Footnotes

1. Peter was born in the neighbourhood of Nantes; his father's name was Berengarius, his mother's Lucia. He first studied philosophy at Paris under William of Champeaux, then mathematics under Roscelin, and then theology under Anselm at Laon, not without envy and admiration. He afterwards entered on the interpretation of the Scriptures at Paris, and attracted many disciples, amongst them Heloise, a niece of Fulbert, a Canon of Paris, whose mind he trained, but violated her body. Fulbert being enraged at this injury revenged himself on Abaelard, who wished to repair by marriage the wrong that he had done, by breaking into his room at night and cruelly mutilating him. Both lovers then sought hiding places for their shame, one became a nun at Argenteuil, near Paris, the other a monk of S. Denys. But everywhere he was unlucky, or he made himself obnoxious, and he soon retired to a cell near the monastery at Deuil, and there he publicly lectured on theology. But he gave the reins too much to his own genius and to human reason, and, using expressions inconsistent with the faith, he was summoned to a Council held at Soissons, A.D. 1 121, by the Legate Conon, and there was compelled to burn his book On the Jrmity ,• or, Introduction to Ttieology, which contained suspected statements. He was then handed over to the monastery of S. Medard at Soissons. At length, tired of society, he was allowed to depart to a cell situate VOL. ii. 35 in a lonely part of the Diocese of Troyes, where he built an oratory, which he dedicated first to the Holy Trinity, and afterwards to the Paraclete. But not even here was quiet allowed him. The monks of S. Gildas, in Brittany, in the Diocese of Vannes, summoned him to be their Abbot, and he found them, as he says in his History of His Calamities, " though Christians and monks, harsher and worse than heathen." He then returned to his oratory of the Paraclete, and handed it over to He'loise, with her sisters, who had been driven from the monastery of Argenteuil by Suger. Abbot of S. Denys, who claimed it for the Abbey under an old charter, A.D. 1127. He continued his perverse writings and teaching, and more now began to discuss his writings, especially William, Abbot of S. Thierry, who wrote a refutation of some heads of his errors, and sent his refutation to Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, and Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to stir them up to avenge the wrong done to their faith. (See Letters 326 and 327.) But Abaelard, indignant at being branded as a heretic, challenged S. Bernard, as the author of the charge, to a public encounter at a Council held at Sens, A.D. 1 140. S. Bernard went to the Council, though against his will. Impious doctrines of Abaelard were quoted from his writings, which he was bidden to deny if they were not his opinions, to abjure if they were. But he became confused, and unable to speak, as Geoffrey of Auxerre relates in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, or he was afraid of popular violence, as Otto of Frisingen says, or he thought it was safer for him to plead his cause at Rome, as S. Bernard says, because he had some Cardinals and clergy amongst his disciples, and so he appealed to the Roman Curia. The Fathers of the Council, none the less, proceeded to condemn his errors, and sent a list of them to Innocent, and S. Bernard wrote various Letters, both in his own name and in that of the Fathers, to Innocent and the Cardinals. Amongst Abaelard's works there are extant the heads of 17 errors which the Synod transmitted to the Pope; in the Letter of S. Bernard (No. 190) and in that of William of S. Thierry we have nearly 390. Innocent, on the receipt of the Synodal Letter, immediately wrote back the one numbered 194 to the Fathers of the Council, condemning the errors; and he added another, giving sentence against Abaelard in these words: — " INNOCENT, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable Brothers SAMSON, Archbishop of Rheims, HENRY, Archbishop of Sens, and to his beloved son in Christ, BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, health and Apostolic benediction: — " By these presents we command you, brethren, to cause Peter Abaelard and Arnold of Brescia, perverse manufacturers of dogma, and impugners of the Catholic faith, to be imprisoned separately in houses of religion wherever it may seem best to you, and to cause their books to be burnt wherever they may be found. '' Given at the Lateran, xviii. Kal. Aug." On this Letter was written: " Show this transcript to no one till this Letter shall have been presented to the Archbishops in the assembly at Paris." So Abaelard, finding that he had been condemned at Rome, desisted from his appeal on the advice of Peter, Abbot of Cluny, by whom he was kindly received into the monastery. Afterwards, by Peter's intervention, he was reconciled with S. Bernard, and then, with Innocent and the Church; and having spent two years at Cluny with great submission, he died, A.D. 1142, in the (>3rd year of his age, in the monastery of S. Marcellus, of Chalons-sur-Saone, whither he had been sent by Peter to be cured of a disease that he was suffering from. Peter the Venerable, in a Letter to He'loise(No. 21, Book iv.), recounts the eminent virtues that he displayed in this last part of his life. Abaelard has his too partial supporters, who go so far as to say that he was innocent of all error. Firstly, they state that Bernard fought against shadows; secondly, they overturn the authority of the Council of Soissons; and, thirdly, they reverse the verdict of the Roman Court given against Abaelard. A brief answer must be made to these three counts. I. Against Bernard there is first of all set the authority of Otto of Frisingen, who, although he held Bernard in great veneration as his own Abbot, that is to say, as the head of his order, yet writes that he, " because of his zeal for the Christian religion was somewhat of a fanatic, and from his habitual meekness was credulous; so that from the first he detested those teachers who might put too much reliance on human reason and worldly wisdom, and from the second he was ready to lend a favourable ear to any account, however much against those teachers." Otto, indeed, says this in De Gestis Frederici (lib. i. c. 47), but it is in connection with Gilbert de la Porree; it is an argument, however in favour of Abaelard. But Radevicus testifies, in the same work (lib. ii. c. u), that Otto, being too partial to Gilbert, declared, on his death-bed, that if he had said anything with regard to his sentence which could offend anyone, he would wish it corrected. This must be taken, therefore, as a retractation. Further, Otto himself, in what follows, says clearly enough what he thought of Abaelard. He says: " From his early years he was devoted to the study of letters, and to other elegant pursuits; but he was so arrogant, and had such confidence in his o.vn abilities, that he would scarcely deign to descend from his intellectual height to listen to teachers." And again: " Holding the meaning of words and names in their natural sense, he applied them incautiously in theology. Where fore, in writing and teaching about the Holy Trinity, he over-refined about the Three Persons, and used inapt illustrations." Add to this that Abaelard, on Otto's own confession, was adjudged a Sabellian heretic at the Council of Soissons. So much for the authority of Otto against Bernard. Then, in the second place, the testimony of Peter the Venerable is brought forward in Abaelard's favour, who, in the Letter to Heloise already referred to, says of him: ↩