Great as was his fame as a linguist his reputation as a philosopher is still greater. His philosophical speculations gave rise to discussions and controversies which even to the present day occupy the attention of the greatest thinkers. In his own day his views were nothing short of sensational. In addition to his translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius already referred to, Eriugena wrote a comprehensive philosophical work _De Divisione Naturae_[522] and a treatise _De Egressu et Regressu Animae ad Deum_ of which only a fragment has come down to us.[523] He also contributed a treatise _De Predestinatione_ to a theological controversy that was waged at that time. This work seems to have given offence to both parties. His _expositiones_ or commentaries on the Pseudo-Dionysius are helpful in determining his philosophical views. He also wrote a commentary on the work of Martianus Capella, _De Nuptiis_. It is as a philosopher, however, that Eriugena stands without an equal during his own time. It has been remarked that Eriugena appears to have been born subject to a strange fatality whereby men’s opinions are always changing in regard to his philosophical views and the position to be assigned to him among philosophers. In the criticisms by Maurice Milman, Staudenmaier, St. Rene, Tailander, Christlieb, Hauréau, and Huber the view of each writer differs in some important respect from the views of the rest.[524] This is no less true of the criticism of living philosophers as the following quotations from two standard works on the _History of Philosophy_ go to show. De Wülf writes: “In opposition to the majority of historians who describe Eriugena as the first of scholastics, we have no hesitation in calling him the first of anti-scholastics—and the most formidable at the present epoch. For his teaching propounds principles which are opposed to those of scholasticism and which form the starting-point of opposition movements.”[525] Turner, on the other hand, says that Eriugena illustrates the many sidedness of the scholastic movement and proceeds as follows: “To classify as anti-scholastic whatever does not agree with the synthetic systems of the great masters of scholasticism is to break the line of continuous historical development which led through failure and partial success of Eriugena, Abelard, and other philosophers to the philosophy of the thirteenth century. Scholasticism in its final form is the outcome of the forces of Christian civilization which in different conditions and in less favourable circumstances produced the imperfect scholasticism of the period of beginning and the period of growth.”[526]