iverse are working out their fulfilment. The form under which it
most readily pictures reality is that of _time_.[210] Thus
Neoplatonism had to undergo certain modifications before it could
enter deeply into the religious consciousness of the West.

The next great name is that of John Scotus Erigena,[211] an English or
Irish monk, who in the ninth century translated Dionysius into Latin.
Erigena is unquestionably one of the most remarkable figures of the
Middle Ages. A bold and independent thinker, he made it his aim to
elucidate the vague theories of Dionysius, and to present them as a
consistent philosophical system worked out by the help of Aristotle
and perhaps Boethius.[212] He intends, of course, to keep within the
limits permitted to Christian speculation; but in reality he does not
allow dogma to fetter him. The Christian Alexandrians were, on the
whole, more orthodox than their language; Erigena's language partially
veils the real audacity of his speculation. He is a mystic only by his
intellectual affinities;[213] the warmth of pious aspiration and love
which makes Dionysius, amid all his extravagance, still a religious
writer, has cooled entirely in Erigena. He can pray with fervour and
eloquence for intellectual enlightenment; but there was nothing of the
prophet or saint about him, to judge from his writings. Still, though
one might dispute his title to be called either a Christian or a
mystic, we must spare a few minutes to this last flower of
Neoplatonism, which bloomed so late on our northern islands.

God, says Erigena, is called Essence or Being; but, strictly speaking,
He is not "Being";[214] for Being arises in opposition to not-Being,
and there is no opposition to the Absolute, or God. Eternity, the
abode or nature of God, is homogeneous and without parts, one, simple,
and indivisible. "God is the totality of all things which are and are
not, which can and cannot be. He is the similarity of the similar, the
dissimilarity of the dissimilar, the opposition of opposites, and the
contrariety of contraries. All discords are resolved when they are
considered as parts of the universal harmony." All things begin from
unity and end in unity: the Absolute can contain nothing
self-contradictory. And so God cannot be called Goodness, for Goodness
is opposed to Badness, and God is above this distinction. Goodness,
however is a more comprehensive term than Being. There may be Goodness
without Being, but not Bein