Joannes Scotus, a famous scholastic divine, was born about the beginning of the ninth century; but the place of his birth is a matter of considerable uncertainty. Bale and Pitts affirm that he was born at St David's in Wales; Dempster, Mackenzie, and Henry, that he was a native of Scotland. Dempster contends that he was born at Ayr, and in order to suit the name to the hypothesis, he describes him as Joannes Airigena. Du Pin, Sir James Ware, and Dr Ledwich have with greater probability asserted that he was by birth an Irishman, Ireland being then called Scotia, and by the natives Erin. Various writers agree in relating that he travelled to Athens, where he acquired a competent knowledge of the Greek and oriental languages; and that he afterwards resided many years at the court of Charles the Bald, king of France, who, on account of his singular abilities, treated him as his intimate friend and companion. He slept frequently in the royal apartment, and was constantly admitted to the king's table. "We may judge," says a modern historian, "of the freedom which he used with Charles, by the following repartee. As the king and Scots were sitting one day at table, opposite to each other, after dinner, drinking a cheerful glass, the philosopher having said something that was not quite agreeable to the rules of French politeness, the king in a merry humour asked him, Pray, what is between a Scot and a sot?" To which he answered, "Nothing but the table." During his residence with Charles, he wrote several books of scholastic divinity, but was not so fortunate as to escape the imputation of heterodoxy. On that account the pope commanded Charles to send him to Rome; but the king had too great a regard for his companion to trust him with his holiness. One of the chief controversies in which Eri- gena was engaged, and with which the pope was much offended, was concerning the real presence. His opinion of this weighty matter is expressed in these few words:— "What we receive corporally is not the body of our Lord, but that which feeds the soul, and is only perceived by faith."

Whether Erigena ended his days in France is a matter of doubt. Some historians relate that he quitted it in 864; and that, after residing about three years in Oxford, he re-

---

1 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. i., p. 344.