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[ 92 ] the rise and fall of soul and self
concerned with the preservation either of a spiritualized body or of individual-
ity. Like Gregory of Nyssa, he saw resurrection as a return to our
condition
before the Fall. Unlike Gregory, Eriugena endorsed a mystical version of that
condition.
In Elucidarium, which was written about 1100 under the influence of Anselm,
Honorius proposed a materialistic view of resurrection in which he argued that
individuals, without losing their individuality, are somehow absorbed into the
body of Christ, which on Earth is symbolized by the church. In a later work,
Clavis Physicae ( 1120?), he sympathetically summarized Eriugena’s view and
argued for a more individualistic version of it, one in which he claimed that “the
dissolution of flesh which is called death should more reasonably be called the
death of death, ” since it is the beginning of a growth toward spirit.
18
Eriugena’s views also inspired the pantheism of Amaury of Bena (died
c. 1204-7), who held that since God is in all things, Christ is no more in the con-
secrated bread than in any other object. Amaury denied the resurrection of the
body, claiming that heaven and hell are but states of the soul. The sinner carries
hell in himself, he wrote, like a bad tooth. The pope, he said, is the Antichrist;
the Roman Church, Babylon; the relics of the martyrs, nothing but dust. The
spirit within is unaffected by outer rites. It dwells in the heart. He added that
every Christian is a member of Christ’s body and that to anyone who abides in
love, there is no sin. Amaury’s Parisian followers inferred that they were allowed
whatever license with their bodies they wanted. Their behavior prompted two
papal condemnations of Eriugena’s works, which were not only a reaction to
what was taken to be behavioral impropriety but a sign of the times philosophi-
cally. European intellectuals, tiring of Platonic mysticism, were poised to embrace
Aristotelian science, which was just beginning to makes its appearance on the
stage of European thought.
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