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Appendix (7)

Middeleeuwen: Benedictijnse en Neoplatoonse tradities

We have therefore, at the opening of the Middle Ages, two great streams of spiritual culture; the Benedictine, moderate and practical, formed chiefly on Cassian and St. Gregory, and the Neoplatonic, represented by Dionysius the Areopagite, and in a less exclusive form by St. Augustine. The works of Dionysius were translated from Greek into Latin about A.D. 850 by the Irish philosopher and theologian, John Scotus Erigena, one of the scholars assembled at the court of Charlemagne: and this event marks the beginning of a full tradition of mysticism in western Europe. John the Scot, many of whose own writings exhibit a strong mystical bias, is the only name in this period which the history of mysticism can claim. We are on the descending line of the "Dark Ages": and here the curve of mysticism runs parallel with the curves of intellectual and artistic activity.