- Lived:
- c. 815–c. 877 CE · Ireland, then the court of Charles the Bald in West Francia
- Tradition:
- Carolingian; Christian Neoplatonism — the Greek mystical tradition transplanted into Latin Europe
- The Big Idea:
- All of reality is one vast circle — everything flows out of a God who is beyond being itself, and everything flows back into him; the universe is God speaking himself into visibility.
- In their words:
- "Authority proceeds from true reason, but reason never proceeds from authority."
- If you remember one thing:
- In the darkest century of European thought, one Greek-reading Irishman built the boldest philosophical system between antiquity and the High Middle Ages — so bold the church condemned it twice, 370 years apart.