the divisions exist in nature itself. While the former would seem to confirm the idea that the division depends upon the perceiving subject, and that the first is therefore merely perspectival, Harrington cites Gersh’s conclusion, that Eriugena’s doctrine of a double creation resolves the difficulty. The idea that every creature was created in human nature (cf. 763C-773A) gives an entirely different sense to the idea that the divisions are created by the human subject. They are created in and in an important sense by the human nature, as real divisions in nature, independent of the perceiving subject. This original division then has an objective status relative to which the other, sometimes perspectival, modes must be read. Taken together these facts suggest that there is order and stability in this presentation and that the five modes are a key to the interpretation of the Periphyseon. In this paper I argue that the five modes are not independent and opposable, but follow in a logical way from the first division, a logic which is borrowed